Just Let Them Die -- Guantanamo Bay

Imagine that you were taken prisoner by a foreign government.  Perhaps you are visiting the Middle East and get caught up in a riot and are swept into custody with the mob you find yourself surrounded by.  You are moved to a prison far from the scene of the supposed crime without being charged of doing any wrong.  You are kept in a small cell for ten years.  You lose hope of ever seeing your family again.  You have children growing up that will never know their dad.  At some point, you give up hope and stop eating, a hunger strike.  But, you are not allowed to die, you are punished for trying to die, they tie you to a bed and ram over sized feeding tubes up your nose, but neither do they give you any hope.  They take all possessions away as further punishment, even your tooth brush and all reading materials.  You have a mattress and bed.  And periodically you are dragged to chair especially designed by the military for force feeding  upon which you are tied and then force fed with oversized size 10 tubes.

Of course, that is very similar to what WE have done to 160 people at Guantanamo Bay.  We do not even try to make their life better, or negotiate with them, or in any way treat them as humans.  

I am sure some are as guilty as hell of whatever you want to imagine, but I also suspect that some of them as guiltless as you as a reader ... and as innocent as the scene imagined above, i.e., being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

WE as AMERICANS are doing this.  Is this justice?  Justice for what?  Can our fears justify such actions against fellow humans.  What could they believe or think that could justify such treatment.  And obviously, we don't of anything WRONG THEY HAVE DONE or we would have charges against them.  So, we think they might of been guilty of something.  We even have three children we are abusing.  If we as Americans allow our country to do such things, are we good people?  Are we proud of belonging to such a country?

The entire world is lining up on the side of the PRISONERS not us.  Every international organizations including the UN are saying forced feeding is not humane.  Every person should have the right to deny medical treatment --- the concept behind a living will.   We as Americans simply do not care what happens to them as we have proven for ten years.  The humane thing to do is to let these people die. But, can we even be humane. 

Myth#14: Justice is Enough

Of course we want justice, and even vengeance perhaps in our hearts for what happened in Boston.  It is hard, as a knee jerk reaction, not to blame Muslims in general for this crime.  And there are those that are professed Muslims that are turning out terrorists, driven by revenge for real and imagined crimes against Muslims.  They are not the majority of Muslims or even a significant minority, but a small group.  We would call them a radical hate group perhaps if they were Americans on our soil, for example, if they were White Supremacists.  

Muslims can easily point to things like three wars in the Middle East, the killing of innocent people with drones, backing Israel in their denial of statehood for Palestinians, profiling of Muslims (however incompetently it was done), our right wing almost hate propaganda against Muslims, pushing back against Turkey's entry into the European Union, our treatment of enemy combatants, our continued abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, etc.  Who wouldn't want to hate a country that has the power to do all these things largely unopposed.  The instinct is to fight these with the only weapons they THINK they really have, home made bombs, crude missiles sent into Israel, largely ineffective resolutions in the United Nations on Palestine statehood, and suicide bombers.  What else do they have to fight with, sticks and stones?  But perhaps, there are more weapons with the right allies.  

So, our gut reaction is revenge against all Muslims for the crimes of a few, their gut reaction is to oppose the Military Industrial Complex that runs this country by any means possible. 

Perhaps Muslims should realize that many Americans feel as helpless and frustrated and even outraged by America as our likeminded Muslim friends.  We are a minority for now that truly grasp that PAC's and not Americans run this country, that Congress's number one job is getting re-elected.  We also realize that America as a land of opportunity and a strong middle class is disappearing which is fueling a lot of desparation and eventually hate -- hate to be directed at Muslims and other minorities, gays, Hispanics, etc.  We realize that our government is non-functional but still very powerful and dangerous. There are a lot of Americans who see the same problems that Muslims see.  Our biggest crime, our apathy in losing control of a once great nation. 

This reminds me of a screen in War Horse the movie where Germans and Americans are in foxholes separated by a field covered with bobwire.  A horse runs through the bobwire and becomes entangled.  Both sides can see the horse thrashing around in the wire.  Both sides ache with the pain the horse is enduring.  Both sides agree to a cease fire to save the horse.  A beautiful scene that fills my eyes with tears from the love and humanity shown in that one moment.  But so often that humanity and love is missing when we become so afraid of a wounded 19 year old terrorist that shut a whole city down. 

Perhaps the Muslims can join with Americans that want to take our country back and base our actions at home and abroad on our principles, the principles that our father's died for in some wars that really were against injustice in the world, not for oil.  Good Muslims have the same principles from their heritage.  Because they are not principles created by our  fore-fathers, they were simply recognized by our fore-fathers.  They are principles inherent to all good people  based on fairness, a hand out for those weaker and those in need, kindness, acceptance of differences, tolerance, diligence, perseverance, courage, etc., etc.   

We should be united against the autrocities being committed from vengence, intolerance, and hate.  We need to seek ways to unite as good people against those of us that would seek to make us enemies.  Justice should include correcting the patterns of behavior leading to the conflicts between us.

Myth#5: We are safer after three wars and spending trillions of dollars.

Are we safer after three wars, expansion of many security agencies, spending trillions of dollars, and losing many personal liberties? Is there anything we might be doing that makes people hate us?

We have now fought three wars in the Middle East, spent about $4 trillion in wars, expanded security to about fifty agencies and government departments and created homeland security.   We have caused a quarter of a million people to die and displaced about 8 million people from their homes.   I am sure the world loves us for these accomplishments, but are we safer?

If anyone doubts our persistence in killing, then we have the ongoing drone attacks.  If you want to see how the Arab world views these drone attacks, read this article on Drone Attacks in Arab News.   Again,  I am sure people love us for killing their families, but are we any safer?

And of course we favor countries getting their independence and establishing democracies, so it is ironic that we are one of nine countries (all U.S. buddies) who voted against Palestine in taking the first steps in being recognized as an independent state via the United Nations.  The 138 countries that voted for it and the 41 that abstained (afraid of the U.S.?) of course don’t know anything about creating democracies; they must do it our way to be correct.  Surely, the world will soon recognize the error of their ways, but are we any safer by opposing statehood for Palestine?

Our constitutional rights have been abridged for our safety.  You can be declared an enemy combatant and scheduled for a drone attack without any due process of law … or you can just be put in jail without trial.  The Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act is very similar to McCarthyism were you could be destroyed for real or imagined links to the communist party.  Doesn’t this make you feel safer, by golly!

So, the FBI is saying there is no evidence there is a broader plot in Boston marathon attacks.  First, there is no evidence either way.  I suspect that this was said just to make us feel better.  But, let’s summarize.  We have killed many more innocent people and continue to do so than the innocent people killed on 9/11.  Do we expect people to love us? to help us?  

The way you stop a bomber is from tips from people that are sympathetic to the U.S., not people that have lost friends and families to our military and our drones.  Have we increased the number of people that want to help us by the wars?

How much good could have been done in the Middle East with say $4 trillion dollars.  Let’s see we could have given 80 million people in the Middle East full scholarships to U.S. Universities.  What impact would that have on human rights in the Middle East, in the U.S.  We could have built and operated thousands of hospitals, or Universities, or Walmarts in the Middle East.  In short, we could have improved the lives of millions of innocent people.  But, we had to revenge the deaths of the 2000 people that died at 9/11.  But, funny how we have ignored the 100,000 deaths in the U.S. from gun violence over the last decade, many of them children, much of it gang related.  (NRA keeps us from keeping good records, really, but another blog.)   Who gets vengeance for them as we flounder around with the most powerful and most expensive military force in the history of the world.  

WE HAVE BOUGHT INTO A PLAN THAT WE CAN USE MILITARY FORCE TO CHANGE THE HEARTS OF OUR ENEMY.  I guess we think we can scare them into obedience.  Do you think this makes the U.S. safer?

In any case

Myth#20: Assault Weapons are Different From Machine Guns (Poll Included)

NRA contends that not being able to own an assualt weapons violates 2nd Ammendment rights.  They felt the same thing about machine guns, but the Supreme Court did not agree. 

Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Machine Guns

Now the question is do most americans think it is alright if their neighbors have some serious fire power at their finger tips.  Think of your most beloved (not) neighbor and answer these questions.  

Myth#2 Justice for All

In first thinking about this topic, I thought of the well-known affect of rich people avoiding serving jail time compared to poor people.  Prison is filled for the most part with poor people and a much large portion of African American and Hispanics than in the general population.  Justice is not blind to money.

I was listening to NPR and they were talking about 10 million people go into and out of our jails and prisons each year.  It turns out that there are thousands of clerical errors.  Some prisoners get out early, a lot stay longer than their sentence.  Of course, the poor often have no advocates either from family or lawyers so they can essentially get lost forever in the system.  They forgot one man in solitary confinement for two years.  Oops, he was released without charges.

And then there are the mentally impaired.  Our mental hospitals are over flowing so justice turns a blind eye and many mental patients are boarded in our jails and prisons simply because there is no where else to put them, unless you want them to be homeless. Often without a trial, or even after a trial, innocent mentally impaired people are sent to jail because the judge knows the mental hospitals are over-booked.  We simply as Americans can't be bothered.

So the above refers to the unequal enforcement of laws.  But, even a bigger category of injustice comes from laws that are inherently injustice.  For example, if you are a gay person in those country and your mate just died, or you just tried to use your partner's insurance or to collect your partner's pension you can't believe our laws are just.  If you got sentenced to prison for smoking pot by a judge that has three martini's at lunch, you can't feel our laws are just or even rational.

Then there is the IRS where we are all guilty until proven innocent.  There is nothing just about how the process with the IRS works where you have no rights, when there is no day in court.  Just pay up or face big fines and interest rates.  The best you can hope for is to beg your IRS representative for some leniency and then hope you are one of the few lucky ones that gets a break.  Not.

Many of our drug laws mimic the IRS in the person being guilty unless proven innocent.  If you are a contractor paying your workers in cash, better not be caught with $10K on your person. You are assumed to be a drug dealer and your cash is taken.  No trial.  There is another law about having too many CD in your possession at one time.  It is assumed you are making illegal copies and your CD's are taken and you are fined.

Lately, Expert Witnesses have been coming forward and saying their new methods prove in some cases that their testimony was wrong decades ago.  One prisoner tried to get released based on the expert witness recanting his previous opinion that sentenced the prisoner in the first place.  The judge said their needs to be some finality of judgment, otherwise trials would have to be redone too often (see NPR a few days ago).   I bet he feels the world is just after being in jail for 20 some odd years with no hope of getting out even though it is quite clear he probably didn't do it.

And of course, there are those 165 inmates at Guantanamo Bay that our military said they made a mistake on.  They were not terrorists.  If we had due process of law in the first year instead of a decade later, perhaps these people could go home.  Now their homeland countries say they don't want them and we try hard not to let them starve themselves to death on hunger strikes.   Justice for these people is just too much trouble.  Can you believe they would rather die than live in prison for the rest of their lives?

Justice it turns out is just too much trouble, just too expensive to extend to all.  What a foolish concept.

Myth#1 It's Best to Leave Radioactive Waste Where It Is Until You Have a Perfect Plan

In the state of Washington, six tanks storing high level nuclear waste are leaking.  

Now here is the story.  In the early 1980's I interviewed for a job to be the Project Manager of Facility that was to take this waste, melt it into fused glass, and then encapsulate that glass in an exotic stainless steel canisters and then place it far underground in salt domes in Yucca Mountain, Neveda.  Then I discovered they had been waiting for several years to pull some samples out of the tank to do material balances until they could find an absolutely safe way to pull the samples, and until they could get consensus their sampling method was full-proof.  

Here we are three decades later.  The project is still delayed.   Hundreds of tanks are in danger of leaking, all well past their 20 year design life.  Tens of billions of dollars have been spent trying to get consensus. 

Why?  Because of irrational fear.  The people of Nevada have fought the Yucca Mountain repository on the grounds that no one can guarantee that there will not be a spillage in the next 10,000 years.  As I understand it, some waste has now been put in Carlsbad New Mexico.  But, every step of the way environmentalists insist that it can not be safely stored and that there is no guarantee that it can be made safe forever. 

Environmentalists point to the leaking tanks as evidence that radioactive waste can not be stored safely.  Duh ....  Engineers had a master plan, the tanks were only step 1.   Environmentalists that say nuclear waste can't be stored safely have made a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Guess what? We can guarantee that hundreds of tanks in Washington will probably all start failing in the ten to twenty years (80 years into their 20 year life).  Radioactive waste will  find its way into the water table, the Columbia River and flow out to the local cities in the Tri-City Area.  

And the environmentalists will be correct, "It's Best to Leave Radioactive Waste Where It Is Until You Have a Perfect Plan."   NOT.

Anti-Myth #4 Machine Guns are a 2nd Amendment Right

Anti-Myth #4 Machine Guns are a 2nd Amendment Right

According to the 2nd Amendment, the State Militia's and the People are guaranteed the right to bear arms in case the Federal Government, which would be the United States, gets out of hand and begins to oppress the People -- or so the argument goes.

It is quite clear given the one trillion year budget of the Military Industrial Complex in this nation, that the bare essentials with regard to armament for the People  to be successful at this task are modern machine guns.  And not only do we need the best machine guns this country has to offer, we need lots of them.  And we need to start young.

Of course, they will be expensive, so we need some government grants to enable the distribution of machine guns on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.  The government supports programs that give away condoms so likewise the government of the people should help defray the cost of arming the people with this needed deterrent.  If nothing else, some tax breaks are called for.  The NRA lobby is busy securing the needed help.  Congressmen that are not cooperative, will be replaced.  They have the POWER, and are feared by Congress, Democrats and Republicans.

Then we need some local organizations.  To save time, we are going to use the existing structure offered by the boy scouts.  They have thousands of chapters already in place with people like us.  Each den father would become responsible for training the children in their pack on how to use and maintain their assigned machine guns ....  first, with safety training taught in the homes then later graduating to NRA gun ranges with live ammunition.  When they are able to gun down two or three jack rabbits running across the range then they could earn their Jack Rabbit Machine Gun Merit Badge (JRMGMB).   Of course, we can use our imagination and use deer, kangaroos and other more challenging targets as the kids move up through the Eagle Scouts, etc. and become more proficient.  

In our local neighborhoods, we will need to organize with  sergeants on each block, and neighborhood lieutenants, etc.  The local Churches can be used to recruit children into the ranks and teach them their duty to protect us against the government.  The churches can also be used as ammunition depots with 24/7 staffing by the Eagle Scouts and war vets.  We will teach them the uselessness of the democratic process and the need to prepare for the future.  We should be sure to screen neighborhoods to make sure we are recruiting people of like mind and background.  The high command of the NRA will find and bring you into the national fold when you are ready and the time draws near.

The NRA is officially against public ownership of the machine guns, but we all know this is a ploy until they can secure national approval for assault weapons, large gun clips, semi-automatic weapons and the freedom to buy guns without registration or background checks.  Once this is secured, then machine guns are the obvious next step.  So, they are with us, but just playing the political game for now.  (This is not a secret, the apathy of the American people (non NRA members) is so great they will peaceably go along as NRA coerces Congress.) 

Although Machine Gun Training will be primarily for men and young men, in order to win public support, an advertisement campaign will be undertaken to portray young women, fashionably attired, as supportive of the cause to defend our great country.  As the public becomes more accustomed to machine guns, we hope to train and arm our teachers with machine guns to stop the bad guys from every again killing our children in schools.  The time for action is now. If your congressman is not supporting the right to bear assault weapons, he is not one of us and he will be replaced.

Of course, we need more than machine guns, but all in due time.