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Here are previous posts from the “Commentary” Section of the MissionLog

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CANADIAN TROOPS KILL TWO CHILDREN IN ATTACK ON A VEHICLE IN AFGHANISTAN -

:: originally posted July 30, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Canadian soldiers opened fire on a speeding vehicle after its driver ignored repeated warnings not to approach a military convoy Sunday, killing two young children. Soldiers fired a single round killing a 2 and a 4-year-old who were passengers. More than 60 civilians have been killed in the past month by international troops. President Kharzai pleaded with NATO troops to be more careful. At least one terrorist organization (Al Queda) has issued new calls for supporters to kill Canadians.

I’ve commented on the ineffective nature of what was first described to Canadians as a peace-keeping mission. Instead we are mired in a bloody war where our troops feel they have no alternative but to fire on civilians for fear of terrorist attacks. We have the responsibility to remove this burden from our troops. Demand the Canadian government cease the war in Afghanistan and BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

read more | digg story

UPDATE, Sept. 8, 2008

Gruesome video shows dead Afghan children after U.S. raid on village-

By Fisnik Abrashi, AP

KABUL, Afghanistan – Two videos that appear to show the bodies of at least 10 children and many more adults covered in blankets and white shrouds lend weight to Afghan and United Nations allegations that a U.S.-led raid killed scores of civilians last month…

Source: Yahoo! Canada News || Digg this story

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U.S. Iraq War Hero Commits Suicide due to Untreated PTSD -

original post July, 2008

PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: “From NY Times – The photo captures everything that Americans wanted to believe about the Iraq war in the earliest days of the invasion in 2003. Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, an Army medic whose unit was fighting its way up the Euphrates to Baghdad, cradles a wounded boy. The child is half-naked and helpless, but trusting. Private Dwyer’s face is strained but calm. “

Canadians need to realize the challenges faced by our own troops – those returning from the war in Afghanistan and those who also served in peacekeeping missions in the past. The real cost of having our troops in Afghanistan are very high in human terms – not just for the combatants they face, but for their own health and well being. We all need to support our troops and oppose the war. Tell our government to bring the troops home now.

read more | digg story

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World Reactions to Iran Missile Testing -

originally posted July, 2008

World reactions to Irans testing is predictable, but misses the point. Its really about the “haves” and “havenot” countries – as in have nuclear weapons, or do not have nuclear weapons. The “haves” nuclear club is headed by the United States and includes Russia, Britain, France, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan & probably Israel.  The “havenots” are the whole rest of the world – more than 200 nations. The United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against an enemy in war – against Japan in 1945. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the first atom bombs. The United States developed and manufactured the first atom bombs. The reason given at the time was to avoid huge US and Allied troop losses in any invasion of Japan. The facts are that 67 Japanese cities had been destroyed by conventional firebombing prior to the nuclear attacks. Lets hear from former U.S. Defense Secretary McNamara: [from the Fog of War transcript, errolmorris.com]

“I [Robert S. McNamara] was on the island of Guam in his [General Lemay's] command in March of 1945. In that single night, we [the people of the United States]  burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo: men, women, and children…the firebombing…50 square miles of Tokyo were burned. Tokyo was a wooden city, and when we dropped these firebombs, it just burned it.

I [McNamara] think the issue is: in order to win a war should you kill 100,000 people in one night, by firebombing or any other way? LeMay’s answer would be clearly “Yes.” , “McNamara, do you mean to say that instead of killing 100,000, burning to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in that one night, we should have burned to death a lesser number or none? And then had our soldiers cross the beaches in Tokyo and been slaughtered in the tens of thousands? Is that what you’re proposing? Is that moral? Is that wise?”

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay’s command.

Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve. I don’t fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.—Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history ? kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable. What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time ? and today ? has not really grappled with what are, I’ll call it, “the rules of war.” Was there a rule then that said you shouldn’t bomb, shouldn’t kill, shouldn’t burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night? LeMay said, “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” And I think he’s right. He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” [---end of transcript]

The question is – who should we be more afraid of? Iran? or the United States and other allies with nuclear weapons of mass destruction? The un-armed [nuclear arms] nations of the world  – including Canada – must speak against all nuclear proliferation, starting with those nations currently armed and capable of of inflicting mass destruction. We must send the message to the Unites States and the rest of the nuclear club, that disarmament now is the only solution.

Originally published May, 2008 -

Hoax Emails and the “Christians” Who Send Them:

If you’re like me, your inbox fills up with all these supposedly well meaning spiritual emails forwarded to you by friends and family purportedly from Christian writers….

Why are so many of them hoaxes? (i.e. lies) And why do people who say they are Christians make them up? They usually end them like the old chain letters: “If you don’t forward this, then you are not a good person, Christian, etc etc ”

The original hoax email went like this:

—– Original Message——

Subject: Fw: Agree or Delete

Agree or Delete

Just like Dalton McGuinty wanting to keep the “Lord’s Prayer” out of
the Ontario Legislature, for the same reasons. What a gutless wonder he has turned out to be.

This is by a daughter of a murdered couple in TORONTO who had a Bible and Bookstore on Bloor Street. When I had to testify at the murder trial of my parents a week ago, I was asked to raise my right hand.
The bailiff started out, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ? I stood there and waited but she said nothing more. She said, “Do you?” I was so stunned I blurted out,
“What happened to “so help me God?” She came back with “Do you?” I replies yes, but I was perplexed. Then the judge said, “You can say that if you want to.” I stopped, raised my right hand and finished with “so help me God!” I told my son and daughter that when it came time for them to testify,
they should do the same. It’s no wonder we have so many problems in this country. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have told them that taking God out of the courtroom is only going to result in more
criminals and murderers like him being in there.I don’t know what can be done about it, but it’s time we stepped up and did something.”

CBC this morning had a poll on this question. They had the highest number of responses that they have ever had for one of their polls and the percentage was the same as this: 86% to keep the words; 14% against. That is a pretty commanding public response. I was asked tosend this on if I agreed or delete if I didn’t. Now it is your turn. It is said that 86% of CANADIANS believe in God.
Why don’t we just tell the 14% to sit down and SHUT UP!
>If you agree, pass it on. If not, you know where that friendly little
>ol’ delete button is. Wait! Now, decide whether to delete or pass it
>on.
End of hoax email.

================================================

Here’s my reply back up the line from the forwarders. I did some research at snopes.com, a fairly good source for internet legends and the source of hoax emails. There’s some repetition of the email, but it helps to see the original to capture the depth of the hoax:

Hi all,
So you forwarded this to someone and it ended up with me. The email, unfortunately,  is a hoax. You can read the following if you like and agree or delete likewise. But why not forward it back up the line where you received it from so the truth comes out.  <>< Andy

– Rolled Oaths: The Agree or Delete Email (all emphasis mine)
This originally appeared in emails four years ago in 2004. It did NOT
originate in Toronto, and the facts are actually lifted from an
entirely different murder case. There was no grieving daughter, and it
is unlikely any conversation about the oath appeared as quoted.
The original email shows us (from snopes.com) – This took place in Raytown, Missouri, not Toronto… Missouri, not Ontario… USA, not Canada.

It’s still a tragic story, but why distort the facts? Merely to emphasize disputable court traditions surrounding oaths. To dispel the myth, snopes.com reports:

” this story has been circulating on the Internet since December 2004.
It is an odd piece to classify in that the wrong murder has been attached to someone else’s story.
“Raytown, Missouri, has a population of 30,000 and lies about 8 miles southeast of Kansas City and 7 miles southwest of Independence. On 20 October 2004, an elderly couple who ran a Christian bookstore in that city was discovered murdered in their shop. Dead were John Caylor (79) and his wife Mildred Caylor (76). The couple had their throats cut by a robber who likely made off with less than $100, which was typically all that was carried in the cash drawer that was found empty. The victims had been married for 54 years and had run the store for 43 years. They were described by their friends as “old-time” Southern Baptists who focused on spreading the gospel and sometimes held tent revivals in their parking lot. One of their sons told how the pair would load up their van with musical instruments and visit nursing homes to perform. Their lives were about doing good, loving one another, and loving God. “On 4 November 2004, Kellen C. McKinney (27) was charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the deaths of the Caylors. His DNA being found on a bloodstained bag left near the cash register was the evidence that oke the case. When run through a DNA database, the sample matched McKinney, whose DNA was on file by virtue of his having served a prison sentence in Kansas.

“However, news accounts referred to the Caylors as having three sons but made no mention of any daughter. Moreover, although there had been an arrest in the case, at the time this piece was circulating the suspect had yet to be tried.   All of this made the linking of this e-mail with the Caylor murders questionable.

In fact, this item was part of an e-mail written by the daughter of different murder victims, Clifford Moody (79) and his wife Benice Moody (74), who were stabbed to death in their home in the Four Corners area Polk County, Florida, in 1996:
“The Moodys were found dead a little after 1 p.m. on December 31, 1996. “Thomas Woodel was arrested for the killings and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and armed burglary; a
jury convicted him on all four counts, and Woodel was sentenced to death in January 1999. His death sentence was upheld on appeal in 2005, and it was during that appeals process that the Moodys’ daughter
gave testimony referenced in the e-mail quoted above.”
(end of snopes.com transcript)

The death sentence was upheld, notwithstanding any inconsequential debate regarding saying “ So help me, God”.

As a matter of fact, for many years Canada has had the legal tradition of making a “solemn affirmation” if the witness prefers not to swear on a bible “to tell the truth etc etc”. This is not new, it is history – it certainly did not take place in 2008, nor the nineties, nor the “modern” era. And it is a sound and just doctrine. Why would you force a member of another faith or an atheist to swear on a bible in which
they do not believe, in an attempt to guarantee truthfulness? Do you have statistics to show that Christians are less likely to lie? I think not. As a matter of fact, as more than 75% percent of Canadians identify with the Christian faith, we can infer that the majority of liars in the courtroom are, in fact, Christians. God help us!

FURTHER the original sender of this email hoax (who has now shown to be a liar themselves) compounds the offence by including a “so-called” poll by the CBC Canadian Broadcasting Company. This poll was never issued! Yet the hoax email states -

“CBC this morning had a poll on this question. They had the highest
number of responses that they have ever had for one of their polls and
the percentage was the same as this: 86% to keep the words; 14%
against. That is a pretty commanding public response. I was asked to
send this on if I agreed or delete if I didn’t. Now it is your turn.
It is said that 86% of CANADIANS believe in God.
Why don’t we just tell the 14% to sit down and SHUT UP!”

Further research at snopes.com tells us that a separate hoax email was circulating about an NBC poll issued to Americans if they “believed in God” and returned results of 86% YES and 14% NO. NBC issued no such
poll, but our writer cut and pasted the hoax and altered NBC to CBC for their own false purposes. There was a CNBC poll (American) which asked if the words “under God” be removed from the American pledge of
allegiance, 15% yes, 85% no… And there was a similar MSNBC (American) poll which asked if “In God We Trust” should be removed from coinage, 20% yes, 80 % no.

There was never an NBC nor CBC poll asking ” Do you believe in God? ”
The facts in Canada are this – “Even a cursory review of the most recent Statistics Canada data shows slightly more than 83% of all Canadians claim identification within a recognized religion, while only 16 % do not claim any religious affiliation. ( 77% of all Canadians claim to be Christians )”. I emphasize “claim” to be Christian.

( source: my own article published at christianity.ca – Separation of Church and State by Andy Coats, Posted 6/29/05)

Worst,  this tradition of the oath taking and swearing on the bible and by the name of God is not biblically founded.
In Matthew 5 (NIV) JESUS said –
(Oaths)
33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago,
‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the
Lord.’ 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for
it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by
Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear
by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond
this comes from the evil one.”

and in James, the Apostle repeats to us -
James 5:12
Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by
anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will
be condemned.” —

And that is the simple truth of the matter. Any other type of oath is pride, and that goes before the fall.

The original writer of this Canadian hoax version seemed concerned with Dalton McGuinty and the issue under study of the Lord’s Prayer read every day at the Ontario legislature. We’ll see how that turns
out.  But I can tell you that I was at the annual Ontario Prayer Breakfast this month (May 2008) in Toronto, and representatives of each major party read scripture and/or prayed. The Honourable Member for the NDP, mentioned the debate before reading from scripture. She is a member of the committee studying the Lord’s prayer, and an ordained Christian Minister. The majority’s views will be heard on this matter. Perhaps,
spend less time emailing and more time praying for them.

I don’t know about you, but I find these hoax emails purporting to be from Christians and expounding on so called Christian doctrine, to be multiplying like locusts. And they almost all bend the truth (lying) to make a point and to judge others harshly. Their own judgment rests upon their own words. Don’t add fuel to the fire by forwarding these emails along blindly until you are certain of the facts.  And when in
doubt, read the bible.  ; )

<><
Andy

========================================================

Originally published october, 2007 -

Thank you, President Bush

[by Paulo Coelho ]: Quote “I wrote the letter below on March 9, 2003, ten days before the invasion of Iraq. It is the most widely read text I have written, having been published in the leading newspapers across the world and all over the Internet: close to 500 million people have read it. (Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light, Issue 169, April, 2008 www.warriorofthelight.com) The war is now entering its 6th year, and over 4,000 American soldiers have lost their lives, together with an indefinite number of Iraqis. According to the CNN (March 24, 2008), “estimates of the Iraqi death toll range from about 80,000 to the hundreds of thousands, with another 2 million forced to leave the country and 2.5 million displaced within Iraq, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees”.Many of the people I mention have already left the scene, yet the war goes on. At the moment, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Below are some extracts from the letter:Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.

Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam Hussein represents. Many of us might have forgotten that he used chemical weapons against his own people, against the Kurds and against the Iranians. Hussein is a bloodthirsty dictator, today seen as one of the world’s clearest expressions of evil.

But that is not the only reason I have for thanking you. During the first two months of 2003, you showed the world a great many important things. So, recalling a poem I learned as a child, I would like to express my gratitude.

Thank you for revealing to the world the enormous gulf that exists between the decisions made by those in power and the wishes of the people. Thank you for making it clear that neither José Maria Aznar nor Tony Blair really care or show the slightest respect for the votes they received. Aznar is capable of ignoring the fact that 90% of Spaniards are against the war and Blair is unmoved by the largest public demonstration to take place in England in the last thirty years.

Thank you for insisting that Tony Blair should appear before Parliament with a fabricated dossier written by a student ten years ago, and present this as ‘damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service’.

Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to promote war, the normally divided Arab nations were for the first time unanimous in condemning any invasion, at a meeting held in Cairo.

Thank you also for your rhetoric stating that ‘the UN now has a chance to demonstrate its relevance’, which made even the most reluctant countries take a stance against any attacks.

Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is struggling for unification; this was a warning that will not go unheeded.

Thank you for having achieved something that very few have so far managed to do in this century: bringing millions of people together on all continents to fight for the same idea, even though that idea is opposed to yours.

Thank you, because without you we would not have realized our own ability to mobilize. It may serve no purpose this time, but it will be useful later on. Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of war, I would like to borrow the words of an ancient European king to an invader: ‘May your morning be a beautiful one, with the sun shining on your soldiers’ armor, for in the afternoon I will defeat you.’

So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet bring you.

Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us seriously, but understand that we hear you and will not forget your words.

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you very much. – Paulo Coelho

– end of excerpt

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