Of lawyers and war

Seems that lawyers are getting more involved in war these days. They take their place right up with the generals. Now war is a horrible thing, been in one myself, so I know what I am talking about. Its slaughter,mayhem,and atrocity city. Over history wise men, realizing that they couldn't end war, decided to make war civilized(what an oxymoron, to slaughter people is not civilized) OK we came up with the Geneva convention and on the surface, we adhered to it when it suited us. I am sure Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't fit in with the parameters of the Geneva convention. But the excuse has always been, look how many lives it saved,without asking how many lives it took. My Japanese professor in college was a survivor of Nagasaki, and he didn't paint a pretty picture. In Vietnam we basically ignored a lot of it(what the hell, the enemy didn't sign that treaty, so why should we be bound by it) An example is white phosphorus,WP or willy peter in military talk. WP burns, it doesn't stop burning, you can't extinguish it, it burns thru your body and comes out on the other side, also makes a nice white smoke cloud. The Geneva convention states that WP cannot be used against troops, but it can be used as a marking round. I was an artillery FO in Nam and boy we sure used alot of "marking rounds".( Great stuff to airburst over trenches)
Now it's more sophistcated and this where our friends the lawyers come in. During the Rwanda mess in the late 90's, many concerned people were afraid genocide was taking place. The USA, and other signatories were bound by the UN charter to take action against genocide. Remember "Never Again". Well nobody wanted to get drawn into Rwanda, especially America after she got whupped in Somalia on a peacekeeping mission. So a State dept spokeswoman said,well there have been acts of genocide but we aren't sure the whole thing is genocide. This same excuse is being used in Darfur. We need a bunch of lawyers to sit around for a few years deciding what the legal definition of genocide is. By the time they sat down for their second cup of coffee,800,000 Tutsis had been killed in about 4 months. and we are not sure it's genocide?? DUH!
The second Bush administration ducked the Geneva convention by defining al Qaeda operatives as enemy combatants, and hence not eligible for Geneva convention nicities. We could imprison them without due process, torture them in foreign prisons and deny them basic rights. Oh, right, their terrorists,but I,ll bet if the Japanese captured the crew of the Enola Gay after she laid her egg and loped off their heads with samurai swords, we'd be squaking, Geneva convention. In war the victor gets to make all the definitions. I do not mean to condone terrorism or the actions of groups like al Qaeda, but the average brainwashed suicide bomber kid isn't really much different than a brainwashed soldier or Marine. Easiest thing would be to outlaw war completely and settle difference with a chess match,although I'm not sure that Bush would be able to beat bin Laden. Obama on the other hand, checkmate in 6 moves!

The power of a name

America has had 44 presidents and among those 44, three family names show up twice,Adams,Roosevelt and Bush. I guess that says something about power.America must have thousands of family names. But consider this, one man's name became not only a household word, a personal name, it became a title itself. Consider Gaius Julius Caesar. Not a "Caesar" himself, but a Roman politician who held various important Roman offices and titles. His final title(before deification) was dictator or life. His clan name was Julius, Caesar was an attribute(fine curly hair) that became sort of a family name within the Julian clan. His successor Octavian was Caesar's adopted son and immediatly after Caesar's death, Octavian insisted on being addressed as Caesar. So powerful, dominant and influencial he was in age that by the time of his death, he was no longer just another member of the Caesar family, but The Caesar. He defined the word so well that his successor insisted upon using it to convey the authority he felt was willed to him. It became one of the names of all Roman rulers afterwards. Both Julius and Octavian(Augustus) gave their names to titles in the late empire, Augustus strangly being the senior and Caesar the junior. But Caesar stuck. It became Kaiser and Tsar. The Ottoman emperor in his array of titles included casar of Rum(Rome). The deinetly left us a legacy.

Piracy in America

OK, we know there are pirates in Somalia, taking ships and holding them for ransom. Now we find right here in America, corporate piracy. Its called retention bonuses. AIG paid out a bunch, but some left anyway, like rats deserting a sinking ship. Todays news reveals Fannie Mae, another financially stressed outfit and recipient of government monies, is paying of retention bonuses. Corporate AMERICA,in its ever increasing greed has discovered a new way to steal our money. Oh, we need to pay them bonuses to keep the talent. Now that salary caps have been suggested, these pirates have come up with another scheme. It does not matter that our nation is being torn asunder by greed, because if America fails, these guys will go abroad, using their Swiss bank account money. It even seems they have gotten to some officials in the Treasury Dept. Bribes and payoffs, I reckon. This greed, this piracy, is like a cancer attacking our country. Now what did they do in the old days to effectively control piracy. Hmm burning at the stake did the trick and yeah i got the matches.

Where's mine?

It seems that both presidents(Bush and Obama) gave a whole lot of money out with little or no oversight. How could AIG give massive bonuses with federal monies? Back in October, my retirement account lost nearly half its value, overnight. Years of savings wiped out..just like that. I got no bonus, no bailout, no sympathy from the government or my bank. The money was gone. Disappeared. My quality of life took a nose dive and I began the belt tightening act. The account has lost even more in recent months and no one has made any attempt to bailm out people like us. I don't want a million dollar bonus, just to get back a little of the dignity I had when my account was stable.

Stealing rom the rich,giving to the poor 101

In an earlier post today, I said stealing from the rich,give to the poor. I am not advocating burglary,mugging,embezzlement or robbery. Its easy to steal from these fat cats, if you just do a little research. You are a consumer, so when you shop, you just buy any old thing, you pick a brand that satisfies you. Now take that one step further, do some research. If your insurance company, bank, brokerage etc is a company that engages in greed(Like AIG for instance) don't do business with them. You have that right! So you take your money out Citibank(lets say) and put it in a local solid bank. So on down the line, divest yourself of these pigs and deal locally. Enuogh people do that, these giants might get the message. Investing locally stimulates your economy, creates jobs in your neighborhood. If you attend a religious service reguarly choose your congregation based on outreach that they do, not the hate and crap that spills from some pulpits. Support a food bank. I you hunt, find a group like hunetrs for the hungry and give them some of your meat harvest. That's giving to the poor. Nothing illegal here just an idea, but imagine if millions of people got pissed off enough to do this!

For the fat cats its business as usual

Once again the troubled insurance giant, twice bailed out by taxpayer dollars,is in the news. After the first bailout,AIG fat cats went on a big spa junket. Now after receiving 173 billion in taxpayer funds, the execs treat themselves to 165 million in bonuses! Are they clueless? Don't they know we are in a depression? Of course they do, the just don't give a shit. They are better than you, the upper crust, the privledged, the elite, they deserve 165 mill for destroying their company. We have the Bernie Madoffs and now these guys. Its disgusting. The selfisfness and greed are going to destroy this country and they just don't care. Why should they, their millions are locked up in Cayman and Swiss bank accounts. If America implodes they'll just go somewhere else. Perhaps they get their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh, the traitor, spend,take, steal boys, so that Obama fails. Where are Robin Hood and his merry men? There seem to be an awul lot of Sheriffs of Nottingham around these days. Steal rom the rich, give to the poor, let them feel your pain!

Understanding Darfur.... Nomads and farmers

This has always been an ancient political creature. Nomads providing meat and milk, farmers providing millet and other grains. Raiding is also part of the nomadic economy, always has, everywhere it has flourished. Darfur has numerous ethnic groups, all much intermixed, where the "Arabs" can be as dark as the "Africans". This conflict has always been presented on racial lines. Arabs vs Africans. But that is a poor way of looking at it. The Fur are the dominant African people in Darfur. Once they had a sultanate of their own. These people were farmers and land claims date from the Fur sultanate. Ownership derives from this. The Abbala Rizeigat and Baggara Rizeigat are nomads. They descend from Arab tribes entering the region around 500 years ago. They came from the Jeddah region region of Arabia in Hejaz. The Abbala raise camels, the Baggara raise cattle. They are nomadic. The Baggara do have land which they "tribally own". The Abbala do not. They have always been on the move and on the fringes of government. The great Sahel drought changed many traditions in Africa. People moved, they crossed traditional tribal borders. Conflicts ensued. Nomads claim the farmers were encroaching on traditional pastures, and bullets began to fly.
Omar el Bashir was able to fan this ancient divide into full fledged genocide. He played on differences and caused hatreds to grow. He armed the Abbala and Baggara and created the Janjaweed. The horror began.

But this an old political ploy, is it not. Slobodan Milosevic did in Kosovo,fanning the flames of ancient religious differences that had been forgotten by many. Racism, it appears, doesn't disappear, it just goes underground. During the recent American presidential election it raised its ugly head again. Republicans in general and Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh in particular always played on difference to divide people. Now outright racism is frowned upon these days in America. Civil rights changed all that. Nobody was running around using the N word, at least within media earshot. But I sure received alot of very provacative cartoons and jokes from some of my more conservative acquaintances. These people hunt, fish, cut wood, go to church on Sunday,dip snuff. They don't make these cartoons. But who did? Some "literary" minds at work somewhere, I reckon, sending this crap out. Of course I have acquaintances who claim not to be racists( some of my best friends are colored) but guess who they voted for, even the liberal ones. Not Barack Obama. The old hatred was still there, deep down, ready to be awoken.
Darfur is a worst case scenario of what happens when these old differences are used politically. In the old day, shaykhs of the Fur and Abbala would have sat down and worked it out, as they have for centuries. A tribute of grain would suffice for any land taken by farmers. Blood monies paid to end vendettas. Then comes an Omar el Bashir or Slobodan Milosevic with truckloads of AK 47's for their chosen side. The balance is upset, hatred flares and genocide begins. The Fur, Zahgawa, Abbala, Baggara and others aren't going to go away. People like Omar el Bashir and Ahmed Haroun need to go away... far away and for a very long time.