Harlem representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) plans to reintroduce legislation backing the reinstatement of the military to fight the "war on terror" (http://www.house.gov/list/press/ny15_rangel/CBRStatementonDraft02142006.html), and already you can hear the screams of disgust coming from the right-wing of the political spectrum.
The Bush regime has consistently painted their "war on terror" in religious language, as an epic battle between the forces of good and evil (read, "Christianity vs. Islam") that must be fought and won to insure the security of future generations of Americans and other Westerners. Bush was universally chastised early on for referring to their upcoming war as a "crusade", and calling it "Operation Infinite Justice" (terms which lent credence to the Islamic world's view that the West was intent on intensifying the Crusades of the past). Dick Cheney, the undisputed Lord of Evil, suggests this new Cold War is bound to last decades, and anything less than complete public support would lead to the eventual establishment of a new Islamic caliphate and the forced conversion of all Westerners to Islam. Yet all of this lofty-sounding rhetoric vanishes if it is suggested that every citizen participate in their war with rifle in hand, facing the enemy on their territory.
The wealthy and powerful aren't particularly fond of getting their hands bloody personally, but are very fond of ordering the less wealthy and powerful to do so. Bush, Cheney, and countless other cheerleaders for unending war have better things to do when they had the opportunity to participate in the Vietnam conflict. The Vietnam fiasco showed the powerful rulers of America that once the public turns against the prosecution of a war, the war itself will end. Reinstating the draft would seriously erode the dwindling support the Bush regime has for their war, and Rangel's measure will be fought against tooth and nail.
For now, sit back and enjoy the right-wingers excuses for shirking the sacrifices they wish upon others; the back-pedalling is quite hilarious.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
tip of the iceberg (Iraq withdrawal and justice)
Being against the occupation of Iraq has become fashionable amongst Washington insiders nowadays. Centrist and conservative Democrats who once jumped on the pre-emptive bandwagon by voting to give Bush authority to wage war are now removing their proverbial feet from their mouths since it is politically expedient to do so at this time. Republicans, after losing their grip on power in the Congress during the recent elections, are also backpedaling and criticizing the execution of the war (not the moral justification for it though); again, political expediency is changing minds (not hearts, I'd wager).
The Democrats are ambiguous on how they plan to do anything different in Iraq, and most favor some sort of phased withdrawal or redeployment. The general consensus seems to be "We're there, and we musn't look back and criticize the decision to invade, we must move forward", meaning the Bush regime is apparently going to be given a pass for the illegal invasion and wanton murder of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. The Bush regime is apparently going to get away with squandered billions of tax dollars for an unnecessary confrontation and the universal sullying of the United States already suspect reputation around the globe. Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be House speaker, has already dismissed questions about possible impeachment, so we can assume that holding the Bush regime accountable for their many other misdeeds are also off the table.
This is pure bullshit. The Democratic Party is so maddeningly timid and worried about the prevailing political winds that they continually shirk their responsibilities when faced with blatant unconstitutional behavior by the executive branch (not all Democrats, I might add; the progressive wing of the Party seems more than willing to do the right thing, but they don't hold any leadership positions yet. Check out http://bernie.house.gov/website/leavesite.asp?url=http://cpc.lee.house.gov/ for more details). The only withdrawal strategies I've heard thus far usually include some thought about Iraqis "taking responsibility for their own security", the Iraqis "standing up" and the US "standing down", and other such paternalistic, racist crap (from both Democrats and Republicans) you wouldn't even say to most little children. The leaders of the US consistently fail to address the most fundamental and important aspect of any withdrawal from Iraq: Justice.
If the United States were ruled by honorable men and women, their train of thought on the matter would be totally different from what we are seeing at the moment. I'd like to enumerate several strategies of withdrawal the US could take if it were interested in justice. First, according to any reading of international law, this invasion was an act of unadulterated aggression, and would've been roundly condemned as such by the UN if perpetrated by a country of less stature. To make amends for undercutting and undermining the authority of the UN, members of the Bush regime should be required to stand, one by one, before the UN General Assembly and publicly apologize on record for their criminal behavior. This would not only be a first for a belligerent superpower, but it would serve as an example to the rest of the world's nations that the US intends to act within and respect the framework of international standards in the future. Also, the public shaming of the arrogant Bush regime would be good for the souls of great and small alike (not to mention hilarious!).
Secondly, the US should remove all military personnel, business contractors, mercenaries, and military installations from Iraqi soil. This would prove to the world that the US is not there specifically for the purpose of securing access to oil reserves, and would take away the bottomless cash well that military contractors have been sipping from since the invasion started.
Third, the tax cuts the Bush regime granted to wealthy Americans should be abolished and the money used to pay reparations to the people of Iraq. You don't storm in someone's home, kill the innocent, destroy the infrastructure, and leave without any restitution! That's pure nonsense! Where are the justice-minded politicians who are even suggesting reparations? Not in this galaxy. Tax incentives and giveaways to multinational corporations profitting off of Iraqi misery (Halliburton, Bechtel, military equipment and armament manufacturers, mercenary outfits like Blackwater, etc.) should be repealed and added to the pot for the reparations payments. Iraqi-based companies (or the government itself) should receive some of this money to repair the severe infrastructure damage done by incessant bombing campaigns, with Americans helping only when requested. No American friends of Bush should profit off of this obscene crime, and withdrawing with justice would require these steps.
Lastly, every member of the Bush regime (including those who have resigned) and the neconservative fascists responsible for laying the ideological groundwork for the invasion should be dragged before the International Criminal Court and tried like the criminals they are. Rumsfeld is already facing litigation (in Germany) brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (www.ccr-ny.org) and other human rights groups for his complicity in the Abu Ghraib torture chambers and the operation of the not-so-secret gulag dotted throughout Europe and the Middle East. The victims of these crimes deserve justice, and pulling out of Iraq without prosecuting the people behind it would permanently damage any notion of international standards of justice.
Withdrawing the troops is only the tip of the iceberg. Without justice, there will never exist even a remote possibility of lasting peace in Iraq or any other nation in the world.
The Democrats are ambiguous on how they plan to do anything different in Iraq, and most favor some sort of phased withdrawal or redeployment. The general consensus seems to be "We're there, and we musn't look back and criticize the decision to invade, we must move forward", meaning the Bush regime is apparently going to be given a pass for the illegal invasion and wanton murder of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. The Bush regime is apparently going to get away with squandered billions of tax dollars for an unnecessary confrontation and the universal sullying of the United States already suspect reputation around the globe. Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be House speaker, has already dismissed questions about possible impeachment, so we can assume that holding the Bush regime accountable for their many other misdeeds are also off the table.
This is pure bullshit. The Democratic Party is so maddeningly timid and worried about the prevailing political winds that they continually shirk their responsibilities when faced with blatant unconstitutional behavior by the executive branch (not all Democrats, I might add; the progressive wing of the Party seems more than willing to do the right thing, but they don't hold any leadership positions yet. Check out http://bernie.house.gov/website/leavesite.asp?url=http://cpc.lee.house.gov/ for more details). The only withdrawal strategies I've heard thus far usually include some thought about Iraqis "taking responsibility for their own security", the Iraqis "standing up" and the US "standing down", and other such paternalistic, racist crap (from both Democrats and Republicans) you wouldn't even say to most little children. The leaders of the US consistently fail to address the most fundamental and important aspect of any withdrawal from Iraq: Justice.
If the United States were ruled by honorable men and women, their train of thought on the matter would be totally different from what we are seeing at the moment. I'd like to enumerate several strategies of withdrawal the US could take if it were interested in justice. First, according to any reading of international law, this invasion was an act of unadulterated aggression, and would've been roundly condemned as such by the UN if perpetrated by a country of less stature. To make amends for undercutting and undermining the authority of the UN, members of the Bush regime should be required to stand, one by one, before the UN General Assembly and publicly apologize on record for their criminal behavior. This would not only be a first for a belligerent superpower, but it would serve as an example to the rest of the world's nations that the US intends to act within and respect the framework of international standards in the future. Also, the public shaming of the arrogant Bush regime would be good for the souls of great and small alike (not to mention hilarious!).
Secondly, the US should remove all military personnel, business contractors, mercenaries, and military installations from Iraqi soil. This would prove to the world that the US is not there specifically for the purpose of securing access to oil reserves, and would take away the bottomless cash well that military contractors have been sipping from since the invasion started.
Third, the tax cuts the Bush regime granted to wealthy Americans should be abolished and the money used to pay reparations to the people of Iraq. You don't storm in someone's home, kill the innocent, destroy the infrastructure, and leave without any restitution! That's pure nonsense! Where are the justice-minded politicians who are even suggesting reparations? Not in this galaxy. Tax incentives and giveaways to multinational corporations profitting off of Iraqi misery (Halliburton, Bechtel, military equipment and armament manufacturers, mercenary outfits like Blackwater, etc.) should be repealed and added to the pot for the reparations payments. Iraqi-based companies (or the government itself) should receive some of this money to repair the severe infrastructure damage done by incessant bombing campaigns, with Americans helping only when requested. No American friends of Bush should profit off of this obscene crime, and withdrawing with justice would require these steps.
Lastly, every member of the Bush regime (including those who have resigned) and the neconservative fascists responsible for laying the ideological groundwork for the invasion should be dragged before the International Criminal Court and tried like the criminals they are. Rumsfeld is already facing litigation (in Germany) brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (www.ccr-ny.org) and other human rights groups for his complicity in the Abu Ghraib torture chambers and the operation of the not-so-secret gulag dotted throughout Europe and the Middle East. The victims of these crimes deserve justice, and pulling out of Iraq without prosecuting the people behind it would permanently damage any notion of international standards of justice.
Withdrawing the troops is only the tip of the iceberg. Without justice, there will never exist even a remote possibility of lasting peace in Iraq or any other nation in the world.
Monday, November 13, 2006
the corpse daughters
In January of 2006, one of the most heinous crimes the mind can conjure actually happened in my home town: A father fatally stabbed his twin daughters to death while playing a game of hide-and-seek (even typing that sentence is enough to send waves of disgust through ones body). Incidences of infanticide occur periodically, but all don't attract the national attention this one has from the media (I guess the other situations might not have "ratings-friendly" stories, so they stayed strictly local). What made this particular case interesting to mainstream Americans was the fact that the crime was committed by an 45-year old white bank executive living in an affluent part of town.
The father (Charlottean David Crespi) readily confessed to his guilt, and the media (and society for that matter) immediately began concocting excuses for his behavior. Scanning the television and newspaper stories in the early days of the crime, you could almost hear the media screaming "There must have been something wrong mentally for this guy to do something this diabolical!" Anyone who has lived in these United States as an African-American for even a decade could've predicted this response when you take into account the identity of the perpetrator. Before I go further, let me state that I believe depression is a real, tangible, destructive mental disorder requiring treatment and care, so I aim not to minimize its reality by referring to it as an "excuse". The point of emphasis I want to make is that depression is considered a legitimate and honest alibi for the commission of a crime, but that mostly depends on the identity of the perpetrator.
Mr. Crespi may well be depressed and it may have contributed to spurring his bout of homicidal mania, but because he is a rich, all-American white man working in an executive position, his declarations of depression are greeted with understanding, empathy, and even sympathy. How many Black or Latino men and women are basically given the benefit of the doubt if they committed similar crimes? This has been tried with Black or Latino defendants and has been generally met with doubt by prosecutors and juries. In fact, there is a Black man named Guy LeGrande scheduled to be executed in North Carolina for the 1996 murder of a Stanly county woman, and despite his clinically-diagnosed psychotic disorder and off-the-wall behavior in court (he represented himself during the trial wearing a Superman t-shirt), the jury summarily sentenced him to death anyway. For some reason, pleading insanity doesn't work very well if you're not rich, white, and not expected to act in a criminal manner. There have been protests staged to hopefully stop Legrande's execution (which is still scheduled to take place December 1), but Crespi never needed an organized movement to help spare his life. Hell, he even appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show today (from prison, of course) to assist Oprah in her discussion of depression and how it affects the suburban home. Go figure!
Black people in the United States know and have always known that the justice system is biased against them; such is the legacy of slavery, white supremacy, Jim Crow justice, and racial disharmony in this country. Black skin immediately evokes prejudgments of guilt, while white skin usually evokes the benefit of the doubt, and for many of us, this mental process happens before we can consciously stop it. The ever-present tendency to see Black or Latino men as automatically guilty in the US justice system is as strong as ever, and it has been adversely affecting the quality of life for both communities for far too long. It also says more about mainstream America than mainstream America would like said, but...
Let us consider the possibility of mental illness equally among defendants. The presence of psychosis in people of color is real, but its presence is almost never considered or taken into account in the real courts of jurisprudence and the courts of public opinion. Let's not allow notions and beliefs of white supremacy and Black/Lation inferiority cloud what would seem obvious for white defendants.
The father (Charlottean David Crespi) readily confessed to his guilt, and the media (and society for that matter) immediately began concocting excuses for his behavior. Scanning the television and newspaper stories in the early days of the crime, you could almost hear the media screaming "There must have been something wrong mentally for this guy to do something this diabolical!" Anyone who has lived in these United States as an African-American for even a decade could've predicted this response when you take into account the identity of the perpetrator. Before I go further, let me state that I believe depression is a real, tangible, destructive mental disorder requiring treatment and care, so I aim not to minimize its reality by referring to it as an "excuse". The point of emphasis I want to make is that depression is considered a legitimate and honest alibi for the commission of a crime, but that mostly depends on the identity of the perpetrator.
Mr. Crespi may well be depressed and it may have contributed to spurring his bout of homicidal mania, but because he is a rich, all-American white man working in an executive position, his declarations of depression are greeted with understanding, empathy, and even sympathy. How many Black or Latino men and women are basically given the benefit of the doubt if they committed similar crimes? This has been tried with Black or Latino defendants and has been generally met with doubt by prosecutors and juries. In fact, there is a Black man named Guy LeGrande scheduled to be executed in North Carolina for the 1996 murder of a Stanly county woman, and despite his clinically-diagnosed psychotic disorder and off-the-wall behavior in court (he represented himself during the trial wearing a Superman t-shirt), the jury summarily sentenced him to death anyway. For some reason, pleading insanity doesn't work very well if you're not rich, white, and not expected to act in a criminal manner. There have been protests staged to hopefully stop Legrande's execution (which is still scheduled to take place December 1), but Crespi never needed an organized movement to help spare his life. Hell, he even appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show today (from prison, of course) to assist Oprah in her discussion of depression and how it affects the suburban home. Go figure!
Black people in the United States know and have always known that the justice system is biased against them; such is the legacy of slavery, white supremacy, Jim Crow justice, and racial disharmony in this country. Black skin immediately evokes prejudgments of guilt, while white skin usually evokes the benefit of the doubt, and for many of us, this mental process happens before we can consciously stop it. The ever-present tendency to see Black or Latino men as automatically guilty in the US justice system is as strong as ever, and it has been adversely affecting the quality of life for both communities for far too long. It also says more about mainstream America than mainstream America would like said, but...
Let us consider the possibility of mental illness equally among defendants. The presence of psychosis in people of color is real, but its presence is almost never considered or taken into account in the real courts of jurisprudence and the courts of public opinion. Let's not allow notions and beliefs of white supremacy and Black/Lation inferiority cloud what would seem obvious for white defendants.
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