Nothing to Live For

When each day drearily unfolds exactly as the last day, unremittingly, never changing, the same lack of options, the self same lack of certainty of food, lack of warmth, lack of change of clothes, life is miserable. When you cannot afford to be with friends, or worse old friends shun you, because you are not able to keep up with their exploits, then life is deeply despondent. When you mooch around waiting for those endless minutes to pass, you see and watch from outside all those other people, people just like you but better off, able to have nice things to use, able to mix and buy stuff with or for each other, able to have friends and make plans together. Without it life is worthless, there is nothing to live for. For why? You never had their chances, maybe a stable home, progress to higher education, opportunity to prove you can do better the next person, someone to confirm that you are doing okay or any combination of some or all of the above if nothing more extreme.

The one missing ingredient above all else is, hope. With hope that makes tomorrow a possibility. Without hope life is not worth living. If life is not worth living any other options becomes attractive even addictive. To shoplift, steal, joyride or just wreck whatever. Gain some local pride or notoriety and join a gang to graffiti your presence in the world and intimidate those not of your group. Or surrender to terrorism, get swept up in a cult where you at last have recognition and cadre amongst your own kind. A chance to gain hope even though in a hopeless endgame!

Hope requires so little yet can surmount so much. A helping hand, even that is more than needed, just a chance to change some small aspect of tomorrow is a starting point. A point from when hope can at last flicker back into being and with care can be fanned into a strong desire. Yet we, all of us, that have, have to give so there can be hope. A sustainable hope that is not extinguished by the very next stumble. With hope we can save all those around us, living amongst, that have lost the will to live. We just need to get back to a fair and equitable life style where everyone of us can hope to succeed. Where success does not depend on your pocket, or your families wealth or connections but simply on your ability and willingness to try. Now that gives me hope

Compare and Contrast

First off a story I have just heard, a man arranged a German car-sharing trip with a stranger, as is common-place over there, to a ferry port. This stranger calls off the trip, car is not ready. So our man takes the train to the ferry, missing the last ferry, to catch the ferry the next day. Arrives in England and is hauled off and subjected to a strip search, a thorough search of his luggage and some five hours of interrogation, where his denials were dismissed with disbelief and hostility. What is even worse, a female passenger, he just happened to exchange a couple of polite pleasantries with, sharing the hazards of travel sort of stuff, was also given the same treatment. His crime? He had by mischance managed to exchange a couple of EMails with a suspected drug dealer! What do we have, the planned car journey manifestly did not take place, the two individuals never met and we are left with secret snooping on private EMails giving rise to a suspicion, just a possibility with no tangible supporting actual physical evidence. Just a person somewhere being suspicious.

That evening I watched a documentary about benefit fraud (Britain on the Fiddle). Of the three cases offered up for our entertainment was the case of a man with two identities, one of which was also receiving disabled benefit, all fraudulently claim benefits. The hard physical evidence was there, double passports in two names, video recording of man working easily and physically with no sign of impairment, photo records of living at different addresses to that claimed, variety of cars all in use by him yet the investigation drags on because there is not yet enough evidence to ensure a conviction and the Police are too busy to bother with such a minor contraventions! So plenty of hard evidence but whether by incompetence, sloppy documentation leading it open to challenge or just too overwhelmed with work to fit in bringing the cast to court, a man manifestly living out a fraud, is allowed to continue. Eventually yes the wheels are in motion, months down the line and he does go to jail. But just compare and contrast. The overt working of the legal systems and the covert unaccountable systems.

If you have emotional hype on your side, think drugs, terrorism or even pedophilia, then  anything can be justified, perpetrators are beyond any compassion, beyond any hope of even the most radical do gooder defending some basic civil right. No, for fear of condoning, we willingly acquiesce  to secrecy, to abandonment of all rules of proof and justice being seen to be done. In our name we will allow unknown, unaccountable individuals to trash the rules that have been crafted over centuries to give everyone a chance to protest their innocence. Not to be subjected to the whim and fancy of a Another's suspicion.

In this oh so PC world we are tripping over our feet of zealous correctness and have lost our confidence to know right from wrong. So the burden of proof has to be able to withstand so many minor technicality challenges. For fear of giving offense we lean over backwards to allow the legal counter-challenges that then grind our system down so that fraudsters can wriggle this way and that way. 

To interpose authority into someones life, to prohibit their freedom to carry on seeing a dying mother, or making that interview, or declaring their love or just travel for the joy of it, there has to be significant cause, not just an idle suspicion.

Hiding behind words

It is so disengaged, remote, coldly clinical, the descriptions 'surgical strike', 'precision targeting', 'terrorist threat', 'neutralising a real risk', but setting aside the contrived and deliberate detachment of the words, the end result is still the same, a person, a human being, is to be killed. A person with parents, relatives, maybe a spouse probably with their own children has been selected to be killed.

Man facing man with comparable weapons it could be seen as, almost, a glorious and honourable trial of strength, both with an opportunity to overcome the other and to be the victor. But we have moved a long way from man against man. The weapons have led to increasing distance between the men confronting each other. Now the opposing men do not even see it other and it has been, for a long time, not a matter of one man skills pitted against another, but simply who has the best weaponry and tactical support.

Now a man sitting in a room three thousand miles away, in front of a bank of screens can control a drone that picks out it target and then kills it. No chance to retaliate, the target probably even unaware of their imminent death. Back across the world the man goes home to hugs with family, settles infront of TV with a cold beer and life is very normal. Selective targets with known terrorists links, only picked out for death after the most serious of cross checks and only after Presidential authorisation. This not a casual killing campaign but very carefully premeditated and double checked. Sure there is the odd co-lateral damage. That is to say unintended bystanders, men or women or children also are killed but that is their risk for associating with known terrorists. It is essential for the security of the USofA that these people are killed without further risk to American personnel. Except there is a higher overriding concern. Justice.

Our system of Justice, flawed and rough edged that it is, has evolved over centuries to balance all the complexities of human actions with that need, by us all, that the guilty should be exposed and shown for what they are. The Justice system recognises that you cannot not simply take one side of the argument. It has to be challenged by the opposing version. It is not even simply totting up all the incontrovertible evidence on one side as against the other. Even evidence can be skewed, depending on your point of view. It is not even who is the most believable and presents the most likely account of events. It is all that plus the intangibles, of people, how we as an individual perceive and have a sense of their trust and worthiness. That is why in the more complex cases we bring in twelve decent men off the street and leave the outcome for them to decide. Flawed because even unimpeachable evidence can turn out to be just wrong and seemingly good decision can be eventually shown to be wrong. The wrong person judged to be guilty. There simply are no absolutes, guilty or not entirely depends on your point of view, where you choose to place the emphasis, where you decide credence of truth best fits. At least, with the abolition of the death sentence, it is possible to make retribution for those persons who suffer the rough edges of our Justice System.

The Terrorist is our later day Witch where the ducking stool has been replaced with a death drone and all the hi-tech mumbo jumbo wrap arounds to reassure any waverers that this is all clinical, precise, beyond doubt or question. Except it is still based on 'Prove you are not a Witch/Terrorist' on pain of death. Except the selected target is not give any chance to protest their innocence. At least when the executioner looked the condemned in the eyes he was able to reassure himself, by the demeanour of the condemned, that they accepted their fate and guilt. Not with the remote controlled drones. The victim is killed without any chance to protest, to set out an alternate chain of events to the ones assembled by his judge, jury and executioner. All is fair in the cause of a 'War on Terrorism'. As if that expression defined a tangible cohesive body of people who were united, armed and seeking confrontation. Just as in the War of Witchcraft, it justifies all means and ends. History tells us otherwise. For all the hundreds of witches slain for failing to prove they were not witches, witchcraft was not eradicated. Instead their pursuers were besmirched by their abandonment of all basic rights and restraints. Evil continues on as ever but just pops up under another label with other objectives.

When Mr President of USofA next reviews the daily list of people to be killed by the death drone, he would do best to pause for thought. Is this justice I am administering here or just sanctioned slaughter?

Osama Bin Laden

It was all very macho gungho stuff. Helicopters flying in, middle of night, marines abseiling, night sights, stun grenades and the taking down of public enemy number one. Taking down and claiming justice for all those that died as direct consequence of allegedly one of the most evil man on the planet. Except it is leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. With a force ratio of six to one in their favour, surprise on their side and definitely superior fire power what gun play was essential to kill one unarmed man, shoot two woman and a boy?

America just seems to be missing the point time and time again. You are judged by your actions. If you claim moral superiority you have to demonstrate it in each and very action. This was not a surgical efficient operation, it was not a display of minimum force to achieve an end, there was no show of compassion in victory, just cold blooded taking of lives.

Here was a man at the very centre, the hub of vibrant activity actively plotting to wreak havoc and destruction around the world. Kill or carnage would ensue. Not the picture I am getting. Just an isolated man, lost, burnt out, but too important to be abandoned. Yet no longer able to inspire and spark fire into the bellies of new fanatics, no longer a leader and no longer wanted by those that used to strain to hear every word. Just a collection of has been souvenirs and thoughts. Brought to justice most certainly to answer all the charges against him, but not just killed in cold blood because you can. Where can you draw a line between those terrorist whose actions you despise and your own actions if your methods are indistinguishable?

We expect our leaders to take the moral high ground and to be exemplars in all things. To authorise an armed raid inside a friendly allies territory without their consent or knowledge, what signal is this supposed to send to the world? To allow yourself to be seen to sit around with cohorts watching the ballgame play out and be a willing participant to the cold blooded killing of an unarmed man is not a good image. We don't do gladiator contests for good reasons. If we have to kill, we kill humanely, with dignity, with respect and not as a spectacle for selected viewers. A leader has to authorise, not participate, to be fully aware of the consequences but not a signed up witness.

So a series of miscalculations will almost certainly fuel a new wave of fanaticism that will lead to who knows what. In creating a martyr the US of A has missed an opportunity to use the one person that could be fronted in the inevitable talks the precede any settlement. He may have been a worn out old man but he still was a recognisable symbol that both sides could use to vocalise their differences. Because in the end it always comes down to talking. Bullets are never the end.

War-Mongering

To start with I am a pacifist, no surprise there then? The one scenario that I doubt I would ever come to terms with was if I took someones life by a careless act of mine.
There is no justification, no provocation, no military goal, no realm that makes the taking of one, two, twenty, two hundred or two million lives excusable any more than I can make a distinction in the mode of taking a life whether by a car, knife, rope, bullet, gassing or nuclear bomb. The only pause for thought is the length and degree of distress experienced before the life taken finally expires.
Setting that aside I can still be objective, take an overview on war-mongering and be relevant. Here is the proof or lie to that!
We are now in a similar position to that that the great powers found themselves just before WWI and WWII. The mechanics of war had moved on by a considerable degree but they were still nostalgically and fatally bound to the war mechanics of their last great victory. So too now. The whole war dynamics has changed. Now nationstates are held to ransom by small highly mobile groups of people and a few readily accessible materials, providing those people have the support of their community.
Which city or field are your tanks to surround, or planes to bomb or army hoist their flag in to prove you have finally subdued that irritant rebel group that constantly depletes your artifacts of war. You might sweep in, replace one governance with your own style but the peoples mind you want to control remain, despite your worst, their minds that they control. In the end you have to deal with them and in doing so your own ethics become corrupted. In the global scale of things what is the point?
The bigger the ordinance, whether it is tank, bomber plane or aircraft carrier the greater the resource cost and the greater the significance in your fighting effectiveness if you lose it. So to protect your big ordinance you have to support them with a host of lesser ordinance with the sole goal of defending the big ordinance. A great lumbering war machine. Not exactly light footed, fleet of foot, bobbing ducking and weaving around those highly mobile groups of people out to scupper your every attempt.
Anything other than a national defense is political suicide. Scrap or more realistically hire out to Europe all the big ordinances, save a vast amount on your budget and replace with light, highly mobile vehicles. Train your people in the mechanics and psychology of sabotage and civic disobedience. Invest in disperse communications. But and a big but make sure your style of government is all inclusive, emphasises the united people so they never experience the need to rebel against you.