Monday, October 27, 2014

Vietnam Connections and Modern Day issues. From Mike Lohre

STUDENTS:

For your homework, actively (that means take some notes!) read and listen to these links.

Read and view at least two historical and current links.

Write a response to the one you feel most strongly about in the Comments section of this post, and use one direct quote from the source in your response.

HIstorical Links and connections:

 "Back to My Lai" 60 Minutes
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/back-to-my-lai/

"The Cost of Campaigns" NY Times video links campaign abuses then and now
http://nyti.ms/1yQqDKT


"Paying Respects, Pentagon Revives War Over Truth, Then and Now" NY Times
http://nyti.ms/1xvOs77

Current Links and connections:


 "Kurdish Women Fight on Front Lines Against ISIS"  Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/articles/kurdish-women-fight-on-front-line-against-islamic-state-1413580188


"The Horror Before the Beheadings" New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/world/middleeast/horror-before-the-beheadings-what-isis-hostages-endured-in-syria.html?ref=world

"A Woman, A Kurd, and an Optimist" New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/world/europe/20iht-letter20.html

 "Who, What and Where is ISIL? Explaining the Islamic State"  Al Jazeera America
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/18/isil-threat-explained.html

Female fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) sit down for lunch in the group’s mountain stronghold of Qandil. Unlike the peshmerga in socially conservative Iraqi Kurdistan, the PKK includes female fighters.

24 comments:

  1. When looking at all these articles above, I thought the article "The Horror Before the Beheadings" was the most interesting. This article described what life was like during the time of ISIS. Reading this article really changed my way of thinking during this time. Living here in America, I sometimes feel we don't get a good explanation of what is going on. This story about James Foley who was a 40 year-old journalist was very interesting. James was a hostage. James changed his ways to fit in better with their people. Jejoen Bontinck, a 19 year old of Belgium said, “You could see the scars on his ankles, He told me how they had chained his feet to a bar and then hung the bar so that he was upside down from the ceiling. Then they left him there.” This article almost reminded me of the Holocaust in a way. Only instead of one leader there are many other people involved. It's sad to think about people doing this to one another, but sadly it's the world we live in. It's just how society is becoming now a days.

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  2. I think it's interesting how much money gets put into funding a presidential campaign. Years ago it was just a couple million at most. Now, campaigners are spending billions of dollars trying to make the other candidates look bad in the public's eye. Presidents like Nixon even tried to illegally try to get the upper hand of a campaign. He risked getting impeached just so he would have a better chance at getting re-elected. I think it's insane that large amounts of money gets wasted and things like presidential campaigns instead of being donated or contributed towards research facilities for illnesses like cancer, aids, and other terrible things. Even though people have tried to put limits on campaign spending, there are people trying even harder to find loopholes. In the Cost of Campaigns video, it even says that, "We can do legally, everything that Nixon had to do illegally". Everything that Nixon was trying to do, can now be done through these loopholes people have discovered.

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  3. I read through a couple of these articles, and the one I found most interesting was the video, "Back to My Lai". At first I didn't know what to expect, I knew it was a horrific event between the Americans and unarmed Vietnamese and that a couple of Americans stepped into the battle, outraged and began saving the lives of innocent citizens of My Lai. But the video took place in My Lai when Larry Coburn and Hugh Thompson revisited the once battle field and emotions became overwhelming. At once point locals surround Thompson asking him why it happened, his response, "It is a question that can never be answered. I don't know, they (Americans) just went crazy." After announcing this Thompson is over come by tears and rushes away from the camera. The two hero's, claimed there were 170 plus dead or almost dead locals in a ditch and that they tried to rescue as many as they could; saving a young girl and her mother, who praised Thompson for his heroic duty. But the most shameful part of this all is that former Lieutenant William Kelly involved with the killings was convicted of murder and jailed for life when President Nixon stepped in, place Kelly under house arrest. Kelly was treated as a war hero in the public eye, but now refuses to talk about the subject. Others like Captain Ernest denies killing anyone, when Thompson claims Ernest kill an innocent women, right in front of him, without second thought. The dishonesty and horror that occur is still to this day awful and as Coburn says, "There is a difference between killing in war, and cold blood murder."

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  4. "The Horror Before the Beheadings" was interesting for me to read because it was about prisoners and what they would do before they were released or executed. Shocking to think that the execution of James Foley was videotaped because he got his own throat slit. A quote that stood out to me was "Mostly they suffered, waiting for any sign that they might escape with their lives." Some of the prisoners got out mostly from people paying ransoms. Others were executed. Some had even converted to Islam in order to get better treatment. Sometimes they would play games in order to pass the time and sometimes their own inmates would turn on each other. I think that title really does describe what was going on at the time. To me the interrogations seemed worse than the executions themselves. If any prisoners are to be taken hostage then their country should do something to save their lives even if they have to pay ransoms or get troops to fight their way into the prison. There might be consequences to if they decide to go through with these ideas if they want to, but it might be for the best.

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  5. The article that struck me as the most powerful was "The Horror Before the Beheadings". It told the story about James Foley from his capture to his unfortunate execution. The video of his beheading shocked the world and really shed light on the serious threat that the Islamic State poses to the world. Foley was a journalist who understood the dangers of reporting in Syria. Regarding the man who came in tailing Foley before his kidnapping, '“He had a big beard,' said Mustafa Ali, their Syrian translator, who was with them and recounted their final hours together. 'He didn’t smile or say anything. And he looked at us with evil eyes '". He felt that what was going on over there was worth telling the world about. The constant torture and interrogation was relentless. They asked him specific questions about his family and life to prove to the world that he was still alive. This was all part of a bigger scheme to trade him for a ransom. However, the U.S. has a policy of not paying ransoms so as to make Americans a less attractive target. America did attempt to send in a rescue attempt which unfortunately failed. Foley was just one of multiple international prisoners held by the radicals. They built a relationship among the hardships by playing games and supporting each other. Some were released and some have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Most of the story is compiled by many different experiences and witnesses. All together, you get a scary view of what really happens before the beheadings. Sort of makes you sick.

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  6. Something I found interesting in the article A woman, a Kurd, and an Optimist, was that Ms. Zana, a Kurdish woman apart of the Turkish Parliament, was sent to jail for 10 years for separatism and collaborating with the an outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party called the P.K.K. The interesting part was that while she was in jail, she won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Though from the European Parliament in 1995. She also said that, while in jail, she didn't get down about it; she read all the time and used it as an opportunity to educate herself and to question herself a lot. Something she said that struck me as amazing was this; "Kurds will be free one day, I don't know if I will get to see it, but I do know that when I leave this world I will do so with a clear conscience, for I have done my very best." It's amazing how much she cared and how well she acted in order to help the case of the Kurds; trying to make it so they could walk shoulder to shoulder with the Turkish.

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  7. The video that struck me the most was "Back to My Lai". The men in the video were the men who flew down in their chopper, and saved Vietnamese civilians from the American forces who were massacring them and slaughtering them. The men were still fighting back tears 30 years later as they talked to the Vietnamese people about that day. When interviewed, Paul Meadlo(one of the men who executed the civilians) said that," At the time I felt like I was doing the right thing." I thought that this quote truly shows the impact war can have on soldiers because it effects them so psychologically that killing unarmed women and children would seem like the right thing to do. Obviously, the massacre was a terrible event and is an embarrassing event in United State's history.

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  8. The video that I wanted to look more into was "Back to Mai Lai". I can faintly remember learning about this event in one of my history classes in high school, however I wanted to go back and learn more about it in depth. One thing that struck me was when private Paul Meadlo was interviewed on why he was involved in the murders of the Vietnamese people. He said that " I felt like I was ordered to do it. At the time I felt like I was doing the right thing." The fact that he was married and a father of two also struck me as well, he thought he was doing the right thing by killing innocent people a the time. Seeing how emotional Larry Colburn and Hugh Thompson got when revisiting the site saddened me, I feel bad that they have to live with the images of this event forever. It was very heartwarming to see them reunite with two women they saved. Lastly the fact that the U.S ambassador in Vietnam did not show up the the remembrance ceremony because he said that we "need to move on" is absolutely ridiculous. What we need to do is own up to our mistakes and learn from it instead of acting as though it never happened,

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  9. I would like to talk about the link "The Horror Before the Beheadings." Foley along with countless others endured things that I cant even begin to fathom, all for the common belief that what was going on over in Syria and the Islamic States was worth getting out to the general public. Getting kidnapped once would be enough of an adventure for me, after that I think i would try to stay away from these dangerous areas. But resilient and determined journalists like Foley just couldn't. Even with his live at stake, it seems as if he still felt as if death was far less important than getting to the truth about what is really going on with these "government" affairs. "The only people that got out were those who had their ransoms fulfilled." Knowing this, being an American, which entitles a no random policy would be overly frightening. Also, it was said that some people that were captured were converting their religious beliefs to a more of an Islamic approach in search of better treatment and in hopes of less torture, for this to be true, for someone to give up their faith, these people had to have be terrified.

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  10. "The Cost of Campaigns" is the video that really interested me. I have always been interested in the Watergate incident. In the video they said that now, in this age, we are legally allowed to do everything that Nixon had to do illegally, I just find it funny that he had to resign so he didn't get impeached but now if he would have done something like what he did it would have been perfectly fine and he would not have had to resign. I also find it very ironic that we have come full circle to where we were at the Watergate scandal. They tried to improve this but by trying to do so they brought us back to the place where they wanted us out of. Overall, I really enjoyed how informational this video was and how in detail they went into "Soft money" and "Black money", I really did not understand what they were until this video.

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  11. I read the article about ISIL and what, where and who they are. I chose this because they have been in the front of the news this past summer and fall. What i found most interesting in this article is that ISIL, which is an extremest Islamic state overtaking, or trying to over take areas around Syria, Iraq , have been implementing there overpowering views of Islam. similar to Al Qaeda, but unlike Al Qaeda they are more public and vulnerable to US air attacks. There money and funds are supported by the oil fields they have taken control of. They have around 30,000 members and with 2000 of them holding passports to western countries according to the CIA. With no stop or end in sight they have had very quickly gained power according to the article.

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  12. The Cost of the Campaigns video reminded me a lot of what I did a project on in high school. Politics blows my mind because of the amount of money and how corrupt things are. I wish it could be lead the way it was intended too but I know that isn't possible. I really found the quote "we can do legally what Nixon had to do Illegaly" This disappoints me, to me this means we didn't do anything to fix the problem and until the decision to change this is made by the american people and not the few people in power nothing will happen.

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  13. I read the article about Paying Respects, Pentagon revives Vietnam, and War over truth. this article was very interesting because It starts of talking about a man who protested the Vietnam war. The mans name was Tom Hayden he visited Vietnam to basically investigate if President Johnson's claim about the bombings of Vietnam. Upon arriving in Vietnam he found the bombings were very real. This led to the idea that facts about Vietnam have not been completely true. So now the Pentagon Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (Vietnam Veteran) decided to create a website to , “provide the American public with historically accurate materials” suitable for use in schools says Hagel. This action is estimated to cost tax payers $15 million.

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  14. "We can do legally everything Nixon had to do illegally." This quote says it all. I always knew that corruption and large sums of money were apart of politics, but the amount of corruption astounded me. It seems almost like they have made their own laws to get around the old ones. They can now receive millions and millions of dollars for funding in campaigns. The way that elections were originally designed any person could run for president, but nowadays the average person does not have the funding to run. In High School one of my teachers tried to run for president. He learned that he needed to have 5000 signatures from every state, and he had to pay something like 5000$ per state to be on the ballot. He obtained his signatures from Ohio, but when he turned them in they denied him because he did not make it "clear" what they were signing for. I know he made it clear in signing. I think they just denied him because he was an independent. All in all money is everything, when it comes to elections and government in general. What is worse is it is easier now for the government to get dirty money than it has been ever.

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  15. Reading the article about ISIS was very interesting. It just is strikes amazement that these people would do such terrible things to their own countrymen for very slight interpretations of Islam. What I find ironically funny is that in the article it says "And ISIL has many enemies in the region. In Syria, they include Assad’s regime, as well the various rebel formations grouped under such umbrellas as the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front and even Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda" this is funny cause even fellow Arabs and Muslims and even fellow terrorist organizations hate ISIS as well as western nations. It is scary however that a large portion of the fighters in ISIS have passports to other countries. To think that at any moment these fighters could easily slip back in and cause terror in their home countries in the name of ISIS is just a mind numbing thing to think about.

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  16. The article that interested me the most was “Who, what and where is ISIL? Explaining the Islamic state. I think I was most interested in it because I have seen numerous news broadcasts about the terrible things ISIS does, but I never really understood exactly what they were. One thing in the article that really stood out was when they said “the group is a more visible target for U.S. airpower than Al-Qaeda ever was.” This just goes to show how serious this group has become. Beheading Americans and countless other people is just one small part of what they are doing. This group is taking over many of its surrounding areas and inflicting “harsh interpretations of Islamic law.” The group is similar to Al-Qaeda but it differs in the fact that it has captured so much territory, something Saddam Hussein failed to do. ISIS believes that they can create a center for like-minded elements throughout the world. It is clear that something needs to be done to stop this group. It is a terrible thing they are doing, just so they get their beliefs forced into the minds of others.

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  17. I feel as if campaigning for any position at any level of government has to do with who you know not what you know. It is scary t even begin to think about how easily people can be bribed to help them out or to keep their mouth shut about something. I strongly believe that there are way too many corrupt politicians in today society and that makes for a not so god government. It just goes to show that even back then, there were corrupt politicians because even president Richard Nixon himself was caught red handed in a lie to the entire country. He admitted to not having anything to do with Watergate even though there was verbal and video evidence of him. What's scary now is the quote of "We can do legally everything Nixon had to do illegally". That is a scary thought because it is 100% true. People can get away with so much more nowadays because we citizens have the mentality approach of, "oh it's just another politician acting corrupt, whats new?". Just talking about this sort of thing makes you want to become a politician yourself so you can represent the American people in a fair and non-corrupt way.

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  18. "The Horor Behind the Beheadings" left me feeling very uneasy and disgusted by ISIS. I cant imagine enduring the terrible treatment that the prisoners went through for such an elongated period of time. It's amazing to me that they were even able to stay alive until the day that they were released or for some, executed. I was most interested in James Foley because I have previously heard of his beheading. It was hard to read as the other prisoners were being released because I already knew what his fate would be, and I think he did too. What he did not know however, was that his execution would be widely broadcasted all over the world. I already felt that the capture and treatment of these prisoners was wrong and unjustified, but the videos and pictures of their executions is incredibly unecessary. The video of James' beheading is something that will stay with his family and friends forever when they already had enough grief to handle. Something that really stood out to me was that durring his execution James was forced to wear the same sandals that all the other prisoners wore. So when those prisoners who surived saw the fotage they were mortified and the sight of the sandals, which I think leads to a very interesting and unsettling point, "Those who survived had walked in the same shoes as those who did not."

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  19. "The Horror Before the Beheadings" New York Times

    This is the article that I found the most compelling. This shows the cruelty and severity of the ISIS group and the hostage situation. For Mr. Foley to even campaign for current president Obama and not have random money sent is ridiculous. This fact is proven from the article, "Yet Mr. Foley, who had campaigned for President Obama, continued to believe his government would come to his rescue, said his family, who learned this from recently freed hostages." Mr. Foley is said to be excite soon, which if not sent random money from the United States is bound to happen. I just am still in shock that the United states won't coincide with the terrorist to save an American Citizen. That is the same as the United states almost saying they don't value a life enough to save one person no matter how much the cost.

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  20. The cost of campaigning is the video that i think is the most interesting. I personally agree that their should be no limit on the amount that you can contribute to a candidates campaign. in my opinion it is your money as long as you aren't breaking any laws then you should be able to do what you like. That includes supporting a candidate for a position. If you believe that candidate A is the best person for the job then you should be able to use as much of your own resources, whether that be time passing out flyers, or your land having a sign on it or even you donating money that is your personal choice. Now with all that being said i do not think people should be allowed to make any commercial that they want and run it for everyone to see. I think that commercials should ether be run through the candidates own campaign company or through the political parties. I think that would eliminate a lot of the harsh attack ads that you see only based on one small instance or peoples opinion. If we limit who can run the ads then we would probably see more informative commercials and less totally bias attack adds. the quote " we can do legally everything Nixon did illegally." is a very misleading quote. the illegal thing that Nixon did was the cover up of water gate and even hiring them in the first place, this doesn't have anything to do with his campaign money in his time he could collect as much money as he wanted from any source and he did that to win the election. In summary i think you should be able to donate as much money as you want but it should have to go through ether the candidate or the party.

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  21. The article that most interested me was "A Woman, A Kurd, and an Optimist." I think that this article really jumped out to me because it wasn't necessarily about all of the gore and violence that some of the other articles talked about, but rather it talked about a woman who was really optimistic, even when imprisoned for trying to exert her human rights as a woman. I really like how she didn't hold back in expressing her opinion on the government and how they spend more money on conflicts, rather than on bettering the corruption, but how at the same time she didn't try to enforce her beliefs on anyone. My favorite quote from the whole article was when she was asked about being imprisoned and her response was, "prison may have captured me physically, but never mentally." I also really liked in the final paragraph of this article how she said that a man and woman are equal; no sex is better than the other, and how the goal should be to walk together rather than compete against each other.

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  22. When I watched "Back to My Lai" I was shocked that American troops would commit such a horrible crime. normally you think of such things to be committed by other countries and criminals but never America. American troops are the role models for everybody to look up to. This crime made them lose some of the respect people had for them. As said in the video by colburn "Mr. Thompson ran out into the field without a weapon or even a side arm to get an injured woman and put her onto the helicopter". it is good that there are brave men like him to go out and help others because he knew that what the Americans were doing was wrong. If there were not people like him this world would be a horrible place.

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  23. When I watched "The cost of Campaigning" it honestly pissed me off. Our government doesn't feel the need to follow the constitution anymore.They feel like they can walk over everyone and do what they want without being punished. The difference from now to back during the Watergate scandal is that Nixon and his people were caught doing illegal things and trying to cover it up. Now "we can do legally everything Nixon did Illegally". The press doesn't fight to uncover things and the government covers everything up to save their butts. The money in campaigning was crazy. Bill Clinton let people who donated alot stay in the Lincoln room of the White House. The President and government were and still are making policy's for money. In 2002 congress outlaws soft money but then the supreme court rule it unconstitutional. Im fine with soft money and any kind of money as long as the public can see how much and from who and arent breaking the laws.

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  24. I read the article "A Woman, a Kurd, and an Optimist." This article caught my attention simply with the title. This article speaks on a woman by the name of Leyla Zana. Zana is a kurdish woman who was growing up in Turkey a world at the time that forbid kurdish in ways of ideals and communication. Zana dropped out of elementary school due to her not being able to learn or speak in kurdish as it was forbidden. Zana then was married at age 14 to a man by the name of Mehdi Zana (20 years older than Leyla) Mehdi later became the mayor of Diyarbakir leaving Leyla a single mother of two children. With her children going to school Leyla picked the turkish language and found her political voice at the same time. This followed with Leyla being elected to turkish parliament and she was the first turkish woman to be elected to a position in parliament. Leyla made statements constantly, between her wearing a headband of kurdish colors every day and she spoke kurdish after turkish speeches which made her the first to speak kurdish in the turkish parliament. Now years later Turkey has proceeded to allow Kurdish in public legally. Kurdish has also started slowly expanding to some instruction and is possibly expanding to some courts. Leyla took an incredible stand for everything she went through and as Turkey had screwed her over she learned through her children and came to take a political stand that was absolutely amazing. Leyla made change and vows that one day she knows that Kurdish will be equally accepted in society. "When criticizing you should offer an alternative, and they haven't." Zana later served time in jail but she didn't let that stop her either as she educated herself more and became even more of a kurdish icon. This article has honestly made me see a whole other light. In the U.S. we often only focus on american activists and Zana is another fighter that is extremely iconic and has changed the world in so many ways. I do believe the kurdish will be equal to the turkish and she has been successful in her effort for that. She has also brought women closer in a "social awakening" as women now matter but she influenced more of the kurdish movement in Turkey than anything.

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