Tag Archives: peace

President Renews Promise to Close Guantanamo

by Same Air

In a press conference April 30, President Obama pledged to renew his efforts to close Guantanamo Bay.

“I understand that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with the traumas that had taken place, why, for a lot of Americans, the notion was somehow that we had to create a special facility like Guantanamo and we couldn’t handle this in a normal, conventional fashion. I understand that reaction. But we’re now over a decade out. We should be wiser. We should have more experience in how we prosecute terrorists.”

Guantanamo was central to the President’s 2008 election campaign; the prison is known for the indefinite detention of alleged terror suspects and torturous interrogation methods such as waterboarding. These practices and the facility itself epitomize the practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ – suspects are deported from the U.S. to nations with more lenient torture laws for intense interrogations.

Guantanamo Bay shown on a map of Cuba.

Guantanamo Bay shown on a map of Cuba.

Read the President’s remarks:

Bill Plante:  Mr. President, as you’re probably aware, there’s a growing hunger strike on Guantanamo Bay among prisoners there. Is it any surprise really that they would prefer death rather than have no end in sight to their confinement?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it is not a surprise to me that we’ve got problems in Guantanamo, which is why when I was campaigning in 2007 and 2008, and when I was elected in 2008, I said we need to close Guantanamo. I continue to believe that we’ve got to close Guantanamo.

Q — can do it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.

Now, Congress determined that they would not let us close it — and despite the fact that there are a number of the folks who are currently in Guantanamo who the courts have said could be returned to their country of origin or potentially a third country.

I’m going to go back at this. I’ve asked my team to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively. And I’m going to reengage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interest of the American people. And it’s not sustainable.

The notion that we’re going to continue to keep over a hundred individuals in a no-man’s land in perpetuity, even at a time when we’ve wound down the war in Iraq, we’re winding down the war in Afghanistan, we’re having success defeating al Qaeda core, we’ve kept the pressure up on all these transnational terrorist networks, when we’ve transferred detention authority in Afghanistan — the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.

Now, it’s a hard case to make because I think for a lot of Americans the notion is out of sight, out of mind. And it’s easy to demagogue the issue. That’s what happened the first time this came up. I’m going to go back at it because I think it’s important.

Q Meanwhile we continue to force-feed these folks –

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want these individuals to die. Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can. But I think all of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this? Why are we doing this? We’ve got a whole bunch of individuals who have been tried who are currently in maximum security prisons around the country. Nothing has happened to them. Justice has been served. It’s been done in a way that’s consistent with our Constitution, consistent with due process, consistent with rule of law, consistent with our traditions.

The individual who attempted to bomb Times Square — in prison, serving a life sentence. The individual who tried to bomb a plane in Detroit — in prison, serving a life sentence. A Somali who was part of Al-Shabaab, who we captured — in prison. So we can handle this.

And I understand that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with the traumas that had taken place, why, for a lot of Americans, the notion was somehow that we had to create a special facility like Guantanamo and we couldn’t handle this in a normal, conventional fashion. I understand that reaction. But we’re now over a decade out. We should be wiser. We should have more experience in how we prosecute terrorists.

And this is a lingering problem that is not going to get better. It’s going to get worse. It’s going to fester. And so I’m going to, as I said before, examine every option that we have administratively to try to deal with this issue, but ultimately we’re also going to need some help from Congress, and I’m going to ask some folks over there who care about fighting terrorism but also care about who we are as a people to step up and help me on it….

$2.3 Trillion Spent on Foreign Aid Over 50 Years – Results?

by Same Air

The West, through high-minded schemes and heartfelt attempts to help the “Rest,” has spent $2.3 trillion over the last 50 years in foreign aid. William Easterly, in his book, “The White Man’s Burden,” describes the impact of these vast resources. I’ll share an excerpt from his book:

“Medicine that would prevent half of all malaria deaths costs only twelve cents a dose. A bed net to prevent a child from getting malaria costs only four dollars. Preventing five million child deaths over the next ten years would cost just three dollars for each new mother… This is the tragedy in which the West spent $2.3 trillion  on foreign aid over the last five decades and still has not managed to get twelve-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get four-dollar bed nets to poor families…

In a single day, on July 16, 2005, the American and British economies delivered nine million copies of the sixth volume of the Harry Potter children’s book series to eager fans… It is heartbreaking that global society has evolved a highly efficient way to get entertainment to rich adults and children, while it can’t get twelve-cent medicines to dying poor children. (p. 4)”

What’s the problem?

Foreign aid is broken, Easterly argues. The wealthier countries of the world continuously dump money into utopian top-down schemes that force free-market economies and democracy on unsuspecting populations in a valiant attempt to accomplish lofty goals. The mission to “beat poverty” or “end world hunger” releases any aid agency from accountability. How does one know when you’ve ended world hunger? How will one know when that goal is accomplished? Further, the West plans, through elaborate social reorganization, to end world hunger through capitalistic free-market economies. While capitalism rapidly creates wealth, it is too often forced on cultures by the West with little regard to the norms, morals, and cultural operations of the native people. Again, a set-up for failure. These plots are dispersed through a paternalistic lens, as if the West knows how the Rest needs to operate to achieve economic growth.

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Foreign aid agencies need accountability. Goals need to be measurable and enforceable. When a measurable goal is not met, there must be accountability for the unmet goal. Rather than top-down schemes, aid must reach local people on the ground through piecemeal projects that make small improvements. Community by community, rather than country by country, foreign aid can help improve the lives of the poor.

If you’re interested, check out this great TED lecture on the same issue:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

by Same Air

Today, let us recognize the principles for which he died and honor the ideas that survived.

It seems obvious that one who writes on a blog focused on breathing the same air should offer some comment on Martin Luther King, Jr. Honestly, I know very little about the actual man himself. History class can teach us about his movement and the dreams he fought for, but I argue that that does not bring about a true understanding of the man. So, I set out to learn more about the actual person as well as refine my conception of his ideals.

King was born on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He had an older sister and a younger brother. He skipped ninth and twelfth grade, entering college at the age of fifteen. He would eventually earn a Bachelors in Sociology and a Bachelors in Divinity. Further, he earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in 1955. At this time, he was also a pastor and played a prominent role in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). By ’57 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which served as a platform for the emergence of the civil rights movement and established his place at its head. Here is a well-written summary from NobelPrize.org:

“The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.”

- http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html

 

From what I have learned, the thrust of Kings ideals and philosophies seem to mesh nicely with my ideas behind creating this blog.

 Here is a quote from Wikipedia that I found particularly aligned with my own ideas:

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

What do I take away from this? King left us with an impressive body of works and rhetoric. He dedicated his life to the principles of his country despite the fact that, for so long, his country discounted him on the basis of skin tone. A single person, hindered by discrimination, discarded the defeatist notion that he was powerless and went on to change the world. While it is true that individuals struggle to change the world, we must not mistake difficulty for impossibility. Further, the principles that King fought for have not yet been realized. Discussions today of inequality and discrimination are not complete without the person who offers, “This is not the fifties anymore. We’ve come a long way since then!” I commend the great strides the U.S. has made towards a more free world, but do not let yourself believe that centuries of gross inequity can be overcome by 50 years of slightly more equal treatment.

We have started. We are, by any measure, far from finished.

Important Questions

by Same Air

What if, no matter who won an election, government remained the same? What if political rhetoric is dumped after elections are won? What if Mitt Romney wins and ends up continuing most of the same policies Barack Obama instituted? What if a government that lacked the knowing consent of the government could be dismissed?