Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Will we see nuclear shadow threaten mankind on Groundhog Day?

Forget Punxsutawney Phil this February 2 Groundhog Day. The real freight will not be Phil seeing his shadow, signaling six more weeks of this horrendous winter. Instead, Punxsutawney Donald will emerge from his presidential lair and decide if the US will stay or leave the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Last November his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a threat to pull out of the INF in 60 days due to Russian non-compliance. That deadline falls on Groundhog Day. What's worse, US pullout from the INF threatens US pullout from the New Start Treaty which went into effect in 2011 and is being renegotiated to extend out to 2021. Punxsutawney Donald has called New Start a "one-sided, bad Obama Deal....and if countries are going to have nuclear weapons, we're going to be at the top of the pack." Nuclear experts fear such moves will make the nuclear problem "come back with a vengeance".

I'm not looking forward to this Groundhog Day. I'd sure settle for six more weeks of a cold, snowy winter...than six seconds of a nuclear winter.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Van Dyke sentence just and merciful



Since I haven't seen a single media comment that the 81 month sentence given James Van Dyke for second degree murder of Laquan McDonald was just and merciful, I'll offer mine. Van Dyke doesn't qualify for the most important reason for incarceration: protecting the public. No longer a police officer and with no previous criminal history, his threat to the public has been removed. As a police officer he was a threat, regardless of the fact he'd never previously fired his gun in 17 years on the force.  The other aims of incarceration: punishment, deterrence and justice are all met with an 81 month sentence. 

Punishment? Van Dyke has been punished every day since his still unexplained deviation from responsible use of deadly force over four years ago, and will be punished every remaining day of his life regardless of where he spends it.

Deterrence? Will any police officer view Van Dyke's four year saga leading to 81 months in prison and conclude it's OK to replicate his behavior? No chance in my view.

Justice for McDonald's family  is the tough one. I can't speak for them. But I don't think the length of sentence is the determining factor in what constitutes justice. The critical factor in dispensing justice is holding McDonald's perpetrator to answer for his crimes in court. His conviction and incarceration represent the essence of justice. The length of sentence may satisfy some; maybe none. There is no way to determine that number with any measure of precision.

I always opt for least possible jail time, if not home confinement or none at all for the convicted, regardless of the crime. With 2,300,000 languishing in jail, the highest number and highest rate per 100,000 in the world, America's criminal justice system is a worldwide disgrace. Something is terribly askew when we have just 4.4% of the world's population but warehouse 22% of the world's prisoners. In addition, the annual cost is over a trillion dollars just for incarceration. If jail time could be reduced just 25% nationwide, an additional $250 billion would be freed up for better governance in education, health care, infrastructure and crime prevention, Including prisoner rehabilitation. That is value excessive incarceration can never provide. 

Long sentences when not required are a knee-jerk response to crime...'lock em up and throw away the key'. The US is the only developed country that practices that costly, foolish approach. We need to move away from long sentences as the primary response in creating a just and merciful criminal justice system. The Van Dyke judge did just that in imposing an 81 month sentence. He should not have his sentence reviewed as being too lenient. He should have his sentence studied as an example of ignoring the rush to excessive incarceration; opting instead for both justice and mercy. 

4 Americans killed in Syria victims of supreme US international crime


It Is the height of US arrogance, stupidity, indeed international criminality that congressmen, the military and the pundit class are using deaths of 4 Americans in Syria as a reason to keep troops there rather than withdraw them as Trump announced December 19. Alas, Trump gave the perpetual war proponents the ammo they needed to demand US canon fodder stay in Syria by foolishly declaring the reason: the US had defeated ISIS in Syria. There are two problems with that non-starter reason. First, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Al Nursa Front or whatever you call the rag-tag insurgents fighting established governments in the Middle East can never be wiped out; they simply recede from areas where US bombs drop and fight somewhere else. They blew up a restaurant with 4 Americans to make that point. Second, and more important, the US has no congressional authorization or justification under international law to be fighting ISIS or anyone else in Syria. Our presence constitutes an illegal act of criminal war against a country neither attacking nor even threatening our precious homeland. How convenient the US ignores the dictate of the Nuremberg war crime tribunals which we set up after WWII to prevent future criminal wars by declaring unjust war "the supreme international crime".
Trump might have gotten less pushback from the US war party if he simply declared we're withdrawing from Syria to end our criminal involvement and to comply with international law. He's too ignorant and immoral to even consider that.
Using American deaths to continue illegal, perpetual war is disgusting. Tragically for mankind, there is no check either at home or abroad to end US perpetual war in the Middle East and Africa. The proponents of perpetual war might as well be saying 'we've got to keep Americans dying overseas to keep the power and profits from perpetual war rolling in.'

Doomsday Clock two minutes to midnight no big deal to Trib


I was a tad dismayed the scariest in a litany of scary Trib news items today was buried in a tiny, five sentence spot on page 12. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists unveiled the annual setting of its Doomsday Clock, its symbol of how close mankind is to global catastrophe, which metaphorically will occur at the stoke of midnight. The Bulletin kept the setting at two minutes to midnight, the 2018 setting that tied the previous low set in 1953 when the US and Russia began testing hydrogen bombs. Originally set at 7 minutes till in 1947, mankind saw its highest distance of 17 minutes from Armageddon with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Bulletin cited several factors for two, 30 second reductions in 2017 and 2018 as well as its precarious setting this year; including US abandonment of the Iran nuclear treaty and the Paris climate agreement, exacerbating the twin threats pushing mankind to its hour of doom. Maybe Trib editors figured putting such distressing news in a blaring headline on page 1 might discourage future readership. Maybe they're simply oblivious to this existential treat to mankind. Regardless, the annual January setting and statement of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock should be the lead story in every newspaper, network and cable news outlet and social media website in America; indeed the entire world. Maybe such stark importance placed on our continued survival might just motivate the 7.5 billion of us still alive to pressure our leaders to reduce man's mad race to extinction. That may not be easier...but it's sure more important than keeping up with the Kardashians.

Venezuela suffers from US 'Bad Neighbor' Policy


Though not as famous as "The only thing we have to fear is, fear itself" another quote from FDR's March 4, 1933, first inauguration speech deserves repeating today: "In the field of World policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a World of neighbors." FDR was signaling to our Latin American neighbors that Uncle Sam was renouncing its past intervention there, becoming instead a 'good neighbor' Latin Americans could trust to act in their interests as well as America's. Eighty-six years on America continues to display its 'bad neighbor' side, seeking regime change in severely troubled Venezuela; even threatening military force to knock off socialist president Nicholas Maduro.
Venezuela may have the worst economy in the Hemisphere but its partly courtesy of America's bad neighbor policy of crippling sanctions imposed in mid 2017 designed to cause economic hardship severe enough to force the masses to overthrow president Maduro. When that didn't work President Trump threatened that military action was "on the table" if Maduro didn't leave. Things are now coming to a head with Maduro political rival Juan Guaido, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly declaring himself Interim President in opposition to elected President Maduro inaugurated to his second term January 10. The US and its conservative Latin American allies immediately recognized Guaido as their choice to rule Venezuela, setting up an even greater political and economic crisis. Unlikely to prevail politically, the US is keeping those military plans close at hand on their regime change table. And for the desperate, starving, fleeing Venezuelan people, with good neighbors like the US, they don't need bad ones. It should be back to school for every war mongering, regime changing US official to read FDR's first inaugural about the good neighbor...and be held to it on the Latin American stage.

Trib should tell rest of Venezuelan story


In 'Trump's effort to oust Venezuela's despot' (editorial, January 25) so many elements of the volatile political crisis there are missing that Trib readers are being denied the undeniable truth. Let's start with recognition of Juan Guaido, who the Trib claims "declared himself president, defying President Nicolas Maduro's authority". But without explicitly calling Guaido's move what it is, a coup, the Trib declares Trump is right to instantaneously recognize Guaido's illegitimate claim. The Trib justifies US interference by claiming Maduro "is slowly destroying Venezuela", omitting US lust to oust Maduro, as fervid as their lust to oust his predecessor Hugo Chavez, has aided that destruction by imposing crippling sanctions in mid 2017. Nor does Trib tell readers the US and its allies worked against a negotiated political settlement in Venezuela in 2016, initiated by the Vatican. That negotiation was critically needed because neither political side there has the power to prevail, guaranteeing a bloodbath should civil war break out. Does the US and the Trib want that? Of course every US intervention somehow gets back to Russia, and Venezuela is no different. The Trib frets about Russian President Putin's "fervid interest in the place" while US efforts at regime change are noble. Why is it OK for the US to support a coup to get a pliable ally in Guaido while calling Putin's billions of investment, which ultimately helps the Venezuelan people, simply a cynical effort to gain a "pliable ally just 1,160 miles from the US coast." But the kicker is no mention by the Trib that the US is explicitly threatening military action if Maduro doesn't leave peacefully. Last time I checked with the Geneva Convention, that represents illegal, immoral and criminal war.
This Trib reader of 67 years is still waiting for the Trib to give us what the legendary radio commentator Paul Harvey used to give us every weekday from World War II till his death in 2009...The Rest of the Story.