Category Archives: World Hellhole Report

A Very Bad Law

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The Trayvon Martin shooting is, without a question in my mind, a terrible tragedy. It should never have happened. It is all the more tragic because of a very bad law. The “stand your ground” statute in Florida actually permits someone to provoke a violent reaction but, if the reaction is life threatening, to respond with deadly force. That means if two gunslingers meet in the middle of a Florida street, whoever kills first wins the justified homicide race. For proof that his life was in danger, he can point to his slain foe with a gun in his hand.

Yes, Mr. Martin was unarmed, but one eyewitness says he saw Mr. Martin beating Mr. Zimmerman, the shooter. Another eyewitness saw the opposite happening, so all we have left is Mr. Zimmerman’s testimony, and he did have injuries to his face and head consistent with his account of Mr. Martin attacking him. So why did Mr. Martin attack, if that’s what he did?

Maybe it was the same stupid law. The law allows for people to stand their ground, instead of requiring a duty to retreat. A duty to retreat means a person needs to get away from a confrontation and let police handle the situation. In a stand your ground law, one can stand and engage an opponent based upon one’s judgment.

In this case, imagine what has to be going through the mind of a 17-year old walking home in the dark on a rainy night when some strange guy in a truck pulls up beside you and demands that you come talk to him. That’s a terrifying situation, and I can understand why Mr. Martin would not want to give any information to or comply with Mr. Zimmerman’s commands. We tell our children that strangers could kill them – and that is exactly what happened here.

Had Mr. Martin killed Mr. Zimmerman, the same law would have justified the homicide. Without a duty to retreat and let potentially cooler heads prevail, or at least heads that can be identified as policemen – and I’m leaving the racial controversy with the local force aside – the Florida law as written allows any pair of individuals that doesn’t understand each other completely to open fire, rather than try to understand what’s really going on.

Bad laws make for bad situations. Not only has this law contributed to the Martin shooting case, it’s also used by criminals to justify murders of rivals. Is that really what Florida wants on its hands?

An Open Letter to Leon Panetta

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Dear Mr. Panetta,
How are you? I am fine. I see there is a problem in Afghanistan right now. A soldier killed 16 civilians, including children. This is a terrible tragedy, and I’m sure you feel bad about that. I heard on the news that the soldier may have been drinking, which will contribute to bad decisions. But the soldier was also supposed to be home in the USA after three tours in Iraq and instead got sent to Afghanistan. That’s got to be what really messed him up.

The soldiers in the US military have been getting poor treatment on all accounts since 2001. They had to buy their own body armor, National Guardsmen would be denied VA benefits if their injuries could be reclassified, psychological health care was minimal at best, and they were put into situations they could not find any good way out of. This soldier has his own sins to bear, but the US armed forces have their hand in this situation, and that needs to be fixed.

The US Army can keep soldiers in combat, indefinitely, with the way they’ve written their regulations. While the regulations make everything legal, they don’t make it all right. The treatment our front-line soldiers has received has been abysmal, both “over there” and at home. These are the men and women that put their lives at risk for their nation, but who have been hired out to do the dirty, wet work for the big oil companies. And, like any other worker for corporate America, when they’re used up, they’re tossed aside. That is not right.

I hold that the wars should not have happened in the first place: I don’t care to win converts to that point of view, as I’d rather have agreement on a more basic issue. That soldier, and thousands others like him, don’t belong in war zones after multiple combat tours. Fix the rules so that what is done is also the right thing.

Thanks for your time, Mr. Panetta. While I have your attention, could you also make sure that we don’t use the US Army for political purposes? I don’t see any partisan political gain to be worth even one life of an American soldier. I have friends over there. Don’t use them like pawns in a game in which only the richest of the rich will win.

Sincerely,

Dean Webb

Manufactured War

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As a third carrier group and a mobile commando base make their ways to the Straits of Hormuz, the US Government is now saying that Iran plans to attack the USA directly. The only reason to say that is to get people fired up for a war that someone else wants to happen.

A war with Iran could begin an extinction event of our own making. It’s ludicrous to contemplate. A base on the moon makes more sense than a war with Iran. And yet, because someone powerful will become richer for it, we will have our war with Iran.

Dear Michele Bachmann,

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Dear Ms. Bachmann,
How are you? I am fine. I saw you on the news this morning, talking to Bob Schieffer. Your hair looked very nice. You said some things, though, that made me worried. You said that Barack Obama failed the USA and Iraq by withdrawing all troops that were not attached to a diplomatic mission. This makes me think that a President Bachmann would have kept the troops there. This would be a huge mistake.

Iraq’s government refused to grant US forces immunity from prosecution. This would leave the US soldiers there wide open to all sorts of legal hassles. Even if our forces made no mistakes, locals could still sue the deep pockets of the USA whenever they felt lucky. Should a soldier make a mistake, he or she would be fully liable for damages. That is bad because it is not good. If you kept soldiers there, Ms. Bachmann, you would put them all in legal jeopardy.

It’s not like the soldiers are going that far away, either. Kuwait still keeps a huge US military presence in the region. Kuwait is next to Iraq. If we had to invade Iraq again, we could do it like we did the last time, and use the troops in Kuwait to do the job.

But then you criticized President Obama for getting the US involved in two more conflicts, so that got me confused. Do you want the US Army involved in foreign conflicts or don’t you? You criticized him for the US’ involvement in Libya, but that involvement is pretty much over. There’s no need to prop up Qaddafi now that he’s dead. The other involvement sent 100 troops into Uganda to help end a reign of terror imposed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which does horrible things.

As a side note, I find it extremely ironic that right-wing commentators questioned Romney’s Christianity but were quick to defend the Christian connections of the LRA, even though the LRA engaged in mass rape, dismemberments, and other atrocities. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever accused Mr. Romney of mass rape, dismemberment, or other atrocities, unless one considers provided broad-based health care to be an atrocity. But I digress.

Obama got the US involved in a war that is now over and another conflict in an advisory capacity. You complained that when the US troops leave Iraq that there would be fewer troops there than in Honduras. I want to know why you think it’s necessary to keep US troops in Honduras. You said that every time the US deposed a dictator, it left troops behind to keep a handle on things. Actually, Ms. Bachmann, the US troops helped to prop up a different dictator until he was able to establish his own death squads and other security apparatus like that. Iraq is trying to not have death squads, so maybe that’s for the best.

You also accused Iran of being ready to pounce on Iraq and snap it up. Iraq won’t let that happen. There are many reasons why the Iraqis, even though most of them are Shi’a, won’t agree to domination by Iran. Biggest among those reasons is that the Arabs of Iraq know that the Persians of Iran have a very hostile opinion of them.

Turkey won’t let it happen, either. They’re active in northern Iraq, fighting the Kurdish PKK there.

Besides, Ms. Bachmann, the war in Iraq pretty much did end about 3 years ago when the Sunni Iraqis decided to stop working with al-Qaeda. Since then, the violence in Iraq dropped by about 90%. Northern Mexico is now more dangerous than Iraq.

You also said we’re being kicked out by the people we liberated. Those people don’t see the US regime as a liberation. While Saddam Hussein was deposed, the subsequent occupation and the rules that went with it were hardly up to the standards of the good ol’ USA. At best, we were protecting Iraqis from their own nasty elements. The Iraqis will have to enact laws and agree to live in a civil, corruption-free society on their own in order to liberate themselves.

What really got me was when you demanded that the Iraqis reimburse the USA for the cost of the invasion and occupation. I suppose they would if they were in turn reimbursed for the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties killed in US military actions. Or is that ingratitude?

Trying to understand your logic is really starting to make my head hurt. Maybe I should just stick to commenting about your hair, which really is nice. Who does it for you?

Also, one more thing: since there’s no way in the world you’ll win the nomination for the GOP’s presidential candidate, who do you endorse? Or are you going to do the “crazy” thing and stay in the race? Just curious.

Sincerely,

Dean Webb

“It’s Been Peaceful So Far…”

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That’s what the newscaster said as the Molotov cocktails flew in the background, engulfing a few policemen in flames. Greece is a mess, this we know. How much of a mess it is, we don’t know so much. The extent of the ails in Greece is past the comprehension of most people, including the Greeks themselves.

Let’s just say the police let the protesters through and the Parliament all resigned. Then what? Even if the people successfully take back their government, have their debts 100% forgiven, and establish a regime of peace and wonderment, they still have to eat. The Greek economy as it is cannot feed its own people. It does not provide enough to sustain the population therein. It can’t change fast enough to help them all. We’ll be looking at a refugee situation in that scenario.

I’m not at all one to support fascist bully-boys putting their jackboots on the throats of freedom, but maybe, just maybe, the Greek police there are actually all that stands between that nation having a depression, the good scenario, and a complete Somali-style state collapse into the hands of warlords, the less desirable scenario.

The people of Greece are enraged because their government lied to them. They also lied to themselves, adding to that anger. What they need to focus on is how they’re going to survive beyond the end of this crisis, because no amount of shouting, pointing, and Molotov tossing is going to put food on the table, let alone take care of the aged, infirm, and orphans.

It’s most certainly *not* peaceful in Greece, and that’s what worries me most.

The Next Iran?

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If there was any doubt Egypt was radical, the latest news should lay those doubts to rest. Egyptian mobs stormed the Israeli embassy and the 86 diplomats there barely escaped with their lives. The USA was able to help negotiate their release, but I now wonder how long it will be before the US embassy faces down a mob of its own.

There’s no question that the people of Egypt hate Israel’s policies regarding Gaza and the West Bank. Whether or not Israel is in the right, the Egyptians hate ’em. The Turks, formerly strong friends of the Israelis, have now declared they’re going to escort flotillas into Gaza. Together, Egypt and Turkey are going to support Palestinian statehood in the UN. The USA has vowed to veto such a measure.

That’s where my fears mount. If the USA torpedoes Palestinian statehood, it sends a clear message to all the Arab protest movements that the USA is not on their side. Yes, the US support of Mubarak to almost the very end and continued US support of the Saudis and Bahrain’s monarchy are also clear messages, and this would be just one more. But it would be a big one. Palestinian statehood is a showdown vote: are you with them or are you against them? If against, then being their enemy makes a nation an enemy to all of Palestine’s friends. That’s when the mobs start looking at the US embassy as a target.

So what if the Egyptian Army tries to put down the mobs? I don’t think that’ll work. Egypt is radical, and will increase in radicalization as barriers crop up in its path. Think French Revolution: it went from constitutional monarchy in 1789 to dead king and Reign of Terror in 1792-94. These things won’t happen all at once, but the wheels are in motion for them to plow ahead.

And what if Egyptians start exporting their revolution in a serious manner? They’ve got a short sea route to Jeddah and their brand of Islam is Sunni, same as most of Saudi Arabia. They’re also Arab, making them much more in common with the Saudis than, say, the Iranians. What if the Egyptians chose to close down the Suez to tanker traffic? These are serious considerations, with very serious consequences.

The USA may choose to honor its commitments to Israel. Doing so, however, comes at a high price. We need to be aware of that and we need to understand that it could give us even more impetus to develop an energy policy that doesn’t depend upon imported oil.

Game Over, Man! Game Over!

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Great article at Truthout about the rise of authoritarianism in the GOP. I called it a while back in this blog, and it’s good to see I’m not alone. The time has come when comparing the GOP to the Nazi party really is valid and not a sensationalist ploy in an argument over policy. It’s part of a sane debate.

In my religion, we have a book of scripture known as The Book of Mormon. In it, there’s an episode when the nation of the protagonists is under severe attack from without and a group of people that want to subvert the freedom and justice of the protagonists refuse to help in the struggle. They obstruct the government of the nation at every step of the way. The protagonists refer to them as “the King-men” and call them traitors to their nation because of their willingness to betray the freedoms of the land for their own benefit. They hate the poor and despise the needy, while proclaiming their own righteous superiority. More and more, this sounds like a description of the Republican party to me.

Yes, there’s rot in the Democrats, as well. But it’s not anywhere near as bad as what’s surfacing in the Republicans. The Democrats can mess up the economy and get us in a foreign policy jam. The Republicans are on a course to create a republican dictatorship. Their politics are ruinous and their ideology poisonous. I know I have friends that are in the GOP, and I know they’re good, principled people. The problem is that the top ranks of the party are shot through with madness, money-grubbing, and megalomania.