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| Source: Google Images. |
By Gundhramns Hammer
November 27, 2013
No empire can survive without a good and efficient intelligence service. Any past or present power has had to deal with this problem.
Information about strategic resources needed for the continual readiness of weaponry of an army or any inside or outside enemy´s plottings, fighting forces, economical and natural resources are key elements that must be gathered by any power all the time to have a long standing in the game of inter-tribal group competition.
Information about strategic resources needed for the continual readiness of weaponry of an army or any inside or outside enemy´s plottings, fighting forces, economical and natural resources are key elements that must be gathered by any power all the time to have a long standing in the game of inter-tribal group competition.
A long time ago, kings and emperors used to rely on infiltrated agents, caravan merchants, ambassadors, harlots, eunuchs, beggars, court poets, wandering preachers, soldiers, mercenaries or anyone willing to sell information.
Now on a global scale, modern economic powers still use basically the same methods but also have come to rely upon XXI century high tech gadgets such as spy satellites, drones and a whole slew of mechanical objects to solve this issue.
Now on a global scale, modern economic powers still use basically the same methods but also have come to rely upon XXI century high tech gadgets such as spy satellites, drones and a whole slew of mechanical objects to solve this issue.
But should there be a confrontation, this will not be won by weapons and gadgets alone. The whole damn thing depends upon how intelligent you use them and the quality and how much information you have about your rival.
So it boils down to people, hiring get smart people. You need experts, a team of get smarts: anthropologists, ethnographers, geographers, cartographers, geologists, biologists, botanists, zoologists, chemists, etc., along with well renowned scientific institutions and museums.
Working alongside undercover agents disguised as news reporters or tourists, and even NGOs, social media private eyes and internet video browsers are also thrown into this game.
Working alongside undercover agents disguised as news reporters or tourists, and even NGOs, social media private eyes and internet video browsers are also thrown into this game.
Whereas in the olden days horses, wood, bronze or iron, and bow and arrows were enough for the standing armies, nowadays things have drastically changed. New technologies require strategic resources which are often found beyond any power´s borders.
And some lands are richer in these materials than others. If powers do not have what they need, they must go after them.
Thus, considering that Africa has around 80% of the cobalt resources in the world, an element necessary for modern man´s killing war machinery, it is no wonder that foreign powers are interested in mapping this continent´s natural resources. Of course, this is just one example amongst many.
But let us take another one. We all know that pharmaceutical companies depend on Mother Nature to get any new drugs or models to mimic in their labs.
Therefore it is obvious that the remaining spots of tropical forests around the globe must be somehow preserved. Basically for economic reasons at least. Notwithstanding, forests should have person standing such as given to corporations by international law.
And what better way to get to know and preserve this golden egg goose than the natives themselves who still live "with" it.
And it must be done without any violent invasions or lifting any suspicions on the locals. Should anyone find out what the fuzz is about, they can be bribed.
Nowadays, the usual cover for these missions is the famous "conservation of the native flora and fauna" or getting the local people into managing "the sustainability of their own environment". Sometimes "humanitarian reasons" may be used too.
Whoever controls the actual global economic system keeps always on the look out for new places on the face of the Earth where the "needed" resources are located to be one step ahead of the rivals and keep their flocks of consumers on the squandering train.
For this purpose, the whole planet is being mapped with business objectives in mind.
And no spy satellites can do the job of getting to know any area on the ground better than the natives. Achieving this type of reconnaissance with satellites is only done in Hollywood movies.
In real life, foreign powers depend upon local people who know the terrain first hand, teamed up with scientists and other experts, an army of get smarts, to do this job usually unbeknownst by the natives or even the team of experts.
The gathered information always finds its way upwards to known authorities at first but later to hidden hands where it will be analysed by another set of experts who may also have another bunch of investigators on top and so on.
And some lands are richer in these materials than others. If powers do not have what they need, they must go after them.
Thus, considering that Africa has around 80% of the cobalt resources in the world, an element necessary for modern man´s killing war machinery, it is no wonder that foreign powers are interested in mapping this continent´s natural resources. Of course, this is just one example amongst many.
But let us take another one. We all know that pharmaceutical companies depend on Mother Nature to get any new drugs or models to mimic in their labs.
Therefore it is obvious that the remaining spots of tropical forests around the globe must be somehow preserved. Basically for economic reasons at least. Notwithstanding, forests should have person standing such as given to corporations by international law.
And what better way to get to know and preserve this golden egg goose than the natives themselves who still live "with" it.
And it must be done without any violent invasions or lifting any suspicions on the locals. Should anyone find out what the fuzz is about, they can be bribed.
Nowadays, the usual cover for these missions is the famous "conservation of the native flora and fauna" or getting the local people into managing "the sustainability of their own environment". Sometimes "humanitarian reasons" may be used too.
Whoever controls the actual global economic system keeps always on the look out for new places on the face of the Earth where the "needed" resources are located to be one step ahead of the rivals and keep their flocks of consumers on the squandering train.
For this purpose, the whole planet is being mapped with business objectives in mind.
And no spy satellites can do the job of getting to know any area on the ground better than the natives. Achieving this type of reconnaissance with satellites is only done in Hollywood movies.
In real life, foreign powers depend upon local people who know the terrain first hand, teamed up with scientists and other experts, an army of get smarts, to do this job usually unbeknownst by the natives or even the team of experts.
The gathered information always finds its way upwards to known authorities at first but later to hidden hands where it will be analysed by another set of experts who may also have another bunch of investigators on top and so on.
Every bit of data is carefully cribbed, weighed and measured as far as its potential for
prospecting natural resources in the future, using the latest technology from many fields
including genomics, biogeochemistry, molecular biology, ecology, microbiology, biotechnology, coupled with
spectral satellite seasonal imaging of the vegetation of the area and high power computers to deal with the vast amounts of information.
These ants do not let anything go to waste. Every piece of the puzzle is gathered to get the big picture. An awkward picture nevertheless, for any human economy system is biospherically blind.
Gabon: Tapping natives to play a vicious circle game
Gabon: Tapping natives to play a vicious circle game
Right now big corporations are aiming their economic mighty game on the huge Congo Basin rainforest, which is disappearing fast due to human exploitation (Fig. 1).
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| Figure 1. Deforestation.rates in the Congo Basin. Source: The World Bank Group (2012). |
Because of this, any African nation found in this area (Fig. 2) is a good target without letting its people know it is being selected as a target for the target of the targets of those who control all the targets around the world.
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| Figure 2. Cong Basin countries. Source: The World Bank Group (2012). |
Thus, we come to a rich but poorly managed African nation: Gabon.
See how Gabon forest people have been coaxed into mapping the nooks and crannies of their land and how they interact with it.
Find out how the forest dwellers´ efforts and first hand knowledge turned out a lot cheaper than having hired a bunch of academic cement jungle dwellers with myopic and biased expertise and the end result has been much better.
Get a glimpse of how NGOs and private sector experts pool native knowledge on natural resources including ethnobotany, a branch of science nowadays playing an important role in the search of new drugs by big pharmaceutical companies to fight the new strains of superbacteria.
Learn how they did it in Gabon, Africa: Click HERE.
Hmmm... What is this?
Hmmm.... Conservation, native´s mapping their land, economic growth, sustainability. What is this?
This is the same game the global economic interests have been playing all along to keep everyone on the same game of fucking up the Biosphere which is no game when in the game people are betting their necks and their own kids´ survival in the future.
Mother Nature´s game does not obey the cultural tricks man has invented to play Her game.
Man´s game to play Her game has many names. They all add up to screwing Her game.
To patch up man´s damage there are plenty of organisations, foundations and numerous programmes working on "saving the world" or "going green" all over the planet.
With so many people "saving Earth" and corporations working on "sustainability" one wonders why the fuck the state of the Biosphere keeps deteriorating day by day.
Someone has said that the whole damn thing is an "unsustainable" scam and/or is just "sustainable rethorics" to smoothly suck up blood from taxpayers.
In the end, almost no one wants to make serious changes where there must be serious changes.
For whenever or wherever the issue comes down to really changing the system, money and profit get in the way. And it is fucking hard for man to let go of such things.
Money is the name of the game which will eventually put man in the end at the end of his own game: His own extinction.
The whole damn thing is nothing but putting the cart before the horses as it stands today.
Man is stuck at a crucial point and the best he has been able to come up with so far is this business of "sustainability", something invented by the very same folks in the private sector who have brought about this mess.
Of course, these greedy folks were not alone in their game. Consumers had a large share with their constant demand for novelties on the markets. So as a result everyone fell into the damn hole.
And now we have a "dying planet" (Sale, 2011). No amount of talk about "sustainability" will bring any substantial change unless we all simplify and reduce our never ending consumption. And we must.
Ecce the gist of our problem. And the task is for each of us to do.
The rest of the nonhuman species on planet Earth are already doing their best to keep the Biosphere viable. And this they do indeed well by working as an amazing and miraculous unit.
How about us humans?
So far, despite of our inventive large brain - used most of the time to find ways to get laid, make more money or kill one another - we humans have failed doing our part.
We have flunked Mother Nature´s Biosphere Maintenance Course at Her University.
Whilst we still have some time left at Her Graduate School, we had better change our blind and crooked direction.
Now it is our turn. Or is it already too late?
References
Marshak S. (2008). Earth: Portrait of a Planet. 3rd Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY, USA. 957 p.
Morris I. & Scheidel W. (Eds.) (2009). The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, NY, USA. 381 p.
Sale P. F. (2011). Our Dying Planet: An Ecologist´s View of the Crisis We Face. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, USA. 339 p.
The World Bank Group (2012). Deforestation Trends in the Congo Basin: Reconciling Economic Growth and Forest Protection. The World Bank, Executive Summary, Washington, DC, USA. 32 p.
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