The UN is dishing out lunacy, idiocy and knee-slapping humour!

AND A NECESSARY AFTERWORD :)

I thought it was just Ban Ki-moon and the chief of the panel he’s appointed recently, one Marzuki Darusman, who didn’t know if they are coming or going.   Ki-moon said it was just a committee tasked to advice him on things pertaining to Sri Lanka. He said, through his representative, that there would be no investigation. Darusman says (magnanimously) that the panel will ‘also’ investigate the LTTE, as though he would be doing us some big favour.  LTTE is past tense and we don’t need some ill-advised dabblers to tell us the ‘truth’ about the LTTE. We already know.

Ki-moon’s representative, when announcing the panel and in response to questions from the media, has categorically stated that the panel does not have the authority to investigate or even visit Sri Lanka.  Darusman on the other hand clearly uses the word ‘investigate’.  Someone’s very confused here.  One of the two, i.e. Ki-moon or Darusman is so dumb that he ought to resign immediately or else be kicked out unceremoniously. 

On the other hand, we have that ace trouble-maker and Tiger-lover, Eric Solheim, trying to tell us that ‘thousands of lives could have been saved if the LTTE agreed to surrender’ before the leadership was finally eliminated.  Solheim says that had the LTTE been agreeable, the surrender would have been overseen by a special UN force.  Well, first of all, Solheim’s opinion constitutes toilet wash, given his considerable history as a promoter of terrorism.  Secondly, given that the Secretary General of the UN is now a confirmed imbecile, muddle-headed in thinking, moronic in appointment and given to act like executive and not the administrator that he is, I dread to think what such a mechanism would have entailed. 

Just imagine Ki-moon and Solheim overseeing surrender by the latter’s pals!  Solheim, even as the LTTE killed ‘thousands’ did nothing to ‘save lives’. Instead he rewarded the killers through his Government, the KINGDOM (yes, not democracy) of Norway.  At the end of the day killers such as Pulidevan, Nadesan, Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman and Charles Anthony would have been roaming around plotting to set off bombs and kill thousands of innocent people and when that day dawned guess who will be left carrying the baby.  Solheim? Ki-moon? No, the near and dear of the dead! 

Solheim is Solheim. Tiger-lover to the end, we can’t expect any logic to come from this individual’s mouth.  Sri Lanka was his toy. The key word is ‘was’.  He was Chandrika Kumaratunga’s favourite and later Ranil Wickremesinghe’s bosom buddy. He’s lost his toy and therefore his whines are quite understandable, poor boy. 

The world, however, is full of Solheims and Ki-moons, it seems.  Another ‘wise guy’, Mark Toner, the Deputy Spokesman (we are told) of the US State Department, has expressed the support of the USA for this panel.  Ever since Robert Blake started partying with apologists for the LTTE in Colombo, Uncle Sam’s position on Sri Lanka has been one of doing whatever possible to undermine the effort to vanquish terrorism. We’ve had Barack Obama sound like the idiot that he is not and Hillary Clinton being, well, Hillary Clinton quite thick and happy in what her President once said was ‘the season of silliness’.  Coming from a country whose leaders have perfected the art of genocide, double standards, myopia and selective amnesia, I suppose Toner could do no better.  Still, his ignorance stands out too starkly to escape comment.

Toner urges Sri Lanka to ‘take advantage of this team…take advantage of their offer.’ The fool has not been briefed and doesn’t seem to understand the importance of doing the basics in terms of getting facts straight.  There is nothing on offer here, Toner and therefore nothing to ‘take advantage’ of.  Quite apart from the fact that the head of the panel is a blundering jackass who hasn’t read his job description and who was part of a team of ‘experts’ who proved they were easily purchased by the pro-LTTE lobby in Colombo, Toner doesn’t understand that the panel’s mandate is to brief Ki-moon and not make a list of goodies for the people of Sri Lanka.

However, since Toner represents a powerful country with considerable arm-twisting ability, he could get Ki-moon to actually offer some goodies to Sri Lanka.  Got me thinking.

Toner can tell Ki-moon that Sri Lanka could do with a lot of help. We really need a lot of disinfectant, mops, detergents, deodorizers and other equipment and accessories pertaining to clean floors, bathrooms, sinks etc., because every two weeks or so we have a bunch of idiots who can’t hold their liquor vomiting it all out all over the place.

We need to be offered some moron-testing devices that we can use to filter out idiots who are frequently sent to Sri Lanka to look around with half-closed eyes and then to talk through their what-not as though they have a clue about what’s happening, what happened and what might happen. 

One more offer, please, Toner.  Can you ask Obama to start moving things so that his pals can come up with a brand new award, a Nobel or an equivalent, to celebrate and honour humour?  We really need a Nobel Prize for Clowning.  If Obama could get a Nobel Prize for Peace for doing jack-all, then he might as well get one for being a joker, except that we have someone who is far more worthy of award, recognition and many pats on the back and slaps on the thighs.  Toner, do the honours.  Offer us the (comic) relief of having our friend and benefactor, Ban Ki-moon being given the Nobel Prize for Clowning.  He deserves it.

The above was published in the Daily News of June 29, 2010.  The following was published the next day.

THE MORNING INSPECTION

My heartfelt apologies to some lovely people I may have offended

(mannikkavum ban ki-moon) 

There is a plus side to inserting an email address at the bottom of a newspaper article.  One gets a lot of feedback. I like reading comments, suggestions, answering questions, clarifying when clarification is sought etc.  Not all comments are in agreement of course.  Some take issue with assertion, some point out flaw.  All in all, it’s ‘engagement’ and therefore stimulating and welcome.  There is of course the occasional stinker and these I tend to ignore because it takes all kinds after all to make the world.  

I got one of these latter type emails a short while ago.  The author, let me call him Roshan, was apparently ‘extremely disappointed’ and ‘quite shocked’ to read what I had written for the Daily News on Monday (The UN dishing out lunacy, idiocy and knee slapping humour).  Roshan chides me for what he claims is illogical and irrational expression of criticism.  He doesn’t want me to use phrases like ‘Tiger-lover’ or words like ‘idiot’.  These, he says, had made him feel ashamed.   

Now I don’t think I was being irrational or illogical.  I do agree that it is nice if we can be nice and if niceties got things done but then again we are not talking to ‘nice’ people, are we?  I mean, could we describe Ban Ki-moon, Solheim and others as intellectual giants or saints?  It is not that I have not been ‘kind’ and ‘decent’ and ‘nice’ and ‘sugary’.  The world is not a pretty place and sometimes when one is ‘nice’ it is taken as ‘weakness’.  There is not fool-proof method of engagement. We try one thing. It doesn’t work. We try another.  And sometimes we just wait and what we wish for transpires for reasons we were not able to predict.  Anyway, I thought it would ‘nice’ to be ‘nice’ to Roshan, to alleviate his suffering and cure him of the shame that I’m accused of causing him.  So here goes.

I address this to Ban, Eric, Navi and other honourable ladies and gentlemen. 

Dearest(s),

I am amazed and utterly in awe of the great sense of responsibility and justice that touch all your actions and statements.  I am amazed and am in utterly in awe of how fair you have been, how balanced in judgment and even-handed you’ve been in viewing the world.  I believe that as a citizen of a member state of the United Nations, I am indeed privileged to have people like you to define for me the realities I inhabit. 

I am thrilled beyond words that you have treated Sri Lanka in exactly the same manner that you have treated the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Israel.  Your integrity shines so brightly that even from this corner of Planet Earth I am able to tell that you have had the eyes to view places like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other places, especially in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, ‘Palestine’ and Pakistan and have been beyond reproach in your assessment of events that have taken place. I am given to believe that NOTHING has taken place in such places to warrant censure of any kind, the appointment of an advisory panel or commissioning of investigation. 

I want to tell you that I have wronged you and a person called Roshan by saying nasty things about you a couple of days ago.  I regret using words such as ‘idiot’ and implying that you were moronic and partial to terrorists and their allies.  I now believe that you are utterly, utterly, absolutely blameless of any wrong-doing.  I am convinced that you are not petty-minded, do not know the meaning of the term ‘double-standards’ and have never acted in a high-handed manner.  Let it not be said also that any of you, especially Mr. Ki-moon, have operated outside the ambit of your job description. 

Darlings, you are lovely, lovely, saintly, wondrous individuals.  Indeed it is people like you who give us hope that the world can be a better place, that justice and fair play will someday triumph over malice, vindictiveness, deceit and other things that none of you will ever be found guilty of. 

I am full of remorse for having engaged in name-calling.  It was, believe me, done in a weak moment, in a fit of anger.  I should have been more circumspect.  Please, please forgive me, my dearest(s).  Please, also, be assured of my undying and eternal love and affection and loyalty from now until forever and two days more thereafter (for good measure). 

I am copying this to Roshan, who, dear friends, doesn’t seem to have the time to read newspapers. I am going to email to him.  He is, I am sure, a darling little boy, a staunch supporter of our beloved Secy Gen Ban, well Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (Roshan might be a tad peeved for abbreviating the name and title of such a saintly personality).  I urge you lovelies to consider writing to him.  Email me and I will get back to you with his email address.  

Roshan is convinced that the ‘invective’ of a ‘misled’ columnist (myself) has ‘reduced the respect that he thinks Sri Lanka has/had in the global context.  I did not know I was so influential, but anyway, I trust this missive would restore Sri Lanka’s status to its former glory. 

Dear all, I trust, now that I have showed what I believed is sufficient penitence, that you will forgive me.  I am hopeful, also that you will now further honour me by reiterating your commitment to fair play and to upholding the norms and protocols pertaining to your respective offices and to continue to treat (as you always have) all member states as equals in the family of nations.

Much love. Always and forever and two days more.

Me.  

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On threat and threat-source: real and imagined

In October 1983, the United States of America invaded a Caribbean island nation.  Grenada was at the time governed by the New Jewel Movement, led by Maurice Bishop.  Bishop was assassinated on October 19, 1983 by troops loyal to his own Deputy Prime Minister, Bernard Coard. Bishop was no friend of the USA. The USA determined after the fact of assassination that Coard was a threat to US interests. On October 25, 1993, the USA invaded Grenada.  It was called ‘Operation Urgent Fury.  The New Jewel Movement was overthrown and a puppet duly installed.  Reason: threat to security. 

The ‘threat’ came in the form of an airstrip which Ronald Reagan thought would be used by Soviet war planes.  Grenada is 133 square miles in size.  It had at the time a population less than 100,000 people.  Some 10,000 pigs, someone said, I remember.  Possibly less than 1000 dogs. Some cats.  Maybe several hundred thousand mosquitoes and a similar number of flies. A threat to the United States of America, we were told. 

‘Threat’ is an often used reference for invasion and it’s been used so many times that it has got boring and funny. Not so for the invaded, let me add.  The United States is probably the most shit-scared nation on earth, considering how frequently and how violently that country has invaded by and large peaceful nations over the past 100 years. 

Grenada was a threat.  Oh dear! 

Then we had the ‘threat’ of Iraq harbouring ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (WMD).  More than half a million people have perished in the unsuccessful efforts to discover a single such device. 

Let’s put it all down to ‘cultural preference’. Maybe the USA has a cultural fascination with threats.  They are wont, by cultural gene, to see threats where there are none and to kill thousands and thousands of people while swishing sword and spraying bullets on phantoms. 

The latest ‘funny’ to hit the political headlines is the somber pronouncement from Washington that Wikileaks is a ‘global threat’.  I don’t know when Hillary Clinton assumed the role of global spokesperson, but I haven’t really heard the ‘globe’ expressing displeasure about Wikileaks.  She is upset that those exposed will be targeted by the bogeyman or some such creature.  Wikileaks ‘risks lives’, Washington screams.  Whose lives? Where? When?  Wikileaks has been around for 4 years and Clinton cannot name one person who has suffered a pinprick of harm outside of embarrassment they ought to have been ready to suffer when they did the down-and-dirty.  

As Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange points out, Washington has been two-tongued about the truth of abuses published by his outfit.  The US pooh-poohs Wikileaks, saying ‘there is nothing of importance’ even as they scream ‘You’ll risk lives, compromise national security and endanger troops’.  Can’t be both.  Assange therefore asks, ‘which is it?’

What’s really funny is the fact that the Obamas, Clintons and others who appear to be wetting their pants thanks to Wikileaks, are themselves even-as-we-speak endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in various parts of the world and actually killing hundreds.

Here’s a choice quote from Assange which no one in the Evil Empire led by the US and UK have refuted:

‘US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.’

They have not refuted and probably cannot counter the following startling facts revealed by US diplomatic cables:  1. The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties.  2. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran. 3. Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available. 4. Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests" (ref the ongoing Chilcott Inquiry). 5. Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament. 6. The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. 7. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. 8.  Australia’s Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.

A bunch of rogue nations that declare war on whim and disguise real intent (securing access to resources and taking control of markets) as response to (imagined, nay constructed) threat, will naturally earn the wrath of those they wrong. If the Clintons of this world were worried about lives being risked and national security being compromised and need to identify source of threat asap, all they need to do is rush to the loo. I am sure most washrooms in the offices they inhabit come equipped with a mirror. 

[first published in 'The Nation' in December 2010]

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The world hasn’t moved much since Dag Hammarskjöld was taken out

On September 18, 1961, a Swedish diplomat, economist and author was killed when the airplane he was travelling in was shot down over Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia.  ‘Killed’ is the word used by Harry Truman:  ‘Dag Hammarskjöld was on the point of getting something done when they killed him; notice that I said, “When they killed him”. Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld at the time was the Secretary General of the United Nations.  The murder was covered up by British colonial authorities. 
   

Research by Goran Bjorkdahl a Swedish aid worker, has clearly implicated British and US authorities in what was brushed aside as a plane crash, but now appears to have been a cleverly and comprehensively orchestrated assassination.  The US and Britain were at the time livid that Hammarskjöld ordered UN intervention on behalf of the Congolese government against a rebellion backed by Western mining companies and mercenaries in the mineral-rich Katanga region. He was a strong advocate of decolonization and was on the verge of being re-elected on the back of widespread support from developing nations.   

The only survivor of the crash, Harold Julian, was allowed to die in a poorly equipped local hospital.  Before he died, Sergeant Julian told police he had seen sparks in the sky and an explosion before the crash.

What’s the relevance, though?  It’s simple.  This is typical of how the US and Britain operate.  It’s not about democracy or concern for civilians. It’s about propping friendly thugs committed to protecting commercial interests.  

The White House has (naturally) condemned the release of over 90,000 secret US military documents about operations in Afghanistan by Wikileaks which detail covert action against the Taliban, unreported civilian killings and torture.  Thousands of civilians have been killed in these operations.  All ‘collateral’, none accounted for, and no apologies or change of policy.  It’s called, in watered-down language of course, ‘incoherent process in dealing with civilian casualties’ And these are the people who went to war against Gaddafi for attacking (yes!) ‘civilians’.

To recap the Libyan case, the US and Britain wrangled a resolution from the UN Security Council to set up a no-fly zone, quickly brushed aside the limiting clauses of that resolution and waged open war on Libyan security forces, killing civilians, bombing residential areas and committing all manner of crimes against humanity.  Chief of the US Navy, Gary Roughead has admitted that US forces ‘had already taken up positions against Libya’ way back in March, indicating that the operation was planned and had little to do with Gaddafi or his tyrannical ways (which of course can be forgiven considering the leeway given to worse tyrants who are useful to Washington). It was about taking control of oil, ensuring the safety of Israel, preventing the liberation of the Arab world, hindering African unity and setting up NATO as the watchdog of Africa.  Business as usual, folks!

Then there’s Iraq.  It’s now revealed that Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defence, lied to Congress about atrocities committed by US forces, including the horrendous torture chambers in Abu Ghraib.   Tony Blair is being hauled over the coals these days.  David Miliband should be shackled to the former Prime Minister for being so blind to what happened under his very nose while happily purchasing lies provided by voters who were upset that their best loved terrorist, Velupillai Prabhakaran was bested by a Sri Lankan citizenry that refused to play ball in a London-authored script. 

Conspiracy theory, did someone say?  Here’s some ‘conspiracy’ for those who remain credulous.  Wesley Clark, the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe between 1997 and 2001, who supervised the bombings in Yugoslavia was candid: ‘In 2001, at the Pentagon, a general told me: I just received a classified memo from the Secretary of Defence; we will take seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and finally, Iran.’   There seems to be a delay, but the objectives remain. To be taken. One by one. 

This is why when Barack Obama, his civil servants and happily half-blind loyalists in the media try to make out that the USA is the beacon of global peace and goodness, it is hard to keep a straight face.  The only difference between him and his predecessor is that Bush’s wars appeared to be crusades of some dumb white people while Obama’s have the veneer of ‘goodness’, liberation struggles on behalf of poor, weak, oppressed people led by decent, intelligent, sophisticated, modern leaders.  Results?  Same!  I would pick a Bush over an Obama any day because nudity has its virtues and disguise nauseates.

As for the media, it would have us believe that it is ok for good people (so defined) to bomb, kill, invade, slaughter entire villagers, rob oil and resources, give legitimacy to terrorists dressed as rebels, arm them, give logistical military support and even lead them against other sections of the same population etc., while the bad folks (so defined) can be bombed and subjected to summary execution along with any poor suckers who happen to be around when bombs are dropped or bullets sprayed.

Dag Hammarskjöld was assassinated 50 years ago.  George Bush (Snr) talked about a New World Order, twenty years ago.  Half a century after the first and two decades after the first invasion of Iraq, there’s nothing new in the New World Odour.  ‘Same old shit,’ as someone observed during a protest in Boston in the first days of that adventure. 

And people actually wonder why most people in most countries in the world, responded to the 9/11 attacks (and this was before questions were asked about it being an inside job) with sympathy for victims followed by a telling, ‘but still….!’  I can only imagine how loud the cheering will be when it all bursts as it must according to the primordial principles first articulated by Siddhartha Gauthama, the Buddha, some 2,500 years ago: ‘all things are impermanent; they are born, decay and perish’.  I am no clairvoyant, but I think I will live to see the day and when it comes I will meditate on the millions who had to die to please this grotesque affront to human civilization. 

[Courtesy, The Nation, August 28, 2011] 

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