zeitvox:

airyhippie:

“The new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a single organism, and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed.”

— Carl Sagan

An older consciousness realizes that this very consciousness is a form of war. It opposes and seeks a transform of what it sees as a stale paradigm. It can’t help but say, between the lines, what we already know: An organism not at war with itself is doomed. 

Justice is an art of war, most genuinely showing itself in an organism’s fight against itself - the surest sign of autonomy. And if mankind does or does not escape an earthbound fate, either way it will come to pass through acts of war.

“The way up and the way down are one and the same”

“War is the father of all things”

— Heraclitus

thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

• News this morning: Asma Al-Assad will be hit with EU sanctioning.
• The female members of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council say they are being sidelined.
• A two-part assessment of the past few months of the Afghan transitional process from the Afghan Analysts Network. (1, 2)
• There were two notable longreads pieces this week on Afghanistan, the massacre and the future of US involvement. One, by Neil Shea in The American Scholar, examines how his experiences on embed with US soldiers give insight into how the massacre happened. The other, by Matt Gallagher in the Boston Review, focuses on soldiers looking to the post-massacre political and military future.
• Here are the names of the sixteen victims of the massacre.
• I made a vision board for the Afghan war on Pinterest.
• Ahmed Rashid was interviewed about crisis and politics in Pakistan for NPR Fresh Air.
• An article on the powerful part women have played in the Libyan revolution in the Smithsonian.
• Brookings’ Saban Center has released a report that estimates the various costs of a Syrian intervention in order to be “executed properly.”
• This week marked the nine-year anniversary since the US dropped bombs over Baghdad during the now-infamous shock and awe. CNAS fellow Dr. Colin Kahl testified this week before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the deteriorating situation in Iraq. 
• The Khawajas, a prominent revolutionary family, are under siege by the government of Bahrain.
• Some really cool crisis-mapping work: mapping the mainstream media coverage of election violence in Kenya in comparison with citizen journalist coverage.
• The International Crisis Group has warned that militarized post-war policies in Sri Lanka could re-ignite violence.
• Soldiers overthrew President Touré in a successful military coup in the West African country of Mali, previously considered a quality example of African democratic leadership.
• A really fabulous look at some climate security policy dilemmas over at Duck of Minerva.
• NPR’s Morning Edition looks at cybersecurity legislation.
• The US is boosting its cyberweapons and cyberdefense research: $500m has gone to DARPA over the past 5 years for this purpose.
• A nuclear security summit is set to start in Seoul on Monday.
• Sebastian Junger has begun an organizaton called Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues that provides freelance journalists with three-day training sessions in emergency medical skills. 
• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has updated its information on international arms transfers. Here’s a fact sheet assessing the trends and data from the 2007-11 period.
• Four female veterans are running for Congress this year! 
• According to the GAO, the Army has serious problems with its payroll system that are causing serious delays in paychecks and could prevent the Army from being audit-ready.
• Katy Perry pretended to be a Marine in her latest music video and I don’t so much know how I feel about this. Come to your own conclusions.

Photo: A Black Hawk takes off after unloading a team of Pathfinders and an Afghan patrol in Kandahar. US Army Flickr Stream.

airyhippie:

“The new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a single organism, and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed.”

— Carl Sagan

An older consciousness realizes that this very consciousness is a form of war. It opposes and seeks a transform of what it sees as a stale paradigm. It can’t help but say, between the lines, what we already know: An organism not at war with itself is doomed. 

Justice is an art of war, most genuinely showing itself in an organism’s fight against itself - the surest sign of autonomy. And if mankind does or does not escape an earthbound fate, either way it will come to pass through acts of war.

“The way up and the way down are one and the same”

“War is the father of all things”

— Heraclitus