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Tag Archives: Al Qaeda
Notes on the Rise of Remotely-Sensed War
The sustained military engagement by the United States government with "non-state actors" and trans-national armed groups over the past fifteen years has been a semantic issue, as well as it has raised practical problems of defining targets of engagement. The fight against these unnamed armies less able to be tied to nations hasn't been easily able to be mapped, or clearly conceived in clear geospatial terms–or limited to a single theater of operations. The very term "unlawful combatants"–too easily confined to those "without uniform"–has effectively blurred the distinction between soldiers and civilians, in order to not recognize prisoners-of-war under the Geneva Convention.
The result of this shift in definition has threatened to erase the rights of persons in armed conflict, the problem of mapping the engagement of forces without nationality, or of engaging with "non-state actors" has tied warfare to tracking metadata, surveillance and remote sensing–sensing that greatly expanded after the complaints of the limited ability to generate and create the sort of "broad-area photographic coverage" of a theater of war that was necessary to comprehend an operational theater of the scope at which the Iraq War demanded.
Indeed, the expansion of stealth satellite surveillance can be charted back to the Reagan administration, although the demand to expand the scope of stealth satellite surveillance had origins from projects of the covert observations of the "blank spots" on maps of the Soviet Union by reconnaissance satellites on the map. The expansion of the project of gathering classified information was far more forcefully articulated from 1996, leading the Defense Mapping Agency to expand both its size and include the National Photographic Interpretation center, in a National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) located within brick buildings in Bethesda, MD, that would expand in 2003 to a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) that was increasingly oriented to the synthesis of geographically organized data collection in easily accessible ways from satellite observations, and a radical expansion of the multibillion dollar budget allocated to stealth satellite observation from satellites combing radar, optical, and infrared signals–but the rising cost of whose almost $10 billion budget temporarily had faced objections for being "ineffective against modern adversaries such as terrorist networks," but were designed to escape detection among circulating space debris by enemy radar–often actually by concealing themselves behind a conical reflective balloon.
The new generation of satellites that were developed by the National Reconnaissance Office of the Pentagon There is something fitting that if transnational political actors–Non-State Actors (NSA's)–are defined as lacking legal ties to any national entity, and are in need of surveilling by the National Security Agency. While the work of drone warfare promises the required precision to eliminate networks of hidden actors–not present on the map of sovereign actors–such warfare is based on a map that raises numerous ethical–as well as legal–problems of surveillance, targeting, and of the readiness to create and orchestrate theaters of war anywhere in the world. It is not only that sometimes, in trying to identify these actors, drones inevitably hit, and kill, the wrong folks, but the execution-style mission of such drones, and the sorts of surveillance by which their courses are mapped.
In seeking to locate such networks without nations, the United States has generated some fascinating military maps that track these operations of surveillance that target non-state actors. At a time when only eleven countries–according to the Institute for Economics and Peace–are not engaged in hostilities, being at war is not only the new normal in the United States–as is the ability to concretize or conjure up the location of the enemy. The expansion of the remote wars that the current and past US administrations have expanded have created new topographies of warfare, nicely explained in Josh Begley's map of Drone Warfare, an image that depends more on the mechanics of remote observation than on the ground presence or situated observations. The remove at which a global war on terror is conducted from control monitors in New Mexico without frontiers, Begley mapped how the practice of "remote split operations" as a technology of engagement that mirrors increased engagement with "non-national" combatants otherwise difficult to define. Working from John Brennan's "playbook" of CIA director John Brennan, defender of "enhanced interrogation techniques" at Guantanamo, the focussing on individual operatives has led to a codification of "kill-lists"–enabled by deadly drones–that are based on a broad expansion of what constitutes an "imminent" threat to national security, and an increasing power of the remotely situated pilots of drones who lie at one end of a network of intelligence gathering.
The orientation of such warfare around intercepted data defined "remote split operations" as a way of engaging combatants in surreptitiously observed theaters of war conducted by remotely-operated Predator aircraft. The extent to which drone warfare creates a new geography of war is based on the warped geography of military engagement by the CIA. It is enabled by the exchange of information through video feeds from drones beamed by satellites to US Air Force bases in Rammstein, in Germany, ostensibly without knowledge of the German government, that are then dispatched almost instantaneously via coaxial cable to US Bases in the United States, so that pilots located near Indian Springs, Nevada, can target their newly discovered enemies: the collection of information from the Galaxy 26 satellite creates the unique possibility of extraterritorial warfare without any on-the-ground physical presence in the area for the first time.
If we associate remote-sensing satellites with meteorological predictions or weather forecasting–as of the Pakistan monsoons–the range of intelligence-gathering satellites suggests newly expanding abilities for remote engagement in military theaters that side-step engaging human targets at war, as if to silence the static of daily deaths.
The amazing precision of the drone warfare program that the CIA has steadily conducted seems to take advantage of a new ability for remote mapping, based upon satellite feeds and GSI. Indeed, the considerable definition of climatological remote sensing of the possibility of precipitation in monsoons within Pakistan's national boundaries reveals the local degree of detail that satellite surveillance of the same region allows–the same region where the first drone strikes were launched in 2004, long before a subsequent strike would kill the first US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, Yemen in 2011.
The expanding use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft at Ground Control Stations a continent away transforms the notion of a "battlefield" to a screen of virtual engagement of the enemy, normalizing the notion of "Remote-Split" Operations as a distinct if disembodied theater of combat in itself, which is in fact premised on a different notion of what constitutes an "imminent" threat than existed before–and is sadly dictated all too often by a database of "kill-lists" that rests on the sustained illusion that "very precise, precision strikes" of targeted killing constitute legally defensible acts of national self-defense, erasing its inevitable effects. Does the purview of remote mapping allow the counter-terrorism czar, John Brennan, to take the world–rather than any specific theater of combat–as a battlefield?
Such maps are sampled from Jeremy Scahill's recent intrepid reporting for The Intercept. They define a terrifying remove of mission control from a remotely observed (and mapped) theater of war, and raise compelling questions of the ethics of remotely observed war. Begley's map displays the central role of the Ramstein Air Base in the piloting of drone aircraft in the Middle East, Somalia, and Pakistan demonstrates the central role of the US Base in conducting thousands of remote air strikes–taking advantage of its unique position as a US base able to reach a satellite whose "footprint" included Afghanistan, and which could serve as a crucial pivot in the expansion of a remotely waged war. (Moving the control of commands of the drones from German soil via undersea cables, so that they would not require the permission of the German or any other government to fire missiles or target enemies by Predators has created "remote split operations" via undersea cables which were able to conduct lightning fast communications from off-site pilots to individual drones. The Galaxy 26 satellite was repositioned over the Indian Ocean to link the drones to the German US Air Force base.
But the notion of remote sensing of targets of air strikes are increasingly the new status quo, to judge by recent reports of Kurdish fighters' geolocation of targets of the Islamic State on iPads and tablets that can locate precise targets of US bombings in occupied areas bordering on Turkey.
Mauricio Lima/NYT
The increasingly warped space of the targeting of suspected terrorists in ongoing war of drones that struck Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen based on flights remotely piloted from New Mexico, with minimal risk of American life, in ways that have bracketed war from the attention of embedded journalists, photographers, or public scrutiny, as the army increasingly monitors the flight of drones by satellite, and sent via undersea cable to US intelligence in undersea fiber optic cables, in ways that enable a remotely conducted war–so that the ethics of execution would be less readily considered, and the question of permission of routing requests for targeted drone warfare less likely to depend on the permission of other governments–and indeed to allow allow a "don't ask, don't tell" to continue where the German Federal government is given no information of the routing of satellite transmissions about the drones though a US Air Force base on German land. Whereas Pentagon spokesperson Maj. James Brindle noted that "The Air and Space Operations Center at Ramstein Air Base conducts operational level planning, monitoring and assessment of assigned airpower missions throughout Europe and Africa, but does not directly fly or control any manned or remotely piloted aircraft."
Yet the centrality of Ramstein as a nexus for conducting an ongoing war that is remotely fought reveals a new topography of warcraft. The strategic centrality of the air force base, even as it is removed from the theater of war or the physical positions of pilots, reveals an increased warping of the map of global warfare–as it reveals the central position of US Intelligence in a world where non-national warfare omits scale, coherence, and continuity as criteria of a military map. The slide mapping the power of Remotely Piloted Aircraft to fight war with non-national entities preserves a mental geography and spatial imaginary that locates the United States–and the pilots physically located in New Mexico at the Creech Air Force Base–in an armed drone program as a result of one of whose strikes alone, according to a recently released report from the Open Society Foundations, some twenty-six civilians (including children and a pregnant woman) were killed.
The absence of available recourse and remove of responsibility Remotely Piloted Aircraft encourage makes one wonder what Integrity and Service they actively sanction, and how they remove the excursive of a deadly level of military engagement from public scrutiny or accountability.
The documentation of such expanding use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft from Ground Control Stations a continent away deeply transforms the notion of a "battlefield" to a screen of virtual engagement of the enemy. The maps reveal a warping not only space–by retaining the centrality of the continental United States, somewhat stubbornly, at its center–but the ethics of international warfare.
Despite the increasing role of non-state actors in our concepts of war, we might ask how the odd new category–is one less an actor when one has no state?–maps onto a world where almost all states (save eleven that are free from conflict) are actually actively engaged in war.
Filed under international warfare, Non-State Enemies, unlawful combattents
Tagged as Al Qaeda, drone warfare, Iraq War, ISIS, Jeremy Scahill, John Brennan, National Reconnaissance Office, non-state actors, Remote Sensing, Remote Split Operations, Remotely Piloted Aircraft, War on Terror
Mapping the New Enemy
Maps offer a unique tool to display the relation of power to territories, and the use of a magnified map of Syrian airstrikes performed a useful function in the news conference of Defense Department Spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby. "We hit them [in airstrikes] last night out of a concern that they were getting close to an execution date of some of the plans that we have seen," said Attorney General Eric Holder–whose tenure at the Department of Justice must have been more consumed by approving surveillance activities than he had expected–on the eve of his resignation from the Obama Administration. Using such a circumlocution was tellingly (if not intentionally) obfuscating, in ways that may acknowledge the prominent role of the Department of Defense in the decision to launch such airstrikes. For the Attorney General–whose tenure at the Department of Justice now seems more consumed by approving surveillance activities than he ever expected–boasted about successfully delivering a round of airstrikes of Tomahawk missiles into Syria.
The map's finality effectlivly obscured the problematic legal status of launching the airstrikes. Holder omitted that planes fired into Syrian territory on September 23 was not only mapped in the image issued by the Department of Defense, and explained by its spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby, against strongholds of the new enemy to the Homeland identified as the "Khorasan Group," but defined the legitimacy of airstrikes that had expanded the fight against ISIS to a new enemy. "I think it's absolutely safe to say [the group's plots have been] disrupted," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey noted, although he kept alive the justification for future strikes by adding that "their aspiration to conduct attacks in Europe and the United States and elsewhere in the region remains an aspiration."
The Khorasan Group have yet to make themselves known or confirm their very own existence. Rear Admiral Kirby described how the attack had disrupted "imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests" from the very "training camps" and "bomb-making facilities," destroying a "safe haven" they secured in Syria to develop the very sort of external attacks with which ISIS has not been identified and had even distanced its principal goals. But the existence of "bomb-making facilities," almost designed to trigger fears in the American public, keying in as they do to a narrative of terrorist attacks against the Homeland, provided a rationale for extending the airstrikes campaign into Syrian territory in order to eliminate the threat that the Khorasan Group posed. The dangers that were posed by the group against whom the attacks had been directed, according to US Central Command, justified expanding the war that intended to "degrade" ISIS to a broader fight to protect national interests. The situation maps Kirby showed also mask both the failure to seek broader Congressional authorization for the strikes and the potentially disastrous long-term consequences of continuing such attacks and targeting sites that involved untold civilian casualties. Although the map did their best to isolate the targets for these strikes, they illustrated both the pronounced geographic and cultural remove of Department of Defense decision-making, as well as the costs of staging these attacks from aircraft carriers in the Red Sea or Persian Gulf.
Mapping the airstrikes served several functions, ranging from putting the unknown Khorasan Group on the map to lending legitimacy to incursions into Syrian airspace, without Congressional approval or UN support. Indeed, the flatly declarative map advanced arguments about the just nature of the war against the "Khorasan Group" by American forces, even if few had heard of the Group only days before. With the crude map, the presence of sites of danger suddenly assumed concrete locations and had already been vanquished: eight "Khorasan sites" according to anonymous sources, were hit by Tomahawk Cruise Missiles launched from ships or submarines in the nearby Red Sea and F-22 Raptor stealth aircraft and Predator or Reaper drones, as if those same sites of training camps where alleged threats against the Homeland were being planned did not lie in Syrian territory or the attacks against them did not violate Syrian airspace. Rear Admiral Kirby, the Department of Defense spokesperson, bluntly summarized the results of the airstrikes with the satisfied resolve of self-justification: "We certainly believe that we hit what we were aiming at."
The map before which he spoke at the DoD news conference suggests more targets, but show eight yellow bursts west of the embattled city of Aleppo, where the Khorasan Group is said to be based, close to the border with Turkey. The strikingly cartoonish map signs that designate targets of airstrikes are akin to explosive bursts as if taken from an outdated video game that suddenly seem the centers of attention in an opaque landscape, which is so different from the recent maps we have seen of an expanding Islamic State–the alleged focus of earlier airstrikes across the region. And rather than display the movement of arriving airstrikes, moreover, the explosions ringed with orange suggest an ability to attack across the country.
Such situation maps immediately circulated on the nightly news and online alike, in a remarkable instance of a single map that has been adopted wholesale to explain and describe the airstrikes effectiveness against targets. Attorney General Holder's odd obfuscations seemed desperate attempts to justify the bombing of select Syrian sites, and broader justifications that claimed the airstrikes were performed "out of concerns that they were getting close to" attacks. This affirms claims that the bombings were needed to stop "imminent" attacks on the "homeland" of the United States, in ways that evoked 9/11–although "imminent attack plotting" was newly qualified in Orwellian Newspeak when intelligence identified plans as "in an advanced stage," albeit without known targets or actual attacks suspected or needing to be feared. (The discussion of these bombing strikes from planes and ships conspicuously did not include acknowledging possible civilian deaths or casualties–and neither did President Obama's speech to the nation–as civilian casualties reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights including at least 300.)
The signs designating hit targets, akin to dated video games, but seemed, placed on a map, to affirm the remove at which Pentagon mappers of the scene of battle, as if to designate the complete obliteration of a place without civilian casualties:
What were these targets they took out, and how immanent was their threat? The maps issued by the Department of Defense did the difficult work of parsing a national incursion aimed at cells lying within a country but is not part of it, in what seems a new triumph of the logic of a war on terror that knows no bounds. With "US-only strikes against the Khorasan group" sent into Syrian airspace beside an unspecified number of other international pilots to perform over 200 strikes on a dozen targets, they gave legitimacy to the "Khorasan Group"–evocative less of an insurance firm than an Afghan drug cartel traded on the deep web or Silk Road–as being worthy for attack that did not deviate from a mission ostensibly directed against the expansion of the Islamic State. Indeed, while the territory that the Islamic State controlled have been so often mapped and re-mapped in recent weeks, the Khorasan Group has suddenly emerged, territory-less, just around September 20, three days before the airstrikes, as "the cell in Syria that may be the most intent on hitting the United States or its installations overseas with a terror attack." The maps elevated targets of alleged imminent danger at the same time as apparently wiping them out.
The map persuaded public viewers that our bombing campaign was indeed justified, against the specter of a careful construction of the danger of an immanent "homeland" attack. The designation of the Khorasan Group was explicit, effective and swift. Martin Dempsey, Joint Chiefs Chairman, described "imminent attack plotting" as if to compensate for the acknowledgement that, for all its horrors, ISIS did not in itself pose a threat to the United States; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff William Mayville, a public face for the army, described "The Khorasan group [as] in the final stages of plans to carry out attacks against Western targets and potentially against the US homeland," although he was loathe to say the effects of strikes definitively degraded or deterred imminent threats to the "West and the homeland." The implicit narrative, of course, was of an attack forestalled, and, this time, the eradication of conspirators poised to attempt to hijack another airplane destined for the United States. The existence of such a super-national entity raised some eyebrows in Syria, as well as in the US-based press; Glenn Greenwald wryly noted how government leaks "after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, . . . unveiled a never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™."
The maps issued by the Department of Defense jumped several steps in logic in order to advance this argument, skipping over questions of international law or powers to declare war. "Imminent" is a key word by argued the attacks made without Congressional consultation were justified. They almost represented an interesting illustration of the evolving nature of President Obama's thoughts on Presidential prerogative. For the situation map legitimized the prerogative to invade a nation's sovereign boundaries without Congressional oversight. If Senator Obama had forcefully argued in 2007 "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," holding "military action most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch," decisive weight fell on the formulation "imminent threat." United States Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes described the Khorasan Group as holding "very clear and concrete ambitions to launch external operations against the United States or Europe" in ways that justified their inclusion in an already loosely justified attacks on the Islamic State–even if the strikes were clearly removed from the areas under IS control in maps as the below, as if in the hope that this detail would not be noticed.
The singling out of this region of attack is a clear expansion from maps of earlier airstrikes that were diffused by Central Command, where bomb-bursts correlated closely with strategic points held by the Islamic State, as if to demonstrate the effectiveness of the response that the United States was asked to contribute in Iraq:
The strikes seem planned with the intent to show the ability of the American air force to strike targets in western Syria, even should Turkey not grant them permission to use a nearby air base, as well as to generate a confidence in the US government's vigilance against terrorist threats. This alternate configuration of the airstrike map did interesting work by isolating the Khorasan Group as something of a separate entity from other Syrian rebels, worthy of intense attention from American air force. Although the identity of the Khorasan "Group" was much less clear to most Syrians on the ground, including members of the US-backed Syrian Free Army, among whom some eyebrows were quickly raised about the expansion of the attack; Charles Lister quite damningly questioned the proper nouns as a "label created by officials in the US and has no recognition within Jahbat al-Nusra or al Qaeda circles." Indeed, a US official even set the size of the alleged cell as but a few dozen.
The relation of Khorasan Group to the Al-Nusra Front was important for the US to solidify, given that the last folks we should to attack are those aiming to topple Assad. But the two groups overlap in the eyes of Syrians who watched them at first hand–and speculated as to their danger. Indeed, since the Al-Nusra Front is dedicated to toppling Assad's bloody dictatorship in Syria, the attack seems to have deemed important as a means to "take out" an international player in Syria–rather than interfere with Syria's ongoing civil war. In a majestic bit of Orientalist rhetoric, among the "hardened al Qaeda members" killed in the airstrikes was the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, Abu Yousef al-Turki, "also known as 'The Turk."'
The Khorasan Group were identified as the targets of exclusively US airstrikes indeed do seem to have their own black flag–distinct from that of Jabat al Nusra–that jibe with the evocative hadith from which the name of this "Group" seems to derive: "If you see the black banners coming from Khorasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them. And they will finally reach Baitul Maqdis [Jerusalem], where they will erect their flags."
We were familiar with the terrifying mobilizing force of the closely similar flag of the Al-Nusra front, although it lacks scimitars as the Khorasan flag:
Although the Group may only number several dozen folks, the possibly organization was itself persuasively mapped to 9/11. The Khorasan Group™ were tied to a bomb-maker in Yemen, responsible for terrorist explosives that have been found on air flights, providing grounds for aims beyond the Syrian and Iraqi fronts–apparent validation of their association with Homeland threats to "U.S. aviation"–as if U.S. aviation has come to constitute a threat worthy of defense or surrogate for globalization. "Khorasan members come from Pakistan," explained former CIA director Mike Morrell on televisions news programs, and "focus on attacks in the West" and even fixate on the aviation industry itself "as a symbol of the West." The argument did not go over well in Syria, but played well in the Homeland, where many Khorasan members have been tied to to al Qaeda's branch in Yemen, AQAP, including al Qaeda's bomb-builder Ibrahim al-Asiri, of underwear bomber fame and to Musin al-Fadhli, an al-Qaeda insider who knew of plans for the 9/11 attacks, further justifying links to Homeland threats–rather than understanding their actual agendas in Syria.)
The logic of bombs fit closely into the rationale that lent the airstrikes legitimacy. President Obama explained the parallel ongoing strikes against areas occupied by ISIS, not themselves controlled by Assad, but his opponents, as giving Syrians a choice "in side of Syria other than between ISIL and Assad," but found it justified to initiate the bombing without Congressional authority as Commander in Chief. The naming of a precise region in Syria bequeathed a more concrete logic for bombing by mapping a site that became a safe land for "a mix of hardened jihadi from Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Europe," according to unnamed US officials, which by this past September 13 was identified as posing a greater danger to the US than ISIS itself–the original target of attacks, undertaken at the alleged request of an Iraqi state in need of defense from internal dangers.
The story led to a rather rehearsed an improvised re-mapping of terror threats–and seems to have followed a search for how one could possible pinpoint a direct threat to the United States in an area of the Middle East where the Islamic State existed, which could be said to pose concrete threats to American well-being and be seen as lying within the broad rubric "national security" rather than military aggression. The "cell in Syria" that was "little-known but well-resourced" could pose a direct threat to the US, the Pentagon explained, possessed "training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building and command and control facilities." Televised graphics suggested the vigilance of F-22 Raptor stealth aircraft overlaying Syria, targeting presumed national enemies:
The apparent widespread newsleaks that led to clear hyping created a new sense of who we were targeting and why, providing a basis for attacks that did not need Congressional approval, or require more evidence aside from "aspirational" terrorism. Reporter Ken Dilanian offered the somewhat more "nuanced" take FBI director James Comey offered that "the U.S. did not have precise intelligence about where or when the cell, known as the Khorasan Group, would attempt to strike a Western target," but that Syria is "a place where we don't have complete visibility." Director Comey offered that the FBI and US government was working with intelligence of "the kind of threat you have to operate under the assumption that it is tomorrow;" in the words of Pentagon spokesperson Kirby, "I don't think we need to throw up a dossier here to prove that these are bad dudes [italics added]." Comey backtracked a bit from the "imminent danger" that the bad dudes posed, even as the battle drum had begun. "I don't know exactly what that word means," Comey added when questioned about the dangers' identified as "imminent," Dilanian notes quite amazingly. The group was identified in the media as able to "launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001," although by mid-September, or days previous [i.e., earlier] to the strikes, no official pronouncements had yet been made about the Group known as "Khorasan."
The quite nondescript map of airstrikes unveiled and glossed at the DoD news conference does considerable work to tell a single story about the range of airstrikes US planes made with regional "allies" primarily concerned to communicate the danger Islamicists posed their own states. The map suggested an intensity of concerted actions, as if all of the airstrikes were directed against a common or single enemy, despite their distinctly separate targets of attack:
The eight strikes convey an odd sense of attacking an uninhabited borderland, which is also the very region where many Syrian refugees have passed on the way to crossing Turkish border:
Who are these new folks who our are enemies? For Thomas Joscelyn, whose The Long War Journal has described the extended war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Khorasan consists of members of "core Al Qaeda" dispatched to Syria by Ayman al Zawahiri, and are embedded in the Al-Nusra Front, but the references of "seasoned al Qaeda operatives in Syria," provides a new nomenclature of evil by which the US can, as CNN put it, "take the fight to the terrorists" hiding in "safe havens" west of Aleppo which, as Samantha Power put it as if to offer a validation for the ongoing attacks, "The Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront . . . effectively itself." The US-only airstrikes–in which "coalition members" as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar, each eager to address Islamicist threats endangering their own states, were absent–constituted something of the chief area that the US government seems to have wanted Americans to watch. But the low quality of the DoD map–and absence from it of a layover showing the Islamic State's regional presence, or terrain–evokes a Google Maps base-map and image, designed less for informational value than to illustrate the clustering of American airpower west of Aleppo–outside regions held by the Islamic State.
The ill-defined maps on most new services were strikingly opaque and stripped of local detail, especially for showing such a frequently mapped area of strategic importance to the world. For they elicited minimal interest in the area or region where the airstrikes occurred, almost disembodied from thickly traced lines marking a sense of territoriality which most folks who have been following the news realize are increasingly of questionable value as points of actual reference or political orientation, but are presumably on the rather minimal base-maps afforded by Google Maps.
The concreteness implied by the use of this new proper name for a seemingly small group of individuals evokes a land "of the rising sun," oddly quite similar to the Levant, but invested with tones of violence by the hadith of classical Islamic teachings that describes an army worth joining "even if you have to crawl over ice." The pre-Islamic area of Khorasan from the 5th century A.D. till the second half of the 19th century A.D. is no real help–but seems to bring us back to Afghanistan and the AfPak problem of old. Despite much of the skepticism about how a group "suddenly went from anonymity to the 'imminent threat' that became the [compelling] rationale for a emergency air war" coming from the right, who mockingly distinguished "core al-Qaeda" from "al-Qaeda in Iraq" or the "Islamic State" that was formerly "al Qaeda in Iraq and al-Sham," itself unlike "al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," charging Obama with a strategy of "miniaturizing" a problem rooted in the reading of Islamic scriptures that drives Sharia suprematism and the deception perpetrated by a misguidedly Islamophilic President, according to former terrorism federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy in the National Review; Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain offer a parallel critique of how news feeds from Washington have incrementally but steadily perpetuated the myth of a deadly Khorasan splinter aimed at attacking America through hijacked planes, feeding legal justification for bombing Syria to a national press ready to recycle with appropriate graphics for broadcast on Nightly News.
The attacks did not hit the "Khorasan Group" seem rather transparently about a form of "degrading" that had little to do with the organization of the Islamic State. Multiple news graphics on nightly television focussed on targeting of makeshift oil refineries that have financed the Islamic State's revenues upwards of $3 million/day from oil smuggled out from eleven fields under their control–refineries that our "partners" were eager to help destroy–as if this somehow lessened the danger of collateral damages of airstrikes by legitimizing their targets. Yet despite the preemption of an ability to "degrade" what is now the richest terrorist organization in the world, existing investment in institutions and bureaucracies that uphold and strengthen Sharia law and governance and an efficient financial network will simply not be able to be destroyed through use of airstrikes alone.
Associated Press Interactive
A collapsed map of the extent of "allied" airstrikes over the region tragically reveals, however, the intensity with which the area has continued to be pounded from the skies by manned or unmanned flights already for a series of months, in what can almost be mapped as an extended war of nerves.
The Department of Defence situation maps that described the bombing of the Khorasan Group west of Aleppo served, in reference to a mythic land or region, to embody the enemy in a new way, giving them a redolent name–even if one not actually apparent on the several situation maps so conspicuously displayed, by evoking a group which once constituted a region, or territory, until the late nineteenth century ruled by the "Khorasan" Kings. Although the term that jihadists used to refer to folks from that area in the world–described by the West as "embedded" in the Al-Nusra Front–suggests a recycling of the toponym perhaps helps suggest a site of mythic struggle for US airplanes to attack, as if to deflect the question that we are not attacking Syria's sovereign lands without Congressional authorization, if only since the Group seemed to arrive from a different territory.
The Khorosan region perhaps gains its very nefariousness since it is not a state, but its statelessness manages to overlap with a region of danger, but itself to possess even more terrifying but less recognizably coherent bounds than the Islamic State–and as if the association of the name with the region of Afghanistan communicated its credibility as a national threat. (The very fact that Jihadists are themselves widely known to refer to anyone who comes from the geographic area as "Khorasan" raises questions about the integrity or identity of an actual fully-fledged "Group.")
The name inspires terror, indeed, as, while never used to name the interests of a purported Al-Qaeda cel, it is implicitly linked to the threat of redrawing the map of the Mideast in an imaginary optative geography in which the current group of US allies would no longer exist:
Few would be likely to consult early nineteenth-century printed maps to locate the Khorasan Group or follow the rapidly evolving news, but a simple search would have led to a region suspiciously near to Afghanistan, and not a disembodied "Group" that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested, when he warned on September 13 with administration sources of "veteran al-Qaeda fighters . . . who travelled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaeda affiliate there, the Nusra Front," going so far as to admonish the public that "in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State."
As the thinly informative airstrike maps made their circle on the news circuit, embodying the threat of the Khorasan Group as if it had migrated from Central Asia to west of Aleppo, instead of lying in Syrian "safe-havens," that constituted a "serious threat to our peace and security" as if they offered grounds that the airstrikes constituted a means "to defend our country." The striking thin-ness of the map of airstrikes contrast to even the far greater local detail with which Khorasan was embodied as a region in this 1881 map "Khorasan and Neighboring Countries," whose topography was delineated with lavish local detail by Lieut. Colonel C.E. Stewart: if Stewart attempted to concretely render the region, the danger of the "Group" lies in its ability to move, hidden, under the radar as it accomplishes underground and illegal acts of terror both outside and against the recognized group of nations.
Rather than map the lay of the land or encourage interest in its inhabitants, the maps used in news conferences and that migrated to news shows are dense graphics that limit their content to the view from the Pentagon. It bears remembering that the stories that our current strategic maps tell are far more limited, and seem designed to display far less curiosity about who are the inhabitants of these lands; they go so far as to embody them far less concretely, displaying the overlays of boundary lines between nation-states in thick black lines, as if to create the somewhat outdated illusion that sovereign states of Syria and Iraq still exist in what seems a staging area for war. The maps situate the location of the strikes against the Khorasan Group–which somehow seems improbably hit without civilian casualties–in the far left cluster of explosions sent by American planes based in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, using symbols that recall the medium of an old arcade video game so clearly that one is tempted to take the thin view of history they offer as their message–in a radically flattened view of the complexity of ongoing conflicts between Syrian opposition, ISIS, Iraqi troops, and Islamist movements. What, the message of the graphic seems, else do we need to know?
Where they are located perhaps seems less the point anyway, since they have been "taken out."
What seems less widely mapped is the extent to which the folks we are attacking are already surrounded, and we sought to display how even an area near the Turkish border–where the United States has an Air Force Base, but from which the Turkish government would not allow United States planes to fly or missiles launched into Syria–but also lying at much remove from what we have mapped as the expanse controlled by the Islamic State as of September 23, 2104. It allowed us to defend American interests at the same time as we continued to "degrade" the Islamic State from military bases that lie to the South, as both "allies" like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan allowed their airspace to be used, at significant cost.
Washington Post, September 23 2014
U.S. Defense Department; Institute for the Study of War; September 23
AP Interactive; October 2
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The extreme short-term benefits the Department of Defense claimed for the airstrikes –allegedly stopping planned attacks on the United States–may have unplanned consequence of creating deeper ties between the rebels, Islamic State and Al Qaeda, and cast the US as a protector of Assad.
Syrian reactions to airstrikes have not been mapped sufficiently or in detail. But unannounced strikes extending beyond attacks on ISIS both raised suspicions about US priorities and intents and suggested an unwarranted deflection of attacking the Islamic State among groups who long hoped that the very same airstrikes would be launched at Assad's forces, and not at an organization not known to Syrians, who deemed it a creation of the US government and false screen for giving cover to Assad's government troops to advance. With houses destroyed, numbers of refugees increasing, and women and children injured in targeted marketplaces in Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, local desperation has grown in direct reaction to foreign interference. Despite claims the US has a comprehensive strategy to defeat the Islamic State, the attacks seem short-sighted in encouraging the very conditions to encourage the spread of extremism, local instability, distrust, and the isolation of local forces, both breeding insecurity and hurting a crumbling infrastructure. The reclusive leader of the Al-Nusra Front, Abu Mohammed Jolani, previously presumed dead, foretold the eruption of a "volcano" against the US and its allies would be the consequence of the attacks, and argued that the airstrikes were leaving Aleppo vulnerable to government forces. "Short-termism" sadly afflicts the strikes whose results extend far beyond the assassination of Al-Nusra frton leader Abu Yousef al-Turki. Meanwhile, ISIS advanced within shooting range of Baghdad.
The spread of protests across the country against US-led airstrikes raise questions about what their long-term strategic value really was, aside from leading many to question whether western help would ever arrive. (Questions about the precise accomplishments of the strikes seem deflected by Pentagon spokesmen.) Protests against the airstrikes are poorly mapped, but seem to have grown from Islamic State strongholds like Raqqa to cities held by the rebel alliance in Idlib province, as Maaret el Numan, or centers of the Free Syrian Army like Talbiseh, near Lebanon, as well as some forty other towns including Homs and Aleppo–some bearing signs such as "The International Alliance Kills Civilians."
For the strikes indeed confirmed deep suspicions that official US policy is less concerned with ending Assad's dictatorship, lent credence both by the public statements from Assad's foreign minister that the Assad regime was "OK" with such airstrikes, which implied a collusion between Americans and the Assad regime; the occurrence of the first airstrikes to enter Syrian territory without any coordination with rebel groups to whom they might have offered strategic value seems to have sidestepped any support from the Syrian Free Army or its allies. For Americans find themselves in the intensely awkward position of relying on the OK of the Assad regime to "downgrade" or attack ISIS in Syria. The strikes seemed to realize fears and distrust about whose interests the United States wants to serve: Rami abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights alleges that the airstrikes illustrate the start of "a phase of targeting civilians under the excuse of targeting the Islamic State." In a region where the claim "We kiss the hand that holds the trigger against Assad" is common, it is hard to know how bombings undertaken with the Assad regime's OK would be seen as constructive. The bombings may have provoked a rise in Syrians declaring allegiance to the Islamic State.
Idlib News Network: Syrians examining the ruins of a house allegedly targeted by airstrikes in Kfar Derian, a center for Nusra Front opposition
We might remember that most all maps posted above derived from a map that really was carefully staged as a screen, which obscured far more that it revealed.
Filed under Al Qaeda, human rights, Islamic State, Mapping Terror, Maps and Politics, Syrian Civil War
Tagged as Al Qaeda, DoD Maps, ISIS, Khorosan Group, Nusra Front, Syrian Airstrikes, Syrian Civil War, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights


text:
Posted on December 12, 2022 by etiptree Posted in SpaceTagged Space
Fifty years ago, Dec. 12, 1972: The discovery of orange soil at Shorty crater
It's the December 12, 1972, 6:33 p.m. on the East Coast of the U.S. and on the moon, we — Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt — aim to take Apollo's longest stride, pushing the hardware and oxygen supplies to the limits. We will make the longest drive in the program, our target the base of the 7,500-ft. tall South Massif, a huge loaf-shaped mountain that will loom over us during the moonwalk. We'll establish a sampling station at the edge of a depression, perhaps an elongated crater, we've named Nansen. It's a straight-line distance of about 4.5 mi. from our LM, Challenger, but to reach it we'll have to drive a course of about 5.5 mi., which will take more than an hour.
As on all these EVAs (moonwalks), the driver really is oxygen. Oxygen is time — and distance. We must maintain enough oxygen that we could, if the Rover broke down, walk back to the LM. Hence we sprint to the farthest point we want to explore, work there while our oxygen supplies are high, then work back towards the LM as that walk-back range decreases.
We're starting 1 hr. 25 min. later than planned, as we'd been allowed to sleep in after a long debrief the evening before about our first moonwalk. We're rested, the ache in our arms gone, but today sure to be brutal on our hands fighting those pressure gloves. We open the hatch and the pressure release sucks particles from the cabin. We hope it sweeps out some of the dust — oh, all that dust we tracked in, despite our best efforts to dust. One of our first tasks will be to attempt to fashion a replacement fender extension for the one that broke off the Rover's right rear wheel on our first walk. Without it, the wheel tossed up cascades of dirt. Overnight a team at Mission Control devised a make-shift replacement we can build from spare items, and John Young, suited up, constructed one to make sure it could be done.
"Okay. I'm going down the ladder," I call.
From the cabin, you say, "All of a sudden, all the noise is gone; that's very good."
"'Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.' I think I'll read that every time I come down the ladder."
On the surface, I say, "Apollo 17 is ready to go to work. . . .What a nice day."
You add, "Not a cloud in the sky. Except on Earth."
"Let's get this done."
This is how to make a replacement moon fender: We take four 8-by-10.5 in. laminated maps that we don't need. Using the gray duct tape we carry for all sorts of tasks, tape them together, working at the floorboard of the Rover as if it was a crafts table. We create a 15-by 20 in. fender extension. Then using two clamps designed to hold auxiliary lights in the cabin, attach the thing to the end of the remaining part of the fender. Careful not to get dust on everything, or that tape won't stick. The clamps have to be screwed down tight — tiring "finger work." You can hear me grunt tightening those clamps down.
The auto repair consumes less than 10 min. "Well, that paper isn't going to come off, and the clamp's not going to come off, I'll say that. I don't know how much we're going to get out of the fender but . . ."
You dash off on foot for the nearby Surface Electrical Properties (SEP) site for some checks of it's antenna. You observe the Rover as I drive out to the site. "I don't see anything coming up over the top." No rain of dirt. "Looks like a good fix."
After a few minutes there to set tracks we'll use as guides for setting out the long antenna lines the end of the moonwalk, we head out, a straight-line dash at first, through what we call Tortilla Flats, headed for the mountain.
You make observations on the way, as I concentrate on driving. And you'll begin taking "rover samples," something new you've devised — a kinda "Dixie cup" at the end of a long handle that allows you to scoop a quick sample without getting off the Rover.
Our route takes us past Camelot crater, 1,864-ft. in diameter, mantled with dark material — geologically young, we hope. We want to see, as we pass, if there are boulders tossed up from the subfloor. If so, we'll want to sample them when we come back at the end of the EVA, still seeking young volcanic rocks.
"And I think we're coming up closer to the rim of Camelot. It's starting to look like a crater now," you say.
"Keep an eye out for blocks on the rim," our Capcom, Bob Parker, reminds us.
It's a very gradual climb for the Rover up toward the crater. We're averaging a speed of just above 6 mph. That's actually a good rate for the Rover. Plenty fast when you're trying to dodge sudden obstacles.
"Watch the crater. There you go. I tell you, when Gene decides to turn. . .Whoo!"
"We've got the…Ooh, and there's Camelot," you exclaim.
Gotta say, "Man, are there blocks there." We spot the perfect place for a sampling station on our return. "We won't have any problem finding blocks on the rim," you say. West of Camelot, the number of blocks decreases greatly.
After a smooth stretch, (relatively!), we're coming up on something. "Man, are there blocks there. . . . "
"Okay. That must be Bronte," you say. That a crater, about the third of Camelot's size, that not quite halfway to our destination.
"My God, is that big!"
You agree. "That's bigger than I expected."
"Whoo! I got to go around this thing."
Beyond Bronte, we drive onto the white mantle of the great South Massif landslide, yet there is no definite line, just a subtile change in color.
And all this time we've been aiming for the scarp — a cliff that runs from the base of the mountain to the east. Only it isn't an actual cliff, but an undulating rise. And we're aiming for what we call "The Hole in the Wall" between lobes of the scarp, a gentle rise that should be an easy to climb in the Rover. It's out there in the distance drawing us to it.
"We're on the light mantle, no question," I say. The surface is becoming more hummocky. Ahh, but I think the Rover could take more than we can dish out. As we go along, you call out all the geological features we encounter, the shifting brightness (albedo) of the surface, the block and crater population, piecing together the picture of Taurus-Littrow. "There certainly is a change in the general albedo, particularly in the craters. The craters are much brighter in their walls than we've seen before."
"Looking up on the South Massif, we've got real good views of the block-strewn fields. There seems to be two dominant colorations of the rocks. The light-colored ones — very light tan to white — and then there are the blue-gray rocks. There's one major outcrop of blue-gray about a sixth of the way down the slope . . ."
We're still down on the plain, still going flat out at about 7 mph, and tell Capcom Bob Parker, "Got Hole-in-the-Wall, Bob. It's a very long, very subtle, very gentle slope."
Looking up at South Massif, I exclaim, "Boy, is that getting big. " We can feel the bulk of that mountain. "Whoo-ee! . . . Hold on."
We've got a long depression to go around . . . "Okay, Jack, we got to watch it because I got to go around a long depression."
We reach the scarp. " I don't even think the Rover knows it's going uphill." Beyond, leading to the base of the mountain, some of the slopes become steep. "I'm going to head more straight up the hill. Once I get up on top, I'll be all right. I'm going to head down in this hole and then up that way . . . I don't mind pitch, but I sure don't like roll." As in the feeling we could roll over!
"Jack, I'm going to head right along this ridge because I think that's the depression we were talking about."
"Yep, that's Nansen down there."
We want to establish sample station 2 near the elongated crater, Nansen. Still have more than half a mile to go. "Let me tell you, this is quite a Rover ride."
We head downhill into the edge of Nansen. You observe, "But the trough is much greater in extent than just Nansen. It's probably a kilometer wide. I never realized that it was so much of a depression in here." Looking up the mountain, you tell Bob Parker, "Bob, the boulder tracks are really just chains of small craters, for the most part."
We find a good spot to sample boulder that have rolled down the mountain. You tell Houston, "We're right where we wanted to be for Station 2. And it looks like a great place. Big blocks. It looks like quite a bit of variety from here. Different colors, anyway. Grays and lighter-colored tans."
We're at the base of the mountain, on level ground about 325 ft. from Nansen. It's been 70 minutes since we left the SEP site near the LM. We're at our prime sample site for the EVA.
*** STATION 2 — SOUTH MASSIF ***
It isn't as simple as leaping off the Rover and picking up rocks. Rover systems have to be set; everything dusted off, camera magazines changed — on and on. You're eager to begin sampling at this important site and mutter, "Will we ever get started?"
`The real work begins when you describing the site in detail, forming a picture of the geology in your mind. Boulders of all sizes are scattered about us, some half buried, some sitting on the surface. We look for ones that have come down from high on the mountain. "Jack, that rock has to have come down."
"No question about it."
"Jack, let's get a piece of this one right here." Those are what we're after, as they could have either come from the early lunar crust before the impact that created the Sea of Serenity, or been lifted by the surge that created the mountains after the impact.
You inspect it. "Oh, look at the blue! Look at all the white fragments in it!" And say, "We ought to sample across the layering" in the rock. I get out my hammer and chip away.
"How about this one? Here's a whole big piece." We hammer at a bulging "clast," a fragment locked in the greater matrix of the rock. When we hit it — surprise — a big chunk comes off.
"That's a good representative sample," you say.
"It's a football-sized fragment!" we laugh.
And then we scoop soil samples from around it. And move on. "We're going after a lighter-colored boulder now," you tell Houston. ". . .This is crystalline. There are fragments, I think."
We move upslope and you gather a rake sample of representative pebbles, dragging the rake behind you with one hand. As you rake, I move on and report, "OK, Bob, I'm at another boulder up the slope here. It looks quite similar to the one we just sampled, except there is a lot of flake fractures on it. Non-uniform, non-directional, but quite different, at least from that other rock, in terms of its fracture pattern."
I comment, "We have to be a million miles away from the LM." We can't see it, as there are several intervening rises blocking our view. We're actually in a low spot, in the trough hugs the base of the mountain and includes Nansen. Indeed, Nansen may be part of the trough and not a true crater.
We continue sampling across the slope, hopping to get up the steeper sections. This is the perfect site to gather prime samples of South Massif, but we're running out of time here — suddenly only 10 min. more. Bob asks us if we want a 10 min. extension, time that will have to be taken from the stop later on at Shorty Crater. It seems like a good idea. "Let's take it. "
As you scoop up dirt, you say, "I don't know how we used up all the time, but we did."
"I don't know where the hour went that it took to drive here."
"Maybe time's different in space. Adventures in space and time!"
We move downslope and sample another boulder you picked out, one with a large intrusion. I rapidly bunny hop down the slope. "Man, that's the way to come downhill."
"Just don't stub your toe." And beginning to work on the boulder, you say, "Let's get that big clast."
Out comes the hammer. "Yes sir! That's a prize."
As we move on, you describe the fragment: "That white clast. . . I looked at it, and it has light, pastel-green, fairly-rounded crystals in a fine-grained white to light pinkish-tan matrix. . . . It looks like olivine or something."
And you know what? One that fragments will turn out to be nearly pure olivine, hence the green color, the oldest rock found on the moon, 4.5 billion years old. A prize, indeed!
We have time for one more boulder, a small loose one that wobbles when hit with the hammer. A chip flies off. "See it?"
Jack says, "See it!? You hit me with it!"
I kick the boulder. It barely moves. I kick it harder and it rolls a could times. We gather the soil that was underneath it which had been unexposed for eons.
Time rapidly running out. One last rake sample. You take one last scoop of dirt, a big one. "One-scoop-Schmitt, they call me."
"We ought to start moving out of here."
Bob Parker calls as we load up, "Beautiful station, guys; just simply beautiful."
*** STATION 3 — BALLET CRATER ***
We drive out of the trough, the view opening up. "Look at that valley," I say.
We'll now start working back toward the LM to keep within the shrinking walk-back range imposed by our oxygen supplies. We drive along the scarp, aiming to establish station 3 at its base near a crater we've named Lara. "Bob, we're on the top, coming off the highest lobe of the scarp looking back into the valley. And it's quite a scene back there, but we still cannot see the LM."
The scarp isn't a straight line, but overlapping scallops of various sizes and heights. You say, "See the lobes coming out . . . lobes coming out from the scarp."
"Boy, that's a sight, isn't it?"
We're pitching down steep slopes. "Okay, I'm going to try to make it down this. Hold on!" I claim we must have set a new Rover speed record. We gotta have hit 10 mph, I'll swear!
Finally we're off the scarp. "Hey, will you look at the hill we came down! Same one we went up?
"I'd rather not," you say.
We loop across the route we took up. Jack exclaims, "There are your tracks. Hey! We crossed somebody's tracks!"
Bob jokes, "Hope they look like yours."
As we drive, Bob tells us Station 3 will have to be a brief stop. You report, "We can see a little bit down into Lara now."
And we pick a small crater, about 100-ft. in diameter, near it as our worksite. "We can sample the rim materials of this crater. . . .There's only about a half a centimeter of gray cover over very white material that forms the rim."
To save time, we work separately. You take samples on your own. "Okay, I'm going to start sampling the soils, and then I'll get you the fragments." You dig a trench on the slope of the crater. "There's quite a marbling of light and dark material."
At the same time, I use our trusty hammer to pound in core tubes, two core tubes, each 16.5 in. long that screw together. "Well, the first core has gone down pretty good, Bob."
I ask you, "How are you doing there?"
"It's hard." It is hard without someone to open and hold the bags. You fill a bag set on the ground. The bag falls. You get down and dirty on your knees to pick it up. Moving on, you slide on the crater slope, fight to maintain balance, legs going out — you appear to be running after your legs in a crazy dance!
Bob, observing everything on TV, calls, "Hey, Gene, would you go over and help Twinkletoes, please?"
"Want some help, Jack? I'll be there."
"No! I don't need any help."
Bob jokes, "And be advised that the switchboard here at MSC [the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston] has been lit up by calls from the Houston Ballet Foundation requesting your services for next season." And the crater henceforth and forever becomes known as "Ballet crater."
We're running up against the walk-back limits. Bob calls, "Seventeen, we'd like to press on as soon as possible."
You say, "We didn't really do all the things we wanted to do, but I think we did everything we could." Yes, that's always the case under the pressure of time. "OK, Going to Shorty."
It's a 16-min. drive to Shorty crater, where we will only have a half hour before we hit those walk-back constraints again.
*** STATION 4: SHORTY CRATER (the orange soil) ***
We drive up to the crater, and you toss out your first description: "Shorty is . . . obviously darker rimmed, although the fragment population for most of the blanket does not seem too different than the light mantle. But inside…Whoo, whoo, whoo!" The steep sides of the crater and its bottom is a cacophony of rocks, pebbles and dirt heaped in a central mound at the bottom.
"You've got 25 min.," Bob tells us, ". . .Our priority are samples from the crater rim."
"We've got a boulder on the rim . . . It's obviously crystal," you observe, and while I dust off the Rover, go to it, below it. intending to start a photo pan of the crater. It's only a couple minutes into the stop. Suddenly you yell excitedly, "Oh, hey."
You'd kicked up something in the dirt. "Wait a minute," you caution, not believing your eyes — lighting conditions have fooled us in the past. No, this is real. "There is orange soil!"
What? — I don't believe it. You must have gone space happy. "Don't move it until I see it."
"It's all over! Orange!"
"Don't move until I see it."
"I stirred it up with my feet."
Even before I reach you, I see it: "Hey, it is!!!"
You repeat, "It's orange!" As if you still don't believe it.
Either do I. "Wait a minute, let me put my visor up." — the gold sun visor. "It's still orange."
"Sure is. Crazy!"
"I've got to dig a trench," you say — which will reveal the extent of the orange soil.
Bob says, "Copy that. I guess we'd better work fast." That's because of those damn walk-back constraints. We simply don't have the option of taking extra time here.
You photograph the find, start digging the trench, dropping your scoop and going down on all fours to pick it up.
"That is orange, Jack. Well, slap me with a little cold water . . ."
"I didn't think there would be orange soil on the moon."
We know what that implies. You voice it: ". . . It's been oxidized. It looks just like an oxidized desert soil . . ." Oxidized, as in that it came from a volcanic vent; orange as in oxidized by water.
You observe, "You know . . .that orange is along a line, Geno, along the rim crest."
"You mean circumferential?"
There's a whole arc of orange soil paralleling that of the crater rim, just as a volcanic vent would produce. Could Shorty be that vent? "If there ever was a — I'm not going to say it — but if there ever was something that looked like a fumarole alteration, this is it." That's your fancy way of saying the orange soil looks volcanic in origin.
You finish the trench. "OK, Bob. I've trenched across the trend of the yellow or the orange. There is light gray material on either side. Oh, man, this is incredible." After a pause for some photos, "OK, let's start sampling the trench."
We sample down it and across it, bending deep knee as we scoop. Scoop and bag, bend and scoop the orange soil and the gray soil at its side. We want everything. Ah, only if there was time. We scoop fast, fighting the shrinking time, fighting the fatigue of the effort.
"We'd like to get a double core," Bob says.
Bob says, "And the one problem at this station, Jack . . . It's the fact that we're running up against the walk-back constraints here in just a very few minutes, about 20 minutes." Just 20 min. left!
And damn if the core is hard to hammer in here. you hold the tube steady as I hammer it down, breathing heavily. Need a rest. "Wait a minute, Jack."
"That's all right, take it easy. I'd offer to hit it, but I don't think I can, my hands are so tired."
"Okay, let me hit some more. Ready?
We get the tube down as far as we can. At least it pulls out easily. Even the outside of the core tube is red!
We inspect the core ends as we separate the two tube sections, and you exclaim, "Look at that!"
"Even the core is red! The bottom one's black and orange, and the top one's gray and orange!"
"Hey, we must have gone through the red soil."
We still want to take a sample of the 6-ft.-tall, eroded basalt boulder that you were originally looked at.
Bob tells us, "And we'd like to get a quick sample of that basalt up there on the rim . . . and then press on. And I emphasize that it's walk-back constraint we're up against in 14 min., 13 now.
And of that, we'll need 3-4 min. to pack up and prepare for departure.
You work on two levels as once, sampling the boulder, and observing the details of the crater. "If I ever saw a classic alteration halo around a volcanic crater, this is it." The mantle on the inside of the rim goes from gray to a very dark gray. "And there's a lot of orange stuff that goes now — radially down — into the pit of the crater."
Bob says, "We need you guys rolling in 7 min."
Let's see if we can hack at another boulder, just one more sample. But Bob says, "Guys, we don't have that much time."
"I got it!" you say — that one last sample. "Let's go."
We leave Shorty, suspecting it could have fulfillment one of the primary quests of the Apollo program, the one Apollo 16 was sent to find and didn't — a lunar volcano, a sign of geologically recent volcanic activity.
But Shorty proves to be what we originally thought it was, an impact crater. When the orange soil is analyzed, it's found to be tiny glass beads, volcanic for sure — shot thousands of feet up by a fire fountain, splashing onto the surface and covered by a thin lava flow, then lifted by the impact that created Shorty. The glass beads, 3.5 billion years old, yielded something as valuable as evident of geologically recent activity would have been. They contain elements from deep within the lunar mantle, giving insight into the internal composition of the moon.
And there's more: New analysis techniques of the 21st Century, showed that traces indicating water were locked in the beads.
*** STATION 5 — CAMELOT CRATER ***
Our last stop of this far-ranging EVA is on the bridge-like gap between Camelot and Horatio craters. During the 26-min. ride, we scoop up two "Rover sample" without dismounting and make a quick stop to deploy a seismic charge. We establish the site on the edge of Camelot at a beautiful boulder field. Field? — its more like a sea of boulders, waves of different sizes breaking from the rim of the crater. You quickly ramble out amid the low boulders, inspecting them, while I'm consumed for 10 min. with mundane tasks, getting bags and camera magazines. And yes, the endless dusting the Rover.
We've gotta work quickly. "You've got 25 min.," Bob tells us.
"I've got the impression these blocks are buried . . ." you report. "The big ones seem to b projecting out of the mantle." You zero in on one to sample.
Coming over to you, I paddle over small boulders in leaps. Here comes my hammer, hitting down on the top of the rock. "Just a little piece." That's all I can knock off.
You take the hammer, noting that we've already worn the rubber grip off the handle. "Dr. Rock," with long experience, knows just where it hit to knock off a sample in a single strike.
"Beautiful call! Beautiful!" I exclaim
"That comes from 15 years as a hammer bearer. You learn where to hit rocks."
We go hopping through the dense boulder field, looking for a sample of dirt from the top of one of the boulders, hoping it'll be a pristine sample from the mantle. "It looks like it's been thrown up from surface," you observe, meaning it's just the usual surface soil. Still you swipe a sample with your scoop,
We were going to take a rake sample, but there's no time. Instead, Bob tells us to bag the soil between two boulders. "We'd like you moving in 3 min.," he says.
I move out into the boulder field for the photographs to document the site. I'm out there when Bob says, "We'd like you to leave in 1 min."
I run for the Rover in leaps, big bunny hops that lift both feet off the ground, singing "Hippety-hoppity, over hill and dale."
At the Rover, I say "My golly this time goes fast."
Away we go, headed home, leaving the wonder sea of boulders to sit in silence beyond our grasp.
This day will be remembered as the high point of Apollo surface exploration. We stretched it to the maximum, conducing a record moonwalk of 7 hr. 36 min. outside, traveled a record distance from the Lunar Module, covering more than 7 mi., collecting 136.7 lbs. of samples. Unloading back at the LM, bag after bag carried from the Rover, I comment, "Man, I've got the sorest hands in the world right now.
Apollo 17, EVA #1: The first of the last moonwalks

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Scholz, H., Baier, W., Ratcliffe, P., Eckardt, K., Zapf, J., Kurtz, Armin and Bauer, C. (1992) Insulin-like growth factors decrease oxygen-regulated erythropoietin production by human hepatoma cells (Hep G2). The American journal of physiology. Cell pyhsiology 263 (2 Pt 1), C474-C479.
Kurtz, Armin, Matter, R., Eckardt, Kai-Uwe and Zapf, J. (1990) Erythropoiesis, serum erythropoietin, and serum IGF-I in rats during accelerated growth. Acta endocrinologica (Copenhagen) 122 (3), pp. 323-328.
Kurtz, Armin, Zapf, J., Eckardt, Kai-Uwe, Clemons, G., Froesch, E. R. and Bauer, C. (1988) Insulin-like growth factor I stimulates erythropoiesis in hypophysectomized rats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America : PNAS 85 (20), pp. 7825-7829.
Bogdahn, U., Weber, H., Zapf, J., Dünisch, G., Löbering, H. G. and Mertens, H. G. (1987) Therapy of malignant brain tumors: comparison of the in vitro activities of vidarabin-monophosphate, BCNU and 5-fluorouracil. Acta neurologica Scandinavica 75 (1), pp. 28-36. Fulltext not available.
Bogdahn, U., Zapf, J., Weber, H., Dünisch, G., Löbering, H. G., Martin, R. and Mertens, H. G. (1987) Vidarabin-monophosphate, BCNU, VM26--an in vitro comparative study of active agents in the treatment of malignant human brain tumours. British journal of cancer 55 (2), pp. 153-158. Fulltext not available.
Kurtz, Armin, Härtl, W., Jelkmann, W., Zapf, J. and Bauer, Christian (1985) Activity in fetal bovine serum that stimulates erythroid colony formation in fetal mouse livers is insulinlike growth factor I. The Journal of clinical investigation 76 (4), pp. 1643-1648.
This list was generated on Wed Apr 24 08:00:49 2019 CEST.


As a first year nursing student and active Fianna Fail member, I must admit that upon hearing the details of the government's new 'nursing graduate scheme' I questioned whether my college course choice was wise or not. I had always wanted to become a nurse, but the thoughts of working long and unsocial hours for a very considerable reduction in pay to €22,000 is very demoralising.
Realizing that I was probably going to have to emigrate or earn a very low wage in my home country took the enjoyment out of starting my dream course. "Why am I even attending lectures for a course that isn't going to benefit me financially in the long run anyway?", I would ask myself after my 8am alarm deafened me, day in, day out.
This scheme undermines the worth of new graduates and indeed the nursing and midwifery profession. Nurses and Midwives are the only Health Professionals who have a constant presence in the clinical areas. We are there for the joyous occasions of a birth and we are also there to comfort the dying and to support the bereaved. The psychological demands of a career in nursing cannot be underestimated. We need a workforce that is highly motivated and committed. According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, graduate nurses working in Canada today earn €43,614, almost double what this scheme offers.
This proposed reduction in pay for new graduates will lead to low morale and those who can emigrate will do so. Are we foolishly repeating the folly of the 80's when Irish nurses/midwives staffed the hospitals of the UK and Australia? This in turn meant the Irish health service went abroad recruiting nurses and midwives in the 90's. The government are displaying similar lack of forward planning and vision now. Where is the economic sense in educating nurses and midwives and forcing them to emigrate?
Fianna Fáil spokesperson for health Billy Kelleher stated the inevitable: "The reality of the government's policy is that qualified nurses are going to end up looking for work abroad." I believe these cuts are particularly unfair as newly qualified nurses /midwives are already amongst the lowest paid health service workers. This cut highlights the emptiness of the government's promise to protect frontline services. This is a direct attack on a frontline service involved in providing direct patient care.
Fiona Dunne is a Children's and General Nursing student and is the First Year Representative of DCU Ógra Fianna Fáil's Padraig Pearse Cumann.


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SAVANNAH, GA (November 20, 2018) —City of Savannah Mayor Eddie DeLoach announced today that all City community centers and City Hall will be collecting gifts from residents in support of the annual Mayors' Christmas Motorcade.
Civic organizations, businesses, churches, schools, scout troops and individual citizens are encouraged to help with the collection of gifts for the Mayors' Christmas Motorcade. Collection centers will be accepting new, unwrapped gifts for the Mayor's Christmas Motorcade until December 3. A list of needed gifts can be found at www.savannahga.gov/GiftList.
The Mayors' Christmas Motorcade will begin at 9:45 a.m. at the National Guard Armory and proceed down Eisenhower Drive to Georgia Regional Hospital. Mayors and municipal governments from across southeast Georgia will participate in the parade.
The Mayors' Christmas Motorcade began in 1959 at the request of then-Governor Ernest Vandiver as a way of providing holiday gifts for the patients of Georgia's mental health and retardation hospitals. The program is also aimed at raising awareness of the needs of Georgia's mental hospitals.
WHEN: Wednesday, December 5, 9:45 a.m.


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The WJS 2012–2016
Journalism as Discursive Institution
The conceptual framework of the Worlds of Journalism Study is grounded in the idea of discursive institutionalism. We argue that journalism (1) is a social institution that (2) is discursively (re)created.
Social institutions are understood as humanly devised constraints to create order and reduce uncertainty. Journalism's institutional framework is made up of rules, conventions and practices that are both limiting and enabling, constraining and constitutive. They include formal structures (e.g., press laws or work contracts) as well as informal rules and procedures, such as customs, traditions, taboos, and codes of conduct. Young journalists mostly learn and understand these rules in terms of a cultural consensus as to "how we do journalism" rather than as explicit rules of conduct. In other words, the institution of journalism is the shortcut through which journalists navigate the complexities and uncertainties of news making.
Like other social institutions, journalism does not exist independently of human cognitive and communicative faculties. Journalism exists because and as we talk about it. In order to be intelligible, the norms, values and practices of journalism are part of a wider framework of meaning – of a discourse. At the core of this discourse is journalism's identity and locus in society. Thus, we believe that journalism as an institution and its relationship with larger society is never static; it is subject to discursive (re)creation, (re)interpretation, appropriation, and contestation. It is exactly this ongoing discourse that produces different variants of journalism – within and across countries and news organizations.
Journalistic Culture as Discursive Articulation
The above variants populate the universe of journalism; they make up the "worlds of journalism" – an idea that has obviously contributed to the very name of the study. We use the notion of journalistic culture to denominate the differential articulations and manifestations of forms of journalism. Journalistic cultures become discernable in the way journalists think and act; they can be defined as particular sets of ideas and practices by which journalists legitimate their role in society and render their work meaningful for themselves and others.
As any other culture, journalistic culture exists in three general states of manifestation: as sets of ideas (values, attitudes and beliefs), as practices (of doing news), and as artifacts (news content). For the purpose of the Worlds of Journalism Study, we have selected five themes in order to make meaningful cross-cultural comparisons: journalistic roles, journalistic ethics, and journalistic trust (intrinsic dimensions) as well as perceived influences and editorial autonomy (extrinsic dimensions; see Figure).
Journalistic roles articulate journalism's identity and position vis-Ã -vis society and broader public expectations.
Journalistic ethics is relate to journalists' reporting practices, which hark back to a broader social consensus about what is generally believed to be morally desired and justifiable practice.
Journalistic trust tells a story about journalism's relationship with social institutions, as journalists act as intermediaries between institutions and the public.
Perceived influences refer to journalists' individual perceptions of the various forces that shape the process of news production.
Editorial autonomy is conceptualized as the self-perceived latitude journalists have in carrying out their occupational duties.
Determinants of Journalistic Culture
It has been a fundamental premise of the Worlds of Journalism Study that the discourse of journalism cannot be understood in isolation from its very contexts. In order to systematically assess these contextual forces in a consistent manner, we defined three hierarchical layers of influence – the individual, organizational and societal levels. We feel that such a model neatly maps onto the hierarchical organization of news work. Journalists work within newsrooms, and newsrooms are "nested" within countries.
The individual level matters because journalists constantly have to make perceptional decisions. Potential determinants on this level originate from journalists' personal and professional backgrounds, their occupational and political orientations, as well as from their specific roles and position within the news organization.
The organizational level is relevant because despite the growing presence of freelancers, most news is still produced within highly organized contexts, notably within the newsroom and media organization. Known sources of organizational influence are media ownership, revenue structures, profit expectations, editorial policy, the allocation of time and editorial resources, and newsroom culture.
The societal level has long been recognized as a force that substantially shapes journalism culture in a variety of ways, most notably with regards to the relevant social, cultural and ideological contexts within which journalists work.
The empirical locus of a journalistic culture depends on the corresponding level of aggregation: groups of journalists sharing similar occupational views represent journalistic milieus; journalists working in the same newsroom often share and produce a specific organizational journalistic culture; and disparities between journalists from different countries engender national journalistic cultures.
2012–2016 Menu Selections
Principal Investigators (2012–2016)


The TRADE > News > Calling time on VWAP?
While the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) algorithm has been a mainstay of the buy-side's trade execution arsenal for many years, it appears many traders are now turning their backs on an old favourite. Algorithm providers are reporting a sharp decline in their clients' usage of VWAP tactics.
The simple reason is that VWAP is poorly-equipped to cope with the difficult trading conditions that have prevailed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September last year. Since then, markets have been extremely volatile, and traders have often had to cope with extreme intra-day shifts in stock prices and benchmark indices.
In these conditions, traders need to execute very quickly to maximise the chances of getting close to the prices they see on their screens and minimise the risk of being stung by a sudden and unexpected price move.
This environment is incompatible with VWAP algorithms for several reasons. Firstly, they are typically employed to work an order over an entire trading day rather than react quickly to capture specific prices. Secondly, in a market that renders benchmarks meaningless, algorithms that try to achieve or beat benchmarks are of little use. Thirdly, the algorithms' reliance on historical volume curves and data makes them unsuitable for dealing with a period of unprecedented stock price swings.
"Shorter duration algorithms are getting more use," says Ashok Krishnan, managing director, execution services at broker-dealer Merrill Lynch.
Another phenomenon seen in recent months has been shrinking liquidity on order books. This, coupled with the increasing fragmentation of liquidity across both displayed and non-displayed trading venues, means the buy-side is having to work harder to fill orders. VWAP algorithms provide little help in this regard, because they are designed to hit a price-based benchmark rather than seek liquidity.
But it would perhaps be unwise to write off VWAP algorithms completely. While the buy-side may be making less use of their VWAP algorithms, they are certainly reluctant to throw them out.
Also, with some tweaks, the algorithm can be put to work in current conditions. For example, some are using VWAP over shorter timeframes, customising it where possible or combining it with other algorithms to achieve the desired effect. A trader might use a VWAP algorithm for part of the day, but switch to a more aggressive strategy if the price starts moving adversely.
VWAP and other passive strategies could also enjoy a renaissance once the current financial crisis has subsided and trading conditions return to something approaching their pre-September state. But while they may make a comeback, they are likely to look very different from their old selves.


Changing Addresses is possibly one of the most stressful times in a person's life. We at Florida Full Service Movers will take the hassle out of changing homes. There is a lot to deliberate when relocating and our database is complete of professional movers to give you with affordable quotes. Whether you are moving locally or state to state we can locate you with a moving company to fulfill your moving wants.
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Any of our selected uniformed moving dispatchers are experienced and courteous. Our relocation companies should be prearranged group who work methodically and resourcefully. All you goods should be flawlessly covered and moved in a moving van. All pickups should be on time.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2019 at 6:50 AM and is filed under Moving Company. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


Are you ready for some baseball? College baseball, that is. Well, you're your bags for the tournament that determines the College World Series, held every June in Omaha, Neb.
Booking early has many advantages. Enter a few details below to start planning your private jet flight to the NCAA Baseball Championships.
There are 299 NCAA member schools – with more than 11,000 players -- that have Division I Baseball teams.
The road to the championship starts with 64 teams, 31 of which are automatically qualified as conference winners and the rest selected by an NCAA baseball committee.
The Regionals for the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship are held on 16 campus sites where four teams face off in double elimination tournaments. The 16 winning teams advance to the Super Regionals.
The Super Regionals are held on eight campuses where two teams play a best-of-three tournament. Winners advance to the College World Series.
The eight Super Regional winners compete in two four-team double elimination brackets. The winners advance to the CWS Finals to play a best two-of-three championship series.
The winner is the National Champion.
See a list of all the winners in history here.
Every day of the 12-day College World Series, there is a Fan Fest where baseball lovers can win prizes, listen to live music, play interactive games and even meet some of the players for autographs or photos.
It's also a place to buy souvenirs from the College World Series.
The College World Series has been held in Omaha, Neb., since 1950. The current venue, TD Ameritrade Park, is a 24,000-seat stadium, which opened in 2011. It is the home field of the Creighton Bluejays. It stands on the site of the former venue, Rosenblatt Stadium, which was demolished in 2010.
Not permitted: Any outside food and drink, including alcohol, bottles, cans and food and the coolers they are contained in. Also forbidden are large bags, backpacks, Frisbees, beach balls, umbrellas, laser pointers, noisemakers, fireworks and weapons.
You can bring cameras with a 1-inch lens but no additional detachable lenses.
Fans will not be allowed to walk down aisles in reserved seating areas during at-bats.
The team with the most College World Series wins is Southern California, which won 12 times in 21 appearances. The team with the most appearances is Texas, which won six times in 35 appearances. Find out how all the other teams fared over the years here.
The Henry Doorly Zoo: Famous for breeding endangered species from around the world.
The Lauritzen Gardens: A hidden tranquil oasis in the heart of the city, this living plant museum features four-season plants and many programs on growing and environmental conservation.
The Durham Museum: Find out the history of Omaha as well as seeing traveling exhibits from places like the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress in the magnificent former Union Station. Built in 1931, it is one of the best preserved examples of Art Deco architecture in the country.
Father Flanagan's Historic House: Boys Town, the famous orphanage, is located about 10 miles west of Omaha. It was founded in 1917 by Irish priest Edward J. Flanagan. Visitors can see many of his personal belongings at the house that he lived in, including his most prized possession, a desk the boys made for him. A statue of Father Flanagan stands in front of the house that is on the National Register of Historic Places.


Colby joined DHG Wealth Advisors in Charlotte, NC as an Associate Financial Advisor in 2018 after spending 3 years working in the financial planning industry. He graduated from Liberty University in 2015 with a B.S. in Business Financial Planning, and he also holds the Certified Financial Planner™ designation. Born and raised in Greenville, NC, he now calls Matthews home and works with clients in Charlotte.
Colby and his wife Lauren have lived in Charlotte since they graduated from Liberty University in 2015. They are active members at Hickory Grove Baptist Church where they both serve in the youth group and teach Sunday School. Outside of working, Colby enjoys spending time with Lauren and their dog Braylee, cheering on Manchester United and Atlanta United, and playing golf. Colby and Lauren also love to travel, and they have visited 5 different countries since getting married in 2016. Their most recent trip was through Southeast Asia, where they visited Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.


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Five time Olympic snowboarder receives Wattbike support in Japan
Wattbike's official distributor in Japan recently started supporting five time Olympian and alpine snowboarder Tomoka Takeuchi. Tomoka has been involved with snowboarding for the past 20 years, and she is a very familiar face on the Olympic and World Cup circuit.
Her career highlights include a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, a bronze medal at the 2015 World Championships, and 15 podium finishes on the World Cup circuit. She also placed 5th at the 2018 Winter Olympics, but decided to take a break after that.
However, even at age 36, Tomoka isn't done just yet, as she announced in August this year that she will make a comeback for the 2022 Winter Olympics that will take place in Beijing, China.
Local Japanese TV crews recently visited the Wattbike Japan headquarters to capture Tomoka's story
Following her announcement, Tomoka was put in touch with our Distributor in Japan by Japanese Olympic legend Hiroyasu Shimizu, to support her comeback journey. Hiroyasu is already well known in Wattbike circles for utilising the Wattbike Health Assessment in Japan, so it's no surprise that he would see the benefit of the Wattbike for alpine sports as well.
Tomoka will receive training support and a Wattbike Nucleus on loan from our Japan Distributor, as well as Wattbikes in her training bases of Switzerland and Austria through our German distributor Woodway, to get her back on the slopes in better shape than ever.
February 2021 update:
This partnership has already come to fruition, as Tomoka won her first World Cup medal for the first time in four years on the 7th of February at Lake Bannoye in Russia. We can't wait to see Tomoka back in action at the World Championships on the 1-2nd of March.
Follow Tomoka to see how she gets on with her Wattbike on her journey to the 2022 Winter Olympics.