Dilemma

 

 Since I am editing one of my paranormal, Tucson romances, I should not be paying attention to world news, but it's hard not to check in and then go uh oh, or whatever I end up feeling, with so much of what happens on the world stage impacts us little folks far below it.

My immediate thought, when I awoke one morning this week, was definitely an uh oh. Not so much for what I read but what it meant for the world, little and big countries. After a sip of vodka (never mind that I am off of alcohol). I felt up to writing something about it. Maybe...

The world is not evenly divided. This is not just about wealth but about resources, like water. It never has been from the time humans became humans.

Resources are more than the land and what it holds. It's also the kind of people, who live there and what they can and will do with their own resources. Exactly how the earth worked out that way, who can know.

First of all, with natural resources, when humans first figured out they could exploit such, is that how we settled where we did? Climate probably controlled a lot of it, easy to live there and oh boy. The next thing humans looked around to find what might not be where they lived, but where they could bring usable products to their homes. In short, they wanted what had grown or could be grown above ground-- basically food. They also continued to hunt for animals where their pelts or bodies could be used.

Then came a search for fossil fuels, like coal, iron, oil, etc. Much of the earth was not and still is not as rich with such things. Wars could then be fought to attain what a more powerful tribe or country might want. Humans also wanted slaves as not all of them seemed suitable for such uses. 

Does any of that sound fair? Cross 'fair' out of your vocabulary where humans, of all colors and races, were concerned or are concerned. Humans took what they needed and wanted whether that was desirable minerals, like diamonds, or what would fuel their lives. To the victor went the spoils and to a degree, that still goes on.

Is that bad? Does that mean humans are the bad mammals? Maybe, but again and again, it goes back to that quote-- to the victor go the spoils. It is how it has always gone.

So, for those who find fault with that and try to take it away from the victors, check out how that ends up, where that comes to wealth and yes, that means charitable... supposedly organizations. Do those who run it or support it end up with the funds or does it go where it was intended?

Where does that leave us 'pawns'? What can we do about it in today's supposedly more civilized world?

The future fight and and contests are more likely over what is needed for technology-- rare earth minerals. These are often in places no one had seen of having value. But now, want to use your computer or technology, those minerals are the key. They turn up often in what are seen as poorer countries or regions within a country. If those populations can't exploit that wealth to mine their own 'in-the-ground' wealth, like, lithium, coltan, cobalt, titanium,etc. you can bet others will try to. 

So, poor countries should get wealthy, right? Not how it seems to work out with the human species. Again, are we evil or bad? Not really. Just mammals. 

It is the age of the mammals. Will it stay our age? Not likely given the nature of evolution. Should the mammals who have found the riches, exploit them, then help others that have none? A few claim they should, but they barely do it themselves. If you have two coats, do you give one to someone who doesn't have one. Some do... Very few.

What do we do as humans, who have a compassionate nature (at least how we feel inside)? Donate a few dollars? Feel righteous? Or find a real answer to the imbalance of life on this earth? If the latter is the answer, it doesn't appear to have been the answer, so far. 

Wars have been fought over taking above and in ground resources. Might happen again. We could hope not, but history offers no reassurance. 

The photo at the top gives you a clue how it works in nature-- with no guilt. It's our front yard here in Arizona. For years, to us, the saguaros looked like they were growing equally. Turns out not where it came to the resources they needed. Not fair how it worked out. Is life fair? If you think it is, I do not think you've had much experience. 

To the victor go the spoils. That doesn't require wars. It's just who is strongest, and empathy doesn't appear to weigh in-- sad as that might be to say. Is that fair? If a greater power intervenes, guess who ends up with that desired wealth. The only real thing we can count on is that life is not all physical. There may be spiritual consequences. Not very comforting for those suffering in the here and now.

Violence -- a political issue?

 

Strictly speaking, violence is not, but its impact on our lives is great whether it touches us directly or through what we read or hear. Why do we see so much random violence to the point we cannot feel totally secure? 

No candidate though would run on- I'm for more violence. The thing of interest  is what leads to violence in a community and that is very much a political issue where candidates promise us peace and good lives. Sometimes, they come up with what things they would get rid of if they win a political office. Those things are issues. Here is where we need to think about whether it's right and do they speak to all of what might lead to it in a culture where violence is too prevalent-- even when it is random?

Touching on those topics here will, by necessity, be cursory. It would take books to explore each of them. I hope a blog will be enough to trigger interest for those who haven't, maybe, thought that deeply for how it might impact their lives through black swan events.

The topics include wars (an obvious one), guns (maybe also obvious at least to some), law enforcement, news coverage, and I could add entertainment, which means movies and games), but I am unsure how much it adds to actual violence given it's been around a LONG time. Still, I'll discuss it and maybe a few other things as they come to me.

Let's start with wars. Where it comes to violence, wars are the epitome of approved violence, at least on one side. Yet, are they even mentioned in most of our political rhetoric?

Wars have much impacted my life. I was born in the middle of WWII. I grew up in its aftermath and the Cold War era. The Korean war from 1950 to 1953 was called an Armed Conflict, but it was a war.

Some believe that fighting wars overseas will keep the blood from being spread on their own land. I heard it a lot about Vietnam and the domino effect if we didn't send troops there. Well, we sent them and many without wanting to go as the draft  (more about conscription) dealt with that. Young men were the only ones subject to the draft in the beginning, but I've since read today, that young women must also sign up. Where could that lead? Calling up the draftees is mostly needed when we fight an unpopular war or a long one.

So, why do I think wars can lead to violence at home? Part of it is those who came back not only with injuries but also PTSD for what they experienced. This can lead to confused thinking and violent actions. One of the first mass killings I remember came from a rooftop in Texas with a veteran of the Vietnam War.

With that war, of 1955 to 1975, we eventually had to get out after 282,000 deaths on our side and from the allied forces. For Vietnam, including civilians on the North and South's side it was over 1,000,000. 

Today, we trade with Vietnam as it is a manufacturing hub, North and South joined together. No domino effect.

I mention it because it was a war that fit what President Eisenhower earlier said in a last speech:

On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower ends his presidential term by warning the nation about the increasing power of the military industrial complex.

Did we listen?

The Vietnam War impacted my generation and some a bit older or younger. The war touched all of us because of how the draft was deployed. Men had a number and their chances of being called up was related to a lottery. If he came from a district with a lot of men of that age, he was less likely than smaller districts. There were exemptions as there had been in earlier wars, but I am sure the Vietnam War impacted all of us at that time with the uncertainty.

After that, it was a mostly peaceful time in the United States until along came 9/11. By this time, the draft had been ended, but many joined as the US had been attacked and patriotism was part of the sign up. IF we have a future war, I don't know if that will be the case or if drafting enrollees will be back. People have to sign up for it but are not forced to join. I've read young women also.

Why do I equate wars with an issue? Because the government is behind wars, or they don't happen. Which candidate is most likely to be led into wars by the military industrial complex that Eisenhower knew a bit about considering his own history.

Besides maybe taking lives on both sides, what do wars do? I believe, as mentioned above, that the violence comes back like a fever or virus, whether someone served or not. It's like a fever in the air-- a mentality. PTSD leads to some of it, but I think the fact that we think war is important sometimes leads to thinking violence is a logical means to get what someone wants. I won't say wars are never needed, but I've read that many could be fended off if a culture acted sooner with other steps. Of course, not always given human nature...

Human nature comes into it with the military leaders. Some might support a war but not how it's being fought. Or not like the war for the same reason. Soldiers can lose ranks if they don't do as they are told-- at the least. 

One more thing to add here, but not political. In some places, returning soldiers were treated very badly. I think we learned about that and it won't happen again; but wars are ugly things and to blame those you sent to fight it, is very wrong. Remember a large percentage in the Vietnam era never wanted to go, but even if they did, it's a war and it is savage. It's meant to be. Take that into account before blaming those who fight it. I also knew a man who volunteered to go back four times because of loyalty to the team he had fought with.

Since the United States began with a war, fought others to acquire land, and even fought a war against itself, definitely could make it an answer some would turn to. Can't blame that on politicians of today... unless reincarnation is true *s*.

For those who think that is different with the Ukraine and Russian wars where we just supply arms to keep it going and help the 'good' side; I suspicion those people will find out otherwise, too late as if we end up in WWIII, the United States itself will not be immune, not with the weapons that are out there today.

This went on way too long, and I have a lot more to say on the many possible issues that might lead to more violence in the homeland; so come back next Saturday if you find that of concern in your country or this one. If you have an opinion, feel free to voice it, agree or disagree.

Wars wars and more wars

Has anyone noticed that since McCain lost the 2008 election, he's been a bitter old man who smiles and uses any possible opportunity to try to convince people what a mistake they made not choosing him and Palin. Figuratively he regularly stabs Obama in the back. Latest example is we should get involved in Syria by sending arms to... well there you go-- which side? Whoever is fighting the dictator except is there only one side doing that?

Should America get involved in more wars in the Middle East? Should we put ground troops or even our weaponry in the hands of anybody in Libya, Egypt, Syria or anywhere else over there? Can we afford to get into another situation that escalates into us having another ground war?

Here's one take on it: Take a deep breath America

We should have learned this lesson before but more powerful nations rarely do. They intervene with what they hope will be a side more friendly to theirs (or profitable) except wasn't that the argument in Afghanistan when we helped the Taliban against the Soviets. Although technically speaking, that was not a civil war but an invaded country. Still look at who we aided-- bin Laden.

So we see these terrible massacres in Syria, and they have been terrible. We read about the election and the argument going on in Egypt with two sides trying to claim power.  

We must do something. 

 Must we? 

That's the debate we should be having. Ours is a nation that claims it has a nearly crippling debt, cannot maintain its infrastructure or care for its weak, cannot even govern itself because of the disagreement between two warring (with words) sides, and yet our people are easily stirred into thinking they need to fight somewhere in the world to right wrongs and bring peace... and you know the spiel as well as I do by now.

Can we even afford to think of getting into the Syrian or Egyptian potential civil wars. Both have a potential to get very ugly fast and pull us into another land war. Good idea or bad?

drones

 Here is an ethical issue that is new to the Bush and more to the Obama administrations-- the use of drones.

We saw the drones being trained when we drove south this spring. In Nevada, they were training alongside the freeway with landings and flying around-- hopefully not looking for terrorists.

I have to say it was a little eerie as when they come straight at you, they are nearly invisible in sunlight. We saw them best alongside the road over their field. I didn't photograph them as I wasn't sure it was okay and sure didn't want to get targeted myself for being investigated.

This whole idea of satellites that can look down and help them pinpoint a kill from someone flying them thousands of miles away, well it's a little dicey to think about. On the other hand, we'd prefer to risk a human life when the target is a well known terrorist? but don't you have to add-- if they are?

Then there is what the right brought up and had been in the NY Times-- the supposed inside leaks regarding them. My question would be-- how could it be classified? How could it be hidden? We saw them in Nevada. Where they are being used as a weapon of war is in other countries where they obviously will be discussing and writing about what they have seen happen, about those being killed. The idea that only a leak from the White House would tell anybody seems totally nuts to me.

Jon Stewart had a funny take on it... if you can call this sort of thing funny. The video is worth watching but there is an article there too.

Jon Stewart on Congress and response to drone attacks

It is true that this is an area of ethics that we as a country need to talk about. But the leak is the issue? Seriously? To Republicans it's all to Obama's credit to do this. Not so with Democrats; so any leak isn't automatically to his benefit. Republicans obviously don't get this!

What 9/11 did to us?

Although I seldom write about events/holidays, sometimes I feel culturally they are so significant that there is no way to avoid looking at their impact. Pearl Harbor had been one of those for an earlier generation of people. 9/11 is for another. The question is what do events like these do to us as a people when we enshrine them? Who do they make us into? I won't go backward into past ones, but I'd like to just look at 9/11 because here comes its tenth anniversary. It's not a holiday yet but it probably will be if some get their way. It's a day media and politicians can use and they all will be. I am swimming against the stream to say what I am going to here as I know how Americans see this.

To begin, yes, it was a horrible tragedy, and you cannot get past that part of it. Most of us know exactly where we were when we heard; and if we had on the television because of the first World Trade Center being hit, we actually watched helplessly and in shock as the second plane plowed into the second tower. We saw the horror of people being trapped in those buildings and unable to get to them to save them, we learned of the rescue teams running in to die with them. We learned what looks like a very strong building can collapse like a pancake if it was not structurally sound, and we didn't know some of them were not. None of us will ever forget it, it became part of the lexicon of our people.

Immediately, by the politicians, it was turned into a cause to use and a cause it remains. The cause wasn't to get the author of the disaster. The cause wasn't about the victims because some people quickly resented the survivors complaining or receiving money and help. The cause wasn't to make sure it never happened again because that's a combination of paying attention, luck and timing whether it happened in the first place [The missed signals of 9/11].

We know there are those who would do it wherever people believe taking innocent human life is a valid sacrifice to greed. Yes, it is greed because it's about attaining power and power is one of the most heady temptations of greed that there is. The murderers who died expect power for themselves on the other side and they expected their side to gain power over here.

So it happened. We went to war over it, and the first war made some degree of sense because we were going after those who had planned the attack. It made sense until at Tora Bora when our men were held back, and we let the author of 9/11 escape. 9/11 was the original tragedy but the tragedies were just beginning for those sent to war, the ones in foreign countries who would feel its impact on their homes and bodies.

We were told it didn't matter why the original murderers had done it. We did not need to look at motivations that led to the attack. For years then our government took the gun and bomb as the solution and we as a people supported that.

A war in Iraq was supposed to be quick and paid for by oil revenues in that country. The connection to 9/11 was never there, but it didn't stop our vice-president from claiming and insinuating it to those who only listen to him. By the time of the invasion of Iraq, our president said, whenever he was asked, that the terrorist leader was irrelevant. He said this while other terrorist attacks linked to that group were happening around the world.

Why didn't our leaders want him or should I say our president at that time want him? Was it because we needed the terrorist leader out there as a symbol?  Did our president believe they could get him whenever they wanted? Or did he believe they couldn't and he wanted to distract Americans from the failure? We will NEVER know.

If you want to have a war, symbols are important. "Remember the Maine!" You can insert many other names in the place of Maine. How else can you motivate people to go to war, to in this case ruin their economy over the war and throw their young people into harm's way. It takes a big symbol and to begin with that symbol was a man's face. That was before somebody figured out another symbol to replace it-- democracy for everybody.

So here we are ten years later with a big anniversary to once again be lived and relived by everybody because it's what we do as Americans-- glory in tragedies?

There is little doubt there will be much posturing and politicking today. Oh it'll be along with somber sad faces, while speeches are given, but let's look at where we are ten years later and what not 9/11 but the reaction to it did to our country. We cannot control events and actions from others. We can control our reaction. Our people's reaction to the attacks ended up more catastrophic in the long run than the attacks as it has torn at the very fabric of our country leading us to become a nation at risk of losing our values.

We are still at war. We are still run by a government that has kept up the wars even when the face of one of the terrorist leader is now dead, actually the face of two of them since another face was superimposed over that second war to justify it. Governments used to like to justify wars but do they need to anymore or do Americans just accept whatever the government wants to do without a reason? It's barely mentioned that if we ended both of them tomorrow, we would cut our deficit, and we could start paying down our debt without hurting the poorest among us.

Before 9/11, despite our previous wars (and this country has rarely been out of war somewhere), we justified those wars by their being needed for one main reason. We were fighting over there (doesn't matter where over there was) to avoid fighting here. After 9/11, that argument was gone forever as obviously we can be attacked here and nobody can realistically pretend it cannot happen again, but I still hear the same argument-- we are fighting them over there to keep the homeland safe. Yeah right.

Well we do have the most powerful military in the world. No denying that. It might not stay that way given the way the world changes and China's emergence but for now we can go beat up anybody on the block. We paid a high price for that and are continuing to do so and it's not always appreciated elsewhere but we do have that military might.

Now their role though is complicated as we don't just go to war with rogue nations or to catch terrorists, now we go to pound democracy into other nations, to install leaders we want no matter whether the country would prefer a different regime. (And some of those leaders who we want. Good Lord, what are we thinking with that?) We do this to sovereign nations because a certain bunch don't see it matters so long as they are in power and they maintain that through justifying themselves to themselves if to nobody else.

Do we need those wars to convince ourselves of something else with which we are bombarded-- American Exceptionalism (that wasn't even a word we heard much, if at all, before all of this rah rah stuff began). Oh yeah, we are the best in the world huzzah huzzah and therefore, it's okay whatever we do. Everybody should know we are the very best of the best; and if any politician dares to say any other country is even as good, they can kiss off being elected. We are a people who like being stroked. We don't care if it's true. Just say it.

We don't care if our death rate in babies is among the world's highest-- matching some Third World countries. It's not about reality for us. It's about what we say. We don't care that nearly 50% of our young people cannot get jobs unless they join the military (where those wars come in handy). We don't care if other Americans fear catastrophic illness not just for the debility and pain but for the loss of their homes and everything they own. No, that's not what matters to us exceptional types. We just want the yellow ribbons, flag pins, patriotic songs, rah rah speeches, and I guess going to war somewhere because by now we don't have to have a reason. So, we borrow the money and take away yet more public services, let more infrastructure crumble. We support the world's best military, mercenaries for the world want us or not, and we are paying for it by sacrificing our young people, our bridges, our schools, our future generations' hope for a future.

Did the author of 9/11 win?  You tell me. With the help of Cheney and Bush, we turned our whole ability to function as a government around. Our people became so frightened of another attack that we let the government tell us what to do and we let that include taking away some of our rights under the Bill of Rights. Cowards that we are. Willing that we are to let someone else be tortured, all of it was done to keep us safe. We gave up ethics when we accepted torture and rendition with secret prisons. We gave up personal autonomy and the right to not be spied upon without cause. The generations who came before us must be so proud of what we have accomplished.

Before 9/11, we were on a path to show that government worked, and we were not only providing jobs to our citizens but also services. We were doing that and beginning to pay down past debts. Somebody benefited from 9/11, somebody grew rich from it, got satisfaction from it, proved government can't ever do anything right (that viewpoint was heavily pushed by Reagan), but it hasn't helped the average American citizen.

And if I hear that word exceptionalism again, I am turning off whatever TV show or politician that/who used it. Right then and there, whoever it is, rightie or leftie, it's going off. I could tell them a little secret but they won't listen. You don't need to tell people you are exceptional if you really are. They will know it.

I won't look at one single memorial event or the reliving of it that is on television now and has been the last week. I am very sorry for those who died so horribly as I am for their families and the tragic loss they suffered that day. The cost has been high for our people going in many directions; and that cost today came from our reaction to what happened more than anything else. As a nation, we let our leaders scare us into losing track of our values. I don't know if I have faith that we learned anything from that reaction.

Manzanar

Americans like to talk about how exceptional they are. It becomes a political argument how much better we are than other people-- and if you want to win a campaign, you better agree. Sometimes, though, a piece of our history reaches up to remind us that we have done some very unfair things. Yes, it's my country and I love it as much as an American, but nobody should be proud of all that it has done.


One example of that is [Manzanar], which was one of ten such camps, where during WWII, as many as 120,000 Japanese, many of them born in this country, 2/3 of them American citizens, but with the misfortune to live in one of the three western states, had their property taken and were imprisoned for no reason other than racial bigotry. If the reason was the war, then explain why Germans on the east coast weren't likewise imprisoned? It had to be revenge for Pearl Harbor; and, as usual with revenge, innocent people were the ones hurt by it.


When we came driving up U.S Route 395 in California, I had forgotten (if I knew) Manzanar was on it. I knew the name though and when we saw the National Historic Site was ahead, we turned in to learn more, to pay our respects to those who suffered here, some who died during those years when the United States referred to it as a relocation center-- euphemisms in the United States obviously aren't new.

This act was done by a Democratic president with an Executive Order. Amazing how many outrages are done that way, isn't it! It was admitted to having been a mistake with restitution offered to survivors by two Republican presidents. That pretty well says it was not a partisan issue but rather one of wronging one people out of revenge and fear from another people. We can only hope we have learned through it as we should have through Vietnam. Sometimes Americans though are pretty blind to history lessons.

For anyone who might want to think the people brought here were not like us, so it was okay, they were us. On the route you drive through the auto tour, you see where there had been a Buddhist temple but also Catholic and Protestant Christian buildings for worshipers.



When we were there, we saw Manzanar in a beautiful setting as it was a lovely early spring day in the high country. It would be not so much in the winter which lasts a long time at this elevation (3700 feet). It is a pretty valley if you don't think how it would be to be imprisoned there, having your freedom and property taken for no reason, when you were forced into small barracks with no privacy, where you were forced to work for pennies and pay for your own food with the wages, when you knew it wasn't fair, but you had to endure it.


This place was where originally there were homesteads; so the ranch remains are also on the site. Walking and driving the roads, seeing the film at its Center, the illustrative displays, led me to have even more respect for the stoicism of the Japanese people which was reinforced recently by their reaction to the horrific earthquake and tsunami with the aftermath of nuclear devastation. They really are a tough people.

So when you visit a place like Manzanar and there are other such sites, relating to more than the Japanese people, across this nation, you feel a mix of embarrassment that humans can act this way at the same time admiration for the strength of humans. There were those who came from outside to help improve the conditions in the prison. Many who saw it as wrong, but couldn't stop it, more who paid no attention to it or thought it was a good idea. When a nation (any nation) goes on a rampage, it's hard to stop it at the time. It is easy to convince the masses it's for their own good even if what they should realize is-- there could be me next time!


The inscription on the monument, created at the cemetery in 1942, means-- Soul Consoling Tower. Offerings are regularly left to show people have not forgotten. Most of the bodies (most of the dead here were cremated) were moved after the internment site closed. Six are left.



I will do one more blog for this place as it deserves it as there was something I didn't know about it and having seen several documentaries on it, I thought I had known it all.

Consequences

Do you ever stop to think about consequences and that sometimes even good deeds can have negative ones? I would like to believe every good thing we do will have a good result but truth is-- not so much. So why is it that we can do what looks like it should be good and has been good in other situations but this time, it's not? Can we build anything into our lives that reduces the number of times that happens?

This blog started out with just that question and went into politics and many other examples of how consequences play out. It was a fine blog as far as it went; but then I had the dream about entropy.

After the dream, how entropy plays into consequences grew on me to the point that I divided this blog and you can read the global and political end of it in [Rainy Day Things]. The subject had grown until it became too much to put it all here, and it changed pretty much everything I had intended to write because I began to see not just a problem but an opportunity.

Considering consequences will begin with two scientific theories which although they are about science, they also can be used to help understand consequences.

First, although not necessarily any more important to this discussion, comes Newton's laws of motion (I like how wikipedia not only explains things but for the layman). This applies here because it is true in human life as well as science when we apply an action one place, it will often lead to something somewhere else as a reaction. Those reactions are not that predictable in humans. Which takes me to the word in my dream and the thing that changed how I decided to write about consequences-- entropy.

Once again I liked how Wikipedia scientifically explained it Entropy and energy. For anyone who wants to go deeper into what entropy is than what I intend to pull out, I recommend reading that. It has some interesting conclusions at the end, but it's not where I am going with my thinking. I am interested in how entropy impacts consequences.

Most of us pretty well know that we cannot totally depend on something that worked with one person working with another or even with the same person at a different time. Humans are not tidily predictable (actually animals aren't either). We can be trained but sometimes that training has unexpected counter results so that the consequences aren't always clearly obvious in the beginning. Anybody who has raised children knows all of this.

This is where entropy comes in. It's the energy that is lost or more accurately that went somewhere we didn't expect. It explains why a home, if anyone lives in it, will naturally head toward chaos without discipline being applied to what is happening within it.

If you turn your back on your house for a month, become totally involved in say a creative job, you clearly see the results of entropy when you turn back. The natural result of doing nothing tends to be chaos and accidents-- which might even explain how life on earth came to be, but as much as it can lead to life becoming, it can lead to it ending. Consequences

Some examples: say we help out a family that is destitute. We feel good. Then when they are stronger, we find them brutalizing someone else.... or we don’t help them and same result. We gave them money and they used it to buy drugs. We gave them food and they sold it to buy drugs. We do something good, like buy a car for someone who then has a tragic accident with it. Consequences.

We develop a friendship with someone we think will be good for our life. Then we learn they are not good and are even more so energy suckers. We start out with the best intentions but everything goes askew. Consequences.

If we could always weigh this fact and that to come up with the right choice, kind of like a chemistry experiment, life would be much simpler or maybe not. Maybe some of what entropy does with its unintended chaos is actually a positive thing for our life on many different levels.

The issue of consequences is one of the life issues with which I have wrestled. It's especially tough during the child rearing years, but the questions arise many different times. If I do this, what will be the result? For me, the conundrum of doing what seems to be good but seeing it turn out to be bad arose as soon as I could see the complexity of human action and how results are often unintended. We control actions. We don't control reactions. Something sounds good and ends up causing something else that is not so good. I got it drilled home when I had children where I had the responsibility for directing their lives but in what ways?

In life there are times we must make choices and act. We have to vote. We have to support certain actions. We have to help or not help a friend. Whenever we do that, we apply that first law above-- one action tilts things in a direction they were not going. Then comes the second law that unpredictability is part of life. Will that be good or bad? Consequences

The concern for consequences could literally cripple a person on so many levels that they would become hermits and do nothing involving anybody else. So how do we deal with consequences in a healthy way?

An obvious solution is not think of anything once we have done it. We could do the things we think are good but avoid considering what happened afterward. Was it good and worthy of praise? We don’t notice. Was it bad and deserves blame? We don’t notice.

Up to a point, that sounds good. I mean guilt does us no good and praising ourselves for possibly something turning out well, where we may have only had part of the impact on it, that isn’t very effective either for the next time.

AND I think the next time is the reason why it’s good to think about consequences and try to learn from them—especially when it’s supporting something our nation does which might end up with an unintended consequence but where we have seen something very similar play out historically time after time.

The thing is we cannot really ever know the full consequences possible to any action we take nor that we support in others. We opt to take a walk on the very same road a drunk driver is turning down. No way to evaluate that ahead of time.

There are things though where we can look at what has come before, the usual result of such actions and evaluate what we should do to improve our chances of it being the right choice.

With an awareness of entropy, whether we call it that word or not, we recognize that chaos is a part of life. We can though do what is possible in our own lives to reduce its impact by discipline, developing skills, keeping things reined in because if we don't, more and more or our energy will be lost.

Although I will be writing much more about Libya in the other blog that is linked above, one thought seems to belong here. There is a zeitgeist blowing through the Middle East. It is the desire for people to improve their lives. This is all very positive. Except...

I think in too many people there is a lack of understanding that you build one thing on another. An educated populace yields a disciplined people (or has a shot at it). When we try to jump over the skills, it might work one time out of a hundred thousand but won't keep working because one thing builds on another; and in this case there is nothing to build on.

An example is our own personal lives when we look at someone else who has this energetic personality, full of seeming energy, constantly creating, always working toward what seem good things to us. We look at that, want it but have seen the superficial part of what got that person there.

In the Middle East, the people are demonstrating, rioting and finally rebelling as a way to get what they see other nations having. They have every right to want that but they are trying to skip steps to get there. We have to watch out that we aren't also thinking we can skip steps through things like bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, missing the point that when the bad guy leader is gone, the people won't be ready for an improvement. If we worked through negotiating, building, it'd take longer but in the end, it's more likely to last-- out there or in here.

(One of my digital paintings at the top.)

Tora Bora

[The Definitive Account of the Battle of Tora Bora]

Can you imagine what we'd hear from the right if Obama had been president at that time? I guess it's true of us all-- make excuses for our guys and attack the other side. It's not helping us to get anywhere in solving our problems. I think we need to look at what happened and judge it fairly. In this case, the past is not past.

Is depending on luck enough?

al Qaeda's Flight 253 Blueprint

The recent attempted bombing of a US plane indicates a couple of things that hopefully will be looked at very seriously. Anybody who thought terrorist attacks were behind us (not sure that was very many) should rethink their position. Saying that al Qaeda isn't still a factor should likewise be taken off the table for debate. Their numbers don't have to be large for them to have the expertise to plan such attacks.

When some indicated it didn't matter if we got bin Laden, they need to rethink that. Whatever bin Laden's part is in planning this attack, as long as he's out there, he's a symbol that is potent. He ordered the attack on 9/11 and so far as anybody knows, he got away with it. If he's dead, we need to know it and be able to publicize it. If he's still out there, we need to stop pretending he doesn't matter. Some of the people like this latest want-to-be suicide bomber may be very impacted by Osama bin Laden's success in evading capture.

Likewise those who would like to say these terrorist attacks happen because of poverty should throw the argument out the window. It really never held water as the 9/11 terrorists were not from impoverished families nor nations. All but one came from Saudi Arabia and had had the benefit of higher educations. Does this simplistic thinking come about because some want to think everything comes down to money?

What we are facing is a war of ideology. It is because of religious ideology that these people, including the Fort Hood killer, do what they do despite their lives of privilege. [I hesitated to use the word war here because right away people equate it with a war on terror. The war on terror is a war on tactics used to carry out a war of competing ideologies. This is not the kind of war you can fight with conventional warfare.]

I believe we have a two-fold approach that we must take. First is constantly improving our physical tactics for stopping attacks before they happen. The above link describes how this method was known. What excuse do we have for not being ahead of them? Our technology is inferior?

Second is ideological-- a recognition that our goal has to be to make their ideology of death and destruction seen for what it is instead of some kind of heavenly glory. It so often comes down to religion and in this case an interpretation of a religion, Islam, which tells these bombers that it is a good thing to kill innocent people for their higher purposes and their concept of god.

If you don't think this is scary, check out the statistics on what is happening in Europe with people of Muslim faith becoming a larger and larger percentage of Europe's population. The majority of them are law abiding and would never think of doing something violent. Some of them will do whatever they can to catch those who would, but some of their clerics are teaching this kind of violence. Too many moderate Muslims have been standing back and not trying to stop the violent ones in their midst. The thing is this kind of violent act would kill Muslims alongside Christians. We have to all see that.

I don't know how we deal with a religious ideology that teaches death is a victory if it takes others with them. Keep in mind that when they think their god is favoring their cause, their belief he has protected bin Laden fits into that. In a war of ideology, symbols matter.

A start on the physical end would be placing in all airports enough of those machines that show passengers naked through a camera. Sure it's invasive but so would be taking off all of our clothing. The ultimate invasiveness is to be blown apart by a bomb. To me this is a lot like when they argued that making cockpit doors stronger was too expensive.

If we don't get these cameras in place everywhere, there clearly is no way to stop one of these kind of attacks from being successful. There may not be anyway as the terrorists constantly work to find new ways to destroy people while they ignore positive ways to improve their own cultures. Logic? Don't bother looking for it in this. They can win nothing through it but they don't seem to care.

There was only one reason this attack failed-- luck and maybe incompetence of the person carrying out the attack. BUT it would have worked had it been done properly. Nothing I am hearing airlines discussing right now will change that. Make people sit down for an hour before the plane lands? Fine. So they blow it up ten minutes ahead of that. Since they have no respect for individual lives, it's nothing for them to try this all again. We need to move fast and that rarely happens when it costs money.

I also wish our government would make those terrorist watch lists more effective by keeping them up to date as best they can. This guy was like the Fort Hood shooter in that he had someone seeing the danger and in this case warning about him. Our Homeland Security Chief said there was nothing credible to stop him from flying. Did anybody actually investigate after his father gave such a strong warning?

Sometime around 2004, Farm Boss found his name to be on such a list. We have no idea why it showed up there; and when you call, nobody can tell you either. He traveled a lot back then for business and often back and forth in the same day. Was his name the same as someone else's? But his name is not ethnic. He has had no criminal record. Certainly he is not someone who would practice the Muslim faith. Yet there his name was which prevented advanced printing of boarding passes and always led to more hassle at the airports. For all he knows, his name might not still be on it, but they said 550,000 people are there. At one time Teddy Kennedy's name was among them.

So when the most recent bomber was on the list, there were so many others also that the list provided no protection. The watch list has to be real and up to date. If you find your name is there, you should have a right to find out why and provide proof you are not whoever that person is. Lists that are so bulky that they cannot be effectively used are not better than no list at all.

Homeland Security and others from the Obama administration have tried to say the system worked. No, it did not. It failed. Passengers did act heroically; but if the detonator had gone off, if the man had ignited it while in the bathroom, the bomb would have exploded that plane before anyone had a chance to do anything. We are kidding ourselves to think otherwise.

We got lucky this time. Next time we might not be. And as things stand, there will be a next time.

Terrorist Tactics

War and Politics

With talk of the Afghanistan war much in the news, I had put off writing about it. I do read the latest news and opinions, but frankly I have more immediate personal issues to work through and spending too much time thinking about politics and war can be detrimental to anybody's personal life. On the other hand, ignoring what happens in the country where we live leaves the choices up to those who are paying attention.

The right criticized Obama for taking time to decide whether to add more troops to the Afghan campaign as McChrystal had demanded. Make no mistake, he did demand when he went public. I have said this before but it bears repeating. Obama said a general has a responsibility to figure out how to win a war, a battle. A president has to look at how it all impacts his whole nation.

The right further complained that Obama took too long to decide to escalate the war. So he should have rushed to just do it without figuring out how to pay for it, what we would gain as a nation from it, how it would be seen by Afghanistan and its neighbors? I might disagree with his conclusion, but I totally think it was right to take time while considering such a costly escalation.

Based on its history and culture, Afghanistan seemed to me a lost cause when Obama promoted it during his campaign. Didn't we have our chance there and blew it? But for anybody who thinks he has pulled a G.W. Bush, saying one thing while campaigning but doing another once in office, he didn't. He said all along that Afghanistan was the thing that Bush walked off from finishing and it should be finished right. His concerns obviously go beyond Afghanistan to the nuclear possessing Pakistan.

Does that mean he's right in what he's doing now? Not in my opinion. I did not even listen to his speech because I am not fond of listening to any politician's speech. I knew the details would be online, and was pretty sure what he had decided. I am, however, tired of these wars where we think we can go overseas and change another country's political agenda through our guns.

Our Timeline and the Taliban's

To add to this, the term war on terror (which he doesn't use but Republicans still do) irks me every time I hear it. The use of terror is a tactic and in addition one the Bush administration wielded to get their own political aims-- be scared, very scared and stop thinking. Terror is induced to get political aims. We hear Cheney trying to use it every time he says that unless Obama does what he thinks he should (which would change as soon as Obama did it), we will be attacked again. I have a feeling his manipulation of G.W. Bush explains a lot of those eight years.

Cheney and Bush acolytes continuously say they kept us safe during their administration while not counting 9/11 or the continual wars overseas with their cost of life, maimed bodies, and endless debt as the right wing refused to pay for the wars as they went (didn't even count them into the yearly budget). If we felt the war was needed, we should have raised taxes to pay for it. We should have made sure our troops went into it fully armored.

When we invaded Afghanistan, it was to get Osama bin Laden but then when they had a chance to get him in Tora Bora they lost it [What went wrong at Tora Bora]. What happened there is not disputed. Why it happened still is.

If you believe whoever controlled the federal government at that time wanted to capture or kill him, you probably also believe they did not plan to attack Iraq from the time they came into power. Could they have ever gotten the American people to go along with that war if they had captured bin Laden? Were they incompetent or was it something else? How do you fight a war on terror without terrorists to inspire it? Call this a conspiracy theory and I will agree. Such theories aren't always wrong.

There is no proof that al Qaeda planned an attack on US soil after 9/11. They did claim credit for the bombings in Spain and Bali. Spain at least does seem to be their work. In the United States we have had foiled attacks; but so far as I have read, none were planned by al Qaeda. They didn't need to. We were busy self-destructing ourselves, and under Obama we are continuing. Are we out of Iraq? Not that I have heard and the death goes on there. Can we fix Afghanistan's political structure? Do you also believe in Santa Claus?

To justify the enlargement of the Afghani war, the Taliban have become the enemy to fight since our intelligence sources say there are likely only maybe 100 al Qaeda in the country (although that border is still porous). Keep in mind we supported the Taliban (and Osama bin Laden) during their war against the Soviet Union-- a war that ended up nearly bankrupting the Soviets and dissolving their holdings outside Russia.

We are apparently paying the Taliban (and maybe indirectly al Qaeda) today through our contractors who pay for safety to go about their business. Want to guess who pays the contractors? We also pay for the Taliban's war against us by not stopping the poppy crops, by allowing heroin to be exported to the world as drug of choice for those into destroying their own minds. Could we stop that trade and cut down their income? My guess is yes but people in Afghanistan would definitely turn on us as without it what do they use to make money?

The Taliban didn't attack the United States. What they did was have a horrendous government which treats their people (especially women) abominably-- at least to Western eyes. They gave refuge to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist training camps (which are more like empty fields with a shack at one end and a few posts to go through physical training). We came in and bombed those 'camps', drove the Taliban into hiding, let Osama get away, let the leader at that time of the Taliban also get away as he still leads them, left a limited military presence behind, accepted a corrupt government to run the country, and took off for Iraq which had nothing to do with any of the terrorist attacks but was run by a bad guy and had a lot of oil.

[Frank Rich-- Obama's logic is no match for Afghanistan].

It would have taken a lot of courage and political capital to admit Afghanistan was unwinnable. You think the right wing is fussing now. It would have been peanuts to what they'd have said if Obama had said we are getting out. I read that the one thing Americans won't forgive in a leader is a perception of weakness. The problem with Americans is in general they don't have the foggiest notion of what weakness really looks like; so it's all about that other word-- perception.

Would it be nice if Afghanistan, Iraq and the whole Middle East lived peaceably, arguing mostly over what factory to site in what neighborhood? You betcha. It's not something we are likely to see while we continue to use our own terrorist tactics to attain it, where we are more caught up in perception than in reality. There are ways to get people to see there are better ways to live but bombing innocent civilians by mistake isn't likely to be on the list.

As long as Americans are manipulated by those who use terrorist tactics to get their aims, we aren't likely to see any improvement there or here.

(more tomorrow on this)

The Costs of War

This is going to be a reply to something ingineer said in my previous blog and so to be fair to him, I am putting his comment here first:

"The only common ground that you can find with radical Muslims is for you to be dead. They believe that all infidels should die. So if you do not want to fight them, your only other choice is to be slaughtered by them. If they were a nation that had some logical reason for fighting, then maybe we could negotiate a peace, but these people are crazy and will never negotiate. This is not like the Arab-Israeli conflict where they are fighting over land and economic resources. Our only choice is to destroy them. Or continue to be picked off a few at a time until they are capable of a massive attack and kill of millions of us at a time.

"And this attack shows just how much damage one terrorist can do. Just think how many people the guys that wanted to attack Fort Dix could have done. But at the time they were downplayed as just a few guys with rifles, they couldn't really do much damage to an army base right? Well tell that to the families of the 43 people shot by this whack job at Ft. Hood."

What he said is typical of what is said by the right wing and it's totally wrong on about every level I can imagine. First of all most us thought that the Bush administration had been actively working on protecting us all from terrorist attacks in this country. Is not that what Dick Cheney has told us how much they did to keep us safe? Who guessed that that didn't include our military bases?

Wide Open to Attack.

Who, not in the military, had any idea that our bases would be so unprotected. How many of us knew that on a US base, the soldiers are never armed and have insufficient guards to protect them from entrances by just about anybody. Now this guy could have gotten in anyway because he was in the military. Could they not have had simple metal detectors though to check if someone was coming in with a weapon? They apparently do not.

How would you manage to kill all radical Muslims, ingineer? How would you know who they are when you have a bunch of teabaggers who believe that even Obama is one of them? Your answer to kill all radicals is unrealistic and impossible unless you want to kill all Muslims period which I am sure you don't mean.

So let's get to the guy who actually did this, who clearly was a radical Muslim and was making zero secret of it. He had been given poor reviews on his performance, was transferred to Fort Hood as a second chance, had argued with many people that he was a Muslim first and American second. He is probably the one who posted sympathy with suicide bombers and saw them as heroes. None of that was considered or explored by the military before his cowardly attack on a bunch of unarmed people-- which although most of us didn't know would be the case, he clearly did.

So what was the military doing about this man who sent out the warning signs? Sending him to Iraq or Afghanistan because why? Likely because they are stretched so thin that they could not pay attention to the warnings. They are understaffed and that won't get better if the war in Afghanistan is expanded as people like ingineer apparently (based on his comments regarding how Obama should do what the general demanded) believe should be done.

This killer was a man who proudly declared himself to be a Muslim and who was put in a position of counseling men and women coming back from a Muslim war zone and not every returning soldier but those who suffered post-traumatic stress, so traumatized by what they had seen and done that they needed help. He was put in a position of listening to their stories of what war is really like, about the awful things that happen in war even when people are good at heart. He heard all the things the rest of us would prefer to not imagine and likely his grievances against the United States grew.

This man was not a nutcase. He was a radical Muslim who decided the villains were the military. He said while doing it that he wasn't shooting anyone not in uniform. He saw himself as fighting a war. The fact that these soldiers were unarmed just made it easier. He probably knew plenty of stories where the same thing had happened to Iraqi civilians.

So whose fault is this? I would say it was his superiors but can we blame them if they simply didn't have the staff? I think the blame goes to the people in this country who wanted to fight a war on the cheap and even now resent taxes to cover the true costs. I say his being ignored as a risk is the fault of all the people who favor war as long as it's not their own lives on the line.

After Vietnam, I saw what happened and felt that whenever you fight a war overseas because you think you can spare your own country the spilling of blood, that blood gets spilled back at home in other ways. Call it karma. Call it what you will but war ends up with more violence and you see it time after time. If it is a solution, it's a lousy one and too often innocent people pay the price.

Parapluie put a positive comment into that last blog also which is a good ending here. I don't know that I believe that she is right. She is an idealist and I am not. I am not sure all things can be resolved by negotiations, but I do know we went into Iraq for no reason. What we think we can do in Afghanistan won't happen and in 10 years, we will be more broken, have more dead people on our conscience, have created more terrorists, and likely Afghanistan will go on with the same political and cultural system it has today.

Parapluie's comment:

I think your photos are spectacular. And very comforting during this time of national tragedy. I feel guilty, however, of a part of me saying that my fears were justified. When we first went to war in Afghanistan shortly after 911, I took to heart an article in the University of California Monthly by a professor of Middle Eastern Studies. He said that war was counterproductive and would only create more terrorists abroad and at home. My prayer, in addition to the ones for the families of the victims, is that we will come to our senses and see that war is not the answer.

There are studies on how to conduct conflict resolution. And one area that is most compelling is finding common grounds. One way to find common grounds is through the arts. Photography is one of the arts. The "Small Things" are something we should look at and encourage in times like ours.

What is the difference?

Terrorism is a tactic using violence and fear to gain political aims.

After Obama was inaugurated, Homeland Security issued a warning about possible homegrown terrorist attacks. They were swamped with resentment and accusations from the right. How dare anyone think right wing groups in the United States would grow and encourage such violent acts!

Well we just saw our second violent result of the nasty and vindictive accusations that have been coming regularly from the right through some of their commentators, blogs and emails.

Dr. Tiller was a Kansas gynecologist, obstetrician, who was murdered while serving in his church because he ran one of the few clinics that legally performed late-term abortions. Many people don't like abortions that are performed in the third trimester of a woman's pregnancy, some consider that, or really any abortion, to be murder.

Can we hold responsible people like Bill O'Reilly for the murder of Dr. Tiller because he claimed Tiller was no better than a Nazi? He quickly said no, it's not his fault and he would never encourage someone to murder someone else-- even if they deserved it. What had he been hoping his words would inspire?

What responsibility do groups have regarding their membership? When they helped the accused murderer track Dr. Tiller, were they tacitly encouraging him to do what he eventually did? What responsibility do outspoken commentators have for what happened Sunday? How about for the shootings earlier by a killer afraid his guns would be taken away?

Do those who use incendiary words (from either side) have accountability? There is a way to be responsible in what you say and still have a firm opinion that something is wrong. I actually heard that from Sarah Palin as she condemned the murder, didn't add a single 'but', while strongly maintaining a strict anti-abortion stance.

I strongly support the right of choice in the early part of a woman's pregnancy but would not vote to keep abortions in the last part of a pregnancy legal except when it's the life of the mother and even then a cesarean, to me, should be first choice; but did those who find it so wrong bother to read why women came to Dr. Tiller, who those women were, what their stories were? If you do, you see that some at least were in desperate straits, some with babies that could not survive long even if born. They didn't come to their legal choice lightly. Judge not lest ye be judged is not applicable for christianists?

During the Bush years there were no killings or shootings at abortion clinics, but there had been during the Clinton years. The type of vitriol that the right spews out, when it doesn't get its way, has consequences. If I walked up to someone and encouraged them to rob a bank or kill someone, would it be legal? Remember the blind Muslim cleric who encouraged and abetted the first World Trade Center bombings. He'll be in prison the rest of his life.

Randall Terry, who is among the most violence stirring leaders of such groups, did encourage what happened on Sunday. He believes in domestic terrorism and is using the tactics regularly. When he says that Tiller reaped what he sowed, Terry is sowing something himself-- homegrown terrorism.

Terry had better never speak out against foreign terrorists (maybe he secretly admires them) because the acts and goals are identical. They also believe their purposes are noble and dictated by god. They also believe violent acts are their only recourse to gain their goals.

Some would say that Dr. Tiller was doing wrong so it's different, but terrorism isn't just about killing those who are doing wrong (terrorists would say all in a country are responsible for what their government has done). Terrorists kill one person to frighten others. Terrorism is not about just killing a guilty person or even an innocent one. Its goal is what its name says-- inspiring terror for a political aim.

It often works. Many humans are easily intimidated. Who would like to have their home picketed (as happens to doctors who perform abortions) by those who hate them and yell threats? The tactics are using terror to alter behavior to win through intimidation when they cannot win through the courts or ballot box.

The man who killed Dr. Tiller had been part of a militant militia group, the Freemen. He had been arrested with bombs and done time in prison. He was a clear threat to anyone with whom he didn't agree, and yet he was a part of an anti-abortion group who didn't mind using him for their goals, some of whom probably see him as a hero today.

In some states there are very few places women can get even early abortions because of the fear in the clinics of being targeted by the hate mongers who picket and scream ugly accusations at the women seeking abortions and at those providing them. Have you seen how radical some of these people become? They themselves are clearly on the edge of violence. Who is stirring that up and benefiting from it?

The irony is this is often being done in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace. It is clearly not about love and it's not about caring about the babies who might have been born. If it was, these same picketers would support medical care for all children, would always vote for school levies, would support programs to help children born in disadvantaged situations.

For righties who are either keeping silent about the murder of Dr. Tiller or think he got what he deserved, just shut up about extremists coming here to kill us. Terrorism is terrorism. There is no difference!

So is he a traitor too?

"What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard...

"I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else...

"So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law. When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those," - General David Petraeus

One thing that has irked me all along about the right wing is how they have listened to what someone like Dick Cheney says and called it patriotism without really looking at what it was. The war in Iraq had the same thing happen that happened in Vietnam. Suits made decisions based on political aims. They never cared about the results on the troops. And yet right wing followers still think those guys are the patriots.

Recently we learned more about the shoddy work that KBR did which led to electrocution deaths: [Pittsburg Tribune]. You do know who owns or rather owned KBR... who headed, until he became Vice, a company that made a fortune and incidentally since he retained stock so did he-- [Asia Times]. [The latest in KBR's Long Reign of Terror] Yes, Dick Cheney's Halliburton.

Soooo patriotic... if patriotism is about making money!

Tortured to justify a war

[Tortured to Justify a War?]

I know a lot of people don't want to think about this. It's done, isn't it? Well if you click on the link and read the above article, and I hope you will read the above article, it is NOT done.

It is important to me to not think negatively, to try and be positive, but every time I read the paper, I feel the anger boiling up at what the Bush administration did regarding torture. Mostly what Dick Cheney did and Bush let happen.

For anyone who saw the most recent Cheney interview where he was asked whether Bush knew about the torture, the emphasis from some was that Cheney was saying Bush authorized torture. Listen to it again, read the words.

What Cheney said was-- well I think he had to have known. Say what?!! Cheney stumbled all over himself as he basically revealed that he ran that operation maybe under Bush's agreement. Doubtless he told Bush, what he is trying to tell any American who still listens to him, what he's trying to tell Obama-- torture or you are responsible for the deaths of Americans. This is a sick man. Why is anyone listening to him?

Taking deep breaths and trying not to be furious!

Torture questions

Our lives are full of good things and those that are not so good. I can well understand why many people would rather not think about the question of torture. Avoid knowing and escape responsibility. Others are horrified at what was done but feel it is over, won't happen again; so why talk about it. Some believe it was the right thing-- nuff said. From the political right has come a constant drone that whether we tortured isn't the question but that it should never have been revealed!

Would the same argument, that we must never reveal official wrong doing, work for when the Catholic Church finally admitted it had priests who abused children and that the church hierarchy tried to pay off the victims and hide the actions? Was their mistake that they ever admitted their part in it?

Peggy Noonan, (past speech writer for President Reagan) who seems more and more weird to me and not sure if it's Botox or pills but she just doesn't sound or look like a real person whenever I see her on any interview program, has said the torture memos should not have been released. Her reasoning, with an inane smile, is some mystery is necessary in life, and sometimes we just have to walk on. How many times in history have people tried to hide things and smiled sweetly while trying to walk on?

Jon Stewart aptly mimicked her by saying walking on from genocide, walking on from slavery. He didn't ask it but should walking on have been what was done after WWII when it was oh so unpleasant to realize what some human beings had thought of and done during the Holocaust? When do you decide that you will reveal evil deeds? Don't reveal it when it ruins your reputation? Does such revelation only come after a war has been lost and then it's the victors who do it? Saddam Hussein found ordering the torturing and killing of people had a high price; but then he lost a war, didn't he?

Some would say the Bush/Cheney administration's torture was not evil. It was done to bad people, and therefore was okay. Further they argue, that it kept the United States safe from further attacks. The latter fact has yet to be proven; but even if it was, would that justify doing what we have prosecuted, executed and condemned other soldiers and nations for doing?

Well the question of releasing the memos has been decided. Whether you agree or not, and I happen to agree with their release, it's not a question left to decide. I think it was right to reveal what had been done because to get past something in our lives, we need to take responsibility for what it was. Head in the sand doesn't cut it for personal living or national choices. Besides which, the information of the torture was already out there. What Americans needed to know was to what extent it went up the chain of command. We know that now-- to the top.

As Americans, we are left with a big question: do we prosecute those who ordered such acts? The right says no, we have to walk on. The left says the law must be obeyed. To the right, whatever the United States does, must be correct because the motives were pure-- even if the acts were not. To the left that is hogwash and sometimes even good people go down wrong paths. Revealing the extent to which we did might be our best insurance of not repeating it. On the other hand, David Broder makes the opposite case as he says Stop Scapegoating.

Rove said that if we punish the previous administration (in short possibly him) for crimes it may have committed, it would be like what Third World/Latin American countries do when one regime is overthrown by another. Despite how Rove would like to paint it, the question here is not one of policies but the law.

It's obvious after the last month that the right wing has already decided we didn't have a free election. They also have amnesia where it comes to looking for crimes in previous administrations (the Bush people went after Clinton for the pardons). Logic is irrelevant where passion reigns.

Rove's catch phrase became quite popular with pundits and even ended up with a few senators echoing it. To follow this train of thought, you have to ignore that what the Bush/Cheney administration did for eight years was more like Third World/Latin American juntas. It never matters what is true. It matters how it sounds-- and that sounded good to the right.

I understand why the Obama administration would hate to get into this. This is the kind of thing that could swallow an administration's energy if they became involved. Some say if it is prosecuted, it's about vengeance. Is it or is instead about justice? If there were no criminal acts, than there is nothing to prosecute; but what if there were?

Can we trust the Justice Department to figure out if crimes were committed under American law. The right does not trust that because it is used to a totally partisan Justice Department. Some say, Nixon made this case, that if the president did it, it's legal. Do we really want to say that? Would the right like that idea now that a new president is in power?

Obama has another consideration and not from the reasonable right but rather the fringe. We saw it from the tea baggers; and if you listen to right wing talk or get those emails, you already are hearing or reading it. There are those who think Obama is trying to turn our whole country over to terrorists, clandestinely give it to the Muslim extremists. Can you imagine the screaming from them if he doesn't stop an investigation into torture involving the Bush/Cheney administration? They are already being whipped up to think it would be part of his plot to destroy the country.

Despite pressure from the right (the supposed law-and-order bunch), if laws were broken, how does our country ignore that-- and even if it leads to people on the left? How do we talk to the rest of the world about our ethics if we set them aside when it's inconvenient? Wouldn't it leave the message in our country that laws are only for the lowly?

My thought on how to resolve this is to investigate what happened. This should be done by the legal system, not the Democrats. Some have suggested it should be done by retired judges.

We now know what was done. The United States authorized and used torture and sexual humiliation to gain secrets-- they hoped. The right wants to make the point of this to be: Did it work.?. Perhaps the better question is why was it done?

From what I have read, the interrogation tapes were ordered destroyed, but the people there, some who didn't want to be there, perhaps through them, the truth might come out regarding the questions asked of the prisoners if this nation's people demand to know.

From the sounds of it, torture was done to many (some who have since disappeared and may have been killed during these harsh interrogation techniques). Some likely was done for revenge. Wanting revenge now is no reason to find out what was done. The question should be instead one of motive and the answers might lie with the harsh torture done to two Al Qaeda operatives who likely had something to do with planning and ordering 9/11. I use the word likely because information gathered during torture does not stand in a court of law; but let's assume these two did what the government is saying they did.

After the investigation, if the primary reason for the torture was not about future attacks, which these guys in prison likely didn't know about anyway, but rather what we are hearing now-- to prove that Iraq was connected to 9/11 and to justify the Bush/Cheney administration's decision to attack Iraq, then doesn't this change the situation from an administration who was trying to protect America to one who was trying to protect its own power? It would mean that month of endless torture was not to get new information but rather false information.

Some might make a case that in a situation, where a country had faced such a horrible terrorist attack, drastic means must be used to prevent further attacks. I would still say it is not the right choice. Not just because of the bad guys we might be torturing, but what it does to us as a nation to toss our ethics aside as soon as it's personally inconvenient.

Does anyone who justifies torture think about what this must be like for those who were ordered to do it? If they were sadists already, it would encourage that quality in them-- but my bet is these soldiers were rarely if ever sadists. They did not enjoy it. They hated it. They were ordered to do it. Some requested to be released from that duty. Others felt it was necessary. The military branches all said it not only didn't work but that they wanted it stopped. The administration, and who knows what that means, decided it would not be stopped.

For people forced to torture others, such acts could lead to nightmares for the rest of their lives. Suicide possibly from taking part in abusive interrogations?

Also it's cavalierly mentioned that doctors oversaw the torture to be sure it didn't kill these prisoners. This sounds like what was done under the Nazis. Doctors are supposed to heal, ease the suffering of others, what did that do to them to be ordered to go against their every instinct and training?

Leaving aside those who did this, what will it say about us as a nation if we throw aside our ethics when it's to keep ourselves safe? Once we do it for one reason, how about others that keep us more comfortable? Where do we draw the line if we decide the law isn't there for us whenever it gets in our way?

For those who would say yeah it's okay if I am in danger, can they also make a case that it's okay to torture someone to admit to something that prisoner says over and over is not true? If the torture is only to justify a policy position, would even the right wing think that was justified?

Well actually wing-nuts like Limbaugh, Beck, etc. would probably go along with even that (Limbaugh to defend Cheney and Beck because he's a nut) but how about some of the more reasonable on the right? If the torture was actually only to make the Bush people and in particular Dick Cheney, look correct, would anyone say that was justified?

Today, out there on the talk show circuit, who do we have most trying to defend the previous administration's use of torture? It's not Bush but rather Dick Cheney. Did we think we would be rid of him when his time in power ended? If we did, we have been badly mistaken.

The writer, Maureen Dowd, was telling George Lucas that she had compared Cheney to Darth Vader from his Star Wars series. She wondered if that was fair. Lucas answered that George W. Bush was Darth Vader, a young man who became corrupted but started out good and ended up in the end choosing good.

Lucas said Cheney was The Emperor. When you think about that possibility, and yes, I know it's movies, but movies that use real political and human motivations, then the responsibility for the torture, the cover-ups, the whole thing likely goes to Dick Cheney who is out there right now trying to sabotage yet another administration. Think about it!

Krugman had an excellent column on the topic: Reclaiming America's Soul. Most especially if you are one who wants to just walk on, read the article and think about what the price might be of just walking on.

Where does it stop?

In the United States, sometimes Republicans seem to imply Democrats not only don't want to fight terrorism but also have no idea how to do it; on the other hand, Republicans know exactly how. They claim George Bush kept this country safe for the last 8 years by torturing people and attacking Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 but was ruled by a brutal although secular dictator.

The argument goes that because there have been no further attacks here, Bush succeeded even though he did not get the mastermind behind 9/11. In fact for a long time, he said it didn't matter. Was that because he didn't want him except as an excuse? Over and over we would be told some 9/11 mastermind had been killed or captured but usually with a name we never heard before he was taken out. The two names we have heard the most still are either free or died of natural causes in Pakistan.

The fact that Barack Obama said we should have finished the job in Afghanistan is argued that means he's a pacifist. When he said we were distracted by Iraq and it was a sinkhole that would swallow us, he was being weak. When he said we should go into Pakistan to get bin Laden, to break up these networks hiding there, it was said that's too tough. Pakistan is our friend (never mind that we have now been making discrete, targeted attacks across the border or that we are much hated in Pakistan). If you are looking for logic, don't even start looking into any of this. Logic plays no role in it.

Anyone, be they Islamic or of no religion, should see the problem with the Islamic extremists who are still active around the world, and in some cases still control countries. It would be nice to make the argument that all religions are equal for the good and damage they can do, but it doesn't actually hold water.

Most religions, if you go back in their beginning sacred texts, might begin in a bloodthirsty way, but many have come to see the beginning wasn't right and have moved onto other ways of seeing their responsibility to creating a civilized world.

I hear the argument that there are two parts of Islam. One is more peaceful such as we saw with Anwar Sadat, and the other more brutal as we have seen with the Taliban. The latter part is what is funding and providing the human fodder to attempt to take over the Arab world for starters. Could we believe that those extreme elements would stop at the borders of current Arab nations if they consolidate their power?

In some Islamic controlled regions, people can be stoned to death for adultery (including those considered more moderate like Saudi Arabia). In Somalia, there was a 13 year old girl who had been raped, reported it and that led to her being stoned to death for adultery. CNN story. Somalia, of course, is a nation with no formal government and is being ruled by the worst Muslim elements, but it's not the only place such things have happened or would happen if the extreme elements of Islam gain power.

Out of these extreme elements have come the kind of men who attacked Mumbai. At the time I am writing this, they have not yet proven from where they came; but whether it was internal to India, from Pakistan, al Qaeda connected, or someone else, they would have one thing in common with all other such attacks-- Muslim extremists seeking revenge for past wrongs. Sound familiar? Religion and ethnicity seem to be at the heart of their crusade. Terrorism is their vehicle to right past wrongs and one more thing-- gain power.

What I didn't know until this happened was that India is 13.4% Muslim and at one time was ruled by a Muslim king: A bit of history of Deccan India. The group, who claimed credit, feel they have been repressed and persecuted (statistics would tend to back up their claims). They may well have gotten weapons and training in Pakistan or at a Madrasah (spelled different ways) school but they wouldn't have had to go outside India to do this.

In Islam today there is a segment that wants to find intellectual solutions to problems. They, like the King of Saudi Arabia, are trying to fund and grow schools that will make Arabs equal to anyone in the world for success, something that had been true in the past before the negative arm of Islam appeared to gain an upper hand. There is another segment who murders teachers, considers secular education to be a threat, and believes only their religion offers what anyone needs to know.

When someone says we have to kill the ones who carry out terrorist acts, I say great. Let's do it. The problem is how do you find them? Sometimes they die themselves in their attacks. Who trained and funded them? It didn't take much money in either the case of the attacks of 9/11 or the recent one in Mumbai. All you need are people willing to die for their cause. They can be living next door to those who would find such an act to be an abomination to god.

Has the United States with its brutalizing of suspected enemies increased or stopped the likelihood of there being more young men and women rising up willing to die for their cause? Have George Bush and his cohorts encouraged the Arab world to see there are better options for a good life than religious extremism or has he empowered that segment? Without the kind of education that the King of Saudi Arabia is promoting, there is no hope, but most of the hijackers on 9/11 were educated and Saudis. So it's not that simple either.

I am not one who believes we can talk reasonably to people who are have gone to the level of considering terrorism to be a reasonable approach to getting their way. I don't believe we should ignore the extremist groups who train such people to carry out attacks. There should be a penalty. How do you find them before they commit an atrocity? It's not like we can kill everybody who is a Muslim. They represent one-fifth of the world's population and are in almost every country. What kind of monsters would the rest of the world have to be to kill innocent people to get at a few bad ones? If we did that, wouldn't we be like the terrorists? Does evil beget good?

Good Islamic people are obviously in the majority, or this situation would be worse than it is. Of the good people though, are there some who secretly applaud what the terrorists have done? Are there those, who while they would never do a violent act, are supportive of the Islamic extremist desire to take over much of the Arab world and maybe beyond forcing it to abide by their interpretation of their religious precepts.

To the Western mind, Islamic religious control, even in moderate nations, is bad, most especially for women who must hide their bodies, cover their hair, not drive a car, can't meet with a man alone without being threatened with punishment, and on it goes. Government retribution is often very violent.

Not all Muslims desire world conquest. Most are content to live peaceful lives and follow their own beliefs but not force them onto others. How do we, and they, weed out the ones who think otherwise? That's why this is not that simple. Terrorists and their supporters often live among ordinary people who are peaceful. Often their own neighbors don't know who they are. How do we find them first before the violence?

The problem with terrorist attacks like what happened in Mumbai is the murderers have used as an excuse things in the past that were done to their people. Resentment about these wrongs, as they see it, are what is used to make people willing to die themselves for revenge. Muslims are massacred. Muslims massacre. Do a search on any of that and you will find endless links to stories. Where does it stop?

I think:

it has to stop with moderate Islamic peoples turning against those who do these things, not letting religious loyalty protect those who are hurting all Muslims.

it has to stop by people seeing that they make their own lives good, help others to make theirs work, and it's what leads to future generations finding joy.

it has to be stopped by government retaliation that is appropriate, devastatingly effective, focused, with no safe borders to hide behind, but not just killing anybody from an opposing religion.

it has to stop when people teach their children revenge doesn't work. Let go of those past wrongs because if we don't, they will destroy us.

it has to stop now, not after revenge that just starts the cycle again.

There is a difference between revenge and justice, and it's something a good educational system can help people to understand. A better world is one that is better for all. It is very sad when religion and ethnicity are excuses for killing as clearly they were this week in Mumbai.

What do you think?