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U.S. Should Follow The Rule of Law on Guantanamo Detainees
The Obama administration should release Guantánamo Bay inmates or try them in a court of law, said Navanethem Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her statement follows President Obama’s remarks last May indicating that some Guantánamo detainees were too dangerous to be released and might have to be held indefinitely. The High Commissioner’s comments represent the most serious challenge to President Obama’s decision to limit investigation into past abuses and to continue to hold some Guantánamo detainees without trial. “The Obama administration has taken aggressive action on this issue from day one, upholding our nation’s fundamental values while...More
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Add to NewsvineA Real Awakening...
America is in the midst of yet another Great Awakening. There may not be any white tents out in the cotton fields or fire-and-brimstone orators, but there sure is a bandwagon. Drive past a billboard, flick on the TV, open your newspaper or read the New York Times online and you will be swiftly inundated not only with lists of ideas to save money but stories of this new breed of American. Competitions are springing up for the “cheapest family” in cities and states across the nation as we search for self-sacrificing saints to promulgate the faith. Converts congregate in...More
An Image of Nepal
It was the eyes that I first noticed. Do you remember the girl on the cover of National Geographic maybe ten to fifteen years ago? I think she was from Afghanistan. Eyes you just cannot forget, like green and brown jewels in a sincere serious face looking straight at you, showing all the pains and sorrows of its owner. These eyes were exactly the same. Several days per week I go to the busiest street corner outside Boudhanath, Nepal, to the three-way junction between Mahankal, Teenchuli and Simaltar. Kathmandu Valley in the spring 2009 is hot, extremely dry, it has...More
Counter-terror Interventions: A Micro-context Strategy
Two very different events last week inspired me to do some theorizing about counter-terror. The first was the Panetta Institute presentation, “Can America Win the War on Terror?” The second was a presentation of The Hunger Project - a global, non-profit, strategic organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. The Panetta Institute panel – General John Abizaid, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, and moderator Frank Sesno – spent some time debating whether the term “war” was the right word to describe what the United States has been doing since 9/11. Abizaid argued it was; Ignatius had his doubts....More
Debunking The Myths About Iran
Several myths regarding Iran stand in the way of reaching a peaceful relationship with that country. Much of the concern that Iran may attack Israel, if it successfully develops nuclear weapons, rests on the avowed statement by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that “Israel must be wiped off the map.” However, Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History stated that, “Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ because no such idiom exists in Persian. Instead, he did say ‘He hoped [Israel’s] regime, a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem,...More
In Reforming Health Care, the time is NOW
As the effort to reform our nation’s health care system intensifies, certain Republican leaders, industry front-groups and lobbyists are engaged in a last-ditch effort to frame the debate in an ideological way meant to distort the facts and strike fear into the hearts of Americans. First is the lie that President Obama and the Democratic Party are proposing a sweeping overhaul of our medical infrastructure with the goal of micro-managing every element of your health care. Not five minutes after the President concluded a town hall meeting on the topic in Green Bay, during which he repeatedly and explicitly said...More
Maybe the "Means" are too small
After nearly two decades of rising excess, “Living Within Your Means” is suddenly all the rage. In magazines, newspapers and on TV, cheap is the new chic; on Wall Street, Suits are fretting about the possibly permanent return to frugality and away from recreational shopping. As Americans cart truckloads of long-forgotten belongings to Goodwill – where, incidentally, they have begun to shop for the basics– there is a real sense that a sea change in our attitude towards consumption is underway. There is much to applaud in this trend. Most people really, truly, only need a few pairs of shoes,...More
A Page-turner About Hysterectomy
“This book is about the uterus and the ovaries. What they are, where they’re located, and their many important life-long functions. The common reasons women are told they need treatment, including surgery, as well as alternatives in treatment and the ways that hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) and oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries, castration) impacts a woman’s body, her health, and every aspect of her life…” Thus begins The H Word: The diagnostic studies to evaluate symptoms, alternatives in treatment, and coping with the aftereffects of hysterectomy. Co-authored by Nora W. Coffey, the founder of the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and...More
Moral Equivalency? Precisely.
Following President Obama's historic speech today, CNN followed up with a variety of correspondents and commentators. One of them was Republican Representative Mike Pence, who called the speech "disappointing" because it seemed to create a "moral equivalency" between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In Pence's opinion, Israel is America's ally, and we should only be pursuing peace in the Middle East insofar as it promotes the interests of our ally. He asserted that "millions of Americans" were on the side of Israel, and that the burden of peace was squarely on the shoulders of Palestinians. Embedded in Mr. Pence's logic...More
Words alone won't end torture
"We are going to smash your hands to pulp like the Chileans did to Victor Jara." Those were the words of the torturers in a Uruguayan prison spoken to my friend Miguel Angel Estrella, a pianist from Argentina. They were referring to the fate of the imprisoned Chilean singer and guitarist Victor Jara, whose hands were destroyed so that he would never play the guitar again. Jara, a fervent opponent of the Pinochet regime, was brutally tortured and later machine-gunned to death following the coup that brought Pinochet to power in 1973. Estrella was being held in Uruguay's Libertad prison,...More
Health As a Bridge To Peace in The Middle East
For over two decades several projects have been carried out between conflicting sides in several regions around the world that have improved public health as a common denominator in the search for peace. Although these initiatives will not by themselves achieve peace, they have become significant points of contact between conflicting parties. They have benefited thousands of people and increased understanding between them, and showed that sustained cooperation can be achieved despite violent disputes and a hostile political atmosphere. The recent talks between President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscore the importance of promoting peace efforts at...More
What Color is Peace?
My mom died on May 4th, 2009. It was not unexpected, but we thought, we believed that she would last for another day or two... or three, maybe even a week. My mom was stubborn. She would hold on sometimes just to make you angry. And as we found out, even in her deepest pain, she would always try and be in control. She was tormented, struggling, and not at all content with the world. My mom had dementia. She did not die in peace. I will not raise my children to kill another mother’s child.CODEPINK Mother’s Day 2009 •...More
Pyrrhic Victory
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a judge has ordered 13-year old Daniel Hauser to undergo chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma against both his and his parents’ expressed wishes. Diagnosed in January, Hauser initially began radiation and chemotherapy, but stopped in favor of alternative treatments – at which point the doctors filed a child-neglect petition. Noting that five doctors agreed on the necessary course of treatment, the judge ruled the boy to be in need of child protection, stating a “compelling state interest in the life and welfare of Daniel sufficient to override the fundamental constitutional rights of both the...More
Selective outrage
Posts written mainly to vent one's emotions rarely enjoy warm reception from other people, so self-help books advise to send such posts directly to the Recycle Bin. But this deprives the post of desired effect; so I prefer to publish such texts, and come what may. I have just read a third - yes, third - post here at the WIP site bashing the torture used by US at Guantanamo. I do not intend to cite the three authors, for I strongly suspect it could be almost anybody. Yes, torture is a bad thing, but I admit that the concern...More
Nuremberg is a Valid Precedent for Iraq Trials
The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles could also be applied today, when judging the conditions that led to the Iraq war and in the process to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country’s infrastructure. In January of 2003, a group of U.S law professors warned President George W. Bush that he and senior officials of his government could be prosecuted for war crimes if military tactics...More
On the Small Screen
I am happy to report that Afghan Star was featured on Oprah yesterday! And, Made in America: Crips and Bloods is premiering on PBS this evening....More
Health obstacles to African development
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2010 sub-Saharan Africa will have suffered 71 million deaths from AIDS. By comparison, the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages killed some 30 million people. These are staggering figures, particularly if one considers that deaths from AIDS are only one of the problems affecting African women and children. Experts at the United Nations warn that most sub-Saharan countries will be unable to reach the Millennium health goals related for 2015, particularly those related to improved health for mothers and children. Solving Africans' health and development problems need more than statements of good intention,...More
Concerns about Afghanistan
Mr. President, I take great pride in having you as my Commander in Chief. I am writing to express my concern as soldier in the US Army. I certainly don’t speak for my employer but as a citizen serving. I was a freelance writer/producer/director of content across media platforms based out of Brooklyn, NY before enlisting in the Army at the age of 41 in Oct 2007. I joined to seek out new stories to inform my work as an artist, ride out the recession, pay down some massive student loans and hopefully get a better sense of our foreign...More
The African First Ladies Health Summit Tackles Women's Health, Education and HIV/AIDS
This week, 14 first ladies from across Africa convened in Los Angeles for the African First Ladies Health Summit to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing the continent - women's health, education for girls and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Coordinated by U.S. Doctors for Africa (USDFA) and African Synergy against AIDS and Suffering (created in 2002 by 22 first ladies from Africa), first ladies from Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Zambia met with experts, educators, leaders in business, analysts and doctors to identify...More
To Celebrate Earth Day Watch The Story of Stuff
Last year on Earth Day I remember being disappointed that there seemed to be so little celebration of this critical day. This year, in my search for celebrations of Earth Day 2009, I came accross the charming yet poingnant video The Story of Stuff. "From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns...and exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental...More
Bush Six Should Be Indicted
On April 16, Cándido Conde Pumpido, Spain’s attorney general, said that he wouldn’t recommend going ahead with a probe of six former US officials over allegations that they gave legal support for conducting torture at Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba. Conde Pumpido’s justification was that the claims are “fraudulent” since the officials didn’t carry out the torture themselves, and if anybody, those accused should be the material authors of the crime. Spain prosecutor’s decision not to endorse the indictment of the six Bush officials accused of complicity in torture of detainees only delays -but doesn’t stop- their eventual indictment. If...More
Overcoming Armenia's Psychological Scars
President Obama’s visit to Turkey highlights one of that country’s most difficult foreign policy issues: the lasting controversy over Turkey’s role in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians. President Obama aptly praised Turkey’s recent efforts to solve this long lasting problem. In 1915, as the Ottoman Empire was in its death throes, almost 1,000,000 Armenians were massacred, and many others were forced into exile from their land. The circumstances that led to this ordeal are still under spirited discussions. The result of these events is Armenians hatred for the Turks, almost a century after the devastating events of...More
A reasonable, Iowan, decision for gay marriage
Janelle Rettig is making plans to amend her tax returns, even though it means she’ll probably have to fork over more money. It will be worth it, because for the first time in her 25-year relationship, she’ll soon be able to call herself married. Rettig and Robin Butler were married in Canada more than five years ago. But this “is the first time a governmental body where we live recognizes us as anything but strangers,” she said. “That’s overwhelming,” she told me Friday, the day our fair state became the third in the country and the first in the Midwest...More
U.S. Should Return Guantánamo to Cuba
Among the many urgent tasks facing the Obama administration one of the most pressing is to restore good relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, damaged by eight years of neglect. A measure that could have far-reaching consequences and notably improve the U.S.’ battered image in the continent would be to return Guantánamo to the Cuban people. Improving the relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean by giving back Guantánamo to Cuba is pertinent now. This action will strengthen the effects of the Obama administration’s decision to eliminate certain travel restrictions and obstacles to remittances to Cuba and, particularly, its...More
Sustainable Living Doesn't Come From Brands
Anyone who has purchased shampoo, toothpaste or body wash in the US within the past five years knows what a nightmare of options such an excursion presents. Improvable claims about 'beautifying effects' tempt even the most cynical, constantly growing and shrinking bottle sizes baffle the budget-conscious, and assertions of 'purity' lure those concerned about their health and the environment. Acculturated to the idea of "consumer choice" by our corporate - dominated society, most of us latch on to our primary objective (beauty, frugality or health and sustainability) as a light house - a beacon to help us navigate the sea...More
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