war

Road to Gauntanamo

Have you seen the film Road to Guantanamo yet? If not then go see it. I have put it off for some time but now that I have – it absolutly terrified me. The story is about four young men who travel to Pakistan. One is about to be married and the others are there to attend.

Through a mix of youthful carelessness, bad luck and the chaos of war they are detained and considered to be members of Al-Qaeda. The brutal treatment and torture they face at the hands of the US military is absolutly barbaric. They are abused and tortured to obtain confessions – something which the military fail to obtain despite their treatment.

Even if they had obtained forced confessions from the men – what are these results worth? They are not the truth. And the treatment makes those carrying it out less human. The US cannot claim to be the “good-guy” anymore. Their brutality does not make them better than any other “evil” torturer which we would condemn elsewhere.

Despite the torture being carried out at Guantanamo and the number of detainees and the number of years they have been held it is important to remember that the US has not achieved one single conviction. It is only brutality without law. To those who want to claim the honour of fighting for their beliefs and country – the actions of the men at Guantanamo put your actions, your country and your armed forces to shame.

See this movie!! It is an important movie about the horror of war, the madness of belief over reason, against the evils of torture and the strength of those who are subjected to evil treatment.

What terrifies me the most is the ability of countries to commit crimes while being able to maintain a rhetoric of peace and humanity…

The movie website contains both the trailer and information about the infamous prison. Amnesty International has a broschure to accompany the film: The Road to Guantanamo Action Guide.
About the detainees at Guantanamo Amnesty International writes:

None of the detainees have been granted prisoner of war status or brought before a â??competent tribunalâ?? to determine his statusâ?¦The US government refuses to clarify their legal status, despite calls from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to do so. Instead, the US government labels them â??enemy combatantsâ?? or â??terroristsâ??, flouting their right to be presumed innocent and illegally presuming justification for the denial of many of their most basic human rights.

Posted on by mklang

Homage to Catalonia

One of the things that I promised myself was that I would read more fiction after I was done with the PhD. Right now I am reading Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” which is a mix of memory and description of the Spanish civil war were Orwell went to fight against facism. For Orwell the journey to Spain was necessary since it was the first country to actually protest the facist regime and to put up a fight against what was to prove to be the last centuries biggest political mistake.

He also writes with brutal honesty about the terrible conditions of those involved in the everyday fighting of the war. There is no glamour and even less honour.

An example which takes place after an attack on a facist position outside the town of Heusca. They took the facist trench but were driven back again:

They had left the parapet and were coming after us. ‘Run!’ I yelled to Moyle, and jumped to my feet. And heavens, how I ran! I had thought earlier in the night that you can’t run when you are sodden from head to foot and weighted down with a rifle and cartridges; I learned now you can always run when you think you have fifty or a hundred armed men after you. But if I could run fast, others could run faster.

On the totality of his experiences in Spain, Orwell writes:

When we went on leave I had been a hundred and fifteen days in the line, and at the time this period seemed to me to have been one of the most futile of my whole life. I had joined the militia in order to fight against Fascism, and as yet I had scarcely fought at all, had merely existed as a sort of passive object, doing nothing in return for my rations except to suffer from cold and lack of sleep. Perhaps that is the fate of most soldiers in most wars. But now that I can see this period in perspective I do not altogether regret it.

This is the most iconic photo of this conflict. It is Robert Capa’s Death of a Republican

Posted on by mklang

More on Walls

In a previous entry I wrote about walls of design and segregation. I tried to write about the impact of segregating people by using physical barriers â?? but mainly I pointed to the fact that there are many walls out there but we tend to forget this fact since we remain pleased with ourselves that THE WALL (the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain) has been removed.

Probably the easiest way to discover a wall is by looking at an area of the world which is troubled. Find a trouble-spot and all you have to do is to glance at the more fortunate neighbors to find a hefty wall.

So it should come as no surprise that the Saudi Arabian government is planning to build a security fence along its 550 mile stretch of remote desert northern frontier. This is a huge project. The wall or barrier will be equipped with ultraviolet night-vision cameras, buried sensor cables and thousands of miles of barbed wire.

Through this fence the Saudi Arabianâ??s now can join the great wall builders of the world such as the Israeli security barrier, the massive migration fence in southern Spain, and the U.S./Mexico border.

The Saudi Arabian barrier consists of a double fence running about 100 meters apart with 135 electronically controlled gates, fence-mounted movement detection sensors, and buried radio detection sensor cables. Naturally the equipment will also combine the standard hi-tech ultraviolet night-vision cameras with face-recognition software and communications equipment.

(via Subtopia)

Posted on by mklang

Not a terrorist

On 12th August Raed Jarrar was forced to take of his t-shirt at John F Kennedy airport. The reason? It has a text in Arabic (and English) which read: “We will not be silent” (BBC article) He attempted to argue freedom of speech but to no avail.

He was given the ultimatum to change t-shirts or not get on the plane.

Not my idea of choice.

As a protest you can now buy t-shirts with the text – “I am not a terrorist” written in Arabic. The shirts are set to $1.00 more than the Spreadshirt (the manufacturer) base price â?? all profits will be sent to the ACLU. Get them here.

This is a good way of attempting to fight against the meaningless and degrading hysteria that has grown from the paranoia of fear of terrorism. Yes we should beware. The world is an unsafe place but the measures that have been taken over the past weeks are more racist than anti-terrorist.

Posted on by mklang

Damn!

According to Mr Hawkins’ interpretation of Biblical prophesy, nuclear war will erupt on September 12, 2006, and one third of the humans on the planet will perish. Watch him here.

Damn – my thesis defence is on October 2nd!

Who should I contact to ask for an extension on this end of the world thingy?

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

Bad week for George?

It’s a busy time. Returning from vacation and catching up on the news. This quote is too good to miss. It’s straight of CNN from the Saturday press conference held by Bush & Putin. This is George Bush’s vision of democracy:

“I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same,” Bush said.

To that, Putin replied, “We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly.”

Earlier today I posted on George Bush’s attempts to give the German Chancellor an unwanted massage only later did I read this report from the press conference. And now this! Does George Bush really think that any country would want to change places with Iraq? Doesn’t he even watch the news or read a newspaper? Putin’s reply smacks of dignity and exasperation.

If this is one of his good weeks then I would hate to see his bad weeks…

(via När jag ändå har ordet)

Posted on by mklang

Political Games

Let’s face it – we live in a world with short attention spans and a large amount of competing demands on our attention. One attempt to create and maintain attention in one of these tragic affairs is the computer game Darfour is Dying.

In the online game the player takes the perspective of the displaced Darfurian. The scary part is that such approached may trivialise the importance and reality of the actual suffering going on.

But lets take a tolerant approach and say that at least people are being reminded that the problem exists. Nomatter the medium – awareness is the most important part.

Posted on by mklang