Three Years Running

"And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams..."
-- E.A. Poe, excerpt from "To One in Paradise"

Thank you for the last three years, Dear. Every minute was enchanted, every second a delight.
Thank you for the last three years, Dear. Looking forward to the rest of our lives.

Pot Calling the Kettle Black

According to the Inquirer, Erap composed a jingle to lambast his three former allies who are now in Arroyo's camp. Entitled the "ASO Jingle", ASO is supposed to stand for Angara-Sotto-Oreta. The jingle, to the tune of "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?", goes like this:

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ASO Jingle

How much is that doggie in the window?
At anong klaseng aso ba ito?
Ewan ko, sila ang tanungin niyo
Bakit sila naging aso.

Magkano ba ang aso sa Senado?
Iboboto niyo ba mga ito?
Sayang lang ang inyong mga boto
Kung mapupunta lang sa aso.

Bawal ang aso sa Senado
Ibang klaseng aso kasi ito
Hindi tumatahol o nanghahabol
Naghihintay lang ng suhol.

Balimbing ang ’ngalan ng aming aso
Hindi siya kumakain ng buto
Balimbing ang kanyang paborito
Kaya siya’y balimbing na aso.
-----------

Now, Angara, Sotto, and Oreta are indeed turncoats, but what gall Erap has to lambast them with a jingle when his Genuine Opposition (GO) is similarly riddled with opportunists and turncoats. You have there Manny "Mr. Impeachment" Villar along with Noynoy Aquino and Sonia Roco who both marched to get Erap out of power in 2001. Then you have Kiko "Noted" Pangilinan who's neither in nor out of the opposition slate. And lest we forget, there's Loren "Crying Lady" Legarda who cried during Erap's impeachment trial just to scoot over to FPJ's side when Noli became GMA's running mate in 2004.

Fact is, practically all of these politicians, whether GO or TEAM Unity, are turncoats and opportunists. Their only loyalty is to themselves. They'll be too willing to turn their backs on their current parties when political tides change.

But that's expected of our crop of politicians. What I really despise is the gall of the opposition to cloak themselves with righteousness when they are just as sleazy as the admnistration. They are so intent on grabbing power so that it can be their turn again to plunder the country, which was cut short in 2001. There's nothing genuine-- which means free of hypocrisy or pretense-- about the GO, unless GO stands for "Genuine Opportunism".

Shame! Shame! Shame!

(My apologies for quickly reverting to serious threads, but this just rankled my nerves. Warning: this is a rant.)

A second American soldier has been convicted for the now infamous rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family (parents and 5-year-old sister) in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. In case you weren't aware of the details, the rape victim, Abeer Qasim Hamza, was made aware that her parents and sister have been mudrered while she was being raped. And after being raped, her head was bashed in with a concrete block and her body set ablaze.

This soldier, Sgt. Paul Cortez from the 101st Airborne, gets 100 years for the heinous crime, but is eligible for parole in just 10 years. So he can get a measly 10 years in jail for his dastardly crime if his parole is granted, which is likely if he stays a good boy in jail (no little girls to rape there, after all). And 10 years from now the Iraq War and all its atrocities would be distant history, unless of course it's still raging.

Shame on American justice for giving this soldier an easy escape. It's fine to spare him from the death penalty for his cooperation, but allowing him a chance for parole in 10 years? If this were a white girl and her family, American media would be saturated with coverage and this soldier would be dead by now. Or at the minimum have a 100-year sentence without the chance for parole. But this sentence for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family is just so light. The US justice system has denied eligibility for parole for much lighter offenses, so why not now? In this case, justice has been denied from the most innocent of victims.

It'll be justice if he and his four co-rapists/murderers serve those first 10 years in an Iraqi prison. Hopefully they'll be spending most of their time sitting on broomsticks, and not like fairy-tale witches.

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Now, don't give me that crap that 99.99% of American soldiers in Iraq are doing their jobs honourably. This is not a case of how many good vs. how many bad; the Defense Department's (and American public's) attitude must be one atrocity is one too many. Besides, Mahmoudiya is not an isolated incident. BBC has a list of American atrocities in Iraq, and these are just the ones that made headlines in Western media. And if Robert Koehler is to be believed, the racism against Arabs is deep-seated in the US Armed Forces.

And don't give me crap about 3,000+ American soldiers dying in Iraq and the stress they face there (that's the excuse of the five Mahmoudiya soldeirs, btw-- an IED just killed a few of their mates so they wanted revenge). They have guns, for crying out loud. They are legitimate targets in a war. They can defend themselves from attackers. It's not an excuse or even an explanation for killing civilians. The Brits and Aussies are also in Iraq; so far they haven't done anything that approaches American atrocities.

Shame on Cheney-head Bush for starting this war. Shame on the American justice system for treating war criminals with kid-gloves. Shame on the American public for not demanding justice for Iraqi victims.

Woman on Top

According to my (few) avid readers, my past few posts have been rather serious. So, in honour of Women's Month in March, I'm starting a new column: Woman on Top. It will feature profiles of various women in positions of power, mostly from the world of politics, economics, or foreign affairs.

Maria Consuelo Araujo
Former Foreign Relations Minister
Republic of Colombia

• Has been in the government of President Alvaro Uribe since 2002.
• First served as Culture Minister from 2002-2006, then as Foreign Relations Minister from 2006-2007.
• Studied Finance and International Relations at Externado University of Colombia
• Specialised in Government, Management and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York and in International Relations at the University of Milan.
• Resigned from the Uribe government on 19 February 2007 after her brother, Senator Alvaro Araujo, was arrested over allegations that he is involved with Colombian paramilitary groups.
• Described on BBC News as "the glamourous Maria Consuelo Araujo". Infinitely hotter than Henry Kissinger, in my opinion.

The Redcoats are leaving!

Prime Minister Tony Blair announced on Wedensday that 1,600 British troops will be pulled out of Iraq over the next few months. The official reason is that security in Basra in southern Iraq-- a relatively peaceful Shiite-dominated area-- can now be taken over by Iraqi troops. "We'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up," so to speak. Likewise, all 460 Danish will be withdrawn in the coming months presumably for the same reason. All this is happening as the US is sending an additional 21,000 troops to the volatile and very violent Baghdad and the Sunni triangle.

The US is putting a happy face in all this-- they (the Brits and Danes) can leave since it's peaceful where they are deployed, and it probably is. But that is not the point. If America's allies in the Iraq war are so committed to the cause, why not send those 1,600 British and 460 Danish troops to Baghdad instead of bringing them home? Obviously, there is a need to reallocate troop strength from southern Iraq to the central Sunni triangle; how come the Allies aren't willing to give their American partners a hand? Is it because they don't want to put their troops into harm's way? Or do they think that the Bush policy of escalation is the wrong way to go? Either way, America is being left high and dry in Iraq. "Go it alone" is just too real now.

From sea to shining sea, America's allies in Iraq are deserting them. I just wonder how many bells will have to crack before Bush hears them toll.

Terrorism and Armed Resistance

The Philippine Congress just passed the "Human Security Act of 2007", otherwise known as the anti-terrorism bill. According to the Inquirer, it defines terrorism as "those crimes committed with the purpose of sowing and creating widespread and extraordinary fear and panic in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand". Moreover, the report says, the list of crimes includes "piracy in general, mutiny in the high seas, rebellion, coup d’etat, murder, kidnapping, destruction of property through arson, highway robbery, hijacking, and illegal possession of firearms and explosives".

I will not tackle here the government's propensity to use the law to stifle legitimate opposition-- that issue has been adequately argued by many groups. My problem with this law is that it does not distinguish between legitimate acts of war (or insurgency) and terrorism. It does not distinguish between attacks on military or police installations and attacks on civilians.

Now, I'm not advocating the use of arms against the State (I'll tackle that in another post), but I don't agree that all forms of armed resistance should be clumped as terrorism. Under the above definition, the Katipunan was a terrorist group and the Storming of Bastille was a terrorist act.

Here is how I define terrorism: The use of violence on civilian populations or installations for political ends. By civilian, I mean those not directly involved with the State's apparatus for the use of force; i.e., miltary, police, intelligence operatives, defense departments, and top government officials. Thus, Hezbollah offensives on IDF camps are not acts of terrorism, but Katyusha rocket attacks into Haifa are. Israel's boming of Hezbollah camps is not terrorism, but its carpet bombing of Tyre is. NPA attacks on AFP detachments are not terrorist acts, but those on cell sites and passenger buses are. The AFP's shelling of rebel camps is not terrorism, but hamletting of villages is.

Armed resistance, under certain conditions, can be justified; terrorist acts, under any condition, can not.

Word of the Day

Ever have one of those days when a word or a name gets stuck in your head? It's like the dreaded last-song-syndrome but without the melody. Even worse, you can't easily place where and when you heard it, and its meaning momentarily escapes you. Here's mine for today:

Casus Belli

Latin; literally "case of war". Usually refers to an incident or threat that justifies going into war. For example, the invasion of Poland was the casus belli used by the West to go into war with Germany; in contrast, the Holocaust was the ex-post justification for the war.