Author: Grumpy
Chimpanzees look like cool, friendly, wise, placid creatures. They’re not. They’re actually bloodthirsty monsters just like the rest of us.
There is a commonly held but flawed presupposition opining that, somewhere out there, some people are innately good. That just has not been my experience. There are certainly fine folks of character wandering about. I strive to count myself among them.
However, underneath, I would assert that we all come from the factory broken. Absent a little divine grace, we’re all predictably dreadful. Should you be covetous of examples, I would put forth Adolf Hitler, Jeffrey Epstein, Hillary Clinton, your typical two-year-old toddler, and whoever invented digital pop-up ads.
Anthropomorphizing animal behavior to fit a human construct is a timeless fallacy. A more accurate comparison would be to depict humans as animals.
Human Nature
I’m not sure where you stand on the whole kinship to monkeys thing. I have my own opinions about how we all got here. However, anthropomorphizing human character traits onto the animal kingdom will not take you to a happy place.
The adorable kitten that seems so entertaining as it chases the spot from your laser sight around the room? That little monster is just trying to catch some defenseless creature so it can rip the very life out of it.
The puppy who so enjoys its new squeaky toy? That thing is, in its mind at least, killing a bunny rabbit with its teeth. We live in a pervasively broken world. The animal kingdom is dirty with examples.
The War
Chimpanzees are cute … from a distance. I cut my teeth on Saturday morning Tarzan movies. There was a time when I coveted such a pet myself. However, it turns out that chimps are actually bloodthirsty killers, just like the rest of us.
In the early 1970s, Mike, the alpha male leader of a pack of chimps in Tanzania, was reaching the end of his use-by date. As a result, this previously coherent pack of primates fractionated into two clans. The researchers who were studying them titled the two groups the Kasakela and the Kahama. I have no idea what those names mean.
The separation was not instantaneous. It took about eight months. Eventually, the Kahamas consisted of six grown males — Hugh, Charlie, Godi, De, Goliath and Sniff — along with three adult females and their associated offspring. The Kasakela retained eight adult males — Figan, Satan, Sherry, Evered, Rodolf, Jomeo, Mike and Humphrey — as well as a dozen females and their kids.
There was plenty of space. You might think that these two tribes of chimps, all descended from common progenitors, might just stake out some territory and live in harmony. Perhaps they’d host play dates for the little guys or engage in the occasional supper club among friends just to maintain the family ties. Nope, that’s not the way things went at all.
Over the next four years, the Kasakela clan engaged in an intentional and focused campaign of extermination against the Kahamas. Hugh and Charlie of the Kahamas also undertook deep penetration missions into Kasakela territory, sowing mayhem. They used all manner of improvised weapons in pursuit of their martial goals. Sharp stones were particularly in evidence.
This is Ham, the first primate in space. I’m not
sure he actually volunteered for that mission.
Details
Chimpanzees are fiercely territorial. During the course of the Gombe War, male chimps on both sides aggressively patrolled the periphery of their communities, raiding as the opportunities arose. Then, on January 7, 1974, things got seriously kinetic.
Six adult Kasakela males, along with one female named Gigi, ambushed Godi while he was out feeding and beat him to death. Then, they fell upon De, wounding him so severely that he succumbed in short order. After that was Goliath. Hugh followed soon thereafter. They then attacked and killed Charlie, followed by a female named Madam Bee.
In each case, the Kasakela chimps operated like a cohesive unit, systematically isolating their enemies so they could attack on favorable terms. Eventually, Sniff was the only remaining Kahama male. However, roughly a year later, a Kasakela war party encountered him alone and killed him as well. Along the way, the Kasakela murdered one female, ran two off, and kidnapped three who were brought back to Kahama lands as war booty.
Once the Kahama tribe was liquidated, the Kasakela moved in and seized their territory. However, other neighboring chimp clans were stronger and more numerous. In short order, the Kasakela were pushed back into their original boundaries.
Jane Goodall, the legendary chimpanzee expert, was on hand to document these events. In her memoir “Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe,” she wrote, “For several years, I struggled to come to terms with this new knowledge.
Often when I woke in the night, horrific pictures sprang unbidden to my mind — Satan, cupping his hand below Sniff’s chin to drink the blood that welled from a great wound on his face; old Rodolf, usually so benign, standing upright to hurl a four-pound rock at Godi’s prostrate body; Jomeo tearing a strip of skin from Dé’s thigh; Figan, charging and hitting, again and again, the stricken, quivering body of Goliath, one of his childhood heroes.”
Ruminations
I wish the Russians would leave the Ukrainians alone. I’d also be happier if their Arab neighbors could just stop firing rockets into Israel. It would be nice, while we’re dreaming, if we Americans got along a little better, too. Then, I wouldn’t have to sit on a pistol every time I zip into town to pick up a gallon of milk. However, that’s just not the world we live in.
I carry a gun because people are bad. It turns out that chimps are born sinful as well. So are lemurs, frogs, tigers, elephants and bacteria. We push back against that darkness as best we can, but it also behooves us to be prepared. That’s why the founders included the Second Amendment right there after the First.
After reading about the Gombe Chimpanzee War, a Polish poet named Katarzyna Zechenter wrote “The First Civil War in Gombe 1974–1978.” In it, she said, “Still, I don’t understand, were these chimps so human, or are we such animals?” Indeed.
- Friends of Havana blame the U.S., but the Trump administration had to act before China turned the island into a military bastion.
- Declassified intelligence showed that Chinese signals-intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019.
- “China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida’s coast.” — The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2023.
- President Donald Trump acted before the Chinese could base missiles in Cuba.
Cuban society, due to a U.S. naval embargo, is close to collapse.
Friends of Havana blame the U.S., but the Trump administration had to act before China turned the island into a military bastion.
America took control of Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA, after the January 3 raid that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Then the U.S. stopped the flow of Venezuelan oil to the Cuban regime.
At the same time, the Trump administration, by threatening tariffs on oil suppliers, imposed a de facto oil embargo on Havana. The U.S. Navy has deterred vessels from unloading cargo in Cuba.
To get through the American picket line, tankers have been employing deceptive tactics. For instance, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse, carrying gasoil, was falsely broadcasting that it was “not under command” and drifting in the Sargasso Sea for almost three weeks. In reality, the ship spoofed its location and probably unloaded 190,000 barrels in Cuba in the early part of this month.
A delivery from the Sea Horse, according to the Windward site, would be “the first confirmed arrival of a refined products cargo at the island since early January.”
As a result of the American actions, Cuba has almost run out of energy. The Cuban grid has collapsed three times so far this month, throwing the island into darkness.
“Why is the U.S. doing this?” asks Cambridge University’s Jostein Hauge on X, referring to the blockade on Cuba. “For no reason other than its dislike of the Cuban regime. Cuba poses no threat to the U.S.”
Really?
“China uses Cuba as a platform for many of its regional intelligence and security operations,” Joseph Humire, then executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, told this author in 2021.
There is, most prominently, the Lourdes facility just west of Havana near Bejucal, once the Soviet Union’s largest listening station outside its borders. The Chinese are thought to have taken over the facility shortly after the fall of the USSR.
China now has more than just Lourdes. A December 2024 Center for Strategic & International Studies report identifies three more likely Chinese listening posts in Cuba. There is the Soviet-era Calabazar, and a second, Wajay, appears to have been built after the fall of the Soviet Union. There is also a new station, El Salao.
The CSIS report notes that unconfirmed accounts of China’s intelligence presence on the island began with the visit of China’s Defense Minister General Chi Haotian in 1999.
The Chinese may have been operating listening posts in Cuba since 1993, R. Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College told Gatestone at the beginning of last year.
China and Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reported in June 2023, agreed in principle to establish a new listening site on Cuban soil. The Biden administration denied the report, but two days later declassified intelligence showing that Chinese signals-intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019.
Cuba is an ideal location to surveil America. “Sitting less than 100 miles south of Florida, Cuba is well-positioned to keep watch on sensitive communications and activities, including those of the U.S. military,” the CSIS report states. “The southeastern seaboard of the United States brims with military bases, combatant command headquarters, space launch centers, and military testing sites.”
Moreover, Cuba is an ideal location for a Chinese military base. “China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida’s coast,” reported the Wall Street Journal in 2023.
China stated that the Wall Street Journal report was “totally mendacious and unfounded,” but it is nonetheless evident that China wants an enhanced facility on Cuba, just as it has established de facto military sites throughout Latin America.
Moreover, President Donald Trump acted before the Chinese could base missiles in Cuba.
So, whatever one thinks of the harsh consequences of the U.S. naval embargo — there is a worsening humanitarian crisis in Cuba now — the Havana regime, by allowing the Chinese to have the run of the island, does pose a threat to the United States.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
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Emily Perez
Emily Perez was a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army serving in Iraq who became the first female African-American officer in US military history to die in combat. After graduating from high school with honors, she entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. There she was an exemplary student and talented track star, becoming the highest-ranking African-American female cadet in the history of West Point. She was a Cadet Command Sargent Major.
Following graduation from West Point in 2005, she was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army.
Perez was deployed to Iraq in December as a Medical Service Corps officer. Perez was killed in action on September 12, 2006, while leading a convoy through Al Kifl, Iraq. She was killed when a makeshift bomb exploded near her Humvee during combat operations in Al Kifl, near Najaf.
Lieutenant Perez’s military awards include the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, and the Combat Action Badge. She posthumously received the NCAA Award of Valor in 2008. Her former unit honored her by naming a street “Emily’s Way” and a medical center the “Emily J.T. Perez Treatment Facility”. She is buried in West Point’s Cemetary. RIP Emily RIP.
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