Execution of Saddam Hussein

After all, Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, was hanged for crimes against humanity after the U.S.-backed appeal court upheld the previous ruling of execution.

A thinking of mine has been lingering for a while in my head, that Hussein should not be executed, or at least it should not happen at this moment. It is undoubted that he was responsible for the Gulf War during 1990-91; he was accused of killing thousands of his enemies; he established a thirty-year absolute leadership in Iraq, which was the major opposition against the Western powers. Nevertheless, the current situation in Iraq is no better than the time when it was still under his rule.

War is the most destructive weapon. I may be naive to have this thought, but I would reckon that it is better to suffer from a dictatorship than to suffer from warfare. Everything is destroyed in a war - properties, families, society, and so on. Under dictationship, people still have the hope to stay with their families, or establish a social network (whatever big or small); it is at least a form of stability. I doubt the necessity of the invasion in 2003 by the United States and its allies, which I have repeated a few times.

Another point staying in my mind is that the ruling of the court. Probably owing to the poor network, I cannot quite catch the process of the trial. Yet I still wonder whether the transparency of the trial is up to standard. In usual case, it takes a long time to try a person who committed serious crimes. It may be up to several months or even several years. The judgement of Hussein just came to my ears suddenly on one day. Then suddenly he was hanged. It is so rough and rushed that I would suspect the motives behind.

George W. Bush, the U.S. president said after the execution, that "bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself.". I don't quite agree with him. The execution will definitely not end the violence, yet I do not think it can be a "milestone". This is the wrong moment as Hussein is believed to have a number of supporters. The very first motive of the invasion was about Iraq concealing mass destructive weapons, which was not found. The asserted genocide of Shi'ite by Hussein was not clearly tried. Hussein was just hanged before everything is truly clear.

Going through Global Voices Online (see the button at the right bottom), a blogger posted a cartoon, which was said to sum up the mood of many.



















A cartoon by Latuff

A lot of people expressed their wide range of opinions through the blog. Obviously, not everyone among them dedicated their support to the execution. By chance I share something similar with these people. I am not thinking how glad I should be because of this, but how sad and ridiculous this world is when an outsider also has a similar view to the people who truly know the situation.
There are countless things in life.

Farewell to Kofi Annan

Today morning I read the following from the Reuters, which stirs my emotion. Kofi Annan is a highly reverend person that I admire very much. His contributions to the peaceful world is identifiable and outstanding.

Annan warns against go-it-alone diplomacy
Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:47 PM ET

By Carey Gillam

INDEPENDENCE, Missouri (Reuters) - Kofi Annan, in his last major speech as U.N. secretary general, urged the United States on Monday to shun go-it-alone diplomacy and collaborate on its world challenges, including the Iraq war.

In a farewell address delivered at Harry Truman's presidential library in Independence, Missouri, Annan praised the 33rd U.S. president's legacy, and quoted Truman in cautioning that "no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others."

Truman was a strong backer of the United Nations and helped found the world body.

Annan, who steps down at the end of the month, to be succeeded by Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, said, "We need U.S. leadership; we have lots of problems around the world ... and we require the natural leadership role the U.S. played in the past and can play today.

"None of our global institutions can accomplish much when the U.S. remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky's the limit," he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the outgoing U.N. chief was entitled to his opinions.

"There's no secretary-general of the United Nations that's going to be in lock-step with the United States or any other country with regard to its policies. It's not that person's job," McCormack said.

Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the retiring chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said Annan failed to mention "the rampant financial and moral mismanagement at the United Nations" and called his remarks "a classic case of misdirection aimed at the United States."

During his two five-year terms as U.N. leader, Annan has tangled often with President George W. Bush's administration, particularly over the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, launched without a green light from the U.N. Security Council.

"When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose -- for broadly shared aims -- in accordance with broadly accepted norms," Annan said.

In response to a question on how to end the war in Iraq, Annan said the United States needed to work with other countries, including Iran and Syria, to foster a "sharing" of political power and oil revenues within Iraq's Sunni and Shi'ite factions.

"If you make them responsible and pull them into work with you, I think it will be in everyone's interests," he said. "Getting Iraq right is not only in the interests of the U.S. and the broad international community but even more so for the countries in the region."

Annan renewed a call to expand the 15-nation Security Council and took a dig at U.S. opposition to a plan to add 10 seats.

Bush administration officials have argued Washington should use the United Nations only to serve its national interests.

But Annan said it was crucial to organize U.N. bodies "in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong."

"It is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account," he said.

The United States has historically been a leader in human rights, noted Annan.

"When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said in an apparent reference to charges of abuse at U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq's Abu Ghraib.

Truman, who ordered two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, learned from that experience that security from then on "must be collective and indivisible," Annan said.

"All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task," Annan said.

"You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?"

(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff at the United Nations)

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Short comment - I very much appreciate Kofi Annan's work as secretary general of the United Nations. During the term he tried his best to strive for human's peace and content life. It remains unknown that how UN will be (or change) under the new secretary general Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea. Annan's achievement is unquestionable.

In the article the United States responded by saying why Annan did not mention "the rampant financial and moral mismanagement at the United Nations". I consider this problem as trivial compared with the rest of the contemporary world. I would not argue the US suffers from internal managing crisis, yet the sufferings in Middle East, Africa and many less developed countries are obviously more urgent and worth to mention. As I do not reckon the America as the supremacy, Annan is not necessary to talk about that.

Like Annan, I also do not agree with what "Bush administration officials have argued Washington should use the United Nations only to serve its national interests". Since everyone constitutes the world order, the US has no excuse to stay alone and serve only itself. In spite of recognizing human's selfishness, it is why all of us have to learn communication and compromise.

Russia (2)

A short piece as a personal response to Russia recent incident:

A month or two ago, I expressed my view about Russia and the murder of the famous journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The investigation is still obscure and former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned to death. I think it is bitter.

The bitter comes from the fact that murders happened frequently and none of the investigations of the murders had a satisfactory and open result. The importance of Litvinenko's death lies on the place he was killed - Britain. It led to the investigation carried by the British, regardless the sensitive relationship between Russia and Britain. Yet the British investigation is apparently hampered by Russia.

Time.com released a story, or say a comment that speak what I think out.

Friday, Dec. 08, 2006
Keeping Russia's Deadly Politics at Home
Viewpoint: The murder of Alexender Litvinenko demonstrates, once again, how murder has become an accepted part of Russian power struggles. But the West can't — or won't — do much about it
By YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW

Murder is a firmly established tradition in Russian battles over money and power. So, the suspicion in Moscow is that the recent murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko — as well as the alleged attempt on former prime minister and economic-reform mastermind Yegor Gaidar — result from domestic clan warfare. Russians are quite accustomed to seeing assassination used as an instrument to silence an opponent or redistribute assets, and over a dozen major energy-corporation and banking executives have been killed in the past couple of months alone. What is different about the Litvinenko and Gaidar cases is that they happened beyond Russian borders.

The Litvinenko murder investigation, in fact, may have a profound effect on the image of President Vladimir Putin in the West — much like the Chechen war of 1999 did, or the dismembering the oil company Yukos and the imprisonment of its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or the Beslan terror tragedy. Each time, Putin chose a course of action that benefited his regime in short term, but deeply hurt his country's interests in the long term.

Britain, horrified that a foe of the Kremlin could be murdered with a radioactive isotope that has left traces all over London, has vowed to pursue the Litvinenko investigation wherever "the police take it," regardless of diplomatic sensitivities. However, once the men from Scotland Yard landed in Moscow, Russian prosecutor-general Yuri Chaika bluntly spelled out the limits of the British inquiry: It's the Russians who ask questions — the British just sit tight and watch. And should any Russians be discovered to have been involved, he said, they would not be extradited.

Then, on Thursday, Chaika's office announced that it had launched its own criminal probe into this "death of a Russian citizen," and that a Russian investigative team would be sent to London, where they expected "understanding and cooperation" from their British counterparts. This appeared to be something of a stunt designed to counteract growing Western indignation over Moscow's lack of enthusiasm for cooperating with the British investigation.

Still, there isn't much the West can or will do about it. Relations between Moscow and the West have rarely hinged on single, or even systematic, human rights abuses. It was not expedient for the democracies to admit the existence of Stalin's Gulag when the priority was working together to defeat Hitler. It may be no more expedient to focus on human rights issues in Putin's Russia as long as Moscow must be kept as an ally in the war on terror, and persuaded to back sanctions against Iran.

"Realpolitik" dictated, for example, that the Soviets' downing of a Korean airliner in September 1983, killing 269 people, was not allowed to significantly interfere with business as usual. And "realpolitik" eventually paid off — at least for the West — as the Soviet Union disappeared a few years later without a shot being fired. Today, "realpolitik" has given way to "realeconomics" — who cares if Moscow bumps off its citizens in Chechnya or elsewhere as long as the oil and natural gas are flowing from Russia? The West reacts most loudly when its investments in Russia are endangered.

This Western attitude is sensible, and probably the only one possible. If the Russian people accept this murderous political culture, no outsiders can convince them to do otherwise. It can expire only when the Russians themselves grow sufficiently resolved to abolish it — if ever. The West may, however, have an urgent interest in ensuring that Russia's deadly political games are at least played on home turf, and don't spill over Russia's borders — lest the killers, believing they can get away with anything, anywhere, establish precedents of nuclear or any other terrorism on foreign soil.

Russians may have come to adopt barbaric ways of settling their political and business scores, and it will be up to Russians to find a better way or else be submerged in a bloodbath of their own making. All that other countries can do, in the meantime, is try to protect themselves from the flying debris.

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

(http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1568360,00.html)

Not only coming from the obscure murders, the bitter also comes from the helplessness felt by outsiders. I agree the writer that if this is what the Russian people choose, it is almost impossible to break through. Meanwhile I definitely doubt the education and the messages through mass communication received by the Russians are controlled by the government. It is a melancholy percepted by foreigners, but I do not know how the insiders think.

Anyhow a lot of things depend on own perceptions.

Google Inc.

Sometimes I think it is heavy to always discuss hard topic. As I started to use Google Reader yesterday, suddenly I have an impulsive thinking about Google Inc.

Having started in 1998, it has grown rapidly as one of the most influential Internet corporations. It was only a search engine in the beginning, but it expands in size and in services provided owing to its user-friendly set up and its growing popularity. In my point of view, Google is one of the best illustrations of globalization and multi-national corporation.

I set Google as my home page in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Gmail is my primary email. I read Google news everyday and I use Google Alerts to read Cambodian news. Earlier this year when I was organizing Dramatics Week, I uploaded a video on Google Video. This Website, Blogger, is also one of the services Google provides. I search most of the things in Google. I subscribe RSS through Google Reader. Google penetrates my Internet experience.

I believe I am not the only Googler. There are more people who use its services more than I do. Not talking about the rest of the services, the importance of Google cannot be neglected. Despite not being favor of appreciating its dominance, its success is hardly to be combatted.

An idea jumps into my head. While the term "McDonaldization" becomes more known, it must be interesting to start a study of "Google-lization". As Internet is widely used nowadays, the effect induced by Google, notwithstanding its virtual nature, must be valuable to have a deep research and analysis.

Nonetheless, a litte person and being as poor academically as me has almost no way to conduct such a study; and I don't think I have the wisdom and the patience to work this out. Furthermore I believe there will be studies about this topic in the future.

Philosophical interest

After the end of the semester, I borrowed three books from the library and read them during the days in the East Coast, Australia. They are part of the series of A Very Short Introduction, published by the Oxford Press - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

I have been interested in philosophy for a while, yet I did not pay much effort. To record my recollection, I recall my first formal lesson of philosophy was the existentialism I took in my first semester, year 1. It is an interesting subject; unfortunately I was too fresh and not prepared to study this great subject, so it was sort of wasted and I did not do well.

Nonetheless the unit has hereafter caused my notice to matters related. Existentialism is a very difficult subject, and it takes so much time and energy to understand the logic. Until now I am still on my way to understand it, so I am not going to discuss more. Anyway it brings me further interest to read some books afterwards.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are three of the greatest men in philosophy. Socrates invented Socratic method - to develop an idea or a belief and convince the others through arguments and discussion. Plato was the founder of the Academy, the first school of philosophy which marked the independence of the subject. Aristotle was considered as one of the most important person in scientific history, and influenced the development of science and philosophy.

The three books briefly described their lives and introduced their most important ideas. Socrates pursued and worked out the virtue he insisted. He claimed he was not a wise man and did not possess any knowledge; he also found the Socratic method, which was about to discover his own belief through arguments. Plato invented the idea of Forms and discussed how kwowledged was to be taught from one to another; he developed philosophy into an independent subject and his own platonism influenced the philosophers until now. Aristotle was a genius that he studied heaps of science subject and wrote the first book about biology; his logical thinking inspired hunreds and thousands of scientists afterwards. What a coincidence was one was the student of another - Socrates was the most important person in Plato's philosophical life while Aristotle was the most outstanding students of Plato's.

After reading the books, while I was waiting for the flight back to Perth from Sydney, I wrote down some of my thoughts provoked by the books.

Most things interlock with each other. In my life, there were countless coincidences. ONe of the most common examples is I often encounters some vocabulary right after I've just realized what they mean. It is interesting to see the connection among various items/incidents; meanwhile the reason for this is yet to discover. For one single item, it is probably not hard to explain, but since events somehow connect to each other, I think it is beyond my ability to grasp the answer that why things happen incredibily.

Some people suggest God holds the control. God is often protrait as a human-kind, but it's probably because of the limited imagination of man. What is God? Some claimed they talked with God before, or God sent them messages. The most outstanding instance was Jesus, who said he was the son of God. Who created God? How did man create this term with a divine meaning? If God can talk, somehow it means God is just another living creature. What form is it? What structure is it? If it controls the world order in such a complicated way, there're too many questions aroused.

Some say everything is written in the book of life. We've got no idea of what it is. If it is a book, we don't know who wrote it and the reason behind. Plato and Laozi had a similar view that they thought it was under some sort of Form. Scientists fail to find the answer.

Within the boundary, the knowledge of science is infinite; however boundary exists. Regardless of God, book of life, Form or so on, we know nothing beyond the boundary. In another way, we can't break through it. We have no way to know if human, or the universe is actually only like a glass box with water and fish. Astronomists tell us the universe is expanding all the time, but we don't know where it has the space to expand. Stop talking about huge matter, nonetheless we dxo not know many tiny matters. As basic as all of our acknowledgement, are we bound to know them? Where does our intelligence come from? Why do we have evolution? Why is everything changing? In films about going back to the past, it is always said that one could not and should not change anything. However, what if it was actually what should have happened? It is not only that we don't know the answers, but we do not even know how to find out the answer. It sounds a hopeless situation. Too difficult.

Another question: why do we believe things are what they are? To some extent I would say we're just following what our senses, body or brain tell us. What if these things in fact lie to us? Perhaps the answer is simple: we have no alternatives. Our own body is the only thing we control directly. Certainly there should be some arguments about this statement, yet it is true in certain condition. However, the truth is not known; it is just our only choice that we can only believe everything we experience or are told.

To me, trust is too fragile and weak. Nonetheless as long as this is the only choice, it has to be maintained firmly. Otherwise our mental system might have collapsed.

Many things are beyond our intelligence to manage or understand. Even trust can be doubted, such as what it is exactly, how it is formed and whether it is "trust" to trust. However, to think in this way will be like what another book I am currently reading (to be discussed) say that it becomes skepticism, although I am also interested to know how or why human determine certain degree of doubts to be skeptic.

I do not know how to conclude. At the moment I am thinking about atheism and theism, a worthy topic. Yet it is very complicated and I cannot discuss it without further knowledge. I am too shallow for this now, but I hope I could learn more later. I believe this has something to do with the books, as they stimulate my choices of reading.

A little episode - I told my friend about my interest, and guess what he replied - "Usually the people who read or study philosophy are crazy, or turn to be crazy finally".

I denied, despite the fact that crazy people is said to always deny they are crazy.