It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I have no idea what I am doing up, other than the fact that I went to bed pretty early. I watched The Other Boleyn Girl last night after rehearsal and prior to passing out. Why is it that no one can portray the Tudors with any historical accuracy?

Recent Catastrophes

Matters in China are looking grimmer by the day, as are conditions in Burma. One searches for words to put such catastrophes into context, but there are few. The best that I can offer is to suggest donating to the following relief efforts:

Oxfam
The Red Cross

Oxfam
The Red Cross

News Of Note

Congratulations are due the Supreme Court Of California who ruled yesterday that the State law banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

According to a recent report, the United States has detained some 2,500 children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. While that number has decreased, there are still some 500 juveniles being detained in Iraq, 10 at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and of the 8 youths detained at Guantanamo, only two remain that were under 18 years of age when they first arrived. Of course, such detentions fly in the face of International Law as it pertains to Child Soldiers and juveniles, but there really is not point in arguing that fact being that the tenets of International Law only apply to those situations that the Bush Administration considers to be in their interest.

Speaking of juveniles, it seems that the United States is violating an international protocol forbidding the recruitment of youths under the age of 18 for service in the military. In the report entitled Soldiers Of Misfortune, it was found that the military is also disproportionately targeting poor and minority public school students. This, of course, should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. It’s conveniently always the “dregs of American society” that seem to be “compelled” to defend the “American way of life” while middle and upper class white kids sit at home watching them die on television. The sad reality of modern American wars is that if you want to see one brought to an abrupt end, have rich white kids come home in metal boxes.

The “N” Word

President Bush, who recently claimed that he gave up golf because he thought it sent the wrong message to those that have lost loved ones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, addressed the Israeli Parliament yesterday claiming that negotiating with militant organizations and radical governments was no different than the appeasement of the Nazi’s…

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, Mr. Bush, the United States did nothing. It did not declare war on Germany, nor would it until Germany declared war on the United States on December 11th, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Habour. It would not act when France and the low countries were invaded and occupied, nor would it act when British cities were being decimated by German bombers.

For almost three years, while members of my family were in uniform, and their comrades were being stranded on French beaches having the crap kicked out of them only to be evacuated by civilian pleasure craft, the people of the United States wanted nothing to do with what was transpiring in Europe. By the time the “appeasement”, that you so casually referred to yesterday, had taken its toll, and Western Europe and parts of Africa were in German hands, the American public was still overwhelmingly against US involvement. Let’s also not forget that while Germany was being “appeased” by governments that had seen an entire generation devastated by war not two decades prior, major US financial institutions and corporations were doing business with the Reich, and would make millions in the process while those that would eventually fight along side American troops were being killed.

The reason, Mr. Bush, that you evoked the word “Nazi” yesterday was solely because you were in Israel, which is rather ironic being that an American company, that being IBM, sold the very machinery to the Nazi’s that they would later use to calculate the number of Jews, and others, eliminated during the Holocaust. Even more, that your own grandfather was the director of the Union Banking Corporation, with a convenient single share to his name, the assets of which were seized in 1942 under the Trading With The Enemy Act.

Like it or not, an American President addressing the Israeli Parliament is little more than a corporate president addressing shareholders.

I will give one thing to the government of Jean Chrétien – on September 13th of 2002 a letter was sent by the Canadian government to the United States government regarding the detention of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen captured at the age of fifteen in Afghanistan and charged with killing a US soldier. Despite his age, we was still classified by the United States as an ‘enemy combatant’.

In the letter, which was issued from the Canadian Embassy in Washington, the Canadian government argued that due to Khadr’s age his detention at Guantanamo was “inappropriate” and not in accordance with laws shared by the US and Canada regarding “young suspects”. In truth, under international law, Khadr’s age should have automatically categorized him as a child soldier, but given that the United States had usurped international law by creating an ambiguous category for those detained in the War On Terror, Khadr was not treated as such and thus transferred to the facility.

No matter Khadr’s background, or that of his family, the fact remains - under international law he was a child soldier when captured and should have been treated as such. The reality that he is now set to become one of the first people to face an American War Crimes tribunal since the Second World War is utterly ridiculous.

The fact that some action was at least taken by the last government is something. The fact that Mr. Harper’s government has done nothing but placate the Americans regarding this issue speaks volumes, especially given the fact that even foreign governments with no stake in the matter have weighed in on the fact that Khadr should have been treated as a child soldier. It’s truly shameful.

For those of you that view Khadr as a murderer, and might point to the fact that a US soldier lost his life, I would recommend you do some reading regarding child soldiers, the indoctrination, physical, and mental abuse that they are subjected to that turns them into ‘soldiers’. What child in a situation in which they have no control, in which their own life might be threatened if they do not comply, has the ability to resist? That is not a situation in which any child should ever be placed, and that is precisely why international laws exist to protect them.

I’m tired. Not a lot of sleep last night. I spent it in one of those semi-states of sleep, the sort where you’re aware that you have to be mindful of something that requires that you remain somewhat conscious but are still trying to sleep at the same time.

It’s clear and sunny here again today, as it has been this past week. In fact, it’s been uncommonly beautiful for this time of year, even given the chill the wind provides here on the West Coast that has the annoying ability to cut through everything that you’re wearing and go straight to your bones. We share that phenomenon with the UK, where it’s routine business as well.

I’m rambling, and I’m aware of it. I’m rambling because I’m having one of those mornings that I’m finding it difficult to concentrate. I’m having one of those mornings because, as has been the case over the last month, the list of things to touch upon grows so quickly every day that it seems almost impossible to retain it all and then translate it into something cogent.

Just off the top of my head there’s…

The recent revelation that the Canadian Armed Forces have stopped the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities because of a report of abuse on the 5th of November of last year despite the fact that last May, after a scandal broke regarding the Canadian transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities that were known for their use of torture, the government claimed that it was taking steps to immediately rectify the situation.

The recently released Manley Report, which, although critical of numerous aspects of the mission in Afghanistan, has basically provided the government with what can only be viewed as a blank cheque with regards to Canadian combat operations in that country. Of course, the report is non-binding, but its ramifications on a political level are extremely convenient. Canada, of course, is only one of three nations involved in direct combat operations in Afghanistan, and of the three represents the smallest contingent. That being the case, our losses, compared to those of the United States and the UK, are wholly disproportionate. The debate, however, remains transfixed on our continued support of the mission’s objectives, to help stabilize the nation and provide it security, even though other members of ISAF, with considerably larger forces in country, continue to refuse to have their contingents involved in direct combat operations. There is also the concern that even though our efforts are aimed at ensuring democratic stability in Afghanistan, that its implementation is, in effect, the representation of Western regional aspirations, and therefore not dissimilar to Soviet regional aspirations in the 70’s when the USSR was responsible for aiding in the supplanting of a pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. Thus, the real test of Afghan democracy will come when the nation has been secured and Western exploitative practices begin in earnest.

That is certainly not to say that the Taliban should be allowed to run rampant and plunge the nation into complete chaos, only that precluding the possibility of negotiations for the purposes of resolution is counter productive. Ultimately, there are always going to be those that support some, if not all, of the Taliban’s agenda, which raises a very important question: must those that do be wholly eliminated before progress can be made? And if they are not, what assurances do we have that there will not be a resurgence in the future that could seriously threaten the stability of the country, even after it possesses a well trained and equipped military? Given that, is it not fair to say that Western military involvement, on even the smallest of levels, will be required in Afghanistan for years to come?

Of course, all of that doesn’t even touch on the realities of the Pakistani frontier and the support covertly supplied those in opposition to the current Afghan government by elements within the Pakistani military establishment itself.

The possibility that Kenya could explode at any moment despite last minute attempts at political reconciliation aimed at stemming violence. As it stands now, the country is already in the early stages of a humanitarian crisis and also on the cusp of what could quickly turn into a genocidal event.

The recent disparity of global markets.

The continuing unrest in Pakistan.

The case of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, who has been held at the facility since 2002. Khadr was captured at the age of 15 and, as the French Foreign Ministry recently pointed out…

“…all children associated with an armed conflict should be treated accordingly. As a minor at the time of the events, Mr. Khadr must be given special treatment — a point on which there is a universal consensus.”

The Canadian government has refused to intercede in Khadr’s case.

Gaza. While many have taken to illegally entering Egypt so that they can attempt to get food, fuel, and other sundries, Israel’s position remains steadfast, that being that the blockade is a move against the continued rocket attacks emanating from Gaza into Israel. The majority of the United Nations Security Council has labeled the blockade a violation of international humanitarian law and a collective punishment against the entire population, but the United States refuses to support that position without the inclusion of language that supports Israel’s concerns regarding the actions of Palestinian militants. Caught in the middle are, as usual, the 1.5 million residents of Gaza itself.

The firing of Linda Keen, President of The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, hours before she was to appear before a House committee in Ottawa. Keen was fired, according to Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, due to the government’s ‘lack of confidence in her leadership’. This, of course, happened after the Commission’s attempt to have the Chalk River facility closed due to safety concerns and government’s decision to ignore the Commission.

The realities of the sanctions against Iran.

The ruinous economic reality of America’s imperialist adventures.

The frightening resurgence of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.

Media attacks on Heath Ledger following his death.

The Jose Padilla affair.

The continued humanitarian crisis unfolding in Somalia.

The Sudanese government’s decision to make Musa Hilal, a man accused of coordinating the Janjiweed militias in Darfur, an advisor to Federal Affairs Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat.

And So Forth

In truth, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Iraq is, of course, absent – primarily recent events in Baquba - as is the ever-evolving telecommunications scandal in the US and the Sibel Edmonds affair, the unrest in Zimbabwe, and events in Chiapas.

Last, but certainly not least, there are also those voices that tend to make excellent arguments on a routine basis, such as Robert Fisk, Stephen Zunes, and (for your viewing pleasure), the always brilliant Chalmers Johnson…

Daniel Ellsberg once said, and rightly so (and yes I have mentioned this on countless occasions), that foreign policy tends to have more to do with domestic politics than anything else. With regards to the US ‘surge’ in Iraq this year, the results have proven Ellsberg’s analogy true yet again.

Violence is down, reports the administration, and therefore the surge has been successful. But, as is always the case, a myriad of realities are conveniently not presented the average American with regards to what has transpired this year in Iraq. In truth, 2007 has been one of the worst years on record.

Dahr Jamail runs through Iraq’s 2007 realties…

When you’re sitting on your couch in front of your television on a leisurely Sunday afternoon and the news regarding ‘successes’ in Iraq are presented you, these are the details that are not revealed. And because the situation in Iraq is presented the American public in the simplest of terms, the belief that real progress has been made is becoming the norm.

The truth, on the other hand, isn’t as positive, and therefore it’s best not to delve too deeply beneath the surface.

With a day left in 2007, the United States has now militarily occupied Iraq for almost five years, longer than their entire involvement in the Second World War.

I have yet to post anything about the massive cyclone that has taken the lives of over 1,700 people in Bangladesh. Authorities in the country believe that, as rescue efforts continue, the death toll could climb. If you’re interested in helping, check out Oxfam Canada.

More On The Dziekanski Death

After last month’s fatal Tasering of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, the RCMP has said that it plans to review its Taser policy, though RCMP Commissioner William Elliott has already defended the use of the device and said that it is a vital tool in the RCMP’s arsenal. That comes as no surprise, nor is it why I’ve broached the subject again.

While there are currently four separate investigations underway into what happened that day - the B.C. coroner, the RCMP, the public complaints commissioner for the RCMP, and the Vancouver Airport Authority – a public inquiry into the matter is not expected to begin until at least the spring or next summer.

One thing about Dziekanski should be cleared up. He did not suffer from a mental illness, as has been speculated. He had simply been stuck inside the airport’s international arrivals area for some 10 hours and, unable to communicate, had most likely simply become “confused and agitated while waiting for his mother”.

The Serbian State Mental Institution Holocaust

The International Herald Tribune recently ran a piece about a report issued by Mental Disability Rights International on the state of Serbia’s mental institutions. The details are so horrific that it’s almost impossible to fathom…

“A 21-year-old man with Down syndrome tied to a metal crib for 11 years. Children, naked from the waist down, left to eat and defecate in their beds. A 7-year-old girl with fluid in her brain left untreated “because she will die anyway.”

These are some of alleged abuses in Serbian state mental institutions and orphanages described in a report to be released Wednesday by Mental Disability Rights International, a Washington-based group that spent four years investigating the conditions and the treatment of some of the nearly 17,200 children and adults with disabilities in institutions in Serbia.

In the report, which is expected to be read closely by European Union officials who are assessing Serbia’s readiness to join the 27-member bloc, researchers concluded that “filthy conditions, contagious diseases, lack of medical care and rehabilitation and a failure to provide oversight renders placement in a Serbian institution life-threatening.”

The institutions investigated include the Institution for Children and Youth Kolevka in Subotica; the Institute for Mentally Ill People in Curug; the Kulina Institution for Children and Youth; the Special Institute for Children and Youth in Stamnica; and psychiatric hospitals in Vrsac and Kovin, east of Belgrade.

Eric Rosenthal, executive director of the rights group, said the use of physical restraints on children for years at a time was the most extreme he had seen in 14 years as a disability rights advocate. He said there were no enforceable laws in Serbia regulating the use of such restraints. “This is the most horrifying abuse I have seen on powerless children, who are tied to beds and unable to move,” he said. “This constitutes a clear case of torture.”

Words escape me.

The Insititute For War And Peace Reporting brings to light the reality of the child mortality rate in Iraq…

“According to a report released in May 2007 by aid agency Save the Children, “Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150 per cent since 1990, more than any other country.”

The report, entitled State of the World’s Mothers 2007, said that some 122,000 Iraqi children - the equivalent of one in eight - died in 2005, before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of the deaths were among newborn babies in their first month of life.

“Even before the latest war, Iraqi mothers and children were facing a grave humanitarian crisis caused by years of repression, conflict and external sanctions,” said the report.

“Since 2003, electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation have worsened already difficult living conditions.”

The study listed pneumonia and diarrhea as major killers of children in Iraq, together accounting for over 30 per cent of child deaths.”

Can you fathom a child in our society dying of diarrhea, let alone it being a major cause of death for children under the age of five? Not only that, can you imagine the utter state of emergency that would exist in any Western society if children under the age of five had a one in eight chance of survival?

Last night, after months of searching and then finally having to special order it, I finally got a copy of Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib. Before commenting, let me first say that this documentary should be shown in every classroom in the United States. I believe it to be that important.

The fact that it was so hard to come by says something. Having gone to numerous ‘mega-stores’ that are home to thousands of DVD titles, both in Canada and the US, I was never able to find it after its release on DVD. It aired on HBO on the 22nd of February of this year, but being that I don’t have a television, I was unable to watch it.

Directed by Rory Kennedy, the daughter of late Senator Robert Kennedy, the documentary examines what occurred at the prison and the fact that while 11 low ranking MP’s and MI Corpsmen were made scapegoats for the abuses that took place there, neither military interrogators, private contractors operating at the prison, nor The Department of Defense were ever singled out for their roles in the abuses.

The premise is very simple, and one that, when confronted by it, will make sense to those who languish under the belief that what occurred was the work of a few ‘troubled’ individuals. That following General Geoffrey D. Miller’s visit to the prison at the behest of the Department of Defense in August of 2003, and his suggestion that ‘Gitmo-iszing’ the approach taken by interrogators there would result in the production of better intelligence, the methods employed were significantly altered.

At the time, approximately 300 US soldiers, most of them with absolutely no experience in detention, were in charge of some 6,000 prisoners. The prison itself operated in two capacities. Many considered to be of low priority were housed outside the prison proper in a makeshift camp surrounded by wire. Those that were considered actionable were held in two tiers of the prison, one for men, the other for women and children.

Women and children were held at the prison as bargaining chips, used by interrogators as a way to threaten those being questioned or entice those that had not been captured to surface. In some cases, male children as young as 9 years old were held in the facility entirely naked.

In the male tier of the prison, nudity became the norm. Prisoners were often held in stress positions for hours on end with women’s underwear placed over their heads, some chained to the metal frames of bed racks, some to the bars of cell doors, others to the bars of cell windows. One of the most important aspects of the documentary is that those MP’s that were assigned to these two tiers were placed under the command of military intelligence, and, as previously stated, had no experience, nor training, regarding detention. Ultimately, they were instructed to help ‘soften up’ those that were to be interrogated, which involved the use of numerous techniques, among them - sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, the employment of extreme, prolonged stress positions, and the threat of the use of unleashing guard dogs. And yet, when the scandal broke, the photographs taken by those individuals were used to seal their fate while those above them, that had encouraged such behaviour, were never held responsible.

There is, of course, no excuse for the actions of those that followed such orders without questioning them, though as numerous personal interviews in the documentary demonstrate, some of those involved did, though typically only in private conversation, usually too afraid to actually address the issue with those who either knew nothing of what was actually transpiring or their immediate superiors.

The fundamental purpose of the film is to demonstrate that what took place at Abu Ghraib was not merely the result of a few ‘bad apples’, as then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld suggested. But that the United States, following the invasion of Afghanistan, purposely set about challenging the application of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture with regards to detainees, and how such legal manipulations led to a much wider application of internationally illegal intelligence gathering methods.

As some of you are aware, the worst of what occurred at Abu Ghraib was never widely exposed. While the pictures that surfaced caused outrage around the world, the reality that US personnel had raped a female inmate and made a father and son perform sexual acts on one another was not disclosed until some time afterwards, and then only by a handful of media sources that are by no means considered mainstream.

This documentary is a black hole. It shows what human beings are capable of when placed in a position of having to follow orders, having been inundated by highly disingenuous information regarding those being detained. As is pointed out in the film, the vast majority of those that were at Abu Ghraib had no significant information with regards to the insurgency or other groups.

One of Kennedy’s truly brilliant inclusions in the film is what he uses to bookmark the entire documentary. From the film’s opening…

“In 1961, an experiment was conducted by Dr. Stanly Milgram a psychologist at Yale University. Participants responded to a newspaper advertisement. The purpose of their ‘obedience study” was to observe an individual’s willingness to inflict pain when ordered to do so. The participants did not know that the “victim” was an actor and that the shocks were not real.

Research Subject #2: …who’s going to take responsibility if anything happens to him?

Researcher: I’m going to take responsibility. Please continue.

Victim: [screams off camera]

All of the subjects administered shocks. The majority did so at the maximum level: 450 volts.”

Kennedy returns to footage from the study at the end of the documentary in which the commentator interjects a profound assertion. That if, in a setting such as that, under the guidance of individuals with no real authority, people are willing to complete the test and employ the maximum level of electricity to the victim, then what is the government capable of, being that they possess far greater powers of authoritative persuasion and indoctrination?

Decades after that question was put forth, what occurred at Abu Ghraib serves as an example.

The world’s been at it again. The old man’s been dancing the puppet strings, hauling out the scissors here and there. Yesterday, some 200 people were lost when a commercial airliner, landing at Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, skidded off the end of a runway in a torrential downpour before smashing across a busy road and slamming into fuel depot and warehouse. All 186 souls aboard the plane, crew included, were killed, and a further 14 in their cars on the road that the plane traversed or attempting to leap out of the windows of the TAM Airlines building that the plane eventually hit.

On the other side of the world, in the war torn and arid Sudanese region of Darfur, scientists from Boston University believe that they may have found a massive underground lake that could provide up to 1,000 fresh water wells. Being that access to fresh water has been a significant factor in the region, the discovery could go a long way to aiding those dispossessed – over 2 million people. Now there’s just the little problem of the Janjiweed militias to contend with, who’ve been largely responsible for creating the genocidal conditions in Darfur in the first place, not to mention the actions of the UDFF and CAR forces that have only intensified the problem.

The United Nations believes that over 400,000 people have lost their lives in the conflict, with some 2 million having been driven from their homes.

Put into context, that would be like the population of my home town, Coquitlam, which, as of 2006, was estimated at 114,500 people, simply disappearing. Were the same rule applied to the City of Surrey, BC, only 55,000 people would remain.

Imagine, if you will, getting in a car at Coquitlam’s City Hall, now located down by Lafarge Lake, and driving through Coquitlam, up over Blue Mountain, and down the south slope to the Cape Horn bypass, crossing the Port Mann Bridge, and driving all the way to White Rock, encountering no traffic until reaching the south side of the Fraser River, and prior to that not coming across a living soul.

Now, remove the forests and the rivers, the running water in the houses that you pass, the parks and public pools, the convenience stores and gas stations, and even the roads themselves, and replace them all with an arid desert that reaches temperatures of above 40 degrees on a routine basis.

Put into context the problems that arose, and the complaints from Vancouver residents, caused by the heat wave that recently gripped the city. Remove from that experience the access to the ocean, to lakes, to swimming pools, to electricity, to powered fans, and to air conditioning. Remove from it the use of that weather to get a tan at the beach or sit on fashionable patios sipping on refreshing drinks, and replace it with the reality that, at any time, members of an armed militia could come upon you, kill members of your family, rape your mothers and sisters, and drive you out into the wilderness to either be killed by the elements, disease caused by numerous factors, or starvation.

The United Nations Security Council has been of little effect when it comes to confronting the problem in Darfur. The Chinese and Russians have blocked attempts to properly hold the government in Khartoum accountable, primarily because the Chinese, for example, do a considerable amount of business with Sudan, be it to do with oil exports of the sale of arms. And while the Bush administration has condemned the government there, and been forthright enough to categorize what is transpiring in Darfur as genocide, they are currently, in cooperation with the Sudanese government, using Sudanese nationals to infiltrate Salafi Jihadi extremist groups in Iraq.

Today, no matter where you are in the Lower Mainland, get in your car and drive to Coquitlam City Hall. Drive down Pine Tree and take a right on to the Barnet Highway. Drive down it and then hang a left on Mariner Way. Drive up it and take a right on to Como Lake and follow it until you come to Linton and hang a left. Drive down Linton until you reach Austin and hang another left. Follow it for a few blocks and then hang a right on Mundy. Follow Mundy south until you hit Cape Horn. And when you get there, find a place to pull over and look across the river.

Having done so, imagine that during that entire drive you saw no one, passed no one, and that on the other side of that river, and that congested bridge, there are 50,000 people, many of them orphans, many eldery - all in the process of fleeing towards Langley…

…on foot.

American historian Howard Zinn’s work A People’s History Of The United States is easily one of the most profound and crucial publications of our times. In fact, the work itself should be required reading for every student in undergraduate studies in which history applies to the curriculum. Likewise, Zinn’s newly released “A Young People’s History of the United States” should be required reading for high school students.

My respect for Professor Zinn’s continued activism and dissent is considerable, and there are well-founded reasons for it. His life experience only further lends credibility to his work and positions, not unlike Daniel Ellsberg, which is probably why he, like many others of similar intellectual prowess, are disregarded by the mainstream media in the United States and often marginalized or dismissed altogether.

During the Second War Zinn served in the Army Air Force as a bombardier and took part in the 1945 raid on Royan, France, which was the first use of napalm in warfare, an experience that had a significant impact on the development of his anti-war beliefs…

“The bombings were aimed at German soldiers who were, in Zinn’s words, hiding and waiting out the closing days of the war. The attacks killed not only the German soldiers but also French civilians. Nine years later, Zinn visited Royan to examine documents and interview residents. In his books, The Politics of History and The Zinn Reader, he described how the bombing was ordered at the war’s end by decision-makers most probably motivated by the desire for career advancement rather than for legitimate military objectives.

Zinn said his experience as a bombardier, combined with his research into the reasons for and effects of the bombing of Royan, sensitized him to the ethical dilemmas faced by G.I.s during wartime. Zinn questioned the justifications for military operations inflicting civilian casualties in the Allied bombing of cities such as Dresden, Royan, Tokyo, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Hanoi during the U.S. war in Vietnam, and Baghdad during the U.S. war in Iraq. In his pamphlet “Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence”, Zinn laid out the case against targeting civilians.”

On May Day Zinn spoke at a church in New Haven, Connecticut, about the importance of youth engaging in activism…

“Evoking a rare mixture of political seriousness and light-hearted wit, the 84-year-old history professor spoke conversationally, prompting many audience members to laugh at his sense of humor or applaud when his musings culminated in calls for change.

“Our interests are not the same [as the government’s], despite our culture and the way it tries to indoctrinate us into thinking our interests are the same … we and the government, Exxon and me,” Zinn said to long, drawn-out laughter.

“Bush,” he then said with a pause, “and the young person he sends to war do not have the same interests.”

Strenuous clapping ensued.

The event, sponsored by Labyrinth Books, coincided with the release of Zinn’s “A Young People’s History of the United States,” a youth-oriented articulation of his seminal “A People’s History of the United States.” Though he emphasized that the two books do not differ substantially and that his message was the same to Americans both young and old, Zinn’s speech on Tuesday focused on the need for the “next generation of youth” to question the government and understand its complexities - an implicit criticism of what he sees as older Americans’ failures to do the same.

“We need something better,” he said. “With the situation we’re in, we can’t afford to have another generation that will go along with war. Or another nation that will go along with the nation’s enormous militarism.”

Youth today need to recognize the presence of social upheaval in America’s past in order to recognize the importance of activism, Zinn said, but history teaching has traditionally emphasized American unity while ignoring social movements and conflicts of interest that steered the country toward historical change.

As a result, he said, young people become discouraged when only 20 people show up for a war protest rally; they have no idea that the civil rights protests failed on multiple occasions before the movement saw even an inkling of attention or success.

Also lost upon American youth is the nation’s history of ignoring the interests of common people, Zinn said. He said events such as the Vietnam War exemplify the United States’s long record of using foreign policy to acquire needed resources, while operating under the guise of liberty, self-determination and freedom.

In short, youth today have the daunting task of separating themselves from a self-righteous national culture, Zinn said. In spite of the hubbub over America’s greatness, the historian said, the nation significantly trails many other countries when it comes to literacy rates, infant mortality and the promotion of human rights. Illustrating what he termed the hypocrisy of America’s condemnation of nuclear weapons, Zinn recalled a letter that his friend, the late Kurt Vonnegut, had sent to the New York Times.

“Not saying anything about Iran or North Korea, his letter just said this: ‘I know of only one country that has dropped nuclear weapons on defenseless people,’” Zinn said. “The Times did not print his letter.”

One wonders when the next generation of American Truth Sayers will emerge, and if they will be able to take the legacy of men like Zinn and expound upon it in such a way as to produce a groundswell capable of toppling castle walls.

Photo courtesy of the BBC

Children are not playthings. They are not individuals to be exploited or influenced in any way to commit acts or follow ideologies that they, themselves, are too young to fully understand.

The concept of the child soldier is nothing new. In some instances it has been seen as a necessity to some, such as in Vietnam where young teens joined the ranks of the Vietcong. In other cases, because of the militant fervor within a society they have lied about their age to be able to go to war, such as during the US Civil War, in which 15 to 20 percent of those who enlisted for the Union Army were between the ages of 9 and 17. Even during the First and Second World wars it was not uncommon for those not old enough to enlist to lie about their age, and as many are aware, youths were used by the Axis powers during the dying days of World War 2 to bolster their depleted ranks. Likewise, the underground movements in occupied Europe during the Second World War also employed youths to spy on enemy movements and gather intelligence.

In more recent history, in Africa, children have been forcefully taken and made to fight by a variety of different militant groups in numerous African conflicts, many of them placed in positions in which they were left little choice but to commit horrendous acts or face death themselves.

China, Cambodia, North Korea (among others) – all of them at one time exploited the ability to coerce young minds to spy on their parents and others and report their conversations and beliefs to the governing authorities. In some instances, such as in Cambodia, an entire generation of youths were responsible for the decimation of their elders so that ‘a new history’ could be adopted, thus furthering their indoctrination and solidifying the power base of those that feared the repercussions of older generations contradicting the nonsense that they had been fed.

Despite the North American concept of the rebellious youth stereotype, the reality of the adolescent mind is that inclusion and acceptance is of the utmost importance to young people. And in the case of extreme environments, they will seek to mimic or adhere to the desires of those older than them in an attempt to impress and feel appreciated.

Today a video was broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV network in which a twelve year old boy wielding a knife beheaded Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani national, and a member of the Taliban who was by condemned by them as being a spy for the United States. On the tape, the boy, clad in camouflage, condemned Nabi as a spy and then cut off his head.

Now, as a practical person, I initially raised an eyebrow at this being that when I was twelve I probably couldn’t cut a raw turkey in half with a razor sharp knife without prolonged difficulty, let alone a human head. But that is not the point. Whether the video footage told the whole truth about the execution is not of real import. What is, is that a twelve-year-old boy was obviously indoctrinated with such malice that he was willing to actually go through the motions and do it. More so, that he was placed in that position in the first place.

The truth is that when children are raised in any state in which a militaristic mindset it prevalent they will subconsciously adhere to its principles. In the United States, for example, the Armed Forces have, in some places, recruiting offices in Middle Schools. They US Army uses video games as a recruiting tool (I used to show audiences the US Army sanctioned game while performing), and the worship of military technology and might is probably more prolific than interest in the Constitution.

When you place young minds in an atmosphere in which the militaristic mindset is not simply excusable, but prompted, then you produce youths that are desensitized to the application of warfare and its ramification on their lives. Look only to the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder amongst those returning from Iraq to see the results.

At least here in North America we are still emboldened with the principles of choice, even though they are largely steeped in the consumer ethic rather than that of any other. That cannot be said of other places where children are placed in situations that they cannot refuse to acquiesce to for fear of being ostracized or worse.

Ultimately, our children will grow to view the future, and build one, that is based on the perception of it that we give them. If it is one steeped in a militaristic mindset then that is the future that will be produced. And that is not, nor ever has been, the role of those knowledgeable enough to know better. Those old enough to discern between right and wrong have a duty to ensure that our children are not unduly influenced by a mindset that is devoted to the glorification and promotion of militarism. Rather, one that recognizes that it has only one end, and that that outcome requires us to lose a little more empathy for our fellow human beings with each passing day until we are little more than products of stone.

Children are our most sacred gift. To abuse their trust and to place them in situations that they are unable to fully comprehend is to doom humanity to the exploration of its darkest possibilities in perpetuity.

Addendum

I should also mention that Canada is no different in its application of the promotion of militarism. Canadian television and websites are rife with adverts for the military, ones that both glorify it and rather calculatingly do not attempt to disclose the realities of the situations that those in the armed forces are actually placed in, especially given the fact that we, like the United States and Great Britain, are a country at war.