Ex-Soldier Steven Green Faces Possible Death Penalty

Steven Green was convicted of the murders of the Al-Janabi family in Iraq and rape of the eldest daughter. He faces life in prison indefinitely and the death penalty is not an out of the question sentence. Green was a soldier in Iraq and had plotted this attack with three or four other soldier who knew about it and were involved in it. I find this absolutely horrifying. These are the people out there defending our country? Representing our country? Fighting for our country and the very idea of America? The article actually refers to the assault as a war atrocity, which I find extremely fitting in our war unit that just ended. This situation immediately reminded me of so many of the artifacts we read over the course of the unit. The fact that war makes things "foggy" and morality pretty much goes out the window. There is no longer a line between right and wrong because of the shock and all the awful things occuring on a regular basis. I don't think this justifies anything. Morality cannot be brushed to the side. Rape and murder is far from fighting for your country and killing in battle. This atrocity had nothing to do with the war. He deserves the harshest sentence possible. The fact that there were multiple soldiers involved also makes me uneasy. What has this war come to? Just because a person is "used to" killing soldiers, which i do not think is possible but hypothetically, that still doesn't have anything to do with rape. That has nothing to do with killing innocent civilians who did nothing wrong. Nothing justifies that. What does this say about the war? What is provoking this? What makes these soldiers think that this is justified? And that goes back to a central question in the unit: what sort of killing really is justified?

Poll Indicates 1 in 5 Americans Support Torture

I found an article today that really struck interesting regarding American citizens' views on torture. In fact, a recent poll indicated that six out of ten Americans think that the procedures and measures that the FBI is going to to get information is necessary. I think a big part of this opinion is fear. When people don't have information and there are terrorists out there, they fear for their lives and may accuse people who may be innocent. When there is fear, people act on it and it is not always the most rational action. We discussed waterboarding in class and in this article 64% of people polled did not consider it a form of torture. Does drowning someone on the brink of death NOT considered torture? What about the "suspected" terrorists who really are not involved in terrorist organizations? But then again, if we don't use different procedures to extract information, how will we ever get it? 57% of Americans do not want Bush Administration officers to be investigated for authorizing these procedures, because they feel it is a necessary means of finding out the real terrorists. But really, who says we will get truthful information that isn't tampered with and distorted? It is a very hard topic to decipher right from wrong, and which procedures are humane and which are not. The dilemma remains as to how to deal with terrorists how to get valid information. With everything going on in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran right now, the Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations need to be deciphered and understood. These alleged terrorists are one of the United States' only means of obtaining knowledge. But does that mean torture when there is not substantial evidence? Obama is working hard to aid Pakistan and Afghanistan in their path toward democracy to defeat Al Qaeda, but what are the limits? Where is the point where we become too involved? Wheres the line between humane and inhumane?

Nucs: Destructive or Defensive?

In class the other day we touched on North Korea and its role in the world, as well as decisions that the country has made that are questionable. A hot topic concerning N. Korea is their nuclear weapons, and the their nuclear program has recently been restarted. The United Nations officers were also kicked out of the country and Kim Jong-il is asserting his power forcefully. The United States is working to get them to negotiate and compromise because they are a rising danger if more nuclear weapons are made that are more advanced. But the question that comes to my mind is this: why does there need to be nuclear weapons? Do countries spend so much time and money on creating them to defend their country or with the intention if attacking another? In North Korea, unknown numbers of people have starved to death while money flowed into the country's military program. Money is being spent on bombs and not on nourishing innocent people. What does having nucs say about a country? When one country decides not to cooperate with the rest, there is discomfort and unsureness. But why can't we all just get along? There are so many factors to be taken into consideration about North Korea and their relationship with the world, but what needs to be said to make them cooperate? When we talk about war, nuclear weapons are always something that come to mind. What I don't understand is how having nuclear weapons in your country is comforting. They're nuclear weapons. No one should have them. They are disastrous in every way. In class we posed the question "what does it take to provoke a war or conflict resulting in violence?" But really, is there anything that should provoke such violence? Because North Korea isn't cooperating, does that mean some sort of war is inevitable? I feel like I'm posing so many questions, but I really don't know the answers to them. Nuclear weapons should not exist period, even if they are only for means of defending. If no one had them, no one would need them to defend. But can we trust that other countries won't lie or be secretive with their nuclear program? So much of me wants to be optimistic and say that a nuclear weapon-free world can happen, but i don't know if that's possible.

Zuckerberg "Strikes It Big"

Today I really started thinking about Facebook and its significance in society. I was down at University of Illinois with my dad and I listened to him lecture about enterprise 2.0, which, in a nutshell, is what the internet has come to be: interactive and communicative. My dad was using Facebook as a reference to how the web has morphed into a place where people can interact and meet based on common interest, and information can be relayed between individuals and groups of people. This got me thinking about the creator of Facebook; who was he? How did he think of this seemingly innovative and creative idea? Just as I had assumed from the 10,000 hour rule chapter, Mark Zuckerberg had been programming since middle school. He attended private school and the went on to Harvard, where he created Facebook. He had programmed non-stop from age 13 on. Facebook was started by him and his roommates at Harvard for fun, and from there it skyrocketed into a worldwide phenomenon. The idea of having the right balance of opportunity, ability and luck really comes into play in this scenario. Luck was definitely a big factor in Zuckerbergs story, and it appeared as if the whole thing was completely by accident. He "struck it big" right from the beginning. His background revealed that he had numerous resources and a great education and family to enforce the opportunity and ability components in this case. Luck came in with how quickly the program caught fire. So is Mark Zuckerberg considered an "expert" programmer? He definitely has ability, opportunity and luck on his side, which certainly helps. 

The American Dream Shot to Hell...Cynical or Realistic?

The major thing I wanted to discuss in this post is poverty and how much more prevalent it is becoming in our nation because of our economy and the debt we have as a country. I was watching Oprah yesterday and there was a show on a family who looked like you or I and they were recently homeless. There was three kids in the family, along with a single mom. The fact that they looked so normal really frightened me. They were a family who didn't have anywhere to go but a shelter at night, and their sense of helplessness really exemplified the state of our country. My dad has told me countless times how many emails he gets from friends he used to work with, fully capable, smart people, who recently got laid off simply because there wasn't enough revenue to pay them. He has had to lay off his employees as well. There are so many jobless men and women being led into poverty. Ms. Logan said the other day that the typical American Dream, that is, that a persons child will have a better life than them, is no longer existent in our culture. It is just not possible with the amount of debt we will be inheriting for our country. All I hear on the news regarding the market is "12-year low" and "lowest since...." because nothing has worked to help the circumstances. In a time where we are learning about privilege and poverty, it seems fitting to talk about on side of that spectrum and how it was been affecting the United States.

Legal Marijuana + Tax

Looking at the news on cnn.com and nytimes.com this week, i couldn't help but notice the lengths states are going to in order to boost the economy and be more successful. A story that caught my eye, for example, were the eliminating of the death penalty in Maryland to cut costs. The article says that to cut down criminal justice costs the repeal of the death penalty is a good idea, however, critics of this action say, "At a time when police departments are being scaled down to save money, the role of the death penalty in deterring certain crimes is more important than ever." I thought it was incredibly interesting that this method of cutting costs would be put into effect. Would eliminating the death penalty increase crime in Maryland? Would it stay the same? I guess we won't know until Maryland puts this into effect. In times of poverty and crisis such as these, people are jobless and cutting back on expenses significantly. I did not ever consider, until this article, that states would be inclined to do so as well. The other article I read talked about California considering legalizing and taxing marijuana to boost the economy and bring in money. In doing this, California as a state would have legal costs cut by almost a billion dollars a year and an approximate 1.3 billion dollars would be brought in off the tax. I found this method of improving the economy to be very "out there" and new, but in watching the news clip, I think it could work. It is so interesting what great lengths we as individual states will go to when there is so much poverty and problems. In times of crisis like this with no sight of improvement, society has to act. This sure is an action, and if California decides to enforce it, there could be good effects, but in return, possibly detrimental effects to the health of society and overuse, which is what drug policy advisors have advocated. There are so many measures and extremes, not limited to these two articles, that states and the government have attempted to regain strength. But will these relatively new ideas really help the economy and society in the end? 

The other night I was with my tutor and we got to talking about my junior theme. I mentioned I was doing it on the topic of African American identity, double consciousness and shaping identity in changing times of American history. He then got to talking about how when he lived in Mississippi the Ku Klux Klan lynched a black man in his front yard, and when they woke up the next morning his mom went out and caught sight of it. The shock stunned her and he said she was never the same. They moved the next year. Its so incredible to me how in 1958-only 50 years ago-things like this were occuring and it was not out of the ordinary. I was shocked to hear this story, and my tutor even further told me that he had witnessed beatings from a distance and essentially grew up in the environment. He is definitely not okay with it and never was, but how could he stand by? I mean, there wasn't much he could do to stop it, but NOTHING was done. And all this just 50 years ago! Racism is so recent to our country's history it is baffling.

The other thing I connected our unit to was a movie I watched last night, The Secret Life of Bees with Dakota Fanning. The movie takes place in the rural south and exemplifies so much having to do with white supremacy. The nanny of the house, an African American named Rosalene, decides that she wants to vote. When she walks down to the town to do so, she is malled by white men and shoved to the ground and spit on. Her head get busted open and she is taken to jail. Her white boss is so embaressed, he won't even come bail her out. The main character, Dakota Fanning, runs away from home for other reasons and decides to take Rosalene with her. They end up at a bee farm owned by three black women. These women put a black Virgin Mary on their honey, which Dakota Fanning, a white girl, is very surprised about. Though I haven't finished the movie, Fanning proves to be a white citizen who goes against the norm, willing to save Rosalene from jail and openly speak out against the violations of the Civil Rights Act. The movie has a really strong connection to the time period we are currently learning about, that is the time in which black men and women are freed, and trying to figure out what to do with this freedom especially because there is most definitely still prejudice.  A quote from the movie is, "It's so ironic how much white people hate us, when most of them were raised by Negro women." This statement is so true. The women who were around for their childhood, who helped them create who they were and come into their own, were black women. And this is how they are treated?