How NOT to use military force

The New York Times reprinted an essay by Colin Powell entitled "How to use military force."  It was written on October 8, 1992.  Today, it seems so quaint, so deeply out of touch with reality, so, shall we say, delusional?  Powell seems to think that he can point to military successes to defend our use of force.  But he fails to recognize that many of our military interventions have, and continue to involve conflict that we created! What is sold as a humanitarian effort is none other than an attempt to gain control of key resources in a land of desperation and despair. Powell was either naive, in denial, or dictated by a dictator. Or perhaps all three. It is a dangerous mind, seduced by confabulation, self-deception, and brain washing. The sciences have explained how our minds fall prey to these processes. We owe it to the public to  explain these failings of the mind in order to enable every individual to cut through the grease of deception that our government representatives layer on top of reality.

Read for yourself, and recall that the smoke screen conveyed in 1992 has been puffed into the minds of Americans by every government since, continuing today......

The atrocities of the Lord's Resistance Army

3-2-1, L-R-A.  Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to the sight of several men carrying guns and rifles. You, a mere child, are snatched from your bed, and forced to join a spiritual movement that aims to undo the harms imposed by the national government.  The first part of your initiation involves a beating, often with sticks, centered on the soft spots of your body, including your head. You are then coated in shea nut oil as a protection ritual, and taught to use guns, clubs and machetes.  You start by killing neighbors and family relatives. You are also educated in the art of killing other children who have been abducted: anyone who refuses to follow the rules is encircled by other children, each taking a shot at bludgeoning the rule breaker until he or she is dead.  

Why the Millenium Development Goals need critical friends

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 2:45 PM by Alison Evans

http://blogs.odi.org.uk/blogs/main/archive/2010/09/21/54407.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

It is easy to criticise the Millennium Development Goals . Some consider them, 

at best, naïve and, at worst, a sop to misguided global welfarism. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of sceptics who predict a damning failure to reach the goals by the 2015 deadline.

Kristof on American prejudice toward the Muslim world

Kristof's essay ("Message to Muslims. I'm sorry." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19kristof.html) is, as always, perceptive. It resonates with a general tendency that we humans have to create broad categories, ignoring the variation. This comes with a cost: caricature and prejudice. We all do it.

Blame nurture, not nature, on our moral atrocities

For many, living a moral life is synonymous with living a religious life. Just as educated students of mathematics, chemistry, and politics knows that 1=1, water =H₂O, and Barack Obama = President of the United States, so too do religiously educated people know that Religion = Morality. As simple and pleasing as this identity relationship may seem, it has at least three possible interpretations. First, if religion represents the source of moral understanding, then those lacking a religious education are morally lost, adrift in a sea of sinful temptation. 

Welcome

What must we understand to improve the welfare of those who suffer from human rights violations?  For humanitarian efforts to work, what do we need to understand about human nature?  To answer these questions, we must open a dialog between those trained in the mind sciences and those trained in the practice of reducing human suffering and ensuring basic human rights. I will post links to relevant news articles as well as academic essays, and occasionally, offer commentary in the hope of starting a conversation.  This is simply the first link in what I hope will be a very long and productive chain of interaction, a forum for ideas to sing, and for productive solutions to emerge.

Here's to the feast that lies ahead.

- Marc