Befitting Nigerian National Honors, As NYSC Members Die On National Duty
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Nigeria’s human refinements index must be measured and re-calibrated by how Nigerians and Nigeria takes care of the poor, the most under-privileged and how we honor our dead.
It is the case that the extents of human refinements, quality of life, dignity and decency in any society can be measured in how such society protect the rights, interests and lives of it’s poor, under-privileged and it’s dead.
This is even more so, when for selfless reasons, death is brought about as a consequence of being on national duty, on behalf of the rest of us as citizens of united, and indivisible one Nigeria.
This point about treatment, respect, dignity for the dead, is made more profoundly so, when such deaths occur during wars, national duty or national assignment, identical or similar to NYSC, INEC assignments
In the unwarranted violence in Nigeria, in the aftermath of the April 16, 2011 presidential election, there arises a need to examine these pertinent issues of life’s value and worth in Nigeria, particularly, when lives are lost during and in the course performance a monumentally crucial national task, assignment and duty.
Elections violence which targeted Nigerians from particular regions and particular religious affiliation, also revives the urgency of according full faith and credit or worthiness to Nigerian Citizenship nationwide, Nigerians should enjoy equal protection, equal rights and life’s dignity and value, irrespective such Nigerian’s place of birth, state of origin, regional, religious or linguistic heritage or affiliations!
Some Nigerians selectively hacking other Nigerians to death, based on some arbitrary negative multiple variables, is inhuman and egregiously criminal. This attitudes and behaviors animated and motivated by base-animal instinct, must be rejected by all Nigerians.
It is quite a delight to learn that President Jonathan of Nigeria has done the right thing for families or next of kin, of serving members of the National Youth Service Corps who were needlessly murdered during this just concluded general elections in Nigeria.
President Jonathan’s actions in this regard are exceedingly great, extraordinarily innovative and quite frankly, a breathe of fresh air!
It is now public knowledge that the federal government of Nigeria has announced and undertaken to compensate families of members of the National Youth Service Corps who were murdered during the general elections conducted in April 2011 nationwide in Nigeria.
It is also the case, that good news has been received with offers of automatic employment to wounded NYSC members, even as the federal government is vowing to bring the murderers to justice through the enforcements of Nigerian laws the fullest extent possible
Monetary compensation cannot and can never be adequate for the losses under review... but, monetary compensation is nevertheless-nonetheless a wonderful idea... and this is a start, only a start.
It is sincerely hoped and believed that examples can be made of those who inflicted these murderously heinous crimes on the families and our nation in general... There should be no sparing of efforts to investigate, arrest ALL those who play ANY role in these unwarranted murders by mobs of lunatics
ABOVE all that, everything should be done to ensure that our nation never, ever have to be affronted with these sorts on bigotry and hate crimes... or ethnic cleaning in which Nigerians are beaten, harassed or killed because of their ethnic, regional, religious or linguistic affiliation or heritage
Nigeria's National Assembly, in conjunction with the Federal Executive Council with our president presiding should hold a special plenary session to honor these slain members of the National Youth Service Corp who were murder in the course and during their participation in monumental national task, duty and assignment on all our behaves ... I personally recommend that this special-plenary session, be the first order of business after inauguration day
These recommended action will send an important message to all Nigerians that we treasure our heroes, heroines and that national duty is important... and supreme sacrifice when it is an outcome, will not be in vain and will not be forgotten.
We will, in fact, use this national catastrophe to inspire all Nigerians and we would have turned this national misfortunes to our national benefit... We should award national honors to these departed patriots, nationalist heroes and celebrate their lives and times ... thereby making a historical and timeless point about Nigeria honor of national duty and service to our nation
An additional symbolism could have been simultaneous burial for all those NYSC members who were murdered during the general elections in Nigeria... a simultaneous burial at our national cemetery in Abuja, witnessed by families with entire political leaders present and possibly with a live coverage on television.
On April 2003Wednesday, April 7, 2003, I wrote an article titled:
Honor, Dignity, And Respect For Nigerian Dead On National Duty Or Service
http://adujie-writings.blogspot.com/2007/10/honor-dignity-and-respect-for-nigerian.html
In which the points sought to be made were the importance of respect, honor, dignity for Nigerians who die in the course of national duty-assignments at home or abroad, be they civilians or members of the armed forces.
“Our service personnel must be given befitting burials with coffins or caskets or mats, draped with our national colors and flag, and the full honors, this will, in essence, be a demonstration of our love for our country and those who serve Nigeria’s purpose or national interests.
“Nigeria must accord Nigerians who die in national-service duty all honorable appellations, honor, respect, dignity with all the nationalism and patriotism that we can muster because Nigerians who serve gallantly, excellently, honorably, and selflessly, deserve the most honors possible, and there are multitudes of rewards imbued in doing these, among which are the very probable fact, that we will inspire and motivate other Nigerians to follow the good examples of those honored’
“We will be motivating Nigerians alive and generations yet unborn, and the family of the dear departed, to feel proud, and take pride in the contributions in selfless service, by those who served Nigeria eminently in exemplary manners, even when they are no longer with us, as when they have paid the ultimate price or made supreme sacrifice with their lives, as a consequence of national duty and national service.”
These above points in the 2003 article remains relevant today, even more significantly so, particularly prescient and more profound, in the face of the needless killings of some members of the National Youth Service Corps or NYSC, deployed to work with the Independent National Electoral Commission or INEC
I take the view that our analyses, evaluation, upon having thoroughly examined the facts concerning our recent election violence, it is, and remains in our best national interests to focus on the big picture and our long term interests as one indivisible nation, even in the face of the killings by murderous senseless mobs whose dastardly act were spurred by bigotry and hatred in their selection of victims of the recent rampage
It is the case that the mob actions were spontaneous and that security agencies were taken by surprise and unawares, and left with little wiggle room for reinforcing or calls for backups.
But perhaps mistakes were made in the planning and strategic allocation of our security agencies and apparatuses. Well, it should by pointed out here, that nobody is always right.
We humans are liable to mistakes, errors, hence pencils have erasers!
But in the future, there should multiple layers upon layers of security arrangements, particularly so, given the contentious nature of elections and other political processes can be in Nigeria.
Our armed forces, police, state security service, Nigeria’s intelligence community, most henceforth, coordinate and choreograph important national assignments such as the just concluded national elections.
Our law enforcement agencies and their ancillaries, should be impenetrable. We should learn to anticipate challenges and think ahead and make plans ahead of such challenges, multiple plans in fact, such as plan A, plan B and plan C etc
All Nigerians, and well wishers of Nigeria, need and deserve a strong, virile, dynamic, progressive, developed, advanced and great Nigeria. Our interest in Nigeria, as patriots and nationalist should no longer be in fits and starts or episodic.
We should love our nation unconditionally, whether at peace or most tranquil time or at challenging times similar to what our nation just witnessed.
Nigerians need to love fellow Nigerians more and we should accord each other, common humanity, respect, love and dignity and henceforth, see national issues or challenges as something we have in common.
The idea of North versus South, or us against them, should be rejected in public discuss, in rhetoric and or in political contestation, before, during and after elections!
All Nigerians must from now onward, realize that when Nigeria wins, we all win as Nigerians. All Nigerians must realize and appreciate the fact, that there immense and enormous benefits imbued in a Nigeria where all citizens are accorded equal humanity, rights and protections.
A Nigeria, where no one is marginalized, relegated and devalued.
This is what we should all aspire to and for, as Nigerians, at home or in the Diaspora, we should work tirelessly for our nation, even when we have philosophical or conceptual, logical order, and intellectual disagreements as to processes and methods through which we arrive at outcomes, which makes Nigeria the great nation Nigeria deserves to be and should be!
It is now time to make the best of our national circumstances, in the aftermath of the post-presidential election carnage in which some members of NYSC were murdered.
We should honor them and ensure that their untimely deaths is a wake up call. Honoring them will be therapeutic and inspiring, as we rededicate ourselves to the worthy causes of Nigeria.
Honoring those who die on national duty will be the beginning of true healing and reconciliation, our respect and honor for those killed during the course, and in the performance of an all-important national duty-assignment will accomplish one or two and even more things. It will heal, motivate and inspire us all
Honoring, showing respect and glorifying our citizens killed while on national duty, speaks of us all as citizens of a nation, which places high value and great premium on the value and worthiness of our citizens.
It also inspires survivors and all of us to do more and duty better and to value national service, as the labors of our heroes past will never be in vain.
This is in essence appealing to our best nature, our patriotism and nationalism, harvested and harnessed for our national unity in diversity, for our national purpose.
The attainment of our national aspirations for progress, development, advancement and greatness of our nation, Nigeria; all hands must be on deck, we must participate actively to create great nation, Nigeria!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
America's Afghanistan Withdrawal Should Be Accelerated?
America’s Afghanistan Withdrawal Should Be Accelerated?
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Osama was a Frankenstein of America‘s creation some thirty years ago; A vicious dog created by America, for her purposes and for her benefits and so-called geopolitical vital and strategic interests
The point or one of the points made in an article titled "Dead At Last, Dead At Last" was that Osama Was A Vicious Dog Trained by the Americans for their fight with the former Soviet Union, then the dog turned it's ferocity and violence on it's trainers and trainers children.
We should wrestle with lions because of the obvious risks that we may end up in the lion's stomach as lunch, routine lunch,lions are ferocious and dangerous by nature!
And now, in less than a week after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the dins of cries of “Obama, Bring American Troops Home, We Need The Money!” is rising to higher and higher decibels! Conservatives and Liberals seem agreed and almost unanimously in sync on this point.
The argument is that Osama Bin Laden is the linchpin and was at the command and control of Al Qaeda, now that the head of the hydra headed snake has been cut.
Many now say, that the hierarchy, or other heads of Al Qaeda are running for their dear lives and engaged in self-preservation or that they are now essentially, in survival mode, and further that they no longer have taste for deathly confrontations and nocturnal noisy helicopters and boisterous visits from US Navy Seals Team 6.
Osama Bin Laden the head coach is dead and the team is a leadership-leaderless quandary and demoralized, it is time to bring the troops home, is a legitimate and valid argument. 150,000 American troops pursuing 100 Al Qaeda operatives is not cost-efficient or cost-effective!
Particularly so, as this has gone on for so long in Afghanistan, while Osama was actually sauntering Abbottabad in Pakistan in an open secret plain sight sorts of way, and not in some caves!
Since September 11, 2001, the United States has deployed it’s military assets and coordinates in Afghanistan in pursuit of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and then, subsequently engaged in the needless invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Former President George W. Bush’s administration argued adamantly that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were acting in cahoots, hand-in-hand and or acting in conspiracy and in concert in coordinated, orchestrated and choreographed manners to inflict terrorism and extremist Islam on the world.
The world has since learned that these spurious assertions by President Bush and the suggested tenuous connections between Osama, Saddam and Al Qaeda were lies and unfounded falsehoods; but these wars which ensued, the wars were based on these lies, continues, with foreseeable unintended consequences for all
The American government in these military endeavors or so-called global wars on terror, have overextended American resources, financially, militarily and strategically!
We believe now, as we stated at the onset of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, that it was a war of choice and a self-destructive quagmire and debacle. It was and it still is, a self-serving needless war, in which trillions of dollars have been squandered. A clear case of poverty of ideas! A squander of blood and treasures! Trillions of dollars squandered over these years, and trillions enough to end and banish poverty globally!
There remains no verifiable evidence of democratization of Iraq as such. Another 100 years perhaps?
Iraq has instead, become more fractious politically and deeply divided along ethnic and religious affiliations, without a wellspring of democracy as promised by the invaders and occupiers over ten years ago, as predicated and factored, and notably, there were no dirty-bombs or Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD to be found in Iraq
The only semblance of hopes for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, Arabia and Persia, is the so-called Arab Spring which is ongoing.
Arab Spring is a conglomeration of peaceful demonstrations or protests in many Middle Easter nations demanding democratization, political and economic reforms and more individual civil liberties and freedoms across the board
Expedient and myopic imperialistic policies have unintended consequences... with the guilty and innocents suffering ... Palestine is waiting for a No Fly Zone or political independence and nationhood and freedoms! That is the next item or should be, on President Obama's agenda; we hope at least!
It is thought that a combination of factors should cause for positive seismic shift in the intractable and internecine conflicts in the Middle East. The death of Osama Bin Laden combined with political uprising or the so-called Arab Spring or the call for democratization, appears to be the foundation of a new era, or a paradigm shift.
A new dawn may be upon the world, and this new dawn should be harnessed to broker lasting peace and security in the world, particularly in the Middle East and or Islamic nations of Arabia, Persia, North Africa and South East Asia etc.
And, the ground zero or the epicenter of such new dawn, is Palestine! Nationhood for Palestine territories is job one, should be job one!
This will afford dignity and restoration of humanity to Palestinians. It is the case, that Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other extremists and even moderates, have justified, and explained angst and violence through the prisms of the plights and predicaments of Palestine and Palestinians.
The Americans and Israelis have for the most part insisted on a zero sum game in which they adamantly persist in stating and restating unyielding rejections of they the Americans and Israelis see as attempt justifications, explanations or excuses for terrorism.
Well reasoned, well thought out or articulated policies, could finally steal the thunder and take the wind out of the sails, of these justifications, explanations or excuses for terrorism!
In direct contrasts and as opposed to the usual, perennial or age-old worn out policies based on expediencies. Expediencies as policies have become antiquated and archaic.
Expediencies have become lunacy, which in effect encourages the repeated practice of policies which offend others and have elicited undesirable outcomes for us;
Even as we persist in these expediencies unchallenged, but expecting different reactions or hoping to use our military might to beat others in conformity or compliance with our desires, without a care for their own aspirations!
There are multitudes and plethora of evidence and arguments which seeks establish, or actually establishes the amorphous nature of terrorists and so-called enemy combatants, the are fleeting, fluid and at times even flimsy.
There are no defined enemies or battle fronts.
What then, if there were a change of outlook and mindsets or perspectives, to the effect that the contentious issues, the so-called justifications, explanations and excuses are successfully tackled, dismantled solved or resolved? What if the world seizes this new opportunity to have fair and balanced policy informed by equity and justice, as opposed to lopsided policies which favor one group over others?
It is the case that seasoned military experts have argued strenuously and repeatedly, that military victory over terrorism will be impossible or at the minimum, it would be long drawn-out.
And there have been admixtures of military operations and a combination of nation-building coupled with the so-called wining-hearts-and-minds campaign.
It seems to me, that military operations which employs solely military assets and coordinates, with the sole expectation of uproarious military victories through Shock-and-Awe is forlorn, a blond-ambition.
It would remain an endless global war on terror which will dissipate and deplete American power globally.
The endless war on terror has distracted, if not derailed American economic and developmental priorities and national sense.
Empires, have historically self-destruct, immolate and implode-explode economically-financially-militarily, when such empires overextends itself and in overreaches, America nears and dangles precariously in that precipice.
There are 15 million Americans who are still unemployed and there have 4 million mortgaged homes in America foreclosed upon by banks in the past couple of years. In plain English many Americans are stranded and in dire circumstances on the home-front, while trillions of dollars have been frittered away in foreign battle fronts!
America’s involvements in three foreign wars, with a domestic economic debacle and distress to boot!
It is hoped that the death of Osama Bin Laden should initiate an attitude shift or change. But, I worry that the death of Osama Bin Laden does cause a resort to triumphal, bashful, boastful, gloating and gleeful complacency.
Such attitude may be perceived as arrogance which will in turn animate others and may lead them to resort vengeful actions warranting more reactions and the cycle of violence would continue, the situation will sorts of feed off, of each other endlessly.
Upon the revelation of the news of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination, Americans have been jubilant and celebratory, but, I think there should be every efforts to avoid the three Gs gloating, giddy and gleeful as these could lead to further unpleasantness for everyone, such as retaliations, reprisals and revenge which would just ensure that the cycle of violence continues!
And some have argued that the possibility of reprisals as reasons to maintain the current troops levels in Afghanistan
Happily, President Obama has set the right tone and poise in the aftermath of Osama Bin Laden demise. President Obama struck a cord with his somber circumspection and reflections during his visits to New York City, no gloating, no “Mission Accomplished” and no victory laps!
Attacks on September 11, 2001 killed 2,976 persons on American soil; meanwhile, the wars which were lunched in retaliations, reprisals and revenge against those suspected of inflicting those attack on September 11, 2001, the United States military has lost 6002, which is twice the number of those killed on September 11, 2001 and the United States has similarly spent or squandered over $5trillion dollars on the so-called global war on terror.
Thousands are dead, maimed, deformed, displaced and dislocated, many families are ruined by these conflicts and returning soldiers suffer brain injuries and PTSD etc; with long lasting effects and agonizing consequences for America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan etc
There are allegedly 100 full time, active core members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conversely, there are about 150, 000 United States military personnel in Afghanistan, exclusive of civilians contractors doing military work, and this;
Also this is exclusive and does not include, operatives of Central Intelligence Agency, and other members of the American Intelligence Community. Similarly, there have been over 200,000 Americans troops serving in the invasion and occupation of Iraq
Here we are, one week after the death or killing of Osama Been Hiding, it can be revealed that he was hiding in plain sight. And that there were massive intelligence failures. Mammoth intelligence failures of the highest magnitudes!
There were no ultramodern caves in the tribal areas or Waziristan mountains with formations fortified by sophisticated elite units of Al Qaeda Republican Guards!
Osama Been Hiding, has in fact not lived in Afghanistan since his sightings while doing a duet with Elvis in Tora-Bora on the way to Helmand
Pakistan is the highest foreign aid recipient from the United States outside Israel or apart from Israel. The bulk of American aid to Pakistan is hinged on Pakistan’s cooperation and partnership with America on her so-called global war on terror.
And yet, events of the past week has revealed Pakistan as either completely incompetent, inept, duplicitous and grossly inefficient or a combination of all these!
Many American officials, public affairs commentators and sundry analysts are wondering loudly and publicly, how it was possible for Osama Bin Laden to have lived in Abbottabad, hiding in plain sight in a Garrison town comparable to West Point or Camp LeJeune and Pendleton, and so, complicity or incompetence, duplicity or ineptitude, double dealing and double crossing have been leveled against Pakistan. Is it probable that Pakistan was in connivance and collusion with Osama and Al Qaeda?
Osama Is Dead, Al Qaeda is in disarray, and other extremist groups are probably fearful, bring the troops home, save money, and save the long suffering and now harried American troops in hostile environments
Written by Paul I. Adujie
Osama was a Frankenstein of America‘s creation some thirty years ago; A vicious dog created by America, for her purposes and for her benefits and so-called geopolitical vital and strategic interests
The point or one of the points made in an article titled "Dead At Last, Dead At Last" was that Osama Was A Vicious Dog Trained by the Americans for their fight with the former Soviet Union, then the dog turned it's ferocity and violence on it's trainers and trainers children.
We should wrestle with lions because of the obvious risks that we may end up in the lion's stomach as lunch, routine lunch,lions are ferocious and dangerous by nature!
And now, in less than a week after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the dins of cries of “Obama, Bring American Troops Home, We Need The Money!” is rising to higher and higher decibels! Conservatives and Liberals seem agreed and almost unanimously in sync on this point.
The argument is that Osama Bin Laden is the linchpin and was at the command and control of Al Qaeda, now that the head of the hydra headed snake has been cut.
Many now say, that the hierarchy, or other heads of Al Qaeda are running for their dear lives and engaged in self-preservation or that they are now essentially, in survival mode, and further that they no longer have taste for deathly confrontations and nocturnal noisy helicopters and boisterous visits from US Navy Seals Team 6.
Osama Bin Laden the head coach is dead and the team is a leadership-leaderless quandary and demoralized, it is time to bring the troops home, is a legitimate and valid argument. 150,000 American troops pursuing 100 Al Qaeda operatives is not cost-efficient or cost-effective!
Particularly so, as this has gone on for so long in Afghanistan, while Osama was actually sauntering Abbottabad in Pakistan in an open secret plain sight sorts of way, and not in some caves!
Since September 11, 2001, the United States has deployed it’s military assets and coordinates in Afghanistan in pursuit of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and then, subsequently engaged in the needless invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Former President George W. Bush’s administration argued adamantly that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were acting in cahoots, hand-in-hand and or acting in conspiracy and in concert in coordinated, orchestrated and choreographed manners to inflict terrorism and extremist Islam on the world.
The world has since learned that these spurious assertions by President Bush and the suggested tenuous connections between Osama, Saddam and Al Qaeda were lies and unfounded falsehoods; but these wars which ensued, the wars were based on these lies, continues, with foreseeable unintended consequences for all
The American government in these military endeavors or so-called global wars on terror, have overextended American resources, financially, militarily and strategically!
We believe now, as we stated at the onset of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, that it was a war of choice and a self-destructive quagmire and debacle. It was and it still is, a self-serving needless war, in which trillions of dollars have been squandered. A clear case of poverty of ideas! A squander of blood and treasures! Trillions of dollars squandered over these years, and trillions enough to end and banish poverty globally!
There remains no verifiable evidence of democratization of Iraq as such. Another 100 years perhaps?
Iraq has instead, become more fractious politically and deeply divided along ethnic and religious affiliations, without a wellspring of democracy as promised by the invaders and occupiers over ten years ago, as predicated and factored, and notably, there were no dirty-bombs or Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD to be found in Iraq
The only semblance of hopes for democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, Arabia and Persia, is the so-called Arab Spring which is ongoing.
Arab Spring is a conglomeration of peaceful demonstrations or protests in many Middle Easter nations demanding democratization, political and economic reforms and more individual civil liberties and freedoms across the board
Expedient and myopic imperialistic policies have unintended consequences... with the guilty and innocents suffering ... Palestine is waiting for a No Fly Zone or political independence and nationhood and freedoms! That is the next item or should be, on President Obama's agenda; we hope at least!
It is thought that a combination of factors should cause for positive seismic shift in the intractable and internecine conflicts in the Middle East. The death of Osama Bin Laden combined with political uprising or the so-called Arab Spring or the call for democratization, appears to be the foundation of a new era, or a paradigm shift.
A new dawn may be upon the world, and this new dawn should be harnessed to broker lasting peace and security in the world, particularly in the Middle East and or Islamic nations of Arabia, Persia, North Africa and South East Asia etc.
And, the ground zero or the epicenter of such new dawn, is Palestine! Nationhood for Palestine territories is job one, should be job one!
This will afford dignity and restoration of humanity to Palestinians. It is the case, that Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other extremists and even moderates, have justified, and explained angst and violence through the prisms of the plights and predicaments of Palestine and Palestinians.
The Americans and Israelis have for the most part insisted on a zero sum game in which they adamantly persist in stating and restating unyielding rejections of they the Americans and Israelis see as attempt justifications, explanations or excuses for terrorism.
Well reasoned, well thought out or articulated policies, could finally steal the thunder and take the wind out of the sails, of these justifications, explanations or excuses for terrorism!
In direct contrasts and as opposed to the usual, perennial or age-old worn out policies based on expediencies. Expediencies as policies have become antiquated and archaic.
Expediencies have become lunacy, which in effect encourages the repeated practice of policies which offend others and have elicited undesirable outcomes for us;
Even as we persist in these expediencies unchallenged, but expecting different reactions or hoping to use our military might to beat others in conformity or compliance with our desires, without a care for their own aspirations!
There are multitudes and plethora of evidence and arguments which seeks establish, or actually establishes the amorphous nature of terrorists and so-called enemy combatants, the are fleeting, fluid and at times even flimsy.
There are no defined enemies or battle fronts.
What then, if there were a change of outlook and mindsets or perspectives, to the effect that the contentious issues, the so-called justifications, explanations and excuses are successfully tackled, dismantled solved or resolved? What if the world seizes this new opportunity to have fair and balanced policy informed by equity and justice, as opposed to lopsided policies which favor one group over others?
It is the case that seasoned military experts have argued strenuously and repeatedly, that military victory over terrorism will be impossible or at the minimum, it would be long drawn-out.
And there have been admixtures of military operations and a combination of nation-building coupled with the so-called wining-hearts-and-minds campaign.
It seems to me, that military operations which employs solely military assets and coordinates, with the sole expectation of uproarious military victories through Shock-and-Awe is forlorn, a blond-ambition.
It would remain an endless global war on terror which will dissipate and deplete American power globally.
The endless war on terror has distracted, if not derailed American economic and developmental priorities and national sense.
Empires, have historically self-destruct, immolate and implode-explode economically-financially-militarily, when such empires overextends itself and in overreaches, America nears and dangles precariously in that precipice.
There are 15 million Americans who are still unemployed and there have 4 million mortgaged homes in America foreclosed upon by banks in the past couple of years. In plain English many Americans are stranded and in dire circumstances on the home-front, while trillions of dollars have been frittered away in foreign battle fronts!
America’s involvements in three foreign wars, with a domestic economic debacle and distress to boot!
It is hoped that the death of Osama Bin Laden should initiate an attitude shift or change. But, I worry that the death of Osama Bin Laden does cause a resort to triumphal, bashful, boastful, gloating and gleeful complacency.
Such attitude may be perceived as arrogance which will in turn animate others and may lead them to resort vengeful actions warranting more reactions and the cycle of violence would continue, the situation will sorts of feed off, of each other endlessly.
Upon the revelation of the news of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination, Americans have been jubilant and celebratory, but, I think there should be every efforts to avoid the three Gs gloating, giddy and gleeful as these could lead to further unpleasantness for everyone, such as retaliations, reprisals and revenge which would just ensure that the cycle of violence continues!
And some have argued that the possibility of reprisals as reasons to maintain the current troops levels in Afghanistan
Happily, President Obama has set the right tone and poise in the aftermath of Osama Bin Laden demise. President Obama struck a cord with his somber circumspection and reflections during his visits to New York City, no gloating, no “Mission Accomplished” and no victory laps!
Attacks on September 11, 2001 killed 2,976 persons on American soil; meanwhile, the wars which were lunched in retaliations, reprisals and revenge against those suspected of inflicting those attack on September 11, 2001, the United States military has lost 6002, which is twice the number of those killed on September 11, 2001 and the United States has similarly spent or squandered over $5trillion dollars on the so-called global war on terror.
Thousands are dead, maimed, deformed, displaced and dislocated, many families are ruined by these conflicts and returning soldiers suffer brain injuries and PTSD etc; with long lasting effects and agonizing consequences for America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan etc
There are allegedly 100 full time, active core members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conversely, there are about 150, 000 United States military personnel in Afghanistan, exclusive of civilians contractors doing military work, and this;
Also this is exclusive and does not include, operatives of Central Intelligence Agency, and other members of the American Intelligence Community. Similarly, there have been over 200,000 Americans troops serving in the invasion and occupation of Iraq
Here we are, one week after the death or killing of Osama Been Hiding, it can be revealed that he was hiding in plain sight. And that there were massive intelligence failures. Mammoth intelligence failures of the highest magnitudes!
There were no ultramodern caves in the tribal areas or Waziristan mountains with formations fortified by sophisticated elite units of Al Qaeda Republican Guards!
Osama Been Hiding, has in fact not lived in Afghanistan since his sightings while doing a duet with Elvis in Tora-Bora on the way to Helmand
Pakistan is the highest foreign aid recipient from the United States outside Israel or apart from Israel. The bulk of American aid to Pakistan is hinged on Pakistan’s cooperation and partnership with America on her so-called global war on terror.
And yet, events of the past week has revealed Pakistan as either completely incompetent, inept, duplicitous and grossly inefficient or a combination of all these!
Many American officials, public affairs commentators and sundry analysts are wondering loudly and publicly, how it was possible for Osama Bin Laden to have lived in Abbottabad, hiding in plain sight in a Garrison town comparable to West Point or Camp LeJeune and Pendleton, and so, complicity or incompetence, duplicity or ineptitude, double dealing and double crossing have been leveled against Pakistan. Is it probable that Pakistan was in connivance and collusion with Osama and Al Qaeda?
Osama Is Dead, Al Qaeda is in disarray, and other extremist groups are probably fearful, bring the troops home, save money, and save the long suffering and now harried American troops in hostile environments
Friday, May 6, 2011
Obama Is Calm, Not Boastful, Bashful or Gloating, Giddy & Gleeful
Obama Is Calm, Not Boastful, Bashful or Gloating, Giddy & Gleeful
Written by Paul I. Adujie
President Obama, Mr. suave-savvy himself came to New York City today, to commiserate with families and survivors whose loved ones were lost on September 11, 2001 attacks
Laid wreath, spoke to families, midtown fire house, he pointedly informed them that the Navy Seal went after Osama with thoughts of those whose lives were lost during the September 11, 2001 attacks.
He also went to police station in Tribeca. He stayed away from politics, he emphasized national unity
Saying nothing at this cathartic visit, is in itself a poignant statement; no blusters, no blathers, no blabbers!
Just banters and hugs with empathies for families who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center
He deliberately and intentionally maintained silence publicly, making a profound statement, by and with, his silence, his public silence was well received as a high impact measure, devoid speeches which would have come across or could have been perceived as voyeuristic, distasteful and inappropriate politicking
Speeches would have looked as if he was intent on getting political mileage out of a rather somber and mournful event, particularly so, when Osama’s demise is a reminder of personal and collective loss, even as bereaved families and all New Yorkers are struggling to have a semblance of closure
All are agreed President Obama conducted himself statesman’s like manner, he was very presidential and without giving a hint of trying to may hay out of his visit to Ground Zero, the First Precinct and the Fire House.
At Ground Zero, there was an admixture of beautiful atmospherics, there were political leaders such as President Obama, Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg and arrays of other political office holders, the crowd also included constructions workers who are working hard to re-erect or resurrect the World Trade Center or what would be replacements for the lost edifices there which were destroyed
He demonstrated a very cordial family living room camaraderie, all through and at every stop!
President Obama is the epitome of cool and he is all that Maureen Dowd of The New York Times says he is, in her article, “Cool Hand Barack“ President Obama is an exemplification of human refinements
All through his commemorative visit to New York City, a somber and reflective President Obama showed class, grace and empathy; from the now historic midtown Fire House which lost 15 fire fighters to the attacks on September.
President Obama shook hands and chatted with Lt. Barbario, who later recounted how President Obama shook every officer’s hands, it was such a moving milestone of an event.
Many grieving families who spoke to the press after meeting President Obama had wonderful things to say about their interactions with the president, who was repeatedly described in glowing terms, he demeanor, his somberness and his obvious empathies with bereaved and grieving families
Lt. Babario, described the president visiting the Fire House which lost 15 fire fighters as an excellent thing to do, particularly because of the huge loss by greatest numbers at one location.
This Fire House, Ladder 54 has since become an iconic stop first by New Yorkers, and then tourists from across the world. It is mini memorial in itself.
The Fire House and others in Manhattan become instant landmarks which have attracted city residents and teeming tourist from across the world visiting New York City
President Obama invited his predecessor George W. Bush, who turned it down, explaining that he did not want the limelight or steal President Obama’s thunder
President Obama again asked for bipartisanship, national unity and cooperation, while restating his view that the war against Al Qaeda is not a war against Islam and Muslims.
It is indeed the case that Osama Bin Laden have been the cause and inspiration for murders, and mayhems in many nations across the world, including nations populated by Muslims
Again, President demonstrated his human refinement and finesse by his visits, words and action.
He once again established that he is a doer, no boasts, no blusters and no victory laps and no ostentatious banners such as "Mission Accomplished"
Meanwhile, the suave, savvy and always deferring nice guy, has been giving credit to others as part of efforts which culminated in the demise of Osama last Sunday.
The incandescent President Obama, called Mr. George W. Bush to keep him in the loop and updated all the way! Talk of a fine gentleman, a law professor with that courteous, gracious and charitable all round nice guy! It must be the African DNA! President Obama is so good, he is almost generous to a fault!
The highlights of President Obama’s visit to New York City, among other things, is that, he laid wreath, spoke to and hugged and generally interacted with about 60 bereaved families, a visit to midtown Fire House, and a visit as well to the Firs Police Precinct in Tribeca. He stated that US Navy Seals went after Osama with thoughts of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.
President Obama is schedule to meet members of the US Navy Seals at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky this Friday.
A majority of New Yorkers sampled, were all agreed that it was a delightful thing for the president to do as he stayed away from politics, he emphasized national unity.
There were no high profile statements, no victory laps; just somber, reflective and dignified commiseration with bereaved families, all of New York City and the entire nation!
It is quite impressive and quite remarkable that Obama is calm, not boastful, bashful or gloating, giddy and gleeful, even though he has all the reasons in the world to be all these things!
Written by Paul I. Adujie
President Obama, Mr. suave-savvy himself came to New York City today, to commiserate with families and survivors whose loved ones were lost on September 11, 2001 attacks
Laid wreath, spoke to families, midtown fire house, he pointedly informed them that the Navy Seal went after Osama with thoughts of those whose lives were lost during the September 11, 2001 attacks.
He also went to police station in Tribeca. He stayed away from politics, he emphasized national unity
Saying nothing at this cathartic visit, is in itself a poignant statement; no blusters, no blathers, no blabbers!
Just banters and hugs with empathies for families who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center
He deliberately and intentionally maintained silence publicly, making a profound statement, by and with, his silence, his public silence was well received as a high impact measure, devoid speeches which would have come across or could have been perceived as voyeuristic, distasteful and inappropriate politicking
Speeches would have looked as if he was intent on getting political mileage out of a rather somber and mournful event, particularly so, when Osama’s demise is a reminder of personal and collective loss, even as bereaved families and all New Yorkers are struggling to have a semblance of closure
All are agreed President Obama conducted himself statesman’s like manner, he was very presidential and without giving a hint of trying to may hay out of his visit to Ground Zero, the First Precinct and the Fire House.
At Ground Zero, there was an admixture of beautiful atmospherics, there were political leaders such as President Obama, Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg and arrays of other political office holders, the crowd also included constructions workers who are working hard to re-erect or resurrect the World Trade Center or what would be replacements for the lost edifices there which were destroyed
He demonstrated a very cordial family living room camaraderie, all through and at every stop!
President Obama is the epitome of cool and he is all that Maureen Dowd of The New York Times says he is, in her article, “Cool Hand Barack“ President Obama is an exemplification of human refinements
All through his commemorative visit to New York City, a somber and reflective President Obama showed class, grace and empathy; from the now historic midtown Fire House which lost 15 fire fighters to the attacks on September.
President Obama shook hands and chatted with Lt. Barbario, who later recounted how President Obama shook every officer’s hands, it was such a moving milestone of an event.
Many grieving families who spoke to the press after meeting President Obama had wonderful things to say about their interactions with the president, who was repeatedly described in glowing terms, he demeanor, his somberness and his obvious empathies with bereaved and grieving families
Lt. Babario, described the president visiting the Fire House which lost 15 fire fighters as an excellent thing to do, particularly because of the huge loss by greatest numbers at one location.
This Fire House, Ladder 54 has since become an iconic stop first by New Yorkers, and then tourists from across the world. It is mini memorial in itself.
The Fire House and others in Manhattan become instant landmarks which have attracted city residents and teeming tourist from across the world visiting New York City
President Obama invited his predecessor George W. Bush, who turned it down, explaining that he did not want the limelight or steal President Obama’s thunder
President Obama again asked for bipartisanship, national unity and cooperation, while restating his view that the war against Al Qaeda is not a war against Islam and Muslims.
It is indeed the case that Osama Bin Laden have been the cause and inspiration for murders, and mayhems in many nations across the world, including nations populated by Muslims
Again, President demonstrated his human refinement and finesse by his visits, words and action.
He once again established that he is a doer, no boasts, no blusters and no victory laps and no ostentatious banners such as "Mission Accomplished"
Meanwhile, the suave, savvy and always deferring nice guy, has been giving credit to others as part of efforts which culminated in the demise of Osama last Sunday.
The incandescent President Obama, called Mr. George W. Bush to keep him in the loop and updated all the way! Talk of a fine gentleman, a law professor with that courteous, gracious and charitable all round nice guy! It must be the African DNA! President Obama is so good, he is almost generous to a fault!
The highlights of President Obama’s visit to New York City, among other things, is that, he laid wreath, spoke to and hugged and generally interacted with about 60 bereaved families, a visit to midtown Fire House, and a visit as well to the Firs Police Precinct in Tribeca. He stated that US Navy Seals went after Osama with thoughts of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.
President Obama is schedule to meet members of the US Navy Seals at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky this Friday.
A majority of New Yorkers sampled, were all agreed that it was a delightful thing for the president to do as he stayed away from politics, he emphasized national unity.
There were no high profile statements, no victory laps; just somber, reflective and dignified commiseration with bereaved families, all of New York City and the entire nation!
It is quite impressive and quite remarkable that Obama is calm, not boastful, bashful or gloating, giddy and gleeful, even though he has all the reasons in the world to be all these things!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama Is Dead At Last, Dead At Last, Thank God Almighty, Osama Is Dead At Last?
Osama Is Dead At Last, Dead At Last, Thank God Almighty, Osama Is Dead At Last?
Written by Paul I. Adujie
President Obama announced the demise and disposal of Osama Bin Ladin some hours ago to a stunned world, and as I listened to Brian Lehrer’s radio show, one of his guest’s comments cemented my feelings about the end of the Osama saga.
The Brian Lehrer’s guests’ comments, paraphrased, was to the effect that death and dying of anyone is not a happy event, but, nevertheless, there are a reading of some obituaries which are happy events.
It is difficult to take pleasure or rejoice at the death of a fellow human being, a feeling of safety or comfort perhaps. A feeling which I actually echoed on Sunday, in reaction to the death of Gaddaffi’s son, etc
In view of, and considering the following, I come to the demise of Osama Bin Laden with ambivalence. I am a New Yorker. I have called New York home since 1988 and the attacks on September 11, 2001 came close to home in real and metaphorical sense.
It is personal. It was an attack on my hometown. It was an attack at my workplace and I was a direct victim, I barely survived without physical injuries, but still with financial and emotional scars. The emotional scars are still too often reawakened, every time that I see a jet plane too close to buildings!
It is the case that millions of people across the world have been jubilant in triumphal and celebratory elation. New York City quite understandably, as the epicenter or ground zero of the September 11, 2001, witnessed gyrations upon gyrations of phantasmagoria of celebrations in the aftermath of the news of Osama’s death and disposal at sea
On a personal level, I never rejoice at the deaths of persons for whom I have no respect and whose public policies I consider outrageous or wrong headed; so it is, that I could not celebrate the death of Ian Smith, formerly of Rhodesia, even though he was a racist, who lead a brutal, murderous minority regime in against Black majority.
Similarly, I resisted the temptation to rejoice over the death Piet Botha, former political head of the Apartheid system as it then was in South Africa
There are times I have been close celebrating or rejoicing the death, including the death of Ronald Reagan, who had labeled Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress a terrorist and terrorist organization respectively as part of American foreign policy at the time.
And on the domestic front in America, Ronald Reagan’s domestic policies were adjudged by all measure, as unfriendly and anathema to the best interests of African Americans etc
Too many innocent lives were interrupted and turned upside-down since September 11, 2001. There are 650, 000 casualties of wars since the September 11, 2001. Two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has seen the death of over 5, 000 Americans in Iraq alone, and the death, maiming and displacements of many other American troops, with brain injuries, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
There are a million Iraqis dead, maimed, displaced and missing. There are also thousands of people dead, maimed and displaced in Afghanistan and Pakistan, all in the name of fighting global terror!
And in all of these, many innocent persons across the world have been killed, maimed, displaced, harassed and humiliated or caught in the crossfire between real and imagined terrorists on the one hand, and governments fighting to reduce, decimate or eliminate terrorists and terrorism
It is hoped that this news culminates in a return to a semblance of normalcy, for millions of people. The way life is lived, has changed since September 11, 2001.
Visits to private offices, state and federal offices were no longer routines... Air and train travels were no longer uneventful as they were on September 10, 2001
There are 150, 000 Americans troops in Afghanistan, perhaps all, or at least, most can now come home to safety, and it will help to reduce the Billions of dollars, taxpayers monies, which have been spent and is spent daily in the aftermath of September 11, 2001
On a personal level, as a direct witness, victim of, to September 11, 2001 I have continued to flinch upon sighting jet planes flying too close to high rise or sky-scrappers in New York City, where I live.
Who can forget airport searches in the name of heightened security in trepidation of terrorists and terrorism? Who can forget all the striping and searches, of disabled and septuagenarians, and the “don’t touch-my-junk-guy, just because they were going through an airport traveling legitimately? I too, have experienced the very invasive searches and privacy issues as often as I took off my shoes at airports!
I still have flashbacks upon sight of planes when I am within tall buildings or even outside premises of tall buildings. It is the economy of New York City, with a seeming direct correlation to my financial health, have not recovered since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The financial meltdown of 2007-2008 took the bottom out of a recovery for New York economy and my finances which were gingerly attaining a semblance of recovery.
A stretch it is not, to assert the events of September 11, 2001 and the foreign wars which followed, led to an overstretching of American military assets and capacities; as well as the financial implications which comes the deployments of hundreds of thousands of women and men in uniform, with the necessities which comes as natural consequences of their deployments.
Arms, ammunition and foods have to be moved with fighting women and men of the American Armed Forces across the world, but, more particularly to Afghanistan, Iraq and Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Bahrain and parts of the former USSR etc.
It is public knowledge that American military have been overstretch and it follows that America’s current public debt and burgeoning deficits are partly from these wars, necessitated by declarations of global war on terror as initiated by former US president George W. Bush
I prefer a rather somber circumspection in all of this... I am not in the mood for triumphal, celebratory hoopla
Hopefully, there are no “spectacular” reprisals, retaliations or retributions following Osama's demise... We hope that Osama, even in death, is not used as a recruiting tool and as predicate for vengeance and more vindictive killings worldwide.
It is understandable that it most probably was logistically impossible to have arrested Osama Bin Laden without incidents or even deaths. But, for two reasons, the arrest and trial of Osama would have accomplished public good.
Then where would he have be tried on American soil or Bagahram Air Force Base or Guantanamo or in civilian or military court? How would such public good through have been served?
First, it would have established America, in the hearts and minds of all the world, that America is a nation of laws, a nation which practices rigorous due process, including fair trial.
Secondly, such arrest and trial of Osama, would have put paid to any possibilities of conspiracy theories regarding Osama’s life and death, whether he actually committed the crimes for which he was accused and whether he is now truly dead at last. Many American officials have argued that Osama and September 11, 2001 were the predicates for invading and occupying Iraq, which in turn, gave America a bruised face by way of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Osama never really lived in the no-man-land or in Helmand Mountains or Waziristan or Lawless Tribal Areas? He actually lived in a mansion-compound near Pakistani military installations and retirement community for Pakistani military retirees is some sorts of garrison community! Osama and Al Quieda have had ten years to plan succession and we fear that we may not have heard the last from them and Taliban.
Osama is dead, buried in watershed, watershed moment? At www.Nigeriavillagesquare.com someone commenting on Osama’s demise of Osama, used the famous words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a twist, an ingenuous twist another retorted, and it is, to wit, Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, rephrased into the title of this article, Dead At Last, Dead At Last, Thank God Almighty! Osama Bad Guy Dead at Abbettabad ( A Bet That He Bad)? AbbettaBad? how poignant!
There are many persons who are now, expressing skepticism, and it is okay to for this demonstration of a healthy skepticism to be expressed, a dose healthy skepticism is good for all of us, human history is laden with disinformation, chicaneries and shenanigans, particularly, spectacular ones by western nations (Bay of Pigs) anyone? All is fair in love and war! It does reminds one of prisoners’ dilemma and conundrum.
All those who are not certain or satisfied are so entitled, they should be applauded for not following the herd mentality or group think. It takes audacity and gumption, to think independently, and one do not have to be a conspiracy theorist, to show reservation and while questioning the "given" information
We should appreciate the temerity, of those who are hesitant, even if it does not make these skeptics popular icons amongst those who are certain beyond doubt!
All said, President Obama should ensure that Palestine nation-state becomes a reality during the pendency or subsistence of his administration. The long-suffering of the people of Palestine deserve that much.
America trained and armed Osama Bin Laden for America’s purpose base on a shortsighted policy hinged on expediencies. America and other nations will do well, never to substitute expedient or myopic policies in place of robust, profound and well-thought-out policies! It is the case that Osama Bin Laden was a creation of the United States, who became a literal Frankenstein!
OBITUARY: Osama Bin Laden
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10741005
“The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 changed Bin Laden's life forever. He took up the anti-communist cause with a will, moving to Afghanistan where, for a decade, he fought an ultimately victorious campaign with the Mujahideen.”
“Intelligence experts believe that the US Central Intelligence Agency played an active role in arming and training the mujahideen, including Bin Laden. The end of the war saw a sea change in his views.”
“His hatred of Moscow shifted to Washington after 300,000 US troops, women among them, were based in Saudi Arabia, home of two of Islam's holiest places, during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. Bin Laden vowed to avenge what he saw as blasphemy.” “Along with many of his Mujahideen comrades, he brought his mix of fighting skills and Islamic zeal to many anti-US factions within the Middle East.”
There is a paradigm shift in the politics of the Arab world, the Middle East and North Africa, the dictatorships, the tyrants, authoritarian and totalitarians regimes in these places and regions were opposed by Osama with violence and violent means.
The intractable and internecine crises in the Middle East, particularly the volatile, explosive and toxic relationship between Palestine and Israel can now be resolved without further delays and excuses
But the youths of these regions have since the commencements of the continuing so-called Arab-Spring, that they have preference for peaceful means as the road-map to political reforms and democratization in their various nations.
They have through their peacefulness nonviolence acts in Tunisia, to Egypt, to Bahrain, to Syria, Yemen to Saudi Arabia etc, that generalizations against Muslims as Islamic Terrorists, with blood-lusts and thirst for blood is erroneous and quite unfair! Democracy, due process and the rule of law is unfurling through these nations and regions
Nobel Laureate President Obama has more than enough established his national security strengths.
He has more than proven that he can answer and adequately respond to telephone calls to the White House at 3:00AM and that he is not a terrorist sympathizer and that he does possess a birth certificate.
President Obama has also proven that he can get hot and heavy like any hot-red-blooded American, whether in dealing with the Somali pirates, or the intransigent Gaddaffi of Libya or Osama Bin Laden an American number one enemy, who was number one on Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI most wanted list!
President Obama must be careful not appear to be trigger happy or act and portray himself as a warmonger! We know that he has argued at West Point and in Oslo, that there are necessary wars, which have to be fought, even by him, as a man of peace.
He has proven that, we know, he is now at the risk of appearing to overcompensate, in reaction to the unnecessary doubts which were cast upon him, regarding his readiness as American president and commander-in-chief of her enormous armaments, armada!
President Obama with Osama thrown under the bus, and now as water under the bridge, is entitled to an authentic and genuine “Mission Accomplished” on Osama and the big-forrrkknnng-deal on Health Care Reform a la Veep Joe Biden, President Obama can now return to his real day job of providing the enabling environment for Americans to continue to create health, wealth, happiness and buoyant prosperity!
Written by Paul I. Adujie
President Obama announced the demise and disposal of Osama Bin Ladin some hours ago to a stunned world, and as I listened to Brian Lehrer’s radio show, one of his guest’s comments cemented my feelings about the end of the Osama saga.
The Brian Lehrer’s guests’ comments, paraphrased, was to the effect that death and dying of anyone is not a happy event, but, nevertheless, there are a reading of some obituaries which are happy events.
It is difficult to take pleasure or rejoice at the death of a fellow human being, a feeling of safety or comfort perhaps. A feeling which I actually echoed on Sunday, in reaction to the death of Gaddaffi’s son, etc
In view of, and considering the following, I come to the demise of Osama Bin Laden with ambivalence. I am a New Yorker. I have called New York home since 1988 and the attacks on September 11, 2001 came close to home in real and metaphorical sense.
It is personal. It was an attack on my hometown. It was an attack at my workplace and I was a direct victim, I barely survived without physical injuries, but still with financial and emotional scars. The emotional scars are still too often reawakened, every time that I see a jet plane too close to buildings!
It is the case that millions of people across the world have been jubilant in triumphal and celebratory elation. New York City quite understandably, as the epicenter or ground zero of the September 11, 2001, witnessed gyrations upon gyrations of phantasmagoria of celebrations in the aftermath of the news of Osama’s death and disposal at sea
On a personal level, I never rejoice at the deaths of persons for whom I have no respect and whose public policies I consider outrageous or wrong headed; so it is, that I could not celebrate the death of Ian Smith, formerly of Rhodesia, even though he was a racist, who lead a brutal, murderous minority regime in against Black majority.
Similarly, I resisted the temptation to rejoice over the death Piet Botha, former political head of the Apartheid system as it then was in South Africa
There are times I have been close celebrating or rejoicing the death, including the death of Ronald Reagan, who had labeled Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress a terrorist and terrorist organization respectively as part of American foreign policy at the time.
And on the domestic front in America, Ronald Reagan’s domestic policies were adjudged by all measure, as unfriendly and anathema to the best interests of African Americans etc
Too many innocent lives were interrupted and turned upside-down since September 11, 2001. There are 650, 000 casualties of wars since the September 11, 2001. Two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has seen the death of over 5, 000 Americans in Iraq alone, and the death, maiming and displacements of many other American troops, with brain injuries, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
There are a million Iraqis dead, maimed, displaced and missing. There are also thousands of people dead, maimed and displaced in Afghanistan and Pakistan, all in the name of fighting global terror!
And in all of these, many innocent persons across the world have been killed, maimed, displaced, harassed and humiliated or caught in the crossfire between real and imagined terrorists on the one hand, and governments fighting to reduce, decimate or eliminate terrorists and terrorism
It is hoped that this news culminates in a return to a semblance of normalcy, for millions of people. The way life is lived, has changed since September 11, 2001.
Visits to private offices, state and federal offices were no longer routines... Air and train travels were no longer uneventful as they were on September 10, 2001
There are 150, 000 Americans troops in Afghanistan, perhaps all, or at least, most can now come home to safety, and it will help to reduce the Billions of dollars, taxpayers monies, which have been spent and is spent daily in the aftermath of September 11, 2001
On a personal level, as a direct witness, victim of, to September 11, 2001 I have continued to flinch upon sighting jet planes flying too close to high rise or sky-scrappers in New York City, where I live.
Who can forget airport searches in the name of heightened security in trepidation of terrorists and terrorism? Who can forget all the striping and searches, of disabled and septuagenarians, and the “don’t touch-my-junk-guy, just because they were going through an airport traveling legitimately? I too, have experienced the very invasive searches and privacy issues as often as I took off my shoes at airports!
I still have flashbacks upon sight of planes when I am within tall buildings or even outside premises of tall buildings. It is the economy of New York City, with a seeming direct correlation to my financial health, have not recovered since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The financial meltdown of 2007-2008 took the bottom out of a recovery for New York economy and my finances which were gingerly attaining a semblance of recovery.
A stretch it is not, to assert the events of September 11, 2001 and the foreign wars which followed, led to an overstretching of American military assets and capacities; as well as the financial implications which comes the deployments of hundreds of thousands of women and men in uniform, with the necessities which comes as natural consequences of their deployments.
Arms, ammunition and foods have to be moved with fighting women and men of the American Armed Forces across the world, but, more particularly to Afghanistan, Iraq and Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Bahrain and parts of the former USSR etc.
It is public knowledge that American military have been overstretch and it follows that America’s current public debt and burgeoning deficits are partly from these wars, necessitated by declarations of global war on terror as initiated by former US president George W. Bush
I prefer a rather somber circumspection in all of this... I am not in the mood for triumphal, celebratory hoopla
Hopefully, there are no “spectacular” reprisals, retaliations or retributions following Osama's demise... We hope that Osama, even in death, is not used as a recruiting tool and as predicate for vengeance and more vindictive killings worldwide.
It is understandable that it most probably was logistically impossible to have arrested Osama Bin Laden without incidents or even deaths. But, for two reasons, the arrest and trial of Osama would have accomplished public good.
Then where would he have be tried on American soil or Bagahram Air Force Base or Guantanamo or in civilian or military court? How would such public good through have been served?
First, it would have established America, in the hearts and minds of all the world, that America is a nation of laws, a nation which practices rigorous due process, including fair trial.
Secondly, such arrest and trial of Osama, would have put paid to any possibilities of conspiracy theories regarding Osama’s life and death, whether he actually committed the crimes for which he was accused and whether he is now truly dead at last. Many American officials have argued that Osama and September 11, 2001 were the predicates for invading and occupying Iraq, which in turn, gave America a bruised face by way of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Osama never really lived in the no-man-land or in Helmand Mountains or Waziristan or Lawless Tribal Areas? He actually lived in a mansion-compound near Pakistani military installations and retirement community for Pakistani military retirees is some sorts of garrison community! Osama and Al Quieda have had ten years to plan succession and we fear that we may not have heard the last from them and Taliban.
Osama is dead, buried in watershed, watershed moment? At www.Nigeriavillagesquare.com someone commenting on Osama’s demise of Osama, used the famous words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a twist, an ingenuous twist another retorted, and it is, to wit, Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, rephrased into the title of this article, Dead At Last, Dead At Last, Thank God Almighty! Osama Bad Guy Dead at Abbettabad ( A Bet That He Bad)? AbbettaBad? how poignant!
There are many persons who are now, expressing skepticism, and it is okay to for this demonstration of a healthy skepticism to be expressed, a dose healthy skepticism is good for all of us, human history is laden with disinformation, chicaneries and shenanigans, particularly, spectacular ones by western nations (Bay of Pigs) anyone? All is fair in love and war! It does reminds one of prisoners’ dilemma and conundrum.
All those who are not certain or satisfied are so entitled, they should be applauded for not following the herd mentality or group think. It takes audacity and gumption, to think independently, and one do not have to be a conspiracy theorist, to show reservation and while questioning the "given" information
We should appreciate the temerity, of those who are hesitant, even if it does not make these skeptics popular icons amongst those who are certain beyond doubt!
All said, President Obama should ensure that Palestine nation-state becomes a reality during the pendency or subsistence of his administration. The long-suffering of the people of Palestine deserve that much.
America trained and armed Osama Bin Laden for America’s purpose base on a shortsighted policy hinged on expediencies. America and other nations will do well, never to substitute expedient or myopic policies in place of robust, profound and well-thought-out policies! It is the case that Osama Bin Laden was a creation of the United States, who became a literal Frankenstein!
OBITUARY: Osama Bin Laden
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10741005
“The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 changed Bin Laden's life forever. He took up the anti-communist cause with a will, moving to Afghanistan where, for a decade, he fought an ultimately victorious campaign with the Mujahideen.”
“Intelligence experts believe that the US Central Intelligence Agency played an active role in arming and training the mujahideen, including Bin Laden. The end of the war saw a sea change in his views.”
“His hatred of Moscow shifted to Washington after 300,000 US troops, women among them, were based in Saudi Arabia, home of two of Islam's holiest places, during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. Bin Laden vowed to avenge what he saw as blasphemy.” “Along with many of his Mujahideen comrades, he brought his mix of fighting skills and Islamic zeal to many anti-US factions within the Middle East.”
There is a paradigm shift in the politics of the Arab world, the Middle East and North Africa, the dictatorships, the tyrants, authoritarian and totalitarians regimes in these places and regions were opposed by Osama with violence and violent means.
The intractable and internecine crises in the Middle East, particularly the volatile, explosive and toxic relationship between Palestine and Israel can now be resolved without further delays and excuses
But the youths of these regions have since the commencements of the continuing so-called Arab-Spring, that they have preference for peaceful means as the road-map to political reforms and democratization in their various nations.
They have through their peacefulness nonviolence acts in Tunisia, to Egypt, to Bahrain, to Syria, Yemen to Saudi Arabia etc, that generalizations against Muslims as Islamic Terrorists, with blood-lusts and thirst for blood is erroneous and quite unfair! Democracy, due process and the rule of law is unfurling through these nations and regions
Nobel Laureate President Obama has more than enough established his national security strengths.
He has more than proven that he can answer and adequately respond to telephone calls to the White House at 3:00AM and that he is not a terrorist sympathizer and that he does possess a birth certificate.
President Obama has also proven that he can get hot and heavy like any hot-red-blooded American, whether in dealing with the Somali pirates, or the intransigent Gaddaffi of Libya or Osama Bin Laden an American number one enemy, who was number one on Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI most wanted list!
President Obama must be careful not appear to be trigger happy or act and portray himself as a warmonger! We know that he has argued at West Point and in Oslo, that there are necessary wars, which have to be fought, even by him, as a man of peace.
He has proven that, we know, he is now at the risk of appearing to overcompensate, in reaction to the unnecessary doubts which were cast upon him, regarding his readiness as American president and commander-in-chief of her enormous armaments, armada!
President Obama with Osama thrown under the bus, and now as water under the bridge, is entitled to an authentic and genuine “Mission Accomplished” on Osama and the big-forrrkknnng-deal on Health Care Reform a la Veep Joe Biden, President Obama can now return to his real day job of providing the enabling environment for Americans to continue to create health, wealth, happiness and buoyant prosperity!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Why Nigerians Should Forget Clamor For National Conference or SNC
What Are The Functions Of Nigeria’s National Assembly? Why Do Many Nigerians Believe Sovereign National Conference Is A Panacea? Does The Nigerian Constitution Provide For National Conference Or SNC? Are Some Nigerians Averse To Due Process And The Rule Of Law? Perhaps Nigerians Should Make Constitutional Amendment A Campaign Issue In 2007? Is The Economy Really Not The Source of ALL our tensions?
The above questions are some that I have been asking compatriots and myself repeatedly, these questions must be answered by advocates of NC or the ultimate, SNC, regarding this willful ignorance displayed by so many intelligent people, who are adamant in their fallacious belief that a National Conference or Sovereign National Conference, hereinafter NC and SNC, are the cure-all and be-all for every challenges facing Nigeria.
Clearly, there are inequalities, imbalances and even injustices in the past and current political arrangements in Nigeria, there is an urgent need to address these inequalities, imbalances and injustices, but, the way forward, is not NC or SNC, it is constitutional amendments, through our elected representatives, elections are unfairly rigged, yes, I know, let us reform the electoral law and process, Nigerians should not accept bags of rice or bags of money next time there are elections, they should instead, report anyone who does accept bribes to affect election outcomes, so we have pristine election, we then have elected representatives that truly reflect our wishes? Then we demand constitutional amendment! Perhaps Nigerians should make constitutional amendments a campaign issue in 2007! Nigerians should trust democracy to deliver dividends, we should make our elected representatives accountable, make them pursue law reforms, that enhances the system of government and better life for all citizens.
If it is true, that Nigerians have wholeheartedly accepted democracy, why then, are too many Nigerians averse to rules and tenets of democracy? Why are some unwilling to let the process work and fine-tune progressively? I have written in the past, that constitutional amendments are much better and preferable to NC or SNC, and, I am compelled to repeat this basic idea again.
If the function of the national assembly is to make laws, including authority amend the Nigerian constitution, why are so many people clamoring for NC or SNC? Why wouldn’t these persons, lobby or cajole their National Assembly member, to sponsor constitutional amendment bills? All these Nigerians, well-meaning and all, should learn the very basic or elementary rule of democracy, for democracy to succeed in Nigeria, we must all learn these very rudimentary rules of electing the finest amongst ourselves, no bags of salt or bags of money as substitute, and then, put the fine men and women that we elect to work, by lobbying them or letting them know, that they will not be re-elected, when and if they fail to make constitutional amendment a reality or if and when the fail election agenda.
I myself have concerns about how focused our current governments at all levels, formed by the various political parties, are. But I think it is beyond questions, whether Nigerians are willing to live together, the cause of the present crises are purely the end-result of the comatose state of the Nigerian economy; We have always been willing to live together, and my prediction is that, as soon as our country’s shattered economy recovers from the doldrums, these present crises, that appear intractable, will dissipate and fizzle out naturally. It is my position, that petty age-old disagreements, have become exacerbate and pronounced, only because of joblessness and hunger in our land, which have affected the majority of our citizens adversely for several decades.
I would have been in favor of a national conference or the more portent legalese Sovereign National Conference, if it was about how to make the different strata and levels of government in Nigeria more responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of all Nigerian citizens, in efforts to achieve the general welfare and greater god of all. The current federal government of Nigeria has a program, called NEEDS, as one of its efforts at poverty eradication and the alleviation of mass sufferings and hardships of our citizens, but we have heard all these before, so, I can understand that most of our citizens seems to think and say to themselves, well, we have heard all these before…. And there is these justified skepticisms and even cynicisms, coming from our weather-beaten citizens, who are at this time, battle-wary and worn-out, by scorching poverty and hardships.
But perhaps we ought not to, judge every government in Nigeria or anywhere, with our pre-conceived notions of low expectations of policy formulations and implementations? And perhaps Nigerians ought not, to pre-judge NEEDS? We need to summon the courage to imbibe the ideals and tenets of democracy, and this requires some elements of trust, but with a caveat, of a sort of enlightened suspicions of our governments, suspicions that would not stifle governments’ efforts from its conceptions or cradle.
The Nigerian National Assembly members, are the representatives of all ethnic groups from all facets and works of life in Nigeria’s nooks and crannies, they therefore, represent, the best and perhaps, the worst amongst us Nigerian citizens? And it will essentially be the same samplings, of the good, the bad and the ugly of Nigerians, I bet, if the National or Sovereign National Conference nominees and or attendees,(just like previous Constitution Drafting Committees/Constituent Assemblies in the past) were to be selected, nothing would be different, we will be Nigerians. Or are we selecting the participants from the moon or mars? Who are the apparently pristine persons that would attend the NC or SNC? What will be the nominating or selection processes that would markedly different, from the current process for nominations to elective offices? The current processes that is presumably irredeemably flawed and imperfect?
Nigerians need to emphasize selfless service and stop perceiving public service as an opportunity for self-enrichments and self-aggrandizements.
The truth must be told, that we have had excellent body of laws in the past, Nigeria had good constitutions at various times in the past, what we have lacked, and perhaps still lack, have been rigorous and vigorous enforcements of the laws that we already have. We have lacked effective implementations of our previous constitutions, our laws, statutes and rules or regulations that Nigeria already have in the books! Unless, Nigerians believe that the reasons for some our filthy streets, are because, there are no laws in Nigeria regulating public hygiene and hygienic living, and in that case, we must be reminded, of how, the War Against Indiscipline, at least, the Environmental Sanitation aspects, compelled Nigerians to suddenly clean their neighborhoods!
I did not like the compulsion, but we like the clean! There has always been laws against corruption in Nigeria for example, but, just like the laws stipulating public hygiene standard have been observed in the breach, the law against corruption and greed, have not been aggressively enforced.
Senator Kuta endeared himself to me, when he made anti corruption comments during the Senate investigation of the late Senator Okadigbo and others, who at the time were facing a probe, and since then, I have watched Senator Kuta with admiration. He is certainly, a man of courage who speaks his mind undeterred by the political expediencies of the current dispensation, expediencies that tend to inhibit actions on the part of Nigeria’s political class. Senator Kuta has logic and incredibly good sense.
In a recent interview with The Guardian’s Abiodun Beckley in Jos, he clearly stated the argument against national conference and or the now notorious clamor for Sovereign national conference. He restated the correctly, Nigeria is not a failed state/country!
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, spoke in the same vein, against the clamor for NC and SNC, Nigerians will do well to listen to these persons
National Conference or Sovereign National Conference is not authorized or provided for in the Constitution of Nigeria, the activities for which some Nigeria advocate these conferences by whatever names, are the exact functions of the national assembly, which is already empanelled in Abuja since May 29, 1999.
Nigerians deserving law reforms, including constitutional amendments, must therefore channel their demands and proposals through their Senators and House of Representatives members…. I am the first to concede that, Nigeria does have a need for all manners of law reform, prison reforms, land law reform, agricultural law reform, police law reform, environmental law reform, military law reforms… etc and all these are the duties/functions of the Nigerian national assembly! Shall we have national conferences for police reform, agric reform and pollutions curbing laws?
Some Nigerians must first decide whether they prefer democracy to dictatorship (I thought that was without question, resolved already!) But with these agitations and propaganda, some Nigerians are seemingly asking for military-style conduct of policies by fiat of the executive, instead of procedural due process of the law making-type of national assemblies! If we have all accepted democracy (as I now wonder whether we all have?) Why would some Nigerians want to operate outside of the Nigerian Constitution?
Well again, I will be the first to concede that our current constitution is not perfect, after all, the current constitution was drafted by those nominated or selected by a military regime and worse, their final product and draft constitution was said to have been amended by the then military ruling council… but even at that, it our constitution! It is our duty to curb its imperfections, we can radically alter our present constitution or just fine-tune it as we go along the democratic process and all of these are within the ambit and purview of Nigeria’s national assembly.
If some Nigerians have argued that the present constitution was imposed on us by a military and undemocratic leaders, and therefore necessarily devoid of inputs from the electorate, then further argue that the recent elections in April 2003 were flawed, all these lead me to wonder, what the difference really will be with a national conference or opiate laden one, SNC! First, NC or SNC is unconstitutional… even by currently adjudged imperfect Nigerian constitution standard;
Further and more, were we to agree, to actually have an NC or an SNC, who would qualify in my hometown and your hometown? What will be the parameter for nominations, selections or elections and who and how do we decides these? Who further decides whether these processes will be fair or flawed? Again, would nominations be by the local government, state or federal governments? Would it be by the various political parties? If the April 2003 were flawed for whatever reasons, what has changed since then? The present Constitution of Nigeria? The present Electoral Law? The Political Parties or the attitude of the citizens or governments at all levels? Nothing has changed! Where then is the guarantee that elections, selections or nominations to NC and SNC would be flawless and incorruptible?
Which of the so-called ethnic nationalities trust any of the current political parties completely? What political party represents the Niger Delta or the Tiv or the Urhobos, what political party ensures that the marginalized minorities or the Middle Belt are now well looked after…at the end of the NC or SNC? Have many written that Nigeria is now more or less a one party state run by the PDP dominatrix?
Amazingly, some very smart and intelligent Nigerians continue to advocate and agitate, these empty propaganda laden NC and SNC as panacea for all Nigeria’s ills! Most of these agitators seem not to bother to contend with ground rules for the conferences for which they are drum so loudly! What are the modalities for selecting conference attendees or representatives? Who represents me at the conferences? And what will be the apparatus for implementing the resulting cumulative deliberations? The present Nigerian government and her machineries at all levels that were arguably derived from a flawed process; And the prevailing logic is, how can the government be trusted with anything else after the imperfect elections? Hence the agitators do not trust the local, state, and federal government and national assembly to be in any position to undertake constitutional and law reforms, and so, the reason the prefer NC or SNC, but why will they at some point, trust the current elected office holders (elected from flawed/tainted elections, untrustworthy hence?) to implement NC and SNC recommendations or outcome? Since those who distrust the current government believe that, the part always reliably represent the whole, and a government derived from a flawed election, will lie about anything and will never do anything right! What an endless process?
In order to arrive at true democracy, we must view democracy as we would cooking a meal with firewood, we must stoke the fire and constantly manipulate the woods for the best embers or the food will be undercook if the fire fizzles for lack of attention and care on our part, democracy like good fire, requires attention and care and patience too.
Some Nigerians are currently behaving like persons cooking with firewood fire, but seeking and expecting the results of microwave speed-cooking! Or put differently, those agitating for NC or SNC are unwittingly seeking the arbitrariness of the erstwhile military regimes, where one man appoint everybody, and the ruling council rubber stamps such appointments, regimes that executed public policies by personal fiat on the helmsman and his henchmen. Nigerians who overwhelmingly accepted democracy when it re-arrived or was re-ordained five years ago, now appears journey-wary already?
Democracy may be too slow for some, law reform through lobbying and presentations of paper positions may to complicated for some, and constitutional amendments are probably too much debate and arduous work for some, but, these are the tenets and ideals of democracy, a perfect constitution, if there ever was one, is like a house, it is constructed, brick-by-brick. If Nigerian yearns for a good/perfect constitution, we must construct/create one, brick-by-brick or amendment-by-amendment, we must put the era of ad hoc public policy modes behind us, we must initiate procedures and processes that endures the test of time… as good as most Nigerians think American Constitution to be, it still is, for Americans, a work in progress, good but not perfect.
The above questions are some that I have been asking compatriots and myself repeatedly, these questions must be answered by advocates of NC or the ultimate, SNC, regarding this willful ignorance displayed by so many intelligent people, who are adamant in their fallacious belief that a National Conference or Sovereign National Conference, hereinafter NC and SNC, are the cure-all and be-all for every challenges facing Nigeria.
Clearly, there are inequalities, imbalances and even injustices in the past and current political arrangements in Nigeria, there is an urgent need to address these inequalities, imbalances and injustices, but, the way forward, is not NC or SNC, it is constitutional amendments, through our elected representatives, elections are unfairly rigged, yes, I know, let us reform the electoral law and process, Nigerians should not accept bags of rice or bags of money next time there are elections, they should instead, report anyone who does accept bribes to affect election outcomes, so we have pristine election, we then have elected representatives that truly reflect our wishes? Then we demand constitutional amendment! Perhaps Nigerians should make constitutional amendments a campaign issue in 2007! Nigerians should trust democracy to deliver dividends, we should make our elected representatives accountable, make them pursue law reforms, that enhances the system of government and better life for all citizens.
If it is true, that Nigerians have wholeheartedly accepted democracy, why then, are too many Nigerians averse to rules and tenets of democracy? Why are some unwilling to let the process work and fine-tune progressively? I have written in the past, that constitutional amendments are much better and preferable to NC or SNC, and, I am compelled to repeat this basic idea again.
If the function of the national assembly is to make laws, including authority amend the Nigerian constitution, why are so many people clamoring for NC or SNC? Why wouldn’t these persons, lobby or cajole their National Assembly member, to sponsor constitutional amendment bills? All these Nigerians, well-meaning and all, should learn the very basic or elementary rule of democracy, for democracy to succeed in Nigeria, we must all learn these very rudimentary rules of electing the finest amongst ourselves, no bags of salt or bags of money as substitute, and then, put the fine men and women that we elect to work, by lobbying them or letting them know, that they will not be re-elected, when and if they fail to make constitutional amendment a reality or if and when the fail election agenda.
I myself have concerns about how focused our current governments at all levels, formed by the various political parties, are. But I think it is beyond questions, whether Nigerians are willing to live together, the cause of the present crises are purely the end-result of the comatose state of the Nigerian economy; We have always been willing to live together, and my prediction is that, as soon as our country’s shattered economy recovers from the doldrums, these present crises, that appear intractable, will dissipate and fizzle out naturally. It is my position, that petty age-old disagreements, have become exacerbate and pronounced, only because of joblessness and hunger in our land, which have affected the majority of our citizens adversely for several decades.
I would have been in favor of a national conference or the more portent legalese Sovereign National Conference, if it was about how to make the different strata and levels of government in Nigeria more responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of all Nigerian citizens, in efforts to achieve the general welfare and greater god of all. The current federal government of Nigeria has a program, called NEEDS, as one of its efforts at poverty eradication and the alleviation of mass sufferings and hardships of our citizens, but we have heard all these before, so, I can understand that most of our citizens seems to think and say to themselves, well, we have heard all these before…. And there is these justified skepticisms and even cynicisms, coming from our weather-beaten citizens, who are at this time, battle-wary and worn-out, by scorching poverty and hardships.
But perhaps we ought not to, judge every government in Nigeria or anywhere, with our pre-conceived notions of low expectations of policy formulations and implementations? And perhaps Nigerians ought not, to pre-judge NEEDS? We need to summon the courage to imbibe the ideals and tenets of democracy, and this requires some elements of trust, but with a caveat, of a sort of enlightened suspicions of our governments, suspicions that would not stifle governments’ efforts from its conceptions or cradle.
The Nigerian National Assembly members, are the representatives of all ethnic groups from all facets and works of life in Nigeria’s nooks and crannies, they therefore, represent, the best and perhaps, the worst amongst us Nigerian citizens? And it will essentially be the same samplings, of the good, the bad and the ugly of Nigerians, I bet, if the National or Sovereign National Conference nominees and or attendees,(just like previous Constitution Drafting Committees/Constituent Assemblies in the past) were to be selected, nothing would be different, we will be Nigerians. Or are we selecting the participants from the moon or mars? Who are the apparently pristine persons that would attend the NC or SNC? What will be the nominating or selection processes that would markedly different, from the current process for nominations to elective offices? The current processes that is presumably irredeemably flawed and imperfect?
Nigerians need to emphasize selfless service and stop perceiving public service as an opportunity for self-enrichments and self-aggrandizements.
The truth must be told, that we have had excellent body of laws in the past, Nigeria had good constitutions at various times in the past, what we have lacked, and perhaps still lack, have been rigorous and vigorous enforcements of the laws that we already have. We have lacked effective implementations of our previous constitutions, our laws, statutes and rules or regulations that Nigeria already have in the books! Unless, Nigerians believe that the reasons for some our filthy streets, are because, there are no laws in Nigeria regulating public hygiene and hygienic living, and in that case, we must be reminded, of how, the War Against Indiscipline, at least, the Environmental Sanitation aspects, compelled Nigerians to suddenly clean their neighborhoods!
I did not like the compulsion, but we like the clean! There has always been laws against corruption in Nigeria for example, but, just like the laws stipulating public hygiene standard have been observed in the breach, the law against corruption and greed, have not been aggressively enforced.
Senator Kuta endeared himself to me, when he made anti corruption comments during the Senate investigation of the late Senator Okadigbo and others, who at the time were facing a probe, and since then, I have watched Senator Kuta with admiration. He is certainly, a man of courage who speaks his mind undeterred by the political expediencies of the current dispensation, expediencies that tend to inhibit actions on the part of Nigeria’s political class. Senator Kuta has logic and incredibly good sense.
In a recent interview with The Guardian’s Abiodun Beckley in Jos, he clearly stated the argument against national conference and or the now notorious clamor for Sovereign national conference. He restated the correctly, Nigeria is not a failed state/country!
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, spoke in the same vein, against the clamor for NC and SNC, Nigerians will do well to listen to these persons
National Conference or Sovereign National Conference is not authorized or provided for in the Constitution of Nigeria, the activities for which some Nigeria advocate these conferences by whatever names, are the exact functions of the national assembly, which is already empanelled in Abuja since May 29, 1999.
Nigerians deserving law reforms, including constitutional amendments, must therefore channel their demands and proposals through their Senators and House of Representatives members…. I am the first to concede that, Nigeria does have a need for all manners of law reform, prison reforms, land law reform, agricultural law reform, police law reform, environmental law reform, military law reforms… etc and all these are the duties/functions of the Nigerian national assembly! Shall we have national conferences for police reform, agric reform and pollutions curbing laws?
Some Nigerians must first decide whether they prefer democracy to dictatorship (I thought that was without question, resolved already!) But with these agitations and propaganda, some Nigerians are seemingly asking for military-style conduct of policies by fiat of the executive, instead of procedural due process of the law making-type of national assemblies! If we have all accepted democracy (as I now wonder whether we all have?) Why would some Nigerians want to operate outside of the Nigerian Constitution?
Well again, I will be the first to concede that our current constitution is not perfect, after all, the current constitution was drafted by those nominated or selected by a military regime and worse, their final product and draft constitution was said to have been amended by the then military ruling council… but even at that, it our constitution! It is our duty to curb its imperfections, we can radically alter our present constitution or just fine-tune it as we go along the democratic process and all of these are within the ambit and purview of Nigeria’s national assembly.
If some Nigerians have argued that the present constitution was imposed on us by a military and undemocratic leaders, and therefore necessarily devoid of inputs from the electorate, then further argue that the recent elections in April 2003 were flawed, all these lead me to wonder, what the difference really will be with a national conference or opiate laden one, SNC! First, NC or SNC is unconstitutional… even by currently adjudged imperfect Nigerian constitution standard;
Further and more, were we to agree, to actually have an NC or an SNC, who would qualify in my hometown and your hometown? What will be the parameter for nominations, selections or elections and who and how do we decides these? Who further decides whether these processes will be fair or flawed? Again, would nominations be by the local government, state or federal governments? Would it be by the various political parties? If the April 2003 were flawed for whatever reasons, what has changed since then? The present Constitution of Nigeria? The present Electoral Law? The Political Parties or the attitude of the citizens or governments at all levels? Nothing has changed! Where then is the guarantee that elections, selections or nominations to NC and SNC would be flawless and incorruptible?
Which of the so-called ethnic nationalities trust any of the current political parties completely? What political party represents the Niger Delta or the Tiv or the Urhobos, what political party ensures that the marginalized minorities or the Middle Belt are now well looked after…at the end of the NC or SNC? Have many written that Nigeria is now more or less a one party state run by the PDP dominatrix?
Amazingly, some very smart and intelligent Nigerians continue to advocate and agitate, these empty propaganda laden NC and SNC as panacea for all Nigeria’s ills! Most of these agitators seem not to bother to contend with ground rules for the conferences for which they are drum so loudly! What are the modalities for selecting conference attendees or representatives? Who represents me at the conferences? And what will be the apparatus for implementing the resulting cumulative deliberations? The present Nigerian government and her machineries at all levels that were arguably derived from a flawed process; And the prevailing logic is, how can the government be trusted with anything else after the imperfect elections? Hence the agitators do not trust the local, state, and federal government and national assembly to be in any position to undertake constitutional and law reforms, and so, the reason the prefer NC or SNC, but why will they at some point, trust the current elected office holders (elected from flawed/tainted elections, untrustworthy hence?) to implement NC and SNC recommendations or outcome? Since those who distrust the current government believe that, the part always reliably represent the whole, and a government derived from a flawed election, will lie about anything and will never do anything right! What an endless process?
In order to arrive at true democracy, we must view democracy as we would cooking a meal with firewood, we must stoke the fire and constantly manipulate the woods for the best embers or the food will be undercook if the fire fizzles for lack of attention and care on our part, democracy like good fire, requires attention and care and patience too.
Some Nigerians are currently behaving like persons cooking with firewood fire, but seeking and expecting the results of microwave speed-cooking! Or put differently, those agitating for NC or SNC are unwittingly seeking the arbitrariness of the erstwhile military regimes, where one man appoint everybody, and the ruling council rubber stamps such appointments, regimes that executed public policies by personal fiat on the helmsman and his henchmen. Nigerians who overwhelmingly accepted democracy when it re-arrived or was re-ordained five years ago, now appears journey-wary already?
Democracy may be too slow for some, law reform through lobbying and presentations of paper positions may to complicated for some, and constitutional amendments are probably too much debate and arduous work for some, but, these are the tenets and ideals of democracy, a perfect constitution, if there ever was one, is like a house, it is constructed, brick-by-brick. If Nigerian yearns for a good/perfect constitution, we must construct/create one, brick-by-brick or amendment-by-amendment, we must put the era of ad hoc public policy modes behind us, we must initiate procedures and processes that endures the test of time… as good as most Nigerians think American Constitution to be, it still is, for Americans, a work in progress, good but not perfect.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
NATO, No Fly Zone for Syria, Yemen, Bahrain?
NATO, No Fly Zone for Syria, Yemen, Bahrain?
Written by Paul I. Adujie
500 peaceful protesters have been murdered by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria is using tanks and heavy weapons to crackdown on peaceful protester and this is egregious and should be condemned by all lovers of democracy and freedoms.
This murderous and brutal political repression in Syria have been widely reported. And yet, NATO and France, Britain, America and their Arab enablers are pretending to be completely oblivious of the sameness and the identical nature of the humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen as in Libya.
France led Britain, the US and NATO to invade Libya and engage in the overthrow of Libya’s longtime dictator and tyrant, Col. Moammar Gaddaffi with whom they need to settle scores. Western nations are at the onset of a process which they hope, culminates in the departure of Gaddaffi in a Regime Change plan.
Meanwhile, despite these regime change plans, weapons supplies to the rebels and all, by France, Britain, the US and NATO, these nations have ostentatiously and laboriously argued and insisted that their direct intervention in Libya was predicated upon the probability of humanitarian catastrophe which was ensuing or about to unfold
It is the case now, and it has been the case, that Syrian forces are mowing down Syrian citizens like flies. Syrian forces are using armored vehicles and other heavy military weapons, including tanks and assortments of personnel carriers.
In March, we point that France, Britain, the US and NATO are engaged in selfish and self-serving intervention in Libya.
Libya; Why Not Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc
http://adujie-writings.blogspot.com/2011/03/libya-why-not-yemen-tunisia-egypt.html
We argued that the intervention were hypocritical and a double standard, given the fact that similar uprisings were unfolding in several North African and Middle Eastern nations. These other protests or political upheaval have been peaceful and without violence splinters in the coalitions of opposition to dictatorships in Tunisia, then Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia etc
Libyan opposition, or Libyan rebels, quite unlike the others in North Africa and the Middle East, were armed in their confrontation with Col. Gaddaffi and his paramilitary led by his sons
Col. Gaddaffi is reported to have over $40 billion investments in Italy. Gaddaffi also entered a multilateral agreement with Italy and other European nations, to act as a gatekeeper and bulwark against African migrants using North Africa as gateway to Europe. Gaddaffi’s favors to Europeans also included elaborate oil contracts. Gaddaffi in effect, enjoyed cozy relationships with Europeans and the Americans, a short while before the political uprising and unfolding civil war in Libya
Col. Gaddaffi is reported to also have over $33billion dollars cash money in America. All this, despite the fact that Gaddaffi has for decades been persona non grata in Europe and America, where he was labeled a madman and a terrorist. Gaddaffi was hated and derided, by western nations, perhaps deservedly so.
But how does anyone explain the oil contract deals with Libya by western nations? How does anyone explain the presence of billions of dollars of Libyan money, looted by Gaddaffi and his clan, accepted by these same western nations, with knowledge that Libyan citizens are being deprived of their money for national development?
How does anyone explain the fleeting, fluid and ever-shifting western nations’ policy on Gaddaffi-Libya?
Why should anyone now believe these same western nations, which have for decades lampooned Gaddaffi as a deranged buffoon, dictator, tyrant-totalitarian, while the same western nations have been acting as his bankers and partners in huge oil contract deals, including, oil contract deals in which Britain bargained away a Libyan jailed for terrorism rightly or wrongly, all in order to secure oil deals for British Petroleum.
And the United States similarly bargained and released a Libyan who was hitherto detained in Guantanamo on allegation of terrorism? France, Britain, the United States, Italy, western nations have been contradictory and duplicitous in their pronouncements and actions regarding Gaddaffi and Libya
The more we look, the clearer it clearly becomes, that the predicate for the intervention in Libya is not some starry-eyed altruistic and benevolence by France, Britain, the US through NATO.
Otherwise, there would have been the same or similar response to Syria, as Syria has openly engaged and embarked on deadly crackdown against unarmed peaceful protesters in Deraa, Homs and elsewhere in Syria and these deadly crackdown are similarly occurring in Yemen and Bahrain etc
There are additional proofs beyond doubt, to the effect that the intervention in Libya by NATO members was not, is not, motivated or predicated on humanitarianism.
Anyone who may have accepted this boldface propaganda and hypocrisy by western nations and their NATO, must do a rethink.
This is so because, at the present time, France, Italy and other European nations are now loudly and intensely resisting any attempts by refugees from Tunisia, Libya etc into their nations, ostensibly to prevent these refugees from disrupting the constipated order and settled lives inside Europe.
But wait! France, Britain and NATO were just arguing that their direct intervention in Libya was motivated and predicated upon preventing humanitarian catastrophes in Libya, by was of deaths, dislocations, brutalities visited on Libyans as a result of the contests for political power between Gaddaffi and the rebels?
The entire world, particularly those who may have swallowed the propaganda and disinformation messaging by western nations, should now be asking France, Italy and other European nations, why on earth, they are rejecting refugees from Libya?
Refugees or dislocations are part of the humanitarian crises are an outgrowth of the violent revolution going on in Libyan with ringing endorsement by France, Britain, the US, hence the NATO bombing intervention!
Furthermore, it is arguably more cost efficient, and cost effective, to care for, and look after refugees than to squander billions of dollars by way of NATO air bombardments in countless sorties! Bombardments which kills and maims, degrading structures and social amenities for Libyan lives.
Europeans are now barring refugees from Libya from entering France, Italy and other European nations, these Libyan refugees, are the same Libyan civilians, with propaganda value, Libyan civilians who are supposed to have been the rationale and formed the fulcrum of military intervention by NATO in Libya!
This singular act of barring the refugees from entries into Europe are clear indicators of the real motivation and foundation of intervention in Libya by western nations through NATO, it is not about the people of Libya, whether in Benghazi or in Tripoli and in-between! It is a hoax! France and Italy etc have the inalienable right to determine their immigration policies and with particular reference to these refugees from North Africa, but, why spend so much money to bomb structures in Libya to oblivion, and neglect the urgent care for the refugees?
The care for or neglect of these refugees are real litmus test for these western nations and their intervention in Libya, the published neglect of the refugees is putting a lie to the propaganda and claims of humanitarianism as the very foundation and predicate for NATO intervention in Libya!
It is now abundantly clear why France, Britain, the United States, the Arab League, the Gulf Council, through NATO, have not felt the need to intervene in Syria despite the fact that President Assad have used heavy military weapons, including armored cars, to murder peaceful protesters indiscriminately and most brutally!
Intervention in Libya by western nations through NATO, is clearly for their own purpose. The intervention in Libya is quite clearly selective. Otherwise, there are plenty reasons with implications for extreme and dire humanitarian catastrophes which have existed and persists in Somalia, Darfur Sudan, Congo and more recently, in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain etc
The intervention in Libya by western nations through their military organ, NATO, is clearly determined by what western nations often refer to as their vital national and strategic interests. And this so called vital interests, are often measured in metric tons of hydrocarbons and geo-strategic locations and the impacts as such, on geopolitical order of things and world order so-called!
Somalia has had and retained her failed nation-state for about twenty years, with attendant deaths and dislocations in the millions, but Somalia has no crude oil or gold and diamond, there are no spoils to be had upon intervention and thereafter, and the Cold War has since ended, and as such, Somalia is seen by western nation as having no geo-strategic importance currently.
In Darfur Sudan, President George W. Bush called the conflict, death and dislocations there, what it was, genocide, but, heck, President Bashir of Sudan had crude oil to dangle and that singular possession of prized hydrocarbon absolves dictator Bashir of Sudan of responsibility for genocide and ethnic cleansing and so, there were no NATO No-Fly-Zone for Sudan
It is not difficult to decipher the real reason for intervention in Libya by western nations’ NATO, even as these western nations continue to squabble amongst themselves for the spoils of their war of choice, the spoils of a would be post Gaddaffi Libya.
It is now public knowledge that many Central Intelligence Agency or CIA operatives are now the eyes and ears on the ground in Libya for the US and NATO; it is now also public knowledge, that President Nicholas Sarkozy of France have been hobnobbing with Libyan rebels.
Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron is similarly romancing with the rebels in Libya, who are seeking the ouster of Gaddaffi and his clan. And, a good number of western nations have already heightened the profile for the Libyan rebels in both political, diplomatic and commercial sense… oil contract deals are already being signed through Qatar as proxy for Libya and interested parties western nations!
And suddenly, Qatar is the epitome of democracy, freedom and liberty, with an agile national Air Force partnering with western nations’ NATO intervention in Libya? Qatar will be the proxy, the conduit and the nation which will be the funnel, in and out, oil from Libya and weapons, arms and ammunitions from western nations into Libya.
NATO’s intervention in Libya already looks like a deadlock, a stalemate and a deadly impasse wrapped in internecine intractable civil war. Col. Gaddaffi is surprisingly correct in his forecast or prediction, that a civil war would unfold in Libya, it is indeed unfolding!
Western nations are in the slippery slope of what in all probabilities would be a debacle and quagmire in Libya for them. As a matter of fact, discordant and cacophonous voices are already coalescing, calling the intervention in Libya mission creep or endless spiral to the bottom. The military intervention in Libya may turn out to be another lesson for western nations and their permanent double standards, hypocrisies and shortsightedness which prefers expediency over well thought out, reasoned and robust long term policy towards Africa and the Middle East.
Propaganda, plain and simple! It is propaganda and obfuscation and camouflage for western nations and NATO to pretend that the invading and intervening in Libya was warranted by their feigned concerns for humanitarian conditions brought about by Gaddaffi’s scotched earth policy of extermination which he had pronounced against armed rebellion by rebels against him.
Clearly, were concerns for humanitarian catastrophes or disasters were the determinant or deciding factor for intervention in Libya by France, Britain, the US and their military coalition apparatus NATO, it follows that, a No-Fly-Zone and direct intervention would have since taken place in Somalia, Darfur Sudan, the Congo, Palestine etc.
Israel killed 1400 Palestinians in January 2009 and The Goldstone Report makes this abundantly clear! The Goldstone Report and Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, actually went as far as accusing Israel of War Crimes in the war in Gaza!
Why does the world look the other way in the view of these glaring, exceedingly glaring double standards, hypocrisies and selective interventions, say, in Libya and Ivory Coast?
A No-Fly-Zone and direct military intervention is now overdue, particularly in the face of hundred of Syrians murdered a few days ago by President Assad’s forces, ditto President Saleh murderous parades in Yemen, and similar direct intervention would have taken place against the tyrants in Bahrain.
There is clearly no difference in the state-sponsored heinous murders being perpetrated against innocent, unarmed civilians in Syria and Yemen etc, merely because these peaceful protesters demand democracy, political and economic reforms and freedoms to which we all aspire
The world should and must stand in defense, in support and protection for all those who seek democracy, due process, the rule of law worldwide.
Written by Paul I. Adujie
500 peaceful protesters have been murdered by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria is using tanks and heavy weapons to crackdown on peaceful protester and this is egregious and should be condemned by all lovers of democracy and freedoms.
This murderous and brutal political repression in Syria have been widely reported. And yet, NATO and France, Britain, America and their Arab enablers are pretending to be completely oblivious of the sameness and the identical nature of the humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen as in Libya.
France led Britain, the US and NATO to invade Libya and engage in the overthrow of Libya’s longtime dictator and tyrant, Col. Moammar Gaddaffi with whom they need to settle scores. Western nations are at the onset of a process which they hope, culminates in the departure of Gaddaffi in a Regime Change plan.
Meanwhile, despite these regime change plans, weapons supplies to the rebels and all, by France, Britain, the US and NATO, these nations have ostentatiously and laboriously argued and insisted that their direct intervention in Libya was predicated upon the probability of humanitarian catastrophe which was ensuing or about to unfold
It is the case now, and it has been the case, that Syrian forces are mowing down Syrian citizens like flies. Syrian forces are using armored vehicles and other heavy military weapons, including tanks and assortments of personnel carriers.
In March, we point that France, Britain, the US and NATO are engaged in selfish and self-serving intervention in Libya.
Libya; Why Not Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc
http://adujie-writings.blogspot.com/2011/03/libya-why-not-yemen-tunisia-egypt.html
We argued that the intervention were hypocritical and a double standard, given the fact that similar uprisings were unfolding in several North African and Middle Eastern nations. These other protests or political upheaval have been peaceful and without violence splinters in the coalitions of opposition to dictatorships in Tunisia, then Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia etc
Libyan opposition, or Libyan rebels, quite unlike the others in North Africa and the Middle East, were armed in their confrontation with Col. Gaddaffi and his paramilitary led by his sons
Col. Gaddaffi is reported to have over $40 billion investments in Italy. Gaddaffi also entered a multilateral agreement with Italy and other European nations, to act as a gatekeeper and bulwark against African migrants using North Africa as gateway to Europe. Gaddaffi’s favors to Europeans also included elaborate oil contracts. Gaddaffi in effect, enjoyed cozy relationships with Europeans and the Americans, a short while before the political uprising and unfolding civil war in Libya
Col. Gaddaffi is reported to also have over $33billion dollars cash money in America. All this, despite the fact that Gaddaffi has for decades been persona non grata in Europe and America, where he was labeled a madman and a terrorist. Gaddaffi was hated and derided, by western nations, perhaps deservedly so.
But how does anyone explain the oil contract deals with Libya by western nations? How does anyone explain the presence of billions of dollars of Libyan money, looted by Gaddaffi and his clan, accepted by these same western nations, with knowledge that Libyan citizens are being deprived of their money for national development?
How does anyone explain the fleeting, fluid and ever-shifting western nations’ policy on Gaddaffi-Libya?
Why should anyone now believe these same western nations, which have for decades lampooned Gaddaffi as a deranged buffoon, dictator, tyrant-totalitarian, while the same western nations have been acting as his bankers and partners in huge oil contract deals, including, oil contract deals in which Britain bargained away a Libyan jailed for terrorism rightly or wrongly, all in order to secure oil deals for British Petroleum.
And the United States similarly bargained and released a Libyan who was hitherto detained in Guantanamo on allegation of terrorism? France, Britain, the United States, Italy, western nations have been contradictory and duplicitous in their pronouncements and actions regarding Gaddaffi and Libya
The more we look, the clearer it clearly becomes, that the predicate for the intervention in Libya is not some starry-eyed altruistic and benevolence by France, Britain, the US through NATO.
Otherwise, there would have been the same or similar response to Syria, as Syria has openly engaged and embarked on deadly crackdown against unarmed peaceful protesters in Deraa, Homs and elsewhere in Syria and these deadly crackdown are similarly occurring in Yemen and Bahrain etc
There are additional proofs beyond doubt, to the effect that the intervention in Libya by NATO members was not, is not, motivated or predicated on humanitarianism.
Anyone who may have accepted this boldface propaganda and hypocrisy by western nations and their NATO, must do a rethink.
This is so because, at the present time, France, Italy and other European nations are now loudly and intensely resisting any attempts by refugees from Tunisia, Libya etc into their nations, ostensibly to prevent these refugees from disrupting the constipated order and settled lives inside Europe.
But wait! France, Britain and NATO were just arguing that their direct intervention in Libya was motivated and predicated upon preventing humanitarian catastrophes in Libya, by was of deaths, dislocations, brutalities visited on Libyans as a result of the contests for political power between Gaddaffi and the rebels?
The entire world, particularly those who may have swallowed the propaganda and disinformation messaging by western nations, should now be asking France, Italy and other European nations, why on earth, they are rejecting refugees from Libya?
Refugees or dislocations are part of the humanitarian crises are an outgrowth of the violent revolution going on in Libyan with ringing endorsement by France, Britain, the US, hence the NATO bombing intervention!
Furthermore, it is arguably more cost efficient, and cost effective, to care for, and look after refugees than to squander billions of dollars by way of NATO air bombardments in countless sorties! Bombardments which kills and maims, degrading structures and social amenities for Libyan lives.
Europeans are now barring refugees from Libya from entering France, Italy and other European nations, these Libyan refugees, are the same Libyan civilians, with propaganda value, Libyan civilians who are supposed to have been the rationale and formed the fulcrum of military intervention by NATO in Libya!
This singular act of barring the refugees from entries into Europe are clear indicators of the real motivation and foundation of intervention in Libya by western nations through NATO, it is not about the people of Libya, whether in Benghazi or in Tripoli and in-between! It is a hoax! France and Italy etc have the inalienable right to determine their immigration policies and with particular reference to these refugees from North Africa, but, why spend so much money to bomb structures in Libya to oblivion, and neglect the urgent care for the refugees?
The care for or neglect of these refugees are real litmus test for these western nations and their intervention in Libya, the published neglect of the refugees is putting a lie to the propaganda and claims of humanitarianism as the very foundation and predicate for NATO intervention in Libya!
It is now abundantly clear why France, Britain, the United States, the Arab League, the Gulf Council, through NATO, have not felt the need to intervene in Syria despite the fact that President Assad have used heavy military weapons, including armored cars, to murder peaceful protesters indiscriminately and most brutally!
Intervention in Libya by western nations through NATO, is clearly for their own purpose. The intervention in Libya is quite clearly selective. Otherwise, there are plenty reasons with implications for extreme and dire humanitarian catastrophes which have existed and persists in Somalia, Darfur Sudan, Congo and more recently, in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain etc
The intervention in Libya by western nations through their military organ, NATO, is clearly determined by what western nations often refer to as their vital national and strategic interests. And this so called vital interests, are often measured in metric tons of hydrocarbons and geo-strategic locations and the impacts as such, on geopolitical order of things and world order so-called!
Somalia has had and retained her failed nation-state for about twenty years, with attendant deaths and dislocations in the millions, but Somalia has no crude oil or gold and diamond, there are no spoils to be had upon intervention and thereafter, and the Cold War has since ended, and as such, Somalia is seen by western nation as having no geo-strategic importance currently.
In Darfur Sudan, President George W. Bush called the conflict, death and dislocations there, what it was, genocide, but, heck, President Bashir of Sudan had crude oil to dangle and that singular possession of prized hydrocarbon absolves dictator Bashir of Sudan of responsibility for genocide and ethnic cleansing and so, there were no NATO No-Fly-Zone for Sudan
It is not difficult to decipher the real reason for intervention in Libya by western nations’ NATO, even as these western nations continue to squabble amongst themselves for the spoils of their war of choice, the spoils of a would be post Gaddaffi Libya.
It is now public knowledge that many Central Intelligence Agency or CIA operatives are now the eyes and ears on the ground in Libya for the US and NATO; it is now also public knowledge, that President Nicholas Sarkozy of France have been hobnobbing with Libyan rebels.
Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron is similarly romancing with the rebels in Libya, who are seeking the ouster of Gaddaffi and his clan. And, a good number of western nations have already heightened the profile for the Libyan rebels in both political, diplomatic and commercial sense… oil contract deals are already being signed through Qatar as proxy for Libya and interested parties western nations!
And suddenly, Qatar is the epitome of democracy, freedom and liberty, with an agile national Air Force partnering with western nations’ NATO intervention in Libya? Qatar will be the proxy, the conduit and the nation which will be the funnel, in and out, oil from Libya and weapons, arms and ammunitions from western nations into Libya.
NATO’s intervention in Libya already looks like a deadlock, a stalemate and a deadly impasse wrapped in internecine intractable civil war. Col. Gaddaffi is surprisingly correct in his forecast or prediction, that a civil war would unfold in Libya, it is indeed unfolding!
Western nations are in the slippery slope of what in all probabilities would be a debacle and quagmire in Libya for them. As a matter of fact, discordant and cacophonous voices are already coalescing, calling the intervention in Libya mission creep or endless spiral to the bottom. The military intervention in Libya may turn out to be another lesson for western nations and their permanent double standards, hypocrisies and shortsightedness which prefers expediency over well thought out, reasoned and robust long term policy towards Africa and the Middle East.
Propaganda, plain and simple! It is propaganda and obfuscation and camouflage for western nations and NATO to pretend that the invading and intervening in Libya was warranted by their feigned concerns for humanitarian conditions brought about by Gaddaffi’s scotched earth policy of extermination which he had pronounced against armed rebellion by rebels against him.
Clearly, were concerns for humanitarian catastrophes or disasters were the determinant or deciding factor for intervention in Libya by France, Britain, the US and their military coalition apparatus NATO, it follows that, a No-Fly-Zone and direct intervention would have since taken place in Somalia, Darfur Sudan, the Congo, Palestine etc.
Israel killed 1400 Palestinians in January 2009 and The Goldstone Report makes this abundantly clear! The Goldstone Report and Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, actually went as far as accusing Israel of War Crimes in the war in Gaza!
Why does the world look the other way in the view of these glaring, exceedingly glaring double standards, hypocrisies and selective interventions, say, in Libya and Ivory Coast?
A No-Fly-Zone and direct military intervention is now overdue, particularly in the face of hundred of Syrians murdered a few days ago by President Assad’s forces, ditto President Saleh murderous parades in Yemen, and similar direct intervention would have taken place against the tyrants in Bahrain.
There is clearly no difference in the state-sponsored heinous murders being perpetrated against innocent, unarmed civilians in Syria and Yemen etc, merely because these peaceful protesters demand democracy, political and economic reforms and freedoms to which we all aspire
The world should and must stand in defense, in support and protection for all those who seek democracy, due process, the rule of law worldwide.
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