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 policy in effect. I am currently serving as a 46 Romeo (46R) b.k.a “broadcast journalist” with the 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment stationed at Fort Bragg, NC. The unit I am with is a good one. We are tentatively scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan in September or at the latest January 2010.

What is the scope of our mission in Afghanistan? I feel that other nations are watching us go it alone and I am bothered by Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban. I feel that Pakistan is playing both sides of the fence with us –taking our money while appeasing the Taliban. As it relates to Afghanistan, I am troubled that the Afghani government we are supporting is not popular amongst the Afghani people. President Karzai’s recent passage of laws restricting the rights of women in order to please radical clerics for votes makes the term *Operation Enduring Freedom* an oxymoron.

Granted, we are told that we are in Afghanistan to ensure that the Taliban won’t have sanctuary to attack us but how do we measure progress after eight years? Will we be there as long as it takes? I feel that the Taliban agenda is ideology driven by their interpretation of Islam. You can’t eradicate an ideology that is being passed down from one generation to the next. Certainly, I know we just can’t get up and leave but I am worried that this war does not take into account the history that others (mainly the Soviets) have shown us. Afghanistan is not a country that can be tamed nor controlled. As we commit more US troops to the fight, I am afraid that this war will become more of a quagmire and draw comparisons to Vietnam.

Sustainment- are we honestly prepared to go the distance and at what cost? I pray daily that this war does not define your Presidency or legacy. I am just a “joe” – the last to know and it will be my job to tell the soldier’s story. But it is important to know and believe in why we fight. I pray that Providence will provide you and your advisors the guidance and wisdom to take chances on new thoughts and bold directions in finding a workable solution to our presence in Afghanistan.

I wrote this letter inspired by the NYT article about your mailroom and the 10 letters a day you read. Hopefully, you will read this.

Very Respectfully,

SPC Gabriel Tolliver
1-1242 Hamilton Street Box 145
Fort Bragg, NC 28310

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 new ways of moving forward to help empower Africa's women and girls.

On the first day of the summit, the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, the Honorable Melanne Verveer addressed the attendees, calling for a greater commitment to the health and wellbeing of women and girls in Africa.

• Her Excellency Hadjia Laraba Tandja of Niger arrives at the summit. •

The first ladies attended closed panel sessions on topics like Maternal Health, Tackling HIV/AIDS and Malaria, Girls Education, and Corporate Citizenship (facilitated by representatives from Chevron, GE, Chevron, Pfizer and Proctor and Gamble). Though some of the first ladies are better known for their shopping habits than their humanitarian efforts, many see the summit as an opportunity to help create change on the continent through education, awareness and dialog.

• Back row from left: Ida Odinga of Kenya; Hadjia Laraba Tandja of Niger; Penehupifo Pohamba of Namibia; Thandiwe Banda of Zambia; Maria da Luz Dai Guebuza of Mozambique; Mathato Sarah Mosisili of Lesotho and Sia Nyama Koroma of Sierra Leone. Seated front row from left: Adelcia Barreto Pires of Cape Verde; Chantal Biya of Cameroon; Ana Paula Dos Santos of Angola; Queen Inkhosikati LaMbikiza of Swaziland and Dr. Turai Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria. •

“I’m hoping that the project and progress that certain countries have made can influence others," she said. "Any time you can continue the dialog for empowering women, particularly young girls, and make them leaders in their communities, more problems get solved.”

Many of the issues covered at the summit have been tackled by our contributors in Africa: Pilirani Semu-Banda has explored the devastating effects of obstetric fistula in Malawi; Halimah Abdallah Kisule has described the plight of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Uganda; Delphine Zulu explored the tragic myth that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS in Zambia; Remi Adeoye revealed how women and girls are disproportionately affected by violence in the Niger Delta; Philo Ikonya decried the lack of women’s voices in the rebuilding of Kenya after last year’s post-election violence; and Constance Manika celebrated child rights activist Betty Makoni’s efforts to empower abused girls in Zimbabwe.

• Activist and actress Maria Bello (left) organized the attendance of Hollywood celebrities like Diane Lane who are concerned with women's health in Africa. •

Manheim acknowledges the truth that we’ve discovered on the pages of The WIP time and time again: “When women are in positions of power, everyone benefits,” she says. “We have to provide outlets for them to have economic, educational and political strength.”

To see more images from the summit,
visit The WIP’s Flickr set.

- All photographs by Sarah McGowan for The WIP.

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 and social issues."

Below is a teaser of the video but be sure to watch the entire video on their website. It is translated into several languages so share internationally!

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 the U.S. decides not to try those officials, another country more respectful of its international obligations will do so.

The case involves former US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales; ex-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington; former Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee and Pentagon lawyer William J. Haynes II.

Although Mr. Pumpido wants to avoid the indictment used for political ends, it is possible that his refusal may instead convert it into a hot political issue, particularly since judge Baltazar Garzón was the one requesting a course of action. Judge Garzón had successfully prosecuted ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1990s in Great Britain. Pinochet was held in England under house arrest for several months before being sent back to Chile.

Pinochet was held in England under the universal jurisdiction principle, which establishes that every country has the ability to bring to justice the perpetrators of grave crimes, no matter where those crimes were committed, and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators or their victims.

The Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture place a legally binding obligation on states that have ratified them to exercise the universal jurisdiction principle over persons accused of grave transgressions of those conventions. If the country where these transgressions have occurred doesn’t bring them to justice, it should extradite them to a country that will. Universal jurisdiction complements, but doesn’t override national prosecutions. Since the US has ratified the Convention Against Torture, it has the legal obligation to prosecute or extradite those who commit or are complicit in torture.

Several countries have already used the principle of universal jurisdiction to try those guilty of serious crimes. The US itself has used this principle before. Last January, a US court convicted Chuckie Taylor, son of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor, for torture carried out in Liberia and sentenced him to 97 years in prison.

The torture policies of the Bush administration will no longer be followed under President Obama’s executive orders. However, the Justice Department has also indicated that it would not prosecute those who used harsh interrogation techniques sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.

Both President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder have indicated their desire to move forward and not to reignite past issues that could provoke partisan rancor. This policy, however, carry the risks that if those accused of serious crimes are not properly prosecuted, those same actions may be used in future administrations. Although President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder are clear about their intention not to prosecute those that carried out interrogation abuses, they are less clear about the policy towards those that created the framework that facilitated those abuses.

Failure to prosecute those who created the legal framework for torture will hinder any future efforts to totally eliminate those cruel, unlawful acts from the conduct of modern societies.

Cesar Chelala, a writer on human rights issues, is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

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 1915 which Armenians consider genocide. During a trip to Armenia I was once again reminded of man's inhumanity to man. I also found myself face-to-face once again with the power of memory and of hate.

Can this hatred be overcome so that a productive relationship between the two countries can be brought about? It is obviously too late to bring those responsible to justice. However, it should be possible to reach a level of understanding and cooperation between the two societies.

I spoke with Professor Mira Antonyan, director of the Fund for Armenian Relief, about the effects of those events on Armenians today. “The only thing that unites us now is our resentment against the Turks for the events of the past” she told me. That feeling was shared by her husband and a friend of both, who regularly trade with Turkish businessmen. “Being Armenian means having sad memories," she added.

I told them that I felt Armenians were in a quagmire, unable to move forward because of the tremendous weight of past events. "Perhaps you are right," Mira's husband answered, "but genocide is a very heavy burden on our shoulders. We cannot just forget what happened. We cannot erase our memory."

I believe that there is a generational divide on the question. The older generation—those over 50—insist on the need for an apology from the Turkish government for the assassination of Armenians. The younger generations, without rejecting the facts of history, feel the need to overcome the negative effects of those memories. They believe that such visceral attachment to the past is self-defeating.

Kamilla Petrosyan, an Armenian psychiatrist in her late 30s, told me how her 4-year-old son arrived home one day from kindergarten frightened to death on learning that day about the 1915 massacres. "We have to stop this culture of victimization," she said, "otherwise we will never be able to move forward."

Something similar happens in Turkey. Arman Artuc, editor of the HyeTert news portal in Istanbul, told me recently, "Almost everybody living in Turkey grew up with stories (beginning with primary school textbooks, newspapers and other media) of how cruel Armenians have been to Turks during and after WWI using a language of hatred and insults. Only recently commissions were established to change the textbooks and remove such language"

These and other events demonstrate that the Turks too are beginning to show signs of the need to move forward. A number of Turkish intellectuals, including last year's winner of the Noble Prize for literature, Orhan Pamuk, have made public statements to that effect. Turkish President Abdullah Gul has been quite forceful on the need and mutual convenience to have better relations between both countries and has called for the formation of a joint commission of Turkish and American scholars to assess past events.

The creation of a commission of both Turkish and Armenian historians under the auspices of the United Nations and with representatives from the International Court of Justice at The Hague is an important and necessary step. The task of such commission would be to analyze historical documents that will shed definitive light on the events of the past.

A change of paradigm that will allow us to move away from a culture of violence is desperately needed. We should take advantage of the present situation to create an irreversible motion towards mutual understanding through the implementation of a wide range of peace building measures that will create a strong foundation for cooperation.

Some important steps have already been taken. In July 2008, Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian invited Turkish president Abdullah Gul to visit Armenia. The visit, which took place in September 2008, was the first-ever visit of a Turkish head of state to Armenia. This event was followed by high level talks among officials from both countries.

Richard Giragosian, Director of the Armenian Centre for National and International Studies (ACNIS) in Yerevan wrote recently that a changing relationship can result in a “win-win” situation for both countries. For Armenia, it offers new economic opportunities and a much-needed foreign policy success. For Turkey, it will result in improved status vis-à-vis the European Union and the U.S.

The importance of an agreement for peace and cooperation between Turkey and Armenia goes beyond their borders. In a world wired for war, it can show that peace and understanding between peoples burdened by the past is still possible, and create a psychological momentum for peace that would allow reaching similar agreements in other parts of the world.

It is only by constructing bridges of understanding—particularly working with young people, still untainted by the weight of the past—that we will be able to change the present paradigm of violence and war for one of collaboration and peace.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is the co-author of "Missing or Dead in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims," a New York Times Magazine cover story, for which he shared an Overseas Press Club of America award. Dr. Chelala is the foreign correspondent for the Middle East Times International (Australia).

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 to allow same-sex marriages.

Go Iowa.

For the second time in less than a year, we surprised the country with our forward thinkingness. Even native Iowans were a little amazed. But the same word was on everyone’s lips, gay or straight.

That word was “proud.”

Well, not absolutely everyone was proud, of course. There were some who, predictably, said the ruling marked the end of civilization as we know it.

A few concluded the only thing to do with a state constitution that provides for marriage equality is to change it.

But even that curious position wasn’t enough to spoil the mood. Still, people were smiling, crying, patting each other on the back.

Ann Thuma and Nancy Besemer were so excited they rushed from work at 9 a.m. to fill out a marriage license application at the Johnson County Recorder’s office. They won’t be able to file the application until the court’s ruling takes effect in a few weeks, but they were still smiling. I took a picture of them with their application.

“We could be dressed better,” said Thuma, looking down at her Iowa State University sweat shirt. Why the rush to get there?

“We didn’t want to take any chances,” she said.

Only one same-sex couple managed to get married the last, brief, time same-sex marriage was legal here. But this time around, there is no hurry, Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter told me.

Painter fielded a lot of phone calls Friday morning. It’s the Supreme Court, she told callers. “There’s not going to be someone that comes along and says ‘just kidding.’”

“Everyone gets to take a breath, celebrate, propose to the people they love and make a few plans,” Painter said.

If opponents do push for a constitutional amendment, it will take at least two years to come for a vote. Two years for Iowans to realize that the sky hasn’t fallen and the world hasn’t changed that much, except that more families are secure in the comfort of knowing their love and commitment are just as good as anyone’s.

Because marriage equality means legal rights like knowing when you’re sick, your life partner will be able to visit you in the hospital.

But it also means that commitment is recognized in the eyes of neighbors, teachers, family and friends.

And the Supreme Court’s decision means even more to the country. It shows a rural, religious, politically divided state can look at the issue and say, unanimously: of course equality is right.

It’s a practical view, a reasonable view.

It’s an Iowan view. And now, it’s the official view.

Way to go.

This article was re-posted from my blog and weekly column in the Gazette which appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

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 intention to close the Guantánamo facility.

Guantánamo has a convoluted history. Initially, the U.S. government obtained a 99-year lease on the 45 square mile area beginning in 1903. The resulting Cuban-American Treaty established, among other things, that for the purposes of operating naval and coaling stations in Guantánamo, the U.S. had “complete jurisdiction and control” of the area. However, it was also recognized that the Republic of Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty of that area.

In 1934, a new treaty reaffirmed most of the lease conditions, increased the lease payment to the equivalent of $3,085 in U.S. dollars per year, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to end it or the U.S. decided to abandon the area. In the confusion of the early days of the Cuban revolution Castro’s government cashed the first check but left the remaining checks uncashed. Since these checks were made out to the ‘Treasurer General of the Republic’, a position that ceased to exist after the revolution, they are technically invalid.

The U.S. has maintained that the cashing of the first check indicates acceptance of the lease conditions. However, at the time of the new treaty, the U.S. sent a fleet of warships to Cuba to strengthen its position. Thus, a counter argument is that the lease conditions were imposed on Cuba under duress and are render void under modern international law.

The U.S. has used the argument of Cuban sovereignty when denying basic guarantees of the U.S. Constitution to the detainees at Guantánamo by indicating that federal jurisdiction doesn’t apply to them. If the Cuban government indeed has sovereignty over Guantánamo then its claims over the area are legally binding, and the U.S. is obligated to return Guantánamo to Cuba.

Since 1959, the Cuban government has informed the U.S. government that it wants to terminate the lease on Guantánamo. The U.S. has consistently refused this request on the grounds that it requires agreement by both parties. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, an American lawyer and professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations has indicated, that article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states, “A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.” He also said that the conditions under which the treaty was imposed on the Cuban National Assembly, particularly as a pre-condition to limited Cuban independence, left Cuba no other choice than to yield to pressure.

A treaty can also be void by virtue of material breach of its provisions, as indicated in article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. According to the original terms of the lease agreement, the Guantánamo Bay territory could only be used for coaling and naval purposes. However, the use of the Guantánamo facility as an internment camp for Haitian and Cuban refugees or, even more ominously, as a torture center by the U.S. military, indicates a significant breach of that agreement fully justifying its immediate termination.

President Jimmy Carter courageously returned the Panama Canal to the Panamanians, thus setting an important precedent. President Carter did what was legally right, and lifted U.S. prestige not only among Panamanians but throughout the hemisphere.

Returning Guantánamo to the Cubans will allow the U.S. to close one of the most tragic chapters of its legal and moral history. And it will compensate Cubans for the miseries they have had to endure for decades because of Washington’s misguided policies.