Update

Hello!

It's been a while since I wrote anything. A lot of things has been going on. I graduated from school and now finally have my masters degree. I also relocated to NYC. So I have been very busy with just getting a bit settled in the big city.

I do like it very much here. It is not the first time I live in NYC, for some reason I keep coming back. One of the reasons I moved here is that I want to get an internship at a NGO, also I do wanna do some volunteer work. Since I'm done with school I need to get started on the actual practical experiences.

That was all for this time.

My new home in Brooklyn.

Laws against burkas and niqabs in public places

Hello!

Today the government in Belgium is gonna vote about women wearing burkas and niqabs in public places. There is a suggestion that this should be fobidden and the punishment if you still wear it can be prison. I think this is silly. I do not understand why. The reason that has been given is that this law is important from a security and a moral stand point. A moral stand point? What does that mean in this context? It is also said that the liberty and independence for women is very important in Belgium. I can understand that argument to some extent, but I do think that there is another side to this as well. One thing is that this law might stop some women from leaving theire homes and I also believe that it can be dangerous telling people what to not wear.

There are more nations in Europe that are debating this issue. I know that it has been a topic in Denmark for a while. Which is interesting since there are no women wearing burkas in Denmark, and a very few wearing a niqab. The university of Copenhagen has done some research on this topic, and it has shown that about 50% of the women in Denmark wearing niqabs are Danish women that has converted to Islam.

But mostly I think there are bigger problems in Europe that needs to be solved and forbidden, like bootleg jeans, because they are ugly. ; )

About time..

So, the Swedish government has decided that the Ottoman Empire is guilty of Genocide.

Ops, they did it again

When there is a war it's given that it's the civilians that are gonna suffer the most. And among the civilians children and women are taking he hardest hit. Yesterday 27 cilvilians in Afghanistan was killed in an air attack by the USA, or to be precise by NATO. NATO thought they were attacking Taliban fighters traveling in three busses. Obama has claimed that the most important task for the US troups in Afghanistan is to protect and win the people of Afghanistan's hearts. In my book this is a peculiar way of doing that. Is this what they call collateral damage?

1 2 3 4 United States Marine Corps

Good Morning!

As I am waiting for my coffee I would like to take this time to update and write sonething here. Last night in a Swedish newspaper you could read about the organization 'Young Mariens'. This is a 50 year old organization that recruit kids as young as the age of 8 to be trained and prepared for a life as potential soldiers. Check it out here: http://www.youngmarines.com/

Included in the program you have physiqal training, endurence practice, military training, physical tests and also knowledge about the history of war and the U.S. The program encourages you to live a drug free and clean life.

It is interesting that Pentagon spends a heap of money on recruting these children. This program has a lot of critics, saying that this organization is creating child soilders, who are basicly trained to kill. I agree, but am I the only one who sees the similarities to Hitlerjugend???

I am ashamed - and I am not the idiot

Hello!

Just bumbed into a very short article about muslim women in Malmö (third biggest city in Sweden). A study showed that a lot of muslim women that wear head scarfs are victims for everyday violence by other citizens. The article tells about a 50 year old woman biking past a 19 year old girl, the 50 year old woman stops her bike and says 'Muslim Cunt', hops on her bike again and leaves.

What the heck is going on here?

The article also shows that a lot of women are being spat on or pushed when they are being passed on the streets. It has gotten to the point where a lot if women avoid going out, or just try to avoid confrontation with other people, while being out.

I don't even know where to begin!

I am starting to get very worried about a lot of things going on in my home country. I am nervous about the upcoming elections. There is a big chance that the Swedish Democrats (basicly a racist party) are gonna get a small spot in our government, and I am telling you, if that happens, I will never ever move back to Sweden.

What happened to the sentiment after WW II? We must never forget! It can never happen again!
Human beings seem to have a very, very short memory, or they are just idiots? You tell me!

Sanna

You're In The (Private) Army Now

Hello!

The other week I was writing about the Democratic Republic of Congo, and yesterday these news fell into my lap:

2 Norwegians sentenced to death

The news is on Swedish but it is about two Norwegian mercenaries who has been sentenced to death by a military court in Kisangani. The crime they were convicted for included spying for Norway and killing a local driver, (the driver was the father of six children). It is not clear what the Norwegian men was doing there and the story is very unclear. When they were arrested they were both carrying two different types of identity cards, one from the Norwegian military and one for SIG (Special Intervention Group), which is a Norwegian based security group sort of like Blackwater. The Norwegian Ministry of Foregin Affairs have made it absolutley clear that these two men have NOT been conducting business for Norway in any shape or form.

So, a lot of focus has been put on the fact that these men got the death penalty and how Norway now is trying to stop this. I would like to add that according to Omalanga (Congo's minister of communication) the death penalty has not been carried out in Congo for ten years, so how this exactly will play out is hard to say. But the two convicted men said that 'a lifetime punishment in in Congo is to us the same as the death penalty'.

I am not really gonna state my own point of view in this case but I would like to flip the coin around and focus on the parts that no one else seem to care about or even think that much about. And that is the fact that they are mercenaries. This is a concept that is not that well known to the public. So if you look up the word mecenary in the dictionary it states:

-Adjective

1.	working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal.

2.	hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc.

There is a few legal problems when it comes to mecenaries. A normal soilder that serve their nation has to play by the rules. And there are a lot of laws to concider when it comes to war. (Check out the book Of war and Law by David Kennedy). To explain it simple, if you commit a war crime hopefully you are held responsible, and you go to your own nations military court. They decide the punishment and so on. So as a soilder this works as a form of security for you, because if you mess up you are not on your own in a foreign nation, that might have a very different jurisdiction than where you come from. But if you decide to work as a mecenary you don't have this security. Which in one way has created a legal vacuum. You are not representing your own nation, which means you are not obligated to follow the rules in the same way you should when you are in the official army. But this also means that when you mess up you are on your own. If you commit a crime, depending on where in the world you are, it is the local laws that counts.

And this is the case for the Norwegian mercenaries. If it is true that they were not on a mission for Norway. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, say they are gonna try to help them, because 'Norway has a very strong stand on the death penalty, and we are very much against it'

My point is that it becomes a very big deal when people from the West get's into trouble in the South or the East. The media is all over it and we are very quick to point out the legal flaws and the barbarism of the punishments. But when the west decide, or should I say the US decide to open up prisons like Camp X-Ray, not many people care. It sort of shows that perhaps on paper all men (and women) are equal, but in reality white men are better.

It sickens me.

PS
There are so many more interesting topics in this blog enrty that I might bring up later but for now this is it. I am also very much aware that there are so many more angles and details to this story that can be debated. What if they are innocent?, Do all nations have a responsibility to protect and help their own citizens? If so, what about poor nations that don't have a say in anything? Is it always a bad thing being a mecenary? What about the legal vacuum? And so on.

So long,