I really can't say much on this story, since it might be considered overtly anti-American & then who wants to deal with its "consequences". But, this is still a great opinion piece on one of the most powerful men in the world. Reading this piece reminded me of a piece Canadian Business magazine did back in August 2013 in which it showed that Henry Kissinger is the only man in the world who is a member in all of the 3 most powerful & elitist organizations in the world (World Economic Forum, Bilderberg Group, & Trilateral Commission).
Henry Kissinger is also the one who said that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." In my personal experience, whoever loves power so much, he/she will certainly abuse it & will hurt a lot of people in the process. This piece made me think that the way this man thinks, he has done & will still do anything to achieve what he wants more, which is, power. We try to teach our children that "with great power comes great responsibility," but, as this piece suggests, Kissinger's hunger for power almost makes him a sociopath.
As the piece below states how Kissinger supported prolonging the Vietnam war & the secret Cambodian war, in which hundreds of thousands people died. His powerful actions in the hallowed halls of government irreversibly changed the lives of millions around the world, from Latin America to North America to Asia. He apparently loved to attack other countries to show American military prowess. He loved more violence, government secrecy, militarism & ruling with the classic dictatorial "divide & conquer."
The piece ends with an excellent, & rather unfortunate, line that the world's humanity still has dark days ahead, since, his methods are still being employed by the American government & he is still deeply involved with the foreign policies of US governments.
But, hey, he will not be tried, for his actions, in the International Criminal Court (ICC) or any other court of justice in this world. Per my last quote picture of Criminal Minds here, the society is definitely not taking the place of thousands of victims & on their behalf demanding any atonement for Kissinger's push for military actions against innocent people around the world. At least dictators like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Joseph Stalin, Robert Mugabe, & several others from Latin America, Africa, or Asia killed innocent people of their own country. Henry Kissinger's actions made the life hell for thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Panama & who knows wherever else. So who is the bigger dictator here? Where is the justice coming from the largest self-anointed "just" & "fair" country of the world?
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In 1950, Henry Kissinger - who would go on to serve as an inordinately powerful US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State - wrote that "life is suffering, birth involves death".
As historian Greg Grandin documents in his just-released book "Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman", the man's "existentialism laid the foundation for how he would defend his later policies". In Kissinger's view, Grandin explains, life's inherently tragic nature means that "there isn't much any one individual can do to make things worse than they already are".
Of course, the victims of Kissinger-sanctioned military escapades and other forms of inflicted suffering might beg to differ. Among the countless casualties are the dead and maimed of the Vietnam War - a disaster Kissinger fought to prolong despite recognising that it was unwinnable - and the secret US war that was launched on neutral Cambodia in 1969.
'Power for power's sake'
A pet project of Kissinger and then-President Richard Nixon, the bombing of that country killed more than 100,000 civilians in four years, according to Ben Kiernan, the director of Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program.
To this day, the cluster bombs with which the US saturated sections of southeast Asia continue to wreak deadly havoc.
And from Chile to Panama to Iraq to Angola to East Timor, there's no dearth of evidence linking increased earthly suffering to Kissingerian policy & tradition, which still exert a preponderant influence over the US political establishment. (Complaints could even be filed by impoverished victims of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Kissinger unofficially helped negotiate years after leaving office.)
As Grandin notes, Kissinger had an "outsized role… in creating the world we live in today, which accepts endless war as a matter of course".
Embracing the pursuit of "power for power's sake", Kissinger advocated for war in order to "show that action is possible", Grandin writes, and to thus maintain American power - the purpose of which "is to create American purpose". With such an approach to existence, it's perhaps no wonder the former statesman found the whole phenomenon to be rather dismal.
Campaign against history
Grandin details Kissinger's contributions to the "rehabilitation of the national security state" in the US around a "restored imperial presidency", which, he contends, was based on "ever more spectacular displays of violence, more intense secrecy, and an increasing use of war and militarism to leverage domestic dissent and polarisation for political advantage".
A key aspect of Kissinger's own dominant role in contemporary history is his philosophy of history itself, which Grandin summarises as follows: "For Kissinger, the past was nothing but 'a series of meaningless incidents'". According to this mindset, under no circumstances must history be seen as a collection of causal relationships capable of guiding current policy choices.
The concept of blowback, for example, is conveniently disappeared - such that Kissinger, for one, is excused from having to acknowledge the reality that US military aggression against Cambodia in fact helped propel the Khmer Rouge to power. Instead, further US military aggression was deemed to be the proper antidote to the new state of affairs.
Two and two
The forcible severing of cause from effect has also come in handy in places like Afghanistan, a country whose history is often reduced to one date: September 11, 2001. But go a bit further back in time, as Grandin does, and you'll find that the conversion of the country into a base for transnational jihad was in no small part an effect of policies put into place by - who else? - Kissinger.
These included facilitating destabilising behaviour vis-a-vis Afghanistan by the shah of Iran, Pakistani intelligence, and Saudi Arabia, and encouraging the flow of weapons to radical Islamists.
Naturally, none of this history prompted an internal questioning of US qualifications to spearhead the post-9/11 war on terror. Now, nearly 14 years and trillions of dollars later, it might be a good time to start putting two and two together - particularly given the expansion of the war to encompass the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an entity the US helped create in the first place.
Dark days
In an interview last year with radio host Todd Zwillich, Kissinger defended his infamous bombing of Cambodia on the following grounds: "The current administration is doing it in Pakistan, Somalia". The "it" apparently refers to Barack Obama's covert drone strikes on countries with which the US is not at war.
But as Grandin points out, this retroactive justification fails to account for the fact that "what [Kissinger] did nearly half a century ago created the conditions for today’s endless wars". In Cambodia and elsewhere, he "institutionalised a self-fulfilling logic of intervention", whereby US "action led to reaction [and] reaction demanded more action".
Of course, if power depends on the constant proof that "action is possible", this seems like a pretty logical - if sociopathic - arrangement.
As for Kissinger's shadow, it doesn't appear to be budging anytime soon - portending many a dark day ahead for humanity.
Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
now, what if the party which injures (murderer) is a government official / diplomat / a government administration / any powerful figure (police force) & the murder itself happens to take place in a foreign place where thousands unnecessarily died [Japan, China, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yemen, Colombia, India, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine (Crimea), Rwanda, Bosnia, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Congo, Sudan, Canada, US etc.]. Where's the atonement for all those unnecessary deaths?
This is one of the examples of what happens when ethics & religion are disconnected from the general public's everyday life. Ethics is a by-product of faith & religion, regardless of which religion one believes in. But, then the general public is told that religion & ethics has no room in their daily lives.
Businesses do make a big show of conducting their businesses with ethical principles, but then everyone's ethics is different. A robber thinks that the society has done him/her wrong & is liable to pay reparations to him/her. In the same vein, the owner of a company thinks he/she has worked hard to build this business, & hence, cutting costs & increasing profits, at the expense of increasing social misery is all ethical. He/she thinks that as long as he/she is following the minimum law required of him/her, he/she is all good.
Here, the companies are extracting, or a better word would be, "extorting" money out of criminals, alleged & proven, alike. Now, some may think that since these people are criminals, & perhaps, don't have any morals & ethics, of themselves, it's all right to "extort" money out of them for their phone calls to their families. If that's the case, then perhaps, the Pope Francis should not make a habit of visiting prisons on his continental tours.
Regardless, however, as I've blogged in my prior blog posts, most criminals don't want to become criminals in the first place. Their extraneous circumstances made them criminals. Every human wants to put food on the table, clothe themselves & their families, & put a secure roof over their heads. But the unending greed of wealthy individuals to hoard as much money as they can, while keeping the government officials in their pockets, too, leave the poor out in the cold. Then, some people out of that poor public resort to violence & wrong means to support themselves & their families.
Heck, one can see the corruption of these phone companies in that they are offering latest tablets & signing bonuses (or in other words, "bribes") to prison individuals to secure these lucrative phone contracts. Is that exactly ethical or moral from any point of view?
Furthermore, the discrimination at all levels; racial, ethnic, linguistic, & regional etc. creates more misery for members of that poor public. For instance, several laws in US are considered quite harsh for African-Americans, e.g. getting arrested for not paying parking tickets or even sleeping out in park benches. The people who are getting those tickets or fines are not exactly earning 6-figure salaries but struggling to pay for their food, clothes, & rent.
Coming back to this article, these companies are earning exorbitant profits from the misery of people who are put in the so-called prison & justice system. They are essentially making money off of someone else's misery. Those people are of poverty-ridden backgrounds themselves & every nickel & dime they need to spend to talk to their loved ones, who may help them in not becoming further violent, are not going towards their loved ones' food, clothes, & rental payments.
To add insult to injury, company CEOs are actually fighting government laws, which is doing something good for a change, to keep "extorting" the poor.
So, who is the real criminal here? The one who might have been forced by his/her extraneous circumstances to forgo all ethics & morals & resort to violence or someone who is making a 6-figure salary (investors included) & has a complete control of his/her decision to not "bribe" government officials & not only reduce these calling fees but help the government come up with laws in support of reducing such high calling fees?
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Private phone companies are making a pretty penny by nickel-and-diming prison inmates & their families, sometimes to the tune of $2 a minute for in-state phone calls. Yet the exorbitant fees keep taxpayers from footing the bill.
The prison phone industry has been booming since the 1990s. It’s grown to a $1.2 billion-a-year industry dominated by a few private companies, as people made some 500 million calls totaling more than 6 billion minutes both to & from prisons & jails in 2014 alone, the New York Times reported.
RT’s Lindsay France called Global Tel*Link (GTL), which contracts with Los Angeles County, to set up an account to call a fictional friend at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.
“The nice lady on the phone told me that first off, I’d be hit with a nearly $5 sign-up fee, a possible service fee, possible facilities fee depending on where I wanted to call into,” France said. “And when my fictional friend or loved one gets out and I ask for a refund on the money left inside my account, I get hit with a fee then too.”
On top of those fees, France learned that there was no way to determine the per-minute rate of a call until it had been made & paid for.
Anthony Graves spent 18 years on death row accused of a crime for which he was later exonerated. He struggled to maintain communication with his support network at home by phone.
“That was very expensive. It was like 15 dollars for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. So very expensive all the way around. It’s like I said, at the end of the day everyone’s making a dollar now,” he told RT. “The whole rehabilitation thing is going out the window with private industries coming in and making a lot of money.”
Graves isn’t alone in paying such a high price to keep in touch. The Prison Policy Initiative reported that a call from California’s La Verne City Jail to an in-state number requires a connection fee of $12.59 & a per-minute charge of $1.15, amounting to nearly $30 for a 15-minute call.
After a decade of complaints from prison-rights groups & families of inmates, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is slowly attempting to rein in the telecom companies.
In August 2013, the FCC instituted interim requirements for interstate long-distance calls, capping rates at $0.21 per minute for debit & pre-paid calls & $0.25 per minute for collect calls. A revised version of the rules went into effect last February. Typical commercial rates ‒ those not involving the prison system ‒ cost a mere $0.04 per minute, according to the NY Times.
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Those rules didn’t affect the cost of in-state calls, however, which the Prison Policy Initiative says comprise 92% of prison phone calls. The agency began focusing on lowering the cost of all calls between prisoners & their loved ones last fall, noting that “the cost of in-state calls remains high, calling fees have mounted, and payments to prisons unrelated to the cost of providing service have escalated, driving up rates.”
The same month that the FCC rules went into effect, Securus Technologies & GTL both offered incentive-laden contracts to one Georgia county, France reported. Securus offered a little over a million-dollar signing bonus for a five-year contract with 110 free tablet computers thrown in, while GTL proposed $1.5 million upfront for a seven-year deal & threw in 150 tablets.
In response to the offers ‒ & knowing that more FCC regulations were likely in the pipeline ‒ the jail’s administrator told the companies: “Since it is highly likely that the FCC will be eliminating all inmate phone commissions in the near future, in lieu of a (MAG) Minimum Annual Guarantee, please discuss alternatives” that “would provide to supplement the loss of jail phone revenues.”
In October [2014], the FCC opened up comments on “a comprehensive, market-based approach to achieving just, fair & reasonable rates for all inmate calling – local, in-state long-distance and out-of-state long distance.” It is also looking at banning so-called “site commissions,” which are payments that prisons demand of the inmate calling service providers & are often used by prisons to pay for services & facilities not related to the cost of hosting calling services. The agency is also seeking to impose permanent rate caps on all of those services, replacing the current, interim ones.
Prison phone call providers are fighting the FCC’s rules, saying that the rate caps have forced them to lose money on those calls.
“We think some of the new rates are below our cost,” Richard Smith, president & CEO of Dallas-based Securus, told Time last February. He said his company handles 120 million calls per year at an average rate of $3.50 per call, & that, while some inmates may have paid $17 per call, those cases were “outliers” made by inmates he believed were pushing an agenda.
“This is a public policy issue,” Smith added, noting that vendors like Securus will end up paying prisons less in site commissions, which totaled $460 million in 2013 ‒ money that cash-strapped facilities will have to make up elsewhere. “Taxes are going to go up,” he said.
Prisoner advocates argue, however, that there’s another public-policy issue involved ‒ that of recidivism.
“If you are an inmate and you have strong ties to your family, the less likely you are to reoffend,” Diane Goldstein, an executive board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, told RT. “If you are an inmate that has rehabilitation opportunities inside prison and you get an education and you walk out with a skill the less likely you are to reoffend.”
This article points to a primary reason why violence is so rampant in developing countries & increasing at a fast rate in developed countries, too. The primary reason for youths & young people to join gangs, or simply be involved in street violence, is the spreading hopelessness for their future, which in turn, is happening because of increasing poverty & a lack of respectable work opportunities.
There's a saying that an empty mind is a devil's abode. As long as a person, especially a young one, keep himself / herself busy, they will be happy. Problem is with what are they keeping themselves busy. Is it something constructive or destructive?
Many of these youths are uneducated. It's not because they don't want any education, but because, the education system has become so expensive everywhere around the world that, even in the developed countries of North America & Europe (except a few countries), a youth & his / her family has to think twice before going to a post-secondary institution. Due to economic reasons, if he / she chooses something else over education, then cycle of violence starts. Heck, even if he / she is educated, he / she may still chooses to be involved in violence. And it's for a simple reason that he / she & his family needs food, clothing, & a roof over their heads.
Jobs, even for educated youths, are becoming scarce all over the world. Everywhere it's all about connections & networking. That doesn't help a large swath of young population who may not have the right connections because their parents & friends only know of people who are in the similar circumstances as they are.
Economic situations, the wrong result of capitalism (hoarding of wealth by a few rich individuals), the increasing social & wealth gap between rich & poor are all leading towards more misery & poverty for the billions around the world. Austerity measures in the name of economy is only creating more misery for the poor, while wealth is actually increasing for the rich. Wealthy families are simply sitting on their giant piles of cash instead of investing in the economy to create more jobs, which in turn, is only going to create more work opportunities for the youths.
Many youths, who are already involved in violence, also want to get out of that violent life, but they see no future in earning a honest buck. Because, there's more hopelessness in their future going down that route. In one of earlier posts, ex-convicts in US told how the justice & prison systems is made to trap a convict in a life of continuing violence. No one wants to take a chance on a youth who might have done something wrong in their life. If nobody offers them a second chance, they will of course re-offend & goes back into the for-profit prison system.
Furthermore, if the youths are busy with the right kind of "work", instead of killing & looting their fellow compatriots, they will not only be putting food on their families' table, clothing their kids, & putting roof over their families, they will also be feeling satisfied & fulfilled to be earning compensation from a non-violent line of work. Governments, & of course, the wealthy people, will also be reaping rewards with fewer criminals out on the streets & more tax-paying individuals. It is a win-win result for everyone in a society.
But the problem is how many rich individuals are willing to take that first step of investing in the young populations of their countries?
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It is Sunday morning in San Salvador & San Rafael hospital's accident & emergency department is full.
People are lying in the corridors on spare hospital beds waiting their turn.
Those who can sit up are in wheelchairs ... .
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June saw 677 murders in El Salvador, more than any other month since the country's civil war ended in 1992.
Juan - not his real name - is lucky not to be another number in those grisly statistics. 37 years old, he runs a recycling business & a carwash. 4 men arrived at his work & opened fire: 40 bullets.
"Thank God just one bullet hit my arm," he tells me from his hospital bed.
Juan says in the 20 years he has had his own business he has never given in to gangs trying to extort money from him. ...
The police never came to see him to find out what happened. And did he go to them to report it?
"What's the point? I don't believe in the system," he says. He is now making plans to leave the country with his wife & 2 children.
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Faith
On the outskirts of the capital, San Salvador, is a factory that is trying to pick up the pieces ... . It is not long after dawn & all the workers at League Central America are gathered outside. Everyone listens intently to a motivational speech followed by prayers.
Once that is over, work begins. Most of the more than 400 employees are sat behind sewing machines, sewing on labels or cutting material that is used to make sweatshirts & shorts.
All the clothes here are branded with American university logos such as Harvard & Brown & sent to the US.
Just over one in 10 are former gang members, from both the rival gangs - the Mara Salvatrucha & the 18th Street gang. You can tell their affiliation by the tattoos that some of them still have. Up until a few years ago, it used to be standard if you were a gang member.
But tattoos apart, they have started new lives here. One of them - I'll call him Jorge to protect his identity - came to work here through a church group. That is a prerequisite to work here.
After years of robbing, extorting, attacking & even killing several people, he decided to give it all up.
"It didn't make any sense, I was bored of it," he tells me. "I was fed up with suffering. I was in the street all the time.
"My daughter was born and I didn't want her to go through the same thing I had gone through."
The only thing left of his gang days is the tattoo. He pulls down his lower lip to show it to me - carved out with a knife, it is inked with the words MS - to mark him out as a Mara. He says though that gang violence is getting worse.
"They go around killing police, soldiers," he says. "It's partly because of the lack of work, the poverty.
"There are lots of former gang members who want to change their lives but they don't have a way out, nobody gives them an opportunity. So they go back to what they used to do."
Jorge was lucky. He is now one of the chief pattern cutters at League Central America & is thankful for another chance at life.
'No choice'
"People join gangs because they have to. They join because they have no other choice," says Carly Gerstman, the development manager at League Central America.
"We've found that they have the motivation and they have the drive and they have the appreciation that, you know, we are bringing them back in and we are giving them this opportunity, and they take it and they run with it."
Company boss Rodrigo Bolanos says businesses need to play a part in solving the cycle of violence.
"The war between the government and gang members is already here, it's already started," he says.
"In the process of suffocating the economy and the country the private companies need to take a position to look for a dignified way out."
The oppressor is always afraid from the truth & hence, never wants the truth to be out in the world. Unfortunately, in this case, the oppressor is not a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist or some other 'kaffir' but is the Protector of the Two Holy Mosques in one of the two holiest places for Islam (the other one being Al-Aqsa mosque).
The demise of Saudi Arabia is not in some far-off future but in the very near future. The pride & hubris of Saudis of being the 'chosen' one (because Prophet Muhammad were one of them), its sole dependence on oil for its country's revenue (& using that God-given resource & resulting revenue to enrich its own citizens multiple folds), & trying to control & manipulate regional politics in its favour, going as far as colluding with Israel &, directly & indirectly, killing fellow Muslims, are all coming back to haunt it.
Its economy is falling in shambles. It embroiled itself in a war from which victory seems elusive. Its power play in regional politics coming undone. Its respect among Muslims around the world is cracking, if not fallen right off the cliff.
Islam is all about justice & truth. Justice doesn't require hiding truth from media using power & money. Actually, it's very hard, if not impossible, to hide the truth. It may keep hidden for awhile, but it eventually reveals itself. When the truth does come out, the oppressor is always punished in the name of justice.
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To paint a better picture of the Kingdom, Riyadh has been paying media across the globe as well as setting plans to ban reporters critical of the government from working in the country, Reporters Without Borders concluded after digging into WikiLeaks.
The so called ‘Saudi Cables’, revealed by the whistleblowing website, were used by Reporters Without Borders to give a better insight at the lengths the Saudi authorities are willing to go to in order to try to present a more positive image of the country abroad.
The non-governmental organization cites numerous examples dated from 2010 until 2015 including Saudi Arabia looking to fund media publications from around the globe – from Iran to Senegal.
“In 2011, for example, the Saudi embassy in London suggested funding Wesal Farsi TV (now called Tawhid), a London-based, Persian-language TV station owned by a Sunni Iranian citizen opposed to his country’s government. In return for monthly funding and allowing Saudi Arabia to appoint a representative to its board of governors, the TV station would respond to Iranian media criticism of Saudi Arabia,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) wrote on their website.
The cables also highlight how some media organizations would actually approach the Saudi’s themselves for funding. Reporters Without Borders cites the example of the Afghan media center Spogmai. Its head requested funding in 2009 for the creation of a news website, a daily newspaper, a magazine & a TV station that would act as counterweights to Afghan media outlets, which were funded by rivals Iran.
Not all media outlets are willing to be bought, but the Saudi government seems to have a solution for those not interested in petrol dollars, RSF says.
Infuriated by the Financial Times newspaper, which it had said had “published lies” about Saudi Arabia, authorities in the Kingdom forced the publication to withdraw its correspondent & shut down its bureau in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia even considered taking legal action against the newspaper if it did not issue an apology & seek to report on the Kingdom in a “neutral” & “objective” manner.
The Saudi regime has also targeted journalists, the report finds. The country’s embassy in Berlin paid 5 German reporters at least €7,500 per month in order to write positive articles about Saudi Arabia every 6 months. This came in response to an alleged campaign by the Israeli embassy in Berlin cooperating with German media publications to write against Arab countries.
“The embassies play a dynamic role in organizing and maintaining active pro-Saudi propaganda abroad. As they are familiar with the local media, they are best placed to monitor what the media are saying and to make suggestions to the Saudi government,” Reporters Without Borders stated.
Following the revelations by WikiLeaks, the Saudi government warned its citizens not to share documents on social networks as they said they could have been fabricated.
...
“We are seeing how the oil money is being used to increase influence of Saudi Arabia which is substantial of course - this is ally of the US and the UK. And since this spring it has been waging war in neighboring Yemen,” Icelandic investigative journalist & spokesperson for the WikiLeaks organization Kristinn Hrafnsson told RT.
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So, basically, US wants to keep increasing its military power & prowess, & keep projecting it on to the world. If you are one of those "rogue" nations, who think there might be another way of living life than what the Hollywood is teaching the world, then you will be branded a "terrorist nation," & will be forced, through deathly sanctions, into submission. You better kneel before your 21st Century American gods OR we will make you kneel & prostrate before us.
When people of other countries don't go along with what the US wants, the international media comes along & helps US in achieving its objectives of making others believe its false opinions & lies about other "rogue" nations. American military action is then taken, unilaterally or with allies, resulting in millions of unnecessary innocent deaths. Then, those people of that nation want to retaliate & want justice for what has been done to them; only for not going along with what America wanted them to do in the first place.
That retaliation & call for justice result in guerilla war tactics & so-called "terrorism". Innocent, albeit completely clueless & ignorant, people die in those attacks, too, except not only they are mourned on the international stage, since they were killed in a Western developed country, & an ally of US, but their deaths are exploited for more punishment through wars.
The end result for all this "my-manhood-is-bigger-than-thou" competition is innocents die on multiple fronts, while the powerful elites in military, weapons manufacturing industry, military-industrial complex, governments, lobbyists, financial services etc. enjoy ever-more wealth & power.
Besides, all of the innocent people suffering due to deaths & injuries on both sides, countries who are actively waging wars (US & its allies) also suffer the economic & social breakdown in their own societies. Reason being is that governments start cutting social spending & divert that money towards military & its related industries. Since, the governments become more financially conservative, more people starts falling into social problems like homelessness, poverty, unemployment, health, illiteracy, discrimination etc. Case in point is that since US got engaged in ever more wars around the world (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Somalia etc.), homelessness & poverty has increased multiple folds in all major cities of US; from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles.
End result for all this preservation of American dominion of the world is more misery, death, destruction, chaos & problems for everyone living on this tiny dot in the vast universe; regardless of one's active or inactive or voluntarily or involuntarily. The world will suffer & no one will be the winner; not even the powerful rich elites.
The world is entering into a very volatile period & the saddest part of all this is that people are not learning from their pasts & still continuing to forge ahead to wield their powers on others. Remember that famous quote that nations (& people) who forget their pasts are doomed to repeat it.
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The US military needs to remain engaged around the world against both rival states & non-state actors, while nurturing regional allies & promoting American values, declares the Pentagon’s new National Military Strategy 2015.
That the US is “the world’s strongest nation, enjoying unique advantages in technology, energy, alliances and partnerships, and demographics,” is the underlying assumption in the document. “However, these advantages are being challenged.”
The main challengers are the state actors of Russia, Iran & North Korea, & non-state groups – particularly the “violent extremist organizations” (VEO) such as Islamic State & the Taliban. The strategy attempts to create a unified approach to dealing with both, seeking to “deter, deny, and defeat” the states & “disrupt and degrade” the non-state groups.
The document blames Russia for violating “numerous agreements” with its “military actions.” This list of agreements includes a number of pacts that US has been also violating such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Iran & North Korea, on the other hand, are accused of seeking nuclear weapons. The document explains that the US would like to see China, which is not listed as a rival, as part of the international order, rather than a regional power challenging Washington’s dominance.
“None of these nations are believed to be seeking direct military conflict with the United States or our allies,” the document summarizes. “Nonetheless, they each pose serious security concerns which the international community is working to collectively address by way of common policies, shared messages, and coordinated action.”
The Pentagon aims to address the conflicts against “VEOs” by addressing the “root causes” of conflicts in failed states, with the military helping providing security while governments & international agencies provide economic opportunities & humanitarian assistance.
...
Technological frontier
"We now face multiple, simultaneous security challenges from traditional state actors and transregional networks of sub-state groups — all taking advantage of rapid technological change," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey wrote in the introduction. "We are more likely to face prolonged campaigns than conflicts that are resolved quickly."
Driven by globalization, technology is enabling other states & groups around the world to challenge the advantages long enjoyed by the US, such as early warning & precision strike capability, the document notes. This requires the US to embrace “greater agility, innovation, and integration” to meet these challenges, & “reinforces the need for the US military to remain globally engaged to shape the security environment and to preserve our network of alliances.”
Brian Becker, director of the ‘Answer’ anti-war coalition, says that complaints about losing technological advantages are largely targeted at the domestic public. “American are being told that there is no money for hospitals, schools and many other vitally needed social programs, but suddenly we will have a clarion call that the United States must catchup, it must not let its adversaries Russia or China become superior to America, this is precisely what triggered the arms race in the 1950s,” he said to RT.
Global presence
US military presence around the world is explained as key to the security of allies & partners, a factor of stability in promoting “economic growth and regional integration” and giving Washington the capability to react swiftly in case of a crisis.
“We are prepared to project power across all domains to stop aggression and win our Nation’s wars by decisively defeating adversaries,” the document states. “While we prefer to act in concert with others, we will act unilaterally if the situation demands.”
The strategy says that the US “will press forward with the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, placing our most advanced capabilities and greater capacity in that vital theater.” It also remains committed to NATO allies & Israel’s security.
“If you look at what the US is doing, not to what it says in the document, the pivot towards Asia is a pivot of containment,” Becker says. “The new military strategy, which is to take all of the non-Chinese republics and nations in the region and forge them into a US-led military alliance, cannot be perceived in China as anything else but a threat to its national interest.”
In addition to safeguarding the survival of the US & prevention of a “catastrophic attack,” the national security interests articulated in the strategy include the “security of the global economic system,” the “security, confidence, and reliability of our allies,” & the “preservation and extension of universal values.”
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Pretty clear what it is saying; essentially, an eye for an eye.
Another one of those articles highlighting how UN "peacekeepers" took advantage of vulnerable people in vulnerable situations. Regardless of who stoops so low in the society, helping someone to gain sexual favours is always wrong. However, if this would've been done by non-UN & some groups in Middle East or Africa, not only that group of people is maligned but the whole religion is dragged through the mud & dirt. But when UN "peacekeepers" do the same thing, it's a back-page news (assuming it's considered news at all in the first place). Western hypocrisy at its peak !!!
When the 2011 movie, "The Whistleblower," showed how UN "peacekeepers" sexually abused girls in war-torn Bosnia, & how UN tried to cover up the whole scandal, the world didn't demand answers from UN for what it has done wrong. UN "peacekeepers" realizing that their actions carry no adverse consequences for themselves or for UN, carried on, business as usual. Now, although, the allegations of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers have spread out from Cambodia to Central African Republic to Haiti; thanks to Western media, UN & the world public still won't take any substantive corrective measures & punish those who did wrong.
Well, UN "peacekeepers" will keep doing what they do best; sexually abusing women, girls, & boys in countries where they are sent to serve & protect the vulnerable general public. Doesn't it seem like that UN is starting to become better in hiding scandals nowadays than to actually prevent wars & chaos in the world?
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According to a new UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report obtained by the news agency, a third of alleged sexual exploitation & abuse involved minors under 18.
The shocking conclusions were revealed after investigators interviewed 231 people in Haiti who claimed they were forced to perform sexual acts with UN peacekeepers in exchange for basic necessities.
“For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication & household items were frequently cited as the 'triggering need,'" the report says. Those living in the city or in its vicinity had sex in exchange for “church shoes, cell phones, laptops & perfume, as well as money,” report says.
“In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers & threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media,” the report says.
The UN explicitly bans the “exchange of money, employment, goods or services for sex,” & discourages relationships between UN staff & those who are under their care. However, only 7 of the interviewed victims “knew about the United Nations policy prohibiting sexual exploitation & abuse,” the report states.
The report ... makes no reference to the time frame of the alleged violations, but the 7,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti started in 2004. The investigation also does not mention the number of peacekeepers involved.
The report says that the lack of any clear action is “demonstrating significant underreporting,” while noting that assistance to those that suffered is “severely deficient.” The average investigation by OIOS takes more than a year, according to AP.
Sexual abuse by peacekeeping troops, some 125,000 of which are currently deployed around the world, has undermined the credibility of their missions. A rapid increase in prostitution & abuse in Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia, Sudan & Kosovo were documented after UN peacekeeping forces moved in.
Earlier this year it was revealed that UN peacekeepers raped & sodomized starving & homeless boys in the Central African Republic, some as young as 9.
However, the number of documented cases of sexual abuse & exploitation by members of UN peacekeeping missions was 51 in 2014, down from 66 the year before, according to the secretary-general's latest annual report on the issue.
Let me start this post by saying that sexual assault (i.e. rape) is wrong, regardless of it's marital rape or any other kind of rape. Perpetrators should be punished to the full extent of the law.
BUT, I don't agree with campaigners in India or anywhere else that marital rape be criminalized. Why?
Problem is that marital rape will be criminalized just like any other kind of rape is in the country. But will that solve the problem? If we forget about India, a developing country, for a minute, & focus on how rape criminal laws help fight / reduce rapes in developed countries, we see that it still happens quite a lot; from marital rapes & domestic abuse to sexual harassment & assault on streets & offices. So much so, that in Canada, there's a project, started by Rogers, called Project97. It's called "Project 97" because, per the organizers of this project, 97% of sexual assaults & harassment are never reported. Please keep in mind that this is in Canada & not something happening in a developing country.
Nobody around the world is trying to resolve the root problem of sexual assaults. What is the root problem?
Media around the world, be it internet, TV, magazines, movies etc. constantly keep pushing the boundaries of female nudity. Sexualized imagery is becoming the norm. Heck, even roaming around nude in the street is now being discussed in New York & Kitchener, because women there want to go out topless or, in some cases, even completely nude. We have celebrities like Kardashian clan or Miley Cyrus who are brainwashing young minds that female nudity in public should be celebrated & not criminalized.
Due to male biology, on the other hand, heterosexual men, who are still in the majority around the world, get aroused by watching a female who is trying to flash as much flesh as she can. The only things holding them back from humping that woman, right there & then, are laws & some moral views (for example, incest is not liked in any culture or country, irrespective of the law of the land).
Now, women in the West are far more liberal. They will go to a dance club & may go home either with a man or sexually satisfy themselves before going back home. If that's not enough, then annual "young sexapalooza" or, in other words, Spring Break in Florida, is internationally famous event, where young female nudity is wholly encouraged. Young males are there to only fornicate & get drunk.
However, women in the East are stuck in between conservative Eastern & liberal Western values. For example, in India, young women want to study, have a career, live in the metropolitan cities all by themselves, & want to choose their life partners themselves. They want to enjoy the night life, just like all those girls do in the Hollywood movies. Bollywood movies are full of Indian actresses in skimpy dresses, dancing all over the place, & men are ogling them like hungry wolves.
But, Indian women also want to marry someone who is highly educated, earns enough money to keep them well pampered, & of course, not a player. They want a respectable family man to raise their children.
On top of that, female infanticide in India is common. Although, it is illegal in the country, couples are still forced by their families to have as many boys as they can have, & girls are killed as soon as the ultrasound results come around. So, in the general population, demographically, the male to female ratio is skewed towards males. So, fewer females for more males in the general society.
One more problem all this sexualized media is causing is infidelity. As you may know how Ashley Madison, the site of cheaters, was hacked recently & the data of 33 Million users was released in the public. As you may know that Ashley Madison is one of the businesses of a Canadian company. It has operations in several countries around the world, including India.
There is nothing essentially wrong with what Ashley Madison is providing to the masses around the world. Since, rape is criminalized in the West, & infidelity or adultery is grounds for divorce, men try to cheat the system by cheating on their wives through an intermediary, Ashley Madison. Men are watching sexualized imagery all around them & women in their lives are trying to control the relationship through sex. So, men just simply cheat to satisfy their sexual arousals.
Some may say at this point that "men are pigs." Male reaction to sexualized imagery is just natural. A couple in love undress in their bedroom to sexually arouse themselves & physically enjoy their love. But, what a man gotta do when he is surrounded by sexualized imagery 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? Did he ask for Miley Cyrus or Kardashian clan to get naked on the worldwide media?
Anyway, now, a poor, young man is watching Bollywood & Hollywood movies, watching porn on Internet, watching supermodels around the world wearing skimpy dresses in fashion magazines, & then watching Indian girls dating & having sexual relations with their boyfriends & even office colleagues. He is sexually aroused on a daily basis. So, at that point, he has 4 options:
1. If he is single & not in a relationship, then find a girlfriend & satisfy his sexual need or pay a prostitute (assuming he has enough money to hire a prostitute).
2. If he is single & in a relationship, then he will try to satisfy himself with his girlfriend, & due to his education level & social upbringing, he may or may not force himself on her.
3. If he is married, then he will try to satisfy himself with his wife, & due to his education level & social upbringing, he may or may not force himself on his wife.
4. If he is married, then he may try to cheat on his wife with a girlfriend or a prostitute.
As you can see in the example above, I started the example with the word, "poor". Because, in many cases, especially in India, but it happens all around the world, poor men have a very difficult time in starting a relationship. Girls want to start a relationship with a man who can pamper them. Money is an issue. An educated, but poor, man has a hard time in getting married in South Asia. But that poor man still has sexual needs, & even more so, after watching so much sexual images all around him. He may want to get married but he can't, because girls or their families want him to be educated (education costs money, too) or be education & be rich.
So, as you can see, nobody influential in the world of media is working towards reducing female nudity in the media. Quite contrary, it is being encouraged. Men, however, are being told to 'keep it in their pants', which goes against their biological nature. Women are trying to control relationships through sex; rewarding their male partners by sex when they are good & holding it back if their male partners do something undesirable. It is similar to being a pet that desirable behaviours are rewarded & undesirable ones are punished by the owners.
Cheating or adultery or infidelity is illegal in a majority of the countries. So married men are forced to rely on their wives for sexual satisfaction. They wouldn't have so much sexual needs if they are not bombarded 24/7 by sexualized media. But that's not the case. So, he is "forced" to relieve his sexual tension through his wife, since adultery is not allowed. But the wife just doesn't "feel" like having sex. What's he supposed to do? If he forces her, then it becomes marital rape. If he finds another girl, then it becomes cheating.
Today's man, around the world, is stuck between rock & a hard place.
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In India, it is not a crime for a man to rape his wife. And many believe that marriage is a source of sexual satisfaction for men &, therefore, women must submit.
No equality
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Campaigners have long demanded that marital rape be criminalised in India.
A committee formed after the December 2012 gang rape & murder of a student on a bus in Delhi to suggest criminal law reforms recommended that martial rape should invite the same punishment as any other rape. The government of the day, led by the Congress party, rejected the recommendation.
Victims of marital rape, however, refuse to give up the fight.
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Widely prevalent
Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy who specialises in human rights litigation & gender justice says Indian law provides little relief to victims of marital rape.
"At the moment, a wife can file a case under the domestic violence act which are dealt with in a civil court. It gives a woman a legal right to separate from her husband on the grounds of cruelty.
"But what is the legal provision to punish the act of crime? Any sexual act which is forced or is being done without the consent of the woman is a crime. The relationship of the victim with the perpetrator makes no difference."
A number of studies done over the years suggest that sexual violence in marriage is prevalent in India.
The last National Family Health Survey (2005-2006), conducted among 124,385 women in 29 Indian states, had 10% women reporting that their husbands had physically forced them to have sex.
Another study conducted by the International Centre for Women (ICRW) & United Nations Population Fund's (UNPFA) across 7 states in India last year covered 9,205 men & 3,158 women aged 18-49 from each state. One-third of the men interviewed admitted to having forced a sexual act on their wives.
The victims of "marital rape" say they fight a lonely battle because their suffering falls under no category of Indian legal system. Moreover, society often blames them for maligning the institution of marriage.
However, Save the Family Foundation, a men's rights group, cautions against criminalising marital rape.
"We have already seen how 498A, the anti-dowry law, has been largely misused by women in India to harass men & their family. The Central Woman Commission of India has accepted that a number of rape cases reported each year are false. How can one prove a marital rape? Taking bedrooms to court is a dangerous idea," a spokesman said.
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A great opinion piece. It essentially highlights what I blogged about in my previous blog post where corrections officers in prisons are also silently suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
Since, I put most of what I think about this issue, in that blog post, I won't repeat myself, here. But, this opinion piece comes back to the same point that victims of violent crimes also want the same changes in the prison system, as the corrections officers; rehabilitation of prisoners instead of packing them in prisons like sardines. Building more prisons won't solve the crime. Locking a first-time offender with a hardened criminal only increases the chances that that first-time offender is only going to become a hardened criminal him/herself.
So, governments should be using the tax dollars in building more rehab centers for criminals, instead of building more & bigger prisons. Current prison system doesn't help anyone, but actually exploits the prisoner & the whole society.
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When policymakers think of the people who comprise the victims’ rights movement, young people of color from low-income communities may not be the first group that leaps to mind. But the facts suggest these survivors should be.
My organization conducted 2 years of research & found that 1 in 5 Californians experience crime – but its impact is concentrated & unequal. The majority of crime victims live in lower-income communities & repeat victimization is even more concentrated (echoing research on victimization in the entire US). When it comes to violent crime, those most likely to be repeatedly victimized are young people of color, especially African-American & Latino males.
2 out of 3 crime survivors reported being victimized more than once in the last 5 years. Many repeat victims have long histories of suffering multiple types of crimes, such as sexual exploitation, abuse or community violence. Worse still, only a small number of survivors receive any help, despite often experiencing severe depression, anxiety & post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of crime.
Young people of color from low-income communities bear an unconscionably disproportionate burden of violence & crime – & are victimized at staggering rates while also the least likely to get help to recover from trauma. Most frequently victimized, least often supported. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
Beyond lacking access to recovery support, most crime victims also disagree with the direction criminal justice policymaking has taken over the last few decades of prison expansion. While the traditional approach to victims’ rights has focused on toughening punishments for people convicted of crime & strengthening the rights of victims during criminal proceedings, our research shows that most survivors of crime think that our current investments in justice system are unwise. 2 out of 3 California victims surveyed believe bloated prisons either make inmates better at committing crimes or have no impact on crime at all. Most survivors want greater investments into rehabilitation, mental health treatment & prevention over bigger prisons & jails.
Listening to crime victims can tell us a lot how we should reform our safety & justice systems. We must embrace survivors as unexpected advocates for justice reform. It’s time to stop pretending that building more prisons protects survivors – it doesn’t.
Procedural rights for victims are critical, & accountability for people who commit crime is an essential component of an effective criminal justice system. Yet, many victims never even get to a courtroom. National statistics reveal that over half of violent crime goes unreported, eliminating any possibility of a prosecution. And even when violent crimes are reported, less than half result in an arrest. So focusing only on criminal proceedings leaves out the experiences & needs of the majority of crime survivors.
Packed prisons & extreme sentencing for the fraction of crimes that result in a conviction also depletes the very resources needed to improve victim protection & community safety. We need to rethink what investments can serve & protect as many victims as possible, including the communities most impacted by crime. We should pay special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk of being repeatedly victimized, such as youth of color.
When victims go without trauma recovery support, they risk being victimized again & falling through the cracks in life: dropping out of school, suffering health problems, self-medicating to the point of addiction & even turning to crime themselves.
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Instead of continuing to create harsh penalties that, in turn, create more prisons as our response to crime, we should invest in mental health care & trauma-informed services for anyone traumatized by violence, as well as safe places to go when crisis erupts, family support programs & economic recovery assistance for victims. We also need to improve the relationship between police, prosecutors & the communities they serve, so that victims trust – & can safely cooperate with – law enforcement to solve more crimes.
Despite the prevalence of pro-victim rhetoric during the prison-building era, few policymakers have asked themselves who experiences crime, who is most vulnerable to repeat crime or what survivors need to recover & avoid future harm. Most crime victims have never been at the center of attention of criminal justice policies, nor have their experiences & needs been considered as penal codes & prison populations mushroomed over the past 3 decades.
But the evidence suggests that when you ask the people most affected, survivors are less interested in spending tax dollars to fill more prisons & instead want to prioritize investments that will actually prevent crime in the first place. It is time for policymakers to finally listen – & put the perspectives of those most vulnerable to harm at the center of policies.
Although, the protests in Baltimore & Ferguson are long gone, & hopefully, not forgotten, the tyranny of modern media continues unabated & unabashedly.
Journalism used to be, & still is, a very respected profession, but just like several other professions (lawyer, politician, & even religious clergy) is now corrupted & a hollow of its former glory & respect.
Now, the modern media is all about ratings, sales, & marketing. It is only there to spread more chaos & hatred through sensational stories, & going as far as, fabricating stories (like it happened in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War & once again, before the Iraq war in 2003).
But, then can we really blame the media for further inciting violence & hatred, & stoking the public's anger? Can we really blame the media for not even reporting on those stories, which don't have some kind of "juice" & "drama" in them? As this opinion piece & several other articles said that cameras in Baltimore weren't even rolling until protestors became violent. Peaceful protests weren't even covered & then so-called journalists, news anchors, & media personalities openly questioned why these protestors are so violent, even though, they never saw peaceful protests, which happened for days on end.
Anyway, I'd say that the modern media & the general public are both equally to blame. Why? Because, the media is all about marketing its services to the public. They are a business, after all. So, you need to ask yourself that why do the viewer ratings only go up when media is showing violence & sensational news stories. Because, it's what the general public craves. A TV news story is boring if no drama is happening in it.
Media is a very powerful way to help resolve such heavy issues as justice, peace, equality etc. TV news can very easily either inflame the society & turn people against each other, & hence, stalling any improvement, whatsoever, taking place in terms of justice & equality among the general public, OR, it can solve those same problems the society is suffering from, by starting a deep dialogue & showing how & what people are doing to improve relations & mending differences; be it ethnic, racial, cultural, or regional.
After all, we, humans are not so different from each other. Tyranny of the popular media seems to be creating more rifts in our society for its own profitability at the expense of social harmony.
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If it were ever in doubt, the protests in Baltimore have shown us once again that only some types of violence are visible, or really matter. As demonstrations in this US city surged following the death in police custody of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, the terrible violence of that death - on top of so many more, at the hands of US police - was sidelined out of the story.
Gray was arrested when he fled after "catching the eye" of a police officer & his neck was broken while in police custody, but it was the smashed glass storefronts on Baltimore's streets that became the focus of concern.
The US media went into overdrive with its depiction of "chaos, violence & lawlessness" as MSNBC put it. Collective establishment heads were shaken at the looting.
The clear racist overtones in the coverage of "black rioters", as news website Breitbart.com headlined it or of "thugs" on a rampage, as so many more news organisations depicted it, was routinely denied, while widespread haranguing using the trump card of "protest violence" took hold.
Peaceful protests
CNN host Wolf Blitzer demanded that Baltimore community organiser Deray McKesson denounce violence and support only peaceful protests.
"You are suggesting broken windows are worse than broken spines," came the response to this attempt to redefine the significant details of the story, in a city that has already paid out nearly $6m to alleged victims of police brutality, including a grandmother and a pregnant woman.
And so here it is again: The stealthy tyranny of the "non-violent" proviso demanded of popular protests. Events in Baltimore are symptomatic of & particular to the US & its bloody history of state & social violence, in all its forms, against black Americans from slavery to the streets today. But the unrepresentative & wholly marginal violence of broken windows is invariably invoked against all protests that are struggles against power & its abuses.
From the streets of England during its riots of 2011, or back to the anti-capitalists protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1999; the IMF in Prague & the G8 summit in Genoa; from the protests engulfing marginalised French suburbs, to Ferguson in the US, right across to the Palestinian struggle to be free from occupation - all these movements against inequality & injustice are bound by the media depiction of protest as suddenly, senselessly "violent".
Such loaded appraisals are wilfully blind to the fact that situations never go from total calm to sudden violence. There is a daily, pervasive state violence that is never spoken of, much less acknowledged: for Palestinians living under a brutal military occupation; for marginalised, disenfranchised young people in British cities or French suburbs; for African Americans disproportionately impoverished, disadvantaged & preyed upon by US police, surviving generation upon generation of institutionalised & violent racism; for the global South diminished & drained by neo-liberal policies imposed upon it by the IMF & the WTO.
The violence never starts with protesters on the streets - it's just that this is the moment the cameras decide to start filming. In this context, it takes a special kind of struggle-free, reality-blind sanctimony for media commentators to start preaching about the need for non-violence.
Moreover, the disproportionate focus on the violence of broken windows & looted shops ignores the full panorama of these issues: the lengthy, ongoing debates within protest movements over the merits & drawbacks of violence (against property, not people) as a tactic; the attempts within communities to prevent & guard against violence, or dissipate tensions, or take action to clear up in the aftermath; the pressure-cooker conditions created by ramped up, over-militarised, heavy-handed & often provocative policing; the simple fact that movements unite over causes if not always tactics; or just that understanding why a few people might steal trainers during protests is not at all the same as justifying such behaviour.
Instead, the "non-violence" theme is rolled out precisely to prevent any such debate over causes, context or history. This media preoccupation is in place to ensure that we stop talk about anything else.
We know the Martin Luther King quote: "A riot is the language of the unheard." The question is why, after so long, are these voices still not listened to? And who is it that doesn't want us to hear them?
Rachel Shabi is a journalist & author of Not the Enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab Lands.
