The Rohingya Massacre: A Crisis the West Rather Not Cover

by with One Comment FeaturedGlobal

The United Nations considers the Rohingya people the “most persecuted minority group in the world.” It’s time we start paying attention. 

[Silent] Genocide: The Rohingya Massacre… We originally published this article on 11 September 2017. The crisis has unfortunately worsened since then. If you haven’t heard about the Rohingya Massacre, likely due to the West and major news orgs choosing not to cover it, please read our short piece below to catch up on a story everyone should know about. 

I was scrolling through my newsfeed last week and noticed some of my friend’s updates and funny videos from Labor-Day weekend. While scrolling, I also saw that one of my friends had posted a link from The Economist talking about the Rohingya genocide that is currently taking place in Burma (Myanmar). In a short blurb above the article, she wrote in capital letters, “WHY ISN’T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT THIS!”

I’ve known about this conflict prior to seeing her post, but she made a good point – why isn’t this being discussed on major news networks? I have read time and time again about the intensity and cruelty that is taking place at this moment across the world in Burma, and it sickens me to know that just this year alone 1,000 Rohingya have been killed in a new crackdown by the Myanmar state. 

Here is a breakdown of what started this conflict and why this is happening…

The Rohingya are Muslims. They are indigenous to Burma’s Rakhine province in the North-West Region that borders the South Asian country, Bangladesh. There are approximately 2 million Rohingya, of which, 1 million are currently living in Burma today.

Despite having historic ties to the land of Burma that have lasted for centuries, the Rohingya people were rendered stateless in 1982 by a highly controversial citizenship law that deliberately excluded them as one of Burma’s natural, and thereby legitimate, ethnicities. Because of this, the Rohingya people have been falsely and cruelly classified as foreigners in their own homeland.

If this was not difficult enough the Citizenship Law of 1982 has since become the staging grounds for the rising tide of Islamophobia in Burma. Biased government led initiatives are being fueled by a strategically planted hatred for Muslims and are designed to alienate the native Rohingya from Burmese Buddhist life.

One of the main initiatives involves the denial of the title “Rohingya” from public discourse. Instead, the incorrect term “Benjali” is being pushed on the Rohingya people to make them seem like foreigners and Muslims to the Burmese people. 

Because of this, the Rohingya people have been pushed to the literal fringes of Burmese society where they are extremely vulnerable, and where human rights abuses are mounting up and becoming quite difficult to document.

Since the violence has started the Rohingya people have been forced to flee to neighboring states, such as Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. They’ve unfortunately been met with further hostility. Those governments have rejected them and relegated them to a life of complete neglect in refugee camps, which inevitably increases the very real threat of human trafficking. 

In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” These words should ring loud and true for anyone who considers themselves a citizen of the world, and they cannot be ignored just because what you see makes you uncomfortable or helpless. We all belong to this planet and when anyone tries to force one person or a group of us to disappear via genocide, we ALL need to come together and say it loud and clear – that it is NOT OK, and that IT WILL NOT BE IGNORED. I too at times feel that my voice is lost in the multitude of noise that is generated in this busy world we live in; however, that will not stop me from yelling, writing, and talking about issues like the Rohingya genocide because they deserve our attention. The people of Rohingya need and deserve justice, and they’ll never get it if the people who know about the issue refuse to discuss it and bring it to other peoples attention. 

The United Nations considers the Rohingya people the “most persecuted minority group in the world.” It’s time we start paying attention. 

Last year we shared a similar story about 8,000 Muslims who were killed in a designated U.N. “safe haven.” Read about it here: Unknown Genocide

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Korean Reunification Will Never Work, and Here’s Why

by with No Comment FeaturedGlobal

In response to Trump Succeeds Where Obama Did Not

I have great hope for the upcoming talks with North Korea, and I agree that the tone and setting are different than they’ve ever been before.  That said, while there is a possibility of everyone getting what they want (and thus currently a sense of great optimism in the possibility by all sides, and a thrust of welcoming outreach as each party sets up for the talks), there remain quite a few conflicting, zero-sum core objectives that are likely to color the actual talks and their ultimate impact.

First among these is reunification itself.  While reunification is a North and South objective, “reunification” looks very different in the minds of the two heads of state.  These two nations remain at war because each of their governments is unwilling to not be the surviving entity.  Further, reunification is China’s worst outcome.  China is at times uncomfortable with the DPRK and sees a nuclear North as problematic, but ultimately, their needs are best met by having a divided Korea and a buffer state between China and US-aligned South Korea.  North Korea is unlikely to re-align with the West regardless of North/South relations, and is unlikely to open itself up much at all.

Northern power is based on their own narrative and control of information.  Strict adherence to this policy has given the Kim dynasty firm control over a starving population.  Family reunification on any meaningful scale is likely to provide an infection of truth that might well topple their hold on the hearts and minds of the North Korean people.  As such, hopes of reunification (even among families) seems hard to imagine.

Additionally, we have come to this place precisely because the DPRK is on the brink of developing a nuclear missile that can hit the US mainland.  This attention and recognition was precisely the DPRK’s objective in building this weapon, and when the talks are over and the DPRK improves its situation from desperately starving to abject poverty through foreign aid, they are likely to realize once again that their best alternative is to tear up any nuclear concessions and go back to threatening the world with nuclear weapons.

What worries me is the only end to this loop is a sub-optimal outcome nearly everyone in the region.  Imagine a world where the DPRK after successful agreements violates those concessions and returns to weapon production.  The US strikes a deal with China that the US will destroy the weapons sites with force, but will allow China (not South Korea) to enter.  South Korea bears the brunt of a conventional artillery barrage, but repels a DPRK advance – but at great loss of life.  North Korea becomes either part of China proper or a puppet vassal state, likely ending the prospect of Korean reunification for at least the next 100 years.  In order to gain China’s acquiescence, the US would likely have to agree to cede our heavy presence in the Pacific – greatly reducing the US footprint on land and water, and likely leaving South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and Japan to deal with China as the unequivocal regional hegemon.

And Trump may well like that deal.  It protects the US from a nuclear threat (America first), moves the US back from our global posture (which he has said from the start is among his objectives), and in exchange for the US conceding regional hegemony to China (which he and many others see as merely a realistic eventuality), he is likely to get strong trade concessions that will benefit US industry in the short term.  In the thousand year sense, China also likes that deal – with the US gone from the region, they return to their rightful place atop the Asian region- achieved through negotiations, money and Korean (not Chinese) blood.

So while all of that is good for the US and China, it may be a bit early to start handing out Nobel Prizes.  The Trump/Xi version of Realpolitik is more likely to look like it did in the Franco-Prussian era- like two great powers carving out their spheres of influence.  Perhaps I’m wrong.  But we will see…

Starving Polar Bears Are Hard to Ignore

by with No Comment CultureFeaturedGlobal

The above image is what a polar bear should look like in their natural habitat. But unfortunately, a photographer witnessed the exact opposite in a recent trip to Baffin Island, which is the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest in the world.

https://youtu.be/hhErgCnHQ9M

Science and climate change shouldn’t be political issues; but apparently, they are very political. Paul Nicklen, a photographer from the conservation group Sea Legacy, recently captured this heart-wrenching video of a starving polar bear seemingly on his last days.

“We stood there crying—filming with tears rolling down our cheeks.” 

Regardless of your politics, this 54-second video is extremely hard to watch. And unless you believe this is a normal lifecycle for a polar bear, it’s hard to deny that climate change is real.

Is it too late to address this issue? And if not, do our leaders have the will needed to propose and implement the drastic changes it would require?

I think it’s important to note that polar bears historically hunt and eat less in the summer due to a number of factors, but this image is extreme, and not normal for most polar bears.

For reference, here’s another shot of what a healthy polar bear should look like…

The Life And Times of Bowe Bergdahl

by with One Comment FeaturedGlobal

Bergdahl is going home. Getting to that answer has taken the Army more than three years – after the Obama administration traded him for five of the worst terrorists in Guantanamo. There’s a lot to unpack in this.

Working backward:

Bowe Bergdahl was a dumb kid who did dumb kid things. While that’s true, sometimes dumb kid things get you killed or land you in prison in awful places of the world – just ask Otto Warmbier who went to North Korea against all advice, was imprisoned for stealing a poster from his hotel hallway and was released by the DPRK after 17 months in his final days after what seems to have been massive brain damage from torture. Neither Bergdahl nor Warmbier deserved such consequences, but that’s beside the point – sometimes the costs of bad decisions are too much to bear. I don’t fault the military judge who decided five years in the awful place Bergdahl was locked away was enough. That military judge was making a decision based on facts and circumstances and American justice. I probably would have given prison time, but that isn’t the painful issue to me. The painful issue is that we traded to get Bergdahl back at all.

The decision to trade him back fits with President Obama’s core beliefs. They are beliefs I don’t demonize, but in this application, I deeply disagree. President Obama pardoned or commuted huge numbers of people whom he believed were US citizens who were in jail beyond the bounds of justice. This fits solidly with that tenet of justice he holds dear. It’s a good concept, and while I may not have made those commutations, the decision to do so is not outrageous and is consistent with much of his world view. The decision also fits with President Obama’s longstanding view that Guantanamo should be closed. Releasing five of the worst inmates in the entire place certainly seems to reduce the level of need on many of the other members. Again – his concept of American justice is not invalid, but in practice these people were there because short of murdering them, there seemed no other way to remove them from a world of free people those individuals were determined to kill and maim. They were not in prison to serve time, but to keep them away from those they would harm. In one stroke, the president moved closer to both of those objectives which were noble in concept, consistent with good values and extremely dangerous to the long term safety of Americans and the West.

Most of those prisoners in Guantanamo were captured at great risk to American lives. By all rights, they should have died on the battlefield in Afghanistan rather than being captured. That we went to such pains to take them alive was due to an over-arching need for information about the attacks they had just unleashed on the US and a sense of fear that they had more already in planning. In trying to learn what we could from them, we did a number of things America says it doesn’t believe in – including torture and indefinite extra-judicial detention. That was misguided and horribly unfortunate, but we are at much greater risk for their release.

Also at issue is the precedent we set by trading so many high profile people for such a marginalized soldier – captured by his own criminal act of desertion for reasons that still seem either frivolous or simply disingenuous. Such actions show that the way for terrorists to engineer further releases is through further capture of American citizens. In the coming years we will likely re-learn what the hostage negotiators of the 60s and 70s learned about negotiating with terrorists: it breeds more negotiation with more terrorists.

Bowe Bergdahl didn’t deserve another term in a US prison, but he did deserve to spend whatever time was due with the Taliban until a US force could find him and mount a real rescue operation that kept those evil men we had separated from society in a place where they could do no more harm. It wasn’t the prison Bergdahl deserved, but it was the right and rational consequence of his circumstances. The “Taliban Five” are already largely back plotting death and destruction to the West – and they are among the few free, living people alive who remain from the pre-9/11 days who are really, really good and experienced at doing just that.

Additionally, we’ve set the precedent that any American traveling abroad is a living, breathing ticket to release the worst terrorists ever to speak the words “Death to America.” President Obama did truly act in a manner that’s consistent with most of what we value as Americans in making what I’m sure was a hard choice. Unfortunately for us, I fear no good deed will go unpunished.

Al-Aqsa Crisis… Israeli Palestinian Fighting Continues

by with No Comment FeaturedGen ZGlobalInternational

On July 14th the Israeli government made the decision to shut down Al Aqsa Mosque, the 3rd holiest site in Islam, after a clash that left three Palestinians and two Israeli officers dead. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the Friday prayers were canceled. The Israeli government then proceeded to install security cameras and metal detectors at the mosque before reopening it. Palestinians rejected these measures as violations of their rights and of the status quo, and refused to pray in the mosque, opting to pray in the streets instead.

Amid continued protests, the Israeli government continued to add restrictions – preventing men under the age of 50 from entering the compound. Palestinians organized demonstrations in “a day of anger” and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas froze contact with his Israeli counterparts. The Israelis were worried about an escalating security situation and elected to install new security cameras to replace the metal detectors – a measure also rejected by the Palestinians as a move that expanded Israeli control over the holy site.

As of July 27th, Israel removed all the security measures and Palestinians planned to resume prayer in the mosque. The conflict seemed to have temporarily subsided – until minutes after worshippers returned to the mosque Israeli police wounded dozens with stun grenades and rubber bullets. The official Israeli reports states that they were attacked with stones but Amnesty International reports that Israeli actions were unprovoked. Palestinian Muslims have now returned to the mosque and services have resumed as usual but tensions are still simmering.

To Palestinians, this is about much more than just metal detectors and security cameras. This is a system that devalues Palestinians and enforces a systemic repression of a people who have been denied even the fundamental right to have a state. They are fighting to retain a status quo that disadvantages them to begin with because they fear what would happen to them if the status quo was done away with entirely. The Palestinians already face a lack of sovereignty and they see this as a further undermining of their identities. In case you think all this status quos talk is ridiculous, consider this fact: there is a ladder in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem that has not been moved in centuries because to move it would be to undermine the status quo, and that would cause a conflict between the different churches that reside there.

It’s not as if the response was strange or unexpected by the Israelis. It’s a known fact that any interference with Al Aqsa inflames tensions and escalates the conflict. The second intifada (the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation) was in part spurred by Ariel Sharon’s visit to the compound after the failure of peace negotiations and is called the Al-Aqsa intifada for that very reason. Jerusalem has always been and continues to be the line in the sand that cannot be crossed without inciting a violent reaction on both sides.

One important takeaway: Palestinian leadership had very little to do with the mass mobilization of the last two weeks. In fact, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority struggled to make themselves relevant regarding this tense situation. This is in part because the Palestinian citizens of East Jerusalem are relatively isolated from the Palestinian Authority, separated by an Israeli checkpoint from the West Bank. This may, however, also be a sign of Mahmoud Abbas’s shrinking support, and the resulting weakness of the Palestinian Authority, with two-thirds of Palestinians calling for the octogenarian leader to resign. Abbas’s decision to cut off ties with Israeli government pending resolution of the conflict seemed reactionary and an attempt to satisfy his quickly shrinking base.

Long term, this further underscores the importance and the tensions surrounding Jerusalem and final status negotiations. Both sides claim the city as their capital, although the majority of the international community officially recognizes neither. The Palestinian capital, East Jerusalem, is under Israeli occupation and effectively cut off from the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli government will not allow them to fund projects within the city. If there is to be any hope of a final settlement to the conflict, Jerusalem must be addressed and the status of its religious institutions, holy to the worlds three Abrahamic faiths, must be taken into account.

“1995: 8,000 Muslims Killed in U.N. Safe Haven”

by with No Comment FeaturedGlobalInternational

This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the genocide in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,372 Muslim men were killed in an area that was designated as a U.N. “safe haven.” Most of their bodies were thrown into mass graves, and some of their bodies are still being discovered today. Countless women, many of whom were the wives and mothers of the men killed, were tortured and raped by Serbian soldiers. This genocide has been called the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

My grandfather was born and raised in Bosnia, so as you can imagine, I heard about this massacre at a very young age. I recall learning about the Srebrenica massacre in high school, but it wasn’t called a massacre. My history textbook devoted just two sentences in a sidebar mentioning the massacre, and they referred to it as an “ethnic cleansing.” The word “cleansing” implies that the killing of 8,372 Muslims made Bosnia purer. I couldn’t help but think that if the victims were a group other than Muslims, the coverage and the historic context of this massacre may have been dramatically different.

Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” This was obvious to me considering that our history textbook devoted multiple sections to other genocides, notably the Holocaust. Are the numbers between the Holocaust and the Srebrenica genocide comparable? No. But both involved large groups of people being killed for no other reason besides their religion. The Holocaust is a well-known historic occurrence that almost everyone can recall learning about in school; yet, the Srebrenica genocide is something obscure-sounding that most people have never even heard of before.

Let’s switch gears and fast-forward to 2017. ISIS (or ISIL) is in the Middle East systematically massacring a minority religious group called the Yazidis (ISIS is responsible for killing many other people and groups of people, but their massacre of the Yazidis is the only one officially classified as a genocide by the U.N.). A minority group is being systematically killed for no other reason besides their religion. After the Holocaust, the world said, “NEVER AGAIN.” Fifty years later, the genocide at Srebrenica happened, and much of the world didn’t even know, let alone bat an eye. Twenty-two years later, in a world abundant with media outlets and 24-hour news cycles, much of the world doesn’t know about a genocide happening right in front of them. If we don’t know enough about our history to learn from it, how can we prevent it from happening again?

Stop Traveling To Bad Places

by with One Comment FeaturedGlobal

The death of Otto Wambier a few weeks ago is truly a tragedy for America, but it was preventable.  The US State Dept. offers an extensive warning against travel to the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), which as it happens is about the least democratic country on the face of the earth.  That warning by the State Dept. is there because since 1996, at least 16 Americans, 1 Australian and 1 Canadian have been detained in the DPRK for “crimes” such as going short distances from their hotel without approval, taking photos of innocuous things without permission and bringing Bibles into the country in their bags.  Additionally, as the DPRK still recognizes only a cease-fire, it still considers itself in a state of active war with the US, and tries any US citizen under “wartime law”.  That may not be any worse actually than what they do to anyone else, but it should be enough to reinforce that it’s not a good idea to go there.

 One thing many people forget while living safely within the United States, where rights are guaranteed, is how different that is from most of human history and even large swaths of the World today.  Americans have no rights in the DPRK because no one has rights in the DPRK- even (and actually especially) the country’s own citizens.  According to multiple reputable media sources, Kim Jong Un fed his uncle to 120 dogs that had not eaten for 3 days in front of 300 senior officials in a process that lasted for about an hour.

 The US has numerous issues in dealing with the DPRK.  In addition to their regular and barbarous treatment of their own citizens, they continue to use any and all available resources toward the production of arms and particularly nuclear weapons, which they have now shown can reach all of Japan and likely parts of the US.  Despite nearly infinite sanctions against the country, and substantial sanctions against foreign governments providing aid to the country, they persist.  But as the DPRK is still armed with nuclear weapons and crazy, the US has never attempted an armed rescue of US citizens, which would be very likely to result in the deaths of all the prisoners before they could be reached, and re-start shelling (and a possible nuclear attack) on South Korea, Japan or possibly even the US.  In 2009, Bill Clinton was able to negotiate the release of two US citizens by traveling to the country personally.  This only accelerated the pace of the DPRK taking US citizens.  Ostensibly to repeat the media event of Bill Clinton in Pyongyang, 13 of the 16 citizens mentioned above were taken after Clinton’s visit.

 So the lesson for most of us should be don’t go there.  It’s a bad place- and there are bad places left in the World.  Perhaps the first and second citizens could have thought it might work out okay, but the 17th should be pretty sure that it might not.  And if you do go there, evidence has shown that the US government making a big deal out of getting you out leads to more people taken.  Over time, that means that the likelihood of the next person to enter being taken for “crimes” is exponentially higher than the last person who left, and the likelihood of the US government being able to come get you becomes substantially lower.

 Further, it side tracks what the US is able to do with regard to managing China- sometimes side-tracking half of the discussion time that could be used to discuss nuclearization of the Korean peninsula, kidnapping of Japanese fishermen and missiles fired over Japanese airspace with discussions about getting back a US citizen who thought this would be the “tourist trip of a lifetime”.

There is evil still in the World- and a lot of it is there.  Our country will do what it can for you and should continue to do so, but individual judgment is still an individual responsibility, and if you choose to enter the lion’s den, don’t be surprised at the consequences.