Global

“The Pentagon said on Saturday that it would make ‘condolence payments’ to the survivors of the American airstrike earlier this month on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan, as well as to the next of kin of those who died in the attack.”

Such a small piece of news, reported a few days ago by the NewYork Times. I’m not sure if anything could make me feel more ashamed of being an American.

Turns out the basic payout for a dead civilian in one of our war zones is . . . brace yourself . . . $2,500. That’s the sum we’ve been quietly doling out for quite a few years now. Conscience money. It’s remarkably cheap, considering that the bombs that took them out may have cost, oh, half a million dollars each.

If we valued human life, we would never go to war. Everybody knows this. It’s the biggest open secret out there, buried under endless public relations blather and — since the bombing of the hospital in Kunduz on Oct. 3, and the killing of 22 staff members and patients — a sort of international legalese.

No, it’s not really fair to blame President Obama personally for the waves of aerial bombing that took more than an hour on October 4 to destroy a neutral hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan, even though it appears on its face to be yet another US war crime.

But it’s totally fair to blame President Obama for giving the world another six years (so far) of President Bush’s policy of bringing chaos and devastation to whatever part of the Middle East happens to be annoying the folks who have decided these things since 2001. Not that it was all bread and roses before that, given the century-plus of unrelenting Western subjugation of the region by direct force and by establishing vicious proxy dictatorships (exhibit #1 is Iran).

A revitalized federal commission on election oversight invites public input just as a major national study predicts massive problems in 2016 because of outmoded election tabulation software.

The much-embattled and belittled U.S. Election Assistance Commission wants public comments to help guide its work following appointment in January of three commissioners and renewed funding after GOP congressional critics sought to shut it down.

Meanwhile, U.S. localities face a crisis in tabulating votes accurately and securely because many of them are using outdated software that can fail or even be hacked. That’s according to America’s Voting Technology Crisis, a study by the Brennan Center, which announced its findings last month at the National Press Cluband in an Atlantic Magazine article.

In an online discussion I asked Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, a fairly straightforward question:

"Will Amnesty International recognize the UN Charter and the Kellogg Briand Pact and oppose war and militarism and military spending? Admirable as it is to go after many of the symptoms of militarism, your avoidance of addressing the central problem seems bizarre. The idea that you can more credibly offer opinions on the legality of constituent elements of a crime if you avoid acknowledging the criminality of the whole seems wrong. Your acceptance of drone murders as possibly legal if they are part of wars immorally and, again, bizarrely avoids the blatant illegality of the wars themselves."

There is video and audio. It exists. The Pentagon says it's critically important. Congress has asked for it and been refused. WikiLeaks is offering $50,000 to the next brave soul willing to be punished for a good deed in the manner of Chelsea Manning, Thomas Drake, Edward Snowden, and so many others. You can petition the White House to hand it over here.

Ho hum, there was another mass shooting at another school a few days ago.

This one was at an Oregon junior college. It  happens to be the 142nd school shooting since Sandy Hook (see: http://everytown.org/article/schoolshootings/ for the entire list), and no mainstream journalist is asking (or, if he knows, his editors are not allowing him to reveal the answer to) the pertinent question that people who truly want to understand the epidemic need to know: “What brain-damaging, addictive psych drug(s) was this brain-altered shooter taking or withdrawing from?”

The world’s two big nuclear militaries are in the same war now in Syria and, if not on opposite sides exactly, certainly not on the same side. A primary, if not the primary, goal of the United States in Syria is overthrowing the Syrian government. A primary, if not the primary, goal of Russia is maintaining the Syrian government. Hostilities are building in each nation toward the other. Republican candidates for president are trying to outdo a certain Democratic candidate for president in bellicosity toward Russia. Forces armed by the U.S. in Syria are eager to shoot down Russian planes. Russia and the U.S. and its allies are clearly unhappy about each other’s flights. Hillary Clinton wants a no-fly zone. Israeli and Russian planes have already come close to fighting. Israel has attacked the base Russia is using, or at least Russia says it has.

Imagine the Syrian war from the point of view of ordinary Syrians from a variety of backgrounds. They are most likely to offer a different perspective and to hold entirely different expectations than most other parties involved.  

A resident of Idlib, a villager from Deraa, a housewife, a teacher, a nurse or an unemployed ex-prisoner from anywhere else in Syria would distinguish their relationship to the war in terminology and overall understanding that is partially, or entirely, opposed to the narrative communicated by CNN, Al-Jazeera, Russia Today, the BBC, Press TV, and every available media platform that is concerned with the outcomes of the war.  

These media tailor their coverage and, when necessary - as is often the case - slant their focus in ways that would communicate their designated editorial agendas, which, unsurprisingly, is often linked to the larger political agenda of their respective governments. They may purport to speak in accordance with some imaginary moral line, but, frankly, none of them do.