Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Haiti’s In Our Hearts, While Iraq is Just a Blur

Over a dozen people, representing countries across the globe met in Montreal, Canada yesterday to discuss a long-term redevelopment plan for earthquake ravaged Haiti.

Almost two-weeks after the earthquake measuring 7.3 destroyed much of the country, killing an estimated 200,000 people, Haiti’s prime minister met with these representatives from various countries, and charitable organizations to plan relief efforts.

Experts are warning it could take at least ten years to re-build Haiti. Interestingly enough, that’s about the same amount of time estimate to re-build Iraq.
However, the civil unrest in Iraq has been an on-going war for several years – and is still in a state of chaos – yet the international community hasn’t met to bring about calm to the Iraqi cause.

Political favoritism must have quite the pull over Haiti versus Iraq. Granted, Haiti’s fiasco took the world by surprise, as many natural disasters do, while the war in Iraq was caused by an American leader no longer in office – George W. Bush -- over control of the rich oil resources in the Middle East.

Iraq is an American problem, but the American war machine, along with all the different factions and wars among the Iraqi people, has destroyed so much of the country, it will take more than just the American’s to repair and rebuild the country.

Yet no other country has offered aid to Iraq, nor has any – not even the United Nations – attempted to bring about peace.

And there lies the real problem, because Iraq can’t be re-built until peace has been reached. There’s no point in re-building a bridge, if that bridge will be blown up shortly after being built.

The Americans and their allies in the war effort – such as the British – can’t be part of the negotiation team to bring about peace. You can’t have one side in a war trying to act as unbiased negotiator – which is partly why Iraq is still a war zone.

The Americans want to have their cake and eat it too – they want to put a leader of their choice in charge of the country, and have the country’s ruler answer to America’s wishes. Though America is the country which attacked Iraq in the first place, so that just wouldn’t be fair.

The United Nations and many other countries have stayed out of the American-Iraq war, because they never agreed to America’s initial reasons for starting it in the first place – which were later proved to be false. Iraq never did have weapons of mass destruction – despite former U.S. President George W. Bush’s evidence put forward by his administration. Later is was revealed that the evidence was false – made up, a direct lie.

Iraq is a messy war, and sadly, unlike Haiti, the world’s leaders have turned a blind eye away from the conflict in Iraq, letting the American’s essentially do as they want – which isn’t in either their own, Iraq’s or the world’s best interests.

Years ago, experts estimated once the war stopped in Iraq, it would take at least a decade to re-build the infrastructure and restore dignity to the impoverished war battered people. That’s supposing other countries come to the aid of Iraq – like they are for Haiti.

But as the world’s attention focuses on Haiti, the sounds of death and disease continue to ring louder and louder in Iraq.

Both Haiti and Iraq need international support, but so far, it looks like Haiti has lucked out and won the hearts and minds of the people of the planet, as it has become “trendy” to donate to Haiti, as celebrities in Canada and the States held separate, back-to-back telethons for Haiti.

The world moves and shakes with the mammoth movements of the United States of America – but just because America does something, doesn’t always make it just or right.


Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Obama Questionable

American President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, less than a year into his presidential mandate.

Granted, President Obama has some innovative ideas, was the first black person to ever lead the States, and has inspired greatness in others the world over.

But President Obama hasn’t been in office long enough to garner success – or failure – in implementing those

WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 09:  U.S. President Barac...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

innovative ideas, so the Norwegian-based Nobel Peace Prize Committee must be smoking some pretty good stuff to have given him the honor.

And there is more to that honor than just a piece of paper with his name on it – the Nobel Peace Prize comes with a medal, a diploma and a nice chunk of coin -- $1.5USD million to be exact.

The Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway.Image via Wikipedia


As of this writing, President Obama hasn’t said what he intends to do with the prize money, which could prove quite the challenge in light of what the Nobel Peace Prize represents.

The founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, Alfred Nobel, described the whole thing nicely in his last will and testament, saying the award should go to whoever: “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congress.”

President Obama is leading a country involved in two wars – Afghanistan and Iraq. And a third war is potentially brewing between America and North Korea over the North Korean government’s constant threat of developing and testing nuclear missiles.

Whenever the American leader has gone abroad on his worldly trips, he has talked about peace, and opening up relations between nations – especially between his nation and others around the globe. Though this is a given, you don’t go into someone’s home, push them up against a wall holding a knife to their neck and telling them how things are going to shake down.

Well, maybe you would do that, if you were President George W. Bush . . . but seriously, when a country’s leader goes to another nation, their first order of business is always to maintain or foster good relations with the hosting nati

WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 09:  U.S. President Barac...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

on.
That’s just good politics.

Though it is even more important in President Obama’s international politics, because his predecessor managed to alienate, offend, and create large rifts between America and other nations.

And speaking of rifts between nations, although President Obama didn’t instigate the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq – he hasn’t exactly gone out of his way to immediately attempt a peaceful resolution to either of these war zones either.

Why is it then, that he won the Nobel Peace Prize?

The prize committee claims President Obama’s extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy between nations, as the reason.

However, has President Obama really accomplished this?

He hasn’t ended any wars. He did close down the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, which was known for its inhumane treatment of inmates – but that hardly counts as strengthening international diplomacy between nations.

President Obama hasn’t brought peace to the Middle East – though truthfully, both sides in that long battle are so diametrically opposed to each other philosophically, socially, spiritually, politically and economically, there will never be peace in that region of the world.

Instead, President Obama continues to send troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to police those nations, instead of sending in diplomats and working to end the violence while bringing about peace.

President Obama has clearly threatened North Korea with possible military action if they continue to develop and test nuclear weapons.

And for a man supposedly so peaceful, he’s got his own army protectin

g him from the dangerous world in which we live. His motorcade consists not only of an alternative duplicate of him and his armored limo (nicknamed “the beast”), but high tech armored vehicles, which block cell phone signals in the area as he passes. When he came to Canada, they had snipers on rooftops all along his route from the airport to Parliament Hill in Ottawa. They even ordered people whose high-rise apartments and condos draped the route, not to go out on their balconies, or else they would be shot – even if all they wanted to do was to sneak a peek at the American president.

Surely a man of peace should have nothing to fear, and not need the protection of an armed motorcade?

Though that in of itself may be the real reason the Nobel Peace Prize Committee bestowed such an honor on this man.

Being the first black American president, and being as outspoken and radically different from past American presidents puts President Obama at a greater risk of life and limb than his predecessors.

Perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize Committee wanted to give President Obama the award before any attempts were made on the president’s life?

Although the American leader talks about peace, he hasn’t done anything to justify such a prestigious award. And that taints the reputation of the award, the prize committee which decides who receives the award, and far worse – lessens the chances that future world leaders will really work towards peace.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

ShareThis