When 'Never again' happened again

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide during which at least 800,000 people were murdered. It was one of the world's worst atrocities of the century and certainly the worst to be covered during the age of cable news television. It occurred a year, almost to the week, after politicians and dignitaries in Washington solemnly promised 'Never again' while inaugurating the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In 2004, I wrote a long series of essays on the occasion of the 10th anniversary which gave a lot of information and background about the genocide.

They are as follows (yes, I know the images do not work):

-Ten years later (an intro)
-Pre-genocide history
-How the genocide unfolded
-Myths and realities about the genocide (Part 1)
-Myths and realities about the genocide (Part 2)
-The genocide's orphans
-Hate media and their role in the genocide
-International law and American law on genocide
-Post-genocide justice
-The post-genocide government
-Lessons and conclusions

Obama is a terrorist president? Liberals don't care either way.

NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday ran an interview with Gregory Johnsen, author of a book about the US bombing campaign in Yemen and the way its massively undermined America's national security. The author points out that when the bombing campaign began, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula counted only 200 members; now it's many times higher. This is because all the 'collateral damage' caused by the bombings has created a massive amount of resentment and thus new recruits for the armed organization.

In Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald highlights a despicable practice of the Obama administration. It not only does 'regular' bombings of suspected terrorists but it also specifically targets funerals and those who've come to the aid of victims in earlier bombings. Greenwald points out that this is a signature tactic of Hamas and other groups designated 'terrorist' by the very same US government.

It really shows how tribal and devoid of principle American *voters* have become; we can't blame it all on politicians. If the Nobel Peace Prize winner had done this as a member of the conservative tribe, liberals (or what passes for them in this country) would have taken to the streets in indignant outrage demanding that this abominable president be impeached and tried for war crimes. And rightly so.

But because he did so as a member of their tribe, there is a deafening silence amongst so-called liberals while they entertain themselves mocking whichever irrelevant figure happens to be designated the right-wing buffoon of the week.

Evil scum war criminal pats himself on the back

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

In his sentencing hearing today, evil scum and war criminal Charles Taylor pleaded for mercy from the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone... without acknowledging any guilt. The former Liberian dictator was convicted by the court of knowingly aiding and abetting war crimes in that country’s civil war (he’s never been charged for his role in the barbarity in his own country).

Taylor had the gall to praise himself as bringing healing and reconciliation to Liberia. He is correct.... sort of. Healing and reconciliation arrived in his country, but only after he fled the country in disgrace.

Prosecutors called for an 80 year sentence for the convictions, a term which defense attorneys called ‘disproportionate.’ They are correct, it is disproportionate. Taylor’s reign of terror which destabilized an entire region merits a much harsher sentence.

Muslim Americans twice as likely to oppose attacks on civilians than Catholics, Protestants

Poll cited by Yes! magazine:

% of Muslim Americans who say military attacks on civilians is never justified: 78

% of Catholic Americans who agree: 39

% of Protestant Americans who agree: 38

Male victims of sex crimes in war 'almost equal' number of female victims

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

In recent years, there's been quite a bit of press coverage of the rape and sexual assault against women during war time, and rightly so. However, there's virtually no awareness of such crimes against men. Both al-Jazeera (here) and the UK Observer (here) have done pieces on this mostly ignored scourge.

Both news outlets report the claim that sex crimes against men during war is nearly as common as those against women, some of the victims having been gang raped repeatedly for months or even years. But The Observer points out that the problem is so little thought of that such statistics are hard to find. Because there has been so little research into the rape of men during war, it's not possible to say with any certainty why it happens or even how common it is – although a rare 2010 survey, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 22% of men and 30% of women in Eastern Congo reported conflict-related sexual violence.


They note that, in addition to the taboos (and in some places, laws) preventing many such men from getting help, many non-governmental organizations are set up to help female victims of sex crimes but not males.

"The organisations working on sexual violence don't talk about it," says Chris Dolan, director of the Refugee Law Project (RLP) at the Makerere University in Uganda.

But it goes beyond not talking about it to an active muzzling of reality.

"I know for a fact that the people behind [a 2006 United Nations] report insisted the definition of rape be restricted to women," [Dolan] says, adding that one of the RLP's donors, Dutch Oxfam, refused to provide any more funding unless he'd promise that 70% of his client base was female.

The Observer article concludes depressingly: Before receiving help from the RLP, one man went to see his local doctor. He told him he had been raped four times, that he was injured and depressed and his wife had threatened to leave him. The doctor gave him a Panadol.

Afghanistan's Guantanamo

The conservative Times of London has a story on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, which is increasingly serving the same Gulag-like function as the infamous Guantanamo Bay. It features the case of on UK man who was kidnapped (via the process euphemistically referred "rendition") and shipped to Bagram, whose mother and a human rights organization trying to force the British government to confirm his kidnapping.

The BBC also has a story on alleged abuses at Bagram.

As if the Jewish people haven't suffered enough

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

Foreign Policy blog points out that former Liberian dictator and indicted war criminal Charles Taylor has pretended to convert to Judaism.

This might be surprising, as he used to be a pretend Christian. You may remember his farewell address shortly before fleeing the country rather than be overthrown, where he seemed to compare himself to Jesus Christ.

However, one of his wives [sic] clarified this to the BBC. "No, no, no he hasn't rejected Christianity. He has always been a Christian. He just decided to become a Jew. He wants to follow the two religions," she said.

As Foreign Policy put it: Least. Welcome. Convert. Ever.


Thanks to reader Mark for the tip.

"Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable"

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton told a Senate committee that the US would not talk to Israel until Hamas renounced violence. She did not enunciate any requirement that Israel renounce violence. Personally, I would have no problem with both Israeli and Hamas leaders being shipped off to the International Criminal Court, given their mutual disregard for international law with regard to civilians. Though it's worth noting that the biggest difference between the two parties is that the weaponry with which Hamas commits its war crimes was not paid for with billions of my tax dollars.

One of my favorite quotes is from former US president John F. Kennedy who said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable." I said before that as long as Israel continues to occupy the Conquered Territories, there WILL be resistance. Every colonial power in history has found out that the people don't like to be ruled by outsiders, no matter how righteous the latter consider themselves.

Standard Israeli rhetoric is that they would be more thrilled that a 11 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers' concert if the Palestinians would simply renounce violence and try to solve the region's difference through peaceful, democratic means. There's one major problem. The Israeli state has pretty much made that impossible. And you can refer to the JFK quote to figure out what will happen next.

Israel's Central Elections Committee has banned the two leading Arab parties from contesting the next election. The majority of Arab members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) belong to these two parties.

The ruling Kadima Party (which is actually moderate in the Israeli context) has made its racism clear by opposing demands of one of the banned parties that (gasp) all Israeli citizens be treated equal under the law. Kadima claimed that such equality would "undermine Israel’s identity as a Jewish state." Such naked tribalism is something most westerners stereotype to darkest Africa, not the country that repeatedly pats itself on the back as 'only democracy in the Middle East.'

So Israel's message is that Arabs and Palestinians are not permitted to be part of the 'democratic' process and they are 'terrorists' if they resort to violence. So how exactly are they supposed to express themselves?

Some fanatical pro-Israeli demonstrators in New York City have an answer: the Palestinians should simply be wiped out.

Now, if some random US Muslim called for Israel to be wiped out, it would be news in this country on every major news outlet as well as Fox News. But when it's made by an Israeli supporter about Palestinians, it barely gets a mention even in the alternative media.

One young fanatic said of Hamas, "They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children. Those who die are suffering God’s wrath."

Given the high percentage of women and children killed in the aggression against Gaza, this gives some insight into the dementia suffered by religious extremists. But really, what rational person can have any comment on such inhuman bile except to shake one's head in disgust?

The only hope is that, according to this article, progressive Jews are trying to take over the American Jewish lobby from the militarists. That's a battle worth fighting.