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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Readers comment on “educator”-molester story


   Hiring parties “should be indicted” for complicity in crime ─ an old story should end
Edited by Carolyn Bennett

The comments following a school sexual abuse story caught my attention. These are the signed comments I read.

Shame 
against
Indigenous Peoples

Predators in
churches
CANADIAN (October 31, 2012):

“These abuses have not been on the rise as stated [in the news article]; they have happened for generations ─ just like when the Catholic Church took [indigenous people] from their homes after the British had invaded their country.

“They [church officials] abused the children. They assaulted the children. And they murdered the children....
 
Predators, gay bashing
in
Boy Scouts
“The abuse has to stop now!!!”


SONIA (October 31, 2012):

“This happens all the time here ─ and far worse.

“Values are upside down. Meanwhile, the United States wants to bring ‘civilization’ to the ‘Middle East.’ …

“The only thing considered wrong now in U.S. society is to call a thing wrong.”


LAURA (October 31, 2012):

“It is so sad to witness such bitter events in the world.…

“May all the people get healthy minds and stop committing crimes against each other.”


WAKE UP (October 31, 2012):

Scouts' honor?
“I think this is normal now for European peoples. Sexual corruption in European countries is normal. They think this is the life, and they have the right to enjoy their life ─ [regardless to whether what] they are doing is right or wrong…

“…People who are used by evil powers don’t know how they [are being] used by evil powers and how they are destroying their lives… I hope one day they [victims (?)] will stand up for their rights and not let this happen.”

STRAWMAN (October 31, 2012):

“Seriously?

“This guy is a school principal? I am familiar with the old saying that you can’t judge a book by its cover but who in their right mind would hire a principal [who] looks like a gang member?

“Whoever did the hiring of this guy should be indicted as an accomplice.”
Etiwanda High School
  
E
tiwanda High School web link
“The Chaffey Joint Union High School District has partnered with School Loop…, an innovative communication tool designed to keep parents, students, teachers and staff connected.”

Mr. Tom Mitchell, Interim Principal
Update: 2012-2013 Etiwanda High School
13500 Victoria Avenue, Etiwanda, California 91739
(909) 899-2531 Phone | (909) 899-3661 Fax

Sexual Harassment 
Interim Principal’s message

“Greeting Parents, Students and the Etiwanda Community:  The school year began very smoothly and we could not be happier. Once again, Etiwanda High School has risen to the occasion and achieved academic success! 

…Regardless of the impending challenges, we will continue to provide the very best education for our students. We also value our parents and our community and extend hearty thanks for your support and dedication. Etiwanda High School is truly outstanding, not only because of our fine tradition of academic, athletic, and co-curricular success, but because our students and families truly care about our school. It is our sincere hope you have a wonderful year, GO EAGLES!” 


Bullying in school
Etiwanda’s interim principal’s page announces campaign against bullying

“Anti-Bullying Poster Contest: The Chaffey Joint Union High School District is hosting an Anti-Bullying Poster Contest. The purpose of this contest is to encourage and challenge students to use their creativity and artistic expression to show their peers that bullying is wrong, and it should not be ignored.

“The winning individual will be the one that creates the most engaging work of art that best communicates that bullying should not be tolerated and must be reported.”


E
church icon
tiwanda’s site publishes the school’s mission: “Etiwanda High School is dedicated to developing lifelong learners who positively contribute to their communities, to their families and to their own personal growth.”

Etiwanda High School Profile

Etiwanda (one of the eight comprehensive high schools in the Chaffey Joint Union High School District, in the incorporated community of Rancho Cucamonga, approximately 50 miles east of Los Angeles) opened in September 1982 with two classes and celebrated the first graduating class in 1985, now enrolls “approximately 3,100 students in grades nine through twelve.”

Accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)
Principal: Brian Joseph, Ed. D.; Assistant Principals: Eric Danhof, Josh Cho, Gayle Ross;  Counselors: Walter Shelton A-Led 9th - 10th grade;  Tamia Thomas A-Flor 11th – 12th grade, AVID 11th and 12th;  Leah Boselli Lee-Z 9th - 10th grade; Stephanie Harkey Flos -Moz 11th – 12th grade, AVID 9th & 10th, EL;  Nadine Nelson SE/504;  Jacqui Campuzano Mu – Z 11th – 12th grade

School icon


T
opping today’s comments was of course the news story as reported by Press TV

The 38-year-old principal of Etiwanda High School in California’s San Bernardino County “has been detained for maintaining a sexual relationship” with one of the school’s female students, now former student, who was a minor when the alleged relationship began.

“Police detectives served a search warrant at the residence of [Etiwanda] School Principal Brian Garrett Joseph early Tuesday morning and took him into custody.”

The article ends: “Sexual offenses against young students and pre-school toddlers by teachers, administrators and caretakers have been on the rise in the United States in the past decade.”


Sources and notes

http://ehs-cjuhsd-ca.schoolloop.com/schoolprofile
http://ehs-cjuhsd-ca.schoolloop.com/aboutus
http://ehs-cjuhsd-ca.schoolloop.com/

At Wikipedia: Etiwanda High School located 13500 Victoria Avenue, Rancho Cucamonga, California, 91739 “is accredited through the WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) and has been recognized as a California Distinguished High School.”

Public secondary school established in 1982; enrollment: 3,312, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiwanda_High_School

Press TV MFB/PKH: “U.S. school principal arrested for sexual abuse of minor student─ Brian Garrett Joseph, a California high school principal, has been detained by police for an alleged sexual relationship with a former student,” October 31, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/31/269687/us-educator-nabbed-for-child-abuse/



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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Cut-and-dried “conspiracy against the American people”


 DemRepubs post-election agenda set ─ Damon
Editing by Carolyn Bennett

“The real decision in the 2012 election,” Andre Damon writes at today’s World Socialist Web Site, “is not which millionaire tool of Wall Street to vote for.
 
“The real decision facing workers, youth, and students is to take up the challenge to build a political movement of the working class ─ independent of both big business parties, and fight for socialism.”

The elections one week from today are a conspiracy against the American people.

On all the issues of central concern to the ruling class, the two candidates are united.

Whoever is elected, the same basic policy will be pursued.

Instead of using the months’ long campaign to openly discuss critical policies before the American people, the Republican and Democratic campaigners for the U.S. presidency have “stage-managed the campaign to camouflage and conceal the reactionary agenda to be implemented once the formality of a vote is out of the way”: … a continuing assault on democratic rights bound up with the expansion of war abroad and the intensification of class war at home.

During the Republican and Democratic campaign, there was no discussion “of the advanced state of preparations for war against Iran,” Damon writes, a war [that] could quickly develop into a regional conflagration enveloping the entire Middle East and sparking a confrontation between the United States and Russia and/or China, with incalculable consequences.”

The political agenda post election has already been set, regardless to which of the [Democratic/Republican] big-business candidates wins. There is bipartisan agreement on policies set by the corporate-financial elite that controls Democratic and Republican parties:

(1) New military interventions and wars,
(2) Further attacks on democratic rights,
(3) Unprecedented cuts in basic social programs.

The Democratic and Republican candidates are united “on all issues of central concern to the ruling class,” Damon says. These men’s pre-November 6 agenda is “a conspiracy against the American people.”


Sources and notes

“One week to Election Day in America: The real choice for workers” (By Andre Damon), October 30, 2012, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/oct2012/elec-o30.shtml

See also: “Siamese twins of the ‘war on terror’: 20 more years whether Obama or Romney wins ─The more the U.S. kills and kills and kills, the more people there are who ‘want to harm us’ – that’s the logic that has resulted in a permanent war on terror” (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, October 24, 2012, USA and the War on Terror ..), October 27, 2012, http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/usa-war-on-terror/1983-the-murder-racket-created-by-obama-that-would-be-inherited-by-a-president-romney

See also: Free and Equal Elections Foundation Changes Presidential Debate to November 5 Due to Hurricane, By Aaron On October 28, 2012, http://freeandequal.org/updates/free-and-equal-elections-foundation-changes-presidential-debate-to-november-5-due-to-hurricane/


______________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Drones destroy life, terrorize survivors, are unethical, unlawful; should be banned ─ Medact report

U.S. drone launch

UAVs must be unambiguously written into international treaties; their makers, agents, governments and their leaders must adhere, without exception, to international arms and related treaties, international conventions, humanitarian and human rights laws
Excerpt from Medact report
Editing, minor comment by Carolyn Bennett

“Drones invade personal space and physically and chronically restrict people’s normal life,” says this latest medical professionals’ report on unmanned aerial vehicles. Evidence has shown that the presence of drones contributes to the disruption of vital public health programs. A Taliban leader in Waziristan reported that “polio vaccinations of children in that region will be prevented as long as the as the United States continues to use drones to kill targets there.”
Children and kin suffer

The United States regularly bombs the tribal region where the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan join.


Civilians suffer most

T
he deaths and injuries suffered by innocent civilians who happen to be in the vicinity of a drone’s target go largely unreported. These men, women and children remain statistics: anonymous and nameless.

The psychological impact on civilians – including many children – who live under the constant threat of drones, is unacceptable, and is not taken into account by those who use them.

Women protest
Evidence is also emerging of damage to the mental health of those who operate UAVs. Watching a target on a computer screen for days, tracking the target’s every move, then pressing a button that will kill [people] and possibly [their] family or friends, can create ‘physical exhaustion,’ ‘high operational stress’ and ‘clinical distress.’

W
omen are disproportionately affected by drones. What little control they have over their lives is further eroded by a weapon they know could strike at any time. Under constant threat, women try to protect their lives and those of the children. “While men can sublimate their grief and anger to some degree by becoming fighters – one of the terrible consequences of drone warfare – women have no such outlet,” the report says. “And if their [male partners] are killed in a drone strike, women may have to endure the continuing presence of the drone just overhead.”

The degree to which drones contribute to the loss of human dignity is made clear by a description of life in the Gaza Strip (Israel together with the U.S. and UK are leading users of UAVs):

‘The constant surveillance from the sky, collective punishment through blockade and isolation, the intrusion into homes and communications, and restrictions on those trying to travel, or marry, or work make it difficult to live a dignified life in Gaza.’
Somalis under drone attack


“D
RONES: the physical and psychological implications of a global theatre of war” is a report by Medact that describes the journey that led to the proliferation of these weapons and the physical and psychological damage they cause to civilians and to the military personnel who operate them. The report also explores the moral and legal issues raised by the use of drones in ‘legalized’ assassinations or ‘targeted killings.’”

Formed in 1992 by a merger of two older organizations (the 1951 Medical Association for the Prevention of War and the 1980 Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons), Medact is a global health charity that takes on issues at the center of international policy debates.

Led by its health professional membership, Medact undertakes education, research and advocacy on the health implications of conflict, development and environmental change. It focuses on war and weapons … complemented by action on the health impacts of poverty and environmental change. http://www.medact.org/medact_information.php


Drone destruction
Civilian trauma
These are some of the critical issues discussed in Medact’s October 13, 2012, report on drones.

The health professionals who author this report say the reasons for their concern about the increasing use of drones ─ in addition to the number of deaths and injuries of innocent civilians ─ have to do with “the psychological damage to people living under the constant threat of drone attack and to service personnel who carry out the assassinations”; and growing evidence that medical personnel and others who arrive at the scene of drone attacks to assist the injured are also being targeted. “This is a war crime.”

The numbers of civilians killed by drones are only estimates, the report says, the most accurate for Pakistan where estimates range from “light casualties to estimates from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) of large numbers of civilian deaths, including children, family members attending funerals, people on rescue missions and medical personnel.” The number of deaths resulting from drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia as reported by BIJ is between 201 and 213 children killed since 2001; and the total estimated deaths between 2,985 and 4,533.


Drone destruction
Questions of judgment, ethics and morality

“The use of unmanned weaponry necessarily has a corrupting effect on those directing it because it implies that war is being waged only against a few sinister individuals,” the authors write. Viewed in the context of human behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups, the use of this weaponry violates any principle of morality defined as a construct of interrelated other comprising the ability to understand or empathize with your opponent.  “All aerial warfare raises moral and ethical issues,” they write, and the bombing of civilians raises moral issues for those who direct the operations as well as for those who execute the attacks [the authors do not include but should, in my view: the moral and ethical breach of those who decide and who order these operations and executions].

“Drones,” they conclude, “could lead to a world of globalised warfare, in which people may find themselves within a theatre of war literally anywhere on the planet.”

Surely this can be characterized as enslavement, endless torture: the ultimate inhumanity of human beings to other human beings.


United Nations
Questions of law

Claims of legality and accuracy of these weapons are simply untrue, this report suggests. In situations of actual armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and other rules of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) apply. The Geneva Conventions developed in 1949 as a result of the Second World War codified “general principles with clear implications for aerial bombardment ─ in particular the need for attacks to be proportional to their anticipated military advantage, and to discriminate between combatants and civilians.”

The Obama government’s claim “that killing, using military force outside of armed conflict zones, is lawful under international law,” the authors report, is a “baseless” claim. “Indeed while theatre specific conventions relating to war on land and at sea exist in international law, no such conventions apply to aerial warfare.”

The claim that armed drones can be more accurate than other weapons of aerial warfare at discriminating between combatants and civilians, and are thus more likely to conform to IHL is also untrue. The report states:
 
Evidence of accuracy is not always borne out in reality, and identifying ‘suspicious behavior’ from aerial observation can lead to mistakes.

Moreover, the fact that the U.S. drones program classifies as possible militants all military aged men within the area of a drone strike greatly increases the risk of civilian deaths, and the likelihood that attacks will be indiscriminate under International Humanitarian Law.

International Human Rights Law (IHRL) also applies in a country experiencing conflict but where conflict had not been officially declared. A government can suspend some (but not all) of these rights if there is a national emergency that could be caused by an ‘unofficial’ conflict. 

A right “that cannot be suspended is the ‘right not arbitrarily to be deprived of one’s life.’

“If attacks by armed drones were shown to be arbitrary, they would then be considered illegal depending on the definition of ‘arbitrary.’ The International Court of Justice has ruled in one case that this should be decided by the law applicable in situations of declared armed conflict (‘lex specialis’),” thus returning to the argument of International Humanitarian Law and its core principles of proportionality and discrimination.


C
laims that the military benefit justifies the risk of civilian death and injury, that accuracy of drones increases their ability to be more ‘proportional’ (civilians in proportion to “militants” or vice versa) is a flawed argument as is the “imminent” attack argument.

Peoples of the Middle East and Africa who suffer the brunt of U. S. aggression (from the ground, air or sea) never have been and never will be an imminent threat or danger to the people or possessions of the United States of America.

The authors use an example of moral justification claimed in a decision to kill ten innocent civilians who happen to be in the same building as the “target” because it is believed the “target” may be planning to kill 100 people in the future, which serves to encourage the use of assassination drones.  “Given that the majority of these attacks are pre-emptive, that intelligence may be inaccurate, and observation misleading” makes clear “the slippery slope [that] leads to the death of civilians.

facade
International Criminal Court 
One purpose of law,” they point out, “is to determine accountability:

Who is to blame when a mistake is made and civilians are killed due to incorrect intelligence, possibly obtained under duress or provided with alternative motives?

Who is to judge the likelihood – and therefore proportionality – of that action when an attack is carried out in anticipation of an action?

“These issues muddy the waters not only of the legal, but also the moral and ethical situation.”


Background of an accelerating depravity, breakdown

I
n the past decade, proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) commonly known as ‘drones’ has skyrocketed.

Before the World Trade Center events of September 11, 2001, the United States Air force began experimenting with armed drones. In 2001, a Hellfire missile was successfully fired from a Predator drone at a stationary target in the Nevada Desert and the same year a CIA-operated Predator drone was used in combat for the first time to assassinate an alleged al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Atef, in Afghanistan.

In succeeding years, the United States has used drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq. Israel has reportedly used armed drones in Gaza. The United Kingdom has used them in Afghanistan. Now, more than seventy-five countries are thought to possess some type of drone.

Children suffer most
as does the future
Three countries (the United States, Britain, and Israel) are known to have used armed drones in combat, the report says; but Singapore, India, China and Russia have developed or purchased drones; and, in the coming decade, the annual drone market (U.S. leading next eight years’ spending $32 billion, Asia Pacific nations following) is expected to rise from $5.9 billion to $11.3 billion.

Plans are on the drawing board “for drones to become increasingly automated, with the ability to fly pre-programmed missions and eventually select their own targets,” the report says.

The future may see solar-powered drones and drones that can take off vertically from ships.

Blueprints for the production of nuclear-powered drones, capable of staying airborne for months at a time, were drawn up [but then] shelved in anticipation of negative public opinion] by the U.S. government’s main R and D agency Sandia National Laboratories.


The report’s list of countries involved in the export and development of drones (taken from Drone Wars UK) include:  

ISRAEL (Directly exported: Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, India, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey; Helped to develop: Finland, France, Switzerland, UK)

U.S. drone
UNITED STATES (Directly exported: Belgium, Egypt, Italy, Morocco, Turkey, UK;
Helped to develop: Germany)

FRANCE (Directly exported: Greece, Netherlands, Sweden)

SOUTH AFRICA (Directly exported: Sri Lanka)


“C
onsidering drones from a public health perspective reveals: the human cost of their use, the moral and ethical issues raised by ‘targeted killings’ and their dubious legal status,” the authors conclude their report with recommendations.

“Drone strikes are frequently based on an ‘imminent threat’ and potentially inaccurate intelligence, in situations of highly asymmetric conflict (violent conflict between a formal military and an informal, poorly-equipped, but resilient opponent).

“Far from defeating terrorism, drone attacks appear to act as a recruiting agent ─ including for suicide missions.”

The Medact report recommends greater parliamentary and public scrutiny of the use of drones, the inclusion of these UAVs in arms reduction treaties, and the end to further automation in their operations. As Medact is a UK organization, the report calls on their government in particular to stop purchasing, developing and deploying armed drones. Others in the United States, including 2012 U.S. presidential candidate and physician Jill Stein (Green Party), have made a similar call as well for a binding international treaty.

 “We believe,” the report concludes, “that it is in the public interest and in the interest of our armed forces that there should be more transparency, parliamentary scrutiny, and public debate on ─

How drone strikes are planned
How targets are chosen
Who is targeted and why








Sources and notes

“Drones: the physical and psychological implications of a global theatre of war,” October 13, 2012, http://www.medact.org/content/wmd_and_conflict/medact_drones_WEB.pdf

HOW DID WE GET HERE [Medact]

1910 U.S. air force experimental bombing
Sandbags over the sides of planes

1911 Ain Zara Libya
Hand dropped bomb

1914-18 World War 1
The aeroplane is the new battlefield weapon

1937 Spanish Civil War
Air raid on Guernica kills over 200 civilians

1944-45 World War II
‘Doddlebugs’ or V1s – a prototype UAV

Mid 1950 United States
V1 developed into surface to surface cruise missile – a ‘pilotless bomber’

1955-75 Vietnam War
Remotely Piloted Vehicles developed

1973 Yom Kippur War
Drones used to draw fire

1990-91 Gulf War
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones used for surveillance

1999 War in Kosovo
UAVs used for surveillance

2001 Conflict in Afghanistan
February: first test of an armed UAV.
November: first assassination using an armed UAV

2007 Conflict in Afghanistan
British forces start to use UAVs

2002-2012 Armed UAVs used for assassinations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen

2012 An estimated 76 countries have some sort of UAV
First British UAV base being set up at RAF Waddington
President Obama supervises a ‘kill list’ to decide which individuals are targeted.

Beyond 2020 Prospect of rapid proliferation
Development of more autonomous UAVs including possible self selection of targets


PRESS RELEASE: On October 13th Medact launched its report “Drones: the physical and psychological implications of a global theatre of war,” http://www.medact.org/article_health.php?articleID=990

Drone report authors: Marion Birch – Director Medact; Gay Lee – Nurse and Medact Board member; Tomasz Pierscionek – Academic Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry and Medact Board member

Advisors: Chris Cole – Coordinator of Drone Wars UK and Convenor, Drone Campaign Network; Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell – Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law and  Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution, Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame; Dominick Jenkins – Independent Consultant; Miri Weingarten– Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Editor: Alison Whyte – Medact; Design: Sue MacDonald – SMD Design

Published by Medact 2012 : The Grayston Centre, 28 Charles Squre, London N1 6HT, United Kingdom; E info@medact.org; www.medact.org; Registered charity 1081097 Company reg no 2267125; Medact is the UK affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW); © Medact 2012, Medact: http://www.medact.org/medact_information.php


Dr. Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party candidate for U.S. presidency, has called for an international treaty on drones
Jill Stein and Gary Johnson Debate Transcript (by Alex Gauthier) on 10/19/2012, IVN Online Debate, http://ivn.us/editors-blog/2012/10/19/jill-stein-and-gary-johnson-debate-transcript/?replytocom=1572

See also on drones: RootsAction, “an independent online initiative dedicated to galvanizing Americans who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection ─ and defunding endless wars,” http://www.rootsaction.org/about-rootsaction

Asymmetric warfare

Asymmetric warfare describes what is also called ‘guerrilla warfare,’ ‘insurgency,’ ‘terrorism,’ ‘counterinsurgency,’ and ‘counterterrorism,’ essentially violent conflict between a formal military and an informal, poorly-equipped, but resilient opponent:  “war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly”; struggles involving strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare, the weaker combatants attempting to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare



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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Friday, October 26, 2012

Murderous foreign relations paradigm carelessly coddled by U.S. Left, Right

Anti-U.S. demonstration
Middle East

Unchecked power is global threat ─ no matter who or what holds it; and it may soon be checked

‘In questions of power … let no more be heard of confidence in man;

Bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.’ [Greenwald quotes Jefferson]

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

C
ensored and ignored

Human costs suffered by Fallujans (Iraq) Ross Caputi at yesterday’s Guardian UK

U.S. war on Iraq
“One of the most severe public health crises in history, for which the U.S. military may be to blame, receives no attention in the United States.

Four new studies on the health crisis in Fallujah have been published in the last three months. Ever since two major U.S.-led assaults destroyed the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, Fallujans have witnessed dramatic increases in rates of cancers, birth defects and infant mortality in their city.

The latest study by Dr Chris Busby “is not abstract,” Ross Caputi writes. “It is not merely an intellectual or medical issue.” The modern means of warfare may be inherently indiscriminate. This has real world importance.

Quoting Dr. Busby, author and co-author of two studies on the Fallujah heath crisis, Caputi says Busby calls this “‘the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.’”

But those who do not want to hear the costs of war dismiss or reject Busby’s studies. 

Many naysayers have dismissed the authors’ hypotheses as speculative (hypotheses by definition are always speculative to a degree: informed yet their claims intended to be verified or falsified) “because they do not like their moral and political implications.” In their dismissal, they offer no further studies ─ “many of these naysayers have not responded to these studies by calling for more research and investigation to test the hypotheses of Dr. Busby or Dr. Williams” [studies by Dr. Dai Williams suggest that there is a new generation of weapons being used, possibly by the U.S. and Israeli militaries, which could have serious indiscriminate health effects on the populations living near bombing targets].  Rather they have expressed “a great deal of antipathy for the scientific method and the pursuit of truth”; and even “more importantly, they dismiss the suffering of the people of Fallujah, and all people affected by these issues.”

Ross Caputi concludes the obvious that to help the people of Fallujah, more studies must be done to figure out what is harming the children then steps must be taken to ensure that this never happens again; but, first, he says, “we must find a way to overcome the stifling silence of governments.”


Pakistanis protest
U. S. assassination drones
U.S. Left to Right, Right to Left
Coddling a murderous paradigm 

I
f it’s not their children, and lacks immediacy in that perception, then they just don’t care. Slaughter other people’s children: kill them, let them die, let them suffer and when the bomblets explode, let them suffer well into the future when war has been pronounced ended.

Glenn Greenwald had a piece at the Guardian online this week on “journalist” at large MSNBCer Joe Klein’s latest pledge of allegiance to drones to kill other people’s children and his good-guy versus his bad-guy orders to kill other people’s children.

In the article “Joe Klein’s sociopathic defense of drone killings of children,” Greenwald quotes Klein’s drone advocacy when he says: they take “‘out a lot of bad people and sav[e] Americans’ lives … because our troops don’t have to do this . . . You don’t need pilots anymore because you do it with a joystick in California.’”

However “‘… there is a major possibility of abuse,’” Klein says, “‘if you have the wrong people running the government. But the bottom line is: whose 4-year-olds get killed?’”

Not mine, he seems to say.

What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here [in the United States] will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror. 

Greenwald responds that “the only difference between the Joe Kleins of the world and Osama bin Laden” ─ in justifying the slaughter of civilians ─ “is that they are on different sides.
U.S. drones attack Somalis

“To the extent one wanted to distinguish” these men, Greenwald says, “one could say that the violence and aggression brought by the U.S. to the Muslim world vastly exceeds ─ vastly exceeds ─ the violence and aggression brought by the Muslim world to the United States.” That’s fact, nor opinion.

Greenwald continues.

“Leaving aside the sociopathic, morally grotesque defense of killing 4-year-olds with a ‘joystick from California,’ Klein’s claims are completely false on pragmatic grounds.

Slaughtering Muslim children does not protect American children from terrorism. The opposite is true.… 

The reason American 4-year-olds are in danger from terrorism ─ to the very limited extent they are ─ is precisely because those empowered in U.S. government and media circles think like Joe Klein does …. 

Soulless cheerleaders for indiscriminate killing.…

Leaving aside the authoritarian willingness to trust certain leaders with unchecked power,” Greenwald observes, quoting a warning of America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson:

‘In questions of power … let no more be heard of confidence in man;
Bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
  
“Once a power is legitimized and institutionalized, it is then vested in all presidents, current and future, Democratic and Republican [and] those who cheer for the unchecked power to assassinate in secret because it is Obama who currently wields that power ─ will be the ones fully responsible when some leader they do not trust exercises it, abuses it in the future.”


Peril of unchecked superpower: its own undoing
Seumas Milne writes this week at the Guardian

“Whoever runs Washington heads a global empire” … and “whatever the personal views of the politician at the top, the U.S. empire is a system ─ not a policy ─ underpinned by corporate and military interests,” he writes.

“Romney would very likely be a more dangerous leader. But almost every U.S. president has sanctioned military action. And the risk of war with Iran or growing intervention in Syria would remain under a second Obama term.”

However, the overreach in the “war on terror,” paid in blood and treasure by Americans and other peoples of the world, has hastened the decline of the imperial system. The United States has troops stationed in a majority of countries; its military spending exceeds the combined spending of the next 20 powers combined. And though American politics affects people’s lives in every part of the world ─ often as a matter of life or death ─ the rest of the world wants the United States “off its back.”


W
United Natons
General Assembly
193 nations
ill the United Nations succeed in checking unchecked U.S. global killing project? Legal affairs correspondent Owen Bowcott reports for the Guardian

UN special rapporteurs seem to be trying to rein in U.S. reign of assassination drone terror on peoples of the world.

United Nations at Geneva is reportedly establishing an investigations unit “to examine the legality of drone attacks in cases where civilians are killed in ‘targeted’ counter-terrorism operations.”
 
Special rapporteur Ben Emmerson (QC) this past summer called for  effective investigations into drone attacks and this week he announced during a speech at Harvard law school that he and his colleague Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, will launch “an investigation unit within the special procedures of the [UN] Human Rights Council to inquire into individual drone attacks.”

Emmerson monitors counter-terrorism for the UN and has said that some U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan “may amount to war crimes.”


 Challenge impunity

Universal Declaration of
Human Rights
1947
Emmerson maintains that the United States position “that it can conduct counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda or other groups anywhere in the world because it is deemed to be an international conflict was indefensible.”

The global war paradigm has done immense damage to a previously shared international consensus on the legal framework underlying both international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The global war paradigm has also given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations.

The global war paradigm was always based on the flimsiest of reasoning, and was not supported even by close allies of the United States.





Sources and notes

“The victims of Fallujah's health crisis are stifled by western silence ─ To research a possible link between US bombardment and rates of birth defects and pediatric cancer in Iraq is a moral imperative” (Ross Caputi, guardian.co.uk), October 25, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-health-crisis-silence

Busby is not the only researcher who takes ‘controversial’ positions.

His findings are complimented by the work of Dr Dai Williams, an independent weapons researcher. Williams has been investigating what he calls ‘third generation uranium weapons’.

He has found patents for weapon systems that could use un-depleted uranium, or slightly enriched uranium, interchangeably with tungsten, either as a dense metal or as a reactive metal.

Un-depleted and slightly enriched uranium have also been found on other battlefields (Afghanistan and Lebanon).

These findings lead researchers like Dr Williams to believe that there is a new generation of weapons being used, possibly by the U.S. and Israeli militaries, which could have serious indiscriminate health effects on the populations living near bombing targets.

“Joe Klein’s sociopathic defense of drone killings of children ─ Reflecting the Obama legacy and U.S. culture, the Time columnist says: ‘the bottom line is: whose 4-year-olds get killed?’” (Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian), October 23, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

“Americans would also gain from scaling back the empire ─ The presidential foreign policy debate showed how close the candidates were – and how far from their own public opinion”
(Seumas Milne, The Guardian), October 23, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/better-us-scale-back-global-empire
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/usa-war-on-terror/1977-the-world-has-voted-in-the-us-presidential-election-get-america-off-our-back
  
“UN to investigate civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes ─ Special rapporteur on counter-terror operations condemns Barack Obama’s failure to establish effective monitoring process” (Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent, guardian.co.uk) October 25, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/25/un-inquiry-us-drone-strikes

Joe Klein is a regular blogger on time.com’s Swampland blog. In November 2007, Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote about factual errors in a Klein story about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Klein reported that the Democratic version of the FISA bill ‘would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s calls to be approved by the FISA court’ and that it therefore ‘would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans.’

Time later published a comment: ‘In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don’t.’

Greenwald noted that the text of the legislation does not require court review of individual targets, and that Time’s response disregards this fact. Klein’s response was: ‘I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who’s right.’

Later, Greenwald reported that Time ‘refused the requests of two sitting members of Congress ... to correct Klein’s false statements in Time itself.’ Greenwald has reported that Senator Russ Feingold has been informed by Time that his letter rebutting Klein will be published in a forthcoming issue.

Klein was later drawn attention to by Greenwald for revealing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program his advocacy of U.S. drone strikes resulting in the death and mutilation of young children. Klein stated that the bottom line in the end was to ask 
‘whose 4-year-olds get killed? What we’re doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror.’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Klein




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