September 11, 2006

I wrote the following post on September 11, 2006. How has the world changed since then?

September 11, 2006

On September 11, 2001 at 9:00 EST I was on an airplane over the South China Sea. We landed in Singapore knowing nothing of what had happened in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. I happened to be first off the plane and walked down a long corridor with soldiers in black uniforms standing shoulder to shoulder on both sides holding stubby machine guns. Having flown into Singapore many times, I knew something was up, but not what. it was until I turned on CNN in my hotel room. The replay of the towers falling went on and on.

The next day I was scheduled to head home to Java so went to the departure area and discovered that only one flight would leave Singapore that day, my flight to Jakarta. At every point in my journey everyone I encountered expressed sympathy. Leaving Jakarta for my home in Yogyakarta even the guards at the metal detector went out of their way to say how sorry they were. A month later, on Canadian Thanksgiving, the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan. The local authorities took over the house next door to give us 24 hour police protection.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 events. As luck would have it, I will be on an airplane again, this time headed from California to Texas for a meeting with legislators on restorative justice. The feelings this trip engenders surprise me. The fact that causing an event on the 5^th anniversary is a terrorist dream is inescapable, but what it means to me is that I probably can’t take anything on the plane, and that is foremost in my mind. I’m thinking of wearing a t-shirt, gym shorts and flip-flops, carrying my medications in a Ziploc bag.

Airport passenger security as a safety measure is a joke, since all the low-paid workers on the ramp can easily bring in anything a terrorist wants and most checked cargo and baggage is not screened. I know I will be subjected to search in an effort to make me think the government can keep me safe. That is ridiculous. I can’t take my Swiss Army keychain knife with its 1 ½ inch blade onto the plane, but I can take my five inch stainless steel Parker pen, which is a real weapon and can do a tracheotomy in an emergency. I am no safer flying on 9-11-06 than I was on 9-11-01, but I am much inconvenienced as a political ploy. That Americans put up with this is depressing.

I have walked through the Khyber Pass gate from Pakistan into Afghanistan where no checking of cargo is done as people and trucks flow both ways. The free movement of dangerous things is part of life these days. Anyone who suggests differently is either uninformed or a liar. When I flew to California from Indonesia in December 2001 I was met at LAX by National Guardsmen toting automatic weapons. I’m sure that was a real deterrent to terrorists willing to die to wreak havoc, and that I was much less safe because of their presence.

Learning to live with IEDs

War frustrates Clovis soldier's father - fresnobee.com

On the day he buries his son killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) in Afghanistan a grieving father lashes out at a government that does not give its soldiers adequate protection from such threats. The nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has made IEDs the weapon of choice for those who oppose foreign intervention. Soldiers cannot protect themselves from these threats as well as they can protect themselves from snipers since the concussive force of a bomb reaches inside armored vehicles.

The current issue of Wired magazine has an excellent article on the intricacies of IED defense http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_roadside_bombs/. It describes in detail why efforts to protect troops from the threat may reduce the number of casualties, but can never eliminate them. Adding armor to vehicles results in bigger bombs being used. Finding ways to fool triggering mechanisms is quickly countered. Americans have to protect themselves against every method known since the bomb makers can use anything they have ever used. A single device made in a kitchen can tie up billions of dollars of hardware seeking to protect soldiers from the new innovation, even if it is never used again.

The threat of IEDs has grown enormously in Afghanistan. One result of the Wikileaks documents is that we now know the GPS coordinates and other info on every IED in the 2004-2009 period. This information has been put on an animated map available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlfQQnH6_Cc. One can easily see the increase in activity and where the activity takes place. The hockey stick graph of frequency is also easily visualized. Since 2007 around 60% of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan have been killed by an IED.

The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center has tracked over 178,000 cases of traumatic brain injury since 2000. Of these about 5,000 were of the severe or penetrating variety that results in long-term disability. These are part of the 32,000 US troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. Over 5,600 have been killed. The ratio of wounded to killed is about the same as in the Vietnam War, with one tenth the numbers so far.

Those who see their children volunteer to enter the Afghan civil war to protect the interests of the US government are rightly concerned about the threat IEDs pose. Those who survive such an attack may still have brain injuries that never heal, placing their families in the position of having to care for the disabled service member for life. Those who approve of their child's choice to enter the military may not have given thought to this risk. This risk also means that entering the military should not be seen as an individual choice. The family members who will bear the burden posed by a disabled veteran ought to have a voice in choosing to take the risk. The signature injury of the Vietnam War was amputation due to the extensive use of land mines. The signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is traumatic brain injury caused by IEDs.

Americans need to give thought to the way the continuing burdens of these wars are allocated. The Veterans Administration does provide services to wounded veterans, but a large burden is shouldered by their families without compensation. This is a hidden cost of war. Is it appropriate for families to be expected to provide ongoing care without remuneration? If war can only find support if its true costs are hidden, is it time to reconsider how the country decides whether or not to send the military outside our borders?

Ads on a blog

A short while back I agreed to let Google put ads on this blog. The idea is for them to match the blog content and so on. After a few really egregious ads I have withdrawn permission. You will still see the small text ads between posts, that being the price of admission. Thanks for your patience.

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: Non-Violent Aid and Advice To Terrorist Groups Illegal Says Supreme Court | Before It's News

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project: Non-Violent Aid and Advice To Terrorist Groups Illegal Says Supreme Court

Those of us who work in the peacemaking field find ourselves working with people in conflict. Some of these people have done violent things in an effort to press their agenda. Should we refuse to work with anyone who has used violence at some time in the past? The Supreme Court says we had better refuse.

This case was brought to get an interpretation of the terms “knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” something that is illegal under 18 U. S. C. §2339B(a)(1). A group is given the terrorist designation by the Secretary of State. Once you are on the list US citizens are forbidden to give you material support. The Humanitarian Law Project wanted to find out whether its proposed activities would be illegal.


The group wanted to provide training in the use of international law to resolve disputes peacefully; how to petition the United Nations and other representative bodies for relief; and they wanted to engage in political advocacy on behalf of Kurds living in Turkey and Tamils living in Sri Lanka. Chief Justice Roberts writing for the 6-3 majority stated the holding of the court: "The material-support statute, §2339B, is constitutional as appliedto the particular forms of support that plaintiffs seek to provide to foreign terrorist organizations."


Robert Benjamin writing on Mediate.com wonders if this development isn't actually positive. "For the teaching and training of negotiation and mediation to be criminalized must mean the skill sets have become sufficiently recognized as potent and sufficiently effective to be a threat." I suppose that can be seen as a measure of success. When I began working in the field 25 years ago people didn't know what it was. Now it's so good it's dangerous. 


Ten years ago I was working in Indonesia with people who weren't on the side of the government, and with people who had been involved in violence of various types as that country moved from dictatorship toward democracy. The focus of the work was helping people learn to effectively use nonviolent conflict resolution techniques. We had considerable success with these efforts and many were able to find ways to work within the emerging system of governance. If those groups had been on the Secretary of State's list I would have been breaking the law.


The Supreme Court doesn't decide whether or not a law is good. It's job is to determine whether or not it is constitutional. Outlawing aid to terrorists seems like a good idea, until the law prevents aid to groups trying to leave terrorism behind. This law is too blunt an instrument for today's asymmetric threats. Congress needs to do the careful work of defining what aids terrorists to do harm and what keeps us safe by helping them find less harmful ways of working toward their goals. After all, what we call founding fathers the British called terrorists.

Men in Child Tattoo Case Reach Plea Deal - KGPE CBS47 News, Sports & Weather for the Central Valley

Men in Child Tattoo Case Reach Plea Deal - KGPE CBS47 News, Sports & Weather for the Central Valley

My prediction has come true. This report comes on the same day that the DA finds out she has to lay off 11 deputy DAs. The large amount of treasure devoted to this case does make the department look overstaffed.

Fresno men who tattooed boy not guilty of mayhem - Top Stories - fresnobee.com

Fresno men who tattooed boy not guilty of mayhem - Top Stories - fresnobee.com

Jury nullification strikes again. The boy's father had a friend tattoo a small dog paw on the child's waist. This was understood to be a sign of the Bulldog Gang. The DA decided to charge the pair with aggravated mayhem, a crime that carries the possibility of life in prison.

No matter what one thinks of gangs, tattoos or fathers who make really bad choices, life in prison for tattooing a small dog paw print in a place usually covered by clothing goes too far. Perhaps the DA was focused on getting a gang member off the streets for a long time, and missed how silly it looked to compare a small tattoo to murder.

Jury nullification is the traditional doctrine that allows juries to ignore the law when the law is either preposterous or malign. The US jury system was originally created to protect citizens from oppression by the ruling class. It worked in this case. The jury acquitted on aggravated mayhem and couldn't agree on any lesser offense. The DA can try again on the lesser offenses. My guess is that there will be a plea to something much less and that will end the matter.

It is normal for prosecutors to over charge in hopes of getting a plea to a lesser charge. The trick is not to insult a jury by charging way too high. Maybe next time.

MWR : Some shocked by Landis' guilt

Mennonite Weekly Review : Some shocked by Landis' guilt

Mennonites don't often have international sports celebrities rising from their midst, so it was exciting to have Floyd Landis, who was raised Mennonite, win the Tour de France. Like most things that seem too good to be true, this victory wasn't, and it was snatched away, mired in a doping scandal.

The story would usually end there, but Floyd played the Mennonite card. Mennonites have earned a reputation for honesty, even when it is costly. So when Floyd said he was not guilty, people rose to his defense. Now, four years and many donated dollars of defense later, he admits lying to his family and supporters. Perhaps not surprisingly he admits his guilt in emails sent to others, not by facing the people he betrayed. These emails attempt to justify his actions by implicating other athletes. These accusations will keep the story alive for a while longer. 

I have learned that when we get defensive it is usually because we have done something indefensible. Floyd has destroyed his own reputation, and he is entitled to do that. The sadder part of the story is how he dragged down a lot of good people with him. What needs to happen now?

We know from our experience with victims and offenders that there is a necessary process for restoration. The first step is a commitment to be constructive. Trying to make things right without this commitment is a good way to make things worse. One of the reasons it is difficult to work at reconciliation without help is this initial step. Someone will probably need to help you process your commitment to make sure it is not only real, but comes through in your words and behavior.

Once the commitment to be constructive is in place the offender and the offended have three steps to take. The first is to recognize the injustices experienced by each. While Floyd certainly gets to acknowledge his lying, stealing and cheating, it may also be that the people he harmed asked more of him than was reasonable. By supporting his claims of innocence in the face of strong evidence to the contrary they pushed him to continue the charade, making everything worse. When people wrong us it is normal to discover that at some time we did something to either bring it on or make it worse.

The second step, after everyone has been able to tell their story and know that it has been heard, is to figure out what needs to be done to make things right. This may be just an apology, but it can often include restitution. If I lie to you and you give me money because of the lie, I probably need to pay you back. Sometimes it is clear that both parties knew better and should share the burden. Whatever it takes, this step needs to be done well.

The third step is usually easy. All it requires is being clear about the future. How will we interact going forward? How will we avoid having the same thing happen again?

As these agreements are made and kept, trust grows. That allows reconciliation to happen over time. This model, described by Ron Claassen at length at http://peace.fresno.edu/docs/model.shtml, is the one used by Fresno's Victim Offender Reconciliation Program. I have used it for every kind of dispute.

Floyd Landis and his family, friends, former teammates and supporters have a way out. I hope they can make use of it.

Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy | Epicenter�| Wired.com

Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy | Epicenter�| Wired.com

I spend a lot of time on Facebook, and don't play any of the games. The organizations I webmaster for all have Facebook pages, and many of my news and information sources do too. Social media require steady upkeep, so Facebook is always open in one of my browser tabs.

The new Facebook "like" button became available to web developers earlier in April. It allows a person to click "like" on a web page rather than going to the page's Facebook site. The button then displays the photos of people who like the page. That's what the latest Facebook privacy hullabaloo is about. Well I added the button to most of my main site pages the day the feature came out. (check http://disciplinethatrestores.org for an example) By the end of the first week 50,000 companies had done the same.

Facebookers have the ability to block this feature so that they are counted as a liker on the button but their picture doesn't show. That news was spread quickly by Facebook and lots of other folks, and many did block it. I decided to block individual applications rather than doing a blanket block.

Privacy on the web is a relative thing. It takes very little effort to find most details about me via Google. Part of the reason is that I have a large web presence, but it has more to do with all the organizations I belong to making bits of their databases public. Zuckerberg is right: the privacy-on-the-web ship has sailed.

I periodically search with Google for my Social Security number, home phone, credit card numbers and other things that shouldn't be out there for a public search. So far so good--meaning that you have to pay to get some of those things. I also restrict most of my Facebook posts to friends only. Of course that doesn't prevent someone from reposting, forwarding, etc. If you don't want people to find something on the web, don't put it there.

Facebook is doing its best to integrate all things web, and they are making good progress. It has already gotten to the point that I am annoyed when someone isn't recognizably on Facebook. I like to see who called me before I return a call to a stranger. All those people with a Facebook profile photo of their cat, or a Facebook page name that isn't their real name interfere with my desire to find out about them. The same goes for my students in online classes.

I'm guessing that people who don't live like the Unabomber aren't going to have much luck keeping personal information private. I will watch what I put online to try keeping those few things that really matter safe, but I'll also keep checking my credit card statements closely. We'll see how that works out.

New Zealand Ploughshares activists win unexpected “not guilty” verdict / Waging Nonviolence

In my book The Christian and Jury Duty I discuss both John Howard Yoder's concept of revolutionary subordinationism, in which one does an unlawful action for the sake of conscience fully expecting to receive the consequences, and jury nullification, the legal doctrine by which a jury refuses to convict even though the defendant admits guilt. Both were at work in New Zealand in the case reported below.

New Zealand Ploughshares activists win unexpected “not guilty” verdict / Waging Nonviolence

These protesters performed a nonviolent direct action to call attention to New Zealand's participation in a secret electronic surveillance network. This network is one source of intelligence which makes it possible for drones to target people in their homes. Their action did not prevent the secret base from functioning, but made its existence more difficult politically.

Juries in the English common law tradition followed by New Zealand and the United States are free to acquit guilty people when they believe the law under which they are being prosecuted is wrong, or is being misused. It is an important check on the power of prosecutors to persecute.

More on flotation

The snowshoes arrived, and so did lots more snow in the mountains, so yesterday we went up to Kings Canyon National Park to see whether we had a winner or not. The road was clear, the sky was clear enough, and we got to Grant Grove with no hassles.

It took a bit of figuring out, but the snowshoes went on as designed, and we were off. We walked out into the meadow behind the restaurant onto several feet of pristine snow. The big shoes sank into the snow maybe 3 inches and worked as advertised. The binding is articulated so you use as normal a walking motion as one would expect with life rafts on your feet. My wife and I both sank into the snow about the same distance and neither of us had any trouble to speak of. The built-in crampons kept us from sliding when going up or down hills and balance was no problem.

We walked across the meadow and into the campground on the other side. I was noticing that this activity used some leg muscles that are different from my usual activities. Then we came across a snowshoe trail broken by others and found out why it's nice to go in groups. We had been breaking trail all the way across the meadow, and that is a lot more work than following a broken trail.

We quit after an hour, figuring it was best not to overdo on our first foray. It was a successful excursion. Now we are planning the next, longer trek. More snow is predicted this week. I plan to float across the top. You can see more photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=196550&id=656665475&l=b80217909b

Flotation

We go cross-country skiing two or three times a year, usually up in one of the national parks. It is a beautiful way to see a beautiful place and get some exercise while we are at it. The problem is that we never took lessons, so our abilities peaked about the second time we went 35 years ago.

Going up or on the flat is fine, but coming down can be scary. On steep or icy downhills I pretty much aim for something soft and plan to crash there. As I’ve gotten older all this crashing became less and less enchanting. Getting untangled and ready to go again after you fall gets harder. So we decided it might be a good idea to try snowshoeing instead. You get to go places and see things you couldn’t otherwise and get some exercise, just like skiing, without all the crashing.

Renting snowshoes to try them out was an eye-opening experience. Getting the right ones for my wife was no problem, and they worked well for her. I, on the other hand, am the size of a typical NFL offensive lineman. She needs a 21” x 8” shoe while I need a 36” x 10” one, and that wouldn’t be enough in deep powder. Our first foray was on several feet of fresh snow with much smaller rented shoes. While I didn’t sink all the way to my crotch, pulling the shoe out made it similar in effort.

Finding big snowshoes in February is tough. The few pair that stores get are gone by then and no one rents them. Looking online one finds few models that get big enough, and some of them have bindings that fit “up to a man’s size 13 boot.” I have a pair of 14s and a pair of 15s. It began to look as though the snow would melt before I had a chance to try snowshoeing with the proper equipment.

My wife persevered through the various local and online shops. We found a local shoe with the same binding as its bigger cousin and tried my most compact boots in it. Success! So now we knew we could order the right size shoe in that brand. Even that turned out to be a problem, but we found a pair and they are on their way. They were even priced at end of season closeout prices with free shipping.

Soon we will be able to try mushing through the woods. What a lot of trouble for what should be a peaceful experience! Now if they just made silent plug-in snowmobiles all would be perfect.

Do armed citizens deter crime?

Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen came out in favor of the Sheriff’s policy of freely granting concealed weapon permits to qualified citizens in his piece published December 10, 2009. The incident that triggered his column was the murder of a delivery truck driver who was shot while doing his early morning rounds.

These tragedies always raise the question of what could have prevented them. Mr. McEwen suggests that more armed citizens of good character could deter at least some of these crimes. Others have the same thought, airline pilots included, so it is worth examining the research available to see if there is a correlation between more guns in the hands of good people and less violent crime.

In the interests of full disclosure, I grew up with guns and am a pretty good shot. As a Vietnam-era Air Force officer I qualified with a sidearm, putting fifty shots in an area the size of my fist. I have also worked around the world in places where order has broken down and have eaten dinner with people carrying automatic weapons.

The goal of research in this area of inquiry is to compare violent crime rates in areas with lots of guns and areas with few guns to see if there are differences. Brandon S. Centerwall did a study of homicide rates from 1976-80 in adjoining states and Canadian provinces. The provinces had one tenth as many handguns per capita as the states. Centerwall states: “No consistent differences were observed; criminal homicide rates were sometimes higher in the Canadian province, and sometimes higher in the adjoining US state.”

Mauser and Kates studied international data and summed up their study in 2006: “Our conclusion from the available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the availability of any particular one of the world’s myriad deadly instrument being irrelevant.”

Lott and Mustard examined a large data set of all US counties and determined that easing carry laws to put more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens did decrease violent crime. These findings were widely celebrated and resulted in passage of carry laws in a number of states.

Ayres and Donohue examined Lott and Mustard’s data set and added in data from states where eased concealed weapons rules made firearms more common. Their conclusion published in the 2003 Stanford Law Review was: “We conclude that Lott and Mustard have made an important scholarly contribution in establishing that these laws have not led to the massive bloodbath of death and injury that some of their opponents feared. On the other hand, we find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile.”

Scholars continue to study this issue which has large implications for our society. At present there are studies which seem to show less crime where citizens are armed, but these results do not hold up well to scrutiny. Those places which freely grant concealed weapons permits are the test beds where theories meet data. Fresno, with ten percent of the state’s concealed carry permits, is one of those test beds.

The practical question is whether the citizens of Fresno are better off being a test bed for the proposition that more armed citizens deter crime. Ayres and Donohue go on to state that: “While we do not want to overstate the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from the extremely variable results emerging from the statistical analysis, if anything, there is stronger evidence for the conclusion that these laws increase crime than there is for the conclusion that they decrease it.”

Social experiments are a necessary part of governing any society. The only way to find out whether a theory works is to try it. The more data you have from places that have already tested the theory the better your decision whether or not to try it yourself. Where the test results are as equivocal as they are in the area of arming private citizens, how does one decide which path to follow? Scholars will be glad to receive the data from the Fresno experiment.

(a version of this blog post was published by Fresno Pacific University as part of its Scholars Speak series of faculty writing in January 2010)

Hacking Google

Who hacked Google? Gmail accounts were the targets, as far as public press releases show. Google says the hackers were Chinese, as does the US government. China responds that its government had nothing to do with it, and how dare you say it did?

We only know that Google was hacked because it says so. Google also says that Chinese dissidents were the ones targeted. Let's assume that they are telling the truth as far as they know it. Do governments have teams of computer hackers busily preparing for cyber-war and testing their abilities in the meantime? One assumes that they do, and Americans would be dismayed to learn that their government wasn't doing just that. The way you learn to break into computer networks is by breaking into computer networks, the tougher the better.

Internet security companies are also busily probing for security holes, as are fascinated amateurs, professional sleuths and criminal gangs. The complexity of modern software and the worldwide distribution of its creation and manufacture pretty much guarantee that there will always be security holes. Any computer network is as secure as its weakest link, and one unpatched computer is all it takes to let in the bad guys.

So who hacked Google? Writers have been pointing out that there are many people and groups who could benefit from successfully hacking those Gmail accounts. Google's competitors in China would certainly benefit if Gmail seemed insecure, and for that matter Google's competitors outside China would also benefit. Google has been getting steadily bigger and its reach into new markets and technologies is astounding. As it moves more people into the cloud computing realm the market for free-standing individual software goes down.

Already anyone with a decent internet connection can avoid buying any software and still be productive. Google even has a free operating system for you, and it isn't alone. How do you stop the Google juggernaut? If people's faith in the security and stability of Google's applications is compromised, what will happen?

Google has a lot to lose in this whole hacking scandal, and many people and groups benefit from its loss. For us end-users the moral of the story is simple: no electronic communication is safe from prying eyes. Even strong encryption is only as secure as its password, which can be obtained by cleverness, deception or stealth in many cases. We can only be secure from casual trespassers, not unlike a locked house. As with a locked house, our online financial transactions can be burgled. We have insurance for both since neither can ever be completely secure.

I take reasonable precautions, patching my software and keeping my anti-virus software up to date. I also don't wander around in bad internet neighborhoods. I have still been a victim of cyber theft, which I only discovered by checking my credit card statements. I know that the IT staff can read my mail, so I don't send anything I don't want read. My greatest risk is an unplanned "reply all." We are probably better off thinking of the internet as a party-line phone, and using it accordingly.

So who hacked Google? It doesn't matter, and no one can ever know for sure anyway. If Google decides not to compete in China that is their business decision. Some people got a wake-up call from the event, and that may be a good thing for all of us.