Prince Harry’s Invictus Games, Brought To You By Arms Dealers, Any Solutions?
I would like to add to this that I personally like Harry and Meghan and my hope is that they personally are seeking to help people. It is in the shadows of those who do not care for the Veterans that I cast my light. It is to illuminate those who use war to further self serving ends and use the rhetoric of defence and protection of the people as a diversion from the horror of what war actually is. I think of the landmine issue where the bomblets were in the shape of toys for children to pick up. A scientist designed this. The idea is to blow off their limbs so the families have to look after them. I recall visiting Woomera and looking at the military hardware from a bygone era. It just astounds me that we think killing people solves the problem. We don’t look into what are the roots of the conflict? What is the fighting really for? What is the media spin used as propaganda? What is the truth of the matter? This just enables abuse to continue without critique. Or those who critique are further demonised by those in denial of what they are undertaking. We have to be able to sit at a table together and discuss warfare head on. We have to be able to sit in the presence of critics, that includes peacemakers facing the critique from those in defence. I am open to that. If they feel it is important resolve the conflict with those in the peace area who think it is not in the public interest. Have the courage to face people and discuss matters rather than using surveillance, infiltrating groups or ignoring those who actually care about people.
Always the argument is about fighting for peace. I understand we can all fight but can we sit and learn to make peace? Can we at least try? None of us are perfect, none of us have all the answers but we must start a dialogue if you want the injuries to seriously stop. It is all very well to speak of mental health and injuries but if the root problem of violent conflict and increasingly destructive weapons is not addressed it is a fight to the bottom where all lose – this in conflict resolution is called a lose/lose. We want everyone to win.
This is from my trip to Woomera, you will see more primitive version of cluster bombs.
https://aus.worldpeacefull.com/photo-gallery/woomera/
Princess Diana travelled the world to stop the violence. She focused specifically on landmines as limbs were blown off. It is important to understand she sought to reframe security to humanitarian, a significant shift. At that time landmines were called Antipersonnel landmines. Her focus was on civilians. You will notice that there is advertising to the side of this first article around the royal family, Harry and Meghan about their baby, I am not lost on the irony.
Refer https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a12021518/princess-diana-landmines/ and https://www.newsweek.com/princess-diana-diana-william-harry-prince-william-prince-harry-royal-family-383448
Today the landmines are called improvised explosive device (IED). The language moves it away from land-mines or anti-personnel mines, this is classic marketing. The reality is they are mines. The change of language is to disrupt attention and awareness of what they are. It is a diversionary tactic. Here is what Human Rights Watch has to say: https://www.hrw.org/topic/arms/landmines
It is not about celebrating the courage to overcome injury, it is to find the compassion to empathise with all sides, the civilians who are predominantly the targets these days as this harms a country and standing armies seem to be a thing of the past. To face squarely the many innocent people that stand on landmines, or get shot in war zones or are targeted. There is a massive silence around so called ‘collateral damage’. It is deeply dishonest in my view.
My attitude is based on love of all. I don’t hate the military although I do get upset about the atrocities done in the name of peace or democracy, as it is not true, given my model of the world. Given their model of the world it is a dangerous place and to fight fire with fire beats off enemies, in their eyes it would seem necessary as Scott Ritter (marine, former weapons inspector, Iraq) stated at a lecture in Melbourne. I could see and hear his view. However I would challenge that – is it necessary? What if peace education was supported in childhood where kids learn to resolve conflict, to not believe that life is about making money but living to their highest potential, realising their gifts, that what they do for another returns to the self? What of learning to collaborate rather than compete? What if we do our best together not in seeking personal glory but shared abundance? Can we think and feel this differently? Or do we keep on with the same story?
https://schools.worldpeacefull.com/anti-bullying/
I challenge the military-industrial complex to fund my work in every school in Australia. This is to seriously support peace education for the future of their children. I ask for dialogue. Let’s sit around the table without mantras, PR spin and speak frankly about war and peace not as a nice word but a real proposition to ensure our world lives on. If that can’t happen then they are not serious about peace they are investing in war for personal greed. So be it.
In the meantime, whilst some people may have honourable intentions re: Invictus games, I cannot celebrate the cruelty of war that is killing both soldiers and civilians indiscriminately and the emerging issues around climate warfare and nuclear weapons proliferation based on this great fear of insecurity that is not resolved at its root. The injuries would not be happening if we resolved war and found alternative ways to confront what we fear. This means looking at us not the other (enemy).
Why not use the monies earned to better our world society, this would mean rebuilding schools in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Syria. In the film Charlie Wilson War, the war in Afghanistan was funded by a unaccountable covert black budget up to $1 billion (Saudi’s paid half) to defeat the Russians by arming the Muslims in Afghanistan. At the end there is a quote by Charlie Wilson It makes a powerful point that the social welfare aspects were ignored as the decision makers loved the war games as it seemed to speak to their masculinity and desire to win at all costs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War_(film) This is the scene that really impacted me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg3cGwwGX6o
Half the population are under the age of 14 in Afghanistan. Half the population are children. Nothing was done to educate them, it is was received with disdain as the intent is self interest, winning and not social reconstruction as self responsibility would do after destroying a country. Today the conflict continues unresolved. Refer Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan
The key themes are about reconstruction after war which means the building of hospitals, it means education, it means teaching nonviolence and alternative ways of dispute resolution to stop the violence at its root. It means learning from war but not in strategic warfare taught at a military college but peace building as a real initiative. This is how you turn the conflicts around, you learn the lesson of war and you look for ways to ensure the peace is stable in a sustainable way (resolved not appeasement). This is the beginning of self respect and respect for the other as a human being not some marketed image of the evil other but to be clear in one’s thinking when analysing conflict.
Unconditional love is not a fanciful statement or motherhood statement, it is a real energy that can end all wars and it is where real courage comes from. I say this with my own conflicts in mind. I am not above conflict, but I am working on it. I get angry and let off steam. I am refusing to hate anyone. I am refusing to hurt anyone. I just want us to have the courage to face our inner demons and stop harming innocent people in the name of peace, it is not.
That would be my vote for what it is worth.
Prince Harry’s Invictus Games, Brought To You By Arms Dealers, Figuratively And Literally
It’s one thing to celebrate the human spirit in the face of great adversity. It’s another thing altogether to let the weapons manufacturers who helped create the adversity sponsor the celebrations. Nick Deane explains.
The Invictus Games will be familiar to all who watch the ABC, their promoter and sponsor. The Games will be taking place in Sydney in October, the participants being injured service personnel from 18 countries.
It is highly inspiring to see the human spirit triumph over mutilations of the human body. Who can fail but be impressed by the fortitude of the participating athletes? As the Story of the Games tells us, they have faced life-changing injuries but have somehow found the motivation not to let those injuries define them.
From what we can see, they appear to be in comparatively good health both mentally and physically, despite the terrible wounds they have suffered. This is wonderful. And it is entirely fitting that sport plays a positive role in their rehabilitation.
Admirable also is the skill and dedication of those who brought them back to comparative health and the ability to rejoin society – the surgeons and nurses, the technicians who create the equipment and prostheses, and the carers and family members who keep them in their current state of well-being. There is clearly a whole team of people behind each, individual participant.
This part of the story is displayed for the general public in a brilliant light. Under it, we see the heroism of the individuals who have had to face extraordinary misfortune and feel pride in their accomplishments. We are, however, discouraged from exploring the shadows this light casts, where lie aspects that would otherwise complete the picture.
Of the wounded, we only see those who have, to some extent, prevailed over their disabling wounds. Others, out of the bright light, couldn’t find the necessary motivation, or are so damaged that seeing them would horrify us.
Are they out of sight, so as to be out of our minds? Besides, there are probably some who are literally out of their own minds, suffering Post Traumatic Stress. We dwell, almost exclusively, on the heroes. An obsession with success takes our eyes away from those who can’t or won’t ‘recover’.
There is a whiff of triumphalism in this (it is in the name of the games). Their spirit may be unconquered, but they have, without exception, been severely beaten. Giving them a special name does not alter that.
All the participants have encountered life-changing trauma that they must endure as long as they live. Telling them they are admirable because they have suffered ‘in the service of their country’ is inadequate compensation – even with the promise of life-long medical and financial support.
Those words -’in the service of their country’ – have a hollow resonance. All the Invictus participants are from recent wars. In Australia’s case, we have joined these wars out of choice, not necessity. In an objective assessment of them, no service personnel can legitimately claim to have been wounded in the defence of Australia. The only time the ADF has defended Australia was during the New Guinea campaign of WW2.
Also in the shadows, but most noteworthy, is the fact that among the supporters of the Games are major armaments manufacturers – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Leidos and Saab. There is something deeply unsettling about this.
On the one hand these companies and their shareholders grow rich through creating, selling, researching and constantly ‘improving’ weaponry and weapons systems. But it is weaponry that has produced the horrific injuries sustained by the Games’ participants.
It cuts no ice to say “Our injuries were caused by their weapons.”
The explosives in IEDs quite possibly have their origin in these multi-national companies. Those who engage in warfare are not choosy about where their weapons originate. Likewise, those who sell them are happy just so long as their clients pay up.
Weapons and explosives made by our side can easily end up injuring our personnel, and probably have. We are disturbed by the marketers of damaging products like tobacco sponsoring sporting events. What could be more damaging than weapons that are sold on the promise of their ‘lethality’?
How armaments manufacturers can reconcile their core business with supporting the Invictus Games is, at best, problematical. At worst, it is utterly cynical. It may even be a touch ghoulish. It is beyond possible that their motivation is to absolve themselves of guilt. The organisers might ask themselves why they allowed such an arrangement.
Consideration of the trade in weapons raises another, dark aspect. What of the injured on their side? What of the terrible injuries inflicted on our ‘enemies’ (enemies, who, it must be said, were never even capable of threatening Australia). Injuries like those that our people bear are, no doubt, being born by others elsewhere – in countries less affluent than Australia, with fewer resources and less sophisticated medical treatments. They may be living lives of torment and utter desolation. Will they be holding Invictus Games? ‘Affluence triumphs’ might be the hidden message.
By its emphasis on triumph over adversity through ‘the fighting spirit of our wounded servicemen and women’, Invictus provides one more example of the culture of war and the warrior that runs so deep within Australian society.
Like ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, the Games fit neatly into the myth of the glory and value of military service. However, the time when wars were fought by heroic warriors are long past, overtaken by the march of military technology.
By far the majority of the victims of today’s wars are innocent, non-combatant civilians. It is high time they were recognised, alongside the military ones. Focussing exclusively on military personnel ignores the single, greatest impact of modern warfare.
Rather than let the games re-assure us, the battered people taking part should remind us that joining unnecessary wars comes at a terrible cost. No matter how ‘complete’ their ‘recovery’, these athletes’ lives have been changed forever – and for questionable reasons.
It is paradoxical that one can support the games, admire the inner strength of those taking part and regret the fact that they are necessary. One can be glad that the Games are taking place, appreciate the positive role they play and enjoy the spectacle, whilst at the same time experiencing anger at some of the sponsors and at the very fact that the games are needed at all, courtesy of the ‘culture of war’ we continue to nurture.