First, I’d like to direct readers to Roy Jurgens new blog, Harbinger Of Doom. As always, Roy’s writing is excellent and it’s a blog that’s certainly worth bookmarking, maybe even more so than this one.

A few days ago, Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review wrote something regarding Remembrance Day that I found very poignant. An excerpt…

“When remembering the brave Americans on Tuesday who served this republic — especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice — remember the people who put them in harm’s way.

Veterans Day, which was known as Armistice Day until 1954, honors American veterans of all wars on Nov. 11.

What many of them experienced doing their duty is almost incomprehensible. Sing their praises to the heavens. Shower them with all the glory they so richly deserve. Thank God so many put their lives on the line to help make this the greatest nation in history. But after the parade bands stop marching, the bunting is decommissioned and the bystanders stop waving those little American flags, consider why so many have been wounded or lost — and if anything can be done to lessen the need for more rehab hospitals and national cemeteries.

The public should ask itself if it’s ever done a disservice to its service men and women when expedience trumped the U.S. Constitution. And if so, how many in our military paid — and how dearly.

Congress has formally declared war during five conflicts: with Great Britain in 1812, Mexico in 1846, Spain in 1898 and the two world wars.

However, this nation has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military or potential conflict (or for other than normal peacetime purposes) more than 420 times, according to a report by Richard F. Grimmett, a congressional research service defense specialist at the Library of Congress.

U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan to Zaire, the Fiji Islands, Hawaiian Islands and Falkland Islands, Samoa, Sumatra and, yes, even Soviet Russia. The U.S. battled Barbary pirates and Mexican bandits but also deployed troops to protect American interests in foreign lands — too many times and in too many places (like Korea and Vietnam) — to fight and maybe die.”

In Response

In the comments regarding my last entry a reader wrote…

“The gates of Auschwitz were not opened with peace talks. Holland was not liberated by peacekeepers and fascism was not defeated with a deft pen. Time and time again men and women in uniform have laid down their lives in just causes and in an effort to free others from oppression.”

There is no questioning the fact that the Second World War is difficult to confront when commenting on the virtues of peace. Throughout history there have been those that have acted criminally and that have had no regard for it unless attained through the use of arms to secure a self serving state of peace. The Third Reich is one such example, but it is certainly not the only one, and certainly not the most infamous.

As we’re all aware, Auschwitz-Birkenau was physically discovered by the Red Army, but the existence of the camp was made known to the Allied powers by the Polish underground as early as 1941. While the extent of what took place at the camps was beyond imagination, it should not be forgotten than IBM, acting through foreign subsidiaries, provided the Third Reich with the punch card machines that helped them track down and identify Jews in Europe. Thomas J. Watson, then the CEO of IBM, was a known Nazi sympathizer who lobbied as the head of the International Chamber of Commerce to have the economic sanctions implemented against Germany lifted. He personally travelled to Germany numerous times in the 1930’s, was awarded The Eagle with Star medal from Hitler, and dined with the Nazi elite while Jews, and others, were being systematically rounded up.

While IBM has always denied that their assistance significantly aided the Third Reich, as the Germans would eventually take control of the operation and were unable to reproduce the punch cards themselves, Thomas J. Watson was never tried for treason, nor held accountable for his actions. He returned the medal that Hitler presented him after Germany declared war on the United States and remained IBM’s CEO. One of his masterstrokes, one made unquestionably either to cover his own ass or as the result of pressure from the US government given the dirt that they no doubt had on him, was the implemented the 1% Doctrine, which meant that IBM would not receive more than 1% profit from the sale of military equipment to the US government.

Watson is just one example of an American businessman that not only supported the Third Reich, but profited from his relationship with them. And those profits did not evaporate while young Americans were dying on the beaches of Normandy or at Anzio.

War has many faces, we look for the just ones, but the truth is that even the Second World War is replete with criminality on both sides. Of course, the dedication and sacrifice of those men and women that did their duty cannot be questioned. But the truth of the matter is that war remains war and peace remains nowhere near as exalted an enterprise in the annals of human history. For even in the aftermath of the most justifiable of conflicts, new conflicts arise out of their ashes, as was the case at the end of the Second World War. And because of that reality, atomic weapons were used on two Japanese cities to make a political point at Potsdam, one which only fueled the fire. That’s what happens when the likes of Dean Acheson are whispering in your ear.

The men and women of this nation that served in the Second World War certainly deserve our praise and gratitude for their sacrifice. Many members of my own family served, so it is something that has certainly never been lost on me. We are a nation that is commonly overlooked when it comes to out contribution in foreign wars, and World War 2 is certainly no exception. Our actions at Juno Beach on D-Day were exemplary, though they have been completely overshadowed by the accomplishments of others. That would be why I personally donated more money to the construction of the Juno Beach Memorial Centre than many Canadian corporations did.

The point of my last entry was to not to claim that peace should be ignorantly sought, but rather that we must safeguard ourselves in this current day and age against the wanton use of force and the wholly disrespectful use of the past to play on our perceptions and emotions to justify it. Afghanistan is not World War 2. Those that have been lost in Afghanistan are, in my opinion, victims of policy, and therefore their loss is extremely disconcerting. This nation has paid a greater cost in Afghanistan than any other when the size of the contingents involved are taken into account. And to me, that is simply unacceptable.

Defeating the Germans in the Second World War was something that certainly had to be done. Then again, so was the toppling of Rome given that it waged unrestrained wars of conquest for centuries and enslaved and killed millions over the course of its imperial domination. And yet, in the annals of history, the Roman civilization is considered one of humanity’s bright spots.

It is altogether proper that we fear nuclear weapons. While one has not been used in 63 years – 63 years ago on this very day, in fact - the horror and devastation wrought by the two employed in the summer of 1945 was enough to usher in an age of unprecedented fear and paranoia. In the wake of that fear and paranoia a nuclear arms race would commence that would help promote a theory that to maintain nuclear détente the production of weapons was required to ensure that a global balance was maintained – along with all of the military hardware and support mechanisms required to maintain it. And so here we find ourselves, over six decades later, with the world’s foremost nuclear powers attempting to safeguard their nuclear superiority, concerned that the theory that they put into practice over a half century ago will be employed by fledgling nuclear powers.

It is also altogether proper that we fear propagandized history, even though risks are involved when the presentation of information that challenges overwhelmingly popular historical myths is presented. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, according to popular doctrine, military necessities. According to your average history book, the bombs were dropped to force Japan into unconditionally surrendering so that a conventional invasion of Japan could be avoided. It has long been contended that were the United States to have invaded Japan that millions of Americans would have been lost in the endeavor. But what is commonly overlooked is the fact that conventional bombing had already devastated much of Japan, so much so that its infrastructure was in utter ruins.

John Pilger of The Guardian put it best today…

“The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a criminal act on an epic scale. It was premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. For this reason its apologists have sought refuge in the mythology of the ultimate “good war”, whose “ethical bath”, as Richard Drayton called it, has allowed the west not only to expiate its bloody imperial past but to promote 60 years of rapacious war, always beneath the shadow of The Bomb.

The most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and save lives. “Even without the atomic bombing attacks,” concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, “air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that … Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

The National Archives in Washington contain US government documents that chart Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US dispels any doubt that the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including “capitulation even if the terms were hard”. Instead, the US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was “fearful” that the US air force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. He later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb”. His foreign policy colleagues were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the bomb, testified: “There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.” The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Truman voiced his satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.

Information such as this is commonly scoffed at, even though it is based on factual historical evidence. The reality is that an invasion of Japan would never have needed to occur, nor would the Japanese have ‘fought to the last’, a belief that has been promoted as fact since before the war’s conclusion. Of course, the majority of Westerners are not exposed to the testimonials of those Japanese civilians and military commanders that would, following the war, claim such accusations baseless. Being that they contradict the mythology that has been instilled in young minds since the 50’s, the inclusion of the ‘other side of the story’ has been conveniently removed from the pages of rudimentary academia for decades.

As Pilger also points out, the groundwork of misrepresentation began almost immediately following the employment of the bombs…

“In the immediate aftermath of the bomb, the allied occupation authorities banned all mention of radiation poisoning and insisted that people had been killed or injured only by the bomb’s blast. It was the first big lie. “No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” said the front page of the New York Times, a classic of disinformation and journalistic abdication, which the Australian reporter Wilfred Burchett put right with his scoop of the century. “I write this as a warning to the world,” reported Burchett in the Daily Express, having reached Hiroshima after a perilous journey, the first correspondent to dare. He described hospital wards filled with people with no visible injuries but who were dying from what he called “an atomic plague”. For telling this truth, his press accreditation was withdrawn, he was pilloried and smeared - and vindicated.”

When I was a child we were made to practice drills in the event of a nuclear attack. We were told to get under our desks and cover our heads with our hands. It was utterly pointless, of course, being that were we attacked our school would probably have been hit by a rolling shockwave that would have ripped the entire structure from its foundation. Hurling through the air with tons of concrete and other debris, we would eventually succumb to being crushed by something if the air in our lungs hadn’t already been vacuumed out.

They commonly held such drills on what used to be known as ‘hot dog days’ - and did so for obvious reasons. The very same, in fact, that prompted the New York Times to declare that there was no radioactivity in the ruins of Hiroshima.

I want to preface this entry with a statement regarding history.

Since I was a child I have been a passionate student of history. It is a passion that was handed down to me by my father who instilled in my brother and I the overwhelming importance of history not merely as the examination of our collective past, but as the study of the repetition of mistakes and the ability to use the past to identify their formation in the present. There are, in truth, no boundaries when it comes to the examination of history, nor its complexities, be it the study of events, or the philosophies and ideologies that have shaped the past and thusly influenced the present. History, despite its concrete persona, is not the study of irrefutable fact, but versions of truths that, combined, paint a picture from which insight is gained.

The corruption of history is one of its most important aspects, and the recognition of that corruption is something that must be openly examined. My generation, and those before it, were taught that the works of Karl Marx, for example, were ideological poison, that Lenin was tyrannical, and that the impetus of the Communist movement was one steeped in autocracy, not collectivism. These were, of course, propagandist lies of the Cold War, and, when examined, can be easily seen for the corruptions that they were – and remain in many cases. From a purely philosophical standpoint, The Communist Manifesto is not a work of evil whatsoever, quite the contrary in fact. Nor was Lenin tyrannical, only a sickly leader whose vision of a nation would be corrupted by others vying for power - and such actions are certainly not limited to what most traditionally refer to as ‘Communism’. In fact, the plutocratic reality of our own nation relies upon corruption more than it does accountability to function.

As we’re all aware, those that are victorious, never those defeated, write military history. Since childhood I have always found that to be a very skewed thing being that, when it comes to war, victory is not something that can ever be championed outright given its costs. As a young man I once spoke to a World War 2 veteran who was amongst those that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. He relayed to me his personal experiences of that day, and those that followed, but there is one statement that he made that I will never forget as long as I live, primarily because of it’s brutal honesty. I asked him how he felt as he stood with his comrades in the landing craft waiting to go ashore. His response was immediate and followed by a smirk…

- “Doing this ain’t worth saving Regina.”

They Don’t Make Major Motion Pictures About Us

Since posting an entry entitled Speechless yesterday, I have received a flurry of emails from angry American readers, primarily to do with the content of the email that I quoted in the post.

To answer them, let me put this issue in a Canadian context.

Since the Second World War ended, umpteen films have been made about American achievements during it. Some have won Oscars, some have gone on to become American cinema legend, such as The Longest Day and Patton. Unfortunately, when it comes to Canadian involvement in the Second World War, we’re not so celebrated. Despite a few made for TV films, the majority of our current and past remembrances have come in the form of commercials for General Motors that are broadcast during Hockey Night In Canada (commonly around November 11th).

Being that we are a Commonwealth Country, our involvement in the Second World War began shortly after Britain declared war on Germany. We were also involved in the Orient, where we fought the Japanese in locations such as Hong Kong. Until the United States entered the conflict in late 1941, Canadian soldiers, pilots, sailors, and merchant mariners played a significant role in ensuring that the British Isles did not fall and vital supplies reached them. In all, the Canadian Merchant Navy was responsible for completing 25,000 trans-Atlantic voyages. During World War 2, one in every eleven Canadians served in the armed forces. During the Italian Campaign, in which two of my Great Uncles participated, Canada lost 25,000 men, over half of all Canadian combat fatalities suffered during the war.

Obviously I can’t compare Canadian sacrifices to that of the United States. During the war some 16 million Americans served out of roughly 131 million, with 416,000 of them perishing in both theatres of war. We, being much smaller, had a population of a mere 11 million people. And, despite a few instances involving German U-Boats penetrating Canadian waters and sinking ships, we did not suffer a direct attack comparable to that of Pearl Harbour. That said; what if I, along with a few friends, were to go to the Arizona memorial and play street hockey on it?

Going Back

On that morning in June of 1944 the boys of the 3rd Infantry Division had something to prove, even if they hadn’t been involved in the utter disaster that had occurred along the north coast of France two years earlier.

On August 19th, 1942, a largely Canadian force undertook Operation Jubilee – the objective of which was to briefly capture Dieppe and Seine-Inférieure simply to prove that it was possible and to collect intelligence with regards to German strength in the area. British troops and fifty US Rangers also took part in the raid resulting in the first US land fatalities in the European Theatre.

At Dieppe, 3,963 Canadians went ashore. 2,210 of them made it back to England. It should be noted that 1,000 Canadians were never landed, so the entire contingent actually consisted of 4,963 men. Of the 6,086 soldiers that took part in the raid, 3,623 were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.

That fact was not lost on Canadian soldiers on the morning of June 6th, 1944. In all, 21,000 Canadian troops were landed at Juno, with the first waves consisting of 3,000 men. The casualty rate at Juno was 50% in the first hour. Those left cleared the seawall within that hour. By 6’ o’clock that evening Canadian forces had captured the town of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, pushing further into occupied France than any other allied contingent having faced the most heavily defended stretch of coastline of all five landing zones.

But you can bet your life that Michael Bay or Steven Spielberg won’t be making films about it any time soon.

All The World A Memorial

There is no questioning the fact that land is land and that throughout human history much of it has seen conflict rage across it. There is also no questioning the fact that while we honour the past we should not allow it to wholly restrict the future. When it comes to Juno Beach, and the memorial there, it should be remembered that no Canadian memorial existed at Juno until Prime Minister Jean Chrétien opened the Juno Beach Centre in 2003. On that day he said the following…

“Until now, there has been no Canadian memorial to mark these achievements. At the Juno Beach Center, our grandchildren and their grandchildren will learn what their forebears did for freedom.”

We’re not a country with a large population. In fact, our current population is equal to that of the State of California alone. Throughout our history we have largely been a humble and reserved people, not the sort that have needed to glorify what we have contributed to world affairs in the past. Had it not been for the work of Garth Webb, a veteran that took part in the D-Day invasion, who took it upon himself to make the Juno Beach Centre a reality, there still wouldn’t be a memorial there to mark the accomplishments and sacrifice of those men.

In the end, we don’t need a summer blockbuster to remind us of what our boys did that day. But a hint of respect would be appreciated.

Wait For Me Daddy

For my birthday this year my mother is having framed for me a very famous photograph that was taken in 1940 by then Province photographer Claud Detloff on Columbia Street at 8th Street in New Westminster. My family owns one of the original copies of the picture which would go on to be featured in both Life and Time Magazines and is considered the most famous Canadian pictures of the Second World War.

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.

Since the advent of the nuclear age, only two nuclear weapons have ever been employed, both in August of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While many will argue that their use was required to avoid directly invading the Japanese islands, an effort that the government and military at the time claimed would cost the lives of upwards of a million US soldiers, the reality was that most of Japan has been decimated by conventional fire bombing, that the government of Japan had been attempting to negotiate a surrender all that summer, and that the people of Japan, despite news reels shown in US movie houses, were not on the streets in force training to repel US forces. They were, in truth, in the grips of near total economic and civic collapse.

The bombs were, in all honesty, dropped for post-war geopolitical reasons. The Soviets, who had coveted most of Eastern Europe in their advance towards Berlin, were viewed as a threat to Western post-war interests. Thus, individuals such as Dean Acheson urged the use of the bombs to demonstrate US military might, a position that was completely abhorrent to the likes of then General Dwight Eisenhower and the majority of the scientists that had worked on the Manhattan Project. They were dropped nonetheless, ushering in a new age of permanent global nuclear proliferation.

From the second that Little Boy detonated above Hiroshima unleashing the equivalent of 16 kilotons of TNT, decimating everything in a 1.6 kilometer radius, evaporating every living thing within the bomb’s primary blast radius, and killing some 140,000 people (during, and by way of radioactive fallout), deterrence immediately became the primary purpose for possessing a nuclear capability. That reality has not changed in the 63 years since.

The Manhattan Project placed the United States at the forefront of the nuclear arms race, but their position as the planet’s lone nuclear power would end when the Soviet Union successfully tested First Lightning, referred to as Joe 1 by US intelligence, on August 29th, 1949. The rest, as they say, is history.

Reason And Emotion

That’s not to say that the world hasn’t flirted with the possibility since. Fortunately, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, cooler heads prevailed. Then again, it should be noted why they prevailed.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, both Washington and Moscow had their fair share of Hawks pressing for a confrontation. Thankfully, a handful of individuals on both sides possessed the emotional fortitude to examine the realities of what would become of the world in the aftermath of posturing that had but one outcome. The United States would ultimately view it as a victory, but the reality is that it was nothing more than a victory over political arrogance. Of course, little mention is ever given the role played by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, a veteran World War Two Commander who witnessed first hand the horrors of Stalingrad. Khrushchev was no stranger to the realities of war, and in his first transmission to President Kennedy during the crisis made that point very clear – that both he and Kennedy knew full well the ramifications, betraying an emotional state that was extremely uncommon for as Soviet leader.

Emotionality is something that many view as extremely dangerous when it comes to the nuclear equation, but it is perhaps the one thing that perseveres when it comes to facing the realities of mutually assured destruction. Reasonable men can find excuse enough to destroy the world on any given day. It is not until emotionality enters into the equation that the reality of nuclear war becomes abundantly apparent.

The Inescapable Outcome

There is no winning a nuclear contest – that is, not a contest between two or more nations that possess nuclear weapons. The reality is that the modern destructive power of a single nuclear weapon is such that the devastation wrought is not something that can be justified with regards to proportional or superior responses. The loss of hundreds of thousands of lives simply cannot be viewed as acceptable compared to the loss of a million or more lives in response. No citizen of any nation on earth would think that acceptable given the lasting affects of even a single nuclear weapon on a specific city or location.

In the case of Iran, were the Iranians to possess a weapon and use it, or even three, against Israel, they would be facing a nation with approximately one hundred times their nuclear capability. In short, while the Iranians would be able to, for example, strike Tel Aviv, killing multitudes, the Israelis could eradicate every major city in Iran, not to mention a list of other targets.

There is also the political question of approximation to consider. Were Iran to target Israel, the conventional response against groups in Palestine and Gaza would most likely be as immediate as possible, decisive, and unrelenting. Under the circumstances, collateral damage, including the death of civilians in large numbers, would most likely occur. Given the state of mind that the IDF would be in, were such a thing to occur, I do not think that that is at all a stretch.

All of that, of course, is without involving the United States and what their nuclear response would be were Iran to strike Israel. Compared to Israel, the United States possesses vastly more advanced delivery capabilities, the most lethal being the use of Ohio Class Submarines that have the ability to strike multiple targets within minutes if their proximity to those targets is within a certain radius. As it stands now, given that two US battle groups are in the Gulf, there are certainly nuclear boats with them, making their proximity to Iranian targets minimal. A single such boat carries a compliment that could completely wipe out the population of Tehran.

Given the magnitude of both Israeli and American capabilities, even the most crazed lunatic in Iran would be faced with the reality that their nation would be utterly devastated in response to any attack made against Israel. Their family, the families of their friends and counterparts, all would be killed. The government of Iran, along with its entire military, civic, and religious infrastructures would cease to exist. The majority of Persia, as we know it, would basically be gone.

It’s one thing to believe that a group can exist that believes self-sacrifice is required for some greater, albeit fanatical, purpose. It’s entirely another to believe that the government of a nation would sacrifice the majority of its population for the sake of ideological fanaticism and nothing more, with no endgame or stratagem involved. To believe the Iranian government stupid enough to employ nuclear weapons as a first strike option requires the inclusion of the belief that they have no goal other than to ensure their own destruction, that they not only have no regard for the lives of the Iranian people, but their own as well. Even were they to gift a weapon to a terrorist group, the ramifications would be the same, because they would be held responsible. In fact, were Israel attacked with a nuclear weapon, no matter where that attack originated from, Iran would still be the victim of nuclear reprisals, and it is rather unintelligent, in my opinion anyway, to think that the government of Iran isn’t aware of that fact.

In essence, the current position of the United States, Israel, and others, is that the Iranians are seeking to obtain an offensive nuclear capability. Such a position all but promotes the fundamental tenets of the Bush Doctrine, the cornerstone of which is the use of preemptive, unilateral force to deal with those deemed a threat to US national security, its interests, or allies. Mind you, the US is not alone when it comes to such policies. The Israelis also partake in such practices when it suits their purposes, such as violating Lebanese airspace and conducting over-flights over Beirut, which they recently did.

I have said it before, and will exhaustively say it again now – what constitutes a ‘safe’ nuclear power? One that discloses its nuclear practices? The Iranians have been repeatedly accused of hiding their program by nations that have never allowed the IAEA to inspect theirs. Israel, as I have pointed out in the past countless times, has an estimated 300 nuclear weapons, though denies to this day that it even has a weapons program at all and refuses to allow its facilities to be inspected by the United Nations.

So what exactly makes Israel a ‘safe’ nuclear power? They continue to diversify their delivery systems, such as through the acquisition of submarines, and have even been caught stealing nuclear secrets from the United States – something that has, to this very day, never really been addressed by the highest levels of the US government. And yet the world is supposed to believe that the Iranian government is bent on not only acquiring a nuclear capability, but also actually being ignorant enough to employ it knowing full well that the consequences of such actions would result in their destruction?

Why? Because the current Iranian regime refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist? I’ll not disagree that that’s a ridiculous position, but it is by no means provides justification for initiating a nuclear exchange that would be tantamount to suicide.

Given the realities of modern nuclear age, are we to believe that the Iranian government, or even a radical faction within its military, is so consumed by madness that it would use nuclear weapons against those that possess the ability to retaliate in an overwhelming fashion? And if we are, then how are we to view the last 63 years since their first employment and the overwhelming proliferation that followed? As nothing more than a game played by sane men using the most insane weapon ever conceived to play an elaborate game of global chess? And if we are, then what exactly does that make us?

Pawns or Kings?

There’s no questioning the fact that Israel’s ultimate goal in Gaza is to remove the Hamas led provisional government from power. Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, which is, of course, an immense problem with regards to the ability to negotiate – that being, no one will meet with them, let alone negotiate with them.

So what is the answer? Who, in all of this madness, is willing to be courageous enough to employ the sort of timeless wisdom that takes into account the future of ordinary citizens over hatred and mistrust that will only lead to further suffering? Because the time for such wisdom has come, and it will take individuals of peerless vision and courage to pull it off – on both sides. Sending envoys from foreign countries to institute the process won’t ultimately make a difference. It is something that the Israelis and the Palestinians must do themselves, and in good faith, both willing to set aside those immovable positions to which they cling in an effort to make real progress.

Despite what the world sees, it is foolish to think that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis don’t want peace, that their majorities are so ensconced in the tenets of hatred that the possibility of reconciliation is impossible.

For the sake of their children, the embracement of flexibility must be undertaken by both sides, and the communal voice of the majority of both must work to ensure that those who refuse to embrace that flexibility are confronted and disenfranchised. Only then can a true process of reconciliation begin.

Imagine, if at all possible, an Israel in which Palestine and Gaza are Provinces that are afforded equal representative seats in the Israeli Parliament. That the nation embraced two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic, and that its wealth and opportunities were shared amongst its people equally. Imagine no walls, no security fences, equal educational opportunities, and the integration of Israeli and Palestinian youths in the educational system. Imagine if, within the structure of that system, a historical consensus could be reached and that all children would be educated regarding the perils and failures of the past, not presented sides that would pit them against one another. Imagine, if at all possible, calling this new nation Israel And Palestine. Call me an idealist, but imagine a day when a Palestinian might even become its Prime Minister.

If it’s impossible to imagine, then ask yourself why? And in doing so remember that there was a time when even the United States was divided, a reality that can scarcely be confronted by many Americans now without perplexity being that they have only ever know their nation to be united, despite those regional and racial problems that have plagued it.

To ensure peace there are those that labour under the misconception that strength and the inability to compromise are the only true measures that can insure it. Of course, that would be why we live in a world that is perpetually at its own throat.

The common reaction to such a statement is to provide the example of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s inability to see Germany for what it was. There are, of course, other examples as well. But how long will we cling to such examples and forgo the belief that, just maybe, Chamberlain’s intentions were rooted into something altogether noble – the desire to avert war, the results of which his generation possessed first hand knowledge. There are those that might claim Neville Chamberlain guilty of appeasement, though they ultimately overlook that fact that while attempting to act to preserve peace, the government of Adolf Hitler was actively seeking the opposite and would have initiated its plans no matter. Thus, who must ultimately be condemned? A man that attempted to avert war or one that actively sought it? We can condemn Mr. Chamberlain for all time if it helps placate our love affair with militarism that was subsequently adopted and promoted following the Second World War, but the fact remains that peace is not something that should have to rely on the ability to inflict pain and suffering to ensure it.

My whole life has been spent living in an era in which a placebo has come to represent peace. That peace can be ensured simply through the possession of overwhelming military might. It’s ridiculous of course.

Sir John Frederick Maurice once said - “I went into the Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I now believe that if you prepare thoroughly for war you will get it.”.

Truer words were never spoken.

Hate, division, suspicion, mistrust. These are the easiest things in the world to teach and to cling to. They do not require an individual to look beyond themselves, to question, nor compromise. They are safe and comfortable and entirely cowardly. Their principles are universally applicable, and provide comfort to religious extremists of every faith all the way to xenophobes that use patriotism as a blanket of fear and doubt.

To embrace the opposite is another matter altogether, one that is far more difficult, dangerous, exhaustive, and reliant on one of the most degraded practices of our time – the belief in the inherit goodness of others and that, in the end, it will win out.

Ultimately, it is not impossible to imagine a world in which Israeli and Palestinian children play on the same football teams after school, only that finding a way to make that a reality has become something that too many believe is.

In the last entry I made about the practice of waterboarding, it was pointed out that the technique has been used in the past in the training of US special forces. The purpose of its role in their training being to help them resists interrogation by way of torture. From an article in today’s Independent entitled Waterboarding is torture - I did it myself, says US advisor, comes the following paragraph…

“In a further embarrassment for Mr Bush yesterday, Malcolm Nance, an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence, publicly denounced the practice. He revealed that waterboarding is used in training at the US Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School in San Diego, and claimed to have witnessed and supervised “hundreds” of waterboarding exercises. Although these last only a few minutes and take place under medical supervision, he concluded that “waterboarding is a torture technique – period”.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. Like many other Canadian families, members of my own participated in the war – my grandfather and two great uncles. On the 11th of November we remember the sacrifices made by those that fought in the major wars of the last century, the most devastating and globally impacting of those being the Second World War.

During that war, both the Japanese and the Gestapo, the German secret police, employed the practice of waterboarding. At its conclusion, those guilty of such practices were tried for war crimes. At that time, the United States considered the practice to be torture.

Given the gravity of what tomorrow represents, I find it reprehensible that a debate about this subject even exists and that the practice is even employed. If anything, the actions of the United States and its allies in the War On Terror, Canada included, demonstrates that when you are the victors of one of the world’s greatest conflicts, it’s easy to write the rules of condemnation and, at the same time, dismiss them when they are applicable to yourself – no matter how much time has passed.

We are not afforded the luxury to mourn the fallen tomorrow and, at the same time, claim that times have changed and that the morality and sacrifice that we reverently observe on November 11th cannot be tarnished by the employment of practices that are entirely counter to the hopes of those that laid down their lives. To do so not only dishonours them; but renders their sacrifice, and the belief that it helped protect something sacred, moot.

We are arrogant; there is no denying that. Our crimes are not crimes because we are the judge and jury of the world. To admit to criminality is to admit that that which we promote as the pinnacle of civility is little more than a fraud – which it most certainly, and always has, been. In the end, given the existence of places such as Guantanamo, of secret Black Sites, of what has occurred at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the practice of Rendition, we have become no better than those that our now celebrated dead once fought to wipe from the face of the earth.

Perhaps that is why we cling to the past, to the remembrance of those that fell. Perhaps, somewhere sleeping within us, we still realize that the true purpose of their sacrifice was to ensure that we, the people, retained the right to ensure that such things could never be done in our name, that we remained free from that which gripped the world all those years ago – fascism.

Make no mistake, fascism is not an ideology that is limited to set parameters. Given the right conditions it can rise in even the most liberal of nations. In truth, its seeds grow far faster, and far less recognized, in such soil. The belief that decency and greatness resides at the core of a society is precisely what it requires to flourish, for only then can it be justified in times of fear, uncertainty, and strife. It is only where the free can be convinced to give up their freedoms that the specter of fascism can be found. It is only when those that profess to champion justice, equality, and liberty turn to the employment of torture that the roots of fascism begin to take hold.

Sixty-two years ago the Second World War ended. At its conclusion, more lives were lost in those short years than at any other point in human history. During that war, men of this nation, and others, fought against a global tyranny that threatened those principles that we now claim to champion. Therefore, tomorrow our duty is not wholly to remember the individuals that sacrificed themselves for the continued existence of those principles, but the principles themselves. And in doing so, we should be ashamed that we have allowed them to be tarnished, that we have become apathetic with regards to their execution, and that we have wrapped ourselves in our own mythology to such an extent that we have almost become unfamiliar with what they represent.

This is not a nation under one God. It is a nation in which its people have the right to worship whatever God they chose knowing that church and state remain separate. This is a nation in which the colour of your skin, or your ethnic background, should not be cause for suspicion. It is one in which all people, no matter their background, come together to constitute what we call Canada.

But most of all – this is a nation. It is not a convenient military or political proxy for the benefit of others. It is not a nation that is so insignificant that it must bend to the will of greater powers to feel significant. This is a nation that, throughout the course of modern events, has more to be proud of than ashamed – and even then, one that should have the decency to address its misgivings and make amends.

It is time that the people of this country realized that, lest this not be a nation. For if we are incapable of that realization, then those that sacrificed themselves for it will be marginalized to the point of becoming little more than statues in park squares and in front of government buildings that are pointed to when the need arises to justify the diminishment of our freedoms rather than being symbols of why we possess them.

During the Second World War, the United States interned some 120,000 Japanese Americans. Two thirds had been born in the United States and thus American citizens with full rights under the Constitution that were completely denied them simply because of their race. Unlike Americans of German and Italian descent, of which very few were interned, Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were given no choice but to adhere to Executive Order 9066. They were allowed only to bring a single suitcase, having to abandon their homes, belongings, and businesses.

In all there were ten camps that they were sent to: Poston, Tule Lake, Gila River, Granada, Manzanar, Minidoka, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Rohwer, and Jerome. Of course, the United States was not alone in interning those of Japanese heritage. The Canadian government also enacted measures which saw Japanese Canadians interned as well, their possession sold off by the government, the Canadian Navy seizing 1,200 Japanese Canadian owned fishing boats, and the Canadian Pacific Railway firing all Japanese Canadian workers.

When one thinks of valor and commitment with regards to fighting men during the Second World War, numerous possibilities pop into the forefront. Among them is Easy Company of the famed American 101st Airborne. Others might include the British Commandos (The SBS and SAS), or Carlson’s Marine Raiders (who coined the use of the now common Marine phrase Gung-ho!). But the truth is that the most highly decorated regiment in all of the Second World War, and US Military history for a force that size, was the 442nd Combat Team comprised entirely of Japanese Americans. In all, the 442nd produced 21 Medal of Honor recipients and its casualty rate was a staggering 93%. During a five-day period between October 26th and October 30th, the 442nd suffered 800 casualties while rescuing 211 soldiers of the 141st Infantry (36th Infantry Division) who had been surrounded by German forces in the Vosges Mountains.

Wounded members of the 442nd were also notorious for escaping from hospitals so that they could return to the unit, a trend amongst various regiments of note during the war.

In all, the 442nd Regiment received 21 Medals Of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 1 Distinguished Service Medal, 550 Silver Stars, 22 Legion of Merit Medals, 4,000 Bronze Stars, and 9,486 Purple Hearts.

When they returned home, they did so to signs that read ‘No Japs Allows’. Despite their unparalleled military service and sacrifice, their deeds did almost nothing to alter the perceptions of many Americans regarding the patriotism of Japanese Americans. And yet, in the history of the United States military, they remain the most celebrated regiment in the nation’s history.

In all of the Second World War, the German’s held the 442nd as one of the most feared regiments that they ever encountered.

The now commonly employed term ‘going for broke’ comes from the 442nd’s official motto – ‘go for broke’, the source of which is a Hawaiian pidgin phrase used when betting everything on a single role of dice.

So I finally got my hands on a copy of Ken Burn’s The War, thus I’ll spend the next 10 hours watching it. So far it’s very good. I especially like how Burns chose to focus on four US towns and various individuals from them with regards to their experiences rather than trying to cover the nation as a whole. It provides an insight that is little seen.

One of the more interesting aspects of the first disc is how Burns goes about portraying US isolationism. While Europe and Asia were already in the throes of conflict, many Americans went about their daily lives contented that it was a world away, and thus did not affect them. I was also glad to see that Burns delved briefly into the fact that prior to World War Two the US military was relatively small, and that following it, because of the economic prosperity the country ultimately enjoyed in its wake, the United States became the most powerful country in the world.

Over 400,000 Americans lost their lives during the Second World War, but the United States itself remained the only major power involved in the conflict untouched at its conclusion. Europe and Asia were decimated; Russia had lost some twenty million people, and yet the United States remained as it was before – intact. While not directly relatable to the content of the documentary itself; that is a fact that shouldn’t be lost on anyone with regards to the birth of the American neo-imperial mindset.

The sacrifices made by Americans (and Canadians and Newfoundlanders for that matter) in a conflict that had no outright impact on this continent are certainly admirable. But as Burns attempts to reveal in the documentary – war is not a proposition that is ultimately about right and wrong, nor the superiority of political ideologies. It is one that is an exercise in those vulnerabilities from which we all suffer, and thus the revelation that despite the reasons for conflict, the base common that must ultimately pay the price for them are, in truth, more alike than not when the uniforms come off and arms are laid down.

Though it might be hard to believe, this generation of North Americans finds itself the product of the result of that war. Our political ideology, like those of many societies that have come before us, has been overwhelmingly employed of late to justify aggression. Democracy itself has become a weapon in and of itself, one that is rarely questioned when used to justify the need for war. In such times we turn ceremoniously to its principles as if a blank cheque, and that is an unfortunate reality that was created by the outcome of a war fought more than sixty years ago. But it is not the reason why that war was fought, and that is something that should not, in the name of those that fought it, ever be forgotten.

Despite all of the troubles plaguing the Iraqi government of late, and the overwhelming condemnation of Nouri Maliki, at least he has had the guts to say something that should have been said months ago…

“He said the Democratic senators were acting as if Iraq was “their property” and that they should “come to their senses” and “respect democracy”.

At least when you overthrow a tyrant yourself you know where you stand. It might take decades for it to occur, for all of the right pieces to fall into place, and for a truly inspired movement to achieve a level of dedication at which point the people are willing to sacrifice for the possibility of a better future.

When democracy is achieved under those conditions it has a chance. That’s not to say that that chance would not be fraught with problems, but at least they would be the problems of those that stood up and took control of their own volition, for their own sake, and their own future as an independent people.

Iraq will suffer the long dark of chaos before anything even remotely resembling what we would consider normality will ever come to it. It is nothing but a pawn in the game of others to be used as they see fit while cast as free, primarily for the sake of those that sit half a world away, convinced that what has transpired there it is a part of some greater global conflict that has been wrapped tightly in the precepts of nobility.

Be it in Iraq or Afghanistan, the truth is that we are fighting ourselves. We are fighting our own creations, our own mistakes, our own ignorance, arrogance, and sense of entitlement. We will not be satisfied until such a time that victory is achieved, and thus must wait for the inevitability of our own undoing to see it realized.

When it comes to subduing nations, as we learned all too well during the Second World War, the best policy is to unleash a level of violence upon them that is utterly cruel and unforgiving. Both Japan and West Germany became democratic in the years following the war, both of them having been so utterly decimated that adhering to the will of those responsible was required to simply save themselves. In both cases they were also occupied by foreign armies, and in both cases those that occupied them played a significant role in the formation of their governments. Perhaps, when all is said and done, that is what should be done in Iraq and Afghanistan if the ultimate goal is to secure the existence of governments that are wholly dependent on those that seek to ensure that they exist to promote foreign interests. Because freedom is not something that exists simply because foreign armies invade and occupy a nation and them claim it free. That presumption is the great mistake of the world’s elite, and one that has been played out time and again around the globe for centuries.

Who are we better than, and what gives us the right to claim ourselves thus? If our way of life is better than most, then why is it the most destructive way of life on the planet? Why does it produce the most waste, the most pollution, and the most weapons of war?

We have been here before on numerous occasions. There was a time, over 2000 years ago, when a great Republic existed that promoted the virtues of democracy no less fervently as we do. They too wandered far a field, using their military might to subdue those considered unenlightened, those considered threats, but most of all – those considered economically quintessential to their existence. And like all who would use freedom as an excuse for a myriad of unscrupulous undertakings, they eventually succumbed under the weight of their own hypocrisy. They too created enemies, ones which would eventually arrive at their gates and smash them into splinters while they sat aghast in disbelief that such a thing could even happen. And they would not be the last to do so.

Self determination is not something that is a predominant feature throughout history. In fact, it is the exception.