Al Gore and the Noble Peace Prize

October 17, 2007 at 5:56 pm (Genocide, Indigenous People, Iraq War, Peace)
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The Nobel Foundation, in existence now for more than one hundred years, was established when Alfred Nobel requested the foundation’s creation in his last will and testament. Nobel, after receiving criticism for his invention of dynamite, determined that he preferred his legacy to contribute to rather than detract from humanity. After lengthy discussion and argument as to the intent of his will, the Nobel Foundation was established years after his death.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize, as determined by Nobel’s own words, should be granted, “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”. Al Gore hardly fits this requirement; however, this argument will not analyze or critique his behavior for the jets he fuels on his journeys throughout the world, nor the distribution of a film that discussed his life more than the issue it purports to tackle (Global Warming), it will examine some of the events that unfolded during his Vice-Presidency under Bill Clinton. In fact, according to Edward S. Herman the office of Bill Clinton was responsible for some of the most horrific war crimes and abuses of international law, such as the Geneva Conventions and The Hague in the history of the United States. The Bush Administration has simply furthered the abuses of power that Clinton et al reigned down upon poor nations.

The list of abuses includes the carrying out of wars of aggression, the use of poison gases and other inhumane weapons, deliberately killing and starving civilian populations, and the use of force beyond military necessity. None of which Al Gore ever used his power to deter or extinguish. As stated by the International Criminal Court, any crime against peace is namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the forgoing…War Crimes and Crimes against humanity. Considering the long list of civilians enslaved, oppressed, starved, and violently murdered during the Clinton Administration, Mr. Gore surly should stand trial as an accomplice along side Clinton.

The list of crimes against humanity committed by the US under Clinton and Gore is gruesome indeed. Included are the genocide in East Timor, the illegal and unwarranted bombings of Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, coupled with aid to Turkey and Columbia, where the civilian casualties from counterinsurgency warfare and death squad operations…exceeded the pre-NATO bombing deaths in Kosovo by a large factor. None of this, of course, includes the brutal sanctions imposed on Iraq, which, had it not been for the power the US wields on the UN Security Council, would have been prosecuted as war crimes under international law.

According to UNICEF, in 1999, years into the Clinton/Gore administration, sanctions in Iraq were killing close to 5,000 children under the age of 5 monthly far beyond normal death rates. Several reports from the United States Defense Agency show that contrary to the Geneva Convention, the US government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the countries water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway. (Jeff Lindemyer, November 2001). Other DIA documents (dated January, 1991, February, 1991, and March 1991) showed that not only was the Clinton/Gore Administration knowledgeable about how the sanctions would impact civilians, they monitored the situation closely. A charismatic statesman, Clinton repeatedly cited abuses of the “Oil for Food Program” by Iraqi leaders as the cause of civilian casualties and suffering, of course avoiding the fact that the devastation of sanctions was being felt by Iraqi’s as early as 1991 and the “Oil for Food Program” did not start until December of 1996. As the “Oil for Food Program” got underway, the US continued charges levied at the Saddam regime, with no basis in fact. According to the US State Department, Holds on inappropriate contracts help prevent the diversion of oil-for food goods to further Saddam’s personal interests. However, Jeff Lindemyer shows that requests for urgent assistance were repeatedly delayed to the point that Secretary-General Kofi-Annan along with Benon Sevon wrote numerous letters decrying the excessive holds placed on items ordered under the program, not by the Saddam regime, but by the UN Security Council.

Remarkable to the Clinton/Gore Administration was its ongoing relationship with President Suharto, the person responsible for genocide in Indonesia, East Timor, and West Papua. Clinton brokered weapons deals and trade agreements, which enslaved an entire people for companies such as Reebok and Nike, while US bought weapons were used to exterminate any people who resisted. Against the will of the Administration and the corporate controlled media, it was the actions of a few brave journalists who brought this tragedy to light. American journalist Amy Goodman was severely beaten by US supplied weapons when she captured the murder of innocent civilians in East Timor. Upon her return to the United States, she worked tirelessly to bring attention to the matter through US media outlets who finally after intense international coverage could no longer ignore the story, however, the coverage the genocide did receive was minimal and no mention was made of US involvement.

Some other notable war crimes and immoralities committed by the Clinton/Gore Administration include the use of DynaCorp, a private “security firm” that at the time Clinton and Gore were lobbying Congress heavily for their use in South America was in the midst of an investigation for participation in a child sex-slave ring. Regardless of this knowledge Clinton/Gore continued to offer DynaCorp military contracts and relied on the firm heavily to carry out illegal military operations. The people of the Delta Niger suffered and continue to suffer horrific environmental degradation, mass murder, and torture at the hands of the US backed government, which Clinton/Gore did not hesitate weaponizing and training at the time of these known abuses.

Clearly, Mr. Gore, if he had any redeeming qualities at all, would apologize for his active role and participation in these war crimes and crimes against humanity, and return the Nobel in order to be awarded to someone more deserving.

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Narcissistic Holidays and the American Way

October 8, 2007 at 10:47 pm (Comubus Day, Genocide, Howard Zinn, Indigenous People, Paul Farmer)
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The essential feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts.

 

 

~DSM-IV-TR

 

One must wonder how it is that Americans celebrate a day like Columbus Day. Even worse, one wonders how Americans do not demand that it be stripped of its place in the American cluster of days to be celebrated. Only a country with a collective Narcissistic Personality Disorder would dare honor this day.  

 

 

Unlike the propaganda taught in American schools of how the natives welcomed us and offered their generosity in assisting us with the growth of corn, the reality of “American Discovery” is brutal, barbaric and just plain gross. Yet Americans seem to wonder about content to honor the likes of Christopher Columbus, the early colonizers, and the great aptitude they apparently had in the realm of survival. It is as if in the American collective conscious the millions of natives living here did not exist at all.

 

 

Many will argue that the people of today can not be held to account for the sins of their fathers, and to a certain extent there is some truth to this premise; however, Americans continue to honor this day and the acts of Christopher Columbus as if it they are actually something deserving of our praise. Even now, the state of natives living in America is bleak. As one example, Amnesty International recently released a report highlighting the sexual assault and rapes of natives living on reservations, where the perpetrator rapes with impunity and confidence, knowing no one will investigate the crime, no one, including Federal Authorities.

 

 

If historians are correct and the cumulative statistics of European conflict and conquest are assessed with any honesty, Columbus Day would need to change its name to something like Genocide Day. According to author and historian Mark Cocker, …eleven million indigenous Americans lost their lives in the eighty years following the Spanish invasion of Mexico. In the Andean empire of the Incas the figure was more than eight million. In Brazil the Portuguese conquest say Indian numbers dwindle from a pre-Columbian total of almost 2,500,000 to just 225,000. And to the north of Mexico it has now been widely accepted that Native Americans declined from an original population of more than 8,000,000 to 800,000 by the end of nineteenth century. For the whole of the Americas, some historians have put the total losses as high as one hundred million.

 

 

True to form, Americans tend to have a short attention span and certainly lack in their ability to empathize. The continued oppression of indigenous peoples around the globe is more than enough evidence to support such a charge. Paul Farmer, human rights activist, physician and author documents this continued oppression well in his most recent book Pathologies of Power-Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor, where he rightfully charges …structural violence, which influences the nature and distribution of extreme suffering as oppressions main cause. The most basic right, “the right to survive” continues to be trampled on by those in power. He argues: “Human rights violations are not accidents; they are not random in distribution or effect. Rights violations are, rather, symptoms of deeper pathologies of power and are linked intimately to the social conditions that so often determine who will suffer abuse and who will b shielded from harm.”

 

 

Of course we can not lay the blame for the suffering of all indigenous people both present and past solely on the shoulders of Columbus, but certainly we can discontinue our celebrations of his genocidal actions. Are the Arawak Indians who Columbus contemptuously kidnapped, enslaved, and subsequently wiped out not deserving of our remembrance? According to historian Howard Zinn …the Indians were taken as slave labor and on huge estates, known as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.

 

 

Indeed, only a country with no conscious at all could honor the man responsible for committing genocide, especially in the name of progress. It is this continued lack of empathy that has allowed the oppression and death of millions, simply for the sake of furthering our own agendas. Zinn continues: This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

 

 

Certainly all indigenous peoples around the globe who struggle against America’s continued hegemony can testify as to how this deadly attitude and apathy has impacted their life, suffering, and death. Sadly, it will be up to the snoozing populace of Americans to wake each other to the atrocities being committed in their names – perhaps then, the indigenous people around the globe will finally have justice.

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