Amy Goodman, host of Democracynow! talks with former president of the United Nations General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto.
I admit my knowledge of the inner workings of the UN is not as extensive as I’d like, but even in my small understanding, I’ve always wondered at the veto powers enabled to the few select countries in the security council. Why should they be given so much power above the rest? How does this structure represent a democracy?
Father Miguel D’Escoto asks;
How much power do corporations, and the industrial military complex, have over the United States?
More people need to ask these questions.
Right now there is a growing movement within the US, (The Tea Party), led by the Political Right to incense the people into a frenzy over the Government. What’s so sad about this is how easily people are misled by this information. The fault for the inequality, the housing crisis, the bail outs, it’s not because of the Administration. It’s because of the corporate influence, the countless lobbyists, and the big bankers that all infect, corrupt and infiltrate the government.
Lets remove all campaign finance, all corporate contributions and lower the wages for political leaders and see what happens. I have a good feeling, that we would see some real change and some real progress.
I was reading into more detail about the role of the US within the US, and in the section on Iraq, one sentence stands out.
Following the overthrow of the former Iraqi government, the Iraq Survey Group led an exhaustive search of Iraq for WMD. Ultimately no deployable WMD of any kind were found and all WMD production facilities had been found to be inactive since 1991.
An entire war, for nothing, for oil, could have been avoided if the UN had been strong enough to stand up to the US. Another thing Miguel mentions in this interview is how uneducated the average citizen is on how many people died during the Iraqi war.
Over one million people.
This leads me to another thought that I may or may not have mentioned before about war. People talk about the fear we have about World War III. It’s the reasons we’re still armed, it’s the reason the US insists it needs a nuclear arsenal large enough to destroy the world five times over.
Well, i have a news flash, it’s already happened. Not only that, but we’re chest deep in World War IV. After, all what constitutes a world war? How many countries have to be involved before we admit it’s a world war?
Noun 1. world war;
– a war in which the major nations of the world are involved
- the waging of armed conflict against an enemy; “thousands of people were killed in the war”
Hmm! Ok, let’s look at Iraq!
How many countries were involved? Well in the coalition of the willing there were 49 different countries.
The 49 countries are Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Republic of Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Tonga, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan.
Now, a few of those country don’t really have a military presence and a few withdrew support. But that’s still quite a lot of different Nations all over the world going to war.
So that’s a check. Now let’s look at some numbers.
The numbers are a little overwhelming.
There are so many difference sources that estimate anywhere from seven hundred thousand to over a million. From what I’ve gathered, because of the intense media black out that was prevalent throughout the Iraqi war, concrete information is hard to find. However, most sources I’ve come upon are in agreement that the death toll has risen above one million.
In reading through the wiki articles, I came upon a few points that I wasn’t even expecting to read about. The US invasion has done nothing to help the people of Iraq. I think every single American, and Canadian, and everyone with a computer for that matter should fully inform themselves on the full aspect of this war. To start with, the treatment of the LGBT community has deteriorated into a form of genocide.
Since the US invasion and the rise of sharia law, gays have been routinely rounded up, raped and murdered. There are also claims that lesbians are suffering rapes by men trying to ‘cure’ their homosexuality. Most gay men in Iraq now live hidden and transsexuals once noticeable in Baghdad have vanished. Iraqi officials generally refuse to even discuss the situation or acknowledge homosexuality.
I just don’t understand how anyone can justify war.
As I continue reading… the more desperate I feel. We have to stop it somehow. The next point I read reminded me of the bus driver who was so sure we were improving the quality of life by building schools and hospitals.
A November 11, 2006 Los Angeles Times article[66] reports:
- The [Iraq] nation’s health has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, said Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist. “They were at the forefront”, he said, referring to healthcare just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. “Now they’re looking more and more like a country insub-Saharan Africa.”
A November 9, 2006 International Herald Tribune article reported what Iraq’s Health Minister, Ali al-Shemari, said about the issue:
Al-Shemari said Iraq needed at least 10 years to rebuild its infrastructure, and that the medical situation in the country was “gloomy.” There was a shortage of medical supplies, which sometimes took months to reach the country from abroad, while roadblocks prevented people from getting to hospitals, he said. No hospital has been built in Iraq since 1983, and the country’s 15,000 available hospital beds were well short of the 80,000 beds needed. The minister also noted that many doctors had left the country. “We need help from anybody,” Al-Shemari said.[21]
Why is it so much easier for us to bomb than to help?
Then I came across this small paragraph about the poor children who’ve had to spend the last 7 years going through this.
Seventy percent of children are suffering from trauma-related symptoms according to a study of 10,000 primary school students in the Shaab section of north Baghdad, conducted by the Iraqi Society of Psychiatrists and the World Health Organization. “We’re now finding an elevation of mental health disorders in children — emotional, conduct, peer, attention deficit,” according to Iraqi psychiatrist Hashimi. “A number are even resulting in suicide.”
What kind of world is this? Where the end results of war are not taken into consideration. What kind of people will these children grow up to become? We’re not building democracies. We’re profiting at the expense of their lives.
Once again I realize I’ve been using “we’re”. I find it easier to speak from the point of view of the western world, since those are the people I’m usually hoping to give food for thought to. I do this because I strongly feel that we, the people, have the power to stop this. We need to raise our voices, all of them.
I guess this is a good place to stop. I need to take a moment.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Gandhi.
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind…”
What you’re thinking about!