Global
Jeffrey Sachs interviews Norman Solomon about War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine
First you call them terrorists. Then you say you’re defending yourself. Moral problem solved!
You can kill as many of them as you want.
Well, maybe there will be consequences later (and maybe not), but for the moment you have overcome your own moral barriers and can start doing your job as a soldier: killing people. And in the process, you are making the world – your world, not theirs – safe. War is such a paradox: killing one’s way to peace. But apparently it’s humanity’s primary organizing principle.
Citizens of America, citizens of Israel, citizens of Russia . . . citizens of the world . . . this has to change! Now is the time to end war, by which I mean transcend war: disarm, demilitarize. We’re killing the planet; we’re living on the brink of nuclear suicide. Creating and dehumanizing an “enemy” isn’t going to create peace, but rather, just the opposite. We’re spreading hell across the planet, and not only does war always come home, it continues to create an endless cycle of death and destruction – simply to justify itself.
Although Americans may have largely forgotten about Georges Méliès, every moviegoer owes this French motion picture pioneer an immense debt of gratitude. Along with a handful of other film forerunners – including the Lumiere Brothers (for whom a cinema in Beverly Hills is named after), Thomas Edison, Edwin S. Porter, D.W. Griffith (whose creative contribution to the cinematic syntax and art form was as great as his despicable, rancid racism was odiously egregious), etc. – Méliès tremendously enriched the nascent silver screen’s aesthetic and experience. French composer Jean-François Alcoléa and two other musicians are doing film lovers a fabulous service by reviving 11 Méliès shorts set to a scintillating score that is arguably as aurally inventive as Méliès’ original silent films were visually innovative, with the trio’s delightful program Right in the Eye, Live Movie-Concert of George Méliès Films.
Compiled by Gary G. Kohls, MD – Last update: March-6, 2019 (10,485 words)
“Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.” – Excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath, which forbids physicians from administering poisons to patients.
In a conversation in 2020 with Princeton Professor Emeritus, Richard Falk, he told me that historically, colonized nations that have won the legitimacy war have always won their freedom.
Palestine is unlikely to be the exception. The Gaza war, however, is confronting the world with an unprecedented challenge, specifically to governments’ relationship with international law, their obligations to international institutions, such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and others.
There’s a guide at wordsaboutwar.org to some of the standard war language used for big bucks by professional propagandists and for free by almost everyone else who has normalized it and not given it another thought. Manufacturing tools for mass murder is called “the defense industry,” those murdered are called “collateral damage,” the purpose is labeled “the national interest,” etc.
The trouble with talking like the Pentagon or CNN is not just that it helps to — in the words of George W. Bush — catapult the propaganda, but also that it makes war in general seem more acceptable and less horrific than it is.
I want to add a friendly amendment to efforts to reduce the use of Pentagon language. I think CIA language is a problem as well. I think it’s at least as present as war language in Hollywood productions, and in massive child-focused cultural efforts like the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
Inland southern China could then also use existing north-south roads and rails to enable Chinese overland access, for the first time, to southern Thailand's two planned deep-sea ports on the Andaman and Gulf coasts, opening westward to the Indian Ocean and east to the Pacific.
Thailand describes the Land Bridge plan as a faster, shorter, cheaper route for international shipping compared to the narrow, congested, southern Strait of Malacca wedged between Singapore and Indonesia.
The Land Bridge could also become an alternative route if hostilities erupt in the region and the Malacca Strait is blockaded.
Many of the international ships passing Singapore carry Middle Eastern oil and other products to China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and elsewhere in the Pacific.