Friday, January 25, 2013

U.N. Launches Drone Investigation And Obama Lies About War On Terror Being Over And Finally American Women To Serve In Combat Roles

Violence against women embedded in America's culture

...We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.

...Women’s liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But we are free together or slaves together.

There are other things I’d rather write about, but this affects everything else. The lives of half of humanity are still dogged by, drained by, and sometimes ended by this pervasive variety of violence.

Quote from: A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year by Rebecca Solnit at Huffington Post, Jan. 24, 2013

Today's Topics:

* President Obama's lies and propaganda about the Global War On Terror- the world is a battlefield
* UN to investigate US policy regarding Drone attacks-is the UN serious or just trying to placate critics of the Drone program.
* Gender equality in US military -now more women soldiers can take part in war crimes and crimes against humanity
* In Canada in contrast has had women in combat roles since 1989-America is behind the times and not a trend setter but rather reluctant follower
* co-opting feminists to silence their objections to war
* Violence against women is embedded and treated as the norm in American society as it is in other nations


UN to begin investigation into the use of Drones video care of Huffington Post:













U.N. Launches Drone Investigation Into Legality Of U.S. Program by Joshua Hersh at Huffington Post, Jan. 24,2013

-- The United Nations opened a major new investigation on Thursday into the United States' use of drones and targeted assassinations.

The U.N. investigation, led by special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights Ben Emmerson, is expected to focus on the legal justification for America's expansive drone program, which has largely remained secretive and unexamined.

"The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law," Emmerson said in a statement released by his office.

"It is therefore imperative that appropriate legal and operational structures are urgently put in place to regulate its use in a manner that complies with the requirements of international law, including international human rights law, international humanitarian law (or the law of war as it used to be called), and international refugee law."

Maybe it is unfair to pick apart an Obama speech when it serves its own purpose as possibly entertainment , a lesson in mastering rhetoric or just part of an American tradition which has only a little relationship to reality or the actual intent of the person making the speech or in more cynical terms is just more propaganda to quiet down the great unwashed and preach to them about equality and justice for all while the Presidency and government are used to protect the rich and powerful and as much as the status quo as possible. Sometimes governments are forced to make changes when the public is dissatisfied with current laws. So the incoming President has to throw a bone or two to each of the various groups who have supported him including those in the lower classes but more often than not the change is one of appearance of fog and mirrors while the status quo is protected .


The Number One Falsehood in Obama's Inaugural Speech: 'Decade of War is Now Ending' by Alex Kane, Alternet.org, Jan. 23, 2013

Obama uttered a major falsehood, something that progressives should call him out on, and yet not many did (though Salon’s Natasha Lennard was on it). And the falsehood speaks to a highly important legacy that Obama will be leaving behind: the institutionalization of a permanent war footing so the U.S. can wreak havoc around the globe in the name of fightin’ terror.

“A decade of war is now ending,” said Obama, in his inaugural address.

But you see, Obama is not ending any war. It is true that he pulled out of Iraq, though that was only after the Iraqi government rebuffed his requests for U.S. troops to stay past 2012. And it is true that plans are being formulated for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan--but it is also true that the Obama administration has held negotiations over having U.S. troops occupy that country for longer.

But the brazen lie that Obama has ended a decade of war comes in full view when you look at his record on drones. On the same day as Obama was inaugurated, his outgoing Secretary of Defense was much more truthful on this issue: “The reality is [drones are] going to be a continuing tool of national defense in the future.”

These drone strikes have hit Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, and have indeed waged war on both militants there and the civilian population.

The US military has announced that women will be finally after decades of complaints allowed to officially take part in combat missions. This is sort of a change for the better in recognizing that women in military be treated as equal to their male counterparts. Some see it as a major step forward in gender equality .
 Note Canadian female soldiers have been taking part in combat since 1989.

Canadian women in combat roles bring their experiences to Australia The Canadian Press via Huffington Post, May 25, 2012

 ...The Canadian Forces now have women in some of the most senior, and some of the most dangerous jobs — navy divers and bomb disposal experts, to name just two.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says the position of women in the Canadian military is inspiring.

"Canadians and Australians are very like-minded, but a number of other countries have really seen Canada as the gold standard when it comes to how women are treated in the forces, their advancement, their promotion to leadership positions," MacKay said in interview.

...The reticence of some countries to include women in combat roles is based on several false assumptions rooted in emotion rather than data, says Carignan.

The first is that women aren't hard-wired to participate in violence.

"You go through training together as a team and you learn how to apply your rules of engagement and you train in that field," she says. "When you get into a tense situation, your training kicks in. Application of violence is a completely gender neutral concept."

Another belief is that women aren't physically or mentally strong enough to cope with the rigours of combat — a notion the British government emphasized when they upheld the ban on women in frontline combat two years ago.

Carignan says men and women all come to the military with varying capabilities, and it's up to the leadership to deploy them based on strengths and weaknesses.

"We've seen this countless times out in operations or on exercises — the guy who ends up saving the day on the battlefield is not the guy who looks best in the weight room."

And then there's the perception that the public won't accept women dying on the battlefield. Capt. Nichola Goddard's death in Afghanistan in 2006 received significant attention, but at the time she was also only the 16th Canadian soldier killed in combat during the mission.

Afghanistan was the first war that Canadian women served in combat roles.

"Really, I find it quite offensive that we would think that losing a woman in combat is worse than losing a man," says Carignan. "Losing a soldier is a tragedy, period, regardless of the gender."

MacKay says having women in all aspects of the military isn't just a matter of equality, but can also bring benefits. He cites the example of Afghan girls and women who watched as Canadian women protected them and sometimes commanded male soldiers.

"I think there is nothing more vivid than that actual example that's being set by our women in the military," said MacKay.

Canada removed restrictions to women holding combat arms occupations in 1989, with the exception of service on submarines. That last restriction was lifted in 2001.


 Or is it just a way to co-opt and to help mute those who are against America's Military Imperialism .

So will 'Code Pink' be less vocal about its opposition to America's perpetual state of war and the mass murdering of innocent civilians in foreign nations . As it stands now most anti-war activists have already been muted since the election of President Obama in 2008 whether because Obama is a democrat and not a Republican or because in his speeches he talks as if he were a liberal or progressive or because he is the first black president it has created a difference in the way anti-war activists now view the wars being fought by President Obama. Obama is no more justified in his on going military strategies and tactics in the phony war on terror as was President George W. Bush.

There are some nagging problems being over-looked that is the US military and top brass' refusal to do anything substantive about the epidemic of sexual assaults committed by male soldiers against female soldiers. So this issue also needs to be addressed more formally and openly by the US military before we can conclude that women are now the equals to men in the military when these injustices of sexual assaults continue to be covered-up and not treated as serious crimes in the US military . How can women safely serve as equals in the US military when sexual assault is a constant threat and when it occurs it is treated in a dismissive manner.

Another issue to be raised is that if the US military is involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity committing various atrocities as a daily occurrence we can wonder if having female combat soldiers taking part in similar crimes is somehow a move in the right direction for gender equality. So now American women in the US military can now join their male counterparts in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For an analysis of the violence against women in the USA see Rebecca Solnit's article which is an indictment against American society and patriarchal misogynist culture and its justice system which has done little to help with a sincere, honest, conversation on this topic.

In her article she compares the outcry about a gang rape in India while such cases in the USA are either ignored or down played or dismissed out of hand using a plethora of excuses for why these men did what they did. In many cases the men who raped or sexually assaulted a woman are depicted as if sexual assault was not a serious crime but rather just men being men or boys will be boys.


At times it appears as if in America and Western Culture in general that violence against women from sexual assault to women being battered by a male partner or even killed is seen as just something we all have to live with . Though as she points out the victims of this violence are the women while the men involved in such violence only a relatively few ever end up being charged or go to court or imprisoned. In America a thousand women are killed each year by men who may feel entitled to unleash their anger on women.

Thousands of rapes each year go unreported in part because the women may believe that they will not be taken seriously by those in positions of authority and that it may be used against them to undermine their reputation to losing their job and livelihood or to be characterized as easy, or a tease, or a slut or a trouble maker and so forth. So the female victim if she goes public gets to be victimized again by those in authority and the media


A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year by Rebecca Solnit at Huffington Post, Jan. 24, 2013


...Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren’t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they’re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.

There is, however, a pattern of violence against women that’s broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked. Occasionally, a case involving a celebrity or lurid details in a particular case get a lot of attention in the media, but such cases are treated as anomalies, while the abundance of incidental news items about violence against women in this country, in other countries, on every continent including Antarctica, constitute a kind of background wallpaper for the news.

...We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.

Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crimes are men, that doesn’t mean all men are violent. Most are not. In addition, men obviously also suffer violence, largely at the hands of other men, and every violent death, every assault is terrible. But the subject here is the pandemic of violence by men against women, both intimate violence and stranger violence.

...The Party for the Protection of the Rights of Rapists

It’s not just public, or private, or online either. It’s also embedded in our political system, and our legal system, which before feminists fought for us didn’t recognize most domestic violence, or sexual harassment and stalking, or date rape, or acquaintance rape, or marital rape, and in cases of rape still often tries the victim rather than the rapist, as though only perfect maidens could be assaulted -- or believed.

As we learned in the 2012 election campaign, it’s also embedded in the minds and mouths of our politicians. Remember that spate of crazy pro-rape things Republican men said last summer and fall, starting with Todd Akin's notorious claim that a woman has ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of rape, a statement he made in order to deny women control over their own bodies. After that, of course, Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed that rape pregnancies were “a gift from God,” and just this month, another Republican politician piped up to defend Akin’s comment.

Happily the five publicly pro-rape Republicans in the 2012 campaign all lost their election bids. (Stephen Colbert tried to warn them that women had gotten the vote in 1920.) But it’s not just a matter of the garbage they say (and the price they now pay). Earlier this month, congressional Republicans refused to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, because they objected to the protection it gave immigrants, transgendered women, and Native American women. (Speaking of epidemics, one of three Native American women will be raped, and on the reservations 88% of those rapes are by non-Native men who know tribal governments can’t prosecute them.)

And they’re out to gut reproductive rights -- birth control as well as abortion, as they’ve pretty effectively done in many states over the last dozen years. What’s meant by “reproductive rights,” of course, is the right of women to control their own bodies...

And though rapes are often investigated lackadaisically -- there is a backlog of about 400,000 untested rape kits in this country-- rapists who impregnate their victims have parental rights in 31 states. Oh, and former vice-presidential candidate and current congressman Paul Ryan (R-Manistan) is reintroducing a bill that would give states the right to ban abortions and might even conceivably allow a rapist to sue his victim for having one.

...Women’s liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But we are free together or slaves together.

There are other things I’d rather write about, but this affects everything else. The lives of half of humanity are still dogged by, drained by, and sometimes ended by this pervasive variety of violence.


and so it goes,
GORD.

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