A Crisis in Leadership - Crimes Against Humanity

Benazir Bhutto

Please watch the video accompanying this article entitled, "Crimes Against Humanity: Crisis in Leadership".

At this juncture in history, and as a nation, the United States is facing an unprecedented moral challenge--the outcome of which is sure, in one way or another, to prove 'apocalyptic'. Likewise, but as Parag Khanna has described, global affairs currently revolve around interrelations between three superpowers (China, the European Union, and U.S.) as their respective governments vie for assumably 'scarce' resources. The most obvious example of this 'demand' at the moment is of course, evidenced in the spiraling costs of both oil and food.

Thus, the earth's remaining countries comprised significantly of 'second world' states like Pakistan or Iran, are consequently left to fend for themselves, but always in relation to the controlling power of an imperious oligarchy. No where is this balance of relationship any more contentious in the Middle East however, than in U.S. dealings with these same two nations. Consequently, if the 'international community' has aspirations of sustaining global equanimity, it would be well advised to consider the following:

1) Pakistan possesses the ability to generate nuclear power while Iran is only nearing the realization of similar capacities.

2) Technically, Iran's central bank is prohibited from charging interest (riba) in observance of the Qur'an's precepts (Sharia). Operating with a national deficit, the Pakistani government by contrast, borrows from its central bank and public debt there subsequently exceeds 50% of its GDP. Its ties to the U.S. have also traditionally been bolstered through its dependence on financial aid.

Consequently, and for virtually the same reasons discussed previously in "A Crisis in American Leadership" world populations remain subject to the brutish savagery of totalitarian force regardless of whether they're Iraqi, Iranian, Pakistani, Zimbabwean, Burmese, Sudanese, or for that matter, American.

For me, I see no greater proof of this fact than in my video documentation of Benazir Bhutto's dedicated efforts this last year to restore a democratic government to her homeland. Though already suspicious as a result of my own research however, after reading Michael Shaw's article, "Who Killed Benazir Bhutto?" I can only describe the Bush administration's complicity in the leader's death as reprehensibly criminal.

As someone who has offered himself--heart, mind, and soul as a teacher in service to the betterment of his fellow man, I can no longer excuse, rationalize, or otherwise justify the acts of lawless cowards. I pledge then, I will not, because I can not, go through the motions of celebrating a defiled freedom this 4th of July that bestows tarnished privilege on an unconscionable few at the expense of the less fortunate but nonetheless, suffering multitudes.

I only pray God will be merciful.

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