The Dollar side of War

THE DOLLAR SIDE OF WAR Or (HOW LOVELY IS WAR?) A wise person once wrote as follows: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. (…) How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? None or very few is the number. Vladimir Putin came up with a proposal that the beleaguered Obama could not refuse even if the self-declared Socialist Francois Hollande of France fumed at the mouth calling for war. But it was not only powerless Holland (Syria not being Mali) who was disappointed by the non-declaration of war against Bashir Al Assad. The war profiteers felt jilted out billions of dollars. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have benefitted many petroleum connected companies, tomahawk sellers (1.45 million dollars per missile),health care and construction firms, Halliburton, Bechtel, DynCorp, General Dynamics, Aegis Defense services, soft drink companies, Lockheed, several other defense contractors including private guards and mercenaries etc. to the tune of US $ 70 billion for a decade long war in Iraq alone. A full out strike against Syria would have brought in billions to the war profiteers as was the case during the attack on Libya which is now verging to a failed state status. The collapse of Gadhafi and Libya has upset the whole security situation and balance in the Sahel area and had led to more wars that are benefitting the defense contractors and suppliers of petrol, jet fuel, bombs and the like. Dick Cheney was with Halliburton and, a former friend of Sadam, a big beneficiary from the war on Iraq. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have their own agendas on Syria as has Turkey and the much trumpeted rebel arenot beautiful democrats that Cameroon and Hollande resent them to be. Between Assad and Al Qaeda it is a beauty contest between monkeys as we like to say in Ethiopia—all ugly. But the war profiteers may still have their way on Syria. Sartre said: when the rich wage war it is the poor who die. In African wars, thousands millions of poor people die and have died and I for one have never heard the multinational mining companies and firms losing one of their CEO. Wars in Africa displace thousands if not millions and have created millions of refugees that benefit the charity business and on the side, as the French NGO in Chad, engage in sale of children or as in Ethiopia in abusing young boys. Many NGOs make millions out of the consequences of the war, the sale of alleged orphans unto adoption also brings in millions for various quarters. The war between the Meles regime and that of Isayas brought millions of dollars to arms sellers China, Russia, Ukraine and others. Both regimes also found many contractors, often associated with States, making millions. The invasion of Somalia by the Meles troops net millions for the ruling clique and the general who headed the invasion force was accused of making millions from bribes given to him by smugglers and traders in Somalia. When a collection of African countries sent soldiers to help Kabila they got their pay in gold and diamonds, millions of dollars’ worth. So on and on for South Sudan, Darfur, the AU troops incursion into Somalia. War is business, war is profit for the war mongers and a disaster and a catastrophe only for the people. The dollar side of war is indecent but only we the naïve get vexed over it. 130,000 Ethiopians died in the Badme war for nothing. The cruelty of war is also unbelievable. In Eastern Congo, no less than half a million women have been raped by ferocious militias backed by Western mining companies as well as by Rwanda and Uganda—5 million or more have died. No wonder the millionaires in the West and in African capitals swoon with joy when a war erupts or when they provoke wars against their neighbors or against their own people. There is money to be made War gives tin pot dictators the chance to play the leader. We have seen that in Ethiopia when a coward, now dead, played at being a leader and a hero over the corpses of thousands. Poor countries spending millions on defense allocation and ignoring the social sector (Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries spend at least a million dollar a day for their futile war ventures). The dry ration suppliers, the fuel vendors, the medicine and health care firms make millions. The regimes profit the wars and this so true that one can feel the anguish of those who wanted an all-out strike against Syria. Some of the bloodletting is for foolish causes as we have seen time and again and most of the time it is for greed, for the enrichment of the few with calloused hearts. It is what Martin Luther called a spiritual doom that has crippled many, alas. The Tigrean clique that now rules Ethiopia by force used to compose crude songs hailing the Kalashnikov gun as their protector and liberator. Worshipping crude metal of sorts. In almost all wars truth dies first and in the process the cause that one fights for is covered up, becomes elusive,is even forgotten. Fools believe what they are fed. The sight of Colin Powell in the UN trying to flash a test tube and tell us that Sadam has for sure WMDs is unforgettable but a costly charade that the money hungry Blair fellow imitated. The war against Iraq was for oil but many lulled themselves into sleep and chose to be duped. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have perished as a result, the country is in ruins and every day the death toll mounts. The same situation is diversely but surely trying to repeat in Syria and behind it all stand the war profiteers. Same situation in Somalia where Ethiopian and other African troops have invaded and wreaked havoc trying to fulfill a misguided American policy that would not end the tragedy and the terror at all. But, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi regimes profit. And others too. Oh, how lovely war is!

THE JENNIFER TURN

The primary curse goes to that Angelina Jolie person. “Haro sur Angelina”, curse on that Joly who started out with much fanfare the adoption racket of Ethiopian children. The famous actress adopted an alleged orphaned child who was sold away by her own mother and a very cruel government that controls the adoption industry. The little girl was renamed Zahra and taken to Hollywood with the actress padding her resume as a “do gooder”. One fellow wrote that Ethiopians live under stone-age poverty (what exactly does this mean really? Were people starved during the stone- age?) and Angelina type of actions is God sent and to be praised. It is nowadays called Child Harvesting, using the suffering of parents to take away their children with false promises and money. Divas and actresses compete fiercely and Madonna made her foray in Malawi and adopted two children thereby giving the Malawi president then ( Dr. Bingu Mutharika formerly known as Brightson Webster Kyson) the chance to shame himself, his country and all Africa by declaring publicly: “I wish someone had come and taken 10,000 Malawi children because then I would know that 10,000 Malawians would have better education and opportunities”. As I wrote years ago why don’t they adopt us all and put an end to our so called stone age-poverty? And now it is the turn of Jennifer Lopez, the singer actress who reportedly insured a part of her body for a cool six million and received a jewel studded toilet seat worth 120,000 euros from her boyfriend of the time who is none other than another actor who got rewards for a CIA sponsored film that presents Iranians as savages and who claims to be concerned for the Eastern Congolese so much so he is living at $2.50 a day for two days as a show of solidarity. Call it slumming of a sort, fake and hypocritical, once again using us as pets and inflating their names and publicity in the process. Jennifer has now trekked to Ethiopia and adopted a rural boy (child) with priests present (these days Ethiopian priests could hold mass at any time of the day if ordered or paid well as they did for Beyoncé shaming the Church) and a humiliating ceremony accompanied by an oath and Lopez’s unconvincing actress tears. One more child sold and the whole process registered as a video and You Tube presentation. The director? No known but it is nauseating at least for us Ethiopians. Ethiopia accounts for more than a quarter of the international adoption. Ethiopia’s cruel rulers sell children cheaper than the fertile land (the size of Belgium) sold or ceded to Arabs, the Chinese, Indians and Sudanese. The adoption industry is flourishing and very profitable. Ethiopia has many orphans (thanks to the wars and the political repression that takes away parents) and millions of children with poor parents. Dozens of orphanages are actually transit and trafficking agencies harvesting children from poor rural parents and selling the children to foreigners cheaper than Haitian, Vietnamese and Russian children. Ethiopian children are said to have “no future” and thus their sale is justified. The regime in Addis Abeba has been selling young women to modern slavery to the racist Middle Eastern countries that torture and even kill them.. The business nets millions to the regime that controls the option and the sale of women to the Middle East. Foreign agencies and embassies are involved in the shameful process. One American woman who adopted an Ethiopian child testified that the American embassy in Addis Abeba told her to lie and to assert that the adopted child’s parents are dead. UNICEF had worked hand in glove with the Tigrean front (TPLF) when this criminal outfit was claiming to be a liberation front and enjoying the support of Live Aid, Geldof, War on Want, Grassroots International, World Vision, USAID, Norwegian Council of Churches, etc and even now this outfit is supporting the criminal regime on all fronts. Doug Webb, a UNICEF official in Addis Abeba, has bent backwards to tell us that the adoption racket, the new export industry that is bringing in in millions of dollars to the regime, is actually the work of “local cadres” and the regime is trying to correct the mistakes.. There is actually no “local” in Ethiopia. All is centralized, all is controlled by the ethnic Tigrean elite or ruling class. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the adoption agency body are all under the regime and headed by ethnic Tigreans. Shame on the UNICEF once more! Talking of cover up we can go to mention the IMF, World Bank, the US Department. The Western embassies in Addis Abeba, that all are desperately trying to present the tyranny in Addis Ababa like Park of South Korea and the former dictator of Singapore as an outfit that is registering double digit economic growth in Ethiopia despite political repression and gross human rights violations. Statistics are numbers that one can manipulate. Imagine a country that is said to have a growth annual economic record more than China but has 12 million famine affected people waiting for food aid, more than 85% of the population below the poverty line, and as they say, afflicted by “stone-age poverty” and one can have an understanding of a people subjected to crushing poverty, absence of rights and, again as they say as they snatch our children, no future. Debilitating poverty like the one the rich actresses can never imagine or the millionaire actor who wants to try living at $2.50 per day for a few days can never envisage forces parents to sell their beloved children. Poor Ethiopian parents were/are never told that what adoption meant but informed that their children will go abroad, get all opportunities and will help them. Most of the parents were duped to say the least and have lost their children. The charade is promoted by the regime in place which is getting thousands of dollars per child and the number of Ethiopian children sold to adoption in now in several thousands. Ethiopian children have become favorites because they are cheap, sufficiently exotic, little wait time and scant control or checkup. A woman who adopted a child and beat him to death in Amsterdam went back to Ethiopian and easily adopted another. Here below are some other reports: “A deputy Pennsylvania attorney and his wife have been arrested after their two adopted Ethiopian children were found starved and beaten to near death according to police. Deputy Attorney General Douglas Barbour and his wife, Kristen were arraigned today after their 6-year-old boy was found malnourished with skin lesions and the 18-month-old girl having multiple skull fractures and being possibly permanently blind”. “Hana Grace-Rose Williams came to Washington State from Ethiopia in 2008 with ringworm, cold sores, parasites and hepatitis B. But none of those things killed her. Instead, Skagit County authorities say, 13-year-old Hana died because her adoptive parents chronically starved her, abused her and left her outside on a cold May night with inadequate clothing”. How many children have been starved, beaten, sexually abused and sent to their deaths? The countries that are adopting Ethiopian children are the USA, Denmark, Sweden, France, Norway, Canada, etc. The countries that are enjoying the traffic of young Ethiopian women are in the Middle East including Yemen. Not a pip is heard from otherwise loud and shrill international human rights bodies. The sale of Ethiopian children is also passed in silence. Actors and actresses with more love for their pets than for black children adopt Ethiopian children. Adopting Ethiopian children is a la mode as the French would say—it is fashionable and they are cheaper than Cambodian, Haitian, Russian or Vietnamese children. Ethiopian law insists that children should be orphans to be adopted but these days the dollar/money kills thee parents when they are very alive. Parents duped and induced into handing over their beloved children are made to believe anything but the reality of adoption. Most do not know that their children are lost, sold away. The duplicity is backed by the regime, the so called adoption agencies, the child harvesters, the western embassies, who all claim great economic success on the part of the regime (to hide the incredible poverty of the majority of the people forced to sell their own children), and tolerate the violation of the human rights of children and of young women sold to modern slavery. Indignation aside, we should perhaps heed the advice of the former president of Malawi and call for the adoption of all African children by foreigners to give them a chance for education and more opportunities. If a woman can insure her body part for millions of dollars she can surely afford to buy not one but a few thousands of children for adoption (and for sale if she so desires). That is life as the stone- age impoverished Africans have no life to talk of. If you want to buy fertile land at no cost and to have the right to beat, oppress and play slave master on workers go to Ethiopia. If you want to buy children cheap even if they have their parents go to Ethiopia. You can starve them to death, feed them dog food, beat, mutilate and kill them. No problem. Millions others are there for sale. As far as I am concerned, my problem has to do with why these rich and self-proclaimed humanitarians are not ready to adopt all of us Africans repressed and impoverished by tyrants backed and supported by their countries. In Ethiopia we say “manew balesamint , in France they say a qui le tour, the English speaking say who is next. Who will be there and ready to adopt us with all the fanfare, tears, oaths, video, you tube and all?

OF TABLETS AND ETHIOPIAN KIDS

OF TABLETS AND ETHIOPIAN KIDS (or THE MESSIAH COMPLEX) This article is provoked by a recent article in the German Der Spiegel under the title of “Ethiopian Kids using Tablets to Teach Themselves”. This is how the magazine article told the story: “A US aid organization has handed children in the remote Ethiopian village of Wenchi tablet computers in an experiment aimed at enabling them to teach themselves. They are now speaking their first words of English -- without ever having encountered a teacher”. The Charity business is funny in a cruel way. Giving a handful of Ethiopian rural kids Tablets is as bad and ridiculous as the used soaps sent to Uganda, the spiced ham sent to Muslin Asian Tsunami survivors, dog food to Kenya, and the knickers for Africa and bras for Haiti programs. Just give Tablets to Ethiopian kids and they will have no need for teachers and to hell with the already reduced budget for education. It is a novel idea and the Tablet/computer idea for Ethiopian kids, which will make teachers irrelevant, belongs to the new America Messiah called Matt Keller who works for the “One Laptop Per Child” NGO and states that this way the kids can just leap into the information age. The harshly criticized Chinese Great Leap Foreword was more realistic and to the point. Recently, African singers made a sort of “We are the world song “to collect fund” to buy heaters for the poor in Norway (oh yes, there are poor people in Norway!). It was a well aimed spoof much like the late Idi Amin collecting goats, sheep and food aid for the malnourished British in England. Such spoofs are vendetta par excellence on the White so called do gooders who consider Africans are like babies who need white caretakers through out their lives. Some of these nannies are called Bob Geldof, Bono, World Vision, Oxfam and even belong to the UN itself.. They are like worms festering in places and mess of misery, using images of children surrounded by flies, with bloated stomachs and weeping to the cameras their publicity stunts. Save a child, sponsor a child, buy one of our goods and we will send another free to the starving shoeless Third World—we have heard it all actually. In some African countries, some UN agencies and NGOs are effective cover for the CIA and western intelligence agencies. Just check Darfur, South Sudan, and Eastern Congo. All such places have their celebrity adopters. Kony 2012 was a sad joke of an initiative. George Clooney cries for Darfur. Ben Affleck is for Zaire or the DRC. Bill Clinton is for Haiti. Even the fellow called 50 Cents who voted for Romney went to Dolow, Somalia, for the World Food Program. For some of these people the whole thing is called a “hug vacation “. You go with your expensive safari suit, hug a few people, look sad, and talk to the press and presto you figure as a messiah for the impoverished Africans. The victims are rats and guinea pigs in the whole experiment and operation anyway. It is a business and millions are made from the charity business. Most of the money often goes back to the donor countries. Western youths get employment, are well paid and act as Masters over us all. Some of the NGOs are filled with conmen, inept and fakes. There are of course others who really feel and think that they are really doing well. Much as we respect their fine sentiments, they are on the wrong path. Swedow who wanted to send Africa a million T-shirts, Keller who wants to send more and more PCs to Ethiopian rural kids so that they can learn without a teacher at all, those who want to send us used shoes, those who send us expired medicines, those who send us used clothes (the used clothes business has caused a 40% decline in apparel production in Africa) are all suffering from what one critic called “ white savior industrial complex” as exhibited so blatantly by the likes of Geldof, Bono, Jolie or Clooney. Some of these are people with huge mansions bought at a price that passes the health and education budget of quite a few African countries. Some of them buy some of our children and they think they own us. Imagine the problem of Africans being having T shirts, used shoes, old pants, Tablets, used soaps and other such nonsense! The Der Spiegel report states “Keller, 48, is a thoughtful American in safari pants. The villagers refer to him as the "ferenji," or white man. Everything has changed in Wenchi since he began making his occasional visits to the village”. It is always the white Messiah who saves the African. Colonialism reborn, the thieving white missionary, the cruel Bwana with the colonial hat and boots and, never forget, the whip and the gun. The so called saviors of Africa have their own interest be it personal, financial or colonial. Some are naïve enough to believe that without confronting the basic problems of Africans they can bandage minor wounds and solve it all. Unfortunately some foolish Africans also imagine that without fundamental change they can defeat the malaise that has gripped and debilitated Africa. Corruption, bad governance, the absence of rule of law, gross violation of human rights, sale of fertile land to foreigners, displacement of the poor people, subservience to western and Chinese imperialism, the disaster of neo liberalism and capitalism—now these are the main problems. Millions of children sleep on the streets, denied education and their childhood, This is one gross problem Keller should have considered inn relation to the why of it all instead of going to a small rural village, handing out Tablets and claiming a miracle and projecting himself as a pioneer and liberator. By the way, how many days a week does the small village of Wenchi get electricity? Oh yes, charity is a business. It is also a fame machine for actors and singers who are actually doing their thing within the framework of official American or Western politics. Why the silence on the repression in Ethiopia? Why the little concern for Eastern Congo (more than 5 million killed as western companies hungry for coltan and other minerals finance murderers and rapists) and the hue and cry against Beshir of the Sudan whom the ICC wants to arrest? Who said we Africans need used underwear, shoes and soaps? Did we ask them to come and buy our children thereby making the regimes who sell our children richer? But then again there is another way of seeing the whole thing. 47 Tablets in the hands of Ethiopians may bring about a revolution. No teachers needed at all- the kids are said to be speaking English. And of you speak English you are educated and way up on the ladder of “civilization “. Haiti is still waiting for the promised aid but they are being sent bras. The problem of African women is not the lack of knickers at all. As things stand there are presently more than 300 NGOs in Juba, South Sudan--our condolences to the citizens. They should demand for more Tablets and not for help to get more schools and power for their development. Alas, aid is political as we all know. The Yemeni ambassador to the UN who voted against the war in Iraq was told by the US ambassador, Thomas Pickering, that the “no” will cost Yemen a lot –US aid consequently stopped its operations in Yemen. NGOs are mostly political; even human rights organizations are under the heel of or infiltrated to their noses by western intelligence agencies. The world is complicated and charity a cruel business, and pity the naïve ones who believe otherwise.