Tag: drones

Keep an eye out for the Stasi

Posted on by kathiemm

I recently watched the German film “The Lives of Others,” got ready to mail it back to Netflix, but couldn’t let it go. Scenes from the film, elements of the plot, haunted me for two days, so I tore open the Netflix envelope, and watched the film again. I recommend it to all readers of this blog, but only if you can stand an emotional roller coaster and are ready to agonize over what it’s like to live in a national security state.

In the film, situated in Berlin in 1984, the security state is the communist-ruled German Democratic Republic, and their strong arm is the Stasi, the secret police.  The playing out of the major theme of the film—how good men deal, over time, with the corruption and malevolence of a security state—is, successively horrifying, infuriating, anxiety-provoking, and ultimately inspirational. See the New York Times review.

In the United States, the term national security state is associated with the National Security Act of 1947. In In his book “Brave New World Order,” Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer argued that characteristics of a national security state include: investing enormous power and influence in the military; viewing true democracy as dangerous; promoting an ideology claiming that freedom and development are possible only when the elite are in control; seeing enemies everywhere and considering any means to destroy them as justifiable; and restricting public debate through intimidation.

We see all of these characteristics in The Lives of Others.  In this day of spy drones and the National Security Administration in the United States, should we be watching for them here?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Abuse of ethical standards? Experts in support of war

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest contributor Michael D. Knox, Ph.D.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has bombed more than 25 countries. In these 68 years, no other nation has killed and injured more people living outside its borders. We have more nuclear weapons, more chemical weapons, and more soldiers than all other nations combined.

Nazi physician Karl Brandt sentenced at International Military Tribunal.
Nazi physician Karl Brandt is sentenced at International Military Tribunal. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.

In 2014, the U.S. continues drone and missile attacks on residential neighborhoods in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. We use concentration camps, torture, assassination, threats of war, and spying on our own people.

The invasions, the killing of thousands of children, the suffering of the wounded, the torture, the environmental impact, and so on, occur only because of support provided by professionals, educators, and scientists whose ethical standards should preclude any involvement with war.

These specialized experts include university professors, scientists, healthcare providers, journalists, engineers, teachers, and the clergy. Modern U.S. wars could not be fought without the complicity of these respected groups. Such groups were also part of the German war machine.

If you are a member of a group with ethical standards, be aware of what contributions your colleagues may be making to the U.S. war efforts. Consider how ethical standards apply, hold violators accountable, and do what you can to get your profession out of the war business.

All Americans, regardless of occupation, should consider what they are doing to sustain war. Without citizen support there would be no U.S. warfare.  Please consider what you might do to show your opposition to the bloodshed. Examples of what other Americans have done are recorded in the US Peace Registry.

Michael D. Knox, Ph.D., is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and chair of the US Peace Memorial Foundation. He is also editor of the US Peace Registry. Dr. Knox’s work is now focused on recognizing Americans who have had the courage to publicly oppose one or more U.S. wars www.uspeacememorial.org/WorldPeace.htm.

Fallujah: Death and destruction again, Part I

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Ian Hansen

As a supporter of human rights and locally-controlled democracy in Iraq, I am dismayed to see Fallujah fall to Al Qaeda.

Al-Qa'ida training manual
Al-Qa’ida training manual, CIA Virtual Museum. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons

Some may see poetic justice for the U.S. in this development: the U.S. war of aggression has clearly backfired in Fallujah. But there’s no justice in it for the people of that historic city. I would have been happy to see Fallujah residents lead a nonviolent civil disobedience movement to regain control over their communities, but the ascendance of Al Qaeda there is a tragedy.

The people of Fallujah have already endured enough massacres, destruction of the city’s ancient buildings and mosques, and chemical weapons horrors from the U.S. siege in 2004. And although the draconian rule of the U.S.-aligned Iraqi Security Forces should be overthrown by local democratic rule, the siege by Al Qaeda is, if anything, a regression, not an improvement.

Al Qaeda is not a progressive organization, and there is nothing redeeming about it. It’s a violent oppressive scourge on Islam in much the same way that the Christian Coalition–and the U.S. military-industrial-ideological machine generally–is a violent and oppressive scourge on Christianity.

It is not a coincidence that Al Qaeda as a movement arises largely from the Arabian Peninsula, most of which is controlled by an oil-rich U.S.-Israeli ally (Saudi Arabia). Saudi Arabia–one of the most draconian autocracies in the Middle East–is playing a disgraceful role in the Syrian disaster right now; it just got around to abolishing slavery in 1962. Al Qaeda is at odds with the Saudi regime in obvious ways, but in other obvious ways Al Qaeda mirrors its core values.

And I don’t think that violent decision-makers in the U.S. actually want Al Qaeda to disappear (though until more evidence pours in, this is more of an accusation against our leadership’s unconscious intentions than their conscious ones).

Even at the time of 9/11, Al Qaeda was originally a pretty paltry and unpopular group. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the drone assassinations, and the other Joint Special Operation Command-CIA paramilitary killings all over the world seem to have only magnified Al Qaeda’s international presence.

Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at York College, City University of New York. His research focuses in part on how witness for human rights and peace can transcend explicit political ideology. He is also on the Steering Committee for Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

Systems so perfect

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Mike Corgan

“dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”

Man frightened by specter of national spying.
Image by Carlos Latuff, copyright free. (FRA refers to Swedish wiretapping law).

C.S. Lewis wrote those words for his verse play The Rock, but they could just as well apply to U.S. foreign policy and security affairs. (Witness the current daily National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping bombshells.)

We have always been dazzled by our technological prowess when it comes to security. In the American Revolution, the British had muskets, but we had rifles. The Civil War had aerial observation, repeating rifles, railroads, and steam-powered warships. In World War I, every machine gun on all sides had at least one American patent; in World War II, we had long-range bombers that could deliver the atomic bomb.

Nowadays we can listen to everyone everywhere.

Maybe we should take a lesson from our use of the atomic bomb. It took awhile, but many of us finally realized that this was something awesomely and terribly different. In spite of some impassioned calls to do so, neither the U.S. nor any other nation has used nuclear weapons since World War II ended in 1945. In my Navy days we used to deride “capabilities in search of a mission.”

Perhaps we can learn that our ability to eavesdrop on everyone, like our ability to deploy nuclear weapons, has a serious downside. We ought not to use this “system so perfect” everywhere without clear and agreed-upon restraints. Yes, terrorists do present a serious threat to our society–but so does the breakdown of trust between citizens and government and among those who should be our allies and partners in fighting this scourge.

We have incredibly effective, near-perfect systems, like “smart” weapons, drones, electronic intercept equipment, and so on. We humans need to be good and smart, too.