Tag Archives: iran

From Big Tech to Mass Grave

Posted on by under Human Shields, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

Here’s an item from Business Insider of the sort you see just about every day in that publication, at least if you read it every day, as I do. It’s so common that its implications seem to go in one ear and out the other. “More big tech execs are joining the Army Reserve as senior officers,” we’re told.

  • The Army has added three more tech executives to its special Detachment 201 reserve unit.
  • Det 201 members join as lieutenant colonels, advising the service on AI, cyber, and modernization.
  • The new troops come from places like Cloudflare, a major private equity firm, and Facebook AI Research.
  • A second crop of tech executives entered the Army Reserve last week, expanding the service’s ties with Big Tech as it continues a dramatic effort to modernize its equipment and systems and better prepare for modern warfare.

Those who recently joined include Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer of Cloudflare; Sam Pullara, managing director and CTO of Sutter Hill Ventures, a Palo Alto investment firm; and Serkan Piantino, a former Reddit executive and co-founder of Facebook AI Research.

The executives have joined a unit known as Detachment 201, a special unit “designed to bridge the gap between private-sector innovation and military modernization,” the Army said in a press release, reflecting the Pentagon’s push to leverage private-sector technical expertise to address complex national security and defense challenges.

Members are reservists, can work remotely, and must complete a minimum of 112 hours of service annually.

“Their primary role is to serve as senior advisors to help drive the Army Transformation Initiative, concentrated on high-level technological strategies in areas such as cyber, AI and machine learning applications, and other data-driven capabilities,” Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Orlando Howard said in an email to Business Insider.

They join four other tech leaders who entered the Army Reserve one year ago: Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer of Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, the chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, former chief product officer at OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former chief research officer at OpenAI.

All entered the Army as lieutenant colonels, a rank that takes most officers over a decade to reach. The senior entry, known as a “direct commission,” is not unheard of, though. Most military medical providers, chaplains, and veterinarians join at slightly more senior ranks, though they undergo their own version of boot camp, while Det 201 does not.

“The program selects applicants who are highly skilled civilian technology professionals at the executive or C-suite level to serve as part-time strategic advisers,” Howard said. “These officers use their advanced expertise in commercial tech and private industry to offer a different perspective and advise senior Army leaders on solving military problems.”

Continue reading →

The Unintended, the Foreseen, and the Defamatory

Posted on by under cancel culture, Electoral Ethics and Politics, Fatwas, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

“We absolutely cannot and should not ever be cheerleading and wishing for the deaths of Israeli children…”
–Sue Altman

Sue Altman and Adam Hamawy are both Democratic candidates for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. A controversy has recently erupted over Altman’s response to comments Hamawy made in an interview with Hasan Piker. The basics of the controversy are nicely captured in this short piece in Jewish Insider. I’ll quote the first few paragraphs, but urge readers to read the whole thing. Continue reading →

Mapp to Nowhere

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

I get home, look at my mail, and find a solicitation to vote for Adrian O. Mapp, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 12th Congressional District. Mapp is “proudly endorsed” by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a person I respect. What does Mapp stand for? He tells us:

  1. Housing: he’ll expand affordable housing and protect working families from rising housing costs. 
  2. Healthcare: he’ll protect access to affordable, quality healthcare for families, seniors, and those most in need.
  3. Education: he’ll open doors to opportunity through education, job training, and relief from crushing debt.
  4. Immigration: he’ll support fair, humane, immigration reform rooted in dignity, security, and common sense.
  5. Taxes: he’ll fight for tax fairness and relief for New Jersey homeowners and middle-class families.

Continue reading →

Hayek and Hormuz

Posted on by under Hayek, War with Iran

The core idea of Hayek’s famous “The Use of Knowledge in Society” is the claim that prices act as signals that compress vast amounts of dispersed, rapidly-changing information into something that ground-level decisions-makers can use without knowing the underlying details. You don’t have to know anything about oil or gas production to know how much gasoline you can afford to put in your car, or how much driving you should do between paychecks, etc. Likewise, a gas station manager doesn’t have to know anything about geopolitics or warfare strategy or the Strait of Hormuz to know that a shortage is coming, and that he has to up the price of gas at his tank. The resulting reduction in epistemic burdens is supposed to be the great virtue of the free market pricing system. Continue reading →

I’m Rooting for Iran

Posted on by under activism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

As the United States continues to lose the war to Iran, expect American journalists to employ increasingly bizarre but instructive circumlocutions to misdescribe obvious but unpalatable realities. This piece in The Wall Street Journal is a classic in the genre. “Iran uses asymmetric warfare to inflict pain from a weakened position.” Translation: “Iran is using asymmetric warfare to win the war.” Continue reading →

The Time to Bail Out Is Now

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

If you’re in the United States Armed Forces, the time to seek Conscientious Objector status to the “Iran War” is now. Don’t delay. Don’t overthink. Don’t give in to excuses. Don’t engage in wishful thinking. Don’t succumb to pressure. Get out now. If ever you’ve sought to show valor on the battlefield, here is your chance. You’re on the battlefield. It’s called life. You have only one weapon at your disposal. It’s called integrity. Use either one to preserve the other, and flee this war as fast as you fucking can. Continue reading →

Dire Strait

Posted on by under War with Iran

Consider one of the antinomies, or self-contradictions, of international relations.

For decades now, the conventional wisdom in international relations has held that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz was a low probability event, and that if it happened, it could very likely be dealt with by the U.S. Navy. For documentation and a literature review, see Caitlin Talmadge’s paper, “Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz,” International Security, vol. 33:1 (Summer 2008), pp. 82-117. Continue reading →

The Power and the Glory

Posted on by under MTSP Discussion: Philip Pettit's Republicanism, Palestine, War with Iran

Imagine a society in the grips of civil war. On one side stand the partisans of theocracy; on the other, the partisans of secularism. As they fight over their country, a larger imperial power decides to invade, citing as justification the apparent approval of (a faction of) the secular side, along with the inherent evils of theocracy. Taking advantage of the smaller country’s internal division and weakness, the imperial power then tears the country to pieces that neither side will ever be able to govern. Besieging, starving, and massacring the people it claims to be liberating, the imperialists eventually conquer the place, lording it over the defeated population. They then spend the next several centuries singing their own praises–until they, too, are defeated by a rival power and swept away. Continue reading →

Defeat Will Do

Posted on by under Ukraine, War with Iran

Twelve days into the war with Iran, The New York Times is gradually coming to acknowledge that the war has not been a one-way affair. For twelve days, the Times has covered the war as though the US and Israel have had free rein to attack Iran, but as though Iran itself had been a passive recipient of the shock and awe campaign inflicted on it. Now all of a sudden, we get four major articles within 24 hours telling us otherwise:

Better late than never, but still pretty late to be telling your audience that the other side had not only managed to retaliate over the last two weeks, but had inflicted a fair bit of unexpected damage, and promises more. Continue reading →

Malley and Wertheim on Iranian “Responsibility”

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

When people commit crimes, they often invent elaborate rationalizations to conceal or dilute the moral turpitude of the offense. Rapists notoriously claim that their victims asked to be raped, or enjoyed it during the act. Murderers cite the imperatives of retributive justice. Etc. When it comes to ordinary crimes, most people can see the gaslighting involved for the deception it is. Unfortunately, this tends not to be true of crimes by nation-states. A nation-state can commit an obvious, egregious crime in the plain light of day, lie about it in an obvious way, and be believed by millions of people. Continue reading →