Downing Street Memo

For the benefit of those, like me, who missed this piece when it appeared in the news, the downing street memo is the minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and other high ranking officials in the British govt. in mid 2002 which apparently provides documentary evidence for long held views by many that the war in Iraq was preplanned by the Bush administration. The memo suggests that the facts and intelligence was moulded around the policy of the Bush administration. I would imagine something like this would be headline material, the Christian science monitor talks about this lack of coverage in the US. I first encountered the memo when I was watching the proceedings of a democratic forum organised on June 18, 2005 on CSPAN seeking answers from President Bush. So far, the bush administration has apparently not rejected the authenticity of the memo. If the statements in the memo are in fact true, the president can be impeached for treason. Funny how the previous US President got impeached for having sex with an intern and this one could potentially be impeached for treason.

Richard Linklater

Recently saw two of Richard Linklater's movies, both starring Ethan Hawke - Before Sunrise and Tape. I had seen Before Sunset, the sequel to sunrise, earlier after reading some reviews and liked it quite a bit. Sunrise is nice, but I put sunset a notch above sunrise for its almost continuous conversation. Both of these films are essentially one conversation each. Except for a few scenes where other characters show up, its mostly Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Linklater takes this minimalist approach to filmmaking to an extreme in Tape which is filmed entirely in a motel room with exactly three actors. And he has done a brilliant job. Hawke is brilliant in the movie, as are Robert Sean Leonard and Uma Thurman. Highly recommended.

Darfur

After recent discussions with a friend about the Rwanda conflict of 1994, I decided to look a little deeper. We had both seen the movie "Hotel Rwanda". We wanted to find out why the UN was a mere spectator. A human rights watch report from 1999 details some of the facts leading up to the conflict. Here is a brief writeup about it. Its saddening to see that capitalism and its hold on the governments of the west (mainly France and the US in this case, which incidentally are permanent members of the security council) is what prevented the UN from intervening. They traded lives for money. 800 thousand people died, and everyone watched. Darfur in western Sudan is a where genocide of the proportions of Rwanda is happening today. 180 thousand people have already died since the conflict began in 2003. However this time the UN seems to be a little more involved, a little late, but involved nevertheless. Probably because this time around the permanent members of the security council don't have any ties with the Sudanese government? Its just sad that innocent civilians are left to die with no support from the rest of the world. The structure and functioning of the UN needs to be rectified. In its current form it is largely a failed system. If you would like to learn more about the conflict - links to the Sudan crisis.