Darfur: Another Rwanda, Another Holocaust
In her article “Darfur: No More “Never Again””, Ann-Louise Colgan discusses the horrific atrocities taking place in Darfur. She explains the necessity for a large scale international peace keeping force. “In a significant step, the U.N. Security Council authorized such a peacekeeping force in Resolution 1706—authorizing the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops—passed at the end of August. We believe that Darfur is a real test for the international community of what is known as the “Responsibility to Protect” principle, affirmed by the United States and other nations just one year ago.” “The Responsibility to Protect doctrine was created so that “state sovereignty could not be used to justify atrocities—or to bar collective international action to protect those citizens:” [It] provides that diplomatic and other peaceful tools are tried first to bring the violations to an end, but where ‘national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity,’ the U.N. Security Council could put a Chapter VII military force on the table.” Many important voices such as Fatima Haroun of the Sudan Peace Advocates Network and Archbishop Desmond Tutu call for the international community to make a significant and irrevocable stand against the Sudanese Government and its Janjaweed militia. Archbishop Tutu “chastised the international community for its slow response to the Darfur crisis, saying in a BBC interview, “The harsh truth is that some lives are slightly more important than others. . . If you are swarthy, of a darker hue, almost always you are going to end up at the bottom of the pile.” Many members of the African Union are calling the genocide in Darfur another ‘Rwanda’. Everyday the deployment of peacekeeping troops is withheld, countless more lives are lost, and women and girls are raped.
YouTube - Darfur: Not on Our Watch
In her article “Darfur: No More “Never Again””, Ann-Louise Colgan discusses the horrific atrocities taking place in Darfur. She explains the necessity for a large scale international peace keeping force. “In a significant step, the U.N. Security Council authorized such a peacekeeping force in Resolution 1706—authorizing the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops—passed at the end of August. We believe that Darfur is a real test for the international community of what is known as the “Responsibility to Protect” principle, affirmed by the United States and other nations just one year ago.” “The Responsibility to Protect doctrine was created so that “state sovereignty could not be used to justify atrocities—or to bar collective international action to protect those citizens:” [It] provides that diplomatic and other peaceful tools are tried first to bring the violations to an end, but where ‘national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity,’ the U.N. Security Council could put a Chapter VII military force on the table.” Many important voices such as Fatima Haroun of the Sudan Peace Advocates Network and Archbishop Desmond Tutu call for the international community to make a significant and irrevocable stand against the Sudanese Government and its Janjaweed militia. Archbishop Tutu “chastised the international community for its slow response to the Darfur crisis, saying in a BBC interview, “The harsh truth is that some lives are slightly more important than others. . . If you are swarthy, of a darker hue, almost always you are going to end up at the bottom of the pile.” Many members of the African Union are calling the genocide in Darfur another ‘Rwanda’. Everyday the deployment of peacekeeping troops is withheld, countless more lives are lost, and women and girls are raped.
YouTube - Darfur: Not on Our Watch
Howard Zinn’s Passionate Declaration’s Chapter Two Summary
Machiavellian Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Means and Ends
In Howard Zinn’s Passionate Declarations Chapter Two, “Machiavellian Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Means and Ends”, Zinn discusses the origins of Machiavellian policies and explains how our ‘democratic’ government has come to rely on a policy that permits any means (be that torture or atomic bombs) to be used to reach a desired end. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote what has become “the world’s most famous handbook of political wisdom for governments and their advisors”, (9) entitled The Prince about 500 years ago. Machiavelli is considered “the father of modern political realism” (10). His assessment of human nature is that we are “basically immoral” (11) and as a result need authoritarian figures to rule us rather than being capable of living in a humanitarian fashion through independent thinking and activities. The foundation of his beliefs requires “th notion that all our interest are the4 same (the political leaders and the citizens, the millionaire and the homeless person)” (11). We constantly hear terms such as “national interest”, “national security” and “national defense”. These deceptive phrases suggest that it is possible to generalize the needs of any country, its government and citizens alike. The United States Declaration of Independence states that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, ad to institute new government” (12). Adversely, Machiavelli did not place any rights within the citizenry of a nation, but rather believed in ultimate governmental authority, power and control. America has clearly followed Machiavellian principles in regards to its foreign policy for many decades. We have spent billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand of lives overthrowing left-wing governments in Central America and replacing them with right-wing governments, committing monstrous atrocities, torture and violence, which has been left totally unaccounted for. Government officials explaining the ‘necessity’ for these actions like to use an excuse called “The Domino Theory” (14) to justify our coups, military and police actions, and wars. They feed on fears of communism to persuade citizens that without these military offensives, we will be mercilessly attacked by a communist regime. During these types of actions a doctrine known as ‘plausible deniability’ (16) comes into play. Presidents themselves escape ‘involvement’ and therefore accountability by having these actions committed by others within their administration, allowing them to escape any consequences for the wrong doings. “Machiavelli would have admired” (16) these operations. “A prince”, he suggested, “should emulate both the lion and the fox” (17). The lion uses force” (17). “The fox uses deception” (17). The government uses force as desired and lies to appease the citizens of the necessity of the force. This way when a so called democracy “engages in a war that is clearly against a vicious and demonstrably evil enemy, then the end seems so clean and clear that any means to defeat that enemy may seem justified” (22). Dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified by this very principle. “It was morality limited by nationalism, perhaps even racism. The saving of American lives was considered far more important than the saving of Japanese lives (24).” “There have always been people who did think for themselves, against dominant theology, and when there were enough of them history had its splendid moments: a war was called to a halt, a tyrant was overthrown, an enslaved people won its freedom, the poor won a small victory” (27). While Machiavelli’s realism is the dominant political strategy of our time, idealism will never be completely defeated in the hearts and minds of men and women around the world irregardless of the state of “reality” they have been forced to live in. Machiavelli believed people to be naturally wicked; however, there will always be individuals who will test and even disprove, his ‘theory’.
Naomi Klein and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
A review of an interview from the September 17th Democracy Now Broadcast
The Shock Doctrine exposes what is called “shock and awe” political and military strategy as well as insidious tactics used by ours as well as other governments to control their citizens and get them to behave in ways normally not possible. The premise is based on the fact that after any shock or disaster, whether natural, terrorist, military, economic, or individual, we are more likely to follow, rather timidly, authority figures, whoever they might be. Milton Friedman, renowned as one of the greatest political thinkers of our time and advisors to such politicians as Margaret Thatcher, both Bushes, Reagan, Pinochet, Rumsfield and so on, was a radical freemarket economist. Nixon had hired Friedman as an advisor during his first term but realized that his radical ideas were not yet possible in a nearly peacetime democracy. Nixon found he would be “absolutely defeated at the polls if he were to keep him on staff.” Instead, Nixon used Chile as a laboratory for these ideas under a dictatorship government. After the coup on September 11, 1973, and the total shock and disorientation of the population of Chile through mass murders and torture, Chile was now ‘prepared’ for Pinochet’s radical free market government. On September 12, 1973 a document called “The Brick” was placed on every government official’s desk. This was the foundation of Pinochet’s economic policy. It is interesting to note that Bush Sr. was head of the CIA at the time and the document is almost identical to the economic platform of George W. The Shock Doctrine uncovers the principle that politicians use periods of severe shock and disaster to push through every possible free market economic platform possible before citizens have had time to regain their bearings. The military is using this same shock and awe doctrine as its strategy for the war in Iraq and on the prisoners in Guatanamo. If carefully considered, this must also lead one to question if these disasters (which are necessary to supply the shock needed for sheepish government compliance) are truly natural and unpreventable. Should we entertain the possibility that some have been allowed to happen and some even caused?
YouTube - Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine - Part 1 of 6
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