Thank You, Treaty Of Westphalia
Crazy things happening in the world:
(-) In a raid to apprehend 3 suspects in the Madrid bombing, the raid failed because the suspects set off an explosion, blowing themselves up in the process. I won't even go into the notions of nationalism and the cultural divide between the "west" and Islamic culture, but wow. It's very romantic (in that "new left", paris commune, 1968 sort of way) that in a world dominated by liberal values there are those who say to themselves, "There's no way they're taking me alive," and mean every word of it.
(-) There was a march by an all-female Islamic militant group in Baghdad. The march was self-professed anti-US occupation while simultaneously being in support of a Shiite cleric (a different one than Sistani, who as of yet maintains the highest amount of support from anti-US Iraqis). There's an article I haven't finished reading, but it's about how gunmen open fire in a protest, so I'm not sure if it's the same protest. Either way 2 Marines were killed, putting the toll of US casualties at over 600.
(-) Working off the last point, if I had to choose a real life illustration of irony, it would have to be the utterly superfluous, stupid shit that is occurring. Specifically how the US is suffering a lot of negative feedback on how they will not be able to stabilize Iraq before their supposed transfer-of-sovereignty date of June 30. However, the lack of stability is solely because the US is occupying the country in the first place. So stupid.
(-) There's a movie coming out sometime this year called "Hotel Rwanda". It's about the story of this man who owned a hotel in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994, sheltering over a thousand Tutsis from mobs of Hutu militants. Just for the record (and in case you didn't know) that genocide was the fastest genocide in history, where over 800,000 Tutsis were killed in less than a month. I can't remember the exact statistic, but that equates to something like 15 people every minute or something crazy (that stat. is totally not true, I can't remember it). If any of you are interested in what has been considered the worst blunder among the international community in the '90s, you should read this book called We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. The author is Michael Ignatieff, a really awesome and renounced political scientist. It's an easy read, not theory, just a layout of how it all went down, day by day (i.e. How the majority of people were killed via machete, and how there were so many people to kill that people would get tired, use the machete to chop off the achilles tendons of their Tutsi victims so they A) couldn't run away B) would be in such immense pain they couldn't crawl away). There's also chapters written by other people (i.e. a general of Canadian origin who was the general of the UN peacekeeping force who completely acknowledges that if he was granted authority, he had the capacity and resources to save thousands of lives, but didn't). And for a little update, Rwanda was getting back on track in being a stabilized state, but because of the massacre there is now a backlash of Tutsi militants who pretty much want to murder their Hutu brethren.
(-) I hate to get really into it, but Hutus and Tutsis really don't have distinguished superficial features-- the ethnic divide was completely created back when Rwanda was a Dutch colony. How weird it must be to live in Rwanda, be lucky enough to survive the genocide, move back home in an attempt to return to a normal life, then deal with the weird situation of having your neighbor who killed your wife in the heat of panic and conflict. If you have any interest, I really recommend reading that book.
Eh, I was gonna talk about some more stuff happening in the world, but I think I'll stop for right now.
(-) In a raid to apprehend 3 suspects in the Madrid bombing, the raid failed because the suspects set off an explosion, blowing themselves up in the process. I won't even go into the notions of nationalism and the cultural divide between the "west" and Islamic culture, but wow. It's very romantic (in that "new left", paris commune, 1968 sort of way) that in a world dominated by liberal values there are those who say to themselves, "There's no way they're taking me alive," and mean every word of it.
(-) There was a march by an all-female Islamic militant group in Baghdad. The march was self-professed anti-US occupation while simultaneously being in support of a Shiite cleric (a different one than Sistani, who as of yet maintains the highest amount of support from anti-US Iraqis). There's an article I haven't finished reading, but it's about how gunmen open fire in a protest, so I'm not sure if it's the same protest. Either way 2 Marines were killed, putting the toll of US casualties at over 600.
(-) Working off the last point, if I had to choose a real life illustration of irony, it would have to be the utterly superfluous, stupid shit that is occurring. Specifically how the US is suffering a lot of negative feedback on how they will not be able to stabilize Iraq before their supposed transfer-of-sovereignty date of June 30. However, the lack of stability is solely because the US is occupying the country in the first place. So stupid.
(-) There's a movie coming out sometime this year called "Hotel Rwanda". It's about the story of this man who owned a hotel in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994, sheltering over a thousand Tutsis from mobs of Hutu militants. Just for the record (and in case you didn't know) that genocide was the fastest genocide in history, where over 800,000 Tutsis were killed in less than a month. I can't remember the exact statistic, but that equates to something like 15 people every minute or something crazy (that stat. is totally not true, I can't remember it). If any of you are interested in what has been considered the worst blunder among the international community in the '90s, you should read this book called We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. The author is Michael Ignatieff, a really awesome and renounced political scientist. It's an easy read, not theory, just a layout of how it all went down, day by day (i.e. How the majority of people were killed via machete, and how there were so many people to kill that people would get tired, use the machete to chop off the achilles tendons of their Tutsi victims so they A) couldn't run away B) would be in such immense pain they couldn't crawl away). There's also chapters written by other people (i.e. a general of Canadian origin who was the general of the UN peacekeeping force who completely acknowledges that if he was granted authority, he had the capacity and resources to save thousands of lives, but didn't). And for a little update, Rwanda was getting back on track in being a stabilized state, but because of the massacre there is now a backlash of Tutsi militants who pretty much want to murder their Hutu brethren.
(-) I hate to get really into it, but Hutus and Tutsis really don't have distinguished superficial features-- the ethnic divide was completely created back when Rwanda was a Dutch colony. How weird it must be to live in Rwanda, be lucky enough to survive the genocide, move back home in an attempt to return to a normal life, then deal with the weird situation of having your neighbor who killed your wife in the heat of panic and conflict. If you have any interest, I really recommend reading that book.
Eh, I was gonna talk about some more stuff happening in the world, but I think I'll stop for right now.