No one can stop the rain: Relief efforts made possible by people like you
20 October 2005
MSF volunteer, Karin Moorhouse nourishes a wounded child, during Angola's civil war. In her recently published book "No One Can Stop the Rain," Karin writes touchingly about the infant, whose mother was run over by a military vehicle.There are few among us who have not pondered the notion of doing some humanitarian work at some stage in our lives, but fewer still who have acted on the impulse. While many people think of giving something back to society, and many more volunteer locally or give to charity, few have actually embraced a mid-career challenge in a war-zone.
Wei Cheng, a paediatric surgeon, and his wife Karin Moorhouse, a senior marketing executive for Nestlé Canada, left their comfortable lives to do just that. From his laboratory at Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, where he is now conducting medical research, Cheng, 47, cites the couple's growing realization of the need to do something more meaningful with their lives.
"We are often asked what possessed us to uproot everything and join Médecins Sans Frontières. In fact it was as university students in the early ?'80s that Karin and I first talked about making a more constructive contribution to humanity at some point in our lives. However like many people, we quickly became engrossed in our careers, and never seemed to find time to do more meaningful than pull out a chequebook for charity. We never thought it would take us 20 years to take the plunge, or that we would actually realize it together."
Karin continues: "Our intentions never waned, until one day we realised that two decades had already slipped by, without having lived true to our promise. So after much debate, we surprised everyone and resigned." Together they joined Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and were assigned to war-torn Angola; a country embroiled in a bitter conflict that had lasted almost thirty years. The couple travelled to Kuito, the remnants of a provincial capital, at the heart of the country, with the unenviable reputation of being the world's most heavily mined city.
That a surgeon should join MSF is expected, but for Moorhouse, a VP of Marketing, the link is less evident. Yet as Moorhouse explains, MSF needs volunteers with a broad range of professional expertise to facilitate their field operations. "In Canada, about 50 per cent of MSF volunteers are non-medical. They include logisticians, water and sanitation specialists, nutritionists, administrators, and financial controllers. Of course MSF always needs doctors and nurses, but many others might think they don't have the skills necessary to contribute. However many of the talents we typically put to work in a business or not-for-profit organization can make a real difference in an humanitarian effort." Moorhouse, 43, volunteered as a financial administrator, where she applied her extensive managerial experience to the demands of the project.
Médecins Sans Frontières has evolved to become the largest independently-funded medical relief organization. It remains a volunteer organization and relies on ordinary citizens to commit time from their lives to its relief operations. In 2003, Cheng also volunteered during his vacation for a short emergency mission to war-torn Liberia.
In carrying out humanitarian assistance, MSF volunteers also act as witnesses, speaking out about the plight of the populations for whom they work. Called temoinage or bearing witness, this philosophy is central to MSF, It is in this spirit that Karin and Wei tell their story today: stories of ordinary Angolans who endured the misery of life in a war zone. The couple's experiences have been captured in their recently published book, "No One Can Stop the Rain". The title is a tribute to the people of Angola, and the belief that peace would eventually prevail, even as the conflict raged for more than three decades. The book chronicles the couple's work with civilians - victims of landmines and war, the malnourished and the displaced.
They write sensitively about children like three-year-old Veronica, who was seriously injured when her young brother innocently picked up a discarded hand-grenade. He was killed instantly. They also mourn the senseless killing of Manuel Vitangui, their nurse-colleague, who was ambushed while collecting wounded. Each patient remembered by name; each story startlingly real. The couple's meticulous documentation of day to day life is an amazing testament to human solidarity, but it also looks at why two career professionals from divergent cultural backgrounds (Cheng is from Beijing, while his wife is Australian), left their comfortable lives and professional engagements, to volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières.
"It is our hope that in reading this book, one could believe that the flickering light of humanity we witness almost daily in this world of conflict and tragedy, is not about to be extinguished, but rather can be given new energy through the efforts of ordinary people, like you and I," says Cheng. "It's human nature to talk about things we will do 'one day'", adds Moorhouse. "This book also helps people realize that volunteering for a humanitarian organization can be done at many different stages in life. And the rewards are tremendous. The sheer resilience of ordinary Angolans, and their ability to endure in terrible circumstances touched us to the core. Our experience was both inspiring and humbling."
"No One Can Stop the Rain", by Karin Moorhouse and Wei Cheng is published by Insomniac Press, Toronto. The couple is donating the proceeds of their book royalties to Médecins Sans Frontières.
From: Médecins Sans Frontières/Canada
More about: Angola Canada Health Peacekeeping
User Comments Add a comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by: amina Posted date: 15 May 2006 12:24 Posted from: Zaria, Nigeria
Sadly it takes all of us so much time to get out of our comfort zones and make a diffrence in our world. I am a lawyer and have been thinking how irrelevant that would be in a field volunteer situation but this story has given me a diffrent view. I do have one question I would like answered: is it always posible for couples to be sent to the same field especially where both are non-specialized volunteers like dactors or nurses?
OCCOM BILL wrote:Amigo wrote: ican, you lost. Your running a race in circles that was over a long time ago. The only one that doesn't realize it is you.
Your penchant for exaggeration is likely the reason you've diluted yourself into thinking Ican is alone. That few will bother to respond is no indication there's a lack of opposition to your incessant anti-American rantings.
We haven't lost, likely won't and don't support terror. Pity you seldom stop to consider that if we win; so does our former enemy "Iraq" and the rest of the world. Your delusions are likely the product of the diluted sources you
choose to inform yourself with. Zoom out from the doom and gloom fragments you seem to think tell the WHOLE story, read both sides of the debate, and perhaps you'll see how your delusion accusations more closely describe you than then they do Ican.
I am not anti-American. I am pro-American. They told me I was Anti-American when I told the TRUTH about fabricated intelligence, Halliburton, The Bush/Oil industry support of Hessian and Business deals with the Taliban.
Is war profiteering pro-American?
If so how much do you think Halliburton will give to the families of the Soldiers?
Is the truth anti-American?
All these things are common knowledge now and they didn't come from FOX they came from my sources which is why I am always ahead. An independent study of the accuracy on the coverage of the war before and after It broke out showed FOX last and Pacifica 1st out of about 6 major media outlets.
Have you ever heard of Pacifica?
Supporting a failed and illegal war is not pro-American and telling the truth about it is not anti-American. As the polls are now reflecting.
We had a golden opportunity to lead an International real war on terror. Instead WE, the people of the United States, allowed the Bush administration to lead us with lies like sheep into a war for oil not the enemy. That is why we gave Hessian chemical and biologcal technologies and the actual chemicals and did business with the Taliban.
That anti-American bullsh*t don't cute it anymore. If you want to be pro-American be brave and tell the truth about your government even when it hurts. This country wasn't founded on the idea of "Trust the government". It also wasn't founded on lies, fixed elections or partisanship wich is why you call me anti-American.
When I say "God bless America" I want it to be true. I don't want to say it as a War cry of lies, greed, and money and the consequences may be of the kind we don't pay for in this life.
May 29, 2006
After Loss of a Parent to War, a Shared Grieving
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
ARLINGTON, Va., May 28 ?- Jacob Hobbs, 10, did not mince words about the death of his father.
"He was in a Humvee, driving at night on patrol, and a homemade bomb blew up on him so bad it killed his brain," Jacob said of his father, Staff Sgt. Brian Hobbs, 31, of the Army. "But he wasn't scratched up that much. And that's how he died."
Sitting across from Jacob in a circle at a grief camp over Memorial Day weekend, Taylor Downing, a 10-year-old with wavy red hair and a mouthful of braces, offered up her own detailed description. "My dad died four days after my birthday, on Oct. 28, 2004," Taylor said quietly of Specialist Stephen Paul Downing II. "He got shot by a sniper. It came in through here," she added, pointing to the front of her head, "and went out there," shifting her finger to the back of her head.
"Before he left," Taylor said, "he sat me on his knee and he told me why he had to go: because people in Iraq didn't have what we did. They didn't have enough money. They couldn't go to school. And they didn't have homes."
An estimated 1,600 children have lost a parent, almost all of them fathers, to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, nearly 150 of these children gathered at a hotel here in this Washington suburb for a yearly grief camp run by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a nonprofit group founded in 1994 that helps military families and friends cope with death and talk about their loss.
Burying a parent is never easy for a child, but losing a father in a violent way, in a far-off war, is fraught with a complexity all its own.
The children receive hugs from strangers who thank them for their father's courage; they fight to hold back tears in front of whole communities gathered to commemorate their fathers; they sometimes cringe when they hear loud noises, fret over knocks at the door and appear well-versed in the treachery of bombs.
And often the children say goodbye not just to their fathers but to their schools and homes, since families who live on a military base must move into the civilian world after a service member dies.
At the camp, their drawings of their fathers are never mundane, they are mythic: a father as hero, in uniform, with medals trailing across his chest and an American flag floating high above.
"Before my dad left, he said he wasn't afraid to die," Jacob said of Sergeant Hobbs, who was killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan on Oct. 14, 2004. His father was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, Jacob explained. "He saved his commander from an exploding tank," he said.
Many of these children are old enough to remember their fathers, but now the images are slipping away in fragments.
One memory few will ever forget is the moment they learned that their fathers would not come home. Paul R. Syverson IV, a 10-year-old with a blond crew cut and his father's face, saw a soldier at the door. "My mom saw him and started crying," said Paul, trying hard to stifle tears as he recounted how he was sent next door to play.
His father, Maj. Paul R. Syverson III, 32, a Green Beret, had been killed by a mortar round inside Camp Balad, Iraq ?- or as Paul put it, "He was eating breakfast, and he was shot by Iraqis."
Later, "I cried," he said. "I played with my soldiers. And then I went to the basement because my dad was a collector of 'Star Wars' stuff. I took those out, and I played with them."
Brooke Nyren, 9, whose father, Staff Sgt. Nathaniel J. Nyren, died in a vehicle accident in Iraq on Dec. 28, 2004, told her story in a writing assignment at the camp. When two Army men showed up at the door, "I was really scared," Brooke wrote. "The two Army men asked my mom, please can you put your daughter in a different room. So I went in my room. The only thing I was doing was praying."
"My hart was broken," she wrote.
Paul, the blond 10-year-old, recounted how his father was injured by a bomb in Afghanistan in 2001. The blast broke his father's back, Paul said, but not his eagerness to fight again. Paul's drawing features his father, with his green beret, and the words, "Men will jump and die."
And Jacob, who wants to be a soldier, remembers his father saying that he had to go off and fight. "But he didn't like my mom crying," Jacob said. "She always cried when he left because she didn't want him to die."
The violence of their fathers' deaths, and its public nature, can be especially troublesome for children. "'It's a traumatic grief that is highly publicized," said Linda Goldman, a grief specialist. "Dad was murdered in a public way. This heightens the sense of trauma because it never goes away."
The children's mothers say the deaths have had expected repercussions, like plummeting grades and mood swings. But they have also seen unexpected reactions. Madison Swisher, 8, who sleeps in her father's T-shirt, is afraid of loud noises; her dad died in Iraq from an improvised bomb. She and her younger brother talk a lot about bombs in general. They call the Iraqis the "bad guys" and are afraid the bad guys will arrive any minute.
Several mothers said they worried that their children's hero worship, a healthy balm in the beginning, could turn problematic if they tried to follow in their fathers' footsteps.
Teenagers, in particular, have trouble adjusting. Scott Rentschler, 14, was living on a military base in Germany when his father, Staff Sgt. George Rentschler, was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a rocket-propelled grenade. His life, Scott said, "is a roller coaster." Scott's grandmother, Lillian Rentschler, said that moving off a military base was difficult for him, and that society and schools make few allowances for children in their second year of grief.
"People think he should be all fixed up," Ms. Rentschler said.
The outpouring that families receive after a death is mostly comforting to them. But in time, it can verge on stifling, some parents said. Jenny Hobbs, 32, Jacob's mother, said that in their hometown, Mesa, Ariz., her three children were "embraced as heroes. It was cool to know them."
But there was a downside, Ms. Hobbs said, and ultimately she moved the family to Ohio. "The death is in the public eye," she said. "It is hard to let go. The war is still going on, and you are reminded of it. One reason I had to move is that it was hard to be normal."
Ms. Hobbs continued: "He was no longer ours and human. We needed him to be ours."
Parents and mentors say they try to help the children stay connected to their fathers and grieve in intimate ways, far from the public eye. They post photographs all over the house, make teddy bears out of their dads' shirts and encourage them to write letters.
Eddie Murphy, 10, whose father, Maj. Edward Murphy, 36, died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in April 2005, did just that one day at grief camp. "Summer is coming up," he wrote to his father. "It won't be the same without you. You won't believe it but I'm in Washington."
He signed off: "I love you. Hi to Heaven."
cicerone imposter wrote:I bet the people in this administration just doesn't give a shet:
Guantanamo hunger strike spreads
The number of detainees on hunger strike at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has grown and now involves 75 inmates, the US says.
Navy Cmdr Robert Durand said the new hunger strike was aimed at attracting media attention and may also be connected to a disturbance on 18 May.
Detainees started an on-off hunger strike last August to protest at their continued detention and conditions.
Rights groups have voiced concerns that the US has force-fed the strikers.
About 460 prisoners remain at Guantanamo, many of them captured in Afghanistan. Some have been held for nearly four years without charge.
The US military defines a hunger strike as missing nine consecutive meals and most of the 75 passed that mark on Sunday.
This new hunger strike is likely a co-ordinated, but short-term effort
Cmdr Durand
Most are refusing food but are drinking liquids.
Cmdr Durand said the hunger strike was not a new tactic at the detention centre and that most returned to full normal diets after media attention had passed.
He said the current protest may be designed to coincide with a series of hearings scheduled in June.
"This new hunger strike is likely a co-ordinated, but short-term, effort designed to coincide with the military commission hearings scheduled for the next several weeks as defence attorneys and media normally travel to Guantanamo to observe this process," Cmdr Durand said in a statement.
He said the gesture may also be related to an incident earlier this month when two detainees tried to commit suicide and several others clashed with guards.
Closure call
Seventy-six detainees began a hunger strike in August. Since then the number has at times grown and then dwindled to a handful.
Three men who have been protesting since August and one of the recent group are being enterally fed, that is via a tube through the nose and into the stomach, the military says.
Defence lawyers have said many detainees stopped their protest because the US military adopted more aggressive measures to force feed them.
In March, more than 250 medical experts signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike.
Earlier this month, the UN Committee against Torture called on the US to close Guantanamo and any other secret "war on terror" detention facilities abroad.
The Bush administration has denied allegations of abuse at Guantanamo, and
the military says it provides safe, human care and custody of the detainees.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5027860.stm
Published: 2006/05/29 16:51:12 GMT
You apparently didnt read the article you posted,or just want things both ways.
You are condemning the authorities in Gitmo because they arent doing anything about this hunger strike,but you and others condemn them for stopping a hunger strike.
If the prisoners refuse to eat,its not up to US authorities to feed them.
The food is there,if they choose to eat it.
The authorities are neither allowing,nor are they preventing,this hunger strike.
Or,would you rather they force-feed the prisoners.
But,if you prefer that I would like to point out to you something from the article YOU POSTED...
In March, more than 250 medical experts signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike.
So,do you think those 250 "experts" are wrong?
mm, You don't understand anything! Many of those prisoners have not been charged with any crime. Go stick your head in the toilet, you SOB.
This was sent by a writer-friend.
It occurred to me early today: Perhaps this day should be called "It's a Damned Shame Day."
It's a damned shame you died fighting other humans. A damned shame that many of them died as well. A damned shame that governments pursue war. A damned shame that people can't get along. A damned shame humankind still walks in darkness. A damned shame we don't all feel ashamed. A damned shame . . .
D
P.S. If you pass this on, nothing will happen at all. But maybe you'll feel better?
11-03-04 -- GUANTÁNAMO BAY, CUBA
Dear member of the ACLU family:
The pre-trial hearings in the Hicks case came to an end today, so this may be my last dispatch from Guantánamo. Next week, the commission will hear motions in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 34-year old Yemeni who is accused of having served as a bodyguard and driver to Osama bin Laden. Trial in the Hicks case is scheduled to begin in March.
Over the past few days, I've written mainly about the legal process (or lack of it) afforded to the handful of prisoners who, like Hicks, have been charged with war crimes. These are the detainees who'll be tried before military commissions. I want to use this last dispatch to talk about the hundreds of prisoners here who have not been charged with any crime at all. There are 550 or so prisoners held here at Guantánamo right now; only 15 of these have been designated by the President as eligible for trial before the commission, and of these only four have actually been charged. The overwhelming majority of the prisoners held here at Guantánamo have not been charged with any crime or even designated as eligible to be tried. The Defense Department has argued that they can nonetheless be imprisoned indefinitely - perhaps for life - because they're "enemy combatants."
Let's put aside the question of whether the government is legally entitled to detain enemy combatants indefinitely. How do we know that the people locked up here are in fact enemy combatants? Senior government officials seem to harbor few doubts. The Secretary of Defense has referred to the Guantánamo prisoners as "hard-core, well-trained terrorists" and "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth." Vice President Cheney has referred to them as "the worst of a very bad lot . . . devoted to killing millions of Americans."
But senior officials said similar things, remember, of the hundreds of immigrants who were detained in the United States after September 2001. None of those people were convicted of a terrorism-related offense. In fact, most were never charged with any crime at all. Notably, one of the military officials in charge of detention camps at Guantánamo recently acknowledged that many of the prisoners pose little threat and have provided little intelligence value. "Most of these guys weren't fighting. They were running," he said.
So how do we know that someone whom the government calls an "enemy combatant" is in fact an enemy combatant? Last year, the Supreme Court held in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the government may not detain a person as an enemy combatant unless a neutral tribunal determines - after providing due process - that the person is actually what the government says he is. After that ruling, the government contrived something called the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) to make such determinations.
Predictably, the CSRT process does not provide anything like due process. Reversing the presumption of innocence, the tribunal starts by presuming that the prisoner is in fact an enemy combatant, and it's up to the prisoner to prove that he's not. Rebutting a presumption of guilt would be difficult in any context but it is made doubly so here because the prisoner is not given access to all of the evidence and is not provided a lawyer. The prisoner is provided something called a "personal representative," but the personal representative does not have legal training and does not (and cannot) assure confidentiality. Thus, a prisoner's conversations with his representative may be used against him - not only at the CSRT but also in any subsequent criminal proceeding.
The CSRT process has worked exactly as it was intended to. While the CSRT has reviewed the cases of some two hundred prisoners, it has ordered the release of only one. Many prisoners are now refusing to participate in the process at all.
Let me close by saying something more general about what I've seen here at Guantánamo over the last few days. Many of us hoped that the Supreme Court's decisions in Hamdi, Padilla, and Rasul would lead to the adoption of policies here at Guantánamo more consistent with the constitution and with international standards of justice. It's clear that this hasn't happened. Both the military commissions and the CSRTs are fundamentally lawless; they are proceedings designed not to provide fair process but rather to rubber stamp essentially political decisions. There is no doubt that the Supreme Court's rulings were critically important, but Guantánamo remains a legal black hole. Unfortunately, it's clear that there's a lot more work to do.
Jameel Jaffer
ACLU Staff Attorney
cicerone imposter wrote:mm, You don't understand anything! Many of those prisoners have not been charged with any crime. Go stick your head in the toilet, you SOB.
So that means what regarding them choosing not to eat?
Hey, dumba$$, it's not a matter of them not wanting to eat. It's a matter of inhumane treatment of people that have never been charged with a crime with no possibility of a future. You're so stupid, it's a waste of time trying to talk any common sense. Are you on drugs?
Monday, May 29, 2006
Bush's ways different from his father's, but polls same
'You wouldn't know they were father and son,' strategist says
By Tom Raum
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>> a d v e r t i s e m e n t <<
>> w e b t o o l s <<
Print Story | Email Story | News Tip?
WASHINGTON
Through his presidency, George W. Bush has worked hard to avoid repeating the mistakes of his father. He has done almost everything differently, yet now finds himself in the same hole despite trumping his dad by winning a second term.
He is at about the same place in the polls that his father was at in the lowest point of his presidency, with only about three of every 10 Americans registering approval. Like his father before him, this president faces a rebellion among conservatives, an uncertain economic outlook and the prospect of Republican losses in November.
The first President Bush liked to quote Yogi Berra and his curious take on a baseball loss: "We made too many wrong mistakes."
What were the biggest mistakes of George W. Bush's presidency? When asked that at an April 2004 news conference, he said he could not think of any. A far more subdued Bush now acknowledges some major ones - and not the ones that his father made.
They include "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people," Bush said at a Thursday news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said that the inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison was one of the darkest marks on his watch.
"Now I think he wishes he had not taken a blanket view that everything his father did was wrong," said Bruce Buch-anan, a University of Texas professor who has closely studied the Bush family. "Staying out of Baghdad looks like a brilliant move at this point." During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the first President Bush did not send U.S. troops into Baghdad to oust President Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait.
The current president says that the 2003 invasion that drove Saddam from power was right.
A recent AP-Ipsos poll put Bush's approval rating at 33 percent. Other polls have put him lower. The first president Bush sank to 29 percent in a Gallup poll in early August 1992 soon after Democrats nominated Bill Clinton.
The differences are most pronounced on Iraq. They also extend to the Bushes' attitudes on international institutions, government spending and taxes and fealty to conservatives.
"If you didn't know them, if you came from Mars and became a student of both presidencies, you wouldn't know they were father and son," said Republican strategist Ed Rogers, an official in the first Bush White House.
Still, Rogers said, the president "is definitely moving toward his father in terms of having a better sense of history and a better understanding of the U.S. and its place in the world."
As to Mars, that is one on which they agree. Both Bushes proposed an eventual manned mission. They have taken different approaches in other areas:
? Iraq: The elder Bush assembled a broad coalition and drove Hussein's invaders out of Kuwait but did not move into Baghdad. "We crushed their 43 divisions, but we stopped - we didn't just want to kill, and history will look on that kindly," he said in a memoir written with Brent Scowcroft, his national-security adviser.
The younger Bush ignored those words, and Scowcroft's public admonishments, and invaded Baghdad in March 2003 without broad international support.
Baghdad fell and Saddam was later captured, but the war continues. At least 2,460 U.S. troops have died. Iraq is a main reason for Bush's low approval ratings and weighs heavily on all Republicans on midterm-election ballots.
? Taxes and spending: The elder Bush pledged, "Read my lips: no new taxes," then agreed to a bipartisan tax increase. It helped shrink the deficit but cost him credibility.
The younger Bush stood firm against tax increases and paid heed to the economy. He delivered on a series of large tax cuts.
But the U.S. balance sheets tipped from big surplus to big deficit because of those cuts, recession, the terrorist attacks, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased homeland-security spending.
? Conservatives: They were suspicious of the elder Bush's New England roots and generally moderate views, and never warmed up to him. He alienated them further by breaking his anti-tax pledges and not embracing their agenda.
The younger Bush courted the right and won their backing through two presidential victories. Recently, however, many have abandoned him in disputes over immigration, deficit spending, and what some conservatives see as lack of White House assertiveness on such social causes as outlawing abortion and gay marriage.
Hey dumbass,
A hunger strike is a CHOICE by people to not eat.
It has nothing to do with anything or anyone else,its their own personal choice.
There is no way you can say that they are being forced to not eat,even you are smart enough to know that.
Should the US force-feed them?
All their human rights have been taken away. Would you prefer to live or die under those same circumstance?
SOME FOUR-DIMENSIONAL THINKING
Brought to you by the American Committees on Foreign Relations ACFR NewsGroup No. 716, Monday, May 29, 2006.
Quote:REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Iraq's War Cabinet
WSJ
May 25, 2006
Iraq passed another important milestone last weekend when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won parliamentary approval for the bulk of his cabinet. But with the critical posts of Defense and Interior minister unfilled, the new body is a reminder of how much very hard work lies ahead.
Perhaps the most arresting fact about the new war cabinet is its lack of notable leaders. A few competent and well-known figures from Iraq's interim governments have returned. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari stand out. But by and large sectarian political tokenism has been the order of the day, with the victorious parties in the December election filling posts with undistinguished loyalists.
Most troubling is the lack of accountability for past performance. Take Bayan Jabr, who presided for the past year over an Interior Ministry infiltrated by "death squads" that undermined Iraqi trust in the police. Mr. Jabr is at least out of that job, but he's nonetheless gotten the plum and important Finance Ministry instead.
Meanwhile, Ahmed Chalabi, who showed his competence with several portfolios during the transition government, was vetoed for the Interior post by Mr. Jabr's Sciri party. Sciri's Badr militia appears to be a big source of the problem at Interior, and Mr. Chalabi is the kind of non-sectarian leader who could have tame the militias and build a more credible force. Instead Mr. Maliki is going to run Interior himself, though a Prime Minister has many other duties and Interior needs hands-on management.
A weak cabinet is not itself an insurmountable problem, especially since many of the posts are essentially patronage jobs. But it puts all the more burden on Prime Minister Maliki, who is new to the job and has no proven leadership record. Early reports suggest he is staffing his office with party loyalists of no great experience either. His predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, only realized the importance of a strong Prime Minister's office when it was too late. Iraq may not be able to afford another year for Mr. Maliki to learn that same lesson.
The most urgent need is for leaders in both Iraq and Washington to do more to improve security in Baghdad. The White House has been right to point out that the media have missed many good news stories in Iraq, but current coverage probably understates the trauma of daily life in the capital. Iraq can survive the car bombs we hear about on the news. The real problem is more generalized lawlessness and a lack of basic services like electricity that have made normal life nasty, brutish and too often short.
Educated Iraqis are fleeing Baghdad in increasing numbers, a terrible sign for the country's democratic future if the exodus is not stopped. The new government and coalition commanders may have to think in terms of a major redeployment of U.S. and Iraqi forces, with the aim of securing Baghdad at all costs. A 30-day plan for a more visible street presence and with frequent security checkpoints would be one place to start.
All of which points out again the troubles that have arisen from the terribly slow transition to Iraqi sovereignty. The momentum of Saddam Hussein's swift fall from power was squandered as Iraqis were forced to wait more than a year and a half to vote in their first free election. Then that election was held under a system of "proportional representation" that exacerbated the very sectarian trends that are plaguing the country now.
Victory for the U.S. mission is still possible, though it is going to require a continued American political and military commitment. Thus we are glad to see that the Bush Administration is not using the timing of this new government in Iraq as an excuse to signal major troop withdrawals. If anything, the new government will need a renewed U.S. willingness to help as it tries to subdue the insurgency and restore some civil order -- on which everything else hangs.
cicerone imposter wrote:All their human rights have been taken away. Would you prefer to live or die under those same circumstance?
Life is preferable to death.
cicerone imposter wrote:All their human rights have been taken away. Would you prefer to live or die under those same circumstance?
False! They have not had all their human rights taken away. These prisoners chose to ally themselves with the
itm. Their circumstances are their doing and their responsibility. Even so, they possess the right to life, while having participated in truly denying the civilians they murdered
all of their human rights.
I would not and have not chosen to murder civilians or ally myself with those who have murdered civilians. Therefore, your "live or die" question is meaningless.
I most definitely ally myself with those who murder
itm in order to stop the
itm from murdering more civilians. Yes it often happens that in our efforts to murder
itm we inadvertently kill civilians. However failure to persist in murdering
itm will result in far more civilians murdered by
itm than we will inadvertently kill.
itm = inhuman terrorist murderers = murderers of civilians, and those who abet the murder of civilians, and those who advocate the murder of civilians, and those who are silent witnesses of those who murder civilians.
Joe Nation wrote:Terror is not terrorism.
Yes. and good is bad and up is down and when we torture it's not really torture it's necessary, yes.
Meanwhile, we haven't smoked them out of their caves because we were elsewhere urging them to bring it on and they did.
Joe(Brilliant)Nation
So if a policeman accidentally fatally wounds an innocent, and said innocent's family
feels terrorized by the police= the police become terrorists?
By your self-serving logic (or lack thereof) on this subject: Coulrophobiacs should be lobbying to have Bozo put on the Terrorist Watch List.
Terrorism require
intent.
Were that not so; what would separate the pilots of flight 93 on 9-11 from any other's ill-fated flights?
OCCOM(use your own brilliance to see the truth)BILL
U.S. Is Sending Reserve Troops to Iraq's West
Sign In to E-Mail This Print Reprints Save
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: May 30, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 29 ?- The top American commander in Iraq has decided to move reserve troops now deployed in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar Province in western Iraq to help quell a rise in insurgent attacks there, two American officials said Monday.
Although some soldiers from the 3,500-member brigade in Kuwait have moved into Iraq in recent months, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. has decided to send in the remainder of the unit after consultations with Iraqi officials in recent days, the officials said.
The confirmation that the number of American forces in Iraq would grow came on a day of soaring violence in Baghdad. Two Britons working as members of a CBS News television crew were killed on Monday and an American correspondent for the network was critically wounded when a military patrol they were accompanying was hit by a roadside bomb.
Link
Perception of Powell as honest broker changing
Plays critical of Iraq invasion mysteriously taken off
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1785641,00.html
How about something more in the middle? Although with doubt and uncertainty, Powell was the good soldier and forged ahead.
