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.

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Flying Naked – Full Body Scanners Come to Canada

Canada’s federal Transportation Minister John Baird held a press conference yesterday, where he announced the installation of 44 clothing-penetrating, full body scanners at 11 Canadian airports within the next two-months.

These scanners create a three-dimensional image of a person’s naked body, allowing airport security officers to see you in your birthday suit.

Though not all passengers will be seen sans clothes. Considered an alternative to a physical search, Government officials say these devices will only be used on passengers 18-years-old and older, that security feels merit a secondary screening.

These full body scanners were already being tested in Kelowna, British Columbia, off Canada’s west-coast, and will now be in use at airports in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and in Vancouver.

At a cost of $250,000 CDN a pop, this is no small investment for the Canadian government, but since the Christmas Day attack aboard a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, the Canadian government is following the lead of the American government and ramping up airport security.

Or is the Canadian government just doing what our American big brother wants us to do?

American authorities want Canada, and all other countries around the world, to do quite a bit to keep America safe.

Using clothing-penetrating full body scanners raises numerous privacy concerns – essentially it allows complete strangers to take and store digital images of you completely naked. Though Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart says she approved the scanners only on the condition that the security officer viewing these naked full body images be in a separate room, and never actually see the passenger being screened. She also demanded that the digital image would have to be deleted once the passenger leaves the airport.

However, there are no guarantees that the federal Privacy Commissioner’s conditions will always be followed. Once a digital image is created, it can be copied, moved and stored pretty much anywhere. Just because it is deleted off the originating machine which created it, doesn’t mean it is gone for good.

When these clothing-penetrating full body scanners were first announced in the U.S., one of the immediate concerns was naked images of celebrities “suddenly” being found online for sale on places such as eBay.

And you don’t have to be famous to end up naked on eBay – anyone could fall victim to this.

So far, this hasn’t happened, but then these devices are relatively new, just starting to make their way into American and Canadian airports.

One of the less discussed, but just as personally intrusive requests the American government is placing on all countries is the sharing of passenger information.
The American government has sent formal requests to countries which have airlines flying planes across American airspace, requesting personal passenger information -- even if those passengers will never land at an American airport.
This personal information includes full legal names, citizenship, birth date, and destination.

There hasn’t been any indication of what action – if any – American authorities would take having this information. They could advise or warn other countries and/or airlines of possible persons of interest. Or a more drastic action would be to ban specific planes from flying through American airspace if American authorities don’t like one or more of the passengers or crew. And American authorities have been vague with just how long they would keep this information, and for what purposes.

So far, Canadian and many European countries have refused to provide this information for their passengers – it’s been a year since the Americans made the request. But with increased security measures being taken worldwide because of the recent Christmas Day terror incident, the American government could begin demanding this information, restricting air travel through American airspace to airlines which comply.

This would create chaos at airports around the world, as flights were delayed or canceled completely because of the new American airspace restrictions.

And even with all these new security measures in place, we still will never be completely safe. As soon as a security measure is taken, you can almost guarantee someone, somewhere around the world is working on ways to bypass it.

The only real way to prevent terrorism is to stop it in its tracks. George W. Bush coined the phrase the “war on terror,” and that in a literal sense is what it is – a war.

Although former U.S. President Bush’s “war” was questionable – he and his team falsified documents to justify attacking Iraq, claiming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (which he didn’t) and he sent troops to Afghanistan to “get Bin Laden,” but he never did, nor has anyone else.

The only real way to prevent terrorism is to win the war. Adding security at airports only challenges the terrorists to go further, and incites them to try harder. To win the war, we have to capture and imprison those who recruit, train and motivate people to do terrorist acts, and we have to capture and imprison those who have been recruited, trained and motivated to do these acts.

Until then, clothing-penetrating full body scanners and the sharing of personal passenger information may slow the terrorists down, but it will not stop them.

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