"The worst post-conflict cluster bomb contamination I've ever seen"

From the Independent Online

US Attacks Israel's Cluster Bomb Use

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

The controversy about Israel's use of cluster bombs during its conflict with Hizbollah in July last year will reopen today when the US State Department publishes its draft report, which concludes that the American-made weapons were misused in civilian areas.

Israel received widespread condemnation last year after it was accused of littering Lebanon with thousands of unexploded bombs in the final hours of its war.

At the time Chris Clarke, the United Nations official in charge of bomb disposal in southern Lebanon, said his staff had identified 390 strikes by Israel's cluster munitions. "This is ... the worst post-conflict cluster bomb contamination I have ever seen," he said.

Tibetan Buddhist Rites for the Dead for Marla

Marla Ruzicka (December 31, 1976 – April 16, 2005) was an activist-turned-aid worker. She developed a unique approach to advocacy for civilian victims of war: she insisted that combatant governments had a legal and moral responsibility to compensate the families of civilians killed or injured in military conflicts. This accomplished three things: 1. It produced tangible benefits for families of civilians war victims; 2. It raised antiwar consciousness; 3. It demonstrated the high cost of modern war, by focusing on the suffering of civilians (so-called "collateral damage"). Ruzicka's greatest assets were her intense likeability and her high energy, which enabled her to communicate effectively with soldiers, government officials, other aid and NGO workers, and--most importantly of all--the media of all countries. She was killed by a car bomb blast in Baghdad. She founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), an organization that assists Iraqi victims of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. She was born in Lakeport, California. Prior to launching the project in Iraq, she was based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Ruzicka worked with the San Francisco-based human rights organization Global Exchange to pressure the US government to set up a fund for Afghan families harmed in Operation Enduring Freedom. (from Wikipedia) keywords:Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhism, Tibet, Iraq, Afghanistan, Compassion, War

What's in a Trillion?

From the NYTimes

What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy 
              
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: January 17, 2007
The human mind isn't very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don't deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children's lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn't use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban's recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.

All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:

The war in Iraq.