War. What (or who) is it good for?

http://thehoopla.com.au/war-good-2/24th October 2014

WAR. WHAT (OR WHO) IS IT GOOD FOR?

October 24, 2014

The catchcry of the 1970 protest anthem is that war is good for absolutely nothing “’cause it means destruction of innocent lives … [and] tears to thousands of mothers’ eyes.”

This may have been the answer by popular culture during the Vietnam War, but many profiteers would now answer the same question by rubbing their hands.

While the most obvious beneficiaries are the weapons manufacturers, many others may join their counter-chorus “war is absolutely good for us.”

In this largely untold ‘success’ story, which requires the joining of many dots, the numbers are staggering and make a mockery of our morals.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military spending in 2013 reached about (US)$1.75 trillion. The biggest slice is eaten by the USA (37 per cent), followed by China (11 per cent) then Russia (5 per cent).

This lopsided ledger is more glaring when seven of the world’s top 10 weapons exporters are based in the USA such as Boeing, Raytheon and General Dynamics. The biggest of these is Lockheed Martin, whose sales reached $36.3 billion in 2013 and whose stock price reached an all-time high at $180.74 on 19 September 2014. While they make the

Hellfire missiles used in drone strikes, other US giants such as Northrop Grumman make the Global Hawk surveillance drones.

When US President Barack Obama declares war on ISIS militants, these stakeholders and their shareholders queue up for the “humanitarian mission”. In the first night of airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria on 22 September, the US dropped about 200 munitions and cruise missiles that were ‘Made in USA.’ They gave a new meaning to ‘launching’ new products on the market. As Operation Inherent Resolve intensified, costing the US $7.5 million per day, this created immediate demands for restocking arsenals and maintaining aircraft, manned and unmanned.

The White House now requests a further $500 million from the Pentagon to train, arm and resurrect the ‘rebel’ groups in Syria – the same motley crew would be called ‘insurgents’ across the border in Iraq. The extra funds would lead to requests for tender where the same defence companies bid for government contracts.

With the wars involving Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel, Middle East spending on weapons has increased by 56 per cent over the last 10 years. While thousands lost their lives and homes, there is no prize for guessing who won the selling prize.

Within the same supply chain, intelligence contractors are vital partners and profiteers.

They provide “ground based and airborne reconnaissance and electronic intelligence collection.” Their high resolution satellite imagery provides the eyes and ears to US pilots and drones to find their targets. The US has an annual intelligence budget of $70 billion, of which about 70 per cent is outsourced to private contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton for counter-terrorism, homeland security and mining data.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also pledged a $630 million boost to security agencies. When he signals that the commitment may “take an unspecified and potentially quite long period of time”, contractors may hear ka-ching.

Further down the same supply chain, governments may receive secondary benefits. A war may be an effective distraction from domestic issues (blocked budget bills) and may provide politicians a bounce in the polls. Political parties also benefit from political donations ahead of elections, such as the $130 million spent on ‘lobbying’ by US defence companies in 2012.

A dark profiteer of war is encapsulated by the 2003 slogan “No blood for oil” during the invasion of Iraq. This country had some of the world’s largest oil reserves which were nationalised and closed to Western companies.

Prior to becoming US vice president in 2001, Dick Cheney was chairman of the Texas based oil company Halliburton. Soon after assuming office, he warned that the US was facing “unprecedented energy price vulnerability” caused by “Iraq turning its taps on and off when it felt such action was in its strategic interest to do so.”

Similarly, visiting UK officials concluded that Iraq should be “open and attractive to foreign investment, with appropriate arrangements for the exploitation of new fields.” Indeed, exploit was the apt word as the “weapons of mass destruction” pretext led to privatisation of Iraqi oil production by foreign firms such as Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell.

In 2007, former US Senator Chuck Nagel conceded: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are.”

This is akin to rape of a nation’s natural resources so that foreigners can reap the financial rewards. Although Iraq’s oil production has increased by over 40 per cent over the last five years, about 80 per cent is exported out of the country, along with the potential benefits to Iraqis.

This begs the question: are the US troops stationed in the region to ward off insurgents, or to ward off anyone who approaches their oil supply chain and sea lanes?

If these are the winners of wars, who are the losers? In Iraq, it is the citizens as one in four still live in poverty, if they survived the spiralling wars.

What is war good for? Even if it appears good to line people’s pockets and good to stimulate sophisticated technologies, anything that means destruction of innocent lives can never be ‘good.’

The song still stands: war is ‘good’ for absolutely nothing.

What my daughters taught me

 

http://thehoopla.com.au/daughters-taught/

14th October 2014

 

WHAT MY DAUGHTERS TAUGHT ME

By Joseph Wakim Daily Dilemma, Must see, Wellbeing October 14, 2014 71 36 4

“A widowed father with three daughters? Bet they pamper you!”

I roll my eyes as these common comments roll out the assumptions: they must cook and clean for you, especially in your culture.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and modern men need to be prepared for my confronting truth.

No tea leaves ever predicted that I would raise my daughters alone. A happily married man reaches 40, then desperately kisses his beloved’s face, hands and feet as breast cancer claims her last breath.

The sharp edges of my grief were cushioned by the immediate needs of my 4, 7 and 11 year old daughters. They anchored me in the present so that I could not lament the past or fret about the future. We grieved together and they saw a grown man express, rather than suppress, raw emotions. The shared tears transcended generations and genders, bonding us through a pact of honesty.

They watched me morph from a father to a parent. They watched me over-compensate and flounder as an L-plater (loser) to a P-plater (parent). My own traditional Lebanese childhood in a Victorian terrace house, in a family of ten, with one crowded kitchen, meant that I graduated as an absolute beginner at cooking. If I was their role model, I dreaded their future mothers-in law, pitying their sons.

Aware of my anguish, our parish priest gifted me the 1669 Rembrandt portrait, The Return of the Prodigal Son, alluding to the hands of the father – one masculine, one feminine. Perhaps the dual role was not so modern.

My daughters watched me smash all gender stereotypes. I became iron(ing) man as mountains of school clothes went through the laundry cycle daily. And as the menstrual cycle graced our family, I became an instant expert in the sanitary aisle of supermarkets, where the female trolley-pushers appeared more embarrassed than me.

I invented a comfort zone by explaining this milestone moment as a “regular clean” to ensure that the womb of human life was in pristine condition. As their cycles synchronised,

I circled dates on the calendar to know when I needed to walk on egg shells. I learned quickly that if I ever tried to defend anyone in a spat against another, they would join ranks and turn on me. They would remind me that menstruation and menopause all started with men. It was best to tip-toe away on these circled dates; everything I said was irritating.

Menstruation and male menopause can create a toxic cocktail. I started losing hair where it belonged (crown) and growing hair where it did not belong (ear). They watched my vulnerability as I struggled to read the menu at candle-lit restaurants.

Pampering only happened when I was arrested by the juvenile judiciary on my way out: ‘you cannot go out like that.’ They mixed and matched my clothes and taught me about color coordination.

And now we have reached the dating stage, together.

They bring home their peers to ‘hang out’. They had watched me entertain guests and now surpass my hospitality standards. After conversing with their friends and making them feel welcome, I excuse myself and give them privacy. When the visitors whisper ‘cool dude’, my daughters shrug ‘just dad.’

When they return from a ‘date’, they find me still up, typing away with two fingers. They share their reflections, questions and impressions about this guy. I recall being his age and offer my insights: caring for my daughter while empathising for someone else’s son. Our honesty pact is reciprocated when I introduce a woman. Their intuition detects many cues that I may miss, and they are usually proven right.

Their male benchmarks are subconsciously affected by the first man of their life: their father. They expect the man of their life to embrace gender neutral roles, and I feel this weight on my shoulders.

In traditional Lebanese culture, mothers should mentor their daughters while fathers should mentor their sons. But in the modern diaspora, family traditions are competing with social media for the “new normal”. Regardless of the parent’s gender, it appears that peer pressure kicks in at younger ages.

In my culture, I was nudged early on to recouple because the daughters needed a mother and I needed a wife to ‘look after me’. This grossly understated the love that I shared with my wife, and overstated the role of gender.

Men need to be prepared as they may suddenly find themselves in my situation.

Outsourcing to a paid maid skirts the real challenge. In-sourcing within yourself not only completes the family, but completes you, awakening a dormant ability to do virtually anything.

But even in families where there is both a mother and a father, men can – and should – do anything women can do. Just leaving family roles to play within traditional gender boundaries denies us all the opportunity to explore an important part of ourselves.

It does not mean becoming less complementary to your spouse. On the contrary, it means more sharing and being more well-rounded role models for your children. For us men, it means emancipating ourselves from the rusty shackles of gender roles.

It has nothing to do with pampering, and everything to do with parenting.

Memoirs of a leading Lebanese Australian, ABC Radio National

http://ab.co/ILHszI

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/the-memoirs-of-a-leadiing-lebanese-australian/5134428

ABC Radio National

Religion and Ethics Report

The memoirs of a leading Lebanese Australian

Broadcast:

Wednesday 4 December 2013 5:50PM

Don’t call us Arabs! It’s a line that Joseph Wakim has heard often from his fellow Lebanese Australians. Now Wakim, one of the founders of the Australian Arabic Council, and a former Victorian government Multicultural Affairs Commissioner, has written a memoir about ethnic and religious identity in Australia. Sorry, We Have No Space tells the story of his efforts to unite Christian and Muslim Arabs into a strong and loyal part of the Australian community. Joseph Wakim chats with Andrew West.

Supporting Information

Sorry, We Have No Space, Connor Court, 2013

Guests

Joseph Wakim

Author, Sorry, We Have No Space(2013); writer; founder and leader, Australian Arabic Council; former Victorian government Multicultural Affairs Commissioner

Credits

Producer

Jess Hill

Presented by Andrew West

Courageous Story Telling, ABC Radio National

http://ab.co/1bSh7GT

26 November 2011

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/drawing-room/5118252

ABC Radio National

The Drawing Room

Courageous story telling

Broadcast:

Tuesday 26 November 2013 7:40PM

Joseph Wakim and John Safran are two authors who aren’t afraid of going out on a limb.

Joseph became a voice for Australia’s middle eastern community at a time when anti-Islam sentiment was at fever point.

John Safran is Jewish yet managed to spend days in the den of one of America’s most vitriolic anti-Semites.

They discuss race, religion and extremist politics with Jonathan Green in The Drawing Room.

Guests

Joe Wakim

Founder of the Australian Arabic Foundation and a former multicultural affairs commissioner

John Safran

John Safran co hosts Sunday Night Safran, JJJ with Father Bob, author of Murder In Mississippi.

Credits

Presenter

Jonathan Green

Producer

Barbara Heggen