21 May 2006

The quote comes from today's article in the Times Colonist
Dallaire's call to action moves teens.

"He [Dallaire] said that in just wars, it is not only legal to kill but "moral" to do so if it means saving people from unspeakable atrocities, and building democratic nations"

I am truly sad to hear that this is what Dallaire thinks and tells to teens (paradoxically to inter alia address the disgrace of child soldiers). Call a war what you want, it involves aggression and brutality and murder and it dehumanizes, no matter on which side you are.

If you rush to somebody's side who is threatened and you end up killing somebody else in order to prevent killing, it still is a harrowing thing and nothing makes the killing noble in itself.

The pure impulse of compassion and giving protection is a different level of engagement. People that go out to protect from harm should see it as a duty to humanity to develop methods which carry the least aggression and do the least harm while rendering protection. It has to go together with disarmament and tackling impunity. This is how I understood Pearson's idea to transform the military into a different sort of service body. There is also the question wheter it is helpful if you go abroard uninvited. The difference is in answering a call for help opposite to following a mission.

What sense does it make for Dallaire to add "and building democratic nations" as declared justification for killing? Building a democratic nation was the ideal for Milosevic and for the Tutsies and for Pinochet etc. That's why they send out the killers.

Every person killed is a shame and a waste, and there is no justification, no "moral" obligation. Harold Pinter in his Nobel Lecture reminds us how each dead person is a person dead:

	'Death'.
    Where was the dead body found?
    Who found the dead body?
    Was the dead body dead when found?
    How was the dead body found?
    Who was the dead body?
    Who was the father or daughter or brother
    Or uncle or sister or mother or son
    Of the dead and abandoned body?
    Was the body dead when abandoned?
    Was the body abandoned?
    By whom had it been abandoned?
    Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
    What made you declare the dead body dead?
    Did you declare the dead body dead?
    How well did you know the dead body?
    How did you know the dead body was dead?
    Did you wash the dead body
    Did you close both its eyes
    Did you bury the body
    Did you leave it abandoned
    Did you kiss the dead body

14 May 2006

Yesterday at our laundromat local Squeakies while reading the obligatory Monday Magazine (May 11 - 17, 2006) I was captured by an introduction to the recently published book 10 Excellent Reasons Not To Join the Military by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, discussing one reason: "Because you may be asked to kill civilians - and worse"

"War crimes in Iraq are not mere aberations. They emanate from official policies regarding the aims and conduct of the occupation.
    It is official policy, for example, to use cluster bombs in populated areas. Soldiers and Marines merely carry out the policy."

Reading descriptions about another aspect of the war, the nightly raids in family homes acting on tips which are rewarded by "head money", refreshed again my worries about what Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan might be ordered to do. Canadian special forces participated from the very outset of the war in Afghanistan in nightly raids, initially under US command. (I can't retrieve a Mansbridge columne from the Macleans Magazine about his chat with a staely army fellow at a bar about those impressive warriors. The closest my search brought me to was a blog entry).

During a round table discussion at UVic about the Canadian policy: "Responsibility to Protect" I addressed these concerns and those of Candian troops "rendering" prisoners to Ferry De Kerckhove, the director general of international organizations at Foreign Affairs Canada. He became very agitated and forbade any assumption that Canadian military and special forces would act any other then according to the law.

Shall I just believe this emotionally charged response and set my mind at ease?

12 May 2006

This Raeside cartoon from the Times Colonist greeted me this morning:

12 May 2006

Mark Fiore's most recent animation Decider is a good introduction to his important service of "Aufklärung".

He takes the place side by side with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central. These people carry on the noble and crucial role of jesters in a more and more monarchial setting of the Neo-Bourbons in Washington.

This week's installment of Mark Fiore features the obvious tendency of the Bush administration to follow the path of the ego, working in undigested hidden motives of a weak personality with devastating results.

It's time to wake up!

Thanks to the local network of conscientious objectors to brute force and injustice here is quoted a dangerous example of human folly in trying to join the "winning side" no matter what:

6 May 2006