Time once again for our mid-week random selection of stories.
War Crimes As Usual
It will be months — perhaps years or even decades — before we have the truth about the chemical weapons horror in Khan Sheikhoun. The US government and corporate media — who both have a history of dishonesty — claim that the Assad government used chemical weapons, probably Sarin but maybe chlorine, on civilians. The Assad government and its ally Russia — who both have a history of dishonesty — claim that a rebel cache of chemical weapons was hit in a conventional airstrike, causing the disaster. While the US ridicules this claim, the VOA reports that Syrian rebels may have used chemical weapons, probably chlorine, in an attack on a Kurdish district of Aleppo. (Given the context, this is probably a candidate for underreported story of the year.)
If I knew the truth were going to be unquestionably revealed and were so crass as to bet on it, I’d bet that the Assad government did indeed use a chemical weapon. But the facts are far from established. Not only is there reasonable doubt, there hasn’t even been an investigation.
That, of course, did not stop the Trump administration from launching missiles into Syria.
The UN Charter states:
All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
There is no exception to this clause which makes the United States judge, jury, and executioner when it thinks another nation has stepped over a line.
The US has ratified the UN Charter as a treaty. That, according to the Constitution, makes it part of the supreme law of the land.
That means that these airstrikes — like every other attack and invasion we’ve made without UN sanction — are a crime under our own laws.
And as a matter of practical politics, we cannot effectively make one nation stop its (probable) crimes by committing (definite) crimes of our own.
But since both major parties are in the habit of carrying out these crimes, no one is prosecuted or brought to justice, and the people are easily led. It’s war crimes as usual — and as perennially popular — in the US of A.
United Horror Stories
In other crime news, a man who declined to give us his seat on a United Airlines flight to help United fix its screwed up employeee logistics was beaten and dragged off the plane. (Contrary to widespread reporting, the flight was not overbooked; United wanted to bump passengers to move its employees around.) Whether you think it was he or his assailant who committed a crime here says a lot about your moral sense.
I’ve tried to avoid United ever since they screwed me over in 2007 by changing the baggage policy between legs of a round-trip flight. (Yes, it was almost three months between departure and return, but under no rational system can one party change the agreement without notifying the other until that second party arrives at check-in.) But Reddit has a thread about United horror stories that makes my baggage problem pale.
One of the most outrageous is told by user “skinandtonic”, who tells of how United stopped him, at age 13, from visiting his dying grandfather:
I was 13 at the time, and had to transfer in Chicago which is a nightmareish airport to connect at so my mom arranged for United to have a staff member take me off the first plane and to the gate to catch my connecting flight, which is a service they offer for some sort of fee.
I get to the airport and I’m checking in when they say that because my flight is the last one of the day, the connection accompaniment service isn’t offered, even though we had confirmed booking it on the phone the day before. Even when we asked if I could just make the connection alone they said that not only could they not arrange an accompaniment, but because I was a minor they wouldn’t let me on the flight even though my seat was already booked because they didn’t think I could make the connection on my own…
Even worse, they wouldn’t let me take a flight the next day…or move my ticket to another airline…We went home from the airport after several hours of trying to get me on any flight going to Florida at all but couldn’t find a single ticket because it was so last minute. I never got to see my grandfather.
We did finally get a refund, just in time to spend that money on my ticket out for his funeral.
United’s official response to the beating of David Dao talked about how they sought “volunteers” to give up their seats, which provoked this response from the @MerriamWebster Twitter account:
‘Volunteer’ means “someone who does something without being forced to do it.”
Friends, when the dictionary is laying sick burns on you, it’s time to check yourself.
‘Volunteer’ means “someone who does something without being forced to do it.” https://t.co/qNAcMyplhZ
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster)
Big Tent Buddhism
On a more positive note, our Patheos Buddhist neighbor Daniel Scharpenburg writes at Lion’s Roar about what you don’t have to believe to be a Buddhist:
The great thing about Buddhism is that it doesn’t require us to believe in things that we don’t think are real. Things that aren’t real aren’t the point of Buddhism. I don’t believe in magic, and I don’t have to pretend that I do (which is a thing I wonder if some people are doing)….
I think the 14th Dalai Lama is a very wise teacher….But I don’t believe, as many of his adherents do, that he was the 13th Dalai Lama in his previous life, or that he’s an emanation of a bodhisattva, and that he will once again be reincarnated….
I also don’t happen to believe that chanting Nam myoho renge kyo in front of a gohonzon will bring me good fortune. I just don’t. If I were a Nichiren Buddhist, I probably would, and if you are and do, that’s great. There’s plenty of room in Buddhism for both of us.
What I do believe is that if we’re more awake, we will suffer less. And I believe the way to cultivate wakefulness is to train ourselves in concentration, ethics, and awareness. I believe — and I think, really, all Buddhists do, whatever else they might — in Basic Goodness, Emptiness, Oneness, and Enlightenment.
In so far as I’m a Buddhist, I take heart in seeing a recognized Buddhist teacher say that. And I see a resonnance there with the Pagan Atheist movement and the attempt to maintain space in Paganism for non-supernaturalist paths.
If I were to attempt a parallel construction, I might say, “What I do believe is that the more we’re connected to nature, both the “natural world” and our own internal natures, the less we will screw up the world and ourselves. And I believe the way to cultivate those connections is to train ourselves in deep observation, consciousness alteration, and cultivating transpersonal experience. I believe — and I think, really, all Pagans do — in Nature, Magick (in a different sense than Scharpenburg means), and Spirit.” Something like that, anyway.
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