The United States has given the world numerous examples of the arrogance of power in the last few decades, refusing to heed President Eisenhower's prescient warning about "the military-industrial complex."
I write now about the most recent example of such arrogance, a proposal by President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and Defense Secretary Hagel, to launch a military strike against the Syrian regime to protest the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.
I also note the relevant fact that, as described in Mark Leibovich's book This Town, Washington is a place where an elite political class operates in isolation from the rest of the country and operates primarily to ensure its own self-preservation rather than to promote policies beneficial to the populace of the country.
Apparently the trio, Obama, Kerry and Hagel, have forgotten that the U,S. is the only world power to use nuclear weapons of mass destruction against civilians. What basis does the U.S. have for claiming to have the moral high ground in the face of what the U.S. has itself done?
Though I do not often quote Republican House Speaker Boehner, in fact there is no legal basis for launching such an attack, as he has noted in a communication to the White Hosue.
Is the trio willing to ignore the fact that the Security Council will not support such a venture, given the opposition of Russia and China?
Have none of the trio learned any lessons from wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, wars which have been extremely costly in American lives and treasure and have failed to result in anything that could be claimed as "victory" for the U.S.?
What, if anything, does the trio see as a danger by the Syrian regime to the security interests of the US?
We have seen repeatedly that there is no way to predict what the blowback will be from other powers once the U.S. launches a military action somewhere in the world. There is simply no way to predict what the response of other powers in the Middle East and elsewhere would be to such a military action.
Has the trio forgotten that a "limited military action with limited objectives" generally leads to an expanded are of operations and a much larger war? There is no way to predict or control what other powers in the world would do in response to a U.S. action, whether accompanied by Britain and France or not.
Has the trio forgotten that taking action against the Syrian regime would put the U.S. on the side of
the Al Queda opposition?
To show the world yet another example of the arrogance of power of the U.S. would also be an example of the height of irresponsibility and failure to take account of the opposition of much of the population of this country to such a policy.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
OUR INJUSTICE SYSTEM
I have for most of my life held the believe that our justice system would provide justice under the law.
I myself have in some of my writings given voice to the voiceless or the underdog, often those who
are subjected to suppresion by the structures of power. This I did in my firm conviction that justice must prevail in the world. This is apparent in my two novels set in Hawai'i, where plantation workers are exploited by sugar and pineapple barons. The novels are: Sugar and Smoke, under the pen name Napua Chapman,
and Cane Fires, under my name, Joyce Lebra.
We have had numerous examples in recent years, however, of how our "justice system" operates to subvert justice and provide the opposite.. Most blatant was the O.J. Simpson trial a few decades ago, and we have the more recent example of the Zimmerman trial. What we see in many, if not most trials, is a game between lawyers, both prosecution and defense attorneys doying their best to win the game.
One example is in the novel, The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly,wherein the aggressive defense attorney is asked by his team assistant, "Do you believe she's guilty?" He replies, "That's beside the point," and in this trial the defense attorney's aggressive tactics succeed in getting his client off from a charge of murder. Later he realizes that in fact she was guilty and has gone free as a result of his efforts.
Or take the example of an actual case related in The Injustice System, by Clive Stafford Smith, again from the viewpoint of a defense attorney. An ethnic Indian was accused of a double murder in Miami in 1986.
This defense attorney employed every tactic available in the legal system to try to free the defendant,
whom he is convinced is innocent, but this man languished for over forty years in prison, part of the time
on death row. Here we see another example of manipulation of the law by a conviction-hungry prosecutor who witholds evidence and a judge who solicited bribes from the defendant. The victims in this case, depicted in court as respectable businessmen, had been laundering money for a drug cartel. After over forty years, the defense attorney saw no remedy for this hapless Indian defendant, who continued to be held in prison.
More recently we have the case of the Zimmerman trial, much in public view on the media for several weeks. In this case, the murder of an unarmed teen-age African American, the prosecution's pallid efforts were overcome by the effective tactics of the aggressive defense attorneys. Jurors were instructed by the judge not to use the phrase "racial profiling," though this was obviously what happened when Zimmerman, acting as an over-zealous neigthborhood watchman, followed the victim, accosted and shot him, even though police instructed him not to get out of his car. Zimmerman was quoted as saying, "These people always get away with everything." Strict instructions by the judge led jurors to believe that they had only one option::to free Zimmdfmzn.. Had I been on the jury I would have hung it, necessitating a further trial in the hope that justice might prevail in the end.
In general the system does not operate equally for prosecuting and defense attorneys. Prosecuting attorneys cannot be sued, whereas defense attorneys can be. Prosecutors are often over-eager to get a conviction,
which will advance political careers. It would seem that defense attorneys are at a distinct disadvantage in this situation. The attorney's game then proceeds under this unequal paradigm, in which defense attorneys attempt to prevail with this disadvantage.
For an African American, the only hope of success in a trial is generally if he or she has unlimited financial resources, as with O.J.Simpson. In fact, this is true with most individuals who become involved in a trial--the advantage goes to the person with the most money to hire the best, or most aggressive attorney.
I myself have in some of my writings given voice to the voiceless or the underdog, often those who
are subjected to suppresion by the structures of power. This I did in my firm conviction that justice must prevail in the world. This is apparent in my two novels set in Hawai'i, where plantation workers are exploited by sugar and pineapple barons. The novels are: Sugar and Smoke, under the pen name Napua Chapman,
and Cane Fires, under my name, Joyce Lebra.
We have had numerous examples in recent years, however, of how our "justice system" operates to subvert justice and provide the opposite.. Most blatant was the O.J. Simpson trial a few decades ago, and we have the more recent example of the Zimmerman trial. What we see in many, if not most trials, is a game between lawyers, both prosecution and defense attorneys doying their best to win the game.
One example is in the novel, The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly,wherein the aggressive defense attorney is asked by his team assistant, "Do you believe she's guilty?" He replies, "That's beside the point," and in this trial the defense attorney's aggressive tactics succeed in getting his client off from a charge of murder. Later he realizes that in fact she was guilty and has gone free as a result of his efforts.
Or take the example of an actual case related in The Injustice System, by Clive Stafford Smith, again from the viewpoint of a defense attorney. An ethnic Indian was accused of a double murder in Miami in 1986.
This defense attorney employed every tactic available in the legal system to try to free the defendant,
whom he is convinced is innocent, but this man languished for over forty years in prison, part of the time
on death row. Here we see another example of manipulation of the law by a conviction-hungry prosecutor who witholds evidence and a judge who solicited bribes from the defendant. The victims in this case, depicted in court as respectable businessmen, had been laundering money for a drug cartel. After over forty years, the defense attorney saw no remedy for this hapless Indian defendant, who continued to be held in prison.
More recently we have the case of the Zimmerman trial, much in public view on the media for several weeks. In this case, the murder of an unarmed teen-age African American, the prosecution's pallid efforts were overcome by the effective tactics of the aggressive defense attorneys. Jurors were instructed by the judge not to use the phrase "racial profiling," though this was obviously what happened when Zimmerman, acting as an over-zealous neigthborhood watchman, followed the victim, accosted and shot him, even though police instructed him not to get out of his car. Zimmerman was quoted as saying, "These people always get away with everything." Strict instructions by the judge led jurors to believe that they had only one option::to free Zimmdfmzn.. Had I been on the jury I would have hung it, necessitating a further trial in the hope that justice might prevail in the end.
In general the system does not operate equally for prosecuting and defense attorneys. Prosecuting attorneys cannot be sued, whereas defense attorneys can be. Prosecutors are often over-eager to get a conviction,
which will advance political careers. It would seem that defense attorneys are at a distinct disadvantage in this situation. The attorney's game then proceeds under this unequal paradigm, in which defense attorneys attempt to prevail with this disadvantage.
For an African American, the only hope of success in a trial is generally if he or she has unlimited financial resources, as with O.J.Simpson. In fact, this is true with most individuals who become involved in a trial--the advantage goes to the person with the most money to hire the best, or most aggressive attorney.
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