Cysfilm

Victor Bout, Cold War Delight

photo: ALI BASE, Iraq — Airmen of the 407th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron load and refuel a Russian IL76.      (www.ali.afcent.af.mil/photos/)

It’s been a good year for all of us Cold War kids for whom Ronald Reagan is like an absentee grandfather and the late 80s episodes of G.I. Joe now look like blurry but prescient maps of our geopolitical adulthoods. Whether it’s by mistake or by the misinformed metaphysical will of our youth, we exchanged a fear of Mother Russia for the fear of a real Cobra Commander some years ago. When the clean lines of the old bi-lateral origami unfolded it revealed a new world map that’s now so bent and creased it’s difficult to understand without overdosing on TV news motion graphics and frenetically written tweets. But 2010 was kind and gave us a couple little reminders of the good old days when all the bad guys were Russian.

It started with the arrest of 11 “deep cover” Russian spies who were hiding in the American suburbs decoding Starbucks recipes and ripping Glee DVDs. Compared to the soul snapping strength of the terrorism narrative in America, this was a warm chestnut – the Russians were back to sample the fat of our land, not to blow it up. And that’s what was so great about the Soviets, they played a game with us that had comprehensible goals, structure and symmetry – they wore were red and we were blue. They drank vodka and thought capitalism was corrupt while we drank Coke also thought capitalism was corrupt but still much better than driving a Lada. They had birthmarks and gold teeth and we had Solid Gold and an AIDS panic. As paradigms go, it was a major winner.

The follow up to this Cold War reunion is now emerging. Victor Bout is a big husky Russian, born in a place that ends with “stan”, he sells AK47s for a living, he’s got a tractor size moustache and he’s being extradited by Thailand to the U.S. Like the spy story there is a familiarity in this material that’s reassuring. If you haven’t heard of him, Bout has been one of the busiest arms dealers in the world for quite a while. The short version of his story goes – the Soviet Union collapsed, all kinds of military hardware was laying around, he got some cash together and bought a couple military cargo airplanes for cheap (he was an Air Force officer) and started making money flying cargo for various parties, and his business grew and grew. He’s one of the guys they based the Nick Cage movie Lord of War on and he’s been sexy since way back in 1993 when the NY Times magazine ran this amazing profile on him. His work was also alluded to in the problematic but very successful documentary film Darwin’s Nightmare. Basically, he’s a global bad guy and American justice finally caught up to him.

But there’s a rub – Bout’s cargo aircraft businesses were running full steam to service our war in Iraq. I know because I saw, heard and felt the distinct engine whine of his big Russian cargo airplanes everyday and every night during my 21-month bivouac at the Baghdad Airport. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, everyday at least a dozen Russian built cargo aircraft landed and took off, the Iraqi army trains on and carries AK47s and they’re rebuilding their military, which means they’re buying and we were rushed to bring in MRAPs as quickly as possible. The biggest of the Russian cargo planes, the biggest airplane I’ve ever seen, sat in a special safe area called the “hot pad” because it had “something explosive” inside. But don’t take my word for it:

From The Guardian, Adam Roberts, Sunday 21 December 2008:

From Africa he is accused of moving on, establishing a hub for his privateairline in the Middle East, from where he became involved in flying goods to Afghanistan and later to America-run Iraq. Ironically, as one part of the American government was attempting to have Bout detained for his alleged nefarious dealings, another part of the American government was using Bout’s services to fly goods to its soldiers in Baghdad.

So really, this narrative is not a cloak and dagger Cold War redux. Pull back the curtain and what you’ll see is another sad tableau from a decade that history books should call The American Malfunction. There are intensely varying opinions on how the Malfunction started, but it seems like just about everyone agrees that we went off the tracks. To sum up our handling of Bout: we identified him for committing war crimes in Africa, set out to construct a legal framework through international treaties to make it legally possible to arrest him, then did extensive business with his front companies through our own proxies (private war corps), then we set a trap for him in Thailand and now we’re extraditing him back to the U.S. for war crimes. Got it.

Villages in Action

This is an exciting idea. The Villages In Action Conference is a reaction to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals meetings in September. From the VIA website:

“In September 2010, international organizations, heads of state, celebrities and specialists gathered to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As you may know, the MDGs were set in 2000 to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by 2015. In the midst of the coverage of these grand events, high profile attendees wined, dined and debated the relative merits of each MDG plan, while the actual “poor,” (the object of these goals) were not invited to these elite events.

Project Diaspora is dedicated to change perceptions about the poor by building a platform whereby the voices of the poor can be heard. On November 27, 2010, the first conference will be held in a village outside Masindi, Uganda. The goal of this one-day conference is to showcase the grassroots efforts driving economic development and improving the welfare of the community – all with little or no assistance from international aid organizations.”

I love it. I hope there’s video to come.

News from Malawi by way of New Jersey

I

I talked with Jake for a little while this weekend. For those who’ve seen Bush League, if you don’t remember, he’s the Peace Corps volunteer in the film. Above is a picture of him from last month with his forth graders on Crazy Hat Day. He’s now in his second year of study for a Masters at Rutgers and a fulltime fourth grade teacher. The guy is BUSY! He spoke with Chatwa back in Zolokere, Malawi this week and here’s the latest from the village:

Chatwa (the farmer and team captain in Bush League) is having trouble with elephants trampling his crops at night. It’s very unusual to see an elephant in that area, Chatwa thinks it’s because the elephants are increasing in population that they’re moving out of the Vwaza Game Reserve, which encloses a large wetland south of the village. They’re chasing the elephants away by banging on plastic tubs with sticks. Chatwa also reports that his fifth child and first son is doing well and is “very strong” like his father.

Jacklyn is doing fine and her health appears to be good.

Issac, who appears in Bush League several times but is never named got a serious head injury during a recent football game. He was unconscious for several minutes before coming to.

Tough Gong, the artist and sign painter who made the maps in Bush League (he lives in Mzuzu several hours from the village) is doing well and has a new girlfriend. TG always has a new girlfriend.

No word on Mlawa the soft-spoken young father in Bush League but no news is good news.

The other big news is that the Malawian Government is at work constructing an irrigation system in the Hewe Valley. Chatwa says that they’ll be able to grow vegetables year round once the system is built. Right now fresh vegetables are only available during the rainy/growing season. If this is really happening, it’s a really big deal.

The Goonies

I still love the Goonies. I saw Marth Plimpton at a wedding and had to ask for a picture.

Printer hack that really shouldn’t work

Next to HOA fees the biggest racket in America has to be printer ink cartridges, what a rip. My old Epson ran out of black a couple weeks ago so on a whim I filled the empty cartridge up with water (3/4 full according to the utility) to see would happen and to my surprise it works perfectly.

I’ve been printing things for three weeks with it. I guess there’s so much ink left over inside it just kind of mixes. I doubt I could print a photo but for text and DVD labels it looks exactly – normal. It doesn’t smudge either. Huh?

In other news an NGO on a USAID project in West Africa is hiring an Onion Expert. I’m speechless.

Bush League at Univ. of Redlands

Bush League screened for the demure photography students at Univ. of Redlands last week.

Crude Cruisers

I made this little video for my Brother in Law who builds custom motorcycles. This is the rough cut:

Graphic Love Scene

I saw this graphic by Matt Dorfman in the New York Times last week and looked him up. Graphic design is everywhere but seems so un(der) appreciated. I love this stuff. He’s good.

Audio Hack: Mics and Fans

I bought this sleeping bag mat for a road trip two years ago and we ended up in hotels every night so I never used it. Now I pull it out when I’m recording voiceover and stand it up around my hard drives to keep some of the fan noise from reaching the mic. With the lower background noise I can sit a little further back off the mic and that helps get rid of all the little mouth noises. It kinda looks like it was specially made for this since it’s got the egg crate surface and all the folds.

Niger ’66

Here’s a trailer for a new doc film about a group of early Peace Corps volunteers who went to Niger in 1966. It’s amazing to me how different the institution seems. My Peace Corps (2000-02) wasn’t exactly a well oiled machine but they were really good at training. It looks like it was kinda messy back then. I do envy the early volunteers though, they got to blaze the trail for the rest of us.