Inkwell Institute

First of all….do you understand what isolationism is?

Isolationism is a foreign policy which combines a non-interventionist military policy and a political policy of economic nationalism (protectionism). In other words, it asserts both of the following:Non-interventionism – Political rulers should avoid entangling alliances with other nations and avoid all wars not related to direct territorial self-defense.

Protectionism – There should be legal barriers to control trade and cultural exchange with people in other states.

Now we have an understanding of the topic…….but does the US seem to be moving in that direction?

In a recent Pew Poll the following results were recorded:

a plurality of Americans — 49 percent — think the US should “mind its own business internationally.”. Not surprising that the country is turning inward during tough economic times, but this is still a dramatic number.Matched only by this: for the first time a plurality of Americans — 44 percent — see China as the world’s leading economic power. Only 27 percent name the U.S.

Read the rest of the Pew findings HERE.

The early history of the US was full of the sentiments isolationism:

Proponents of non-interventionism distinguish their polices from isolationism through their advoacy of more open national relations and free trade. Examples of supporters of non-interventionism are Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both favored nonintervention in European Wars while maintaining free trade.  (Thanx to wiki for the info)

The US was NEVER fully isolated….we have always involved ourselves in other countries affair…..but in a public face we were isolationists….all that public BS came to an end first with our involvement in WW1 and finally was eliminated as a public face with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US has been nosed in to the world ever since.

But today it appears that the American people are embracing the idea of isolationism a little at a time…the recession is making Americans worry about their personal economy…..they are starting to think that all revenue needs to be used here in this country….that wars and our foreign policy are using up funds that could save Main Street from a total collapse….

As the job situation gets worse and prolonged the more Americans are saying that we should mind our own business and let the rest of the world take care of themselves…..

Another part of the whole isolationism thing is protectionism…..I recently wrote on this phenom before….basically it is a return to “buy American”.  As jobs are lost the call for protectionism gets louder and louder….some see it as a way to protect what few jobs are left in this country…….as the situation on Main Street gets worse the calls for more of an isolation posture will grow louder.

As a side note…..I have always supported the idea of using American revenue here at home first and then if there is any left over then let the world ask for our help….charity begins at home….and the United States is home.

by Johan A. Wattberg

Hi, I’m an electronicoholic.

I love electronics. If I had to put myself in a substance abuse program it would be gadget-cravings anonymous.

I’m also a Macoholic. I realize this is a disease because Apple’s release of a software upgrade should not make anyone this indecently excited.  I count the days before the big Apple conventions, I join forums that are discussing what might be released, I follow direct feeds from the events, because Judas Priest forbid, I might miss something. It’s a disease, I’m the first to admit I’m afflicted.

Anyway this means an even bigger problem for me. If we exclude the economic factor (gadgets cost money) and instead focus on my personal philosophical persuasion – one directly sees a problem. Electronics spell out both human conflicts and environmental conflicts; the justification for buying gadgets is many times outweighed by how much harm it does. This has caused me some stress so I decided to look into it and find a solution.

So what’s the problem?

Electronics use a bunch of minerals to work. Many of these minerals are found in impoverished parts of the world where the labor is either simply exploited or worse; the mining for minerals is directly linked to funding armed conflicts. The purchasing of electronics many times funds some of the greatest human rights violators in the world. Recently, much attention has been drawn to the Democratic Republic of Congo regarding this issue. It’s a sad truth. The production of, and the discarding of, electronics is also a major environmental problem. Plastics, metals etc. are, as we all know, something Mother Nature doesn’t naturally welcome back into her folds.

There’s a ton of information about this on the web so I won’t get into it anymore here. Instead I’d like to focus on what we as consumers can do when we’re thinking of buying these undeniably appealing products.

Ideas for reconciling ones’ conscience

1)    Fill out this online form which has taken the work out of asking companies for better products:
CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME

2)    Read this:
About DR Congo mainly

3)    Make your voice heard by making a video, writing a blog post or spread some flyers around your town, asking people to get involved.

4)    Don’t throw your electronics in the trash – contact the company and ask if they have a recycling program for their products – many companies do!

5)    Look at eco-cell.com when it’s time to recycle your old cell phone.

6)    When eyeing a product, send the company an e-mail before buying, asking if they have conflict free products, and if they don’t, what they intend to do about it.

7)    Need before greed. This is by far the hardest one for me. Think before you buy, is this something you really need? Does your need really outweigh the funding of wars and environmental devastation? How long will you keep the product?

Reality

Right now the picture looks pretty bleak. It’s hard to connect the dots between what we buy and where it came from, especially during this season when buying stuff is all the rage, but I’m hopeful.

I’ve started buying second-hand electronics and recycling the obsolete, that’s one step. The next is to really apply the need before greed factor – and then when need wins, really try to connect with the company and not buy until I get a response from them.

If enough people do this then we have a real shot at changing things, and I can’t think of a better time to do this than during the holidays.

Spread the word – make it viral (I’m hashtagging #conflictfreeelectronics). If everyone says just one thing, that’s one hell of a loud voice at the end of the day.

The “blood diamond” isn’t the only precious commodity financing warfare in the world. In the rich soil of the DR Congo there is gold and other valuable minerals that are financing the suppression, torture and murder of more people than many dare imagine.

On November 29, 2009, CBS 60 Minutes aired a segment regarding this. It’s well worth the 13 minutes.

UPDATE 13 December 2009

I just finished reading an interesting blog related to this subject regarding lacking data. Give it a read, it at least got me thinking and I’d hate myself if I closed my mind off to new information.

Texas in Africa – Show me the data

]]> http://ecumenicalwomen.org/2009/11/26/girl-interrupted/ Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:22:45 +0000 Ecumenical Women http://ecumenicalwomen.org/2009/11/26/girl-interrupted/

“When the mayi-mayi (community-based militia groups in the DRC) attacked my village, we all ran away. In our flight, the soldiers captured all the girls, even the very young. Once with the soldiers, you were forced to marry one of the soldiers. Whether he was as old as your father or young, bad or nice, you had to accept. If you refused, they would kill you. This happened to one of my friends. They would slaughter people like chickens. They wouldn’t even bury the bodies they slaughtered—they would even feed on their flesh. I even saw a girl who refused to be ‘married’ being tortured.”

Jasmine, 16, the DRC

By Paola Salwan, Programme Assistant for Africa, Middle East and Europe at the World YWCA, and co-founder of the Blog Café Thawra

On this UN International Day to End Violence Against Women, I would like to raise an important and rather invisible subject: the issue of the Girl Soldier.

International Criminal Law considers the enrolment of children as warriors as a war crime in many texts, including the Rome Statute of 1998 establishing the International Criminal Court (Article 8)2)b)xxvi)):

For the purpose of this Statute, “war crimes” means: (…)

(b)     Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts (…)

(xxvi)     Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities.

The Rome Statute also classifies enlisting children as a war crime in the setting of a non international conflict, at article 8)2)e)vi). This is of enormous importance as contemporary wars tend to be internal rather than international, and foreseeing these cases can prevent war criminals to get away with a “Would the international community kindly don’t interfere with the my country’s issues please? I’m busy killing, raping and enrolling people here”. The ICC is thus currently trying Democratic Republic of the Congo warlord Thomas Lubanga for conscripting, enlisting, and using child soldiers.

It is reported that girls make up for 1/10 to 1/3 of the child soldiers in armed conflicts, depending on the country.The issue of the girl soldier is something that doesn’t get a lot of attention within the International Community; yet it should, as it crystallises all types of violence women and girls have to bear in times of peace.

For there is nothing better than a good crisis to get a society flaws out in the open.

Why, and how, do girls become soldiers? There could be many reasons to that, including that the girl voluntarily joins the militias. Girls are also forced into waging war, whether physically or emotionally, by blackmailing them: “If you do not come and fight for us, oh well, we’ll just torture and kill your family”. Indeed, girls are central to the war machine: they act as sex slaves for the soldiers, fight like boys and men, and perform all kinds of chores. No wonder they’re regularly abducted.

However, let us dig a teensy bit deeper into the so-called “voluntary” joining of girls in armed conflicts. Studies have shown that girl soldiers joined militias to escape domestic violence or abuse, but also in an attempt as self-protection: some girls declared preferring to go and fight rather than wait for militiamen to come and rape or kill them. Summing up, girls tend to join national violence to escape from the domestic violence they have to bear, and to shield themselves from the seemingly inevitable abuse they will face eventually.

Just because they were born a girl.

Needless to say, girl soldiers will be abused by their brothers in arms or by their supervisors, sometimes getting pregnant, which can assure them the eternal rejection of their community and family, sometimes getting HIV/AIDS or other STDs, sometimes both.

I have to say, I had a hard time digesting the extraordinary amount of violence, stigma, abuse and torture that girl soldiers have to face: they are enrolled because of violence (whatever its form), used (in all the acceptations of the word) and rendered afterwards to civil life, full of hatred, to bear the enormous stigma and contempt of their society, having lost all sense of self. Their reinsertion into civil life is even more difficult than for their male counterparts, because of the women and girls’ status in the society: in most societies, raped and abused women are synonymous of disgrace and dishonour, and a girl who has been known not only to be a fighter but also to carry a militiaman’s child is to be ostracized. That the girl is a victim doesn’t even come into the equation with this reasoning.

Civil society organisations and the international community set up rehabilitation centres, providing the children with education, counselling and health services. Sadly, the advocacy for rehabilitating girl soldiers will be long and painful, so set in stone is the prejudice towards these girls. However, it is also important to note the strength and resilience of the former girl soldiers, who, even though they have been maimed, tortured, abused, raped and ostracized, carry on living, day by day, nurturing their hopes and licking their wounds.

Every day should be the International Day to End Violence Against Women Day.

For more information and testimonies:

http://womennewsnetwork.net/2009/01/13/ugandagirlsoldier809/

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/21545/

http://intlawgrrls.blogspot.com/2009/02/girl-soldiers-in-sierra-leone.html

http://www.childsoldiersglobalreport.org/

For years now I have said that the wars we are now fighting are NOT personal…..only a handful of people are truly effected by these actions……I have also said that if the American people had more skin in these things then the war would have ended awhile back……but now following along those lines someone was come up with an idea……

Influential US lawmakers on Thursday called for levying a new income tax to pay for the war in Afghanistan, warning its costs pose a mortal threat to efforts like a sweeping health care overhaul.

The group included House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey; Representative John Murtha, who chair that panel’s defense subcommittee; and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

The proposal, a heavily symbolic measure seen as having next to no chance of becoming law, would impose a war surtax on income beginning in 2011 — though it would allow the president to delay implementation by one year upon deciding the US economy is too weak to sustain such a tax shift.

It would also exempt members of the US military who have served in combat since the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes, their families, and families of soldiers who died as a result of combat.

The measure would create a three-tiered change in income tax with the goal of paying for all of the war’s costs.

Couples earning up to 150,000 dollars per year would see a one-percent increase in their regular tax level, from 15 percent currently to 15.15 percent.

For those making between 150,000-250,000 dollars per year or 250,000 dollars or above, the president would have to set the rate increase high enough to pay for the remaining war costs, and in such a way that the middle-tier earners pay half what the top earners do.

Currently, the war costs roughly 68 billion dollars per year, which would mean that the middle tier would see its rate rise from 28 percent to 29.5 percent, while the top would climb from 33 percent to 36.6 percent, according to a person familiar with the plan.

As said in the article it has little to no chance of being passed…..but it is a thought……I also think that it would help make these wars more personal than they are now and in doing so would fuel a new anti-war movement…….which in turn could help end the killings on both sides…..

I need to pat myself on the back a bit (why not….it is my right) back on 27 February 2007 I called for a “Patriot Tax”….but my idea was to fund all the assistance that vets needed and were not getting at the time……this latest thing from Obey is along those same lines….

Remember back in the day, during the early days of our wars of the Bush admin when Kerry said if you do not go to school then they only hope for a job was to enlist in the army?  Remember?

Let us see, there is NO money for student loans, Obama is trying and may succeed, but there is NO money for those loans……there are NO jobs to speak of…the economy, especially the job market just plain sucks….what is a person to do?

The WaPo is reporting that the military is doing well with the economic downturn:

For the first time in more than 35 years, the U.S. military has met all of its annual recruiting goals, as hundreds of thousands of young people have enlisted despite the near-certainty that they will go to war.

The Pentagon, which made the announcement Tuesday, said the economic downturn and rising joblessness, as well as bonuses and other factors, had led more qualified youths to enlist.

The quality of recruits also improved, with about 95 percent reporting that they had received high school diplomas; last year, 83 percent of the Army’s active-duty recruits had diplomas, short of the goal of 90 percent. The active-duty Army this year admitted only 1.5 percent of recruits who scored in the lowest acceptable category on the standard qualification test; in recent years, that figure had reached nearly 4 percent.

Sen. Kerry while not high on my list as liberals, but he was telling the truth about the military and the Right tried to crucify him for the comment….made him look like a person who hates America….yada yada….you know the usual fear crap that the Right has become famous for in the past.

So many pundits are taunting this as something good….but it was predictable….no job…no school….lousy economy….join the Army…

By Paola Salwan, Programme Assistant for Africa, Middle East and Europe at the World YWCA

This week I just finished reading Tears of the Desert, by Halima Bashir, a very moving and tough biography about a female Sudanese doctor during the height of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Being a Zaghawa, a black tribe from Southern Sudan, Halima soon discovers that her people, along with many other black tribes, have become the target of the central government and their de facto militias, the Janjaweeds, “Arab” nomad tribes. Being an educated woman who didn’t make distinctions between whom she was treating and curing, she stood out, and was therefore punished for it.

Nothing was spared to her: she endured torture, gang rape, threats, and loss.

Her pain was so intense, I cringed even reading about it, it was as if I could feel the atrocities being perpetrated on my body. This book got me to wonder about rape and its use during armed conflicts, but also on the state of a “humanity” that loses its rights to call itself that as soon as it starts violating bodies designed to give life.

Rape has been officially instated as a Crime Against Humanity in many law texts, including the Rome Statute that puts in place the International Criminal Court. Article 7 of the Statute entails that:

“For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(a)     Murder;

(b)     Extermination;

(c)     Enslavement;

(d)     Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

(e)     Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

(f)     Torture;

(g)     Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

(h)     Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

(i)     Enforced disappearance of persons;

(j)     The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

Rape has also been established as a War Crime according to article 8)2)b)xxii) of the same Statute, and sexual violence in times of armed conflicts has been sanctioned in resolutions 1325, 1820 and 1888 of the UN Security Council.

Sadly, rape has many military uses for soldiers and militiamen in times of armed conflicts. Indeed, it is a means for them to, in their minds, “dishonour” the women they are raping, but it also serves as a way of torturing these women, especially if they do not kill them at the end of the rape. In the book, Halima is atrocely raped, and the soldiers that did it make a point of not killing her so she has to live with the memory of it until the day she dies.

Beside the psychological deadly effect of rape, sexual violence is also a true weapon of war, with consequences that can last long after the conflict has subsided. Thus, rape can be used in order to intentionally transmit HIV, the violence of the sexual act increasing the odds of the victim catching the virus. Rape is also a means to achieve ethnic cleansing: by raping women and getting some of the victims pregnant, war criminals consider they are cleaning the community they’re trying to wipe out by inserting their owns genes into it. This sickening logic ensures that the woman who gives birth to the “mixed” child will not only be an outcast because she has been raped, as it still happens a lot, but also because her child will share characteristics of the dreaded executioner.

It seems that for all these reasons, sexual violence is on the rise in armed conflicts, inflicting pain and sufferings beyond belief to women who have to endure it. For each Halima, who has managed to overcome this dreadful situation and dared to speak out, how many shattered lives and trauma?

In the case of Darfur, the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Mr Luis Moreno Ocampo,  has issued an international arrest warrant against the president of the Republic of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir, on the grounds of Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes, in line with the powers that the ICC Statute gives to the Prosecutor in its articles 13)c) and 15).

Nevertheless, even though the prosecutor was entitled to issue the warrant, Omar Al Bashir can not be tried at the ICC as Sudan has not signed the ICC Statute and has not given jurisdiction to the Court.

The path to justice will be long, and there will still be many obstacles ahead, especially considering the political implications of the trial of a head of an oil-rich state backed by China, but International Law seems the only lawful means to defend the victims of the awful conflict.

Should the ICC fail in its prosecution, civil society should advocate for the implementation of an ad hoc tribunal instated on the basis of Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

So that the tormentors of Halima and so many more men, women and children are finally punished.

Halima, hidden behind a pseudonym and a veil

The more programs that the Obama group puts out there trhe call for them to be budget neutral….that is not adding to the deficit…..good gig if it can be found…..

This is a joke in the first place……when was the last time conservatives were fiscally responsible?  Reagan comes to mind…..it is becoming a tiresome argument at best….

Let us go with health care for a moment….the latest CBO report says that it will cost $820 billion to pass the health bill issued by Bauccus and his gang of insurance agents….but will it be budget neutral?  Obama has said he will NOT sign a bill that adds to the deficit…..good sentiment…….

But can it be accomplished?  Uh huh….but some would not like the solution…..Between the years 2002 to 2008 the wars we are fighting have cost $1.6 trillion….I do not recall anyone asking that these wars were budget neutral….Sorry I digress…..

If we stop all that stuff then there is more than enough cash to cover everyone in the US with cash left over for helping education out…..

God, how could I have been so silly as to think that the people of this country would be more important than fighting wars….after all the defense industry needs its corporate welfare…..

When will the citizens of this country tire of the silliness of the political system?  When will the people realize that others in our country need our help?  This why some people stop voting…..their choices one bowl of shit or the other bowl of shit….not much of a choice if one wants American citizens to succeed and be well….

Just a thought……

peacekeeper, photo: AP / Hussein Malla

(source)

This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen.

Bodies as battleground

The use of rape, genital torture and other types of sexual violence (or gender based violence) is common in most military conflicts, and is often a conscious strategic choice rather than exceptional excesses by individual soldiers. This kind of violence now kills and maims more African women than the combined effects of cancer, malaria, road accidents and war (see here). The conflicts in Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan and in other countries, also outside Africa, have left countless women and children the victims of sexual atrocities.

Violence against women has been called “the most pervasive yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world” (see here) and can be exercised on many different levels: that of the individual and the household (domestic violence), the level of culture or ethnic groups etc.

In the conflicts in Congo, for example, all parties have used sexual violence, including the UN Peacekeeping Forces (called MONUC, see here). I want to disrupt the automatic association that peacekeeping is the alternative to military violence. I want to show that peacekeeping may increase conflicts and insecurity. While the gender relationships in certain ethnic groups are seen as unequal and violent by the West, we in the West often judge without examining our own behavior. Gender violence doesn’t get the attention it deserves, especially gender violence in or by the West.

What if peacekeeping equals violence?

What happens when the solution to a conflict is another problem? The presence of UN peacekeepers may indeed keep the peace, but may and does sometimes lead to gender based violence inflicted by the peacekeepers on the local population. Peacekeeping missions may encourage prostitution by local women, especially if poverty levels are such that this is the only trade these women have (Martin 2005:15-16). As in all prostitution settings, rape is often disguised as prostitution.

However, the problem is not limited to sexual violence. Peacekeeping troops may also experience a culture shock that can escalate into racism and even racist violence. In the Somali mission, Somali men were seen as homosexuals (as in Somalia it is common for men to hold hands). In addition, the extreme situations in which peacekeepers often find themselves, can provoke attitudes like “Why even bother, these people are backward and barbarians”.

In the eyes of the local populations, peacekeeping can be seen as military conquest (Jeong 1999:22-23), especially when the violent actions of these peacekeepers isn’t of a sexual nature but the result of abuses of power (Martin 2005:15-16). Such abuses are linked to the impunity and immunity that normally apply to peacekeeping forces.

Accusations of sexual violence or abuses of power by peacekeepers are hard to investigate, either because the local judicial system has collapsed (which is often the case when there is a need for peacekeepers), or because the international community and/or the country of origin of the peacekeepers fail to take notice. An incident in Somalia when a boy was tortured for hours and killed by UN peacekeepers forced people to notice the often contradictory nature of peacekeeping.

It is important to keep in mind the culture where peacekeepers come from (F&N 1994:14-15), because a culture shock can lead to violence or other types of human rights violations. Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that peacekeepers are soldiers, and some of the assumptions that guide military behavior are detrimental to conflict resolution processes. Current military training and logic still contains strong “them-us” and “win-lose” dichotomies and condones human rights abuses in the name of security. Moreover, the presence of armed forces can escalate the sense of threat and disagreements, and can convince local populations that the use of force is the normal type of social interaction (F&N 1994:18). They will be tempted to ask the question: if those peacekeepers can fight violence with violence, why can’t we do so as well?

How to improve peacekeeping?

According to Fetherston (1993:22-24) we must first address and understand our assumptions of what is success. Traditional diplomacy operates from negative peace-assumptions. Violent conflict is seen as a natural state of affairs and success is a settlement or a compromise. This, however, often means reinforcing existing power structures rather than the mitigation of discontent. Contrary to this, we need to move towards conflict resolution. Success here is positive peace tied to basic human needs. Violence is not seen as natural, but caused by social and environmental conditions and the frustration of human needs. These things can be changed (Fetherston 1993:6-7).

The focus must be on larger long term processes of reconstruction, rather than short term suppression of conflict. Peacekeepers must lead by example, and hence they must develop skills such as empathy and cultural awareness rather than purely military skills (Fetherston 1993:14). When peacekeepers derail, there should be a more effective criminal prosecution system. One could also attempt to increase the number of women in peacekeeping troops.

References

Fetherstone, A. B. (1993) Making UN pk more peaceful: Relating Concepts of “Success” to Field Reality Working Paper (Australian National Unversity. Peace Research Centre); NO 139 National Library of Australia

Fetherstone, A. B. and Nordstrom, C. (1994) Overcoming conceptual habitus in conflict management: UN peacekeeping and warzone ethnography, Working Paper (Australian National Unversity. Peace Research Centre); NO 147 National Library of Australia

Jeong, H-W. (1999) “Concepts of Peace and Violence” in Peace and Conflicts Studies: An Introduction. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 19-30.

Martin, S. (2005) Must boys be boys? Ending sexual exploitation & abuse in UN peacekeeping missions, Refugee International, http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/publication/detail/6976

If you want to learn more about gender based violence in different countries and the campaigns for change, here are some links:

http://www.theirc.org/what/gender-based-violence.html
http://www.who.int/gender/violence/en/
http://www.unfpa.org/gender/violence.htm
http://www.hhri.org/thematic/gender_based_violence.html
http://www.irinnews.org/IndepthMain.aspx?IndepthId=20&ReportId=62814
http://www.igwg.org/priorityareas/violence.htm
http://www.popcouncil.org/genfam/violence.html

(source)

This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen.

The military-industrial complex

War makes a profit (in monetary terms), peace doesn’t. President Eisenhower warned us in a speech in 1961 about the military-industrial complex (MIC):

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. (source)

The MIC is a state-industry alliance and the only part of economic production intent on destruction and conducted in secrecy.

The post-Cold-War world

In its “Arms availability report” (1999), the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) shows how the changes in conflicts and the evolving “security-business” are reflected in the military-industrial complex. During the Cold War, weapons were available for global political and strategic purposes. Nowadays, weapon transfers (a broader term than arms trade, including not only commercial sales) imply economic and employment considerations, not just military/political/strategic ones as before.

Arms control has suffered a breakdown in the post Cold War-world. The industry operates at the moment without regulation. Annual global military spending is the same as the debt of all development countries. Arms producing countries earn more on arms sales to developing countries, than they give in aid. The 5 biggest arm producers are permanent members of the Security Council. The biggest clients are often developing countries with highly authoritarian governments. Selling arms to those countries leads to increased oppression of local people and a higher risk of violent conflict. People are aware that the oppression by their leaders is supported by western arms sales (and in other ways), which creates anti-western resentment.

The withdrawal of superpower support after the end of the Cold War has resulted in in a breakdown of governing stuctures in many countries. Decentralization of control and of the chain of command has created power vacuums in many states. Weapons end up in the hands of war lords and militia groups, and turned against civilians.

Small arms

There is a “small arms plague” in the world today. The post-Cold-War breakdown of many states, resulting from superpower withdrawal, has led to many intrastate conflicts. Small-arms and light weapons (SALW) are well-suited to such conflicts because of their simplicity, durability, portability, the ability to conceal, low cost and wide availability and lethality. Small arms are hand guns, pistols, sub-machine guns, mortars, landmines, grenades and light missiles. There are 500 billion of these weapons around the world, and 1134 companies producing and selling them. These weapons are also highly suited for illicit trafficking and operation by children (more on child soldiers here). Small arms are, in fact, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s), according to the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).

The spread of small arms is both a cause and effect of underdevelopment and poverty. The growing availability of small arms has been a major factor hindering post-conflict rebuilding and development. Instead of being able to focus on investment in well-being and economic development, the poor are burdened with the cost of nursing the injured and paying for informal forms of security, like paramilitary groups. Much of the initiative to reduce and control small arms has been left to the poor communities themselves, with little help from the rest of the world, which seems more interested in economic self-interest. Especially the arms producing and exporting countries are more concerned about the possible consequences of arms control on their own economies. And it doesn’t help that many governments capable of donating funds towards arms control do not recognize civilian ownership of arms as a problem.

Some 300,000 to half a million people around the world are killed by small arms each year. These weapons are the major cause of civilian casualties in modern conflicts. 80-90% injured during war come from small arms. It’s strange therefore that the focus of many in the West is on controlling weapons of mass destruction, proliferation of atomic weapons, biological and chemical weapons, and that they leave the trade of conventional weapons and small arms unfettered.

The arms industry’s influence on politics

One reason is of course the profitability of this trade. But the influence of the arms industry on politics isn’t limited to the small arms niche. Notwithstanding the fact that most future security threats will be caused by terrorism and internal wars resulting from state failure, many governments still equip their armies for large interstate conflict. This, like government passivity regarding small arms, is the result of the influence of the arms industry on politics.

The economic benefits of the arms industry

The report “Escaping the Subsidy Trap: why arms exports are bad for Britain (2004)” from the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), counters the economic myths that the UK government uses to justify its support for arms exports.

The government frequently cites protection of defense jobs as a key reason for supporting arms exports. The BASIC report, however, concludes

• employment dependent on arms exports, constitutes only 0.25 percent of the national labor force
• far from providing jobs, it diverts skilled workers and investment away from more effective job-creating activity in the civil economy
• often the weapons are produced abroad, and sold to other countries.

It’s clear that some corporations and governments profit for the arms trade, not the people and the economy.

The UK government states that arms exports contribute significantly to the balance of payments and thus benefit the wider economy. The report concludes that defense exports’ share of total UK exports has consistently reduced over recent years; the economic benefits of arms exports are insignificant.

Some statistics on the arms trade and on military spending.

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This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen.

Following up on this post, some additional information on the evolution of military conflicts and military spending.

Since 2005, the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) publishes reports on trends in armed conflicts and political violence. The reports indicate a decline by around 40% in armed conflicts and political violence since 1992. Another report, the SIPRI yearbook of 2009, counts 16 armed conflicts going on in the world in 2008. In 1998 there were 36, and from 1989 to 1998 there were over 100.

The decline is explained by the end of the two “conflict machines”, colonialism and the Cold War. The increase in international activism, more specifically at the UN, and changes in the nature of warfare have also resulted in fewer deadly conflicts. The wars of today are of a lower intensity, and are fought with lighter arms, predominately between weak government forces and poorly trained rebels. The increasing number of refugees is another reason for lower death tolls, together with a decrease in the number of authoritarian regimes. According to the report, terrorism is the only type of political violence that is increasing, but it still accounts for a small number of deaths. Despite this relatively small number, many politicians still claim that terrorism is the biggest threat.

According to the peace dividend-notion, there should be a reduction in military spending when there is a decline in conflicts. However, SIPRI, which reports on annual military spending, shows, in the 2009 report, an increase in military spending by 45% since 1997. The world now spends more than 1464 billion dollars annually (!) on the military and arms trade. The biggest spender is the United States, which is responsible for almost half of the total world spending, and during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, US military expenditure increased to its highest level in real terms since World War II. In addition to increased spending, there is also an increased concentration of spending with around 15 countries responsible for over 80% of total spending.

More on military spending.

Artwork symbolizing non-violence, at the UN headquarters in NY

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This post is by guest-writer Line Løvåsen.

Though Buddhism is known for its insistence on non-violence and compassion, there have been some Buddhist wars in history (Thompson 1988:102). I will discuss one of these: the conflict between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka, which has recently come to an end with the victory of the government over the rebel Tamil Tigers.

Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948. The island has long known political and economic tensions between Buddhist Sinhalese and the minority of Hindu Tamils (Harris 2003:107). Increased Sinhalese nationalism and emerging Tamil separatism resulted in violence and war in the 1980s. Tens of thousands have since been killed in a brutal ethnic war (Seneviratne 2003:76).

The Sinhalese have justified the war and the use of violence by way of the teachings of Buddha. In this post I will examine the role of religion in this conflict. By showing tensions between Buddhism and Sinhalese politics, I will argue that although the conflict is expressed and justified in religious terms, it is actually part of the state’s nationalistic agenda. I will also argue that this is a typical example of how poverty and a crisis of national identity are misused by a state in order to mobilize ethnic groups for conflict. To prove my argument, I begin by describing the Sinhalese view of the war. Then I examine general Buddhist principles against war, after which I outline Theravada Buddhism to see how the Sinhalese are able to manipulate the principles for their purposes. I then examine to what extent the Sinhalese actions fit the just war criteria. I will take into account other explanations of the conflict and I will discuss how Buddhism can contribute to a solution.

There’s more.

Holy Moly!  Yesterday I heard something that I thought I would never hear coming from the mouth of a person in charge of the Defense Department.

Major overhaul plans laid out by the Obama administration’s Pentagon chief would slash several giant weapons programs — and thousands of civilian jobs that go with them. With recession unemployment rising, Congress may balk at many of the cuts in Gates’ proposed $534 billion budget for the coming year.

Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, said he is gearing Pentagon buying plans to the smaller, lower-tech battlefields the military is facing now and expects in coming years. He also said he hopes lawmakers will resist temptations to save outdated system that keep defense plants humming in their home districts.

Gates says the Pentagon won’t continue the F-22 program beyond 187 planes already planned. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed, the nation’s largest defense contractor, has said almost 95,000 jobs could be at stake.

Gates also said no to a new fleet of Marine One presidential helicopters — with a price tag of $13 billion, more than double the original budget. He said new helicopters would be needed at some point but he wants time to figure out a better solution.

A $160 billion Army system of combat vehicles, flying sensors and bomb-hunting robots would be reduced, too, as would plans to build a shield of missile interceptors to defend against attacks by rogue countries. The Navy would revamp plans to buy new destroyers.

If one listened closely one could have heard the CEOs of various defense contractors hitting the floor and the asses of congress slamming shut.

The amazing part for me is that Gates has finally axknowledged something that I have been calling for ….since my days in Vietnam….

“I’m not trying to have irregular capabilities take the place of the conventional capabilities,” Gates said. “I’m just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table.”

I have been saying the days of conventional warfare have been gone for years…….unconventional should be the focus or we are destined to be handed our heads on many levels.

And then Gates did something few DOD leaders have ever done….he said that the budget had to be cut if the people of the country were to be looked after first (a paraphrase).  A refreshing view from someone that I doubted would be on board with the Obama plan.  Apparently, I was mistaken.

For you history buffs—-which was the first country to get out of the Great Depression?  Do not hurt yourself…it was Germany.  And why?  Because they started a massive program of military spending to rearm after the defeat of WWI.

Where am I going with this?  All countries are feeling the problems of the economic crisis and some handle it in different ways.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced today that his nation would begin a “large-scale” rearmament campaign for both its army and navy starting in 2011 in response to persisting threats to the nation’s security.

Pointing to NATO’s continued expansion and the increasing amount of military forces massing along Russia’s western borders. Medvedev warned of “a serious conflict potential” that “requires the quality modernization of our Armed Forces and acquisition of a new advanced appearance by them.”

Sounds a bit like the rationale used by Germany to start their massive rearming program in the 30’s.

For about three years I have been saying that would be a “new” Cold War and stories like this one just adds to the validity of my prediction.

These are stories from the international scene that may not be a full post.

the Pakistani government imposed Section 144, or emergency rule, on the Sindh Province, matching a move yesterday in Punjab, and placing roughly two thirds of the nation’s 172 million people under harsh restrictions. The Punjab edict resulted in mass arrests of opposition members and a ban on all public gatherings. The Sindh edict has similarly banned public gatherings, and several have already been arrested. At least one district leader in Sindh has refused the order.

Shahbaz Sharif, who was Chief Minister of Punjab until last month when President Zardari imposed governor’s rule, today echoed his brother (former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif)’s call for people to take to the streets for a revolution.

This makes it to congress yet again….last time Turkey crapped on the deal.

Several U.S. lawmakers have written to President Barack Obama urging him to follow up on campaign statements and label the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.

The pressure on Obama comes ahead of an expected presidential trip to Turkey, which has warned that such declarations by the United States would damage relations.

Turkey denies that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One. Turkey accepts many Armenians were killed, but denies they were victims of a systematic genocide.

Ronald Reagan was the only U.S. president to publicly call the killings genocide. Others avoided the term out of concern for the sensitivities of Turkey, an important NATO ally.

Good luck with that guys.

Obama’s new Afghan goals.

The White House objectives were expected to roughly parallel 15 goals contained in a 20-page classified report to the White House from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Among them were getting rid of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and adopting a regional approach to reducing the threat of terrorism and extremism in both countries.

The U.S. goal in Afghanistan must be to protect Kabul’s fragile government from collapsing under pressure from the Taliban — a goal that can only be achieved by securing Pakistan’s cooperation, increasing substantially the size of Afghanistan’s national security forces and boosting economic aid in the region, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

The review addresses “the safe haven in Pakistan, making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t provide a capability in the long run or an environment in which al-Qaida could return or the Taliban could return,” Mullen said, as well as the need for stability, economic development and better governance in Afghanistan, and the development of the Afghan armed forces.

Propping up the Karzai government is kinda lame…basically he is the mayor of Kabul and the government is little more than the city council.  Afghanistan, where empires go to die……..

Israeli tanks and infantry entered Gaza after nightfall Saturday, launching a ground offensive that the military said would be a “lengthy operation” in a widening war on Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Israeli security officials said the operation is likely to go on for several days, but that the objective is not to reoccupy Gaza. The depth and intensity will also depend on parallel diplomatic efforts, the officials on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

Heavy gun battles were reported as Israeli tanks and infantry soldiers entered Gaza after dark. The forces stayed close to the border area, witnesses said. Heavy artillery fire hit east of Gaza City in areas where Hamas fighters were deployed.

A text message sent by Hamas’ military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, said “the Zionists started approaching the trap which our fighters prepared for them.”

Before the ground operation began, defense officials said around 10,000 soldiers massed along the border in recent days. Heavy artillery fire in the early evening was intended to detonate Hamas explosive devices and mines planted along the border area before troops marched in.

It was not immediately clear how deep into Gaza the Israeli forces would go.

Israel’s offensive against Hamas began with a week of aerial bombardment of Hamas target. However, Hamas kept firing at Israeli towns, and Israeli officials said diplomatic efforts did not produced a satisfactory plan so far to guarantee a halt to rockets.

That was the prediction of Biden in one of his speeches, so far looks like a fairly accurate prediction, at least from where I sit.  India, Economics, Israel and then there is Iraq, Afghanistan and finally Iran…..now if I had to guess I would say that is a full plate on day one.

Israel’s continuing attacks on Gaza serve as a reminder that President-elect Barack Obama and his nominee to be secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, will not get to choose the world they inherit Jan. 20.

The incoming administration had planned to focus on the economic crisis and recalibrating U.S. policy in Iraq and Afghanistan in its early months — but the Israeli assault on Hamas may have instantly changed that calculus.

Obama’s views on the Israeli action remain opaque. Even as the attack continued into its third day Monday, with a Palestinian death toll topping 300 and Israel threatening a ground invasion, Obama had yet to say a word about the crisis, on the grounds that President George W. Bush (who has also been silent) must take the lead.

There were growing signs Monday that the air strikes — which came in response to increased rocket fire from Gaza, which is governed by Hamas — could be accompanied by a ground incursion. Israel’s leaders signaled that this could be an extended conflict, while emphatically denying any intention of reoccupying the independently governed territory.

Though both sides in the Middle East are intensely aware that this battle will establish facts on the ground in the region for the new administration, Obama’s advisers have sent only vague signals, with David Axelrod on “Face the Nation” Sunday calling Israel a “great ally” and citing America’s “special relationship” with the Jewish state.

A well-worn geopolitical cliché holds that every crisis contains an opportunity. But for Obama — a president-in-waiting who faces daunting dilemmas across the domestic and foreign policy spectrum — the Israeli crackdown on Hamas seems unlikely to do anything but complicate his approach to a region that he had clearly hoped to keep low on his to-do list for awhile.

Israeli leaders see the faint possibility that, on one hand, the attack could weaken and further isolate Hamas and its sponsor Iran, paving the way for a return of its more moderate rivals. But that was also one of the goals in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon — an action many believe only served to strengthen Hezbollah.

Some observers who are more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause think the conflict could clarify the depth of Hamas’ support and lead Obama or his allies to bring them to the negotiating table. But the early consequence of the attack has been the collapse of peace negotiations between Israel and both the Palestinian Authority and Syria, and analysts on both sides say the likeliest consequence is an increasingly bitter and intractable conflict.

The new President had better hit the ground running or events will pass him by and allow plenty of openings for the opposition to attack.

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama’s national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could be in the Obama Cabinet, but at reports suggesting that several other short-list candidates for top security posts backed the decision to go to war.

The activists — key members of the coalition that propelled Obama to the White House — fear he is drifting from the antiwar moorings of his once-longshot presidential candidacy. Obama has eased the rigid timetable he had set for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and he appears to be leaning toward the center in his candidates to fill key national security posts.

Kevin Martin, executive director of the group Peace Action, said that although Obama had campaigned as an agent of change, the president-elect is “a fairly centrist guy” who appears to be choosing from the Democratic foreign policy establishment — “and nobody from outside it.”

“So, in the short term, we’re going to be disappointed,” he said. “They may turn out to be all pro-war, or at least people who were pro-war in the beginning.”

Martin said that his group was concerned about Gates and Clinton as well as Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s choice for White House chief of staff. He also said his group was trying to mobilize its grass-roots supporters with e-mail alerts, but recognized that it must approach the subject delicately because of public euphoria over Obama’s historic victory.

NO!  The country not the state!  If you will recall there was some incident where Russia attacked some area know as South Ossetia.  Well, there seems to be a new twist in the situation, as reported in the NY Times.

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.

Neither Georgia nor its Western allies have as yet provided conclusive evidence that Russia was invading the country or that the situation for Georgians in the Ossetian zone was so dire that a large-scale military attack was necessary, as Mr. Saakashvili insists.

With a paucity of reliable and unbiased information available, the O.S.C.E. observations put the United States in a potentially difficult position. The United States, Mr. Saakashvili’s principal source of international support, has for years accepted the organization’s conclusions and praised its professionalism. Mr. Bryza refrained from passing judgment on the conflicting accounts.

But wait!  Was the Russian invasion yet another lie?  Looks like it.

The Mumbai, an Indian warship, was slicing through choppy monsoon seas one recent morning when a helicopter swooped in overhead. Commandos slithered down a rope, seizing control of the destroyer.

It was a drill, Indian soldiers taking over an Indian ship. But the purpose was to train them to seize other countries’ ships in distant oceans, a sign of a new military assertiveness for the world’s second-most-populous nation.

India, which gave the world the idea of Gandhian nonviolence, has long derided the force-projecting ways of the great powers. It focused its own military on self-defense against two neighbors, Pakistan and China.

“India sees itself in a different light — not looking so much inward and looking at Pakistan, but globally,” said William S. Cohen, a secretary of defense in the Clinton administration who in his new role as a lobbyist represents American firms seeking weapons contracts in India. “It’s sending a signal that it’s going to be a big player.”

India is buying armaments that major powers like the United States use to operate far from home: aircraft carriers, giant C-130J transport planes and airborne refueling tankers. Meanwhile, India has helped to build a small air base in Tajikistan that it will share with its host country. It is modern India’s first military outpost on foreign soil.

India’s buildup has several overlapping motivations. It now trades vigorously with the world, most critically in oil. It has bought oil fields or engaged in exploration in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and beyond. Not coincidentally, it has demonstrated a new interest in keeping the sea lanes through which that oil and other wares sail free of pirates and militants.

A more robust military is also vital for protecting millions of Indian workers in the Persian Gulf, who are from time to time threatened by political volatility. But the most pressing motivation may be the fast-moving Chinese.