24 March 2008

Body of War

Body of War is a documentary that has been floating around in distribution limbo since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last Septemeber. It was made by well known TV personality and anti-war activist Bill Donahue and Ellen Spiro. Given it's relative obscurity (oddly...), despite passionate reviews from TIFF and a people's choice award, it is hard to get a chance to see this film that follows the day-to-day life of paralyzed Iraq war veteran Thomas Young. But every glimpse I have seen of this film has been a deeply moving and highly profound impact on my state of being. Thomas' life has been completely changed by the war on Iraq, a war that was launched on lies and by a US congress too concerned about reelection to care about what it was signing onto. But he has taken the difficulties, problems, and pain in life and bravely and honouarbly pushed his life to be an activist against a war that was/is/will always be illegal.

For those of us above the 49th, we have to remember that war is always worthy of debate, we must always be second guessing our political leadership that pushes us to war, and constantly evaluating our reasons and motivations for putting our citizens into a dangerous situation. Any person who says a debate on the war endangers the lives of soldiers is a liar, a charlatan, and someone who does not "support the troops" because if we do not have this debate for as long as we are at war we allow liars and manipulative warmongers to rule. And who knows what they would do with the lives of our soldiers? Just look at what they have done with the life of Thomas Young and remember the names of the politicians who rather than debate the Iraq War mouthed the lies of President Bush.

PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, the most authentic reporting I can find on American television, recently spotlighted the important documentary Body of War and interviewed Donahue and Spiro.

From the interview:
PHIL DONAHUE: The saddest — the scene in our movie that I have — I still can't get through. It, you know, makes me-- well up to talk about it. Tomas goes to an antiwar demonstration in Washington. And at the end of the demonstration he's wheeled up to a rope behind which are Gold Star Families, people who have lost loved ones in the war. They're holding their pictures up. And they're touching Tomas. It's a vicarious way to touch their loved one who didn't come home. And Tomas is available to them. He lets them. He gets it. I was so impressed with his empathy and you know, I mean, not every 20-something male is gonna get this, and he did. And it's another example of what is admirable about this young man.
Please watch it in two parts, available online here: Bill Moyers: Body of War interview.

Website for Body of War is here.

Thomas Young also talks about the songs that help him get through his day on the journal.

My own recommendation: check out The Consumer Goods if you like your poprock charged with politics:
their myspace page
there cbcradio3 page

12 March 2008

Final comment on the Colombia-Ecuador incident

Fearing that I have put an early emphasis on this one issue, hopefully I will write on something else soon, but I wanted to just get in this last word taken from a comment I made over at Latin American News Review.

The attack on FARC was for international consumption as much as it was for Colombian - Uribe's support within Colombia is (rightly or wrongly) fairly strong and killing a FARC leader was not necessary to maintain a tough on FARC image.

There are two contexts that are significantly more important: first the hostage releases and second how international law views the conflict within Colombia. Both of these issues are indeed connected back to Chavez since he has both declared the FARC to be a belligerent rather than "terrorist" group as well as being instrumental in getting hostages released most recently.

The hostage issue was a huge embarrassment for Uribe and had it continued it had the potential to undermine his strong hand tactics and present an alternative path towards peace. Internationally Colombia was facing a lot of pressure to pursue this path, one which Uribe does not want to take because of his commitment to a heavily militarized society and government (rightly or wrongly - another discussion to have).

More importantly, and where the US comes in, is how international law is interpreted. The US has a vision of the world that it can strike anywhere that it wants because it has labeled a group a "terrorist". Colombia was testing this vision of the world out, whether or not the US told or encouraged them to do it does not matter specifically to this point since if successful it would have reinforced the US version of international law. This was a huge failure for Uribe, and it turns out it doesn't matter that the FARC is a "terrorist" group, the region would not tolerate the attack on another country's sovereignty for any reason.

It made Colombia look like a militant state to other countries in the region. Since internally Uribe' popularity couldn't improve much, it may have been a neutral result. Internationally, with the potential interruption of fairly popular hostage releases and the disregard of international laws concerning sovereignty Uribe lost a lot of respect. He was smart enough to back down, and I'll give him credit there.

I do not know enough about Chavez's internal problems and have a hard enough time trying to read through the very strong anti-Chavez bias that permeates the global North's media to comment about the other points. But regionally - if any thing - Chavez's position was validated by his regional neighbours and his ally Correa earned a lot of regional prominence (and I suspect respect), hardly a loss to the "Bolivarian Alternative". And as trade resumes, Colombia realizes that it depends on Venezuela's oil money to buy its legal products, and it may not be such a bad thing that the purchasing power of the lower class Venezuelan has increased the demand for Colombian agricultural and food products. And just to put it out there, Venezuela might be providing an alternative exit to the war on drugs through increased demand for legitimate Colombian exports. A novel idea that probably is worth exploring.

It is really disappointing that the dominant international media fro the global North has not been interested in the impact this incident had on international law or even to investigate the internal civil war within Colombia. More often than not, it was a chance to write about how bad Chavez is doing recently and how Chavez was making the world a less safe place. There has been a great revision of events, issues, and problems to present a narrow vision of Latin America and its regional politics. What has been frightfully lost is any analysis in the Global North on how a peaceful resolution may be reached. If any thing, there is a hopeful sign or message in the conclusion of the conflict: Latin America has strong regional ties committed to regional stability (something we could not have said for the past decade) that transcends the political spectrum. Economic ties that have been increasing across countries in the past decade making regional peace and co-operation extremely important. And as an aside: the economic ties are based upon models of trade designed in Latin American and not by Washington (I am strongly against the FTAA model). Even between Colombia and Venezuela, the polar extremes of Latin American politics, there is a recognition of economic dependence that is breaking down the North-South trade. The increase of Venezuela's economy and purchasing power through the redistribution of oil wealth to lower classes has meant a sharp increase in demand for Colombian products, and the closing of the border while difficult for Venezuela was potentially more disastrous for Colombia. The resolution of the conflict highlighted a silver lining of greater regional integration and the necessity for co-operation. And to get my jab in against the anti-Chavistas, this has been part of the goal of Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution from day one and behind the commentary about Chavez's rhetoric one, there is the reality that Venezuela has played an important role in financing (directly and through trade) and organizing (ALBA, Mercosur, etc.) this regional integration.


NACLA News has an article on the stalled peace negotiations between Colombia and ELN, check it out:
Negotiating Peace in Colombia: A Missed Opportunity?

09 March 2008

Handshakes at Rio Group Summit - The Real News



As an aside - it is frightening to hear the Democratic candidates. The citizens of the US have to wake up or we are going to see a return to a more traditional US imperialism in their "backyard". While they are not Bush or Bush disciples, they still come from a political system dominated by economic interests and a reinvigorated left in the region scares multinational corporations in the US and Canada.

08 March 2008

Colombia bombs in Ecuador = Chavez the terrorist?

Don't be tricked by the mainstream media - Uribe didn't win. FOCAL (NED of Canada) had an analysis of this conflict today in the Grope and Flail to support their editor's anti-Chavez rant from earlier this week. Apparently according to these two this incident was manufactured by Chavez to create conflict, support terrorism in the region, draw attention away from his collapsing government, and generally to be the big bad wolf.

Lets review the facts (short list):
Colombia was the aggressor launching a strike within Ecuador without Ecuador's permission (Uribe: "I told them it was happening" makes it all okay, right?).

Ecuador responded immediately against the military aggression in its territory by taking up defencive position on its border (a logical response to a military attack on your territoriy by another country).

Venezuela, ally of Ecuador and also facing potential strikes in its territory by Colombia, responds similarly.

Colombia "does not" mobilize its army in response (therefore they are the "good guys"). Ignoring the FACT that its army is ALREADY mobilized (civil war) and already on the border (launched a military strike into Ecuador).

International condemnation against the act - including other rightwing governments in the region: Peru (immediately) and Mexico as well as "moderates" in Chile (immediately) and "centre-left" Brazil (immediately and strongly) and Argentina (immediately and strongly). But it is Chavez's fault according to FOCAL.

Uribe finds a laptop with emails detailing a "300" -obviously $300 million from Chavez to FARC for 2.5$ million per (specific amount, whatever it was way overpriced) in unrefined uranium. Be scared. Dirty bomb -international terrorist! Ecuador was *gasp* talking to FARC! Maybe that is what Uribe should be doing...

France, Ecuador, Venezuela respond: Reyes was negotiating the release of Betancourt. Uribe - you idiot!

Fit this into the wider picture of hostage releases, Chavez has had more success at this in a couple of months than Uribe in years - yes it is because of an ideological alliance, but that is besides the point if it eventually leads to the demobilization of FARC and real negotiations for peace. Chavez by negotiating the release of hostages is hardly making the FARC a more viable fighting force and perpetuating the conflict. FARC is losing the "war" against Uribe's army that is true, but FARC will not be defeated through slaughter and nor will the civil war end when they are dead - peace has to be established. Uribe doesn't want it.

For Uribe this incident has helped his support. Chavez is a monster (according to Colombians on Facebook).

But with the handshake, the request for forgiveness, and the promise to not do it again - it is Uribe who has been defeated. He found zero friends in Latin America for his American style preemptive strike. Correa meanwhile has gained in national and international statue for being level headed, hard dealer, and a nice guy to invite to your country to have talks (he talked with Alán García of Peru even!) - he proved his little country wont be bullied easily, that it will seek out friends, and in the end is looking for a peaceful resolution (Chavez apparently didn't get his war that FOCAL/NED argued he was looking for). Uribe learned that being an American puppet in Latin America is not popular, will get him isolated, and that in the end keeping in line with his neighbourhood watch is second only to internal politics. Uribe lost, but the US lost most.

06 March 2008

The Real News on Colombia's invasion of Ecuador

The Real News talks to Pepe Escobar on Colombia's assassination of Raúl Reyes within the territory of Ecuador.