Least of My Brothers

The Children of Guantanamo

2008-06-24T14:42:00.005-05:00

In 2002 the United States ratified an international treaty barring the use of children under 18 in armed conflict. Among other provisions, the treaty obligates governments to help rehabilitate child soldiers and reintegrate them into society. But the commitment to rehabilitation seems to be missing when child soldiers engaging U.S. forces are captured.

Since 2002 the U.S. has brought more than 20 detainees under age 18 to the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. The youngest was age 13. Most have since been released, but three remain, having spent more than a quarter of their lives at Guantanamo. These three have been subjected to repeated abuse, a clear and egregious violation of international law. They spend their days sitting in their cells with little more than a mattress, a copy of the Quran, and a roll of toilet paper. All three suffer from mental illness and have attempted suicide.

Probably no action by the Bush Administration has brought more shame on the United States than its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. And the "worst of the worst" of its offenses is its treatment of the children of Guantanamo.

Read more on the abuse of children at Guantanamo at Human Rights Watch...

John McCain - War Hero???

2008-06-14T10:07:00.005-05:00

Cruel and Unusual

2008-06-10T19:38:00.004-05:00

Ahmed Belbacha, a 39-year-old Algerian who has been in Guantanamo since March 2002, has been cleared to leave the prison camp, but he remains locked in his windowless cell 22 hours a day with little more than a Koran and another book to occupy his time. He cannot return to his home in Algeria, and no other country will take him. So he remains part of the shameful chapter of U.S. history known as Guantanamo Bay.

Last December, Ahmed tried to commit suicide and was moved to the mental health facility, where he was stripped naked, dressed in a green plastic rip-proof suicide smock, and placed on suicide watch in an isolated cell where he remained for two months.

More than half the detainees currently at Guantanamo are housed in conditions like Ahmed's. They spend all but two hours a day in small cells with no natural light or fresh air. Their meals are slipped through a slot in the door and they are given little more than a single book and the Koran to occupy their time. They are not allowed visits by family members, nor are they allowed phone calls to loved ones.

Not surprisingly, many of the detainees are suffering from serious mental health problems, and many have attempted suicide. And although little is known about the reasons for their detention, it is thought that all but a few are not "enemy combatants" and should not be held at all.

Read more about the deplorable conditions of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay from Human Rights Watch...

Global Peace Index

2008-05-21T20:16:00.001-05:00

The Global Peace Index, now in its second year, ranks 140 countries according to their relative states of peace, based on factors such as military expenditure, respect for human rights, and number of homicides.

See where your country ranks here...

Not Malicious???

2008-05-17T19:23:00.005-05:00

The chief U.S. commander in Baghdad issued a formal apology today for an incident in which a soldier used the Quran -- Islam's holy book -- for target practice. The soldier, whose name was not released, shot at a copy of the Quran on May 9. The bullet-riddled book was discovered two days later by an Iraqi policeman, but the U.S. military did not make the incident public until today.

Major General Jeffery Hammond apologized to local officials in Radhwaniya in the western outskirts of Baghdad, and read a letter of apology from the shooter in which he wrote, "I sincerely hope that my actions have not diminished the partnership that our two nations have developed together. My actions were shortsighted, very reckless and irresponsible, but in my heart the actions were not malicious."

Not malicious? I suspect that the shooter got lots of help from his commanding officers with his letter. They also relieved him of duty. He will be redeployed to the United States for reassignment.

And we wonder why they hate us.

Read more...

Irena Sendler

2008-05-14T11:12:00.008-05:00

One of the greatest heroes of the 20th century died this week, but most people have never heard of her. Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker, saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation of World War II. She smuggled them out of the ghetto, gave them non-Jewish aliases, and placed them in convents, orphanages, and homes. She kept detailed records of their true identities and preserved the records in jars buried in a friend's garden.

She was eventually captured by the Nazis and tortured, but she refused to divulge any information about the children or about the underground organization with which she worked. Miraculously spared from execution herself, she worked diligently after the war to reunite the children with their families, only to find that most of their relatives had been deported and exterminated. Most of the children were adopted by Polish families or emigrated to Israel.

She died on Monday in a Warsaw nursing home at the age of 98. After living in obscurity for most of her life, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year. But she never thought of herself as a hero. She once said, "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this earth and not a title to glory."

Read more...

Mother Teresa of Baghdad

2008-05-08T09:56:00.001-05:00

Madeeha Hasan Odhaib is a diminutive, 37-year-old seamstress whom some people have begun calling the Mother Teresa of Baghdad. Since 2003, she has been working tirelessly to assist thousands of Iraqis driven from their homes by the war, especially in her Karada district where some 30,000 displaced Iraqis live. With almost no help from occupying forces or the Iraqi government, she has put together one of the few effective aid operations in Baghdad.

Read more about the efforts of this remarkable woman...

Nakba

2008-05-07T12:22:00.002-05:00

When Israel observes the 60th anniversary of its declaration of statehood on May 14, Arabs who make up 20 percent of its citizens will not be joining in the celebration. Instead thousands will gather in their former villages, which they have been barred from occupying for sixty years, to protest what they call the nakba, or catastrophe, of their displacement from their homeland.

In the civil strife that marked the beginning of the modern state of Israel, nearly a million Palestinians fled to neighboring countries, where they were housed in crowded refugee camps. Their children and grandchildren, now numbering over 4 million, are still in those refugee camps today.

Others who remained in the new state of Israel were displaced from their villages. They were granted citizenship but relegated to second-class status. The Israeli government seized their land to make room for new Jewish arrivals from Europe and the former Soviet Union. And although much of the seized land has sat idle all these years, the Israeli government refuses to allow former owners to return to it.

One such former owner is Jamal Abdulhadi Mahameed. Now age 69, he wants nothing more than to return to the land owned by his family for generations and tend to the pomegranate bushes planted long ago by his father.

In every respect Jamal is a solid citizen. His children include a doctor, two lawyers, and an engineer. But he is prohibited from returning to his own land because it is reserved for Jewish settlement. He notes that his daughter the doctor makes no distinction between Jewish and Arab patients. So he asks, "Why should the state treat me differently?"

Add one more issue to the many injustices to be redressed before the Middle East can even dream of living in peace.

Read more...

Mission Accomplished?

2008-05-01T12:46:00.004-05:00

Five years ago today, George W. Bush pulled his tailhook landing stunt on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and declared: "Mission Accomplished!"

Five years later...

More than 4,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives in Iraq, along with more than 300 from the so-called "coalition of the willing".

Almost 30,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in action.

According to conservative estimates, more than 90,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. The actual number will never be known.

An estimated 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and are living as refugees in appalling conditions in Syria and Jordan. Almost none have been allowed entry into the United States.

An unknown number of Iraqis - upwards to 3 million by some estimates - are displaced within their own country because of sectarian violence.

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the conflict.

U.S. troop levels in Iraq are currently at 160,000 with no immediate plans to reduce that number.

In a recent Gallup poll, 59% of Americans said that "the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq."

Egalite?

2008-04-29T10:45:00.010-05:00

About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in France's prison system are Muslim, even though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population. A similar pattern is found in other European countries, where immigrants and children of immigrants - mostly Muslim - make up a disproportionate share of prison populations.

The underlying causes are the same ones that result in the disproportionate representation of black Americans in the U.S. prison system, where blacks who comprise 13 percent of the general population make up 49 percent of all inmates. The high percentage of Muslims in France's prisons, like the percentage of blacks in America's, is a direct result of the failure to fully integrate minorities into the life of society. Largely excluded from the economic and social benefits of full participation, these minorities are caught in a downward spiral of poverty and hopelessness, which often ends in crime and imprisonment.

In France the exclusion from full participation extends to the prison system itself. Prison authorities have allowed only about 100 carefully vetted moderate imams to serve as chaplains in France's 200 prisons, compared with 480 Catholic, 250 Protestant, and 50 Jewish chaplains, even though Muslim inmates vastly outnumber prisoners of all other religions.

French prison officials have also refused requests to provide halal food (compliant with Islamic dietary law) to Muslim inmates. In order to observe the dietary laws of their religion Muslims must forego much of the prison food.

In another example of disparate treatment, Christian inmates are allowed to receive packages from their families at Christmas, but Muslims do not receive the same privilege during the holy days of Ramadan.

This absence of egalite in the treatment of Muslims in France's prisons should come as no surprise. The same prejudices and marginalization that contribute to their ending up in prison in the first place are perpetuated in prison as well. We live on the edge of a great divide between East and West, between Muslim and Christian. It is a divide we have made ourselves, based on our own prejudices. It is little wonder that there is no peace in the world.

Read more...

Children of Gaza

2008-04-09T20:26:00.003-05:00

Ayman is a soft-spoken 14-year-old who lives in Jabalia City, Gaza. He wants to be an engineer someday so he can help rebuild his country. He works hard in school, but the challenges of growing up as a youngster in Gaza are daunting to say the least. Some 840,000 children live in Gaza's crowded neighborhoods. As the region continues its downward spiral of violence, isolation, and poverty, their future looks more bleak every day.

Ayman's family is poor, just like everyone in Gaza. His parents have sold almost everything they have to support their children. But they struggle on because, as Ayman's father says, "My children are my hope."

As Israel approaches the 60th anniversary of its independence (May 14) there is little to celebrate in this troubled region. The world community has largely ignored the plight of the Palestinians for over half a century. Justice is a rare commodity in the occupied territories, which might explain why peace is such a distant hope.

Read more about the children of Gaza...

War Fatigue

2008-02-09T12:37:00.000-06:00

Surveys show that the majority of Americans suffer from war fatigue; that is, they are tired of hearing about the war in Iraq. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that only 17 percent of those surveyed thought that the war was the most important issue facing the country today.

The number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq is approaching 4,000. According to Pentagon statistics, more than 29,000 troops have been wounded in action.

The number of Iraqis killed or wounded since the invasion in 2003 will probably never be known.

By some estimates more than 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and are refugees in reluctant host countries such as Syria and Jordan.

Is all this human suffering for nothing? Sadly, most Americans are too tired to care.

A Web of Miracles

2007-12-23T19:18:00.001-06:00

When Wisconsin National Guardsman Scott Southworth deployed to Iraq with his military police unit in 2003, he did not expect to find himself caught in a web of miracles.

In September of that year he visited an orphanage in Baghdad with his unit, and there he met nine-year-old Ala'a Eddeen, who suffers from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds.

Southworth made frequent visits to the orphanage, and he and Ala'a grew close. When he learned that his young friend would soon be placed in a government-run facility where he would "stare at a blank wall for the rest of his life," Southworth decided to adopt him.

He had to overcome many obstacles to adopt Ala'a. Iraqi law prohibits foreigners from adopting Iraqi children. He was unmarried, did not own a home, worked long hours at his job, and knew nothing about caring for a disabled child. He also had to wade through the complicated bureaucracy of the U.S. Immigration Service, whose rules made it almost impossible to bring Ala'a into the country.

But Southworth persisted until finally in January 2005 he received word that his request to bring Ala'a to the United States had been approved. Ala'a arrived in Wisconsin on January 20, where he saw snow for the first time in his life. On June 4, 2005 his adoption was finalized and Southworth and Ala'a became father and son.

Southworth persisted in his efforts because he believed that Ala'a desperately needed someone not just to feel sorry for him but to actually do something about it. But he insists that Ala'a picked him, not the other way around. They were brought together, he believes, by a web of miracles.

Read the full story...

A Christmas Story

2007-12-18T19:35:00.000-06:00

Listen to a beloved story of Christmas by the late John Henry Faulk as aired on National Public Radio. If you have never heard this story, an annual tradition on NPR, it is worth a listen to learn more about the real meaning of Christmas.

Hold the Tomatoes

2007-11-29T11:21:00.000-06:00

You should think twice about pulling into a drive-thru for one of those burgers topped with a slice of tomato these days. Consider what someone had to go through to garnish your burger with tomato.

Migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida for growers who supply tomatoes for fast-food chains like Burger King, McDonalds, and Taco Bell have one of the nation’s most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, carries, and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.

Two years ago migrant farm workers in Florida gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket.

But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny. And as a result the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, announced this month that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. The Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages.

Three private equity firms — Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners — control most of Burger King’s stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately. According to Business Week, the company has doubled the value of its Burger King investment within three years.

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million — more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year.

The least Goldman Sachs could do is find a way to share some of the company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.

Read more...

Angel in the Desert

2007-11-24T19:44:00.000-06:00

Jesus Manuel Cordova was doing what half a million illegal immigrants do each year - walking across the Mexican border to enter the United States in search of work. But his trip did not go as he expected, and before he finished it he had given a new and ironic meaning to the term good samaritan.

He came upon a 9-year-old boy who was looking for help for his mother, who had crashed their van into a canyon and was pinned inside. She was seriously injured, and in fact died before help arrived. Mr. Cordova found the boy, and after trying unsuccessfully to pull his mother from the wreck, he stayed with him through the night, wrapping him in his own jacket and building a fire to keep him warm during the cold night in the Arizona desert.

In return for his act of kindness, Mr. Cordova was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents. He will almost certainly be sent back to Mexico.

Americans get pretty emotional about the issue of border security. They cannot tolerate the idea of undesirables sneaking into the country from south of the border. Little do they know that there are at least a few angels among those undesirables.

Read the full story...

The Worst Crime on the Planet

2007-10-07T19:13:00.000-05:00

“The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world. The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity - it’s appalling.” - John Holmes, United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs.

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day ten new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so brutally attacked that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair. He performs as many as six rape-related surgeries a day. Bed after bed is filled with women lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, with colostomy bags hanging next to them because of all the internal damage.

Honorata Barinjibanwa was kidnapped from her village in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree; she still has rope marks on her neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her. She is just 18 years old. And now she is pregnant.

Kasindi Wabulasa was raped in February by five men. They held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished they shot him anyway.

Read the full story from the New York Times...

A Prisoner and You Visited Me...

2007-10-03T13:04:00.000-05:00

Floyd Brown has been confined to a North Carolina mental institution against his will for the last 14 years, charged with a murder which he claims he did not commit. Because he has the IQ of a 6-year-old and does not understand the legal process, he cannot be brought to trial and the case against him cannot be argued in front of a jury.

Mr. Brown is charged in the death of 80-year-old Katherine Lynch, who was beaten to death with her own walking stick. There were no known witnesses to Lynch's murder and no physical evidence linking Mr. Brown to her death. The only evidence against him is a confession given after he signed away his constitutional rights. But at least three forensic psychiatrists and several of Brown's former special education teachers say that he is not capable of understanding the confession, or even of making it.

The detectives who extracted the confession from Mr. Brown were later convicted on unrelated charges of racketeering for shaking down criminal suspects. Court records show that the two extorted money from criminal suspects in exchange for not filing or dropping charges against them. The agent who investigated their case said, "They were as dirty as anyone I've seen. They could have done anything."

Floyd Brown does not understand why he is in a mental institution or why he is being held against his will. A court hearing is scheduled for early this month in what is probably his last chance at freedom. Maybe justice will finally prevail and Floyd Brown will be allowed to go home.

Read the full story...

October 8, 2007 - Update

Durham County Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ordered Floyd Brown freed Monday after dismissing the case against him.

The Cry of the Poor

2007-09-28T19:44:00.000-05:00

The wages you withheld from the worker who mowed your fields cry out, and the cries of the worker reach the ears of the Lord of hosts. (James 5: 4)

Consider the case of Pedro Zapeta, a dishwasher from Guatamala who worked in the U.S. for 11 years and saved $59,000 so he could buy land in his native country and build a home for his mother and sisters. Mr. Zapeta, who speaks no English, earned barely more than minimum wage, but he lived frugally and often worked two jobs to save up his money.

When he had earned enough, he packed the money in a duffel bag and prepared to take a flight home to Guatamala. But what happened at a Florida airport and afterwards is hard to believe. Because he failed to fill out the proper form declaring the $59,000, customs officials arrested him and seized his money. And now after two years of government harrassment, an immigration judge has ordered him to leave the country by the end of January 2008. He is unlikely to see a penny of his money.

Mr. Zapeta is all but powerless against the government officials who have taken everything he worked for. He will return home no better off than when he left it. But those who have swallowed up Pedro Zapeta should keep in mind that God hears the cries of the poor man against his oppressors. God sees everything. And God never forgets.

How Long Will They Suffer?

2007-09-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

Dr. Said Hakki, a physician who is president of the Red Crescent, asked the question that many ask but no one has an answer to.

"How could a human let human beings suffer so much for so long?"

He was discussing a report about to be released by the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization on the massive displacement of Iraqis brought about by military operations and sectarian violence in their country.

The report will show that nearly two million Iraqis, a million of them in Baghdad alone, have fled their homes and moved to other neighborhoods or regions, sometimes two or three times, in search of safety and security. This number is in addition to the estimated two million Iraqis who have fled the country entirely.

But whether they are internally displaced or have fled the country, most have left everything behind and are struggling to survive day to day.

How long will they suffer?

Perhaps the best solution to the Iraq crisis would be for all the outsiders to just leave, starting with the Americans, and let Iraqis put their country back together on their own. Consider this...

"Just last week within Baghdad itself, a Sunni tribe of 250 families that lived in Dora, one of the most violent neighborhoods, was forced to flee. Rather than going to an area where they would be with others of their sect, they went to their neighbors to the south, in Abu Dshir, a Shiite area. They were welcomed by the local tribe and given places to stay in people's homes."

Read more from the New York Times...

Baghdad Burning

2007-09-15T16:04:00.000-05:00

Since the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, an anonymous blogger from Iraq has written Baghdad Burning, a candid and uncensored commentary on everyday life in "liberated" Baghdad. Her posts have given countless readers around the world a rare look at the hardships of life for ordinary Iraqis in this hopelessly failed state.

Now she has joined the estimated two million Iraqis who have fled their country. In what might be her last post on the blog she writes,

"As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years."

Read the full post...

Remembering September 11

2007-09-11T19:36:00.000-05:00

Contrary to what most Americans think, the world did not stand still that day. For much of the world it was a day like every other. Here are some of the things that happened on September 11, 2001:

24,000 people died of starvation;

8,000 died of AIDS, leaving 6,000 children orphaned;

7,000 died of malaria;

5,000 died of tuberculosis;

1,400 women in Africa died giving birth without adequate medical care (many were children themselves);

12,000 children in the poorest regions of the world died of treatable chronic diarrhea;

2,000 children died of measles, a disease almost eradicated except in poor countries;

120,000 unborn children died from abortions;

5,000 people died violent deaths from causes such as homicide and acts of war, including 3,000 in terrorist attacks in the United States.

Their names will never be known, but they were all children of God. They were precious in the eyes of their Creator. They were our brothers and sisters. May we remember all of them.

And may we never forget those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. More...