Final Blog!

History in the making is an eye opener. Learning about the plethora of issues facing the world, and the issues building up to them is integral to being a citizen of the world at large, rather than just one of your own country. This is what more education should strive for- bipartisan information that allows the recipient of the information to draw their own conclusions, to form their own opinions. Information can be impartially presented, or at least have alternative perspectives (to the presenter's) equally available. Luckily, I've had such an experience with this class. Often one's own beliefs can slant or skew the stories being told, and being so particularly concerned with facts vs how they're portrayed as I am, I appreciate there can be difficulty when the class is so politically charged. From drone strikes, to the wars in Afghanistan and against Terror, there are many perspectives to be considered, and many's feelings are invested in such things.

Information is as strong a tool as it is a weapon, and the same is true for misinformation and disinformation. Being uninformed or misinformed are dangerous in our world today. Being critical and discerning with what you see and hear is integral to maintaining a fair and balanced view of the world around you. Sure, everyone has biases and prejudices, but being aware of those and not allowing them to overtake your view of facts can diminish their effect on your ideas and beliefs. In 50 years time, no one wants to realize they were just another version of those standing outside of churches denouncing interracial or same sex marriages. We aspire to be better than those before us, and to make things better for those after us, and the first step to that is to know what better is and can be.

From Stones to Drones

Tools for combat or war have been among the first technological advancements in most, if not all civilizations. The evolution of tanks, grenades, and even automatic weapons have been fraught with controversy. Drones are the next step in our collective ongoing tale of war. Given the violent use of these devices and the advantes/drawbacks inherent in their uses, there's been much controversy behind the use of drones both abroad and within our borders. There are many factors to keep in mind when discussing warfare, and among the most important is the safety of the soldiers engaging. With this in mind, I believe military use of drones overseas is justifiable given certain parameters. Situations where a target is inaccessible by troops, or heavily entrenched by enemy combatants are the ideal. Surveillance using drones is a touchier subject, and should be heavily restricted to hostile areas, so as to not invade the privacy and sovereignty of other nations.

Some suggest that drones may be as dangerous to civilians as to enemy troops. This may be true, but to speak of this without referencing the combat that drones may replace is to speak of it in a vaccuum. In July 2012 it was reported that, for the first time, drone strikes had a civilian casualty that was "at or close to zero", following a downward trend of them. Detractors further note that drone strikes may force opposing nations to develop them as well to keep up, technologically. This may be true, but development has always been a factor in warfare. Countries have always competed for more advanced weaponry, whether at open war or during times of peace. Guns led to the development of automatic guns, artilery evolved into tanks, etc. since the advent of war. Halting progress in the hope that your opponent will see that complacency and counter with their own is naive.


Drone strikes hurting innocent civilians and children are always tragedies, and the most care should be done to avoid such as often as possible. Use of excessive force is inexcusable at large or at home, and when lives are loss it should be especially penalized. But a hypothetical future wherein drones are out of control shouldn't prevent their use to avoid the realities of war. Civilians are not and should not be treated as soldiers, but when the options are between allowing soldiers to overrun an area to search for targets or allowing a drone to fly overhead to discern locations, I believe that the present safety should trump potential situations that could come about because of the technlogy.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/13/opinion/bergen-civilian-casualties/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/02/drone-strikes-thorny-legal-questions
http://theweek.com/article/index/211387/should-police-use-unmanned-aerial-drones
http://theweek.com/article/index/223047/obamas-defense-cuts-can-drones-really-keep-us-safe
http://theweek.com/article/index/235269/no-debate-about-drones

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been ongoing since the inception of the independent nation of Israel. Israel, the worlds only Jewish state, is surrounded by all sides by predominantly Islamic countries. Both sides of this conflict have stakes in the land on which Israel is based- Israel considers it a holy land, and their ancestral home; whereas Palestine believes the land to be theirs by right, as they lived there for the 2000 year interrim between the Jewish peoples last presence & their return after World War I. During World War I Britain stated it's intention to create an independent Jewish homeland and was mandated the region. In the interrim between WW1 and WW2, antisemitism began spreading throughout Europe, fueled by Germany in particular but also other nations, and Jews being persecuted across the continent began migrating to the region fast enough that Britain was forced to restrict them (though an underground movement to bring Jews into the land began after WW2's beginning, increasing the Jewish population further). After World War II, however, the Jewish community had disputes with British rule, and sought independence from them and all other nations. To quell an uprising, Britain agreed to divide the land and create 2 nations- a Palestinian, a Jewish state, and the city of Jerusalem to be under "an International Trusteeship System". Though the Palestinian government rejected this compromise, Israel announced it's independence the day before the British mandate expired, laying claim to the land before terms had been officially reached. Since this announcement, there has been discord between the two neighbors, as Palestine believes its rights have been infringed on and land has been taken unjustly.  The West Bank is under the sway of the moderate Fatah Party, while the Gaza strip region is ruled by the militant (and potentially terrorist) Hamas party. The two Palestinian territories in Israel are under Israeli occupation and control, effectively giving them the power to restrict supplies and aid going into Gaza.
Many look towards the tragedies suffered by the Jews in WW2 to justify Israel's continued presence and fight for land. While those were abominable, it does not excuse the Israeli domination of the region with the help of more powerful governments. When the region was founded over 250,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes into the neighboring regions, and then 20 years later during the Six Day War, further land was taken forcing more. While Israel may have pure motivations in having a land to call it's own, that land came at the cost of the Palestinian state, justifying the anger felt by the Palestinian citizens of the Gaza strip and the West Bank. While claims that Palestine is assaulting Israel are not without merit, the scale in these assaults must be noted. Gazan attacks hit the region directly surrounding the Gaza strip, thanks to the inability to acquire larger artillery to hit further targets caused by Israel's blocking the region from getting said weaponry. Israeli assaults, on the other hand, typically hit civilians and military citizens alike due to the dense population in the city. While Gaza and it's Palestinian citizens act out against a force populating their city & infringing on their rights, Israel responds by violently and openly assaulting innocent civilians. Others say that Palestine being run by the terrorist group Hamas proves that they are the aggressors in the situations, to which it must be noted that Hamas has only been in power for roughly 20 years, and was elected by a majority of people who felt so disenfranchised by Israeli rule over their lands that they believe that terrorist governance was the only way to retain their livelihoods. Unfortunately Hamas and Gaza are unable to create their own standing army and are thus relegated to the status of "terrorist" due to the methods to which they resort. The violence only escalates with time, and when there is a military strength such as that of Israel (with the backing of other major nations) versus a small group led by a group perceived as terrorists, it only makes sense that the escalation would be blamed on Hamas.
The Jewish belief that they are entitled to a holy land, specifically the land disputed, is one based purely in biblical lore. The Roman's may have thrown the Jews out of Jerusalem after 1000 years of residence, but it was twice that time before they returned. In that time, it was not Roman or Italian powers that were pushed out and deprived of their land, it was Arab and Islamic powers that were forced from their homes for the sake of someone else's religion. It's all well and good to want a nation that is peaceful and amenable to western allies, but that coming at the expense of a people who've just as much right is both unfair and unwise. Palestine being an Islamic citizenship within a Jewish nation in an Islamic region is, at best, courting further instability. Israel's unwillingness to compromise also points to their status as the instigator of much of this violence, as they refuse to budge on land that was technically never granted to them officially on top of forming a country before any compromise could be officially made. Formation under such circumstance is bound to raise the suspicion of the people who are forced to accept such rule. Israel's formation on what was once Palestinian soil must have come across as an injustice to those that were displaced, and seeing them displace more and more of their fellow citizens is what lets such enmity take root.

Gun Violence

The United States is the country with the most guns in the world, and as a result the country with the most gun violence in the world. Every year in the United States, more than 100,000 people are the victims of gun violence, according to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Guns cost roughly $75 in many states, and are eligible to be sold in stores as common as Walmart! While OFFICIALLY guns are required to be registered and the Federal Gov't maintains a 3 day background check, there are loopholes to this system that allow anyone with access to a gun show or a "salesman" can purchase one independently without any intervention from said government. Of 63 Mass Shootings in the US between 1982 and 2012, 49 of the killers acquired their weapons legally. The US Constitution & Bill of Rights were written over 200 years ago, when weapons were slow and required manual reloading. Today, we have weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets a minute and with clips that can contain that number, a future that the founding fathers of our nation neither mentioned nor could presumably fathom. Weapons of that calibre, 200 years ago would've been relegated to fantasy, not something they would specifically note conditions for should they arise. The 2nd Amendment grants citizens the right to bear arms, a right that I believe is worth protecting, but not at the expense of innocent men and women and children.


(Not a reputable firearms dealer!)

Many among the far Right seem to have the idea that the solution to this problem is MORE guns. They contend that if citizens present at the time of any of the myriad tragedies caused by gun violence had access to firearms, they could've prevented more carnage- to which it must be asked, how much more? Must elementary school security guards be armed? With weapons enough to take down a man with fully automatic handguns and rifles? Firearms are readily accessible in today's society, and yet the people in these situations weren't carrying the weapons that COULD have protected them, but definitely actually DID harm them. These men and women believe guns to be the solution to any security concern- even when guns ARE the security concern. Stymying progress in favor of their ill defined (by design) right to bear some kind of weapon, left undescribed, and indeed, undescribable, the founding fathers having OBVIOUSLY been aware of advancing technology. The 2nd Amendment doesn't specifically preclude weapons that these men and women are desperate to protect, because these weapons did not exist at the time of it's writing.


(http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?47848-NRA-s-2nd-Amendment)

I believe that gun rights are currently too lax on citizens. US citizens should be allowed to defend their homes and persons, but carrying weapons, some concealed, is more of a threat than it is security. Firearms should be restricted to the home or to those with the proper training to use them, they're far too dangerous to be used in public for anyone to have. Weaponry such as this should be relegated to those who would use it for it's original intent- trained defense. Allowing laymen to have it is a dangerous tempatation that has proven too much for the citizenry.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/Facts/Gun_Death_and_Injury_Stat_Sheet_3-Year_Average_FINAL.pdf
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16547690-just-the-facts-gun-violence-in-america?lite

Climate Change or Global Warming:

The 18th century began a time of economic and industrial growth around the world, and with that industrial growth came the advent of factories. These factories made manufacturing easier, burning fuel and using energy to faster perform the tasks that up until then had been done by men. The fuel burned was based on coal, a huge producer of carbon dioxide. This went on until...well, it's still going on. While today we have standards and regulations for the amount of emissions a factory can produce, the fact is that for 200 years, there were none. Factories pumped out as many emissions as were necessary to work at peak capacity, as often as possible. Many in the scientific community (some would say most) believe these emissions were the main contributing factor to the deterioration of our atmosphere & increase in worldwide temperature, a trend we call either "global warming" or "climate change".

Big oil industry would have climatologists downplay coal and oilburning emissions contribution to the change. The situation has been studied for over 20 years now, and science cannot state definitively that carbon emissions are the cause of the change, due to the nature of scientific study & the scope of the atmospheric damage done, and thus independent groups use that technicality to claim other possibilities are just as valid despite not having the same hard evidence behind it. Party wise, typically Republicans, being on the side of "big business" are more opposed to climate change & regulation of carbon emissions.

Personally, I find the debate silly. Opponents are grasping at straws, hoping for any new information that could absolve the coal and oil industries of fault & allow them to maintain their current states, lining their wallets and their candidates political funds. Some groups even go so far as to suggest school rubrics emphasizing climate change's controversy, undermining the information in favor of sowing further confusion to slow down the changes in policy that would diminish their profits, fund events devoted to science arguing against it, and finances many of the major scientists opposing.(Source). It just comes across as the last desperate attempts of a group to establish legitimacy in the face of overwhelming evidence against them.

On September 30th, 2014 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued a press release stating that a man in Dallas, Texas had been admitted & diagnosed with the first case of Ebola found in the US. They noted that they had been "anticipating and preparing for a case of Ebola in the United States" (CDC Press Release). The man had traveled from a region affected by the disease on the 19th of the month, began to display symptoms on the 24th, and was hospitalized on the 28th. It was at this point that the US news industry blew up- reporting every detail they could find, verified or not, as fast as they could to stay ahead of the competitor news station. Reports began nationwide from "experts" and news commentators that the United States had a new epidemic on it's hands, that a new crisis on par with the AIDS pandemic of the late 80's was beginning. The US political machine got involved as well- Republicans blaming Democratic initiatives, Democrats blaming Republican initiatives. All of this, while this first man was still fighting for his life in quarantine away from those he should be able to conceivably infect.

Supporters of this so-called "war on Ebola" contend that Ebola infection is growing so quickly in Africa that infection is "inevitable" in the United States & other countries. As a result, they would have us ban flights to the afflicted area to prevent possible carriers from coming and going at will. This plan disregards the need for aid workers to travel to and from the area with necessary medicine and supplies for the areas most at risk and will inevitably lead to the increase of Ebola in the area directly surrounding the one that's sectioned off. Politicos on the left & right both are defending this assault on what they perceive to be a politically neutral enemy, a uniting force for their parties. After all, who could be opposed to helping sick people in poor countries? The problem with this is that their ideas of how to help these sick people are contradictory, counterintuitive, and often ill informed. Think of it this way: of all the national ills facing our country today, is it really feasible to believe how best to aid another country is going to be the one thing both major parties can agree on?
(map depicting the current outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa, courtesy of http://kosmixmedia.com/ebola-outbreak-2014/)

The rush to find a "solution" will only compound the problem of Ebola spreading, but unfortunately it is unlikely to cease in the foreseeable future. Political parties are interested in their polling results- 2014 is a midterm election year, so both sides are blaming key "failures" on the opposing party. In addition to this, this fear has also led to increases in sales of health and safety supplies; hand sanitizer, hand wash, face masks, and gloves are also experiencing booms due to the fear, pumping more money into our economy, a trend that no smart politician (least of all a smart politician in office trying to retain that office) is going to try to stymy. Likewise, the news media industry also has to gain from this hyperreactive coverage- ratings. More people, more afraid, are more willing to watch more news to find out more "information" which, unfortunately, they ultimately have the most sway over. Information is freely available for the average consumer (information being used literally here, actual facts and statistics available through online sources) but they unfortunately must depend on the sources that most benefit from both our time and attention. The news media is ultimately most interested in the needs of the news media, which translates to the needs of it's overseers and financial supporters, the companies selling the supplies Americans today, at this moment, are clamoring to get due to the fear of an imminent threat.


Sources: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/s930-ebola-confirmed-case.html
http://www.livescience.com/48087-ebola-first-case-diagnosed-us.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/10/ebola_politics_13_ways_democrats_and_republicans_are_exploiting_the_virus.html
http://theweek.com/article/index/269420/the-war-against-ebola-is-much-more-important-than-the-battle-against-isis
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/12/354626252/ebola-diary-the-grave-diggers-the-mistress-the-man-on-the-porch
http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/disinfectants-hand-sanitizers-surge-ebola-fears/295427/

On september 11th 2001 the United States was attacked for the first time on it's own soil. The attack was orchestrated and carried out by al-Qaeda, a militant group from the Middle East led by Osama bin Laden.
(image courtesy of fallingtree.co.uk)
The group poured $500,000 into an endeavor that would eventually cost America & the rest of the Western world up to $2 trillion in damages (Bruce Riedel 1). More than that, it began an idea- the idea of "Terrorism" as an enemy that could be fought and defeated in a traditional war.

(image courtesy of americanpopculture.com)
George W. Bush, his term inundated with turmoil in the preceding months, jumped onto an opportunity to direct blame for the attacks on a target he & his allies (both in government and in private industry) found more lucrative. The government and various industries upped the ante by increasing claims of national insecurity, selling more security software & survival equipment while enforcing their own ideas of safety.

Supporters of G.W. Bush's invasion of Iraq used the notion of Iraq's possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to justify an invasion of an unrelated enemy nation for political and capital gain, while enabling the family of the party responsible to escape questioning, despite then doing everything in their power to enhance airport and travel security, ironically saving people from the security sweeps they later instituted.

Right wing groups believe Bush's invasion of Iraq was both a sensible political move & inevitability, as it's leader Saddam Hussein was a target. They disregard the fact that Bush likely circumvented the laws he would later enforce so harshly in favor of giving his business associates more time than they would have been given had they no relationship.

I believe that George Bush's wars were rushed, ill advised, and premature. Bush utilized the opportunity that a national tragedy provided to make a profit, and ensure his allies made a profit.