American Involvement in Syria

American Involvement in Syria

Here’s the question: Should America take direct involvement in the conflict in Syria? There are a lot of opinions on this matter, and I’m going to share my own Thinkin’s.

President Obama, his administration, and most American politicians seem to be saying yes (MARK LANDLER, 2013). Of course, my information comes from the media, which I don’t trust, so I really don’t know what the feeling is in Congress, the Senate, or President Obama’s cabinet. They say that the Assad regime in Syria illegally used Sarin gas against its own people during their civil war (CBC News, 2013). Early in the conflict when the American government was considering whether or not to be involved, I think I remember reading that President Obama would only consider direct involvement in the case of illegal action such as chemical or biological warfare. Now, I can’t find anything supporting that statement aside from my own vague memories. If I’m right about that, then President Obama’s administration may find itself in a case of making idle threats. If America said they’re going to do something about it and then they don’t, they will wind up with more severe problems down the road. America isn’t planning any “boots on the ground” approach, but they have many other tactics available. They have been positioning and posturing for quite some time, now.  

(British Broadcasting Channel, 2013)

There are some politicians that feel America shouldn’t be involved. One West Virginia Senator said that we don’t have a dog in this fight, or a friend there, either (The Tennessean, 2013). Russian President Vladimir Putin is not convinced that Syria did use illegal chemical weapons and has called upon President Obama to prove it on the world stage before taking any action (British Broadcasting Channel, 2013).

The United States cannot let this go unanswered. Every free man has a moral obligation to stand up to anyone doing evil. However, the USA is not the world’s police force. They have no allies or enemies in this conflict. Any military action by the United States will likely be declared illegal by the UN (Serwer, 2013). Here is what needs to happen: America and her allies need to make a case to the United Nations. If warranted, the United Nations should summon Assad to The Hague to defend himself against the accusations. If Assad fails to show, then the UN Security Council should issue a warrant for the arrest of Assad, with authorization to attack any military asset under Assad’s control until he has been brought in. The Security Council should then appoint an interested party to bring in Assad, and this is when the United States should act. This way, nobody can accuse the USA of doing whatever it wants, or being a bully, or only being after natural resources, or anything else they have been accused of in the past. Action would be backed by the UN, including Russia. Of course, Russia has a veto vote on the UN Security Council and they are strong supporters of the Syrian government. I don’t think that Russia is evil, though. If it is proven that Syria has used chemical weapons, the Russia would have to support action.

Bibliography

British Broadcasting Channel. (2013, August 31). Russia's Vladimir Putin challenges US on Syria claims. Retrieved September 3, 2013, from BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23911833

CBC News. (2013, September 2). Syria 'clearly' used sarin gas, French spy dossier says. Retrieved September 3, 2013, from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/09/02/france-releases-intelligence-report-on-syrian-chemical-weapons-use.html

MARK LANDLER, M. R. (2013, September 3). House Speaker Backs Obama’s Call for Strike Against Syria. Retrieved September 3, 2013, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/us/politics/obama-administration-presses-case-on-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Serwer, A. (2013, September 3). UN suggests American attack on Syria would be illegal. Retrieved September 3, 2013, from NBC News: http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/09/03/un-suggests-american-attack-on-syria-would-be-illegal/

The Tennessean. (2013, August 31). Alexander 'concerned about the consequences' of potential Syria strike. Retrieved September 3, 2013, from The Tennessean: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130831/NEWS08/308310070/MTSU-expert-Not-enough-support-war-Syria?nclick_check=1

Court of Law versus The Media

Welcome to the Free World.

Over so many generations, people have fought, lobbied, compromised, died, and voted to create what we call "rights". These rights are the foundation of western society, spanning most famously back to the Magna Carta, and more recently the American Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Now, what do you do when exercising your rights causes someone else harm or infringes upon their rights? I have been noticing a pattern lately, and I have no idea what to do about it. Ever since I found a method of making my opinions public, I have been a critic of the media. The pen truly is mightier than the sword, but how do you get the media to sheathe that pen? There have been several instances in our lifetime of the media destroying lives, most recently George Zimmerman and gun seizures following the flood in High River. There were also several cases of police officers under fire over use of Conductive Energy Weapons (Tasers).



George Zimmerman killed a kid named Trayvon Martin. It was an awful thing that happened, and Zimmerman has to learn to live with what he's done. He was acquitted of his charges, which means that the Court of Law found him not criminally responsible for the kid's death. He may still be morally responsible, but that's between him and his own conscience. The media jumps right on top of this by giving so much airtime to people who disagree with the verdict. The entire populace seems to be up in arms that he was found Not Guilty. There's a pretty good chance that you have an opinion on the verdict yourself, but make sure you came to the conclusion through appropriate means. Did you read all the Court transcripts? Did you examine the evidence and witness testimony? Do you actually have training and experience in making sense of these things? Or, do you have an admittedly uneducated opinion swayed by the media? Even though the Court of Law found Zimmerman to be in the clear criminally, the media was swayed the Court of Public Opinion to find him guilty anyways, and he will never be able to show his face where he might be recognized again. To make it worse, the media has pretty much ensured that everyone in North America knows Zimmerman's face. During the Zimmerman trial, some white lady kidnapped a black kid and burned him to death with a blowtorch. That didn't get very much attention, but the Zimmerman trial sure did.



Another high profile case of the media swaying the Court of Public Opinion was the death of Robert Dziekanski. These officers that were called to deal with this situation had very little information. They knew there was a guy who was causing a disturbance, and they may have had the information that he probably wasn't armed. They showed up to a guy screaming things they couldn't understand, and throwing stuff around. He was obviously not in a state where he was capable of intelligent communication. The police who showed up on scene used a universal sign for "stop doing what you're doing," They pointed weapons at him and started yelling at him to get on the ground. He didn't calm down, so making the snap decision that it wasn't safe to approach into a reachable zone, they deployed their CEW to incapacitate Dziekanski so that they could control him. There were all sorts of theories thrown about surrounding his death, but if I recall correctly, his actual cause of death was some sort of cardiac distress. The problem was not the deployment of the CEW. The problem was not the responding officers beating him to death. The problem wasn't even Positional Asphyxiation (when a suspect is left restrained on his front and cannot breathe), which seemed very possible because 4 officers were restraining him. In hindsight, could it have been done differently? Probably. Did the officers make the best decision they could with the information available to them? I have very little doubt. Is it unfortunate what happened to Dziekanski? Immeasurably so. The media started jumping all over not just the officers, but the use of CEW's, too. Every officer that uses a CEW has to go through training, which involves having a CEW used on him/her. If it was really that dangerous, that practice probably would cease, as we don't use guns on each other in training. A police officer's duty belt has on it: a gun with which they can kill you, OC spray to burn the shit out of your face, and a baton to beat you into submission. If I'm ever out of control, I pray that they use the CEW to disable me instead of the other tools on their belts.


While managing the near destruction of my hometown of High River, someone decided to send inspectors into every building in town to grade its habitability level before people were let back in. You can't just send inspectors into people's homes, so they were accompanied by Mounted Police officers. There is still a lot of controversy surrounding this whole situation with more information coming to light every day, like a lot of houses were left unlocked, but Mounties kicked in the doors anyways, without taking the time to check the doorknob. While checking out houses, the police seized a lot of firearms from unoccupied residences, citing a need to secure unsecured weapons. That makes sense to me, right? The police destroyed your door, which had secured your weapons. Now that they've caused your weapons to be unsecured, they secured them for you. It definitely seems to me that this decision was made for the right reasons. However, the media gets a hold of it, and it becomes a huge issue about unreasonable search and seizure, and even got as ridiculous as disarmament under a Police State, which is just stupid.

The purpose of my writing this blog entry was not to get people involved in the debate of each individual issue. I cited these issues and my opinions on them simply to illustrate what can happen when the media stops reporting the whole story, and swirls everything into a huge controversy to sell newspapers/web hits. This is not a call to legislate how the media reports stories. That would be government censorship, and that's wrong. I do want to call on all major media outlets to keep reporting every side of the story equally, rather than just the side of the story that's going to rile up the most people. That is the difference between responsible journalism and disrupting the peace.

Opinions

We are currently living in a society that thinks its members has the right to speak their mind, but they do not. Our Charter Right to freedom of speech only means that we cannot be prosecuted by the criminal justice system. Sharing your opinion publicly will often lead to persecution in the court of public opinion, and can lead to dishonour, unemployment, and loss of social status. I think this is total crap.

I feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion. This entitlement should apply to every opinion, no matter how inappropriate, uneducated, or offensive. Speaking your opinion in a public setting invariably is an invitation for everyone to express their own on the topic. This is how we learn about the works around us, and it is a good thing. What is not a good thing is when the lynch mob tries to ruin your life over it.

Terrorism Defined

Terrorism is a term that has been getting misused, particularly by American media for quite a long time. "Terrorist" has come to mean anyone who strongly disagrees with American policies. This is incorrect. The true definition of terrorism is "The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."

The point I'm trying to make is that the act of a terrorist is one designed to cause fear among a large population. The purpose of causing this fear is so that the people will push their leaders to make decisions congruent with the terrorist's wishes. For instance, I will paint a hypothetical picture:

Canada's military has been involved in Afghanistan for several years, now. Obviously, the Taliban wants to end that involvement. To date, the Taliban has been fighting coalition forces by use of roadside Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), and guerrilla military strikes. A possible option on the table for them would be to have an agent place an explosive device in a busy place like an airport or movie theatre in Canada and detonate it. Then they would post a video saying that more attacks will take place unless Canada pulls its military out of Afghanistan. Many people would be in such a panic and telling our elected officials "We're not safe, we need to give in." Of course, there would be some like me and mine that would say something along the lines of, "Step it up, we can't tolerate this. Crush them." It's tough to say which way the majority would lean, which is probably one of the many reasons (aside from our government's own security precautions) that is hasn't been attempted, yet.

The reason I'm talking about this is because the recent event in Boston almost doesn't look like a terrorist attack. It certainly caused a lot of damage and fear, but no one seems to be claiming responsibility and making demands. There is no apparent political goal to this attack. This is probably why the Obama administration is referring to it as a "domestic event" rather than an attack. Directly after the World Trade Centre was attacked, Osama Bin Laden immediately took credit on behalf of Al Quaida. Why is no one stepping up? Because there is no one to step up. It was done by an individual or small group of people for reasons currently unknown.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their loved ones. I hope more information comes to light very soon so that we can find justice and closure. I have included what the CBC has learned so far:

Same-Sex Couples

I am uncomfortable when I see two guys making out. I have your attention now, don't I?

I don't consider myself homophobic or against homosexuality in any way. In fact, one of my favourite people happens to be gay. He even lived with me for a while. I'm totally cool with it, as long as I don't have to see it.

I have a theory about why it makes me uncomfortable. I actually enjoy watching attractive females taking part in public displays of affection, or just doing inappropriate things to seek attention. Yes, I am that guy. It isn't because of my feelings regarding homosexuality that I'm uncomfortable watching guys, it's simply that I'm not attracted to them, so it's weird. I'm attracted to women, so it's cool. I'm not attracted to men, so it's awkward. How about that?

Anyways, I am strongly in favour of same-sex couples. Congratulations on getting together with someone who makes you happy. If you want to marry them, power to ya! And the more gay guys, the better. Less competition for us not-as-sexy straight guys. I already won and found myself a beautiful wife, but I still cheer for my former team.

When it comes to same-sex marriage, I don't think it's the government's place to tell us who we can and cannot marry (as long as they're both human consenting adults mentally able to make the decision). I also don't believe that the government should tell marriage commissioners, religious or otherwise, who they have to marry and who they can't. I think the marriage commissioners have a moral responsibility to not marry anyone they don't think should be married. Whether that reason is that he doesn't like them, or if he doesn't think they're a good couple, or if he suspects abuse, a marriage commissioner should make that responsible call. If the couple seeking marriage disagrees with the commissioner, they should find a different one.

I found a video on YouTube about gay marriage that made me giggle. I couldn't embed it, but here is a link to it:

http://youtu.be/X-YCdcnf_P8

Labelling Sex Offenders

I had to write this in response to something Phillip DeFranco recently said on his YouTube channel. I'm a huge fan and I have a lot of respect for him, but I have to disagree with him on this.

Here is the video:

Phil's source: http://bit.ly/WVHeve

While I am a strong supporter of seeking justice and strong penalties, I do oppose the Sex Offender Registry. I also disagree with announcing the release of sex offenders via local media.

Especially in Canada, our Criminal Justice system is moving away from punishment and towards rehabilitation. I support this movement. I believe that justice is having an offender honestly seek forgiveness and make amends to his victims, and then reintegrate back into society to be a productive member. A more punitive system isn't so much justice as vengeance. Don't get me wrong, I believe vengeance has its place, but as a society, we haven't really figured out where that place is, yet.

If you keep to my theory of rehabilitation and reintegration, labeling and registering criminals is counter-productive. If someone is convicted of a crime and does his time, he should be able to reintegrate into society. He cannot reintegrate back into society if he is labelled as a rapist and shunned by society. If we aren't prepared for him to reintegrate fully into society, then we shouldn't be allowing him in society at all.

Of course, before you can even attempt reintegration, you must successfully rehabilitate. You can't reintegrate if you haven't rehabilitated. If the offender hasn't been completely and successfully rehabilitated, he should remain institutionalized and we shouldn't even try to reintegrate him. In fact, if he has been deemed incapable of rehabilitation, he should be put down like the dangerous animal he is.

In a Criminal Justice system of my design, you would have to meet certain criteria before being reintegrated into society.
1) Be deemed to have been successfully rehabilitated by a an unbiased panel of experts.
2) Have made amends directly to the victims of his crimes.
3) Have received sincere forgiveness from his victim(s).

I think as a society, we would ultimately benefit from this school of thought. How do you feel about it? Please feel free to comment.

Minimum Wage Increases

I think that increasing minimum wage in Alberta hurts the economy. I'm sure some people are going to work at setting me straight, so I'm looking forward to the education. The reason I dislike minimum wage increases is that there is no value in increasing it, as I am working on a concept called relative wage.

You absolute wage is how much you make. For instance, if you make $12/hr, you make $12/hr. Your relative wage is how much you make compared to minimum wage. Currently in Alberta, if you make $12/hr, you make $2.25 more than minimum wage ($9.75). Therefore, I will refer to your relative wage as $2.25/hr. I may later change my definition of relative wage to mean a ratio of minimum wage, but the difference will suffice for the point I'm trying to make.

When I first put both feet in the workforce, minimum wage was $5.90/hr. I remember starting at the River Roadhouse as a doorman at $7.00/hr. That was decent for me at 18 years old for what I was doing. I was listening to awesome live music, drinking free pop, eating discounted food, helping out the waitresses a bit, and dealing with the occasional drunk guy making a bad decision. Cool. Nowadays the absolute wage of $7.00/hr doesn't sound very good at all, but my relative wage was $1.10/hr. For the job I was doing, I found that to be just fine.

Now, back when the minimum wage was $5.90/hr, a $12.00/hr job was actually a relative wage of $6.10. Not bad, right? Now here's where my problem with minimum wage increases: $12.00/hr jobs are still $12.00/hr jobs in absolute terms, especially in tertiary industries. All we manage to do when we increase minimum wage is decrease the relative wage of everyone not on minimum wage. That job which paid a relative wage of $6.10/hr when I first started in the workforce is currently paying $2.25/hr.

Now, we can't blame greedy employers for this problem. At first, I wanted to. I have learned a lot about business over the past few years, and you simply can't blame owners. A line cook making $12/hr is going to keep making $12/hr so long as you're not willing to pay more than $10 for a burger and fries. I know several restaurateurs, and I can't think of a single one of them that would be opposed to paying their line cooks $25/hr, but nobody wants to pay $37 for a caesar salad, so it just isn't possible.

Now what about the people making minimum wage? How can they earn a comfortable living? They can make a comfortable living by bettering themselves. By learning, climbing the corporate ladder, working hard. Increasing minimum wage does them no favours because their relative wage stays exactly the same.

The problem employers face when minimum wage is increased is that it hurts the bottom line. Especially in the bar and restaurant industry, you can't increase your prices. Nobody wants to pay $5 for a beer, and nobody wants to pay $20 for a burger. You can't offset that cost. The entire industry is hurting right now. The bar I started working at when I was 18 used to be a huge party every weekend. 160-180 people at any given time after about 10:00 on Friday and Saturday. Now it's closed. While I'm sure it's not the only reason, I know the effect minimum wage has on the bottom line is a factor.

Write your MLA's. Ask for a freeze on minimum wage. It's the only way to protect your own relative wage.