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Our History was Destroyed by Slavery
Bob, Global Voices
Today in the 21st Century, in an era of globalization, development and technology, one would think that the human race is advancing in the areas of freedom, peace and human dignity. Unfortunately this is not so. … there are more slaves TODAY than were seized from Africa in 4 centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade. The horror is back. Buying a slave is cheaper than ever before.
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS HAS BECOME THE FASTEST GROWING TRADE ACROSS OUR WORLD. SOME 2.4 MILLION PEOPLE ARE TRAFFICKED EACH YEAR; 1.2 MILLION OF THEM ARE CHILDREN
Every minute, every day, men, women and children are being transported, used or sold against their will. These are the victims of trafficking. They get herded across borders, across continents, sometimes in groups but they are often trafficked alone. They live in terror. Others watch their every move. They are treated like cattle. But the truth is, they’re not just a statistic. These are people – someone’s mother, someone’s child – and they’re dreaming of freedom.
Our Moral Being Was Devastated by the Vietnam War
What Made Him Snap? Soldier Goes on Killing Spree in Baghdad 'Stress Clinic'
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet.
Fragging
The Army's response to the fragging epidemic during the Vietnam years was revealing of an institution that had lost the ability to critique and evaluate its own internal culture: they took the soldiers' guns away and restricted their access to explosives. By 1970, in many units, only those soldiers on guard duty or patrol were allowed to carry their weapons.
An enlisted man quoted in the New York Times claimed that "the American The U.S. Army does not have exact statistics on how many officers were killed in Vietnam in this manner, but in December 1972, the Defense Department acknowledged between 800 and 1,000 actual or suspected fraggings. It also admitted that it could not account for the deaths of over 1,400 other officers and NCOs.
It should be noted that this number does not include incidents that occurred in other branches of service. Neither does it include attempts to kill by other means. In eloquent militarese, (military historians Richard A.) Gabriel and (Paul L.) Savage write, "The category of assaults by 'explosive device' excludes attempts to kill 'leadership elements' by other means, such as a rifle, automatic-weapons fire, ambush by claymore mines and misdirection to hostile ambush."
These figures suggest that 20 to 25 percent -- if not more -- of all officers killed during the war were killed by their own men. In 1971, the Americal Division (of My Lai infamy) was experiencing one fragging a week. The Army was clearly at war with itself.
it "symbolic of the Army's plight" that "the men are not even trusted to carry the weapons necessary to fight the war they have been sent to wage."
Military police units were also expanded and used to quell any actual or threatened insurrection. American guns turned on unarmed American boys was no less of a tragic irony in Vietnam than at Kent State in Ohio or Jackson State in Mississippi.
