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Afghanistan and Pakistan-Time to Get Out
Sep 2, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
We have had military forces in Afghanistan since 2001, when al Qaeda bases were found there after the 911 attacks here in the U.S. We overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001, and U.S. forces have been fighting al Qaeda and Taliban forces inside various sectors of the country ever since. Most of the U.S. activity in Afghanistan has been directed at building and defending air bases in the southern region of the country. From these air bases, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has flown drone strike missions into Pakistan using Predator drone aircraft. These attacks have been largely successful, as many officers and important Taliban and al Qaeda leaders have been killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan with attacks from U.S. controlled drone aircraft.
Shortly after the Obama Administration took office, a so called surge of troops was sent to Afghanistan, in an effort to pacify the country by covering the country with over 100,000 U.S. troops. A concerted effort was made to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people by having U.S. forces build schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure there.
However, the government of Afghanistan under President Karzai has been notoriously corrupt. Much of the U.S. aid monies in the country have been embezzled and wasted. President Karzai’s own brother was one of the largest drug dealers and drug distributors in Afghanistan, until he was murdered by the Taliban this year. The level of corruption in the country is amazing, and the corruption is so bad there that any decent amount of funds spent on aid to the people probably never trickles down to the regions where the funds were earmarked.
I understand the reason or reasons for continuing to occupy Afghanistan while Osama bin Laden was at large in Pakistan. The Navy Seal Team Six raid into Pakistan earlier this year that killed Osama bin Laden originated from an airbase in southern Afghanistan. Now that bin Laden and much of his al Qaeda leadership have been killed, it just makes no sense to continue to spend U.S. tax dollars on a military occupation of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been occupied by foreign powers off and on since 1839. We are not going to make card carrying democrats out of the Afghan people. We are not going to win their hearts and minds, either. What we are doing, and what we have been doing is spending millions upon millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars while trying to engage in nation building in this God-forsaken country. Nation building did not work in Vietnam, and it will not work either in Afghanistan. It is high time we got out.
Speaking of nation building, the U.S. State Department has pushed a project which would have the U.S. build and pay for a hydroelectric power dam in Pakistan. Keep in mind that Osama bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan earlier this year, after that country was supposed to be one of our friendly partners in the war on terror. I say that with “friends” such as Pakistan, we have little need of enemies. Pakistan contains many people that are friendly to militant Muslims and to al Qaeda operatives. Many of the 9/11/2001 bombers were Pakistani citizens. It was clear at the time of the raid against Osama bin Laden that he was hiding in the bosom of friendly Pakistani nationals, as these people hate the U.S. and western culture just as badly as al Qaeda. The American people have no business funding anything in this fickle, terrorist filled nation of Pakistan. We should look to our founding father, George Washington for advice in matters such as these. He advised our Congress to avoid foreign entanglements in the affairs of other nations. We are having a tough time with our own infrastructure. We need to get out of the Middle East in general, and focus our efforts on developing a workable hydrogen fuel cell technology here in the U.S. The Middle East has sucked in our young people in unnecessary wars for far too long. It is time to declare victory in Afghanistan and bring the troops home. It costs millions upon millions of U.S. dollars per day to house, victual, supply, and move the large numbers of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. There are at present no real military or tactical reasons to continue to maintain high numbers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan at this time. The military budget should be cut, and it cannot be cut if we continue to maintain a very large military presence in that part of the world.
Look in the Mirror
Aug 12, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
Congress barely beat a deadline of August 2, 2011, but did pass a measure that raises the debt ceiling, and prevents the U.S. Treasury from defaulting on its debt obligations. However, the political bickering and acrimony generated during this process has caused Standard & Poor’s to downgrade U.S. debt obligations to AA from its former AAA rating. This has caused turmoil in the financial markets, as the stock markets have up and down like a bad roller coaster at an amusement park. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has taken at least a 1500 point hit since the debt ceiling was raised. Our financial future has been held hostage by a dysfunctional U.S. Congress, and people around the U.S. are looking for someone to blame for this mess. I can offer up several groups to blame, with the first group being the Congress itself. This bunch of political hacks and self important potentates are too busy campaigning and jockeying for political position, that they have completely forgotten how to effectively govern the country. You can also blame the political parties that do nothing but divide the country into factions, and offer up absolutely nothing to the country in the way of ideas for effective government.
But perhaps the greatest blame should go to the CEOs and presidents of all of the Fortune 500 companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They have for over the past twenty years formed Political Action Committees (PACS) that have pumped millions upon millions of dollars in Congressional races for years. The Congress that we have today they have pretty much bought and paid for with their PAC money. When all of these business types complain about the way Congress has brought us into a financial crisis, our response should be sent back to them in the form of a letter that should read like this:
Dear President or CEO:
Your company, as well as many others, has formed Political Action Committees for the express purpose of influencing Congressional elections for over the past twenty years. Now, on account of the recent dithering and political bickering in that body, their lack of leadership has plunged this county and maybe the world into a financial crisis.
We the American public hold you substantially responsible for this mess. If you want to see the cause of the current financial mess, just go look into the mirror. You wanted the Congress to enact free trade agreements. You wanted to bust the labor unions and to save your company money by shipping U.S. jobs overseas. You got your wish, and our manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy are wrecked. The Congress that we now have to work with is the same Congress that you have essentially bought and paid for with your PAC monies. You spent the millions of dollars required to influence Congressional elections around the country, and the Congress that we have to deal with now is the one you bought and paid for. Maybe you should enjoy the fruits of your labors. However, we have a better plan for you.
Why don’t you stick to your business, and keep business out of politics permanently? If your company’s meddling in U.S. Congressional politics gives us this type of dysfunctional Congress to govern us, maybe you and those like you should get out of politics for good. Close down each and every one of your PACS, and stay out of national and local politics for good. If you do not proceed to depoliticize your company, we will boycott the products that you make and sell here in the U.S.
The time has come to get the big money out of Congressional races completely, if the American public must start cleaning up the system from the ground up. The legal system will give the public no relief from this problem. We must now take things in hand and clean up our political system.
Sincerely,
Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public
Water Wars Round Two
Jul 8, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
On June 28, 2011, a three judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2009 decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson. Magnuson’s order ruled that it was illegal for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to draw water from Lake Lanier for Gwinnett County, Forsyth County, and the City of Atlanta water systems. His ruling also required Atlanta and the two counties that draw water from Lake Lanier to terminate their withdrawals from the lake by 2012. This deadline has now been vacated by a three judge panel of the appellate court.
The 11th Circuit went back to common sense in its legal ruling. The City of Atlanta originally drew its water from the Chattahoochee River before the Buford Dam was built, so the court ruled that Atlanta and the two counties naturally had the right to draw water from Lake Lanier. The court also ruled that the language of the Rivers and Harbors Act, which authorized the construction of Buford Dam “clearly indicates that water supply was an authorized purpose. . .” of the project.
The court also ruled, in a 95 page opinion, that diversion of water for municipal water service was not a “major operational change” under the Water Supply Act of 1958. The panel also ruled that “such reallocations to water supply arguably do not actually constitute ‘change’ in operations at all. . .”
The court remanded the case back to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and gave the Corps one year to determine the proper amount of water allocation from Lake Lanier. Conditions had changed somewhat since Judge Magnuson’s draconian order of 2009. Since the date of Judge Magnuson’s ruling, Gwinnett County has completed a new water treatment plant, which now discharges 40 million of gallons of highly treated wastewater into the bottom of Lake Lanier daily. Gwinnett County in essence replaces over 45% of the water it withdraws from the lake with highly treated wastewater. It normally draws 40 to 70 million gallons of water per day from Lake Lanier, the only source of municipal water service for the entire county.
The governor of Alabama has indicated that his state will appeal this ruling to the full panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Florida’s governor is in the process of making the same decision. That will be the third round in the tri-state water wars. Round two is now over. Georgia and Atlanta and Gwinnett and Forsyth Counties appear to have won this round of the fight.
Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.
He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at Amazon.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.
First Bull Run
Jul 8, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
The Confederate Congress was scheduled to meet around the 25th of July, 1861, in Richmond. Pressure mounted on the commander of the Union Army in Virginia, General Irvin McDowell, to launch an attack on Confederate forces in the area. Two small armies defended northern Virginia at the time. General P.T. Beauregard had command of 20,000 Confederate troops near Manassas. General Joe Johnston had command of 12,000 Confederate troops near Winchester, Virginia.
On July 20, 1861, General McDowell’s army of 30,000 men marched to Centreville, Virginia. Alarmed that superior Union forces were gathering at his front, General Beauregard sent for help from General Johnston. General Johnston loaded his men onto the cars of the Manassas Gap Railroad, and his men arrived on the night of the 20th to reinforce Beauregard’s men.
On the morning of the 21st, 20,000 Union soldiers began a flank attack on the Confederate left flank. Captain Edward P. Alexander, from his wig-wag station, sent Colonel Nathan ”Shanks” Evans a wig wag message that his left flank was about to be turned. This was the first use of the new wig-wag system in combat. Steady attacks by the troops of Colonel William T. Sherman and Major George Sykes forced the Confederate troops back, where they gathered in defense of Henry House Hill.
Confederate General Bernard Bee saw the Virginia brigade of Colonel Thomas J. Jackson standing at the crest of Henry House Hill. He then uttered the words that would immortalize Jackson. “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. . .Rally behind the Virginians.” Bee soon received a mortal wound, but his brigade and other Confederate troops rallied around T.J. Jackson’s brigade. Jackson’s men soon fixed their bayonets and charged down the slope of the hill, yelling like furies.
As the Union troops were pushed off Henry House Hill, they began a disorganized retreat that turned into a panic. Guns and wagons were abandoned in the Federal flight back to Washington. Members of the U.S. Congress and their wives and ladies had traveled with the army to view a Union victory. They were also caught up in the disorganized retreat, and the confusion and panic of the Union soldiers that were fleeing north.
The only unit left on the field that retreated in any order was the regular army brigade of Colonel William T. Sherman. The day was lost for the Union. Union casualties totaled 460 killed, 1124 wounded, and 1312 missing or captured. The Confederates lost 387 killed, 1582 wounded, and 13 missing. This Confederate victory guaranteed a protracted war and a bloody struggle with larger numbers of troops over battlefields around the South.
Why They Fought
Apr 29, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
Much has been said in newspaper editorials of late as to why the different sides and the soldiers fought in the Civil War. A much more accurate term other than Civil War is War Between the States, as individual states raised regiments to fight one another, and even different regions located inside states sent troops to fight one another.
A review of the political papers and speeches of the politicians of the time will tell you the reasons different states recruited and sent troops to fight in the conflict. After Fort Sumter was shelled, an outpouring of patriotism set up in the Union states, with President Lincoln’s call for volunteer soldiers. Governors of many Union states sent volunteer regiments to Washington. They did so by giving a colonel’s commission to prominent community leaders, experienced soldiers, or politicians in their state. The newly commissioned colonels would then raise a volunteer regiment for service in the U.S. Army, and these regiments would receive clothing and equipment, and then would be shipped by train down to Washington, D.C.
The reasons for their enlistment at that time was a fear that if the rebellion was not controlled, that the Union would break up into many different republics. Preservation of the Union was the primary reason that men in the North enlisted to fight the war. Soldiers from states in the old Northwest Territory held somewhat different views. They fought for the main reason of opening up the Mississippi River to commerce. They did not want New Orleans, Louisiana to remain a foreign port city. For this reason, they fought in the war to open up the Mississippi River to Union navigation and commerce.
Troops from the Northeastern U.S. primarily fell under the influence of abolitionist groups, and they fought mainly to free the slaves. Their prime motivation in serving in the Union Army was to free the slaves in the South.
Down South, most of the regiments on the Confederate muster books the first two years of the war were volunteer regiments. The men at that point in the war volunteered because of their patriotism at the time the Southern states seceded. Demands on army manpower soon required the Confederacy to enact a conscription law. In 1862, the Confederacy began conscription, and conscription continued in the South throughout the duration of the war. If you were male and able bodied, and if you were not a local sheriff, or were not in the local militia, you were required to serve in the Confederate army, or you would be thrown into prison.
One of the most significant reasons that southern men fought in the army or the militia was because their state had been invaded by Union forces. After invasions were made in various states, militia units were called up, and Confederate forces were deployed to meet the invasion threats posed. Even those men that enlisted in local militia units down South to avoid military service in the Confederacy often ended up on the front lines, fighting Union troops in Georgia and in Virginia. A significant reason for Confederate troops and militia to fight was because the Union Army had invaded Confederate held territory. McClelland’s invasion of the Peninsula in 1862 prompted the enactment of the Confederate conscription law. Many soldiers that would probably have stayed out of conflict altogether ended up fighting, because the Union Army had invaded their home state. This was especially true in Tennessee and in Georgia during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign.
Different sections of states even had different allegiances during the war. In upstate Alabama, where corn was raised instead of cotton, there was a strong pro-union element. Winston County even went so far as to secede from the state of Alabama, and to call itself “the Free State of Winston.” Tennessee sent over 55 regiments to fight in the Union Army, despite the fact that it was a Confederate state. West Virginia broke away from Virginia in 1861, and later was admitted into the Union as West Virginia in 1863.
Eastern Maryland raised several regiments to fight in the Confederate service. Western Maryland remained loyal to the Union. Maryland did not secede from the Union because President Lincoln sent troops into Annapolis to prevent the Maryland Assembly from voting in an ordinance of secession. Kentucky remained loyal to the Union, but furnished many regiments that fought on both sides during the war.
In 1863, the Union enacted a conscription law, because of the horrific losses suffered by the Army of the Potomac on the battlefield. A male subject to the draft in 1863 could avoid the draft by paying the sum of $300.00, or by recruiting a substitute to take his place. This lead to the draft riots in New York City in July of 1863, and the complaint that it was a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.
Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.
He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.
Against Long Odds
Apr 15, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
In 1861, the Confederacy faced an uphill fight against the forces of the Union. The population of the seceding states was around eight million, with three million of those persons being slaves at the time. The population of the Union states was around 20 million. The Confederacy had no standing army, no navy, and only two mills that could mill and process iron and steel. Machine shops, coal mines and factories for the production of war resources were mostly located in the Union states. Rhett Butler’s comments about the South being unequipped and ill prepared for war in 1861 in the movie Gone With The Wind were very accurate.
The South was traversed by flat coastal plains and broad rivers that could be navigated, and would allow invasion by the navy and marine forces of the Union. Southern forts and installations were not fully prepared to defend against Union attack. Masonry constructed coastal forts that were formidable during the age of smoothbore cannon, would be proven to be obsolete against more modern rifled weapons.
There were few skilled mechanics and inventors in the South that could build and maintain factories for the production of guns and other war materials. There were few facilities in the South that could mill cotton into cloth for the production of uniforms, sails, or tents. The South had no uniform system of currency. There was no unified banking system to regulate currency in the South.
There were weapons available from armories that belonged to the U.S. that were seized at the time various states seceded, such as at Harper’s Ferry and Fayetteville, North Carolina. However, there was no ready supply of raw materials needed to mass produce firearms in the South at the time the war broke out. Many firearms available to some Confederate regiments at the outset of the war were old style smoothbore muskets that had limited range on a modern battlefield. Other firearms available were of the older flintlock type, that had to be modified later for use by the troops.
The Confederacy depended on volunteer soldiers from state regiments early on in the war. Conscription was not enacted into law until the spring of 1862. After casualties began to mount up into the war, a lack of manpower haunted Confederate authorities up until the conclusion of the war. Many letters written to Jefferson Davis praying for reinforcements during the war often went answered with the words “no other resource remains.”
The Confederacy had no navy to speak of. The Union acquired and built a vast array of freshwater and seagoing vessels to enforce a blockade of southern ports, and to seal off southern rivers. Many areas were effectively sealed off from the outside world after the blockade became more effective in 1863. The Confederacy was forced to rely on blockade runners to get weapons, uniforms, and medicines into the country.
Most of the miles of completed railroad track were laid in the Union states. The railroads in the Confederacy were poorly constructed, and were not well connected with one another. Some railroad lines in the South were even laid with different gauges of track, which prohibited trains from running off one line and onto another. The Union repeatedly took advantage of its far superior transportation system in its movement of troops during the war. The movement of troops during the siege of Chattanooga in 1863 was at that time the largest and fastest movement of troops by railroads in history.
Artillery in the Confederate states was vastly inferior to the artillery deployed by the Union armies during the war. Confederate guns were often imported from England, or captured from Union forces. Confederate ordinance was vastly inferior to Union shells. The quality of gunpowder in the charges was poor. Confederate shells often misfired, exploded prematurely, or spun over and did not strike its intended targets.
Confederate supply services were abominable. Confederate troops were not supplied with anything close to the basic amount of daily rations that would prevent soldiers from starving. They were also poorly supplied with equipment, uniforms, and most important of all, shoes. Confederate soldiers were required to march, campaign, and fight without being properly fed or properly supplied with clothing in all types of weather conditions. In contrast, the Union armies were the best fed and best equipped armies in the world at that time. The commissary command structure in the Confederacy was criminal at best, as the soldiers were underfed, ill clothed, and ill cared for, all during the war.
Union and Confederate forces occupied much of the same areas of Northern Virginia for prolonged periods during the Civil War. These occupations caused a severe shortage of food, supplies, and forage for the draft animals that pulled Confederate supply wagons and artillery. The Confederate invasions of the North in 1862 and in 1863 were mostly because Virginia was being scraped bare of forage for the animals, and food for the soldiers, and shoes for the Confederate soldiers. The battle of Gettysburg itself started when Harry Heth’s Confederate troops entered the town looking for shoes.
Yet in spite of all the inadequate supplies and hardships, the troops of the Confederacy managed to astonish the world by thwarting repeated Union invasions in Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee for several years. The Army of the Potomac failed in seven invasion attempts to capture Richmond or to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia. The South could win the war by resisting invasion from the North. It also had the opportunity to win the war by simply holding its army together, and by outlasting the will of the U.S. Government to continue the conflict more than four years. The war was the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. It was bloody because of disease and because of the primitive nature of battlefield triage at the time. It was also bloody because the commanders in the field did not fully understand the effect of modern rifled weapons. The war was also bloody because great generals such Robert E. Lee became determined early on in the war to conquer a peace through a decisive victory on the battlefield. It was against these long odds that the Confederacy began its struggle with the Union in 1861. Yet in spite of these odds, the outcome of the Civil War was a near run thing. When the South failed to conquer a peace on the battlefield, the Confederacy made the war last long enough to make significant numbers of citizens in the North demand a peace, and make efforts to put an end to the struggle.
The Chernobyl Option
Apr 1, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
Four Fridays ago, at around 3:44 local time, a 9.0 level earthquake struck on the sea floor east of Sandai, Japan. The earthquake was high up near the ocean floor, and it caused a huge tsunami to sweep over the coastline nearby. Entire cities and towns and fields and countryside were swept up in this terrible tsunami. The disaster killed over 10,500 people, and over 12,000 persons are missing, and are presumed dead. Many victims were swept out into the sea.
Over 400,000 Japanese persons are now homeless. To compound this disaster, the tsunami cut electrical power at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station nearby. Backup generators were rendered inoperative as well, and the controllers at the power station lost the ability to pump and retain water on uranium fuel rods inside the reactors, and at the spent fuel ponds nearby.
Here is a summary of the damage done at this power station: There are no less than six reactors at the plant. The shielding or buffering material that protects the reactor cores and cools the cores is thousands of gallons of fresh water. When the earthquake hit, the plant lost all electrical power, which prevented the water pumps from pumping fresh water onto the cores. The diesel backup generators also failed, which meant that the fuel rods were in a position to overheat, if the level of water shielding the uranium fuel rods would fall below certain levels. Reactors 4, 3, 2, and 1 sustained damage to the reactor building. Reactors 3, 2, and 1 experienced a partial meltdown of the fuel rods. There was also an increase in the temperature of the spent fuel rods in all six of the nuclear reactors. When fuel rods began to overheat and burn, they produce caesium -137. This radioactive substance disburses into the atmosphere, and ends up polluting the ground, air, and water around the plant. This substance also causes thyroid cancer in infants and children, if the children are exposed to sufficient quantities of the material.
Once the fuel rods overheat to a temperature well above the boiling point of water, the water vapor becomes hot enough inside the reactors to create hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas inside some of the units exploded, causing damage to several of the reactor buildings. Officials believe that a partial meltdown has occurred in some of the reactors already. This explains the great release of vapor, heat, and radiation from some of the reactor buildings.
For days, plant officials, and later Japanese firefighters have been dropping water, and later spraying sea water onto the reactors, in an effort to cool down the fuel rods. Their efforts have only been partially successful, as smoke and radiation have spewed from reactor unit number 3 for days. This radiation has contaminated the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean, and has contaminated spinach crops and milk in surrounding areas. The water in Tokyo is so radioactive, it is no longer safe for infants to drink. Japanese residents are making runs into stores for bottled water.
The Japanese Government has evacuated 200,000 residents from a 20 kilometer radius around the stricken nuclear plant.
The Tokyo Power Company has successfully run electrical power cables back into each of the reactor units at the plant, and the workers there are in the process of inspecting the motors and water pumps inside each plant in order to determine if the freshwater pumps on the cooling systems can be engaged. Reactor unit 3 remains a problem, though, as material there continues to burn and smoke, and radiation continues to spew out into the sky. A private utility is calling the shots here, and their decision making is infected with the for profit motivations of a private company. At some point, the Japanese Government should grab the bull by the horns, and make the hard decisions needed to deal with this crippled reactor.
In 1986, when the graphite based reactor at Chernobyl in the then Soviet Union blew up, President Gorbachev made a tough but necessary decision. He ordered tons of sand, boride, and cement to be dumped on the reactor from helicopters. This essentially entombed the reactor, and it stopped the spread of radioactive material into the surrounding countryside. If Japanese officials fail to stop the spread of radioactive material from this plant, their indecision will end of costing Japanese children and young people for years to come, as they develop thyroid and other cancers from the radioactive contamination that is going unchecked up into the atmosphere from reactor unit number three.
Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.
He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. You may view his weekly column at stevenharrell.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.
Another Middle East War
Apr 1, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
Over fifty years ago, the United States and its allies supported the installation of strong dictators to rule countries in the Middle East. As long as the dictator was friendly to the U.S., anti-Communist, and sold petroleum products to U.S. oil companies, that was OK with the U.S. Government. Many of these dictators have been in power in excess of thirty years. Most of these leaders base their power support on the oil revenues generated by their nations. They retain power indefinitely, and free elections in their nations are nothing less than a joke. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and of the press are nonexistent. The legislature and the courts of such countries sit at the will of the strong arm ruler. The rule of such leaders is hereditary, and the economics of the region is not trickle down in the least. The rich get richer, and the poor struggle on without any hope of upward mobility.
The Middle East is filled with unemployed and underemployed youth that are literate and well informed about democratic society in the Western nations through the internet, and some of these people decided they had had enough of their situation, and they began ad hoc revolutions in various Arab countries. Tunisia overthrew its ruler, and then the mobs in Egypt revolted. The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, was forced out of office by revolutionaries in that nation. Other protests in Yemen and Bahrain were met with deadly force. The latter nation used soldiers from the House of Saud to crush rebellion there, even though innocent people were shot down in the streets.
In Libya, though, the democracy protestors grabbed weapons, and began a civil war to overthrow their evil dictator, Colonel Muammer Gaddafi. Gaddafi responded by ordering soldiers that were loyal to him to attack their fellow countrymen with planes, tanks, and artillery. He began to crush the rebels with the military power of his armed forces. Civilians were gunned down on the streets indiscriminately. France and Great Britain and other NATO countries, though, saw this civil uprising as an opportunity to get rid of Colonel Gaddafi once and for all, and they took the cause of “humanitarian relief” to the United Nations, where they were able to persuade the U.N. Security Council to order a no-fly zone established over Libya.
The U.S. and NATO then began to fire missiles on Libya, and began to bomb military targets in Libya around the clock. The U.S. has deployed A-10 tank killing aircraft and AC-130 gunships to the region to help destroy Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery. Rebels in Libya that were losing the war, have begun to retake cities and towns that they had lost to government forces before the U.S. and NATO got involved in the conflict.
President Obama has tried to convince the American people that the imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya was done only for humanitarian reasons. I say he insults our intelligence. NATO and the U.S. saw an opportunity to rid themselves of an evil terrorist supporting dictator, and they have used this civil war as a pretext to get rid of him.
Considering the fact that we are trying to extricate ourselves from Iraq, and we need to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan, I consider this a blunder on our part to intervene in Libya at this time. If we really want to get rid of Colonel Gaddafi, why not send over a couple of crack rifle teams and assassinate him? Why do we have to get into another war to benefit our defense contractors again when we are running such a mountainous budget deficit? How many of the rebels in Libya that we are helping today were yelling “death to America!” five years ago? Could our involvement over there have something to do with the fact that Libya is a major oil exporting nation, and exports over 1.5 million barrels of oil per day?
Maybe we need to look inward at ourselves, and remember some of the wisdom of Senator William Fulbright. If we could spend a fraction of the resources we spend making war in the Middle East on some sort of solution to our energy problems, wouldn’t we be a whole lot better off? We should take some of the government funds that we are now spending on Middle East wars, and develop a workable distribution system for hydrogen fuel for our trucks and automobiles. Maybe then, our young people would not be sent to die fighting some other two-bit dictator in that part of the world. If we could perfect hydrogen fuel into a working distribution system, none of the politics of the Middle East would apply to our way of life.
Then, all the crazy people in the Middle East could turn the place into a sheep and goat trail, and maybe then petroleum products would become obsolete. Until then, another U.S. president will send U.S. military personnel into harm’s way without a good reason for doing so, and will get us involved in the affairs of another Middle Eastern nation.
Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.
He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.
ADR Works
Mar 22, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
In these days of state budget cuts, the court systems around the state have put civil cases on the back burner to accommodate the criminal dockets. That means additional delays in civil cases getting put on trial calendars, and getting reached for trial. For plaintiffs with legitimate civil suits, that means that justice delayed is also justice denied. In the early 1990s, a new concept in civil litigation took root in Georgia. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) was mandated and implemented in court systems around the state.
ADR allows civil court cases to be resolved without trials in the courts or with juries. Instead, the case resolved by ADR can be settled either through mediation, or through arbitration. I will describe both processes to you, as I have mediated hundreds of cases, and I have tried cases before arbitrators as well. Arbitration is similar to a non-jury trial in the court system, or a hearing before an administrative law judge. The parties or their counsel select an arbitrator to hear evidence in the case, and to make a written arbitration award after the evidence is heard. The rules of evidence normally apply in arbitration proceedings, and witnesses are called, and evidence is presented in a way similar to a court hearing.
After the arbitrator hears the evidence, an award is entered that could be dispositive of the case, and completely resolves the parties’ dispute. This process is known as binding arbitration. Once a binding arbitration award is filed with the clerk of the court in this state, it becomes as binding as a civil judgment.
Mediation is a somewhat different ADR process. The parties select a mediator, who then schedules a mediation. The parties appear with their counsel before the mediator, and the attorneys outline their client’s position in a way similar to an opening statement in a civil trial or hearing. The parties then break off into separate rooms for a caucus session, and the mediator meets with the parties separately to solicit settlement offers from each side. As the plaintiff makes a settlement offer, the defendant then makes a counter offer, until the parties reach a settlement, or reach an impasse. The process actually becomes similar to old fashioned horse trading during the mediation, as numbers get swapped back and forth in the form of offers and counteroffers to settle, until a settlement is reached. You must remember that no matter what type of emotional dispute the parties have in a case, most cases can be resolved through the payment of a sum of money. Once a figure is agreed upon, the parties then reach a settlement of the plaintiff’s claim. The settlement, if achieved, is nothing less than a compromise. The plaintiff is going down from his earlier settlement demand, and the defendant is paying more than he or she wanted to pay the plaintiff originally to settle the case.
Interesting enough, a fair settlement after mediation therefore becomes the product of a compromise, but it also is the product of offers that were made and generated as part of a fair and systematic process. If the parties reach an impasse, the mediator terminates the mediation, and reports that fact to the court, and the case is normally tried in the traditional later on.
If the parties reach a settlement of the case after the mediation, the mediator drafts a written settlement agreement, and the parties sign it. The attorneys then prepare a formal agreement for the parties to sign later that is filed with the court, but the case is actually settled and resolved at the mediation.
I have participated as an attorney in hundreds of mediations, and over ninety five percent of the cases that I have mediated have settled. I have participated in this process for the past twenty years, and I believe it truly works. It is an excellent way to conclude a civil case in a cost effective manner. There are several attorneys in the Middle Georgia area that work as skilled and trained mediators. If you have a civil case that you want to file and promptly get resolved, you should give mediation a chance. Many court systems in Georgia order mediation within so many days of the lawsuit being filed, so mediation is now a mandatory part of our legal system. In cases involving more than just the payment of a sum of money, mediation offers a means for the parties to fashion a settlement that is tailored to fit the parties’ needs. Your settlement revolves around your demands, which are fashioned to fit your particular situation. If the parties reach a settlement through a fair negotiation and bargaining process, that settlement is easier to implement than a jury verdict that may dissatisfy both parties in a case.
In short, ADR is a great and cost effective way to resolve a case without the time consuming and expensive route of a civil trial by jury.
Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.
He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. You may view his weekly column at stevenharrell.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.
Responding to Pirate Attacks
Mar 4, 2011 Updates Leave a comment
Last month, pirates operating off the coast of Somalia hijacked a 58 foot yacht, the Quest, which was owned by American Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, California. A U.S. warship responded to the hijacking, and began to shadow the pirates after they took four Americans hostage. One of the pirates fired a rocket propelled grenade at the U.S. warship, and gunfire then broke out on the yacht. When U.S. Navy SEALS reached the Quest, they found that all four Americans on board had been murdered by the pirates. The SEALS then engaged the pirates in a gun battle, and killed two of them. The remaining 15 pirates were captured, and have been transported to the USS Enterprise off the coast of East Africa. These pirates will later be transported to the U.S., where they will be charged and tried with the offenses of murder and piracy on the high seas.
News sources indicate that gangs in East Africa are now turning to piracy, because the fishermen that began piracy operations in the area have made millions of dollars ransoming Western hostages they captured in pirate raids aboard merchant ships.
Criminal gangs have begun the practice of torturing hostages, beating them, and using them as human shields. Several weeks ago, a U.S. District Court sentenced a Somali pirate to 33 years in prison for hijacking the merchant ship Maersk Alabama in 2009. That hijacking ended when U.S. Navy SEAL teams killed two pirates that were holding the ship’s captain hostage.
The International Maritime Bureau in London reports that piracy incidents on the high seas increased 40 percent in 2009 from the year 2008. The number of attacks off the coast of Somalia doubled in 2009 from 111 to 217. Pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden have caused commercial vessels to detour around the area, and the U.S., the European Union, China, Russia, and other nations have sent warships into the area to protect their commercial shipping vessels. Pirates are now hijacking ships and using them as mother vessels or offshore bases in the Indian Ocean. The International Maritime Bureau has recorded 33 attacks in the Indian Ocean since October of 2010.
The Obama Administration should adopt a policy and a strategy designed to change the pirate situation off the Horn of Africa. Pirate ships should be identified and sunk on sight by our submarines, warships, and naval aircraft. A shoot to kill order and rule of engagement should be issued to our Armed Forces whenever they contact any pirates on the high seas. Once a submarine or warship or fighter jet identifies a pirate vessel operating in international waters, the vessel should be treated as an enemy vessel and immediately sunk. The Western nations should publish and distribute leaflets in countries that harbor pirates, and the leaflets should advise that pirate vessels will be sunk on sight.
An even more aggressive approach should be made once pirate ports and strongholds are identified on shore. Once aircraft and satellite imagery reveals the existence of a pirate sanctuary, the harbor, river, or port should be heavily mined to prevent the pirates from operating there.
Would this type of strategy cause hardship in the fishing ports where these pirates operate? Absolutely. That is the point. Western nations should make the business of piracy become so cost prohibitive to pirate tribes and nations that they will have little choice other than to give it up. If legitimate fishermen are starved out of business because pirates operate in their waters, that is the cost of allowing pirates to operate in their home waters. Until a more aggressive strategy is adopted by the U.S. and other Western powers, these pirates will continue to operate off the Horn of Africa. They are continuing to operate because their piracy has become lucrative and profitable. While this is ongoing, world wide shipping and insurance costs and fuel costs will increase because of the activities of several dozen thugs operating in areas like Somalia. We can at the present only react to pirates after they have made their moves on commercial shipping, and that does not solve the problem of piracy. Until a more thoughtful and aggressive approach is employed, the problem will only escalate.
Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.
He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.
