I’m reading China Mieville’s short story collection “Looking for Jake” at the moment. And I came across “foundation“. At the end of the book, Mieville makes a small note that the burying alive of Iraqi soldiers during the first Gulf War in 1991 is a matter of public record. Well, as much as I applaud the emergence of a prominent leftist speculative fiction writer — and, perhaps, a little because of it — I didn’t take Mieville on his word. (Please remember this. I try hard not to take anyone on their word when I discuss economics and politics, even though I’m an avowed socialist and the other person may also be an avowed socialist. I try to be fractally sceptical.)

And hot damn if the man wasn’t right! Yes, the “righteous” George Bush — the father of Shrub, the one who described Clinton as “his son”, the “smart one” — was responsible for an unknown, possibly thousands, number of deaths in Iraq when Abrams tanks just ploughed earth straight into the Iraqi trenches. Any soldiers that tried to escape were gunned down by a shooting line formed just behind the tanks, although some recalcitrants did manage to surrender and live. Landscaping efforts were finalised by armoured combat earth-movers.

Don’t believe me? Try here, here and, lest we think this was only a UK write-fest, here, here and — lest I be accused of forsaking “balance” — here.

Okay, so let’s say that the death toll ranged from 44 to 6,000. Does that make a difference? Because it seems to, to some people. “Oh, it was only forty-four people,” they might say, not realising that they’re at the thin edge of a very long and very wide wedge. And, just say it really was forty-four people …. Would you like your husband to be one of that forty-four? Your brother? Your son? Your father?

My basic question is, does a democratic, law-abiding, freedom-loving country do that? Rehearse the movement of tanks fitted with ploughs with the express intention of burying conscripts alive? Of course armies do terrible things in war. But do armies that supposedly stand for “freedom”, “democracy”, “liberty”, and the wish for all people to live with heads held high, etc. etc., do that? Are those fine words standards to be be upheld? Or shields to conveniently hide behind? And, because of these actions, will those words remain bright and burnished, or dull and tarnished? There may be some small short-term gains here (and, in political terms, short-term can mean anything from one minute to thirty years), but there’ll be some long-term comeuppance. Wonder if we’ll be around to see it.

ADDITIONAL: I’ve had this post in Drafts for a little while, but was prompted to dig it up when I happened across an El Reg article (via J) on biomatter-fuelled robots. In its inimitable fashion, the advance is described thus:

News has emerged of a milestone reached on the road towards a potentially world-changing piece of technology. We speak, of course, of US military plans to introduce roving steam-powered robots which would fuel themselves by harvesting everything alive and cramming it into their insatiable blazing furnaces.

Proving that DARPA does indeed have a sense of humour — even if it’s appropriately militarily macabre — the name of this device is EATR (Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot). The fact that it comes from DARPA and the word “Tactical” immediately tips off the alert reader to the fact that EATR is, indeed, a battle robot. A battle robot that runs on burning biomatter. Like apple cores. Or bodies.

Of course, I’m a little more sanguine than most about the latest American plans to use the corpses of humans to fuel their tactical, heavily-armed and -armoured robots in the kinetic-laden battle vectors of the future. This is because pet Pentagon projects have an unerring ability to run over-budget and under-functionality. There’s still the not insubstantial hope that all we’ll end up, will be very expensive trashcans.