Maybe I haven’t been called a “lefty moonbat” enough recently, but I’m going to throw this out there before I forget why it seemed like such a good idea in the middle of the night last night.
On the DVD for “City of God” is a documentary film about the drug wars in Rio De Janeiro titled “News From A Personal War.” Interviews with police, drug dealers, prisoners, and favela (slum) dwellers paint as bleak a picture of urban violence as I’ve ever seen. This film is from 1997, so some of the circumstances may have changed…anyone knowing that to be the case, please don’t be shy about sharing.
In the documentary, the former police chief of Rio is interviewed extensively and (probably because he was just about to take another job when interviewed) offers some stunningly frank assessments of why his force is unable to make a dent in the ongoing war. Essentially, the problem boils down to easy access to guns. He draws a chilling parallel between the US government and its desire to close down the Columbian drug manufacturing plants from which deadly products find ways, despite supposedly earnest efforts, through customs and onto American streets and the US and European gun manufacturing plants from which deadly products find ways, despite supposedly earnest efforts, through customs and onto Brazilian streets.
The arsenal of confiscated, often highly sophisticated weapons the Rio police force has could easily arm thousands of soldiers; in fact the drug dealers are often caught toting weapons more sophisticated and deadly than the police themselves are issued. Which is tragically ironic, given that corrupt police are the ones from whom the drug dealers are buying their weapons.
The police chief then goes on to explain that when he first took over, bringing 30 honest men with him, his new team were celebrated as heros by the rich Rio residents, and for two months it looked like they would be able to turn things around. But, as he explained without a hint of cynicism, the wealthy do not really want the drug war to end. It serves their purposes, and, more importantly, helps maintain the advantages they enjoy. I don’t have a transcript, unfortunately, but essentially his point was that the only way to keep the populations of the favelas from moving into the more affluent neighborhoods is to keep them engaged in what amounts to a civil war. As long as the police keep up the pressure (and feed them weapons to ensure they’re encouraged to fight back), the drug dealers (and nearly all the young men there aspire to that title) need to retreat back into the favelas, where they are able to hide and are protected by the locals.
I was thinking about all this when I read the Tacitus post Von links to below. Tacitus has been strongly denouncing the decision not to take out the Fallujah militia from the beginning. In his lastest on the subject, this jumped out at me:
Two months after the atrocities, and a full year after Fallujah raised rebellion’s banner, the town is still defiant, still unoccupied, and still breeding killers of your brothers and mine. A microcosm of the occupation as a whole: tentative violence in pursuit of the right goals, subsumed by institutional timidity in the face of hard tasks, in turn giving our enemies their refuge and their victory.
This jumped out at me because it reminded me of the CPA memo commented on earlier by yours truly about the likelihood for civil war to break out in Iraq. Pertinent bit:
The memo also notes that while Iraqi police “remain too fearful to enforce regulations,” they are making a pretty penny as small arms dealers, with the CPA as an unwitting partner. “CPA is ironically driving the weapons market,” it reveals. “Iraqi police sell their US-supplied weapons on the black market; they are promptly re-supplied. Interior ministry weapons buy-backs keep the price of arms high.”
“So, Moonbat,” you say, “what are you trying to insinuate here? That the US is willingly supplying the Fallujah militia with arms to keep the entire Hussein loyalist population centralized in and around Fallujah (as opposed to seeing them spread far and wide throughout Iraq).”
Well, I’m not saying it…but now that you bring it up. Too snarky…let me try again.
UPDATE:
Well, I’m not saying that, and the CPA memo did imply that the US was unwittingly supplying the insurgents with weapons, and taking the Administration’s rationale (fewer civilian deaths) at face value is certainly easier, but there does remain the question of where the violence ends.
Sorry, Edward, but you can’t be a Lefty Moonbat: by definition those folks never have anything interesting to say.
Moe
PS: I don’t know if I agree with your scenario, mind you, but it’s definitely worth checking into.
I’ve reassessed a bit, Moe. I do think the Fallujah decision has the hallmark signs of serving some other, unspoken need though.
Sounds to me like a darned if you do, darned if you don’t problem for the CPA. I mean, how damaging would reports like this be?:
CPA Denies Weapons To Iraqi Police
CNN has discovered that the CPA has been denying to Iraqi police the very weaponry they need in order to take over police functions from American soldiers in Fallujah. “We are outgunned” said an Iraqi Police Captain who declined to identify himself for fear of reprisals. “My men lose or break their weapons in battle with insurgents and are not rearmed. That this happens is not believed, and they are told to buy their own weapon or do without. This has a huge effect on our morale and fighting ability.”
so you finally saw my favorite movie of ’03! It is a brilliant film on so many levels. I heartily recommend it to all of you and am glad it’s finally in DVD. It has played here in NYC nonstop since it’s premiere last winter.
edward, when you are called a ‘lefty moonbat’ it’s precisely because you do have something interesting to say…
Actually, it seems that ‘lefty’ is redundant as used by the wingnuts. Moonbat is understood to apply only to anyone 3 degrees left of center, and anything a moonbat says is to be summarily dismissed.
And, didn’t you know that if guns are banned, only criminals will have guns?
Edward:
Moonbat, no. Bleeding heart, perhaps. But we love you just the way you are.
Dave:
ahhh…thanks, I think.
By the way, your Jacksonian/Wilsonian post rocks!
Thanks. Kind words.
Fast Eddie,
But, as he explained without a hint of cynicism, the wealthy do not really want the drug war to end. It serves their purposes, and, more importantly, helps maintain the advantages they enjoy. I don’t have a transcript, unfortunately, but essentially his point was that the only way to keep the populations of the favelas from moving into the more affluent neighborhoods is to keep them engaged in what amounts to a civil war
This is an outstanding point. It’s called the “Bread and Circuses” approach. Keeping the “babarians” fed and entertained keeps them away from the rich, unwashed.
Well, done.
Navy Davy
p.s. I wanna see this movie
p.p.s. I’m not sure this dynamic applies to Fallujuah. But the principle is spot on and can be identified in numerous aspects of society.
I’m not sure this dynamic applies to Fallujuah. But the principle is spot on and can be identified in numerous aspects of society.
I’m not either, but it’s good food for thought.
Edward, I don’t recall seeing a post from you on what you think of the War On Some Drugs. Might I ask what your general stance is? (Myself, speaking loosely and in summary, I’m for legalization and taxation of most recreational drugs, along with a heavy investment of much of that tax money in drug treatment programs.)
This is an outstanding point. It’s called the “Bread and Circuses” approach. Keeping the “babarians” fed and entertained keeps them away from the rich, unwashed.
I think what Edward is describing is less “panem et circenses” and more “War Is Peace”, specifically as elaborated in the book towards the end of Part II.
Gary
The “war” on drugs is the biggest circus I can think of. I have posted on this, but not for a long time. In the otherwise unremarkable film “A Man Apart” Vin Diesel’s characters sums up my sense of the whole thing quite clearly when he notes that the U.S. is the biggest consumer of drugs on the planet. Anything else we try to say after that makes us look like hypocrits.
Personally, my drug of choice is alcohol and I’m just lucky that it happens to be legal at the moment. The most surefire way to make many impressionable youngsters want to try something is to make it illegal. If seeing a strungout emaciated junkie lying in his own sick in the alleyway isn’t a good enough deterent (and apparently it’s not), no threats of jail time or other punishments are going to sway people.
Legalize drugs and you lose the violence that it takes to get them on the streets. Then you can take the money wasted on trying to stop the imports and use it for education and treatment.
All the rest is definitely just for show.
This film is from 1997, so some of the circumstances may have changed…anyone knowing that to be the case, please don’t be shy about sharing.
Some of my friends and relatives in Rio would argue that it has gotten worse.
Some of my friends and relatives in Rio would argue that it has gotten worse.
How is that possible Randy? Is it simply all-out total war now or something? When the film was made, 10-year-old boys were killing “informants” and the drug dealers were using night vision goggles to kill police officers.
Any anecdotes to share?
Well, Fallujah was supposedly a smuggling center under Saddam, so it’s probably a good parallel.
Edward,
Gangs setting fire to buses to shut down Centro; drug gangs ordering businesses to shut down for the day or face the consequences and the businesses doing just that; calling in the army to deal with matters; building a wall around Vidigal and Rocinha to keep the crime from growing.
Yeah, Randy, that does sound worse.
Ironic then that one of the websites for City of God links to a travel agent encouraging people to visit Rio…have you been there?
A few times. My wife has a couple of cousins living there in the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood and Botafogo area (near Sugarloaf and Corcovado. It’s a lovely city with a lot to offer, but it also happens to be a big country with even more to offer. I just have no patience with people who go to Rio and think they’ve seen Brazil.
There’s a lot more to see.
Edward:
Sounds similar to what happened to us in Vietnam. In the early stages of US involvement, the VC were lightly and badly armed, often with homemade weapons (e.g., stovepipe shotguns). We supplied ARVN with high-quality weaponry, which promptly ended up in the VC’s hands, either through corruption (officers selling arms to their ostensible enemies) or extortion (badly-defended ARVN outposts were made to turn over weapons in exchange for not being attacked by the much more skilled VC).
Mithras,
Do you think that’s just the nature of chaotic conflicts or that there’s something (even if only slightly) intentional about it?
Edward:
In most cases, I doubt very much there is any intention to achieve any kind of secondary effect. I think these kind of military situations are usually very straightforward: there is a conflict, we have allies or friends, they need arms, we have arms, so we give them. Whether it’s claymores to ARVN, stingers to the Muj, or M-16s to the Iraqi security forces, no one who is giving the weapons away thinks that arming the other side indirectly is a good thing. When it happens, I believe the term is “blowback.”
Now, to put my moonbat hat on, there are situations in which it seems likely that promoting instability and violence aids a policy or goal. (For example, I think it serves certain political interests to promote violence and social disfunction in U.S. cities through the drug war.) I just don’t believe military commanders – who certainly understand these things – would intentionally pursue such an aim when their own troops were at risk. (Am I naive?) On the other hand, it certainly serves a lot of peoples’ interests in the U.S. government to prevent democracy from actually taking hold in Iraq, because it would likely lead to an anti-US government there. So, while I don’t think it is likely, it is possible that the U.S. is trying to keep the security situation at a low boil in order to both justify an ongoing U.S. military presence (a prime objective of the invasion) and to justify repressive measures by the U.S.-backed regime.
I think you should wear your moonbat hat more often Mithras.