Women Getting Pregnant in Iraq

We don't even keep track of it for statistical purposes?
The Armed Forces should issue birth control patches to women soldiers and only restrict this benefit if they, in writing decline. I don't say this because I encourage sexual activity in general not to mention within the Armed Forces not to mention during a war. However, women soldiers would be more effective if they did not have to deal with the monthly onslaught of cramps, fatigue and pain of menstruation. Easing of these symptoms can only be offered them by birth control pills or patches. Just to clarify: I IN NO WAY CONDONE SEXUAL ACTIVITY AMONG SOLDIERS OR ANYONE NOR DO I CONDONE THE WAR. I make the assertion to issue birth control patches not because I think that it would only be better for the purpose of preventing pregnancy. If I thought this, I would say something stupid like "issue every guy a bunch of condoms".....But really, who would be THAT STUPID!! I think women in life have enough trouble getting pressured into having sex, we DO NOT need society finding ways to make men feel better about their decisions to pressure them ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN THEY ARE STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF A DESERT AND LOOKING FOR COMFORT. Now that that is clear. Please re-read the first sentence. Soldiers have enough to worry about.

Communication

Today I am sad.

.....This all started when I became angry at the following article absolutely buried in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday August 23, 2005:

In Brief/In Britain
Police Admit Changing Story of Transit Shooting
From Times Wire Reports
London police acknowledged that a Brazilian shot to death had not run into a subway station, had not vaulted a gate and was not wearing a heavy jacket that could conceal a bomb.
Officers said they had met with Jean Charles de Menezes' cousins in London, as well as with Brazilian consular officials, two days after the shooting to tell them those facts.Police shot Menezes on July 22, the day after the failed transit bombings and two weeks after the deadly July 7 attacks.

I am HURT by this. An innocent HUMAN BEING DIED. WAS MURDERED! And buried in the middle of Los Angeles Times is an 83 word article stating that everything that the London police used to justify their murder of a citizen in the tense days after the London bombings was COMPLETELY BOGUS.

I do not understand!! I don't. Individual human lives are so devalued that we either judge people at the outset so that we can take from them what we need or we punch them in as a statistic and write them off altogether.

He was Brazilian: dark skin, terrified of being mistaken for some terrorist. I have this simple thought: what if they had just talked it through?...what if we were all completely honest with each other and ourselves...I don't understand why this happened in the first place and further why the police (a) LIED about the occurance and (b) issued such a lame, tiny, unsympathetic reversal of their previous assertions...how could they?!?!?

Crime and Punishment at the ICC

I am NOT a proponent of the death penalty. I would never personally want to be held responsible for cutting short the life of another being regardless of whether I believe they have a chance at redemption or reform, or not. HOWEVER, when I see a ten year trial for the prosecution of someone responsible for the orchestration of the deaths of nearly one million people by the most brutal and primitive means one could fathom, I am forced to ponder the philosophical quandary of punishment suitable to the crime.

No developed country other than the US, utilizes the death penalty. And in the US, what is the benchmark for the death penalty? Usually the brutal nature preceding the end of the crime (i.e. murder), weighs most on whether someone receives life in prison or the death penalty. So if there are two murderers, and one momentarily goes ballistic and murders another human and the other premeditates and follows through with the rape, torture and murder of another human, via the sentencing, supreme law acknowledges that these crimes are not equal. Murderer one would most likely not receive the death penalty where as murderer two would probably have no other choice. The punishment is supposedly tailored to fit the brutality of the crime.

Not so for the International Criminal Court. One of the reasons that the ICC cannot sentence people to death (other than the obvious fact that it is an archaic and undesirable act) is that those prosecuted by the ICC are citizens of varying countries with varying rules of engagement. So how, then, can the ICC (any court really, but above all the ICC) punish according to the crime?

Theoneste Bogosora is responsible for the death of nearly one million people. He is charged with the most weighty crime known to man: Genocide by means of gang rape, torture, mutilation, decapitation, dismemberment, impailment, etc. etc. How can you punish for such an unimaginable crime? Should the ICC be governed by the "rules of the jungle," "eye for an eye": everything planned and executed by Bogosora would be done to him until he gave in to death? However, those responsible for justice can never bow to the level of the criminal. No judge, jury, lawyer, even victim would be willing to see such monstrous actions taken against another human: not even the man responsible for the pain and disappearance of their family, friends, children, loved ones.

There will never be a surprise verdict at the ICC. All criminals, from those responsible for minor indiscretions against the Geneva conventions, to the man responsible for the second largest genocide of the 20th Century, can only be held in a cell. Something about that feels very wrong. Not that I would want to see anyone tortured, regardless of their crime. But I want them reminded, everyday, of the pain and horror they wrongly caused innocent people for no purpose other than their disposal.

War Criminal Updates

I always enjoy checking in with the UN criminal tribunals to see how the lethargic hunting down and prosecution of various war criminals is coming along. Following is the latest and greatest. Perhaps if the world spent less time worrying about Bin Laden's whereabouts, murderers far greater than he would be brought to justice:

1) Charles Taylor: The once illegitimate leader of Liberia propped up by his rebel force (National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)), turned President (elected in "free and fair"elections in 1997) has been in exile in Nigeria since 2003. 2003 was the climax of a combined Liberean/Sierra Leonean rebel attack against Charles Taylor's NPFL. These rebels took over Monrovia, Nigerian Peacekeepers arrived (temporarily backed by US troops), the UN managed to pull together a broader reaching peacekeeping force, US troops pulled out and riots continued through 2004. Charles Taylor is accused of "17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the people of Sierra Leone by the Special Court. The crimes include killings, mutilations, rape and other forms of sexual violence, sexual slavery, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, abduction, and the use of forced labor by Sierra Leonean armed opposition groups. "
NIGERIA MUST SURRENDER TAYLOR FOR PROSECUTION IN THE SPECIAL SIERRA LEONE COURT.

2) Theoneste Bagosora: Mastermind of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. He has been in the midst of prosecution by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) since 1996. With the verdict still pending, the ICTR continues to struggle over the legitimacy of expert witnesses and truthfulness of character and other witnesses. If only there were a way to insure a fair trial without all of the ensuing bureaucracyy!
PROSECUTE THE MAN ALREADY!!!!

3) Ratko Mladic: The once invincible military leader of the Serbian Army, was also a man disillusionedd by his own power. During his "ethnic cleansing" campaign (a friendlier phrase for Genocide) of Bosnian Muslims, Mladic took hostage numerous Dutch UN peacekeepers, tying and chaining them to military targets essential to NATO's proposed airstrikes. This delayed intervention and caused Dutch troops to back away from the contested safe areas. This allowed Mladic to commit the largest singular act of ethnic cleansing/genocide since WWII. 7,414 Muslim men were herded into a warehouse and mowed down by automatic weapons and hand grenades. Later, Mladic met with UN Force Commander, British General Rupert Smith. When talks did not go his way, Mladic thugishly declared "I am a war criminal, but you have to talk to me as I am the only one who can allow you to leave Gorzade." Later, Smith pulled all UN troops out of the "safe areas" and intense NATO bombings began.
STILL AT LARGE

4) Slobodan Milosevic: Arrested in April 2001, Milosevic is one of the most infamous war criminals known to our generation. His 13 year reign over the Serbian people ended in the total destruction of the country's infrastructure as well as that of all 6 Yugoslav republics. Responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and the displacement of nearly the entire country throughout the Croatiann (1991), Bosnian (1992) and Kosovo (1999) wars, Milosevic is the worst man Europe has encountered since Hitler.
CURRENTLY ON TRIAL ICTY

Obviously, there are many more war criminal awaiting trial than I have addressed: The greatest demons are usually the hardest to put down.