In These Times

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• • 01 Jun 07
  • 6:11 am

  I know Bougainville well, having spent time there before and after the fighting (the recent fighting). There's some confusion in the article, but I suspect that's because of her sources. The kids, whose headdresses identify them as from the inland north of the island, are billed as "children of ... guerillas." So it's not a bad caption, except it implies that the ceasefire happened just this week -- no! It was several years ago. I'm not sure I'd have used "blitzed" to describe that the U.S. forces did during WW II, but it's close. There are many sources that fairly describe …

  Posted to Fighting Corporate Copper in Bougainville

• • 01 Jun 07
  • 8:18 pm

  whattheheck -- You're right about the blitz for london. I was thinking about blitzkreig, lightning-quick strike, overpowering in nature. So in that sense only I think the US blitzed the Japanese. I'm travelling right now, visiting my 25 year old son, who tells me that his generation uses "blitz" as in get in, do the job, get out. Harry Gailey, historian, wrote an interesting book "Bougainville, The Forgotten War," about the US forces on Bougainville 1943 -- the Torokina landing. Among the interesting points is that the US army tossed one of its african-american battalions (regiment? I don't have the book …

  Posted to Fighting Corporate Copper in Bougainville

• • 10 Jun 07
  • 1:36 pm

  Yes, Executive Outcomes. Sorry about that. I feel certain that both EO and Sandllne were involved, but I don't have time right now to chase down the references. The whole mess caused the government of Julius Chan to fall -- they tried to hide the payment, as I recall, in the highway budget. Eventually the PNG government reneged on the contract, and EO et al took them to court for non-payment of a valid contract, and won. Here's what I chased down using Google ("Julius Chan" + "Sandline"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandline_affair Wikipedia is what it is -- this article isn't signed and there …

  Posted to Fighting Corporate Copper in Bougainville