About Supporting the Troops, Canadian Style

I just read a headline in today's newspaper "Taliban Smell Victory". I think they could smell victory quite a while ago, or they would not have been able to recruit so many people to run around blowing themselves up and planting land mines.

The point where I realized that the war in Afghanistan was going nowhere was at a CIGI talk given by the Canadian Brigadier General Denis Thompson, April 15, 2008 in Waterloo. He gave a presentation of all the methods Canadian forces were going to employ to pacify Afghanistan. Afterwards was a question and answer, where one person asked "Since the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan, what makes you think Canada can win?"

The Brigadier General answered "Because we were invited there." I knew right away he had made a slip up, because the Russians had been invited too. However, the Q&A was not a debating forum, you simply asked your question and the speaker replied and then on to the next questioner.

http://www.cigionline.org/events/archive/35?page=4

I'm sure if any Taliban were sitting in the room at CIGI with us, they could have smelled victory right there, too.

I do not particularly like being accused of "Not supporting the troops" when I say we are not going to win this one. In order to win, you need to know what you're up against. We lost it a long ago when we allowed the Christian Fundamentalists to make this into a Holy War against Islam. We lost it when we admitted that we could not stop the torturing of detainees. We lost it when we started thinking that we were going to advance the cause of women's liberation in Afghanistan. We lost it when the U.S. decided to pull out and go fight Saddam for the oil, instead of hunting Bin Laden. The fighting itself is now just window dressing. You can't win a war if you can't think, and we cannot think while we have our heads full of ridiculous propaganda.

But when it comes to supporting the troops, I am right there. Recently, a friend of mine died, and I went to a reception after the funeral. The reception was held at the local Royal Canadian Legion. I had no sooner walked in than somebody hissed at me that I was dishonouring the dead and I needed to remove my hat. Apparently the dead he was referring to were the war dead. Later I found out that every branch of the Legion has the same inflexible rule. Hats off to honour the dead. No headgear of any kind. I took my hat off. I want to support the troops after all.

But last week, there was a Halloween party at the Royal Canadian Legion in Campbellford, and somebody dishonoured the dead by wearing a hat. Did somebody tell him to remove it? NO. He was given a prize for his costume. Was there any talk of dishonouring the dead? Apparently not. It sounds like a double standard to me. I cannot wear a baseball cap that says "Canada" on it, but this guy can wear a Ku Klux Klan hood, and carry a noose draped around the neck of a pretend black guy, and wins a prize.

Not one article or comment I have seen about this has anything to say about the "no hats rule". I don't want to get into a ridiculous argument of whether or not this was bad taste. But apparently I'm the only one who remembered that wearing any hat at the Legion hall dishonours the dead, let alone a KKK hood. Next time, you sanctimonious hat haters, how about reminding the racists to remove their hoods, too.

I just want to follow up with the comment that if people at the Legion, presumably with some military sensibilities, cannot figure out whether this KKK guy should be kicked out immediately, then we really have no chance winning a war in Afghanistan, because winning requires some cultural smarts as well as air strikes. If we are going to be idiots, we should stay home and be idiots.

Here are the links to the rule, that requires anyone entering a Canadian Legion (an Armed Forces veterans’ association) premises to remove their hat.

http://www.aroundtaber.com/Default.aspx?alias=www.aroundtaber.com/tleg
www.openschool.bc.ca/features/samples/law12_sample.pdf

And about Sikh Turbans in the Legion???
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/moan-zone/93334-hat-etiquette.html
http://www.williamgairdner.com/poppies-trump-turbans/

Considering all the controversy about wearing headgear of any kind, how come the KKK guy gets a free pass and a prize to dishonour our war dead?

Picture: Bikers supporting troops, from this website. http://westerncanada-un-nato-veterans.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Newt Gingrich's Comments on Obama Make More Sense Turned Around

Recently there was a blatantly racist comment on Obama by Newt Gingrich. Check this website "obamareleaseyourrecords.com" Gingrich described Obama's behaviour as Kenyan. Racist theory says that having one drop of black blood in you will make you an inferior being, and hamper your ability to think rationally. Racists believe only pure white blood will make you a rational intelligent human.

OK that's all I want to say about why his remarks are racist. Now to get down to my purpose here, which is to show how it makes more sense to turn around this propaganda against the people Gingrich supports.

Here is his quote:

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

The statement makes no sense, because Obama was raised by white grandparents, and was not taught about anti-colonial ideas by his father. Here is the reverse, where the assumption is that Obama is rational, and it is the Republicans who are batsh*t crazy:

“What if [The Republicans] are so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand southern Slave-owning Racists behavior, can you begin to piece together [their actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for their behavior.”

Second quote:

“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”

And reversed:

“I think [the Republicans] worked very hard at being a party that is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true, In the Nixon tradition, they were being the party they needed to be in order to achieve the position they needed to achieve . . . they were authentically dishonest.”

Notice first how easy it is to turn it around, and how it even ends up making more sense that way.

Picture: From the same website. "Obamareleaseyourrecords" By the way, it's not really about where he was born, and everybody should know it. The Republicans are just not allowed to say it's because he is partly black, because racism is unpopular with undecided voters.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Back in the Pride parade

Recently, I was sent a copy of an email by an activist friend of mine, which was critical of the group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid". I had no interest in it initially, but on second thought I decided to look into this unusual development.

This group was going to be banned from participating in the upcoming Toronto Gay Pride parade, which has become a major event. But after some protests, the ban was overturned.

My question is why are the gays, lesbians and transsexuals supporting Palestinians, while Palestinians themselves apparently discriminate against homosexuality? At the same time, my understanding is that Israelis were very tolerant.

After I read a bit on this web page, explaining the origin of this group

http://queersagainstapartheid.org/who/

more questions arise and some answers.

The Israeli treatment of Palestinians is probably worse in many ways than the Palestinian discrimination against homosexuals. Not being a homosexual or a Palestinian myself, I am not an expert on these issues, and I may not fully understand the discrimination each one faces. And furthermore, maybe I'm using the incorrect terms such as "queer" instead of LGBT. In which case I apologize, but I am not anti-gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual/queer. I am simply for universal human rights and freedom.

Homosexuals, even in Islamic countries, do not have their rights taken away unless they are "discovered", and even then, their entire families are not punished by having their houses bulldozed. Homosexuals are not marked from birth to be denied housing and free access to jobs. Homosexual leaders are not regularly targeted by missile attacks in densely populated areas.

On the other hand, I am told that homosexuality is something that has been around a long time, and apparently homosexuals exist all over the world, and throughout history, in many antagonistic cultures.

I find it interesting that a homosexual group such as this would take the trouble to speak out in support of other people (like the Palestinians) who have been denied their rights, even though most Palestinians may not be queer themselves, and may discriminate against homosexuals.

Meanwhile Israel has apparently been the only country in the middle East to openly tolerate homosexuals, while gays are persecuted in the Islamic Arab countries.

Here is Wikipedia on Israel, Palestine and homosexuals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel

Meanwhile, this right wing web page calls gay marriage in Israel "Worse then the holocaust" and "far worse to allow the homosexualization of the Holy Land than to give back land to the Arabs" I guess Rabbi Levin thinks it is better to give the Holy Land back to the Arabs than to allow homosexuality.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06112107.html

Also, homosexuals can still be (illegally) murdered in Israel, presumably by Orthodox Jews:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1914391,00.html

Then, in a weird turnaround, Israeli settlers plan "Jewish Pride" parades through Arab neighbourhoods in retaliation for "Gay Pride" parades in Israel.

http://www.alternet.org/world/140934/right-wing_israeli_extremists_using_gay_rights_to_justify_incursions_into_arab_villages/

And a long article about the politicization of homosexuality, and how it is affected by the occupation of Palestine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/02/israel.gayrights

And furthermore, a documentary on the Iranian practice of forcing sex change operations on homosexuals.

http://current.com/news-and-politics/76312142_transsexuality-in-iran.htm

It's hard for me to draw any conclusions, but still, I find it interesting that Gays, who have plenty of problems of their own, are not so self absorbed that they can't also express support for fellow human beings who are suffering from discrimination for a different reason.


Picture: Israeli gay pride parade

Lessons Learned from the Nazis

If you Google "lessons learned from the Nazis" you will see only 5 hits, and one of those is this blog. In all the billions of web pages out there on every topic possible, maybe this indicates that we have not learned a lot. (BTW "Lessons learned from Vietnam: 20,700 hits, "Lessons learned from the depression": 109,000. If you check this and I am wrong, please leave a comment, but remember that Google does change slightly with time)

What did we learn from the Nazis? Let's do it like a Letterman top ten list, start with the least important. I have actually 11.

11 - We need an international institution where the nations of the world can come together and discuss their differences, and solutions to war. That's why the UN was set up, and almost every country in the world participates.

10- Dictatorships tend to declare war with a lot less justification than true liberal democracies. But even having a democracy is no guarantee against being a warlike country. In fact some democracies are actually fake, where people are killed if they vote for the opposition. Or ballots are not fairly counted.

9- Every country in the world claims to be acting only in self defense, including the Nazis. Hitler frequently declared he was a man of peace. So words of peace alone are not a reliable indicator of peaceful intentions.

8- Arms buildups are not wrong all by themselves, but the size and intensity may be an indication of future trouble.

7- Nobody is allowed to use the legal defence "I was only following orders" when they are torturing and killing civilians.

6- Torturing people is wrong, that's why we have the Geneva convention.

5- Group punishments, and reprisals against innocent civilians for sabotage and terrorism are wrong.

4- Invading a foreign sovereign state is wrong. No excuses are permitted such as "They were mistreating their people" or "they attacked us first". The only acceptable way to invade a foreign country today would be with the full support of the rest of the international community, such as the UN, for example.

3- Hate propaganda against weak ethnic/religious groups is wrong, although this must be balanced against freedom of speech. At the very least, the ethnic/religious group should be given equal air time or print pages to respond to hate propaganda. And it is not only about the Jews, hate propaganda could be about any weak, minority group.

2- Gassing civilians to death based on religion/race/politics is wrong. Also wrong to do it based on intelligence. And not just gassing alone, any form of mass killing that you might ever invent in the future would still be wrong.

And finally, number one, numero uno, in all caps because it deserves it: NOBODY IS THE MASTER RACE

These are the lessons we should have learned from the Nazis. But in the sixty or so years since WW2 ended, we did not seem to really understand these lessons. We still can justify our own Nazi-like actions. And we are still reluctant to find out the truth about what is really going on right under our noses.

No matter how bloodthirsty and warlike we are, we always manage to compare ourselves to the Jews under Hitler, and compare our enemies to the Nazis. So it seems we have not really learned that much.

The most ironic example of ignoring the lessons from the Nazis is the Jews themselves, who are now occupying a country they invaded 40 years ago, and are still moving Jewish settlers into this occupied land, putting up barriers and military checkpoints up for Muslims, disallowing Muslims the freedom of housing, travel, or commerce. And of course they still compare themselves to the poor downtrodden Jews under Hitler all in the name of "Israel has the right to defend herself". Or maybe they did learn some lessons, but all the wrong ones.

The Debate on Health Care for Palestinians

Today I came across a news article in the Jerusalem Post about a conference in England about health care for Palestinians under occupation of Israel. It was titled "Oxford U. blames Israel for poor Palestinian healthcare". In this article, several issues came up, that may not have been well known before, and perhaps merit some attention.

First, a little background. Since 1967, Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories. The living conditions of Palestinians have been a concern to many people around the world. Even those who are not Palestinian themselves have this feeling, fuelled by news reports from some sources. Is there any truth these allegations that Palestinians receive poor health care? This article in the Jerusalem Post could shed some light on the matter.

Just to clarify one point, and this comment was also made on this website, it was not actually Oxford University that hosted the conference, it was the "Society for Medicine".

So on with the facts. The conference, "Healthcare Under Siege", described itself this way

“In this conference, the speakers will draw on their personal experiences in the occupied Palestinian territories to expose the devastating effect of crippling economic blockades and military attacks on civilian health and access to medical care in Gaza,”

You can already tell there is going to be Israeli-bashing in this conference, from the words "devastating effect" "crippling blockades" "military attacks on civilian". And the Jerusalem Post also points out that George Galloway will be attending, a British politician who is famous for bringing relief supplies to Palestinians, and is very outspoken in his criticism of Israel and the USA.

But because the article is actually in a Jewish newspaper, naturally there are also some nice things to be said about the medical care Palestinians receive from Israel. Although I do not think these statements were made at this conference. I will try to summarize them here anyway.

Lord Leslie Turnberg, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, and has visited two hospitals in Israel, made these comments for the Jerusalem Post

• “At Safra Children’s Hospital [Tel Hashomer] at any one time, there are 30-40 children from Gaza with their families receiving specialist care such as cardiac surgery or bone marrow transplantation"
• "More than half of [Safra Children's Hospital] cardiac surgery patients are from Gaza."
• "At the Schneider Children’s Hospital [in Petah Tikva] we saw many Palestinian children being cared for"
• "A pediatrician from Gaza spent 18 months training in pediatric oncology" [At Schneider]
• "There are many such interactions, but they remain largely unpublished, in part at least because of the fear of Hamas,”

Also quoted in this article, is David Katz, professor of Immunology at University College London, speaking about the "Health Care Under Siege" conference. Although he was not quoted about the actual health care of Palestinians, he was quoted about the credibility of the panel.

“Unfortunately, this panel does not inspire confidence and suggests a propaganda publicity stunt. Surely an eminent epidemiologist like Sir Iain should be circumspect about associating with George Galloway, or indeed with Dr. Horton, whose poor track record of judgment on the MMR [Measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine saga speaks for itself.”

Finally, Stuart Stanton, professor emeritus at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, and chairman of Hadassah UK (Hadassah I think is an Israeli hospital.) Was quoted as saying

• "Israeli hospitals don’t discriminate."
• “Hadassah, and other hospitals in Israel, brings first-class medical attention to the Palestinian population,”
• “Hadassah in Jerusalem saved the lives of Palestinian suicide bombers injured while killing hundreds of Israelis." (I paraphrased this a bit, just left out a little bit of rhetoric, that's all. You can check the original article if you don't believe me.)
• "we save lives of Palestinian babies with severe heart defects."
• "we conduct dozens of collaborative research and clinical projects with Palestinian physicians in a variety of medical and health areas.”

How can we interpret these pro-Israeli comments? Well for one thing, we seem to be missing all the anti Israeli facts, if there were any presented at this conference. Such as what is the relative survival rate for infants, and all the other yardsticks by which we usually measure health care. Not being there myself, I cannot even know if these Palestinians in Israeli hospitals were getting their health care for free or if they were paying for it. I know that in Canada, we make Americans pay.

It may be true that Israeli Hospitals don't discriminate, but it is also true that Palestinians get discriminated against at checkpoints on the way to the hospitals. I would like to know if an Israeli checkpoint would ever let a Palestinian ambulance through in an emergency.

Hadassah hospital is supposed to have saved the life of a suicide bomber who killed hundreds of Israelis.  Obviously, if a suicide bomber is still alive, the Israelis are going to try to save his life for security reasons, so that they can interrogate him, and get valuable information to prevent it from happening again.  This is not really a humanitarian issue, and says nothing about the general health care of Palestinians.  It's more of a reminder that any Palestinian may also be a suicide bomber.

I would have to say, that in the balance I found this article quite unconvincing in presenting a case for Palestinians getting "first class medical attention", although I can well imagine that if a Palestinian could get into a Jewish hospital, they would be taken care of as human beings, and not made to suffer. Just like me in an American hospital.

Picture: Palestinian Ambulance being checked out by Israeli soldiers. Problem? There may be a bomb on board, which sadly is a possibility with all Palestinian ambulances. One of the many actual problems of health care for Palestinians.