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In May 2005, when the US/UK invasion of Iraq was going badly, the US government attempted to divert public opinion from the atrocities of the war by holding a series of Congressional hearings relating to the earlier Western sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, in particular the “Oil-for Food” program.

Certain companies and individuals were accused of sanction-busting over this program. Among them was the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the British Member of Parliament, George Galloway.

Presumably Congress decided it could divert the bitter public opinion fomenting over the war by assuming the high moral ground regarding Iraq sanction-busting. To that end they held a series of Congressional hearings, perhaps better described as witch-hunts.

The preemptive invasion of Iraq, with all its accompanying horrors, is already drifting into the mists of history. The public memory is short, at least in the US, and matters of the domestic economy now dominate its media. Those responsible for committing international war crimes no longer serve in the government, having slipped away to more anonymous occupations.

There is still a reckoning to be made. No-one can be responsible for the decimation of a nation and walk away unpunished.

When the US Congress called on George Galloway to answer his accusers, they expected much fawning and grovelling before them. Let’s be honest, it’s what they’re used to from their own kind.

What they got was something entirely different.

The US Congressional hearing, chaired by Republican “Norm” Coleman, took on a British Bulldog – and lost.

^{While US congressmen and British politicians continue to whine over the plight of a world entirely of their making, George Galloway has been busy elsewhere. Check out “This Old Brit” for details, and my thanks to him for bringing it to Sparrow Chat’s attention.}

Filed under: There’s dogs and there’s curs

At the risk of appearing a doom-monger – we’re all doomed.

That disclosure is based on the opinion of the world’s leading climatologists, all 2,500 of them, who’ve been holding an emergency meeting in Copenhagen.

Condemning political leaders for their utter inability to grasp the inevitable effects of doing nothing, Nicholas Stern, the man commissioned by British prime minister Gordon Brown to analyze the impact of climate change and report back to the government, called for:

[a] shift from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society”.^[1]

Or, to put it more bluntly: over the last decade, governments throughout the world have done little, and achieved nothing, to control the carbon emissions driving climate change.

We all know George W Bush’s inactivity was not only lackadaisical, but criminal, given that he signed bills into law with no regard to their negative impact on the environment. Europe’s leaders have been less candid, but even Britain’s substantial decrease in emissions has only been achieved by outsourcing their pollution to other countries, particularly China.^[2]

In private, scientists are admitting the race to confine the Earth’s temperature increase to two degrees has already been lost. Publicly, their stance is to push politicians into acting, by the suggestion that radical measures – enforced now, rather than in 2020 or 2050 – may slow the increase and pin it at two or three degrees.

Behind the closed doors of Copenhagen, the mutterings are decidedly more ominous. Science has now moved away from assessing the effects of a two or three degree global rise, and is instead investigating our chances of survival following a mean increase of four to six degrees.

At such temperatures, large numbers of the human race will perish from starvation. Half the world’s food source will become unusable. Social unrest will likely be on a scale defying description.

To quote one of the world’s leading environmental journalists:

Yes, it might already be too late – even if we reduced emissions to zero tomorrow – to prevent more than two degrees of warming, but we cannot behave as if it is, for in doing so we make the prediction come true. Tough as this fight may be, improbable as success might seem, we cannot afford to surrender.”^[3]

Unfortunately, “to surrender” implies we’re fighting a battle. So far, our leaders have appeared content to restrict their actions to some minor diplomatic wrangling with God.

^{[3] “Stern attacks politicians over climate ‘devastation'” Guardian, March 13th 2009}

^{[2] “Too Good To Be True? The UK’s Climate Change Record” December 10th 2007}

^{[3] “A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” Monbiot.com, March 17, 2009}

Two programs with strong religious connotations served as entertainment for the Adams household this weekend. The first was Bill Maher’s documentary, “Religulous”, (available for rental download from Amazon.com), and the second was “Bill Moyers Journal”, which this week was devoted to the religious expert and copious writer, Karen Armstrong.

These two offerings were as different as Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ. Bill Maher was most enjoyable. He survived making this film without, apparently, being punched on the nose, or shot by obese, right-wing Republican, fundamentalist truck drivers – though once or twice it seemed he came too close for comfort.

Maher’s efforts came across, to me at least, as an attempt to ridicule religion as a bundle of old myths successfully repackaged by various conmen for the purpose of making big bucks out of the guileless and unwitting. Needless to say, as much of it was set in America, the film succeeded in achieving that aim beyond its wildest dreams.

In contrast, Karen Armstrong expressed the deepest respect for the historical roots of all mankind’s major religions, and talked at length of the “The Golden Rule” and how man has conveniently allowed his ego to obliterate it, both from his religion and his everyday life.

True compassion, she states, has been swept away in a tide of egotism and greed. The concept of “The Golden Rule”: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the chain that binds all religions together. Unless we bring compassion for others back into our everyday lives, we, as a species, are dooming ourselves.

Unlike Bill Maher, who condemns religion for the ills of the world, Armstrong recognizes the beneficial roots from which all religions sprang, and accepts man as the perverter and corrupter of those benevolent universal truths, for the sole purpose of furthering the greed of his ego-driven self.

Both programs served as excellent entertainment, though Bill Moyers Journal went one step further by educating, as well as entertaining.

Karen Armstrong is one of the world’s great experts on the history of religions and their impact around the globe. She left me realizing that it’s not religion, whether Christian, Islam, Hindu, or whatever, that is to blame for the world’s ills, but those who purport to preach its tenets and communicate with its spirit, while growing fat from the contributions of its faithful, and drunk on the power of its conveniently corrupted messages.

This weekend’s episode of Bill Moyers Journal, featuring Karen Armstrong, is available both as a transcript and in video, from the link below. I heartily recommend it as compulsive viewing.^[1]

^{[1] “Bill Moyers Journal” March 13th 2009}

Filed under: Holy weekend