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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US military)
  • Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:12:53 -0400

On 8/11/2010 2:18 AM, Nicholas Roberts, Permaculture.coop wrote:
you might want to ask permaculture activist Joshua Fattal who has been
arrested by the Iranian government and accused of espionage whether it
would help him or others like him that "permaculture" is now
celebrated as a US army reserve "hearts and minds"
counterinsurgency/sustainment technique

Between a rock and a hard place kind of issue, eh?
Much better that permaculture is used and promoted by the military.
Its not the US military's fault but the Iranian government's.
For them to not use permaculture as a tool would be a win for the Iranians.

"Josh was an old friend from the States who was just joining them in
the Middle East, and has been described as someone who is “deeply
committed to issues of ecology and truly democratic politics,”
including “issues such as sustainable agriculture, food justice, and
permaculture.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/amster05252010.html

It is not the US' fault that Josh got caught by the Iranian fools. He should not have let himself get into a vulnerable position or play a Jesus Christ role to make his point; his fault entirely. That applies to anyone in any country.

as to the ethical question, its impossible for the Fair Share or
People Care ethic of permaculture to be fully satisfied by a military
industrial sustainability complex.

That's totally politically correct ranting to hear yourself speak and is
completely untrue. See my comment above. Better that they not use and promote PC at all eh? Ridiculous. You're just not thinking.

there is a big difference between permaculture fair share/people care
sustainability and a security state sustainment

There's nothing new about that and is all the more reason for the military to use and promote permaculture as a tool for reaching
and connecting with the indigenous populations in the countries where they are engaged militarily. The terrorist elements, like the morons in Iran, would love for us to back off such a strategy.

the Marshall Plan was not the perfect military-industrial solution to
reconstruction of Europe, but it has set the model for sustainment...
first you destroy it, then you rebuild it with more perfect control...
the supply of logistics, infrastructure, engineering and materials is
sustainment.. via corporates and the army engineers

Maybe you'd like to explain that in full with accurate references.
Again, I think you're ranting to hear yourself speak as your comments don't seem to add much to the discussion.

maybe also search for Human Terrain System and compare to US army
reserve permaculture

"
HTS is a new proof-of-concept program, run by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and serving the joint community. The near-term focus of the HTS program is to improve the military’s ability to understand the highly complex local socio-cultural environment in the areas where they are deployed; however, in the long-term, HTS hopes to assist the US government in understanding foreign countries and regions prior to an engagement within that region.

* HTS was developed in response to identified gaps in commanders’ and staffs’ understanding of the local population and culture, and its impact on operational decisions; and poor transfer of specific socio-cultural knowledge to follow-on units.
* The HTS approach is to place the expertise and experience of social scientists and regional experts, coupled with reach-back, open-source research, directly in support of deployed units engaging in full-spectrum operations.
* HTS informs decision making at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.
* The HTS program is the first time that social science research and advising has been done systematically, on a large scale, and at the brigade level.
"

I don't see anything wrong with this. I suppose you'd prefer they not use PC or HTS at all?

The Human Terrain System (HTS) was established to assists Army Brigade
and Marine Corps Regiment Commanders and their staffs in Iraq and
Afghanistan better understand local cultures and social structures to
improve their units' operational effectiveness. This is sometimes
referred to as 'Human Terrain Mapping' (HTM).[1] The HTS utilizes
personnel with BAs, MAs, and PhDs in a social science including
(anthropology, sociology, political science, geography), regional
studies, and lingustics. HTS provides military commanders and staff
with an understanding of the local population by conducting
participant observation and interviews. That information is
interpreted and archived in various cultural information and knowledge
databases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Terrain_System

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) is an independent ad
hoc network of anthropologists seeking to promote an ethical
anthropology.
http://sites.google.com/site/concernedanthropologists/

having said all this, Steve Cran (x AUS army), of Global
Sustainability Corps, does extreme permaculture in war/disaster zones
Timor, Uganda, Aceh working with former-combatants
http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org - have been suggesting he come to
the states and work with veterans and maybe the mil

http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org/

its interesting to read the sustainment documents below and look at
the history of this kind of humanitarian imperialism .. also if you

Ridiculous statement, "humanitarian imperialism"; you sound like a narrow minded anti establishment weenie with his mind conveniently all made up with 100% anti-military bias. Maybe you need to break out of that mold. I've known people like that and they never do anything where he rubber meets the road, little more than puff more hot air and whine.

read the book The Men Who Stare At Goats, it gives a disturbing take
on the original idealism of bringing the New Age to the US mil...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will
they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4& Micah 4:3

from the US Military Doctrine*

Democratic Sustainment document
http://www.disam.dsca.mil/pubs/v.22_1/Ramsey.pdf

USA Counterinsurgency Doctrine
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

Sustainment document
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/PAO/viwebpage/Pam%20hq%20pdfs/FM%204_0%20single%20pg%20hq.pdf

i've written a bit about this in the past

Climate War: Apocalypse, Sustainment and Liberation
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/climatewar/blog/2009/06/09/climate-war-apocalypse-sustainment-and-liberation/

Climate War: just as the Cold War subsumed and defined the peace after World
War 2, the Climate War subsumes and defines the period after the Cold War.
The Cold War ideology on the US side was anti-communism. The Climate War
ideology (shared by most central governments) is anti-environmentalism, with
communists being replaced with terrorists and increasingly eco-terrorists.
Green is the new red, the FBI’s most wanted is an eco-terrorist.
Insurgencies have always been embedded in a place, and so, in reality, all
terrorists are fighting for rights to control an environment. The Climate
War is the Cold War within the context of climate change, peak oil, peak
debt, indeed peak everything. The US framework for managing the world,
within the context of Climate War, is Sustainment.

Sustainment: sustainment is an extension of the military term describing the
supply and operations of maintenance to military operations. Sustainment is
military-industrial supplied sustainability.

In the latest US
Counter-Insurgency military doctrine, Sustainment leads all
counter-insurgency operations. Within the Human Terrain System, hearts and
minds are won by the the supply of infrastructure and utilities. Sustainment
leads operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “civilian surge” is
sustainment. With the increasing instability of the climate system, the
global economic and geo-political system, sustainment will be supplied with
the strongest aspect of US national power; the military industrial complex.
Within the neo-liberal environment, the military-industrial compex is
increasingly privatised and fragmented.

As Noam Klein describes in Shock
Doctrine, disaster capitalism profits greatly from crisis, real or imagined,
and as the Climate War becomes the dominant organising principle for the
planet, through real and imagined crisis, sustainment supplied by
corporate-state military industrial system. This military industrial system
will seek to profit and expand from both the crisis of conflict, of
destruction of war and the maintenance of peace, and the rebuilding of
damaged systems.

And so your proposal is to DO exactly what? as opposed to wallowing for more years in comfy, smug, self-serving anti-war/imperialism/establishment/military rhetoric.





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