SYNDICATION

Photo: U.S. Marines from 1st Battalion 7th Marines enter a palace during the Fall of Baghdad. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

How Lies Were Concocted Before the Iraq War

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - President Barack Obama has observed, “ISIL [Islamic State] is a direct outgrowth of Al Qaeda in Iraq that grew out of our invasion – which is an example of unintended consequences- which is why we should generally aim before we shoot”.

Many of us, looking at the horror of the Iraq war, waged by the U.S. and the UK against the regime of Saddam Hussein when 200,000 civilians died and a total of 800 billion U.S. dollars was spent on the campaign, need little to be persuaded that there was a Machiavellian plot to find an excuse to make war. Yet there are many in the circles of power in Washington who believe the U.S. should shoot on sight and to kill whenever danger is thought to have appeared- in Iraq, Syria, Libya and, before that, in Vietnam.

Photo: President Lula giving a speech to recipients of Bolsa Família and other federal assistance programs in Diadema in June 2005. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Brazil’s Great Achievement Must Survive

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN | INPS) - If worst comes to worst and Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is deposed and her widely beloved predecessor, Luiz “Lula” da Silva, is discredited they will long be remembered for the “Bolsa Familia”.

This is a government program that has cut Brazil’s once appalling poverty rate by half and reduced the number of poor very sharply to 3% of the population. It reaches 55 million people and 36 million have been lifted out of poverty. It has been such a winner that around sixty countries have sent their experts to study it.

Indeed, it has been so successful politically that we shouldn’t be surprised that if Rousseff is felled by the shenanigans of Congress masses will go out on the street and riot.

Photo: Ordination of Thein Sein into the Sangha. By IwaizumiOikawa HajimeTooru - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Myanmar's Junta General Takes to Monkhood

By Special Arrangement with The Buddhist Channel*

YANGON - Myanmar's retired junta General Thein Sein has become a monk. He has been ordained as U Thandi Dhamma. According to reliable sources, it was the well known Dhamma teacher Dr. Ashin Nyanissara or better known as Sitagu Sayadaw who implored him to take up monkhood.

Thein Sein is widely regarded as the junta head who opened up Myanmar. After taking over from military dictator Senior General Than Shwe in 2011, he was expected to carry on as an opaque and isolationist ruler, much like his feared predecessor. After all, in 1998 he was personally named by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar for directly ordering his soldiers to commit human rights abuses.

Records have indicated that his history in brutality was no less than previous junta heads, such as Ne Win and Than Shwe.

Photo: Dilma Rousseff with Lula during the 2010 presidential campaign. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Why Brazil Must Not Fire its President

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (INPS) - The Brazilians have an elected president. They must keep her. If Dilma Rosseff is pushed to resign democracy has failed.

Two years ago she won re-election handsomely. That is the source of her mandate. From that she derives her legitimacy. The only thing that could topple her is if hard evidence emerges that she is crook- in her case supposedly stole millions of dollars from the Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras, of which she was once head of the board. Then Congress would be within its rights to discuss her impeachment.

But there is no evidence of her personal corruption – although there is evidence aplenty that her party, The Workers’ Party, has received a lot of black money, not just from Petrobras.

2014 Pastoral Visit of Pope Francis to Korea Closing Mass for Asian Youth Day August 17, 2014 Haemi Castle, Seosan-si, Chungcheongnam-do | Credit: Korean Culture and Information Service

When the Pope Turned His Back

Analysis by Jonathan Power

With his focus on economic justice, Pope Francis is still riding a wave of adulation three years into his job. And perhaps it’s deserved, but as leader of the Jesuits and then as bishop and archbishop in Argentina, he failed to publicly denounce the abuses of the military junta. Jonathan Power compares the pope’s silence to the courage of Brazil’s church hierarchy, which stood up to dictatorship. Power urges the pope to explain exactly what went on and how the Argentine church erred. The pope’s admission, Powers argues, would inspire his followers to think more profoundly about moral dilemmas and, perhaps, even help them be braver in the face of evil.