Army of Shadows. (aka Armee des Ombres.) Directed and Written by Jean Pierre Melville. Based on a novel by Joseph Kessel. Cast: Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, Jean Pierre Cassel, Claude Masure and Paul Crauchet. (1969) Grim Film Is a True Masterpiece Jean Pierre Melville’s film about the relationships of a small group of leaders of the French Resistance during World War II was finally released in this country in 2006.  It has been acclaimed as a masterpiece and deservedly so. It is grim, dark and extremely hard to watch.   It is one of the most important films I have ever seen and it has much to teach us about how we humans act when engaged in collective violence.

keep reading...

 Killing Bin Laden Continues Disastrous Bush Policies President-elect Obama stated on his recent 60 Minutes appearance that he was committed to “capturing or killing Bin Laden”. I agree that Bin Laden, and his second in command Al Zawahiri, should be captured, but they should not be killed. Killing them would be a continuation of the disastrous policies of the War on Terror which so isolated us from the rest of the world. It is a dangerous policy and one which the Obama administration should carefully re-examine. Victims of Terrorism Not Just American I have been studying the terrorism issue since 1998 when the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Al Qaeda. The victims of those bombings were overwhelmingly African citizens.  Although the target was the U.S., the reaction of the U.S.

keep reading...

 Taxi Driver Missing in the Fog of War                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    On December 5, 2002 an Afghan taxi driver took three passengers for a ride and never returned home. He was brought to Bagram Air Base where he was detained by U.S. military forces, then in action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.  Bagram had been turned into a prison to hold and interrogate people captured in this first aggressive action in the War on Terror. Five days after his arrival Dilawar was dead. From Victim to Victimizer Taxi to the Dark Side, a searching, and meditative film, is a thoughtful inquiry by documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (director of Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room), of the route the U.S. took after 9/11 from attack victim to torturer.

keep reading...

Nightmare Portends the Future? Two days after Election Day I awoke from a terrible nightmare.  A torturer had just cut off my legs and was forcing me to walk on the stubs of my legs. I woke up screaming.  Who was my torturer? Why this dream? Why now? In August 2001 I experienced repeated waves of doom that something dreadful was coming.

keep reading...

 (Note: I am indebted to Jane Mayer’s groundbreaking work The Dark Side for contributions to the ideas I wrote about in the following blog.) Bush Administration Response to 9/11 Rooted in Shame and Humiliation The tragic mistakes made by the Bush administration provide lessons for those of us who yearn to see a happier world.  Now that the Bush team’s decision making process is coming to light, it is critical that we understand what happened here. The Bush-Cheney response to 9/11 was rooted in shame and humiliation. They were caught, one might say, with their pants down. They had been repeatedly warned that Al-Qaeda operatives were in the U.S. and chose to ignore that information.  When the planes hit the Twin Towers Bush was the Commander-in-Chief.  Three thousand lives were lost on his watch.  Somewhere inside themselves Bush and Cheney knew they were responsible. The Lust for Revenge These two men are not self-reflective people.

keep reading...

 Book Review: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.  Jane Mayer. Doubleday: New York, 2008. Prepare to be shattered. This is a difficult book to read. Mysteries of Bush Administration Response Post 9/11 Revealed Jane Mayer’s meticulous dissection of the actions of the Bush administration post 9/11 is an extraordinary service to Americans and to the world. Many of us have been trying to understand how this presidency went so wrong.

keep reading...

 Summer Inquiry  As the days of the Bush presidency wane and as we in the US prepare to elect a new President, I have been thinking about what lies ahead for the world.  I have been looking at my own failures of committed action over the past eight years when I saw the present administration act in ways  I knew were bound for disaster.  Will the next administration repeat the same errors and wreak more havoc on the globe? Why Were We So Ineffective? Reports now coming out reveal the sheer cruelty which the present administration became committed to in its response to 9/11. Why did we let this happen? How did it come to pass that the US  is now practicing torture? Why did the US Senate and House of Representatives vote for the Iraq War despite the fact that so many Americans were opposed to it?

keep reading...

This is a continuation of the conversation we started last week addressing the costs and impact of our long habit of engaging in the use of armed violence to solve conflict. Last week we looked at the costs to the combatants themselves and the sponsoring nation/group of engaging in violence. This week we will focus on the other costs of armed violence and the deeper, hidden costs of this form of problem solving.                                                                                                                                                                     Costs to Victims and Collateral Damage Civilians, men, women, children, the aged, none of them matter during the relentless march of armed violence. All their needs are swept aside. Everyone is a target.

keep reading...

To Hell in a Handbasket “The world is going to hell. Why bother?” If you live in Iraq or Zimbabwe this may be true, I grant you. Last week, listening to Earth Day speakers on the radio I wept as I heard about the loss of rainforests, wetlands and fisheries, all accelerating so fast we cannot stop it. There is much to despair about. There is so much violence, hate and greed on the planet. I’ve been up close to some of it.

keep reading...