Saturday, September 12, 2020
NYPD
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TomDispatch
A ProPublica investigation into severe misconduct (including sexual abuse) by a high-ranking NYPD officer.
—Erika
Christopher McCormack is one of the New York Police Department’s highest-ranking officers. As an assistant chief, he helps oversee drug enforcement and organized crime investigations throughout the city. He was hand-picked for the promotion two years ago by his old friend James O’Neill, who was police commissioner.
But his ascension started three decades earlier, when he was a rookie cop patrolling drug-infested Washington Heights. “He was always the first guy out of the car,” said Joseph Esposito, his precinct commander at the time. “Always the tip of the spear.” He would earn the nickname “Red Rage” for his ginger hair, fiery temperament and aggressive approach to policing.
Street cop. Sergeant. Lieutenant. By 2006, McCormack was running his own narcotics squad. Captain. Deputy Inspector. By 2011, he had his own precinct, more than 200 officers in his command. His rise continued, said a former colleague, like “greased lightning.”
Along the way, police leaders were privy to an ever-growing list of complaints against McCormack, signs that his harsh tactics and heated temperament were pushing the limits. Some of the grievances were made in lawsuits that the city eventually settled. Others were submitted to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, created to investigate misconduct. Many of the allegations were hidden from public view.
Using court records, newly released data and a trove of confidential documents, ProPublica has pieced together just how much top officials had to look past to promote him.
The allegations against McCormack read in some ways like those against many other cops in the NYPD: that he was destructive in searching a home or overly physical with someone on the street. What stands out, though, is how often Black and Latino men accused him of invasive, humiliating searches. They say he pulled down their pants in public, exposing their genitals; some said he used his fingers to search for drugs around and inside their anal cavities or directed his officers to do so.
https://www.propublica.org/article/over-a-dozen-black-and-latino-men-accused-a-cop-of-humiliating-invasive-strip-searches-the-nypd-kept-promoting-him?fbclid=IwAR1R0C11joDTgQXBz7X59AqAKcRn2kPnKCt_QT-9w4144KjHJ6aEOgcgHJk
My friend and fellow service member needs your help
Dear MoveOn member,
I want to share a story with you, a story that I hope can serve as a reminder and call to action for each and every one of us.
Bev Veals, a longtime North Carolina resident and three-time cancer survivor, had been struggling to cobble together enough money to pay her insurance premium after her husband lost his job because of the coronavirus pandemic. She wasn't sure what to do, so she called the office of her senator, Thom Tillis, to ask for help.
Instead of getting help, Bev was told by the Republican senator's office, "just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt, if I can't afford that dress shirt, I don't get to get it."1
Let me be very clear: Health care is not the same as buying a dress shirt. Our elected officials should be doing everything in their power to make sure every American has access to the care they need, but as this story shows, Senator Tillis is not living up to that basic requirement for service.
Luckily, in just 53 days, we have a chance to elect a real leader for North Carolina residents like Bev—and this leader will work to fight for not just health care but the rights and opportunities for each and every one of us.
His name is Cal Cunningham, he's my friend and fellow service member, and I'm reaching out today to ask if you can help give him the resources he needs to defeat Thom Tillis and help flip control of the Senate in November.
Can you please chip in $3 directly to Cal's campaign?
After the September 11 attacks, Cal was called to service and joined the Army Reserve, going on to serve three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since returning to North Carolina, Cal has served in the state's Senate, where he has pushed for strong environmental legislation, worked to curb the opioid crisis, and pushed for better pay for teachers.
In the United States Senate, Cal will fight to ensure that every single one of us has access to affordable health care—unlike Thom Tillis, who ran his first campaign on the vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act.2,3
Cal knows that the existential threat of our time is climate change, and he will work to protect the future of our nation and our planet. Thom Tillis was one of the senators who encouraged Donald Trump to take the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and has raked in more than $200,000 in contributions from oil and gas companies.4,5
Cal is a strong supporter of the LGBTQ community and has vowed to help pass the Equality Act when elected.6 When he was the speaker of the North Carolina House, Thom Tillis helped pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in the state.7
And last week, after it was revealed that Donald Trump called fellow service members who have died for our country "losers" and "suckers," Cal rightfully rebuked the comments as "indefensible and offensive."8 Thom Tillis said nothing.9
It is clear that Cal is the type of leader we need in the Senate. Click here and please chip in $3 directly to Cal's campaign and help him defeat Thom Tillis in this final push.
As we head into the home stretch of the election year, it is absolutely crucial that we all do what we can not only to defeat Donald Trump but also to end Mitch McConnell's control of the Senate and ensure that a strong Democratic majority is ready on day one to help Joe Biden and Kamala Harris undo the damage done by Trump and guide our country forward.
North Carolina is one of the most important swing states in this election—both to defeat Trump and to flip control of the Senate. And any help we can give to Cal Cunningham will help to accomplish both of these goals.
So I need to ask you, Are you in? Click here and please chip in $3 now to Cal's campaign.
Thanks for all you do.
–Pete Buttigieg
Sources:
1. "Cancer survivor pleading for help with health insurance 'angry and hurt' over Tillis staffer's response," WRAL.com, September 8, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144167?t=5&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
2. "Priorities," Cunningham for U.S. Senate, accessed September 10, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144168?t=7&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
3. "Thom Tillis Wanted to Kill Obamacare. Now He's Plagiarizing It." The Daily Beast, August 2, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144155?t=9&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
4. "Priorities," Cunningham for U.S. Senate, accessed September 10, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144168?t=11&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
5. "Thom Tillis Urged Trump to Pull Out of Paris Climate Accord, Netted $263,400 From Oil and Gas Companies," IndyWeek, June 1, 2017
https://act.moveon.org/go/144157?t=13&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
6. "Priorities," Cunningham for U.S. Senate, accessed September 10, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144168?t=15&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
7. "Group backing Tillis calls him a ‘pro-LGBTQ Republican.’ What does the record say?" The News & Observer, May 17, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/144169?t=17&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
8. Tweet by Cal Cunningham, September 3, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144170?t=19&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
9. "Losers and Suckers, Thom Tillis running scared," Daily Kos, September 4, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144171?t=21&akid=273572%2E3735812%2EG3oLGn
Want to support MoveOn's work? As Robert Reich says, "No organization in America has a better track record of success in developing cutting-edge strategies to get out the vote and win elections than MoveOn." But it will take each of us doing our part to defeat Trump and flip the Senate!
Will you chip in to help combat right-wing lies, make sure every vote is counted, and win this election?
Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.
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CC News Letter 14 May - U.S. is leading the global spending on nuclear weapons, says ICAN report
Dear Friend,
The world’s nuclear powers are increasingly streaming money into their nuclear arsenals, and the U.S. is leading the trend, says a new report. The U.S. has also exited a major arms control treaty and deployed a new tactical weapon. The report – Enough is Enough: 2019 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending (May 2020) – by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said: Nine nuclear-armed nations spent an estimated $72.9 billion on their 13,000-plus atomic weapons in 2019. At $35.4 billion in spending, the U.S. accounts for nearly half the global total.
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Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
U.S. is leading the global spending on nuclear weapons, says ICAN report
by Countercurrents Collective
The world’s nuclear powers are increasingly streaming money into their nuclear arsenals, and the U.S. is leading the trend, says a new report. The U.S. has also exited a major arms control treaty and deployed a new tactical weapon. The report – Enough is Enough: 2019 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending (May 2020) – by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said: Nine nuclear-armed nations spent an estimated $72.9 billion on their 13,000-plus atomic weapons in 2019. At $35.4 billion in spending, the U.S. accounts for nearly half the global total.
The world’s nuclear powers are increasingly streaming money into their nuclear arsenals, and the U.S. is leading the trend, says a new report.
The U.S. has also exited a major arms control treaty and deployed a new tactical weapon.
The report – Enough is Enough: 2019 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending (May 2020) – by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said: Nine nuclear-armed nations spent an estimated $72.9 billion on their 13,000-plus atomic weapons in 2019. At $35.4 billion in spending, the U.S. accounts for nearly half the global total.
The ICAN pointed out, all this money spent for nuclear armaments have done nothing to protect any of these countries from Covid-19.
“It’s clear now more than ever that nuclear weapons do not provide security for the world in the midst of a global pandemic, particularly when there are documented deficits of healthcare supplies and exhausted medical professionals,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre, the lead author of the report.
The ICAN estimates that the nine nuclear-armed countries’ nuclear spending in 2019, equals $138,699 every minute of 2019, and a $7.1 billion increase from 2018.
The report said:
These estimates (rounded to one decimal point) include nuclear warhead and nuclear-capable delivery systems operating costs and development where these expenditures are publically available and are based on a reasonable percentage of total military spending on nuclear weapons when more detailed budget data is not available.
The ICAN has urged all nuclear-armed states to be transparent about nuclear weapons expenditures to allow for more accurate reporting on global nuclear expenditures and better government accountability.
It said:
Due to lack of reliable and consistent information, these estimates do not include the costs to remediate the environment contaminated by nuclear weapons or to compensate victims of nuclear weapon use and testing, although these are also important markers of the added financial and human cost of nuclear weapons.
A 2011 Global Zero cost estimate, which added “unpaid/deferred environmental and health costs, missile defenses assigned to defend against nuclear weapons, nuclear threat reduction and incident management” found that this “full” cost of global nuclear arsenals was over 50% higher than just the cost of nuclear weapons system maintenance and development.
U.S.: $35.4 billion
The report said:
The United States has 5,800 nuclear weapons, which it can launch from land-based missiles, submarines and aircraft. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense divide responsibilities for the nation’s nuclear weapons. The NNSA is responsible for the research, development, production and dismantlement of the nuclear warheads themselves, while the Department of Defense manages the development of warhead delivery systems, such as missiles, aircraft, and submarines. The Department of Defense also manages the deployment of nuclear weapons once they are fully produced. This figure combines Department of Defense and NNSA enacted funding for nuclear weapons in 2019. NNSA spent $11.1 billion in 2019 on weapons activities. The Defense Department requested $24 billion for nuclear weapons systems in fiscal year 2019, including $11 billion for nuclear force sustainment and operations, $7 billion for replacement programs, and $6 billion for nuclear command, control, and communications. Congress added another $319 million to the Defense Department’s request in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, bringing enacted Defense Department spending on nuclear weapons to $24.3 billion. Adding $11.1 billion to $24.3 billion results in a total of $35.4 billion spent on nuclear weapons in the United States in 2019. This is roughly five per cent of total U.S. military spending in 2019. The United States spent $67,352 every minute of 2019 on nuclear weapons. The United States spent $29.6 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons, $19 billion requested for the Department of Defense and $10.6 billion enacted for the NNSA.
China: $10.4 billion
The report said:
China has 320 nuclear weapons and can launch nuclear weapons from land-based missiles, aircraft and submarines.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated that in 2019 China spent $261.082 billion on military expenditures. Four per cent of $261.082 billion is $10.4 billion, our estimate for Chinese nuclear spending in 2019. This means China spent $19,786 every minute of 2019 on nuclear weapons. Based on this methodology, China spent $10 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
UK: $8.9 billion
The report said:
The United Kingdom (UK) has 195 nuclear weapons, which it can launch from submarines. It cooperates closely with the United States to produce its nuclear warheads and loans its Trident II (D-5) submarine-launched ballistic missiles from the United States. Its primary nuclear weapon costs, therefore, consist of nuclear operating costs and the development of the Dreadnought-class submarine to replace its current Vanguard-class nuclear submarine. A 2016 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament report calculated that the overall cost to replace the UK nuclear submarine program will be £205 billion.
A 2018 BASIC report calculated that annual UK nuclear operating costs are £2 billion and reported that the United Kingdom is scheduled to spend £5.2 billion on its Dreadnought development program from 2018-2019. The Dreadnought program costs include£1.8 billion for the submarines, £1.4 billion for the missiles and warheads, £790 million for propulsion systems and £220 million in management costs. There is little public information about what is included in £2 billion operating costs for the UK nuclear arsenal. Adding those two components together leads to an estimated £7.2 billion spent on nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom in 2019, or $8.9 billion. £7.2 billion is 19 per cent of 2019 United Kingdom defense spending, estimated at £38.093 billion. This means the United Kingdom spent $16,933 every minute on nuclear weapons in 2019. Based on this methodology, the UK also spent about $8.9 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
Russia: $8.5 billion
Russia has 6,370 nuclear weapons, which it can launch from land-based missiles, submarines and aircraft. A 2018 SIPRI report found that Russian spending to maintain and develop new nuclear warheads and delivery systems has in recent years (in 2010 and 2016) cost about 13 per cent of total defense expenditures. SIPRI estimated Russian nuclear spending at $65.103 billion in 2019. 13 percent of $65.103 billion is $8.5 billion, our estimate for Russian nuclear spending in 2019. This means Russia spent $16,172 every minute on nuclear weapons in 2019. Based on this methodology, Russia spent $8 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
France: $4.8 billion
France has 290 nuclear weapons and can launch nuclear weapons from aircraft and submarines. The 2019 French military programming law allocated €4.45 billion for “dissuasion” or nuclear deterrence. The law does not break down the costs within this line item, but does state that it includes the annual costs for French nuclear warheads, modernization of its nuclear-capable cruise missiles, submarine-launched missiles and submarines. Notably not included in the deterrence budget are costs associated with the Rafale aircraft, which can be used to launch nuclear weapons. Given that these costs are not publicly available, our estimate assumes that the deterrence budget covers the bulk of French nuclear spending and does not include the costs of the Rafale. €4.45 billion converted to USD is $4.8 billion. France spent roughly 15 per cent of its total military budget (€30.249 billion) on nuclear weapons in 2019.11 This means France spent $9,132 on nuclear weapons every minute in 2019. France spent €4.04 billion ($4.4 billion) in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
India: $2.3 billion
The report said:
India is estimated to have 150 nuclear weapons, can launch nuclear weapons from land-based missiles and likely from aircraft, and is developing a submarine-launched nuclear capability. While little is known about Indian nuclear weapon spending, a October 2016 Stimson Center report shed some light on Indian nuclear spending by looking at parliamentary oversight documents and creating a methodology to calculate annual spending on nuclear weapons. The report notes that a 2016 Indian parliamentary report stated that India spent 46% of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)’s budget on its nuclear-capable delivery systems. Given that about half of the U.S. nuclear budget goes to nuclear delivery systems, the Stimson Center report assumed that India’s total nuclear spending would be about twice what it spent on nuclear-capable delivery systems. ICAN’s research thus followed the Stimson Center’s methodology by taking 46% of the 2019-2020 DRDO budget (19,021.02 crore Indian rupees) to get 8749.669 crore Indian rupees and doubling it to reach 17,499.3384 crore Indian rupees. A crore is 10 million, so 17,499 crore is 174.990 billion Indian rupees. Converted into USD this total is $2.3 billion, our estimate for Indian nuclear spending in 2019. This is roughly three per cent of the $71.125 billion India spent on its military in 2019. India spent $4,376 every minute of 2019 on nuclear weapons. Based on this methodology, India spent $2.1 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
Pakistan: $1 billion
The report said:
Pakistan is estimated to have 160 nuclear weapons and can launch them from land-based missiles and aircraft and is developing the ability to launch them from submarines. Analysts in the past decade have estimated that Pakistan spends about ten per cent of its total military spending on its nuclear arsenal, which appeared to be confirmed by a parliamentary report in 2016 revealing that Pakistan spent 9.8 per cent of its official military budget on nuclear weapons that year. Ten per cent of Pakistan’s 2019 military spending ($10.256 billion) is $1 billion, our estimate for Pakistani nuclear spending in 2019. This means Pakistan spent $1,903 spent every minute on nuclear weapons in 2019. Based on this methodology, Pakistan spent $1.2 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
Israel: $1 billion
The report said:
Israel is estimated to have 90 nuclear weapons and is believed to be able to launch nuclear weapons from land-based missiles, submarines and aircraft. There is no reliable public information about Israeli nuclear spending, given that it publicly denies possessing nuclear weapons. Therefore, ICAN used an average percentage (five per cent) of what nuclear-armed countries spend on nuclear weapons out of total military spending. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that in 2019 Israel spent $20.465 billion on its military. Five per cent of $20.465 billion is 1 billion, our estimate for Israeli nuclear spending in 2019. This means Israel spent $1,903 every minute on nuclear weapons in 2019. Based on this methodology, Israel spent $1 billion in 2018 on nuclear weapons.
The report’s Conclusion part said:
“The nuclear-armed states spent nearly three-quarters of one hundred billion dollars in 2019 on building and maintaining nuclear warheads and delivery systems. The incalculable human and environmental costs of nuclear weapons only add to this shocking figure. From 2018 to 2019, there was an estimated $7.1 billion increase in nuclear weapon spending, and these totals will only continue to rise in the next decade according to documented nuclear weapon programs and budgets in several nuclear-armed countries.
“Nuclear weapon spending is always a choice, and an opportunity cost.”
The report questioned:
“Will citizens and leaders choose to continue to throw away $73 billion on nuclear weapons, or will they join the majority of the world’s countries in choosing to ban these weapons of mass destruction all together?
According to the latest figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the U.S. contributed the lion’s share of the world’s $7.1 billion increase in nuclear expenditures between 2018 and 2019, with $5.8 billion in additional spending. This is actually higher than the U.S. share of global military spending, which amounted to 38 percent in 2019.
According to ICAN’s report Russia, which ICAN estimated had more warheads than the U.S., spent $8.5 billion on them in 2019. Russia’s spending is a quarter of the nuclear expenditure by the U.S. Russia is trailing China ($10.5 billion) and the UK ($8.9 billion).
Alarmed by U.S. efforts to bolster its nuclear arsenal, some experts in China have called for a drastic nuclear build-up of their own, in order to pressure the U.S. to the negotiating table.
Fears of medium-range ballistic missiles in Europe triggering a global nuclear war led to the 1987 INF arms control treaty, which banned such weapons from the continent – but U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration exited the treaty last year. Officially, the U.S. claimed Russia had been violating the treaty, but the U.S. provided no evidence in support of the claim. U.S. officials further argued the INF was obsolete anyway, because it did not apply to other nuclear powers, such as China.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy fielded new low-yield warheads for submarine-launched missiles, arguing in a series of position papers that this made nuclear war less likely because it would inject uncertainty into Russian efforts to “escalate to deescalate,” a concept apparently based not in actual Russian doctrine but in Western Cold War-era military fiction.
While ICAN noted that their figures are estimates based on a consistent methodology, the true cost of nuclear weapons would have to include the expenses of compensating the victims of testing and cleaning up the environmental contamination.
Christian Community Attacked In Jharkhand, Modesty Of Woman Outraged
by Shibu Thomas
https://countercurrents.org/2020/05/christian-community-attacked-in-jharkhand-modesty-woman-outraged
On the 4th of May drunk and angry group of men then headed towards where the Christians live. They forcefully entered their homes during the afternoon hours and mercilessly beat the Christians. 3 women were among the Christians who were attacked. The fanatics shamelessly, even tore the clothes of a woman who they assaulted, showing no remorse for their behavior. They threatened the Christians to participate in ‘Ghar Wapsi’ (ceremony which involves embracing one’s prior religion) warning them about leaving the village if they disagree. The religious fanatics basically wanted every one in the village to follow the same religion of old.
Communalism and Coronavirus: India’s New Strain of Virus
by Parul Verma
What must be understood is that when preservation of political power
dribbles and works in self-interest of a political entity, communalism often ends up essentialising the very religious resources that it purportedly aims to understand, resolve and combat. Communal compartmentalization has become one of the gnawing and lingering problems in India, and BJP’s divisive and percolating policy is fuelling, aggravating and antagonizing the exasperated state of Muslin in India.
The capitalist as vampire in the time of Corona virus
by Vidyadhar Date
Some tycoons are really behaving like vampires or are seen to be like vampires. PayPal co-founder and prominent Donald Trump donor Peter Thiel has addressed reports that he uses radical life extension therapies that involve blood transfusions using youthful donors. Speaking at the New York Times Dealbook conference Mr Thiel said: “I want to publicly tell you that I’m not a vampire. On the record, I am not a
vampire. As thinker Yuval Harari said some time ago, some rich people are promoting scientific experiments which will help them retrofit themselves to turn themselves into supermen. But Corona virus seems to have dashed their hopes for now.
How have governments fared in fighting Coronavirus? A view from below
by Abhay Kumar
Going by what has happened so far, the poor do not have much hope from the recent package of the Prime Minister. A phrase in my village in Bihar better captures the feeling. “If bael (Aegle marmelos) has ripened, there is no reason for a crow to be filled with joy”.
The Sub-Inspector’s Sambar
by K P Sasi
A hilarious story
Tamils All Over The World To Remember The Genocide Of Thousands On May 18, 2020
by Kumarathasan Rasingam
Marking 11 years since the Sri Lankan military onslaught that massacred tens of thousands of Tamils, we revisit the final days leading up to the 18th of May 2009 – a date remembered around the world as ‘Tamil Genocide Day’. The total number of Tamil civilians killed during the final months is widely contested. After providing an initial death toll of 40,000, the UN found evidence suggesting that 70,000 were killed. Local census records indicate that at least 146,679 people are unaccounted for and presumed to have been killed.
The Liabilities of History: The Dangers of Pandemic Compensation
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
A rash of legal suits have appeared across the United States, all sharing one common theme: a guerrilla compensation war via courts against a sovereign
state. Members of Congress have been drafting various bills seeking to ease the pathway of private and public suits. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is one of several, hoping to amend that imposing legal obstacle to suing states known as the Foreign State Immunities Act of 1976 by establishing “an exception to jurisdictional immunity for a foreign state that discharges a biological weapon”. The name of the bill is instructive and leaves little to the imagination, being either the “Stop China-Originated Viral Infectious Diseases Act of 2020” or the “Stop COVID Act of 2020”.
Smug assertions of liability in history are often incautious things. They constitute a fruit salad mix: assertions of the wishful thinkers; hopes of the crazed; the quest of genuinely aggrieved generations who feel that wrongs need to be rectified (the Elgin Marbles and transatlantic slavery come to mind). Before you know it, the next historical act will require compensation, the next crime balanced on the ledger of misdeeds. Lawyers will be summoned, writs and briefs drawn up.
The advocates of the China-compensation initiative for COVID-19 are growing in number; most are charmingly untouched by history. Sociologist Massimo Introvigne is one, and with a certain peashooter menace claims that China, specially the Chinese Communist Party “may find itself attacked by an enemy its mighty military power will not be able to stop, aggressive Western lawyers.” Introvigne, while clearly no sharp taloned legal eagle, suggests reference to the International Health Regulations of 2005 which obligate States to conduct surveillance of, and convey accurate and timely information about, diseases through their agencies to the World Health Organization. Tardiness on the issue of reporting outbreaks that can constitute public health emergencies, for Introvigne, might constitute such grave breaches as to violate the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts.
These particular articles, drafted by the International Law Commission, are not binding. But the Blame-China lobby has been cunning. James Kraska of the US Naval War College, for instance, thinks that the restatement has been absorbed into the ether of international state practice. Magically, the articles have been constituted as international customary law, which is binding.
A rash of legal suits have appeared across the United States, all sharing one common theme: a guerrilla compensation war via courts against a sovereign state. Members of Congress have been drafting various bills seeking to ease the pathway of private and public suits. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is one of several, hoping to amend that imposing legal obstacle to suing states known as the Foreign State Immunities Act of 1976 by establishing “an exception to jurisdictional immunity for a foreign state that discharges a biological weapon”. The name of the bill is instructive and leaves little to the imagination, being either the “Stop China-Originated Viral Infectious Diseases Act of 2020” or the “Stop COVID Act of 2020”.
This sort of legal pamphleteering and raging from the stump is interesting but not very instructive. Guilt and agency is already presumed by the advocates: China was not merely negligent in not containing the outbreak of COVID-19, but had actually created the virus with venality. The supreme self-confidence of those in this group leads to problems, the most obvious being the evidence they cite, and much they do not.
Even if there was something to be made about international pandemic wrongfulness, the United States would surely be one of the first to be cautious in pushing the compensation cart. The measure by Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, for instance, would grant the US president powers to impose visa and financial sanctions on foreign government officials who “deliberately conceal or distort information” about public health crises. This would also cover associates and those assisting in the endeavour.
But as has been pointed out by more grounded analysts, such measures will simply place US officials in the retaliatory firing line, including those who were rather slipshod with informing the US public about the dangers of the novel coronavirus. Rachel Esplin Odell is convincing in her summation at War on the Rocks: “If applied to Chinese officials, such sanctions would likely invite swift retaliation against US officials who themselves dismissed the threat of COVID-19, shared incorrect medical information about it, or spread false theories about its origins, such as the president, vice president, and many governors and members of Congress – including Cotton himself.”
Odell also warns that using the Draft Articles on State Responsibility in the context of public health is more than mildly treacherous. Disease outbreaks can be unruly things, hard to monitor and track; the the customary rule accepting that a state in breach of international law is required “to make full reparation for the injury caused” by that breach has not featured in international health efforts.
David Fidler, a global health specialist, also suggests abundant caution in Just Security for linking state wrongs with infection and disease. What such eager commentators as Kraska avoid is the tendency in state practice to avoid attributing “state responsibility for acts allegedly to be legally wrongful with respect to the transboundary movement of pathogens.” Compensatory mechanisms are absent in any treaty dealing with the spread of infectious disease, and this includes the International Health Regulations (2005).
The pursuit of blame, and efforts to monetise it, also brings to mind the fact that an imperium such as the United States should be reluctant to cast stones in the glass house of international politics. That pedestrian dauber yet dangerously inept President George W. Bush might be free to pontificate about COVID-19 and the sweetness of solidarity but remains silent about his misdeeds in ruining Iraq, and, by virtue of that, a good deal of the Middle East. This was an individual who, in March 2003, said that the US would meet the threat of “an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder” so as not to do so “later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.” Unlike the case of pathogen transmission, the issue of attribution in that case is far from difficult.
While international law furnishes little by way of financial compensation for damage caused by pandemics, it does about the criminal liability of state leaders and military commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is also worth noting that the foundations for the invasion by the US and its allies was conspiratorial and deceptive, filled with the sorts of fabrications and mendacity that make the bumbling authorities in Wuhan seem childishly modest. In doing so, the crime against peace, sketched by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, was committed. As a Dutch Parliamentary inquiry found in 2010, UN Security Council Resolution 1441, giving Saddam Hussein a final chance to disarm, could not “reasonably be interpreted as authorising individual member states to use military force to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council’s resolutions.” The warning for US law and policy makers in seeking Chinese scalps should be starkly crystal in clarity.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Arabs, UN Must Move to Swiftly Protect the Status of Palestinian Refugees
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
‘Heinous racism,’ is how the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor described a recent decision by Lebanese authorities to bar Palestinian refugee expats from returning to
Lebanon. Lebanon’s restrictions on its ever-diminishing population of Palestinian refugees is nothing new. However, this event is particularly alarming as it may be linked to a long-term official policy regarding the residency status of Palestinian refugees in this Arab country.
‘Heinous racism,’ is how the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor described a recent decision by Lebanese authorities to bar Palestinian refugee expats from returning to Lebanon.
Lebanon’s restrictions on its ever-diminishing population of Palestinian refugees is nothing new. However, this event is particularly alarming as it may be linked to a long-term official policy regarding the residency status of Palestinian refugees in this Arab country.
Many were taken aback by a recent Lebanese government’s order to its embassy in the United Arab Emirates, instructing it to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes in Lebanon.
Tariq Hajjar, a legal advisor to the Euro-Med Monitor said in a statement that “the circular includes heinous racial discrimination against Palestinian refugees holding Lebanese travel documents.”
Hajjar rightly insisted that “the holder of this document should receive similar treatment to the Lebanese citizen.”
Indeed they should, as has been the practice for many years. Otherwise, there is no other place where these refugees can possibly go, considering that Lebanon has been their home for decades, starting in 1948 when Israel forcefully expelled nearly a million Palestinians from their historic homeland.
Refugees, regardless of their race, ethnicity or religion, should be treated with respect and dignity, no matter the political complexity of their host countries. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon cannot be made an exception.
Last April, the Palestinian Association for Human Rights called on the United Nations to provide financial assistance to Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees, indicating that due to the coronavirus pandemic, a whopping 90 percent of all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have lost their jobs.
Under discriminatory Lebanese laws, Palestinian refugees are not allowed to practice 72 types of jobs that are available to Lebanese nationals. This is merely one of many other such restrictions. Thus, employed Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (the vast majority of whom are now unemployed) have been competing within a very limited work market.
A large number of those refugees have been employed at the various projects operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Many of those who were lucky enough to receive university degrees opted to leave the country altogether, mostly working in the teaching, engineering, banking, and medical sectors in Arab Gulf countries.
However, due to the coronavirus, the severe financial hardship suffered by UNRWA and to new Lebanese government regulations, all doors are now being shut in the face of Palestinian refugees.
For thousands of those refugees, the only remaining option is sailing the high seas in search for a better refugee status in Europe. Yet, sadly, tens of thousands of those refugees are now living a miserable life in European camps, or stranded in Turkey. Hundreds drowned while undertaking these perilous journeys.
According to a recent survey by the Lebanese Central Administration of Statistics, conducted jointly with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, only 175,000 (from nearly half a million) Palestinian refugees still reside in Lebanon.
That said, the Palestinian refugee tragedy in Lebanon is only a facet in a much larger ailment that is unique to the Palestinian refugee experience.
Syria’s Palestinian refugees arrived in the country in waves, starting with the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the ‘Nakba’, or Catastrophe. Others fled the Golan Heights after the Israeli invasion in 1967. Many more fled Lebanon during the Israeli 1982 invasion.
The relatively safe Syrian haven was ruptured during the ongoing Syria war started in 2011. UNRWA’s mission, which allowed it to provide the nearly half a million Palestinian refugees in Syria with direct support was made nearly impossible because of the destructive war, and the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled the country or became internally displaced.
The devastating impact of the Syrian war on Palestinian refugees was almost an exact copy of what had transpired earlier during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In the case of Iraq, where most of the country’s 35,000 refugees fled, the Palestinian refugee crisis was particularly compounded. While Palestinians enjoyed a permanent residence status (though no ownership rights) in Iraq before the war, they were still not recognized as refugees as per international standards, since UNRWA does not operate in Iraq. Post-2003 Iraqi governments exploited this fact to the fullest, leading to the displacement the country’s Palestinian population.
Since its advent, the US Administration of President Donald Trump has waged a financial war on the Palestinians, including the cutting of all aids to UNRWA. This infamous act has added layers of suffering to the existing hardships of refugees.
On May 5, UNRWA, somberly declared that it only has enough cash to sustain its operations until the end of the month.
The truth is that, long before Trump targeted the UN agency, UNRWA has functioned for over 70 years with an inherent vulnerability.
UNRWA was established exclusively with a UN mandate that provided the organization with a “separate and special status” to assist Palestinian refugees.
Arab governments, at the time, were keen for UNRWA to maintain this ‘special status’ based on their belief that lumping Palestinian refugees with the burgeoning world refugee crisis (resulting mostly from War World II) would downgrade the urgency of the Palestinian plight.
However, while that logic may have applied successfully in the immediate years following the ‘Nakba’, it proved costly in later years, as the status and definition of what constitute a Palestinian refugee remained historically linked to UNRWA’s scope of operations.
This became clear during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but, especially, since the start of political upheavals and subsequent wars in the Middle East in the last decade.
This is precisely why the US and Israel are keen on dismantling UNRWA, because, according to their logic, if UNRWA ceases to operate, the Palestinian refugee ceases to exist with any status that makes him/her unique.
Such precarious reality calls for an urgent and creative solution that should be spearheaded by Arab countries, UN-registered NGOs, and friends of Palestine everywhere.
What is needed today is a UN-adopted formula that would allow the legal status of Palestinian refugees under international law to remain active regardless of UNRWA’s scope of operation, while providing Palestinian refugees with the material and financial support required for them to live with dignity until the Right of Return, in accordance to UN Resolution 194 of 1948, is finally enforced.
For the rights of Palestinian refugees to be maintained and for the Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria scenarios not to be repeated, the Arab League must work within the framework of international law – as determined by the UN General Assembly – to safeguard the Palestinian refugees’ legal status which is currently under an unprecedented attack.
Palestinian refugees must not have to choose between forfeiting their legal and unalienable right in their own homeland and accepting a life of perpetual degradation and uncertainty.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
Live with the Corona Virus – PM says to the Nation
by Syed Ali Mujtaba
Like Shylock, the antagonist in William Shakespeare’s drama ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ our ‘Maut ka Saudagar’ (merchant of death) has taken the rear position while pushing the countrymen to face the unseen enemy upfront. This is the most chilling facet of this ‘Thug of Hindustan.’
Lesson 2: An Experience – Lockdown Musings 4
by Anitha S
The story of a 4 year old in lockdown
Regret, Guilt, Depression and Suicides Among the Traumatized Veterans of
Iraq And Afghanistan War with Reference to the Indian Soldiers in Kashmir
by Dr M Ashraf Bhat
Why US veterans and soldiers in Kashmir are committing suichide?
The story of Avtar, John, Nic and Others
“What the f**k is going on in my mind? Last night I was sitting in bed and looked across the room to a chair in my room and there was a young girl covered in blood. What happened after that I don’t remember. I was told a full-scale panic attack. This is not the first time I have seen dead bodies. For a while I used to find dead Iraqis floating in my bathtub. Why they were in the bathtub I will never know.” –American soldier, Nic DeNinno
Outline: The present article mainly focuses the guilt-ridden, depressed soldiers who indulge in heinous crimes during the line of duty, and then get nightmares and attempt/commit suicide. It primarily focusses on an American Soldier Nic DeNinno, who made many attempts at suicide and is undergoing psychiatric treatment. In the line of duty, you follow orders, duty/job obligations, quick promotions and awards, turn killing machines, or are drunk with power, kill, murder, slit throats, rape helpless women, beat small kids, but then at the end, your human soul inside you, shakes you and you regret, guilt engulfs you and you live either a traumatized life of nightmares or commit suicide, or go through complete ‘habituation’ and become a heartless monster.
On 12th of May, 2020, amid lockdown and pandemic, two Indian soldiers stationed in Kashmir committed suicide. Nevertheless, it is not the first time the troops stationed at Kashmir committed suicide, it has been a continuous trend since the last 30 years. The Times of India reported that “defence forces saw 1,110 suicides in 2010-19” out of which 895 belong to the Indian Army and the rest 205 belong to other Forces. Nevertheless, there have been very few case studies. For instance, Major Avtar Singh, of the 35th Rashtriya Rifles unit of the Indian Army then living in Selma, California, killed his wife, 3-year-old Jay Singh, and 15-year-old Kinwaljeet “Aryan” Singh, and seriously wounded his 17-year-old son Kanwarpal “Chris” Singh with a handgun. He called police to admit the killings and then shot and killed himself. The surviving son had severe head injuries. He was taken off life support in Community Regional Medical Center at Selma and died on June 14. What was his crime: he murdered Jalil Andrabi—a prominent Kashmiri human rights lawyer and pro-independence political activist. On March 8, 1996, Major Avtar Singh detained Andrabi from Srinagar. Three weeks later, Andrabi’s body was found floating in the Jhelum River; an autopsy showed that he had been killed days after his arrest. A case is pending adjudication in a Budgam court against Major Avtar Singh, who killed himself already. A thorough psychiatric study of the case (as done in Nic DeNinno’s case) was never done and or if done was never made public. The study would have revealed if there was any correlation between Andrabi’s murder and Avtar’s guilt and nightmares.
To understand the nuances of such suicides, more thoroughly, I attempted to read some relevant articles. While surfing, few articles on ‘Regret and Guilt’ popped out, mentioning about the reasons and causes of regret, guilt and suicides among the traumatized veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. According to Carol Giacomo of the New York Times: “More than 45,000 veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves in the past six years. That is more than 20 deaths a day—in other words, more suicides each year than the total American military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.” In 2012 alone, an estimated 7,500 former military personnel died by suicide. More active duty service members, 177, succumbed to suicide that year than were killed in combat, 176. In 2013, the United States Department of Veteran Affairs released a study that covered suicides from 1999 to 2010, which showed that roughly 22 veterans were dying by suicide per day, or one every 65 minutes. The New York Times studied many induvial cases, e.g., it reports: “Kim Ruocco’s husband, John, a decorated Cobra gunship pilot who flew 75 combat missions as a Marine, also returned home tormented. But he did not seek help to deal with depression and combat trauma. He killed himself in 2005 as he prepared for a second deployment to Iraq.”
Similarly, on August, 23, 2019, Joe Biden, the former vice president, at a town hall event at Dartmouth College, Hanover, said “More suicides per month in the U.S. military, returning vets, than people killed in action, by a long shot” (The Washington Post). Biden, notes Glenn Kessler, continued: “Know how many are coming back with post-traumatic stress? 300,000. 300,000 estimated.” (He appears to be referring to a 2008 Rand Corp. study that said 20 percent of military service members, or 300,000 at the time, report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD — or major depression.) In 2016, 37 military personnel died in Iraq and Afghanistan, or three per month, compared with 893 veteran suicides between the ages of 18 to 34, or 74 a month.
David Finkel, in his detailed study for the New Yorker includes many comprehensive case studies. Finkel notes that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created roughly five hundred thousand mentally wounded American veterans. Finkle explains the trauma, guilt and regret a 25-year old solider Nic DeNinno of the 3rd Platoon of Bravo Company had gone through. In 2007-2008 Nic DeNinno spent fourteen months in combat, in a bomb-filled neighborhood in east Baghdad. Nic thought of himself as a patriot who had enlisted in the Army for the noblest of reasons: to contribute and to make some kind of difference. Then he punched his first Iraqi in the face, and pushed his first Iraqi down the stairs. Now he was back in the United States, crying and telling his wife, Sascha, “I feel like a monster.”
There seems a similar pattern of events which happened with Avtar, John and Nic. It was November, 2010, and Nic was in a twenty-three-bed psychiatric facility called Haven Behavioral War Heroes Hospital, in Pueblo, Colorado. It’s on the top floor of a six-story building; the exit doors are bolted and the windows are screwed shut, to keep patients from jumping out. Two and a half years earlier, Nic, according to Finkel, had come home from the war relatively healthy. Then he began having nightmares and flashbacks. He talked with increasing frequency of killing himself, and made at least one attempt. He was counselled and put on anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications, but when he was found one night in mid-flashback, driving in the wrong direction on a one-way street, the decision was made to send him to a residential treatment program for twenty-eight days. Twenty-eight days to get it fixed, as one of Nic’s sergeants said.
Nic was sent to the Haven Behavioral War Heroes Hospital with lot of strict instructions to follow and was monitored and escorted all the time. His wife Sascha believed that Haven Behavioral would make him realize that he could tell her about the war, and that she could take it. Nic was also expected to keep a journal. Out of profound need, or just the desire to wear shoes with laces again (which was not allowed as a part of instructions) he started doing that right away.
He wrote about his happy childhood, loving parents, his decision to join the Army. About an early mission in Iraq, he wrote, notes Finkel: “I don’t remember the exact briefing before we left but we were to show extreme force and to let these people know we owned this city now. The adrenaline began to flow, the thought of having that kind of control was intoxicating in a sick way.” He wrote about the first soldier he saw killed in action: “ …all I wanted was death and violence from then on. . . . To me this is where I lost my old self” notes Finkel.
He wrote about a nightmare: “The anti-nightmare meds are not working. I was on a patrol last night and we entered a school, same as one from our deployment, but as we were clearing the school I went into an all-girl class and in real life they just screamed but in my dream, they screamed and I opened fire, killing the whole class. What that is about I do not know. I am angry I have these dreams, I am angry they don’t stop. I miss my pleasant dreams of my past.”
“What the f**k is going on in my mind? Last night I was sitting in bed and looked across the room to a chair in my room and there was a young girl covered in blood. What happened after that I don’t remember. I was told a full-scale panic attack. This is not the first time I have seen dead bodies. For a while I used to find dead Iraqis floating in my bathtub. Why they were in the bathtub I will never know.”
In Kansas, Nic had been taking forty-three pills a day—for pain, for anxiety, for depression, for nightmares. There were other similar twenty-three P.T.S.D cases of veterans. During smoke breaks, they would talk to each-other or a session leader would speak to the group about a process he called “habituation.” The session leader tries to help them to normalize the horror they have gone through by adopting a kind of ‘boiling-frog syndrome.’ He explains to them how he was a wuss at scary movies and he neutralized the horror by watching scary movies. The first time, explains the session leader, you watch a scary movie, you get frustrated and have nightmares. If you watch the same scary movie next day, and the third day, it is still a little bit scary, but not as bad as it was the first time. The fourth and fifth day, you start to get a little bit bored, till you watch it the tenth time, it is okay. Imagine, here is the neck cut off, here is the blood, ten times till you get bored. It’s the same principle, explains the leader, “with explosions for you guys. If you guys can go to a place and have the experience repeatedly, and stay with it until it starts to dissipate, that’s when the explosion starts to be less and less impactful. It’s called habituation.”
During the break, few soldiers shared their stories, some cried while narrating the atrocities they had done to people. For instance, one solider, who had spent his war in a vehicle that crept ahead of convoys, looking for roadside bombs read: “I still see the bombs, I see bombs all the time. I don’t want to see them anymore. How do I become normal? How can I stop seeing bombs?” The next soldier explained how he kicked some skulls, which he had discovered one day. The other soldier cried and said how his wife didn’t feel sorry for him and hated him when he told her a story of war.
A solider, talked about taking pictures of blood and dead bodies, bones, peeled skin. To him Nic explained how he destroyed a hard drive full of such “horrible, horrible stuff.” Nic further added “Horrible stuff. Us hanging out with dead bodies. At the time, I mean we were rockin’ and rollin’, we were mean, mean killing machines. Now I look back and I’m, like, God, what were we doing? What were we thinking?” Another solider who was not reading but just said: “I got to the point where I started feeling kind of sorry for them. I started feeling sorry that we’re sitting there fking beating these people…We’re just using them, like they’re fking nothing. Like they’re not even human . . .”
Nic was afraid to show his journal to his wife Sascha. She came to visit Nic and he decided to tell her about the war in Iraq. They sat at a table in a visitation room stocked with some worn books and board games and began a game of Scrabble. He slid the journal over to Sascha. Nic had titled each story. Sascha opened a page titled “Baby.” She started to read, and Nic looked down at the table. It was about a military mission to break into a house. She reads how Nic had kicked a stained-glass door, and sent broken glass into the room and the door against the wall. Nic and his team cracked these glasses under their boots, breaking into the house, where women, children, and elderly people were sleeping. Then they moved to go upstairs, Nic saw a man at the staircase, slammed him against the wall, and forced his rifle into his neck. He started screaming, and Nic pushed his rifle harder and crushed his windpipe. Then he explains how he and his team continued their brutalities at the terrified men, elderly women and kids.
Sascha turned the page, but there was no more to the story. She didn’t say anything. Then he told Sascha the rest of the story which he was afraid to share with her. He had deliberately not written this part which he was going to narrating to her now. He told her about the crying baby, wrapped in a blanket and how the blanket was covered with shards of stained glass. He told her that he got to the bottom of the stairs and saw the screaming woman holding the crying baby. And it took him a moment, but then he got it—the baby had been sleeping by the stained-glass door he kicked open, and when he ran in he just missed stepping on it. The pieces of glass had pierced into the soft skin of the baby. Blood, baby, cries, screams – although and even though he had thought of it dozens of times, he always felt as if it was happening just now, and it was haunting him. Habituation, as explained by the group leader repeatedly was not helping. He was still not a monster, but a human being with soul and heart alive. What happened then asked Sascha. The lieutenant said to them, “This is the wrong fking house.” “The wrong fking house,” Nic said to Sascha. “One of the things I want to remember is how many times we hit the wrong house.”
“So how has this taken a toll on your marriage?” a counsellor asked Nic a few hours later, as Sascha sat next to him. “I’m afraid to tell her stuff,” Nic said, breaking down. “I don’t want to tell her about the dreams I have. I don’t want to tell her about the nightmares I have. I don’t want her to know that her husband, the person she married, has nightmares about killing people. It just makes me feel like a monster.” “I know it’s not my fault,” Nic said. Then, crying harder.
Two weeks later, released from Haven Behavioral, Nic boarded a plane and made one last entry in his journal. And then he was home with Sascha, who now knew about one day of the war. Four hundred more to go.
Coming back to Kashmir, forced me to think, how many of the Indian soldiers who committed suicide since last 30 years were stationed in Kashmir. Had anyone of them felt guilty like John or Nic did, or were afraid to share their horror stories with their family and kids like Nic was. How many of them would have shared the similar stories as shared by the veterans at the Haven Behavioral War Heroes Hospital, during the smoking breaks. For instance, whether any of the Indian soldiers, police and other paramilitary forces personnel:
1—who in June 1995, had abducted our neighbour, a government employee, along with two other men and butchered them, their heads and limbs were separated from their bodies.
2—who killed 33 people on 1 March 1990 in Zukoora And Tengpora Massacre.
3—who on 22 October 1993 killed 51 civilians and injured 200 in Bijbehara.
4—who on 6 January 1993, killed 55 civilians, burnt down 400 shops and 57 houses in Sopore.
5—who on 27 January 1994 killed 27 civilians in Kupwara.
6— who on February 23, 1991, the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora, located in Kashmir’s remote Kupwara District, removed men of all ages into makeshift interrogation centers and tortured them and gang-raped dozens of women (aged 8-70). And thousands of such incidents.
7—who on March 25, 2000, killed five poor labors at Pathribal, in Anantnag in a fake encounter, their bodies mauled, decapitated, and then burned to eliminate all vestiges of their identity.
8— who in 2008, 2010 and 2016 killed, injured and blinded thousands of Kashmiri civilians
9-who on 12 May 2020 destroyed and damaged the property and brutalized the people of Budgam, tied them to trees, and killed a 22-year old youth on a lame excuse of crossing a barricade.
10—who blinded 19-Month old Heeba, the Youngest Victim of Kashmir’s Pellet Horror.
would they have gone through what Nic and the other soldiers went through, nightmares, see blood in the bath tub, in dreams, or dead bodies bloody laying around their sofas, living rooms, peeled skin, skulls and bones, pellet ridden eyes and bodies, and horror. Or they might have gone through strong “habituation” and lived peacefully, with or without sharing the stories of atrocities; they have done to Kashmiris, with their wives, children, relatives or friends.
Bibliography:
- Akshay Deshmane. “Why Is The Indian Army Desperate To Suppress Details Of A Fake Encounter In Kashmir?” Huffpost, 21 August, 2018.
- Alex Lickerman. The Six Reasons §People Attempt Suicide.” Psychology Today, April 29, 2010.
- Altaf Hussain. “Fake killings’ return to Kashmir” BBC News, Srinagar, 28 June 2010
- Ashraf Bhat. “Understanding the Kashmir Conundrum: A Historical Outline [1752-2019].” Countercurrents.com, 22 September 2019.
- Ashraf Bhat. Rukmini Bhaya Nair. “Pelters and ‘pelleters’: What Kashmir can learn from the stoning of the devil at the Haj.” Scroll.in, 4 October, 2016.
- Carol Giacomo. “Suicide Has Been Deadlier Than Combat for the Military.” The New York Times, 1 Nov, 2019.
- David Finkel. “The Return: The traumatized veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan”. The New Yorker, September 9, 2013.
- Glenn Kessler. “Biden’s claim that more Iraq/Afghanistan veterans have committed suicide than were killed in action.” The Washington Post, September 5, 2019.
- “India seeks return of accused soldier from US Tuesday”. ABC Local. AP. March 1, 2011.
- Ishfaq Naseem. “Kashmir unrest: Rights violations, fake encounters galore as accountability goes for a toss under AFSPA cover” Firstpost, Aug 28, 2017.
- Jacob, Mariana. “Selma man kills wife, 2 children, and himself”. ABC Local.go., June 9, 2012.
- Leo Shane III. “New veteran suicide numbers raise concerns among experts hoping for positive news.” Millitrarytimes.com, October 9, 2019
- Massacres in Kashmir : A special report on three massacres at Bijbehara, Sopore and Kupwara in Kashmir by Indian forces, Institute of Kashmir Studies Human Rights Division, Srinagar, 1994.
- Meaghan Mobbs. “Survivor’s Guilt in the Military and Veteran Population: How to recognize it and what to do about it.” Psychology Today, Mar 26, 2019.
- Mirza Waheed, “India’s crackdown in Kashmir: is this the world’s first mass blinding?” The Guardian, 8 November, 2016.
- Melanie Haiken. Suicide Rate Among Vets and Active Duty Military Jumps – Now 22 A Day.” Forbes, 5 February, 2013.
- Moni Basu. “Why suicide rate among veterans may be more than 22 a day.” CNN, November 14, 2013.
- “National Human Rights Commission, Annual Report 2004-2005, Complaints Before the Commission, Case of Jalil Andrabi, (Case No. 9/123/95-LD)” (pdf). NHRC. May 23, 2006. p. 77/ para. 4.245.
- Nazir Masoodi. “On Camera, Policemen Vandalise Shops In J&K Village, Top Cop Seeks Report.” NDTV, 13 May, 2020.
- Lupkin, Sydney. “California Man Wanted for 1996 Murder Kills Family, Self”. ABC World News, June 9, 2012.
- Rajat Pandit. “Worrying trend: Defence forces saw 1,110 suicides in 2010-19.” The Times of India, Feb, 4, 2020.
- “Injured baby refuels India Kashmir pellet gun debate.” BBC, 28 November, 2018.
- Shubh Mathur. “The Human Toll of the Kashmir Conflict :Grief and Courage in a South Asian Borderland.” Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016.
- Staff writer. “15-Year-Old Son Shot in Selma Murder-Suicide Dies”.com., June 25, 2012.
- Staff Reporter. “Civilian killed in Budgam by CRPF, mainstream leaders demand probe.” Hindustan Times, 13 May, 2020.
- The News Desk. “CRPF officer commits suicide in Srinagar, second in a day in Kashmir.” The Kashmir Wala, 12 May 2020.
The author is an assistant professor and teaches Linguistics.
India-A Decaying Civilization
by Javeed Ahmad Raina
The multicultural heritage of the country is slowly losing a common ground that used to hold different ethnic communities together. The harmony that once existed between different communities, regardless of the religious differences has been torn apart.
India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition…Mark Twain
India has ever been the land of peace and harmony. It has been a heaven for co-existence, brotherhood and religious tolerance. The country managed to sustain secular values in the face of striking, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. The country is well-known for vibrant democracy, independent judiciary, rich literature, secular ethos and cultural diversity. Historians, poets and travelogue writers have frequently praised this ancient land of mystic majesty. The American born poet T. S Eliot calls India as the land of “Shantih (Peace)”. He saw hope and re-generation in the Indian culture amidst the barbarism and disillusionment of the modern West. Similarly, the German poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, in his collection of lyric poems, West-Eastern Diwan, expresses disdain towards the spiritual bankruptcy of the West and believes that the East is the seat of spiritual power. The spirit of Eastern culture was best represented by India.
These secular principles were further preserved by the country’s constitution. The modern constitution of free India promoted compassion and self-control, because it believes that everyone was one with each other, and therefore, everyone should share and help in each other. The very idea of India invoked in the constitution is one of secularism, freedom and sagacity. It is due to these ideals that the Indian constitution does not insist on a single language or religion but embraces diversity of languages, cultures and customs. It was due to these distinctive features that various regions liberally aligned with the main domain of India.
But, over the course of time, the beautiful soul of India has been defaced. The land has been battered by a tsunami of religious hatred. The country is lamenting on the loss of its soul. The very word, India, has come to represent repression of marginal sections- Muslims, Christians and Dalits. Even, the ordinary Indians have serious reservations with the idea of new majoritarian India. The transformation of a great democracy into seemingly anarchy and apathy should be a grave concern for all of us. This un-wanted transition has not only disfigured the image of country, it has also fractured the muti-cultural heritage of the nation. The land which used to attract people from diverse faiths has turned into the land of despair.
The multicultural heritage of the country is slowly losing a common ground that used to hold different ethnic communities together. The harmony that once existed between different communities, regardless of the religious differences has been torn apart. The feelings of goodwill and pride towards the motherland are now replaced with bitterness and contempt. The very land once used to stand as a rock for communal harmony, a gathering of everything and everybody, but now it provokes the feelings of disgust and dissatisfaction in the saner voices. The historians no longer record the famous legends of the country. They have no means to do so, because the very land is in lament for the loss of its incredible inclusiveness.
The beautiful soul of the country is tormented by the unruly collaborators- despotic leaders, sellout media and ultra nationalists. The sheer egoism of politicians, the deceptive mass media and the self-serving regimes have collectively betrayed the nation. They have manipulated and misguided the masses. They, re-write history, impose majoritarian ideology, erode identity and enforce vilifying narratives. They, in the long process cultured a class of people who exclude everything from their exclusive design, including those very Indian in colour and blood. In all these years, the mainstream media in particular acted as the right arm of tyranny by enforcing majoritarian ideology. The vibrant democracy is fast shrinking in the direction of Hobbes’ leviathan, the rule by absolute sovereign. The land of Saints and Sufi’s has slowly changed into the land of religious extremism. This land does not inspire us anymore; this land only inspires lament and dirges!
Postscript: India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay. Shashi Tharoor
Javeed Ahmad Raina is a school teacher and can be mailed at: javeedahmadraina44@gmail.com
The Role of Psychiatrists in a Pandemic Social Emergency
by Dr Aravindan Sivakumar
Rather than adjusting individuals into this oppressive and sick society, what we need is
creative maladjustment.
Modi’s India Is For Moulding a New World Order !
by Ramakrishnan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fifth address on Covid-19, of around 1500 words and 30 minutes, May 12, was focused on a call for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, a campaign for self-reliant India, and a stimulus package worth Rs 20 lakh crore (10 % of GDP). Underlying his speech, however, there was a message of global role of India, and turning crisis into opportunity.
Governor Cuomo, the Virus, the Nakba and Me
by Rima Najjar
To me, an American-Palestinian, the world tainted by the corona virus is analogous to Israel tainted by the evil it contains. Every day for the past few days, I have been listening to New York Governor Cuomo give his daily briefing on the virus. His words resonate with me eerily transforming
themselves to advice on how to handle Israel’s cruel manifestation in Palestine as a Zionist Jewish apartheid colonial state. As talk of “re-opening” the New York increases in volume, so does my feverish imagination.
To me, an American-Palestinian, the world tainted by the corona virus is analogous to Israel tainted by the evil it contains.
Every day for the past few days, I have been listening to New York Governor Cuomo give his daily briefing on the virus. His words resonate with me eerily transforming themselves to advice on how to handle Israel’s cruel manifestation in Palestine as a Zionist Jewish apartheid colonial state. As talk of “re-opening” the New York increases in volume, so does my feverish imagination.
For those who don’t know, the Arabic word “Fateh” [فتح], the name of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, which is the political bloc now dominating the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, means “opening”. It also carries the meaning of “conquering”. What’s more, “Fateh” and “key” [مفتاح], that profoundly indicative word of Palestinian longing for return, have the same linguistic root in Arabic. Hence, all these unbidden associations in my mind as I listen to Cuomo.
Every day, I wait for Cuomo’s briefing impatiently and watch while perched, tense and hyper-alert, at the edge of my seat, mesmerized by the shifting lines of his charts that, I swear, often morph into the outline of the map of Palestine.
My mind automatically sucks in Cuomo’s words and echoes them back at the TV in an altered form. I am Muslim, but the dynamic gripping me is one akin to the relationship between a pastor and his congregation at a black church. Cuomo calls and I respond, sometimes aloud. I hold back from hollering and shouting at his image, so as not to scare my family.
I take in every word of his sane, hopeful message — facts, not “facts on the ground”; science, not myths; let’s learn from our mistakes. Yes!
I translate his sentences into something else, like this: After decades of land theft, when will Palestinians be finally in control of their destiny and not subject to the whims of Israel and the international community? You tell me how Israel behaves today; I will tell you how Palestinians will be resisting a year from now.
The Zionist virus that is the Jewish state of Israel has yet to be stamped out. Hot-spot outbreaks have been with us since the Nakba of 1948. Currently, they are in the form of Israel’s horrifying annexation of parts of the West Bank, preying on the most vulnerable of peoples. We need to look for solutions that make things better for the Palestinian people. We need to reimagine the status quo and pose such a solution.
“In the first phase, we had to figure out what we are dealing with because we had no idea.” Yes, we had no idea — just intimations of unbelievable cruelty and diabolical greed! In 1947–48, we really had little idea. Remember, Palestine was 80% agrarian then — not the sophisticated community of Basle, Switzerland, where the plot for our dispossession was hatched at the First Zionist Conference in 1897.
“In the first phase, stabilize, control the damage,” says Cuomo. It turns out the key (here is that word again!) is information.
“I worked hard every day to make sure they knew the facts. ‘Trust the people’ — Lincoln, right? An informed public will keep this country safe. True, and that’s exactly what happened here,” Cuomo continues.
Funny Cuomo should say that, because, just the other day, a Palestinian friend on Facebook, Imad Jibawi, was saying something similar. He was commenting on a Zoom discussion I had posted titled “What do we do now?” conducted by Hani al-Masri, Director General of Masarat — The Palestinian Center for Policy Research & Strategic Studies (Masri is also a Policy Advisor for Al-Shabaka).
Imad Jibawi wondered:
“What is it that would drive the Palestinian people to the streets to protest by the thousands? Is it the annexation of Jerusalem? No; is it annexation of the Jordan Valley? No; is it Israel’s new settlements, then? No.
Why is that so?
I think the answer is in the question: Who is it mainly that we expect to take to the streets? They are those who are primarily under 30 — i.e., the Oslo generation.
These Palestinians were born and brought up in the reality of the Palestinian Authority, a government, ministries, VIPs, jobs, loans, etc.
[Preserving that] has been the national project for which our people sacrificed for years. People’s very livelihoods are now the red lines, holding them back. Their concerns are the teachers’ movement, the social security movement, the “we want to live” movement.
The question that concerns the political class as a whole is this: What next? What to do? The answer is: We start with our ABCs all over again. The first lesson is: Who are the Palestinians? What are the borders of the homeland of Palestine? The second lesson is: Who is our enemy? And what do we want?
Wanted: a new national awareness ….” [my translation from Arabic]
But then, as I continued to listen to Cuomo, I realized that, even though he and Jibawi are appealing to people to act collectively in their best interests by looking to themselves, rather than to their governments, there is a fundamental difference.
Cuomo is invoking security of health, family and livelihood as a raison d’etre for a certain set of collective behaviors, whereas what Jibawi is pushing for, necessarily given the Palestinian condition, is a revolutionary national consciousness that calls for a sacrifice of the very same things Cuomo is protecting for New Yorkers.
To Jibawi, the ideal of home and hearth (job security, health care, education, etc., as provided currently by the Palestinian Authority and the Oslo regime) must be superseded by the ideal of liberty, justice and equality for a people under occupation, who have escaped Israel’s genocide so far, but who continue to be dispossessed, brutally subjugated and oppressed by a vicious, powerful judeo-fascist entity and its allies.
Cuomo says, “I don’t know when government became so political. It all became about rhetoric rather than actual competence, but it happened somewhere along the way that government could not handle the situation. People had to get engaged; people had to be informed and that’s the new thing I did. They got engaged because it mattered — this is not an abstract issue we are talking about people’s lives and people’s health and the health of their children.”
They’ll get engaged, because it matters. For both Palestinians and New Yorkers, these are not abstract issues. Far from it. In our case, all you have to do to realize the concreteness is to tune in to the daily news of thievery and savagery in their myriad forms the Israeli regime inflicts on the Palestinian people.
Many ask, if not the Palestinian Authority, if not the status quo of self-government for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, what then? My answer is this: First, hard as it is for many, we must find the will and steadfastness to effect an insurrection to continue the interrupted Palestinian revolution, returning to the political and community structures that sprang up to further the first intifada. We need a supreme manifestation of popular resistance against both the Palestinian Authority and Israel in all of occupied Palestine from the river to the sea with aid from Palestinians in exile.
Cuomo is right! “No government can impose any of these things … Stay in the house. Close every school. Close every bus. State government can’t enforce that. People had to understand the facts people had to engage in governing themselves in a way they hadn’t in decades … We are tough, smart, united, disciplined and loving” — even if our governments aren’t. We are samidoun.
Amen to that! Hallelujah!
Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank
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As the country enters lockdown 4.0, millions of migrant workers are still stranded in alien and hostile conditions away from their homes and living in very precarious, unstable conditions. With no money and ration left and house owners demanding rents, workers across the states are desperateto return to their homes and villages.
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