So following soon after last November's US presidential election, another controversial election takes place this weekend. the violence has continued on unabated in Iraq, while the number of US troops grows and GWBush speaks about continuing his campaign of promoting "justice and democracy" in other countries.
There are differing opinions about the Iraqi election from optimism for a better future to fear of growing instability. These 2 articles from Zmag present some opinions and perspectives on this situation.
Dahr Jamail writes about the differing feelings among Iraqis about the election, while the other article talks about problems behind the Iraq 'occupation' or in American opinion-'liberation' and the election itself.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Because of the holidays and recent uncertainties at school, this blog hasn't had much recent content.
Here's several interesting articles pertaining to the tsunami disaster and the underdevelopement of countries which suffered terribly, American military's new strategies of dealing with the war in Iraq, and a really crazy, detailed story of a former Special Forces veteran who conned his way around Afghanistan for profit and fame.
From the Nation, that fine American liberal media, is this article on the devastation caused by the tsunami, and the initial stingy response by some wealthy Western nations (including but not only the USA). The writer makes good points, comparing the disaster effects wrought by the tsunami to that by a nuclear bomb explosion, and also at the end, contrasting the huge priority given to military spending but little on emergency rescue units "ready to give prompt aid in any large-scale catastrophe".
With the US still no closer to winning the war on the "terrorists" /resistance and establishing real control in Iraq, it is desperately trying new ways to bolster its military ranks which are at near breaking point, such as wooing 17 year olds still in school with monthly salary whilst in school until graduation, This program, called RSP-Recruit Sustainment Program has been restarted nationally with some success. Of couse, it claims to help students by giving them guaranteed money before actual training and laid-back drills where students learn about military life and details from lectures involving polite and friendly drill sergeants.
This program exploits young mainly underpriviliged people who urgently need or want money and opportunites in life. Of course, there are some who will say programs like these benefit young people, especially the underpriviliged by offering them opportunities to earn more money than usual and free training in various fields, as well as travel overseas. However all this is offset by the fact that these young people will then be sent off to places like Iraq to live and fight under extremely hazardrous conditions for a war that their government unjustly started and wages.
In addition to finding new ways to recruit youngsters into their Army, now the US is considering implementing death-squads, specially trained by US Special Forces, to take out insurgents and sympathisers in Iraq. This plan, called the Salvador option because it's based on a plan used in the Central American nation El Salvador during the early 1980s civil war when the US-backed government was losing against leftist-guerillas. Furthermore the US would consider using these squads in neighboring Syria to hunt fleeing insurgents which the US would take charge of.
In the article, they plan to use Shiite and Kurdish fighters to man the squads and their main tagets would be Sunni rebels. That this is so brazenly known in the mainstream media only amplifies the fact of how the US is looking to manipulate tension and conflict between different ethnic groups for their own purposes.
For entertainment purposes, check this out on former Special Forces vet, the infamous J. Idema, who managed to sell video footage and other materials to major media outlets, get media reporter jobs, book contracts, hold and torture prisoners in his own private jail in Kabul and even be the subject of a bestseller on the Afghan campaign hunt for Osama binLaden while conning his way around in Afghanistan.
A side point to the story, besides how ridiculous and incredible the things this man did, is how easy it seems that media organisations were able to be taken in by this man who claimed things he didn't do and wasn't including saying he was Defense secretary Rumsfeld's representative to the Northern Alliance.
We should be more vigilant when viewing news from those places by American media. Many times, things may not be as they seem as in this case and sometimes the whole story is never told or known.
Here's several interesting articles pertaining to the tsunami disaster and the underdevelopement of countries which suffered terribly, American military's new strategies of dealing with the war in Iraq, and a really crazy, detailed story of a former Special Forces veteran who conned his way around Afghanistan for profit and fame.
From the Nation, that fine American liberal media, is this article on the devastation caused by the tsunami, and the initial stingy response by some wealthy Western nations (including but not only the USA). The writer makes good points, comparing the disaster effects wrought by the tsunami to that by a nuclear bomb explosion, and also at the end, contrasting the huge priority given to military spending but little on emergency rescue units "ready to give prompt aid in any large-scale catastrophe".
With the US still no closer to winning the war on the "terrorists" /resistance and establishing real control in Iraq, it is desperately trying new ways to bolster its military ranks which are at near breaking point, such as wooing 17 year olds still in school with monthly salary whilst in school until graduation, This program, called RSP-Recruit Sustainment Program has been restarted nationally with some success. Of couse, it claims to help students by giving them guaranteed money before actual training and laid-back drills where students learn about military life and details from lectures involving polite and friendly drill sergeants.
This program exploits young mainly underpriviliged people who urgently need or want money and opportunites in life. Of course, there are some who will say programs like these benefit young people, especially the underpriviliged by offering them opportunities to earn more money than usual and free training in various fields, as well as travel overseas. However all this is offset by the fact that these young people will then be sent off to places like Iraq to live and fight under extremely hazardrous conditions for a war that their government unjustly started and wages.
In addition to finding new ways to recruit youngsters into their Army, now the US is considering implementing death-squads, specially trained by US Special Forces, to take out insurgents and sympathisers in Iraq. This plan, called the Salvador option because it's based on a plan used in the Central American nation El Salvador during the early 1980s civil war when the US-backed government was losing against leftist-guerillas. Furthermore the US would consider using these squads in neighboring Syria to hunt fleeing insurgents which the US would take charge of.
In the article, they plan to use Shiite and Kurdish fighters to man the squads and their main tagets would be Sunni rebels. That this is so brazenly known in the mainstream media only amplifies the fact of how the US is looking to manipulate tension and conflict between different ethnic groups for their own purposes.
For entertainment purposes, check this out on former Special Forces vet, the infamous J. Idema, who managed to sell video footage and other materials to major media outlets, get media reporter jobs, book contracts, hold and torture prisoners in his own private jail in Kabul and even be the subject of a bestseller on the Afghan campaign hunt for Osama binLaden while conning his way around in Afghanistan.
A side point to the story, besides how ridiculous and incredible the things this man did, is how easy it seems that media organisations were able to be taken in by this man who claimed things he didn't do and wasn't including saying he was Defense secretary Rumsfeld's representative to the Northern Alliance.
We should be more vigilant when viewing news from those places by American media. Many times, things may not be as they seem as in this case and sometimes the whole story is never told or known.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
For close-up information, pictures, ways to help and perspective on how things are going in those tsunami-stricken countries, check out these blogs:
Blog for Sri-lanka
Indonesia help
South-East Asia tsunami and earthquake blog
Tsunami disaster in Malaysia and Thailand
Tsunami help India
Blog for Sri-lanka
Indonesia help
South-East Asia tsunami and earthquake blog
Tsunami disaster in Malaysia and Thailand
Tsunami help India
Friday, January 07, 2005
A tale of 2 evils
As 2005 starts off and 2004 becomes a memory, injustice and tragedy mar this Earth we live on. First off, the ongoing occupation and oppression of Iraq by GWB and his administration. Then the conflicts in the Middle East, Chechnya, Colombia, Congo and the close of an old and the inflammation of a (relatively) new one in Sudan.
By now you must be sick of hearing about conflicts and unrest around the world especially when there seems to be no end in sight, no happy endings and final solutions to these problems, and the future of the world seems so much darker than necessary. All this is probably true.
The main thing that concerns me is not the absence of awareness of these injustices but the ignorance of knowledge. Awareness and knowledge can be 2 different things and in this scenario they are.
Awareness is the brief knowledge of something eg. an event by hearing about it while Knowledge of something is the understanding of facts and information whether history, details, and perceptions.
This society many think is nice, modern, and righteous, whereas the third world is nasty, backwards, and barbaric. The whole world outside of western Europe, North America and Oriental Asia fits this stereotype.
We don't see the Palestinians suffering for decades under oppressive, apartheid-like conditions (squalid, underdeveloped communities separated by barriers and roadblocks) and their children growing up with bitterness, anger and hatred, or the multi-million dollar high-tech weaponry (mostly US supplied) that the Israeli military is supplied with and uses against the Palestinians in their towns and villages and refugee camps.
But we feel for those poor Israelis terrorised by bombs that go off in their nice cafes, buses and nightclubs.
There is no good and evil sides in this world. There is no black and white. There is good interspersed with evil and evil interspersed with good.
There is hard evil and soft evil.
Hard evil is the one we see, especially that in the rest of the world aka 3rd world. Those countries that exist outside of the regions mentioned above, those that have societies, cultures, values and lifestyles that are not Western-based and that don't fit our western perception of life.
Hard evil is the one that is apparent to us. It is evil that can be instantly detected and observed, and obviously one that arouses large publicity and coverage. The 'suicide-bomber' and his/her attacks is the most striking example of hard evil and on a larger scale, the (fundamentalist) and religious groups, the religion and its clerics, and even the societies that the 'bombers' come from form other well-known examples of hard evil.
The terrible unceasing string of coups, civil-wars, tribal battles and wars in Africa also represent this evil and which we never bother to learn the histories and facts behind these events but automatically summarise as typical African (black) barbarism and inhumanity.
But what about the vicious, massive and tragic killings of black Africans in Congo, Zimbabwe and elsewhere by white colonial masters during the 19th and 20th centuries? What about the manipulation by European rulers of local African subjects into forming artifical ethnic divisions
and so creating and inflaming jealousies, rivalry and hatred between formely peaceful co-existing peoples which was one of the underlying reasons for the genocide in Rwanda 11 years ago between Hutus and Tutsis?
This is where soft evil comes in.
Soft evil is largely unseen and unheard, but is present and lurks beneath the surface. Soft evil is consequently ignored or unknown by many. From the British manipulation of various ethnic groups (India and Africa) to create differences and foster hatred and emnity amongst subjects to the American clandestine support of Afghan mujahideen and their quick withdrawal of aid once the Russians fled, soft evil has often been a quiet but decisive factor in creating great suffering, violence and destruction.
It is the excess materialism and extravagance in our society that makes our lives seem so lovely and also harmless and innocent Except for the fact that many abroad in weaker countries are exploited, both in terms of human and natural resources, to give us our ocmfort.
New apartments, big houses, shopping centres, more new products yet all this is dependent on foreign resources, business and consumers. We're surrounded by so much because people have money to spend from borrowing from banks which get money from investments in stocks and funds which derive most of their profits from overseas operations, sales, expansions.
What this means is that corporations go into foreign (less developed and poorer) countries
and exploit resouces, abuse sovereignity by breaking/ subverting local laws and getting concessions, dominate local markets and propagate expansion and mass marketing.
As 2005 starts off and 2004 becomes a memory, injustice and tragedy mar this Earth we live on. First off, the ongoing occupation and oppression of Iraq by GWB and his administration. Then the conflicts in the Middle East, Chechnya, Colombia, Congo and the close of an old and the inflammation of a (relatively) new one in Sudan.
By now you must be sick of hearing about conflicts and unrest around the world especially when there seems to be no end in sight, no happy endings and final solutions to these problems, and the future of the world seems so much darker than necessary. All this is probably true.
The main thing that concerns me is not the absence of awareness of these injustices but the ignorance of knowledge. Awareness and knowledge can be 2 different things and in this scenario they are.
Awareness is the brief knowledge of something eg. an event by hearing about it while Knowledge of something is the understanding of facts and information whether history, details, and perceptions.
This society many think is nice, modern, and righteous, whereas the third world is nasty, backwards, and barbaric. The whole world outside of western Europe, North America and Oriental Asia fits this stereotype.
We don't see the Palestinians suffering for decades under oppressive, apartheid-like conditions (squalid, underdeveloped communities separated by barriers and roadblocks) and their children growing up with bitterness, anger and hatred, or the multi-million dollar high-tech weaponry (mostly US supplied) that the Israeli military is supplied with and uses against the Palestinians in their towns and villages and refugee camps.
But we feel for those poor Israelis terrorised by bombs that go off in their nice cafes, buses and nightclubs.
There is no good and evil sides in this world. There is no black and white. There is good interspersed with evil and evil interspersed with good.
There is hard evil and soft evil.
Hard evil is the one we see, especially that in the rest of the world aka 3rd world. Those countries that exist outside of the regions mentioned above, those that have societies, cultures, values and lifestyles that are not Western-based and that don't fit our western perception of life.
Hard evil is the one that is apparent to us. It is evil that can be instantly detected and observed, and obviously one that arouses large publicity and coverage. The 'suicide-bomber' and his/her attacks is the most striking example of hard evil and on a larger scale, the (fundamentalist) and religious groups, the religion and its clerics, and even the societies that the 'bombers' come from form other well-known examples of hard evil.
The terrible unceasing string of coups, civil-wars, tribal battles and wars in Africa also represent this evil and which we never bother to learn the histories and facts behind these events but automatically summarise as typical African (black) barbarism and inhumanity.
But what about the vicious, massive and tragic killings of black Africans in Congo, Zimbabwe and elsewhere by white colonial masters during the 19th and 20th centuries? What about the manipulation by European rulers of local African subjects into forming artifical ethnic divisions
and so creating and inflaming jealousies, rivalry and hatred between formely peaceful co-existing peoples which was one of the underlying reasons for the genocide in Rwanda 11 years ago between Hutus and Tutsis?
This is where soft evil comes in.
Soft evil is largely unseen and unheard, but is present and lurks beneath the surface. Soft evil is consequently ignored or unknown by many. From the British manipulation of various ethnic groups (India and Africa) to create differences and foster hatred and emnity amongst subjects to the American clandestine support of Afghan mujahideen and their quick withdrawal of aid once the Russians fled, soft evil has often been a quiet but decisive factor in creating great suffering, violence and destruction.
It is the excess materialism and extravagance in our society that makes our lives seem so lovely and also harmless and innocent Except for the fact that many abroad in weaker countries are exploited, both in terms of human and natural resources, to give us our ocmfort.
New apartments, big houses, shopping centres, more new products yet all this is dependent on foreign resources, business and consumers. We're surrounded by so much because people have money to spend from borrowing from banks which get money from investments in stocks and funds which derive most of their profits from overseas operations, sales, expansions.
What this means is that corporations go into foreign (less developed and poorer) countries
and exploit resouces, abuse sovereignity by breaking/ subverting local laws and getting concessions, dominate local markets and propagate expansion and mass marketing.
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