ONIM For May 2, 2016

Christian News

• Faith Groups And NGOs Urge International Action On Syria -- Christian Today (UK)
• Sex And Gender: Is The US Government Tryng To Impose A New Orthodoxy? -- Christian Today (UK)
• Christian Pastor Arrested And Detained In China After Legally Defending Churches (Christian Today (UK)
• Will Ben Carson's Bible Adice To Donald Trump Work? -- Christianity Today
• After Pastor's Wife Buried Alive, Chinese Church Wins Land Battle -- Christianity Today
• China Reveals What It Wants To Do With Christianity -- Christianity Today
• 5 Reasons Younger Christians And Pastors Avoid Politics -- The Christian Post
• Family Worship For The Stability Of Minority Christian Families -- Reformed African American Network
• Man Shot, Killed During Fight In Sunday Service At Montgomery County Church -- NBC 10
• Listening To Women -- Moritification Of Spin
• Bono Wants Christian Music To Get More Honest -- Huffington Post

World News

• Hungarians Just Destroyed All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields -- Off Grid Quest
• Students Say Free Speech Is Alive, But With One Big Exception -- The New York Times
• Activists Call For De Blasio To Step Down -- New York Post
• Detroit After Bankruptcy -- Forbes
• Intel Execs Receive Threats From Employees In Response To Diversity Efforts -- Yahoo News
• 'We're At War' Says Organizers Behind Education Protests Sweeping The Country -- Think Progress
• Uncovered: The War In Iraq (2004) -- Films For Action
• Allegations Of Voter Fraud Follow Hillary Clinton Campaign Across Nation -- KTAR News
• Palestinian Authority Backs Convicted Killer For Nobel Peace Prize -- Fox News
• What Does Bernie's Attitude Toward Campaign Finance Mean For Hillary? -- The New Yorker
• Ralph Nader: A Cover For Corporatism In Scalia's 'Originalism' -- YouTube
• UN Rejects Israel's Claim Over Syria's Golan Heights -- Aljazeera
• Police Chief 'So Sorry' Officers Arrested 10 Elementary School Students -- Mashable
• How New England Students Are Take Fossil Fuel Divestment A Step Further -- Waging Nonviolence
• New Study Shows Mass Surveillance Breeds Meekness, Fear And Self-Censorship -- The Intercept
• Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million On Social Media Trolls -- U.S. Uncut
• How Hillary Became A Hawk -- The New York Times
• Bernie Sanders Supporter SLAYS Pro-Hillary Pundit On CNN -- U.S. Uncut
• Newsweek Middle East Aims To Be The Insiders' Voice -- Columbia Journalism Review
• For Enthusiast Media, Ethics Can Be Costly -- Columbia Journalism Review
• Palestine Slams Israel's Rejection Of French Peace Plan -- Aljazeera
• University Students Protest Over Flier Naming Anti-Israel Campus Activists -- Fox News
• Officer Hits Woman In Handcuffs -- News 4 Jax
• Hundreds Of Protesters Descend Upon Trump Rally, Damaging Police Cars And Blocking Roads -- Yahoo News
•  Nancy Tate: Citizens Rise Up To Safeguard Environment Against Powerful Forces -- The Morning Call
• What A Dead White Man Can Teach America About Inner City Decay -- The Economist
• Here's The Map That Shows Why The GOP Is Freaking Out About Trump -- The Fiscal Times
• Who Needs The Democratic Party When We Have Dr. Jill Stein -- The Socialist Times
• Trump Crushes Opponents: What Can We Expect From A Trump-Clinotn Race -- Sputnik
• Obama's White House Seder: Staffers Bid Farewell To A Passover Tradition -- The Guardian
• "Nestlé Is Trying To Break Us": A Pennsylvania Town Fights Predatory Water Extraction -- Truthout
• Palestinians Call For Boycott Of Genocide Conference In Jerusalem -- The Electronic Intifada
• Where The Bern Is Fizzling -- ZNet
• My Country, My Love: A Conversation With Gerado And Adriana Of The Cuban Five -- ZNet
• Lena Rothmans: A Trump Supported Assaulted Me At A Rally--Then Police Arrested Me Instead Of Him -- Democracy Now
• Here's Why I Never Warmed Up To Bernie Sanders -- Mother Jones
• Clinton Camp Says She's Been Forced To The Left Enough Already -- Common Dreams
• Sanders Dominates Clinton In California With 61.25% -- The Political Analyzer
• Last Night My Friend, Aleppo's Most Qualified Pediatrician, Was Killed -- Huffington Post
• Paul Ryan Says Free School Lunches Give Kids 'An Empty Soul'  -- Time Magazine
• Tump Has Gone 'Off The Reservation,' Clinton Says -- Indian Country
• Here Is Where Each Generation Begins And Ends -- The Atlantic
• Paul Ryan Mocks Senior Citizen Who Wants To Keep His Medicare -- CNN
• New UN Database Of Companies Complicit In Israel's Occupation -- The Hill

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• Why Is Africa So Poor While Europe And North America Are So Wealthy? -- The Washington Post
• Man Sentenced To Die After 'Expert' Testified That Black People Are Dangerous -- Think Progress
• Kansas State Students Sue After University Allegedly Ignored Sexual Assaults -- Yahoo News
• Guatemala's Campesinos March To Demand Right To Water -- Waging Nonviolence
• What Does Justice For Slain Honduran Environmentalist Berta Cáceres Mean? Waging Nonviolence
• Abby Martin On Hillary Clinton, The Next CEO Of The American Empire -- The Acronym Journal
• Factory Farms Cause Thousands In Rural Wisconsin To Go Without Clean Water -- World Socialist Web Site
• Kathy Kelly: Costs Of War, Price Of Peace -- YouTube
• Socialist Presidential Candidate To Voters: Refuse To Support Clinton -- Party For Socialism And Liberation
• Did Arabs Betray Palestine?--A Schism Between The Ruling Classes And The Wider Society -- ZNet
• "The Biggest Protest This Country Has Seen In Years"--Quarter Million Germans Protest Obama "Free Trade" Deal -- Zero Hedge
• The Joke Of U.S. Justice and "Accountability" When They Bomb A Hospital -- The Intercept
• If These Two Win, This Is Going To Be The Shittiest Election In US History -- Medium

Did The Trickle Down Effect Cause Deputy Ben Fields To Become Officer Slam

Deputy Fields slams a student to the floor

Suppose we were to take a madlib approach to the news, how many stories would sound similar. Consider the madlib below that could apply either to the story from the above video or to the US invasion of Iraq:

A _______ refused to follow orders concerning ______  _______. As a result, ______ was confronted by an overpowering force that violently _______ and ______  _______.

Now could we fill in the above madlib with the following:

1. A nation refused to follow orders concerning WMD inspections. As a result, it was confronted by an overpowering force that violently invaded and occupied it.
2. A student refused to follow orders concerning cell phones. As a result, she was confronted by an overpowering force that violently slammed and dragged her.

Now what we should note here is that the first story was about Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq while second story was about the violent expulsion of a South Carolina high school student from her class by a campus resource officer. And the question becomes this: What are the similarities between the two stories?

The first similarity is that there was a failure to comply to orders. In the first madlib, the U.S. had ordered Iraq to turnover its WMDs. In the second madlib, a high school student refused to turn over her cell phone to her teacher. Before we go on, we should note the difference between the two cases. In the first case, not enough time was given to the weapons inpsectors to confirm that Iraq had such weapons in the first place. The student in question clearly a cell phone in her possession.

The next similarity is that that refusal was met with overpowering violence. America's invasion of Iraq caused, by some reports, the death of over a million Iraqies. The student in question was, while in her desk, flipped over backwards against the floor and forcibly dragged to the front of the class. The student in question has suffered arm, neck, and back injuries (click here).

The next similarity is that the force used is deemed by many to be excessive. None of Iraq's neighboring nations viewed our invasion as being necessary and that included Iraq's past victim, Kuwait.  People who have seen the video don't have to be told that too much force was used. 

Another similarity is this, the one exerting the force has a reputation for being violent and using excessive force. There is no need here to demonstrate America's reputation here. Meanwhile, deputy Ben Fields has been cited before for using excessive force with the last citation resulting in a future trial (click here).

But here is the biggie, the one exerting force does not recognize appropriate limits for the violence he/it exercises. Part of that is because the one exerting force shows a lack of awareness of being accountable. Regarding America, while we will cite others for violations of international law, we refuse to recognize international law as providing limits for our actions. Instead, we only recognize our interests. We never let the UN determine the legitimacy of our invasion of Iraq.  And we ignored the World Court's decision that condemned our actions in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Instead of international law, we assume the right to go where we want and do what we want. And while we cry 'national sovereignty' whenever anyone suggests that we should abide by international law and submit to the International Criminal Court (ICC), we have no problems with citing others with having either violated international law or threatened the international community. Of course, all of that is because we have anointed ourselves to the oxymoronic position of being the leader of the Free World.

This same prusumptiveness has been embraced by many involved with law enforcement. As a result, too many of our law enforcement professionals have both abused their position and  the people they are sworn to protect. And they do so while assuming their right to punish lawbreakers for any resistance especially if the lawbreakers in question belong to a minority. Thus, resorting to heavy-handed responses has become a typical rather than an exceptional response to any resistance.

Thus, perhaps one way to reduce police abuse is to be as sensitive to the violence and harshness that make up many of our foreign policies as we are to this incident of an officer's intervention with a noncompliant student. That though rules must be enforced, the authority to enforce them does not give those with power or in authority carte-blanche to any methods of enforcement. That all nations must be subject to the same international law and that that will not occur until the most powerful nations set the example. For there is far more suffering involved when we either invade or we support guerilla fighters and/or paramilitary groups than what we saw on the video of the student being taken down. And while the student who was slammed to the ground suffered some significant injuries and was put at risk for even more serious injuries than she experienced, that is nothing compared to what people go through during military interventions and wars.

We need to remember that if we do not keep our nation's leaders answerable for any of the violent measures they order, that acceptance of violence will eventually trickle down to the rest of society including those who must enforce the law on a local level. And our nation has seen more than its fairshare of heavyhanded abuse being used by police officers on those who are merely citizens, especially our minoirty citizens.

The Myopia Of American Sniper

Navy SEAL Chris Kyle was the subject of the movie American Sniper. The problem with reviewing the movie is that, having not read his book, I don't know how true the movie was to the book or to history. So I will be using Chris Hedges' review of the movie as a guide here (click here).  Thus, the review of this movie just might contain more of a critique of the hero, Chris Kyle, than the movie itself. 

The movie starts with Chris setting up to make his first kill on some suspicious Iraqis--a mother and son who are carrying a grenade toward advancing American troops. Right before he pulls the trigger, there is a flashback to his earlier life which contains the pivotal point of both Kyle's character and the movie. That hub is the time when at young Kyle's family's dinner table, his father described three kinds of people who existed in the world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. He described the sheep as innocent but helpless. The wolves were vicious predators. And the sheepdogs' job was to protect the sheep from the wolves. He basically challenged his kids to be sheepdogs and use violence to protect the sheep they encounter. See, Kyle was being raised in a conservative Christian family. So as this flashback advances to a time when Kyle is drifting in life as a cowboy, he sees the TV report of the 1998 terrorist attacks on two of America's embassies in Africa and discovers his purpose in life: to be a sheepdog for America.

The flashback continues to show his Navy SEAL training. From there, the it shows him meeting his future wife in a bar. A brief story of their romance is told as Kyle continues his SEAL training and graduates. While Kyle is dating his wife, they watch the attacks on the Twin Towers on TV. At that point, they know that war is coming. Finally, Kyle marries his fiancee and along with fellow SEALs in attendance, they get the call to go to Iraq.

At this point the movie returns to Kyle targeting his first victims. In the movie, Kyle appears more and more conflicted as he continues to kill people as a sniper. This is where, according to Chris Hedges, the movie and book part company. Hedges states that in Kyle's book, he relishes killing and hates all Iraqis. Why is the movie Chris Kyle different from the book one at this point? It could be that the book Chris Kyle may not have drawn as many people to the theater because such a soldier does not mesh well with our image of who we want our soldiers to be and what kind of country we live in. Quite simply, the book does not facilitate self-flattery by association. 

As Kyle returns for subsequent tours in Iraq, the attitudes of his fellow soldiers change. These soldiers are no longer gung-ho about fighting in Iraq. Rather, they appeared disillusioned with the mission and angry at the country they served in. 

There are two main fictitious movie villains whom Kyle is searching to kill: the butcher and an expert sniper. The butcher used tools to mutilate those who cooperated with occupying American forces. The age of his victims is not an issue for the butcher. From what I had heard from veterans who fought in Iraq, the butcher appears to be a composite character.The opposing sniper was a former olympian and he is very deadly. And the movie makes it clear that Kyle must forever return to Iraq until those two antagonists are killed. In fact, his final targeted killing is that of the opposing sniper. 

During one of his trips home, Kyle referred to some of the people in Iraq as 'savages.' The movie makes it unclear, however, whether Kyle is referring to villains or regular Iraqis. Besides the two foes just mentioned, he could also have been referring to Al-Queda in Iraq (AQI). After all, the movie makes it look like the vast number of people killed by Kyle belonged to AQI. This is one of the failures of the movie. This failure was in not distinguishing AQI from regular Iraqis who fought to repel the American invasion.

In the final battle scene, Kyle's unit is perched atop a building waiting for his rival sniper to appear. He spots the sniper shooting at and killing American troops. Kyle faces a dilemma here. If he shoots the sniper, his small group would face an Alamo like attack from the local Iraqis and with help apparently being too far away to provide a rescue. If he lets the sniper live another day, more fellow soldiers will be shot, but his group would remain safe. Kyle decides to kill his rival sniper. Then, all hell breaks lose as his small group of soldiers are attacked by what seems to be an uncountable number of combatants. Kyle's group miraculously holds off the enemy until they are rescued and Kyle has decided to end his career.

Kyle returns home with PTSD. The psychiatrist or psychologist gets him in contact with others suffering from the same disorder and Kyle heals himself by helping returning soldiers. The almost end of the movie sets us up for Kyle's death as he was shot by a veteran with PTSD.

The final scene is very telling. It shows many people lined up along the highway to pay their respects as the Kyle's hurst drives by. And then it shows parts of a memorial service that took place in the Dallas Cowboys' football stadium with tens of thousands of people in attendance. 

So that was the story, but the question is, what should we think about Kyle and the story? Again, we go back to the pivotal point on which Kyle's life hinges: that is the dinner table conversation where his father talks about the 3 kinds of people. Remembering that Kyle grew up in a Christian family, Kyle's father lays out an all-or-nothing view of people and the world. There are those who are good and those who are evil. And those who are good can be divided into two groups: those who need protection and those who provide protection. Thus there is the conflict between the sheepdogs and the wolves. 

And this reminds of something Howard Zinn said. He observed that once you have defined yourself as good and your enemy as evil, you have no question regarding what you do to them. Those whom you kill are no longer regarded as people, they are sometimes called 'savages' using Kyle's words, or 'targets' using the words of retired Sergeant and former sniper, Nicholas Irving. He was merely shooting at 'targets,' not people. He stated this in a recent episode of The Nightly Show (click here).  And like Kyle, his only concern was the protection of those in his own group. Never mind that that group was considered an invading/occupying foreign force by the people living there. And here, according to Hedges, we should note the threats of violence in the messages Kyle and his friends would leave for the Iraqis.

We should realize that Kyle's father's worldview played a dominant role in how Kyle would interpret the bombing of our embassies and the 9-11 attacks. In fact, Kyle's reaction to those attacks was not much different, if at all, than Nicholas Irving's. Those who malevolently attacked us were evil because we were good. But whether we read journalist Robert Fisk or journalist Jason Burke, or others we find that there is more than enough documentation to tell us that we were attacked for reasons other than the depraved nature of our enemy. We were attacked for enabling and practicing violence and oppression in the Middle East. The list of killers and dictators we sponsored is quite impressive. Certainly our actions did not justify the attacks. But our actions, our own evil, validates, among other actions,  the anger of our enemies and makes the terrorist attacks Kyle watched on tv a bit more complicated. These attacks were no longer just about what was happening to us.  

Now the question becomes, would Kyle's all-or-nothing view of people and the world prevent him from seeing the evil we have visited on others? In fact, with his all-or-nothing thinking, would he even care that we have treated others despicably? 

But there is a problem here that is even more basic than Kyle's view of the world. That problem is whether what his father taught him about sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs is Christian at all. For what Jesus taught in parables and his apostles taught in doctrine concerned the sinfulness of all including that of believers. Jesus' parables of the two men praying (click here), the prodigal son (click here), along with the Apostle Paul's teaching on how none of us are better than the other because we are all under sin (click here) teach us that Kyle's father all-or-nothing view of people is not Christian. And when Jesus does talk about sheep and wolves, He is preparing us for false doctrines and false arrests.  And in that case, our defense does not come from someone exerting physical force. Rather, our defense is provided by the Holy Spirit who will provide the words we need to say.

So how Christian was Kyle's upbringing? Was Kyle raised to be a Christian or a Christian moralist? The difference between the two is that while former would lead Kyle to always see himself as a sinner in need of forgiveness, the latter would not. With the former, Kyle would not externalize evil, but that is not necessarily true with the latter. And with the former, Kyle would be more reflective in both what he thought about the terrorist attacks suffered by his country and what he was called to do. And, in fact, the latter could coincide with what his father's all-or-nothing thinking about people and that those who do not live up to the standards, or we should say selective standards, which the Christian moralists "live" up to are evil.

The final part of the movie also warrants comment because of the memorial tribute given to Kyle. For many of the people attending his service, excluding family and friends, expressed something more about their own priorities in life than their appreciation and concern for a fallen war hero. To prove this, all we have to do is reflect on why so many people attended Kyle's memorial service, but not as many attended the services of the other fallen soldiers. Perhaps, what drew such a large crowd to Kyle's service was Kyle's legendary status as a sniper. He killed at least 160 people and that is perhaps what some were paying tribute to. It was the worship of power more than appreciation for someone trying to protect them that drew more than a few to his memorial service.

The movie itself deserves less criticism than Chris Kyle does. It is a good movie that does not glorify war. Instead, it shows some of the horrors of war up close and personal as well as the complaints of some of the disgruntled soldiers. This movie gives us a glimpse of the realities of war which is all any serious movie about war can do. Kyle too had a limited views. Despite the courage and skill he displayed on the battlefield, he was limited in terms of what he could perceive and how he could interpret events. Because he saw people in all-or-nothing terms, he could neither see complexity in himself or others. He could not distinguish the different kinds of enemies he was fighting against. He could only perceive how their actions affected him and his people. He could never see how the actions of his fellow soldiers and nation affected the lives of those from other nations. Nor did he care to. He suffered from the same myopic vision of the world which all whose self-esteem comes from a delusional self-righteousness suffer from.

ONIM For January 26, 2015

Christian News

• Calls For Prayer As People Of The Holy Land Continue To Suffer -- Christian Today (UK)
• US Evangelicals And Catholics Join Forces To Warn Of 'Grave Threat' Of Gay Marriage -- Christian Today (UK)
• Pope Tells New Cardinals To Be Humble And Shun Parties -- Christian Today (UK)
• Hundreds Of Thousands Join Pro-Life Rally In Washington -- Christian Today (UK)
• No Worship Services In Public Schools, New York Mayor Tells Supreme Court -- Christianity Today
• Obama To Imprisoned Pastor's Wife: Saving Saeed Abedini In Iran Is 'A Top Priority' -- Christianity Today
• Alabama Ranks No.1 For Scripture Lovers -- Christianity Today
• Popular Christian Rapper Talks Race, The Church, And Why It Could've Been Him -- The Christian Post
• Film Featuring Archeological Proof For Biblical Exodus Returning To Theaters Next Week -- The Christian Post
• Pope Francis Tells Big Oil And Industrialists To Stop Destroying The World -- Ring Of Fire

World News

• State Of The Union Address Shows That Obama Still Needs Movement Pressure On Climate -- Waging NonViolence
• Obama Won't Meet With Netanyahu During Controversial U.S. Visit -- Yahoo News
• British Iraq War Report Delay Sparks Coverup Claims -- Yahoo News
• How Propaganda Conquers Democracy -- ZNet
• Murdering Journalists ... Them And Us -- ZNet
• Greece's Solidarity Movement: 'A Whole New Model -- And It's Working -- Truthdig
• Druze Attacked In Jerusalem After Speaking Arabic -- YNet News.Com
• 'American Sniper': A Wolf In Sheepdog's Clothing -- World Socialist Web Site
• Delusion And Deception In Obama's State Of Union -- World Socialist Web Site
• U.N. Says Cash To Repair Gaza Homes Will Run Out By End-Month -- Reuters
• Kathy Kelly To Begin 3 Month Sentence Friday In Lexington KY -- Voices For Creative NonViolence
• Monsanto's Roundup. Enough To Make You Sick -- Nation Of Change
• Senator To Hospitals: Stop Suing Poor Patients -- Truthdig
• White City Black City: Architecture And War In Tel Aviv And Jaffa -- The Guardian
• French Arrests Raise Question: Is Free Speech For All? -- Yahoo News
• Vanderbilt Gang Rape Defense Points To Campus Culture -- Yahoo News
• Suspected Boko Haram Militants Attack Major Nigerian City -- Christian Today (UK)

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• Nationwide Protests Reflect Martin Luther King's True Legacy -- Waging NonViolence
• Paris Attacks Show Hypocrisy Of West's Outrage -- ZNet
• A Socialist Response To Obama's State Of The Union -- ZNet
• Five Corporations You've Never Heard Of Are Making Millions From Mass Incarceration -- Truthout
• New York Times Columnist 'Fuming' After Son Allegedly Stopped By Yale Police At Gunpoint -- Yahoo News
• 2015 State Of The Union Fact Check -- Politico
  
  
  

Be Careful Of Who Your Enemies' Enemies Are

It is obvious that the Obama Administration regards Syria's President Assad and his government as an enemy. Any rational person should regard Assad as a horrible tyrant. But whom would America be supporting if it attacks Syria? That is one of the important questions that requires an answer. Another important question revolves around why, during the week of the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington, is the President, who is considered to be a partial fulfillment of "The Dream," choosing force and violence as his way to resolve Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons?

We will address the first question first. It isn't that America's leaders just want to bomb Syria to stop its alleged use of chemical weapons, they are also thinking about arming the rebels. Their goal is to force a regime change. But there is a problem here. The rebels are a mixture of many different groups including Islamists who are killing Christians and others who are associated with Al-Qaeda. And of those who are neither affiliated with Al-Qaeda nor are Islamists, it is unknown what they want.

Currently, like many other countries, America supports the Syrian National Council which is a conglomeration of resistance groups. As mentioned before, America opposes Assad's government. But in addition, the word on the web says that overthrowing Assad's government weakens Iran's influence in the region.  At this point, our government's allegations that Assad's forces used chemical weapons is being employed to rationalize participation in the conflict. For if Obama's Administration can convince the world that it is convinced that Assad's forces have used chemical weapons, then Obama can direct America to do more than just cheer from the sidelines and give money to boosters. 

If we were to use the Cold War's bipolar mentality, we would then support all of President Assad's enemies regardless of his use of chemical weapons. But some who fight against him either already are or would be our enemies. This includes some Islamists and Jabhat al-Nusra, the latter of which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda. We should also note that many of the rebels are Sunni Muslims while Assad's government is made up of Shi'ites and thus the longer the war continues, the better chance this conflict will change from a civil war into a sectarian conflict and, as seen in Iraq, there will be no telling when the violence will end.

So the question is, should America jump into the Syrian Civil War to support a group it doesn't know much about except that it opposes the government that it also wants out of power? We find that History has a mixed record when it comes to supporting the enemy of one's enemy where the first enemy is not a natural ally. It was necessary and beneficial to do so in WWII. One of the reasons why we could defeat the Nazis is that Germany was fighting a two-front war against multiple formidable opponents. As Russia turned the war around on the eastern front, there were fewer German resources that could be used to repel the D-Day invasion and its aftermath.

But supporting Russia also carried a high cost. For immediately after WWII, we were locked in the Cold War with the new Soviet Union. That Cold War put us on the brink of nuclear war more than one time. So it was by the role of the dice that the story of supporting Russia during WWII had a happy ending. 

But since then, that previous partnership with Russia has been used to rationalize quite a few other partnerships. So we should look at other examples as well. For example, we partnered up with Islamic extremists to draw the Soviet Union into a Vietnam style war in Afghanistan. We should note that Carter's signing statement authorizing support for these extremists preceded the Soviet invasion by six months. These extremists practiced terrorism against the people. But because they were trying to overthrow a Soviet backed government, and this is despite the fact that it was a secular government that helped advance the place of women in the country, America supported them. 

We know the end of this story. The end was that some of those terrorists, whose bills we paid, eventually attacked two of our embassies in Africa in the late 90s and then two of our cities on 9-11. The collapsed buildings are being replaced. But we will never be able to make up for the loss of those who perished, especially for those who sacrificed themselves to save others. That kind of loss is a wound that burns forever. Those who died on 9-11 were part of the cost of supporting those whom Ronald Reagan called "freedom fighters" during the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan. 

There is another story to consider as well. We use to support Saddam Hussein while he was President of Iraq. We supported him despite the fact that he used some of that support to build WMDs and used them on his own people. We supported him because he was seen as someone who could keep the Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran in check. 

This story has a sad ending too. Hussein became an enemy when his forces invaded the oil rich country of Kuwait. So, led by America, the Coalition forces drove him out of Kuwait. Then the U.S. and U.K led the fight to have UN sanctions imposed on Iraq and the sanctions were tied to Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs. These sanctions lasted from the end of George H. W. Bush's presidency to the beginning of his son's presidency. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died because of the combination of the first Persian Gulf War's destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and our enforcement of the sanctions. The first two administrators of the sanctions resigned in protest. Denis Halliday called the sanctions a "genocide." The second administrator, Hans Von Sponeck, called them "another war." BTW, the suffering of Iraqis during these sanctions was one of the stated reasons why Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9-11.

Tragically, some may not think that what happened to Iraq was sad because we didn't suffer. But eventually we did, though the Iraqis have and continually suffer far more than we have. Their country is now in shambles and locked in sectarian violence. Thousands of our troops and perhaps over one million Iraqis died because of that invasion. And these statistics do not include the tens of thousands of troops and countless Iraqis who were injured and the millions of Iraqis who were displaced.

Another possible example can be seen in Libya. There, some claim that there is evidence that we teamed up with Al-Qaeda to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. Libya is now in a state of turmoil. 

Some have already said that we have learned the wrong lessons from WWII. And two such lessons are that we feel too free to both engage in wars and support the enemies of our enemies. And we have learned these lessons because, as WWII Admiral Eugene Larocque wrote in the article The Good War, 

We've always gone somewhere else to fight our wars, so we've not really learned about its horror.

So perhaps the reason why we are no closer to finding peaceful ways of resolving conflicts than before is because our country has not suffered enough. We can only hope that we would learn to replace war with peaceful resolutions before it's too late.

What Will You Do About America's Dirty Wars?

Last night, I had the good fortune of watching Jeremy Scahill's documentary, Dirty Wars with friends from the Global Justice Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. Some valid criticisms have been made about this film The main problem is that Jeremy became to much of a focus in the movie. But to be distracted with this detail is to miss a vital part of what it means to be an American today. For what this documentary does is to, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dispel the myth upon which the religion of patriotism is based. That myth describes the who we are as a people. 


Though we would prefer to think of ourselves as being different from our enemies in terms of protecting innocent life and abiding by the rule of law; the contents of this movie illustrates that we might have more in common with our barbarian terrorist enemies than we care to admit. This has to be said because of what we are allowing our President to do. He has been exercising the power to summarily designate people for the death penalty. And, because of us, he can do this without being held accountable for his action.

But not only this, our troops are also killing innocent civilians, including children and pregnant women, in the name of defending the Constitution and spreading democracy.  To prove this, Scahill investigates several targeted killings including an American night raid in an Afghanistan village. In the Afghan village incident, special operations troops surround a house in a night raid. When one of the villagers steps out to check the sounds the troops are making, the troops immediately fire on him. The man who committed the unpardonable sin of showing curiosity was the local police chief and had been trained by our own troops. Furthermore, as the people inside check on what is happening and try to help their friend, our troops fire on them and kill some including women.

The remorseful justification for these killings given by a military commander said that the special operations troops could have mistaken these people for terrorists because women have also been engaged in terrorism acts. Think about the message this gives to Afghanis. That because other fellow countrymen have been terrorists, you can receive their sentence and be shot first instead of being asked any questions at all. This reminds me of a conversation I had with an ardent Christian Zionist when I asked about Israel killing Palestinian women and children. She replied saying that since Palestinian women and children have participated in terrorist attacks, the killing of any Palestinian woman or child is justified because they are animals.

This is how you win hearts and minds? Or is this how you try to secure a fearful compliance and obedience in order to maintain an occupation? We need answers because the kind of attack which Scahill investigated has happened quite often.

Next, Scahill takes us to Yemen as American drones missiles are fired from the sky at those on the kill list. Obama's new powers allow him to use these drones to kill Americans but should the nationality of victims be of any concern. In a foreign land, Obama is allowed to kill people who have no provision to prove their innocence. And in the case of a teenage son of an American Imam who was already assassinated, this son was killed later on in a separate attack. Again, the President does not need to prove the guilt of those he targets to order these assassination. And this is the rule of law that separates Americans from the terrorists?

We finally go to Somalia where these targeted killings are being carried out by war lords whose loyalty, or is it services, have been purchased by our government. Here, there is nothing that can be added to what we have learned in the previous stories except that people whom we would regard as terrorists if they were not on our payroll are carrying out ruthless attacks. We should also note that this is not the first time when or the only place where America has employed the services of vicious war lords.

Yes, this documentary does spend a little more time than necessary on its maker. And its maker spends a little more time on the part of the military that is responsible for these killings, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) than what is needed. But what is all of that compared to what is being done under the waving of the American flag to innocent people around the world?

As with content of Edward Snowden's revelation that the Obama Administration had been collecting the phone records of those who  use Verizon. Such information demands action, a response, from us. That is, it demands that we say something to Obama showing that this cannot go on. And failure to do so is to become as guilty as he is and thus to merit the same judgment. That judgment will most probably be to live with the consequences of targeted killings and those consequences include America becoming another Russia. 

After seeing this movie, one has to wonder what will it take for Americans to interrupt their lives of comfort in order to demand what is right?

The theater schedule for Dirty Wars.