Sick... and Twisted?
Well I'm in bed at the moment running a 38.3 degree fever, which kinda sucks. The central heating is on, I'm dressed in a t-shirt and two warm jumprs, I'm under two doonas, I have a hot-water bottle and I'm drinking tea like there's no tmr and yet... I'm still freakin' freezing. I have a feeling that it's something I ate because I have indigestion also. I'd like to say God bless Codral and Immodium and all those people who don't take medicine out of principle are suckers. Even if it is a placebo or eventually kills me prematurely somehow, it was damn worth it. Note: Thomas, if you get a call from me tomorrow morning saying "sorry dude, sick, cant play squash" then I apologise in advance... hopefully I will recover and be able to hit the ball with my usual inaccuracy and lack of power, heh. But that's enough bitching from me, folks.I finished reading a book called "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: True Stories from a War Zone", yes it does sound like a trashy book, thanks to the title (which should really be reconsidered) but I assure you, it's quite good. It's written by 3 20-something people who work for the UN in various war-torn places around the world (including Cambodia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Liberia and Bosnia).
Various people quite high up in the UN tried to have the book banned (allegedly, according to wikipedia, even Kofi Annan) for its controversial criticisms of UN failures in Haiti, Rwanda and Bosnia. It seems a bit silly though, because the main historical events that the book deals with are well documented to be UN failures anyway (ie. 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered in Rwanda in 3 weeks - UN did nothing; 8000 Bosnian Muslims murdered at Srebrenica in the largest mass-murder in Europe since World War 2 - Dutch UN peacekeepers were present but did nothing, they just watched).
The book was very entertaining, gruesome and macabre at times and an interesting perspective on the UN. Interestingly enough, I found that the UN, despite all of its obvious problems, still has a mystical allure that was just underlined by this book. It's an organisation with sooooooo much potential... and one I aspire to eventually work for. I recommend it to anyone who is considering volunteering opportunities overseas... it will stoke your sense of adventure.
I am now reading Chomsky's latest work, "Failed States". It's another interesting collection of organised criticisms aimed right at the heart of the USA's foreign policy and democratic principles. While I want try to go into every specific point the book makes (because I'd end up rewriting it), I would like to highlight some that were of particular interest to me, simply because they are quite obvious and I'd never thought of it that way before... thanks to the biased media on that one.
- Why is it that the USA constantly criticises Iraq for drafting "foreign fighters" like Syrians, Iranians, Palestinians and others, when it has assembled a "coalition of the willing" itself? What's the difference there?
- How can the USA constantly and flagrantly ignore the Geneva Conventions and the International Declaration of Human Rights? You can't count their attrocities on your hands, there are so many, eg: rendition of POWs to other countries where they will be tortured (violation of human rights), torture of POWs in US-run prisons (violation of human rights), Guantanamo Bay (ditto), Abu Ghraib (ditto), starving people in Fallujah of food and water during the siege (against Geneva conventions), attacking medical institutions (razing hospitals, there was only one clinic in Fallujah left standing after that particular assault)... the list just goes on and the war has been going for around 3-4 years already!
- How can the USA criticise Iran for trying to develop nuclear weapons, citing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Firstly, that treaty demands a continuous process of disarmament from nuclear nations, something the USA has completely given up on. Secondly, the attack on Iraq shows that the USA will attack a country for almost no reason at all (as we know, Iraq had nothing close to WMDs, let alone nuclear weapons), while holding off on nations with actually suspected nuclear capabilities (ie. North Korea, Iran). This sends a message to everyone like "we'll attack but nukes are a big deterrent". India has actually stated that the war on Iraq has made it more determined to expand its nuclear program as a deterrent. In this scenario, Iran, given their present level of rhettorical defiance, would be foolish not to develop nuclear weapons. At least they would be a more effective detterent to a US attack. So hence, we see that the war on Iraq has indeed made the world much more unsafe.
- Lastly, internationally it is clear that it is illegal to attack a country if 1. a country physically attacks another country without international approval and 2. a country supports non-state actors in committing violent acts on another country's soil. They may not be quotes but that's the gist. So we see the USA has clearly violated Point 1 with Iraq (and to think they had the gall to cite international approval as their loophole, what approval?) and Point 2 in Nicaragua (long story involving US Government support for brutal counter-revolutionary guerillas to overthrow the socialist government there and allow for US control). And no one seems to care.
Note, I don't need to tell you all that Australia is firmly implicated in all this, and dont get me started on the "oil-for-food" scandal.
Anyway, that's my political rant for the night. Everybody take heed as, I have a feeling, that the CIA is going to bust through my door any minute and take me away to Guantanamo... so ring the alarm if I disappear suddenly. (I'd say ASIO but i'm pretty sure they're generally incompetent).
Cheers y'all, hope this post isn't too daunting but I recorded it so I can later go back to it if I forget this stuff. Still, feel free to comment if you have anything to contribute.
Alex
posted by LX @ 2:03 AM
Comments: 4
