#military conflict should never affect civilian lives on both sides.

[koishua]

so fucking shameful how an overwhelming amount of germans and the german authority are so pro-israel so much so to the point where it's banned to do protests in many of the large states and cities

[heritageposts]

if you support israel right now, you're supporting the extermination of the palestinian people.

it really is that simple.

this isn't a 'complicated conflict,' it isn't a situation that 'requires nuance,' it's not a 'geopolitical event' that requires us to condemn the 'bad actors' on 'both sides.'

it's a genocide.

there is no 'nuance' to be had here. it's a genocide, committed by the israeli state against the palestinian people, and it's happening right now as we speak. you don't have to infer anything: israel has openly, with next to no pushback from so-called liberal democracies, cut off gaza's access to water, food and electricity. that's more than two million palestinians denied even the basic necessities for life. a million of them, children.

what is that, if not a genocide?

and that's only the latest escalation. we could go all day, listing the atrocities the palestinian people have been subjected to. the killings, the beatings, the children sexually abused in detention center, all the hospitals and ambulances being blown up, videos of palestinians being heckled by settlers as they're driven from their homes, israelis gathering on hilltops to cheer as their military drops bombs on gaza...

but all westerns want to talk about, is hamas.

because the murder of palestinians by the IDF is status quo; it doesn't affect them. what's one more dead palestinian but a statistic? but if hamas has killed a handful of israelis — if they've go as far as to even kill babies — then that justifies the extermination of two million palestinians, children and infants included.

westerns will even say that the palestinians brought it on themselves; that they should have know that a drop of israeli blood requires a river in return.

and just so we're clear, you don't have to like hamas. but when you equate hamas with the IDF, when you derail every conversation by demanding a condemnation of 'both sides,' or when you, god forbid, agree that israel is justified in dismantling hamas — which, as israel themselves have outlined, will involve the complete destruction of gaza and the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians — then either wake up, or own up to the fact that you're a participant in the extermination of the palestinian people.

do you think i'm being harsh? then imagine how it's like living under constant aerial bombardment. with no food, no water, no electricity. constant air-raid sirens. a bomb, dropping every minute. never knowing a moment a peace, always wondering if today is going to be your last day, if you and your family are still going to be here tomorrow.

could you stomach living in gaza, for even a day? i doubt it.

and still, now, on the eve of what might be the ground invasion of gaza — with one million palestinians being told to flee, with nowhere to go — i'm getting messages from people who demand my sympathy... for israel.

well, you're not getting it.

i'm not even humoring your hand-wringing.

if you live in israel, and you're one of the ones who've turned a blind-eye to the suffering of the palestinian people, if you've fought for the IDF or tacitly supported them, if you've callously called upon the memory of the holocaust thinking the death and suffering of your ancestors would wash the blood of your own hands....

then yeah, i think you deserve every single hamas rocket lobbed at you and so much more.

[the-tired-tenor]

Obligatory "I don't support Hamas, I don't support the government of Israel either, and I have nothing but respect for the Jewish people (minus the government of Israel)."

I'm seeing a lot of back and forth re: whether denouncing Israel makes you antisemitic and who's fault the current conflict is and so on, and very little nuance or openness to outside views. In light of this, I have decided that I, a white man who is not from the affected region, have thoughts. Which is something that has never before happened. Feel free to ignore my opinions. Anyway.

Hamas is a terrorist group. This is not an opinion, it is simply a fact. Their goal, as I understand it, is to liberate Palestinian land that is currently being occupied by Israel, and they have zero qualms about doing what they think needs to be done to make that happen. They use human shields and attack civilians. They are not a standing military force.

Israel is a colonizer state. They are an occupying force of non-indiginous people who are currently living on land that was obtained through violence. The state of Israel has enacted a religious apartheid and committed multiple war crimes against the native Palestinians population, killing civilians indiscriminately.

There is no way for this conflict to end other than for one side to win completely. Israel is convinced that they have the right to the land they have settled on, as ordained by their religious beliefs; meanwhile, Hamas will not rest until Israel no longer exists as a coherent nation. There is a tendency, I have noticed, to equate these two things morally and ethically, but they are not the same.

Israel is going to win this conflict. It will be long and bloody, but they will win for the simple reason that they have the might of some of the biggest militaries in the world behind them and they do not care how many civilians they kill. Israel will raze Gaza to nothing and scorch the very earth rather than accept that they do not have a claim to land that other people already live on.

Because that's the heart of the conflict, isn't it? Israel believes that it has more right to occupy the land it wants than the native people have to live there. Israel - or at least the most outspoken of Israel's leaders - sees the native Palestinians as animals, in their own words, and backs that view with action - they attack civilians constantly and without care, justifying their actions in the moment, then printing retractions once public opinion has already been set. Hell, they offered refugees an escape route and then bombed that, too.

I believe that all people should have a homeland. I believe that the Jewish people deserve to have a homeland. I do not believe, for one second, that anyone has a right to establish a homeland in a place where people already live via ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Israel should not exist in its current state.

While Hamas' stated goal is easy to sympathize with, their hands aren't clean either. Using human shields is a horrific tactic, as is lashing out against civilian populations. I understand that they likely have no better options, given that they are faced with overwhelming military power, but it's still awful.

On the other hand - how can I condemn Palestinians for fighting back against an occupying force? Should I tell them that they should lay down their arms and accept continued mistreatment at the hands of Israel? Accept being second-class citizens in cities that used to be theirs, accept having their homes razed and built over by colonizers?

The only morally and ethically acceptable way for this to end would be for Israel to cede occupied lands back to Palestine or for the government of Israel to be completely overhauled, with watchdogs put in place to ensure that no more human rights violations take place. Israel never should have occupied those lands in the first place. That's not going to happen - Israel, as I've already noted, has both overwhelming power and a complete lack of self-awareness or conscience on its side - but it sure would be nice if Palestinians weren't genocided out of existence.

While the Jewish people have a right to a homeland - and this is the part that everyone seems to be glossing over - that right cannot and does not supercede the rights of the people who already live there, and if they cannot coexist with that people, they should not govern that area. Continuing to seize land smacks of the same manifest destiny bullshit that lead Europeans to colonize the Americas and force the indigenous peoples to either extinction or to live in reservations, and frankly it's disgusting.

[eitherandor-blog]

The Boy in the Bubble

I don't understand what's going on in Israel and Palestine.

I used to say that as a way to excuse my ignorance to the conflict. This was easier than devoting the time to learn and listen. It was immature and myopic to not care enough to educate myself. Easy enough to do when I did not think it affected me and others in my world.

Even though that's no longer an excuse, today I would say I'm also confused. Still learning and ignorant about a lot. However, my confusion comes from a different vantage point.

I grew up with organized religion a part of my life. For me, it was being raised Catholic, a sect of the larger Christian faith. [Please do not embarrass me and ask that I compare and contrast Catholicism with other Christian denominations.] On a weekly basis, my family would go to church, then my sisters and I had catechism classes aka Sunday school. I would do this week in and out, not really sure what I believed or was learning.

What stuck with me, from its constant refrain mid-mass to the lessons and conversations in class afterward, was a theme of peace. It seemed that this was the example set by Jesus Christ, one that we should follow. I don't recall much and would never tout my knowledge of Christianity (then or now). That said, I feel fairly confident that living and acting with peace was a primary tenet.

...

While I did not keep Christianity in my life, I would have regular interaction with some other traditions and faiths. This has mostly concentrated on Judaism. As a kid growing up, I was fortunate to attend many bar and bat mitzvahs. Then a bit older when in college, I went to our local Hillel for Shabbat services and dinners on Friday nights, and joined their improv troupe. Celebrating the high holidays with family and friends has always been an annual invitation for me.

Islam is much less present in my life with even more for me to learn (and let me acknowledge, I have TONS to learn about Judaism too!). I have learned some things on Islam over the years from media coverage, readings, and personal testimony from many sources. From what I have learned and been exposed to, neither Judaism or Islam espouse violence. I don't know all the particulars and recognize that each organized religion has its denominations which expand the points of view. However in my religious encounters, for both Judaism and Islam (not to mention Christianity), they are at the core about unity, community, and faith.

It makes sense to me for people around the world to be transfixed on the devastation and death amounting in Israel and Palestine. What I cannot understand is how the conversation and angle is individually focused on one population and people. I see posts on social media where people remark the violent attacks against Israelis, but say nothing when civilian targets are bombarded and unarmed Palestinians are similarly murdered. Just as supporters of Palestine note the recurring, unending destruction of Palestine's infrastructure and people..but say nothing about the hostages taken and lives lost from Hamas and Palestinian militant groups.

I want a ceasefire. I believe in a two-state solution, acknowledging that the pathway to it seems currently unfathomable and is far more complicated than the outcome may imply. To me, this resolution is due to wanting peace for all sides and people. I think the firepower and backing of the Israeli military, and state overall, exponentially outnumber and dominate what Palestine has. I have a hard time personally using the term "genocide" knowing that Jewish people are hated if not hunted by parts of the world (and Jewish people compose much of Israel, though Judaism does not equal Israel). However, the havoc wreaked on infrastructure and human bodies has truly taken a toll. The numbers are unconscionable. For me the "genocide" label has shock factor, whether or not you accept it. It is the action and death toll that are longer lasting. If this is not an intentional elimination of a population, what is it? How can anyone justify what has happened and continues in the Gaza Strip?

My ideal conclusion though does not mean dissolution of the state of Israel or any wavering support of Jewish people, 'foreign and domestic.' I also would not want to elevate a confrontational and antisemitic rule in Palestine, if that is in fact the core of Hamas, or any government. I also believe in changes to the leadership in Israel that do not propagate fear or detest of Palestinians, whereby the forthcoming government officials acknowledge the harm caused. Palestine should do the same.

From what I read, it seems that there are biased leaders within each government, prejudiced and hating, some wanting annihilation of the other. Derogatory language and allusions to genocide are made by politicians from each region, not to mention select supporters. I don't think I am saying anything new but if people hate each other, the notion of peace and coexistence seems truly impossible.

I have spent some time working in violence prevention on a more local scale in the city of Chicago. One lesson learned- that was also part of our coaching and outreach workers ethos- is that violence begets more violence. That has plainly become a norm for Israel and Palestine too. What "started" on October 7th has heightened attention of this conflict while also bringing it home. Folks are derided for their viewpoints, some threatened for their identity or affiliation with one side or the other. While I want a separate and stable Palestine, that will never justify prejudice against Jewish people or wishing harm unto anyone even of a different side.

The people I know in the States who talk or write about their personal connection to what's happening in Gaza reference their allegiance to one side or the other, without room for any middle. Even though I am not a religious person, figuring out where I fit in the conflict, it makes total sense that folks draw on a shared experience or identity and align with those who possess the same belief system. But just as folks are buoyed in their beliefs, there are people of the same faith who find themselves on the other side of the issue..also because of their religion and spirituality.

There are organizations and individuals who state that because of their faith (in this case, Judaism), they are speaking out against the actions of Israel. Just as we see across religions, people interpret and practice their faith in varying ways. Is it possible Judaism and Islam can be used to promote peace? Can people of other faiths and those who do not practice one see the lives and losses for both Israel and Palestine, all at once? Emphatically we should all reject antisemitism and islamophobia. Why can't we want a home, a safe place, for Israelis and Palestinians?

I know as a white christian-raised person living in the US, there are particular privileges I hold specific to this war, and the conflict more broadly, that keep me safely in a bubble, immune and unexposed unless I seek to engage. What's become most troubling for how I access the topic is it seems impossible for people to talk in a comprehensive, nuanced way about what is happening, how folks feel, what it means, and how we can all find a peaceful resolution.

Perhaps it is because I am an extrovert or maybe it's the organizer and facilitator in me, but by nature, I strive to talk things out with people, even when we may not agree. As painful as the war is, I wish folks could talk about it more and people were open to talking about it with me. Not because I am an expert or want to debate anyone, but because (1) I learn more, (2) maybe the other person could learn something too, and (3) I believe we affirm our humanity when we connect and communicate even through difference.

I haven't said, written, or posted a lot about this topic because it feels like there is no space for a middle ground, no one interested in discussing the "gray" between the opposing sides and governments. Rather than post and perpetuate a half truth of just one side, I've generally refrained from providing anything public. That is an assumption on my part as I know my silence is perceived differently by some. Let me say clearly then that whether or not we agree, I hope if you're reading this, it won't be the last time we discuss the topic. Because I refuse to be secluded from the real world, all that affects YOU, and the many lived realities outside my own. I don't know what will resolve this conflict, but I am certain that not talking about it will never make things better. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

...

["The Boy in the Bubble" is the opening track on Graceland, an objectively- in my opinion :) - stellar album by Paul Simon. Give it a listen and try out the full CD if you haven't heard it already.]

[alarawriting]

52 Project #41: The Blood Mage

Based on the prompt here.

***

Ailurin was five when she learned what she was.

Her older brother, a lanky eight, had just run away with her favorite doll, laughing. Ailurin ran after him, screaming “Give her back!”, but the boy was too entertained by his sister’s impotent rage to heed her. He ran straight up to the pond, grinned malevolently at his shrieking sister, and tossed the doll into the pond.

And then swayed on his feet, dizzily, his skin – ruddy from exercise – turning pale as snow. Ailurin stood in front of him, her little fists clenched, her eyes lit from inside like any magic user’s would be, her face a mask of fury as her brother toppled to the ground, narrowly avoiding falling into the pond himself.

In another town, there might have been a very different outcome. A child summoning magic that nearly kills another child? Somewhere less sophisticated than Ailurin’s town might have burned her as a witch. But she lived only an hour’s ride from the capital of their homeland Paozo, her father an experienced merchant who went to the city all the time, her mother a nurse in the Healers’ Guild, and so she had a far more auspicious fate than that.

It was the next day, after her brother had been fed with bloody meat and wine so watered down it was barely even alcoholic, and she’d been fed leafy greens, mushrooms and trout to help her avoid the muscle cramps that came with magic overuse, that her father put her on the back of his horse, and they rode together to the capital, where the Queen’s Academy of Magicks stood.

***

All magic was based in an element, but there were focused specializations.

A general earth mage could perform workings with dirt and rocks. A metal mage could do nothing with dirt and rocks, but had a level of precision control over metal that a more general earth mage couldn’t match. Likewise, there were general water mages who could change the flow of a river, and then specialized ice mages who could manipulate water only when it was frozen.

There were combination specialists as well. A weather mage fell under water, air and fire, but couldn’t affect a river or put out a blaze, directly – by bringing rain, perhaps, but the magic that could call lightning couldn’t affect a fire. A lodestone mage specialized in iron and other lodestone metals, but could call lightning just like a weather mage.

But one thing was true of all elemental mages. None could directly affect living things. The water and air within an animal’s body, the green growing things on the earth – those were subject to no magic anyone had ever heard of.

Ailurin broke that mold. Her specialization fell under water, but she could do what no water mage had ever been able to do in all recorded history… and control blood.

There were many tests to find the limits of her power – tests that were presented to her as games. She could not cause a body to move by pulling on the blood inside it (and how she cried for the rat she accidentally exsanguinated while they were testing that. Pulling on the blood inside a body only pulled it out of the body.) She could not work with the “blood” of plants or animals without spines; a heart and circulatory system were needed. She could cause blood to clot, but once it was a clot, the only magic she could perform on it was to dissolve it.

What could she do then? Well, her mother was a nurse, and had many suggestions for her teachers in magic. She had already proven she could slow the flow of blood to different parts of the body… her brother had fainted because she’d interrupted the flow of blood to his brain. She could also speed the flow of blood, to aid the recovery of a person who’d fainted for more natural reasons. When people suffered the sickness of terrible pain within their veins, Ailurin was able to find clots inside their bodies, blocking the flow, and she could dissolve those. People with the bleeding disease, whose blood would never clot and seal their wounds… she could close those wounds.

And when a person’s heart seized and stopped, she could usually get it moving again by taking over its function, using her magic to push the blood through the body until whatever had blocked the heart was gone, and it could beat naturally again.

For a child with such magics, there were only two possible choices: the soldiers’ corps, or the Healers’ Guild. But a girl who cried for the rat she’d accidentally killed had no temperament for using her control over blood to kill, and her mother had many contacts within the Healers’ Guild.

Ailurin spent three years studying her own magic, learning its limits. Then she was apprenticed to the Healers’ Guild, learning how to care for the injured and sick, so she could discover how best to use her magic to heal.

And what a healer she was! With Ailurin’s magic, the healers learned many new things about bodies. For instance, in many of the cases where a person was felled by a sudden stopping of their heart, it was because their veins had narrowed and it was too difficult for blood to find its way through. Some of these people could be helped by leech treatment. People who suddenly lost the use of limbs on one side of their body, and the proper working of their tongue, often had a clot inside their brains, and if it was dissolved immediately, they could sometimes make a full recovery. Tinctures of cinnamon and turmeric could make it harder for the blood to clot, and when Ailurin dissolved a clot in the body, the patients treated with such tinctures were less likely to relapse.

By the time she was declared Doctor – the title for a person fully trained to diagnose and treat a patient within the Healers’ Guild, as opposed to a Master Doctor who could take an apprentice, or an Intern who was an advanced apprentice – Ailurin and her magic had been responsible for the discovery of many new secrets of human and animal bodies that no healer had known before, and the discovery of treatments to help against things that had previously killed or maimed without warning or cure.

***

Most of the nation’s guilds were in fact the nation’s guilds. Ailurin’s nation had a leatherworkers’ guild, and the nation to the north had a leatherworker’s guild, and the two to the south both had their own leatherworkers’ guilds, and so forth.

Not so the Healers’ Guild. There was only one Healers’ Guild, spanning the known world. All healers swore their primary allegiance to the Healer’s Creed:

·         I will treat any patient in need, regardless of their creed, their nation, or their customs.

·         I will cause no harm to any, save in the preservation of life and health for those who come before me.

·         Though I may charge a fair and reasonable fee for my services, as set by the Healers’ Guild, I will never charge more than such a fee.

·         I shall have no sexual or romantic relations with one who comes before me to be healed. Should my own husband or wife fall ill, or one with whom I am courting or engaged, I will refer them to one of my colleagues, unless the situation should be so dire that that is not possible.

·         Likewise, I will not treat my family members, but refer them to a colleague, unless life or health should fail immediately if I do not.

·         In conflicts between nations, I will not take sides. I will swear again on my own life that I will treat any who come before me, even soldiers engaged in warfare on my nation.

Every company of soldiers traveled with Healers’ Guild members, and there was a Healers’ Tent at the site of every battle… often a tent that contained the healers of both the armies meeting in combat. It was an ironclad rule that no soldier could keep their weapon within the Healers’ Tent, and that soldiers or civilians from either side of the conflict were welcome in the tent if they were injured.

Ailurin began her career treating elderly city dwellers with pains in their chest, but she thought that her magic might be more needed on a battlefield, so she began to travel with military companies.

She saved many, many lives. Men who would have bled to death survived, because Ailurin was able to keep their blood inside their bodies until the wound could be cauterized or stitched. At times, she could even restore a severed limb; if the limb and the place it was severed from were both washed in the strongest of spirits, to drown any of the evil spirits that caused illness, she could cause the blood to flow between the limb and the place it was severed from, as her colleagues sewed the limb back on. The arms and legs that were so restored were never as strong as they had been, and those soldiers usually returned home as war-wounded with their pensions… but the limbs that had been severed cleanly by swords were back on their bodies, weaker but still of use.

Ailurin found as well that her magic could transfer the blood from a dead man, if he was freshly dead, to a dying man who’d lost too much blood to live otherwise. She learned to detect the spirit of the blood, to match it with a soldier of similar spirit… and, knowing of these spirits through her magic, she was able to devise a test that other healers could use to tell if the spirits would be friendly to each other, or hostile. Healers’ assistants who went out on the battlefield to retrieve the injured now retrieved the dead as well, in hopes that their blood was still fresh enough to save other soldiers. Often, ice mages, whose talents had been traditionally used in the Healers’ Guild to make poultices to reduce swelling and to preserve potions that would otherwise go bad, found themselves keeping dead bodies cold. Ailurin was still the only blood mage, but what she could do with magic, other healers found ways to do with potions or devices.

Within the Healers’ Guild Ailurin was remembered for the many discoveries she made or helped to make, and the many lives she saved directly. But there is another thing they remember her for as well.

***

She was traveling with a company from Paozo when their battalion met one from Shemora, and a fierce battle broke out. A Healers’ Tent was stood up between the camps of both battalions, and within that tent, Ailurin and her colleagues were very busy.

In the evening, when the battle was done for the day and both sides had retreated to lick their wounds, and the Healers’ Tent was especially busy, the general of Paozo’s forces came to the tent in person.

His soldiers who were conscious and could move their limbs saluted him. The soldiers of Shemora watched him. The healers mostly ignored him, with the exception of the Master Doctor in charge of the tent, who didn’t really have that option. She finished setting a soldier’s leg bone where he’d been trampled by a horse, and then went to speak to the general.

“What can I do for you, General?” she asked.

“You can get these Shemoran scum off these beds,” the general said. “We’re not wasting our resources healing the enemy.”

“Excuse me?” The Master Doctor was shocked. “Our creed is to care for anyone who needs healing.”

“I don’t give a shit about your creed,” the general said. Soldiers of his battalion filed into the Healers’ Tent. “We’re taking this Shemoran trash as prisoners of war to free up these beds for our injured.”

“No. You’re not,” the Master Doctor said. “The Healers have no specific allegiance. We treat both sides equally.”

“Yes, that’s part of your creed,” the general said. “And the other part is to do no harm.” His soldiers drew their swords. “You have no weapons. You have nothing to stop us but your bare hands.” He turned back to his soldiers. “Kill any of them that are too badly injured to walk. The rest can march to the prison or die.”

“No,” Ailurin said, turning away from the man she had been treating. “I have a weapon.”

The general laughed. “Oh, yes, I can see you’re a great warrior!”

Most mages were bone-thin, unable to keep on any weight, for magic was fueled by life force. Ailurin was beautifully plump, looking more like a pampered noblewoman than a powerful mage. Her face was soft, her belly round, with voluptuous breasts and hips. Her blood magic had allowed her to learn how to slow her metabolism when she wasn’t using magic, to keep her weight on… not because she was vain and sought beauty, though beautiful she was, but because she needed the fuel for stamina. When your magic is the only thing keeping a person’s blood moving through their body, because they were stabbed in the heart, endurance in your magic becomes the most important trait you can have.

With her soft skin and rounded curves, Ailurin looked like a wealthy woman who was waited on hand and foot, not someone who’d ever lifted a sword in her life. But when she faced the general, her expression was hard and her eyes were cold. “I need no weapon,” she said. Her eyes glowed like any mage's would, and the general reached for his sword, gesturing with his other hand  to his men to be ready.

It didn’t help them. His men dropped like stones, their eyes rolling back.

“What have you done?” he shouted,  drawing his sword.

Ailurin stood her ground with no sign of fear, her eyes still glowing.  “I am Ailurin the Blood Mage, first of my kind, and my creed – the Healers' Creed  - is to do no harm except when needed to preserve the life and health of my patients. You threatened my patients. “

“So you killed my men?” the general raged.

“They’re merely unconscious. I am sworn to preserve life; I don’t kill if I can avoid it.”

“Ah. Well, then.” With no warning, the general lunged forward buried his sword in Ailurin ‘s heart.

She stumbled back slightly from the force of the thrust, but didn’t scream, or fall down… or bleed. As the general pulled his sword back, he stared in shock at her chest, and the complete absence of blood staining her healer’s robes. “What…?”

“Blood Mage,” Ailurin said impatiently, her eyes still glowing, showing the world that she was still using magic. “That was a very bad idea, general.”

And then the general began to bleed profusely from every pore of his body. He looked down at himself, at the blood trickling out of him everywhere, turning his uniform dark red. “What—what are you—you can’t—”

As he fell to his knees, dizzy from blood loss, Ailurin said, repeating the words of the Creed, “I will cause no harm to any, save in the preservation of life and health for those who come before me.” She looked down at the general. “You threatened to kill my patients. This is preserving their lives. You are no patient of mine, or anyone here.”

The general fell all the way to the floor then, lying in a pool of his own blood, dead. Ailurin looked up. “I’m sorry, Master Doctor. I’ll need to clean this up.”

“Doctor Ailurin!” One of the nurses ran to her. “Are you—”

“Doctor Ailurin, I saw you were stabbed!”

“How are you--?”

“I’ll live until I sleep,” Ailurin said. “He pierced my heart. I can keep the flow of blood going with my magic, but when I sleep, I’ll die.”

The Master Doctor called orders to the nurses. “Take the men who fainted, confiscate their weapons and keep them sedated for now. Orderlies, please remove the general.” As the healers’ assistants jumped into motion, she said to Ailurin, “Doctor, we can argue later about whether your actions were justified. For now… how well can you endure pain and use your magic?”

***

It required potions that dulled the pain without removing her ability to focus, but Ailurin was able to keep her own blood under control while her colleagues opened her ribs up and stitched the hole in her heart.

The soldiers who’d fainted were kept sedated with potions while Ailurin was recovering. The fact that their general was dead was something the healers considered best for them to find out after the Blood Mage was back to, if not her original strength, at least enough of her strength to defend the healers again. The ones who’d already been in the tent, being treated, knew – because the healers had told them – that if the general had succeeded, the healers would have withdrawn from the Paozon army entirely. If the neutrality of the healers could not be respected, they could not afford to give their services at all.

After the battle, the Master Doctors convened to determine whether Ailurin had broken the Creed. They determined that, because she had acted in defense of her patients’ lives, she would not be banished from the Guild, but that five years would be added to the time before she could become a Master Doctor, and take apprentices of her own. This didn’t bother her; no Blood Mages had been born after her. She had no one to train.

***

It was understood after that day that the Healers’ Creed allowed the healers to defend their patients with deadly force, if necessary. No other general attempted to force the healers to violate their creed. There was only one Blood Mage… but many mages of other specialties were healers, especially mages of Water and Air.

Many years later, after Ailurin had had her Master Doctor status for several years, the Guild sent her an apprentice… a girl whose magic let her see and manipulate the invisible spirits that cause disease, or good health, in people and animals. She was the first mage to have powers over what lay within living things since Ailurin herself. No one was certain what her magic was a branch of; eventually they’d guessed Air, because she commanded tiny invisible spirits, but the truth that Ailurin was beginning to suspect was that life itself was a fifth element.

Eventually, her brother – the one who’d stolen her doll, so long ago – had a grandson who had blood magic, the same as Ailurin had. And others appeared, slowly – mages who could make flesh heal, mages who could grow crops, mages who could ease the minds of the mad. She had been the first of the life mages, but she was not the last.

[districofcolumbiaprelawland-blog]

Protecting American Secrets in the Age of WikiLeaks

By Elizabeth Ball, George Washington University Class of 2022

June 3, 2019

In 2006, Julian Assange founded an organization called WikiLeaks, dedicated to acquiring, analyzing, and sharing a library of confidential documents containing secrets of war, espionage, and corruption. After his arrest in April of 2019, Assange now faces life in prison on seventeen charges, the most notable of which being violation of the Espionage Act, an American law passed in 1917 to prohibit insubordinate or anti-American rhetoric in the armed forces (2).

Application of the Espionage Act to Julian Assange’s case is both complicated and controversial due to ongoing disagreement over the scope and purpose of the law. On one side of the aisle there are proponents of free speech such as legal scholars Nathan E. Siegel and Jeanette Melendez Bead, evoking the first amendment as an end-all protection of journalist rights. On the other hand, there are those who would argue there is a limit to free speech, many of them government officials like Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden, including the leaking of classified information. In order to analyze the legitimacy of either argument, it is first necessary to dissect the act itself as well as how it has been applied in American courts.

The Espionage Act contains nine sections, each specifying who, what, and where the law applies. In the first section of the act, the prerequisite of intent and injury is established:

“For the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation…”

The following sections of the Espionage Act outline additional reasons to be charged, for example false reports which disincentivize joining the draft in times of war, or aiding a person known to have violated the Espionage Act. Section eight addresses the jurisdiction of the law, which include “territories, possessions, and places subject to the jurisdiction of the United States…” (9)

Referring just to the text would indicate little relation to the case of Julian Assange, as the Espionage Act holds no specific guidelines for a foreign actor releasing classified information. However, what gaps are found in the text can be filled with legal precedent, which indicates a vast expansion of the Espionage Act that could prove incriminating in Assange’s case.

One of the first cases of the Espionage Act was Schenck v. United States in which a precedent was set that certain curtailments of the first amendment i.e. free speech are legal. This precedent allowed the Espionage Act to be upheld in following cases like Frohwerk v. United States and Debs v. United States in which two individuals, one working at a newspaper and another a socialist partyleader, were convicted for anti-war rhetoric (3). This precedent affects Assange’s case in the event that WikiLeaks publications are proven to have caused damage to the United States’ national security or planted seeds of insubordination.

In 1953, a landmark Supreme Court Case United States v. Rosenberg arose in which a New York couple linked to the U.S. communist party during an era called the ‘Red Scare’ was accused and convicted of violating the Espionage Act by transmitting American government secrets to the Soviet Union (4). This case marked the first occasion on which conviction under the Espionage Act resulted in the death penalty, a lasting precedent creating a plausible risk to consider for Assange’s case.

United States v. New York Times in 1971 was another landmark case in which the New York Times was being tried under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon Papers, a series of sensitive documents containing information on the origins of the Vietnam War (5). This case established that prior restraint on the publication of information is almost never justified, meaning even if the government declares a ban on sharing certain information, the severity of publishing that information would have to be especially impactful for a legitimate conviction to be made. What this means for Assange’s case is hopeful: if he can classify WikiLeaks as a legitimate news source, he will have a strong claim to the first amendment so long as he can minimize the perceived damage of WikiLeaks’ publications to the United States.

A question to ask now concerns the reach of the Espionage Act to a seemingly neutral, non-American individual like Julian Assange. It is uncommon that a law passed in the United States should apply to a non-American citizen who has little to no history within the country – yet, in 1985 Alfred Zehe, a German citizen, was convicted of the Espionage Act, setting a precedent which is now instrumental in allowing the act to be applied in the case of Julian Assange. District Judge David S. Nelson presiding over the case stated, “because espionage is an offense threatening the national security of the United States, regardless of where it occurs, the Court readily concludes that the Espionage Act was meant to apply extraterritorially to citizens” (6). Not only does this statement create the option of charging Assange with espionage, the confidence with which Judge Nelson asserted this precedent indicates there will be little argument in applying charges of espionage to Assange, lest Nelson’s precedent be overturned.

Lastly, the two remaining cases essential to consider are those of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Though Edward Snowden’s case never made it to trial due to his fleeing the country, it is widely accepted that his actions of leaking secreted information concerning NSA surveillance on the American Public to the Washington Post and other news outlets were illegal (7). As for Chelsea Manning, her case resulted in a sentence of thirty-five years in prison for leaking classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks revealing evidence of civilian deaths and torture in Afghanistan and Iraq (8). These cases are relevant for Julian Assange because they demonstrate the persistent relevance and expansion of the Espionage Act in the face of a technologically advancing world.

Given the text of the Espionage Act as well as a summary of how it has been applied, gray areas still linger in its application to Julian Assange. For example, the best defense Assange can claim is that WikiLeaks is a legitimate reporting website/journal, which would give him protection through federal reporter’s privilege (a name for the legal precedent established in New York Times Co. v. United States). Even so, if Assange can obtain federal reporter’s privilege and assert first amendment rights, he will still need to prove that the WikiLeaks’ publications in question served the public interest as well as managed to avoid injury to the United States’ national defense.

Regardless of Julian Assange’s potential legal defense to charges of espionage, if the United States is even able to win extradition and bring Assange to justice, it will send a resounding signal of U.S. commitment to crack down on cybersecurity breaches. If the United States succeeds in the extradition of Julian Assange, and manages to bring him to court, the decision would set a lasting precedent for the use of the Espionage Act in the realm of global cybersecurity.

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Elizabeth Ball is a rising sophomore at George Washington University, majoring in International Affairs with a concentration in Conflict Resolution and minor in Spanish. She hopes to attend law school in the future.

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Chapman, K., Orbinati, A.,     & Harris, A. (2017). Julian     Assange: The Espionage Act Versus Public Knowledge. ProQuest Dissertations     Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1896117892/

2.     Hastedt, G. P. (2010). Spies, wiretaps, and secret operations : An encyclopedia of american espionage. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

3.     Espionage Act of 1917. (2010). In D. Batten (Ed.), Gale Encyclopedia of American Law (3rd ed., Vol. 4, pp. 234-235). Detroit, MI: Gale. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/apps/doc/CX1337701643/GVRL?u=wash74137&sid=GVRL&xid=c146a04b

4.     Mauro, T. (2006). Rosenberg v. united states. In Illustrated great decisions of the Supreme Court (pp. 342-344). Washington, DC: CQ Press doi: 10.4135/9781452240138.n108

5.     New York Times Co. V. United States. (2010). In D. Batten (Ed.), Gale Encyclopedia of American Law (3rd ed., Vol. 7, pp. 263-265). Detroit, MI: Gale. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/apps/doc/CX1337703060/GVRL?u=wash74137&sid=GVRL&xid=1b339d17

6.     United States v. Zehe (United States District Court, D. Massachusetts January 29, 1985) (HeinOnline.org, Dist. file)

7.     Kim, H. hanrkim@indiana. ed. (2018). The Resilient Foundation of Democracy: The Legal Deconstruction of the Washington Posts’s Condemnation of Edward Snowden. Indiana Law Journal, 93(2), 533–548. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lgs&AN=132598796&site=ehost-live

8.     The Chelsea Manning Case: A Timeline. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/employee-speech-and-whistleblowers/chelsea-manning-case-timeline

9.      Espionage Act (1917). United States Congress.

Corbyn calls on UK Government to oppose Julian Assange extradition. (2019). Retrieved from

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/corbyn-calls-on-uk-government-to-oppose-julian-assange-extradition-1-4906528

Photo Credit: Cancillería del Ecuador

[shenzhenblog]

How the U.S. Can Navigate an Ever-Scarier World

Anybody who pays attention to the global security scene knows we are in a whole new world — one variously called the “post-post Cold War era,” the “return of great-power conflict” and the “struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism.”

But what does any of this really mean? The end of the U.S.-led global order? A hegemonic China? The rise of so-called illiberal democracy? That we can no longer rely on McDonald’s to bring world peace? (Actually, that one didn’t work out so well.)

On this topic, as with so many others, I decided to gain insight from somebody who actually knows what he or she is talking about: Richard Danzig, a former secretary of the Navy who is now a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab 1 in Laurel, Maryland. (Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg Opinion, is a major donor to Johns Hopkins.) A giant in the military affairs/foreign policy/national security establishment, Danzig, along with 10 other fellows at the Hopkins lab — including Bloomberg Opinion columnist Admiral James Stavridis — has written a far-reaching paper entitled “A Preface to Strategy: The Foundations of American National Security.” (PDF available here.) We spoke about its points and more. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our discussion:

Tobin Harshaw: So let’s start with the Applied Physics Lab report’s title, “Preface to Strategy.” What does that term mean to you?

Richard Danzig: A number of us were skeptical about the classic model of a strategy document, which attempts to be comprehensive and predictive about evolving interests, potential opponents, technologies, economic conditions, etc. We wanted to focus on certain basic propositions but go into them in considerably more depth than is generally the case. We focused predominantly on U.S. strengths and opportunities. We also wanted to show how present thinking is shaped by the past and how we might liberate ourselves — at least to some degree — in thinking about the future.

TH: You note that many of your predecessors in the national security establishment had articulated objectives and methods very clearly, and that’s been lost today. Is there a historical example that serves as sort of a model?

RD: Sure, in the early years of our combating communism there was George Kennan’s famous long telegram and NSC-68 — strategic documents that articulated a philosophy of containment.

An even more striking example is so evident we don’t even pause to think about it — the way in which Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation to fight the Axis powers in World War II.

Today we face a much more complicated world. We haven’t been physically attacked in the way that we were at Pearl Harbor. But that makes it only more important for a strategic document to speak to the public. Our paper is intended to be read broadly by the American public.

TH: But before Pearl Harbor, of course, FDR had a great deal of trouble generating support for entering the war. He did what he could, for example, with lend-lease for the U.K. Now we have a president who’s kind of the opposite, who disparages alliances and commitments. Do you think that the American people are still engaged with the world? Or do you think that Trump’s election showed the isolationist mind-set of the populace?

RD: We think today’s position is quite different from the World War II situation or the Cold War competition. We think the general population is committed to the idea of U.S. primacy; that the U.S. should be the leader of the free world; that it should be engaged with the world. We don’t see strong trends toward isolationism.

But there’s less clarity about why we’re committed to that role. It’s pretty obvious if you’re being attacked or if you think, as in the Cold War, that there’s a risk that our opponents will come and take over America and impose totalitarian rule. Nobody really thinks that China or Russia will take over the U.S.

TH: We’ve been at war now for 17 years. My children have never really known peacetime. Do you think that the war on terrorism just becomes kind of a background noise? How does that affect the younger generations that are going to replace us?

RD: I think it creates public fatigue. The military forces get both stronger and more worn from use. But for us a less noticed but central concern is the way in which it affects the strategies and priorities of our military and civilian decision-makers. We believe they become too present-tense oriented.

The present tense involves certain kinds of transient conflicts. The long-term issues are larger. One of those is what happens if you get involved in a more fundamental struggle with an opponent like China. The risk is that we lose track of the fact that our military must, in all circumstances, attend to that basic, most fundamental challenge as well as deal with the present. Also, there are significant risks to the environment and global health that demand international cooperation. We must manage both long-term competition and long-term cooperation. That wasn’t so central a problem in the Cold War, and it can’t be addressed if America’s leaders are overly absorbed by the present.

TH: In terms of Pentagon acquisitions and readiness policy, what changes are called for?

RD: Everybody preaches “innovation,” and has a great deal more difficulty practicing it. We try to breathe life into our precepts. For example, we emphasize the need for investment in technological skills and then specify changes to the existing military manpower system that are required to attract, sustain and empower those with the relevant skills. At present, as we see it, people with particular technical skills have a great deal of difficulty entering the senior ranks. You’re not going to wind up as chief of your service if you have a deep technical specialty. You’re not going to wind up controlling the budget or policy. If you are an enlisted man or woman, you are not going to rise above the middle ranks. We think that needs to change. Or, as another example, we want to encourage innovation, dissent and debate, and we make some specific suggestions as to how civilian leaders can promote that.

TH: You mention that the private sector has taken on a great deal of the innovation responsibility that the government used to do. Is there a chance that the Pentagon can actually move toward the Silicon Valley metabolism?

RD: Yes. The software revolution is very helpful because it pushes away from the acquisition of hardware and its long lead time. It also reflects another very important concept which is that you don’t acquire a fixed good, as for example, you historically might have acquired a tank. You’re acquiring something that’s constantly changing and evolving. The challenge is for the bureaucracy to keep pace with that speed of adaptation.

TH: On the flip side, some of the technology companies are antagonistic toward the military and intelligence side of government — we have the big example of Google dropping out of its Pentagon drone-project contract. Do you think they’ll wake up to the threats we face?

RD: I’d like to see that and expect that we will. There are a number of companies that continue to work with the Pentagon and that are quite committed to it. Amazon is an example; Microsoft continues to be at the forefront of companies working with Pentagon; the same is true of IBM and others.

The Google objections to Project Maven are not persuasive to me. I think that you can rightly insist that your contributions be used ethically and be concerned about the consequences, both intended and unintended. But I don’t think it’s the right response to quickly walk away from that relationship. I think you want to inject as much responsibility into it as is required.

TH: Let’s jump to our new age of great power competition. One thing that I found really interesting in the report was noting that when we talk about threats to sovereignty, we tend to think of it in terms of geography. Putin grabbing Crimea is what we think of. But you say not only is that changed, it changed a long time ago.

RD: After World War II, American leaders created institutions that continue to dominate the international security framework. They created the strategies that shape the thinking of all of the present senior decision-makers. This thinking rested on premises, some of which were evident at the time, some of which we can see more clearly now, and some of which are probably still not evident to us.

One of these premises was that the main threat to American national security was from other militaries crossing borders. Now cyber poses a different kind of problem, one that doesn’t recognize a border and doesn’t manifest itself even as a military action, much less as an action involving an attack that crosses a physical boundary. And so we have difficulty dealing with it.

TH: A lot of people, without wanting to be in China or Russia, feel that there are great advantages to an authoritarian system in terms of consistency and policy, in terms of control over dissent, etc. But you and your co-authors also feel that democracy has a lot of strengths that are unique to it, correct?

RD: Yes. You lead into it nicely when you comment as a sort of subordinate clause, “without wanting to live there.” One of the striking things is how many members of the elites within those countries don’t want to live there. That’s a reflection of a whole lot of things. Among them, fundamentally, it’s a reflection of lack of freedom in their own societies.

Authoritarian systems have advantages in the short term. A directed economy and a directed political system force rapid consensus. But we also know that these systems have a great deal of difficulty correcting their errors. They have difficulties with latent dissent that tends to manifest itself in subtle ways that drag on the political system and the economy. In the long-term, we think the American system is likely to be more successful, whatever the challenges in the short term.

TH: Speaking of China, it’s estimated that its economy will surpass ours in the next decade and perhaps double ours later in the century. But I’m old enough to remember when this was supposed to be the Japanese Century. That didn’t happen, obviously. How could the Chinese stumble on this path to global dominance?

RD: A lot could happen. You’re right in pointing out that the Japanese likely success was, in retrospect, exaggerated. Like you, we wouldn’t assert too much precision about this. Nobody knows what it will be like in 2050 or whatever. But it does seem highly likely that Chinese GDP will grow to exceed ours. And our basic point about that is that we haven’t, in our lives, experienced an opponent with a GDP anything like equal to ours.

China could stumble. We note, for example, that this could happen because of its environmental problems; because of its very large population — so that its GDP per capita is considerably less than ours; because of its problems of corruption; because of its problems dealing with dissent and so forth. GDP is not, by any means, some talismanic measure of national power. It’s a rather outmoded, 20th century way of calculating well-being in wealth. And it doesn’t necessarily correlate, by any means, with military power.

But while acknowledging these diverse considerations, as national security analysts we need to plan for challenging cases. The dominant very plausible one is one in which China’s economic power exceeds ours. We think strategic planning needs to proceed from that premise.

TH: The paper points out that another advantage is that America has a vast network of allies and partners. China and Russia don’t have friends, and you say that’s not coincidental.

RD: This is another manifestation of the failures of an autocratic regime as distinguished from one that prizes freedom and is based on that range of values. It gives us exceptional power. And one of the concerns many of us have, about the present administration, is the undervaluing of alliances.

TH: We have a president whose rhetoric is, well, poisonous to our allies. Does this do permanent damage to these alliances?

RD: This paper is not about President Trump, pro or con. It is about where, we think, from a national security perspective, we ought to be investing. And one of those things we ought to be investing in is alliances.

I think we can come back from any interruption in that investment. But the interruptions make it harder to come back. And they sow seeds of doubt that risk enduring.

TH: We throw around the term “soft power” a lot. You also call it “sharp power” in the paper. We know how that’s worked in the past. But it’s been devalued, even before Trump. What is soft power for this next era of great power competition?

RD: One example is provided by what the Chinese are doing with their so-called Belt and Road Initiative, trying to reach out both overland and by sea, which is the fabled Silk Road.

So the Chinese are investing an estimated $90 billion a year in aid, infrastructure projects and the like. Chinese access and Chinese values tend to go with those investments. China’s vision of the internet or of surveillance or of control through systems of facial recognition and the like become more accessible to the rulers of those countries. That’s an example of something that is very distant from military power but very relevant to influence. Of course, more direct hard power can also flow from these investments as bases are established and data is collected.

TH: So what is our Belt and Road then?

RD: Presently, we might invest on the order of $30 billion a year, a third as much. In our view, we ought to be encouraging more aid and trade in those contexts. We place a lot of emphasis on business relationships as a useful mechanism for spreading values and rules of law. When Americans are abroad selling their goods, they carry with them American values.

A different example is in the spread of information and our efforts to present our point of view. We think there are rich opportunities in those arenas. To the extent we withdraw from the world and don’t invest that way, we undervalue that aspect.

TH: Last question: There are, I think, 11 names on this paper. That’s a lot of chefs in the kitchen. How do you all work together to not just get your individual opinions in but to make sure that you have sort of common agreement?

RD: That’s another unusual aspect of this paper. It’s not uncommon for strategy documents to be written by committee. But I think anybody who reads this will feel that this is not a committee product. We didn’t dumb down the language, make the views lowest common denominator and the like. I was delighted that, in the end, we all felt we could sign this paper.

  Note : This article was originally posted on Bloomberg by Tobin Harshaw

How the U.S. Can Navigate an Ever-Scarier World was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

[sherrielarch]

THE WAR ON DRUGS

Abstract Illegal drugs including cannabis, cocaine, LSD, heroin, and opium were once legal and used for recreational purposes. These drugs were also used in various medical and psychiatric treatments and could be found in everyday products. Gradually overtime what was once legal become illegal. The official war on drugs has been going on for over forty years in the United States and globally. It has cost the United States federal and state governments trillions of dollars in resources and manpower. The resources and manpower are used to control the flow of drugs in and out of the country and to arrest, prosecute, and to imprison those that have broken drug laws. The battle between federal and state law enforcement and the drug manufacturers and growers, drug traffickers, drug dealers, and drug users has cost thousands of law enforcement officers and civilians their lives. These deaths have been both in the United States and other countries.  However, after all the financial and human costs, the drugs are still being manufacturers and grown. Drug traffickers and drug dealers are still selling their product and the drug users are still addicted to the drugs. There are other solutions to the war on drugs that may save both money and lives and may get the addicts off drugs.

The War on Drugs The “war on drugs” has failed to stop the production, sales, and use of illegal drugs but has increased the American prison population and has promoted violence, health hazards, and the spread of disease around the world. Today, the war on drugs is a never ending crusade of wills between the United States government and the drug manufacturers, drug traffickers, drug dealers, and the drug users. The international war on drugs cost the United States billions of dollars every year in resources to prevent the drugs from entering its borders and to keep them off America’s streets. The American taxpayers pay for processing and housing of those in the illegal drug trade that have entered the state and federal court and penal systems. The war on drugs endangers thousands of civilians and law enforcement officers every year in the United States and globally. This is due to altercations between federal, state, and foreign law enforcement agencies, the United States military, and those in the illegal drug trade. Competition between those in the illegal drug trade to produce and sell their products also endangers thousands of lives because of “turf wars.”  Those that are arrested for drug use rarely get adequate treatment for their addiction and are exposed to violent criminals in the prison system, creating the possibility of more violent criminals and crime in the future. Even after spending trillions of dollars to combat the drug issue in the United States and beyond and at the price of human life and safety, it still continues with no end. The drugs are still being cultivated, manufactured, sold, and used and enriching the pockets of drug cartels, organized crime, and terrorism organizations. The illegal drug users are still addicted to the drugs and are exposed to violence, health hazards, and disease because of the prohibition on drugs. The prohibition on illegal drugs and their use is not working or helping those addicted to drugs. The war on drugs is a failure.

The History of Drugs in the United States

The position of the United States towards drugs and drug use has not always been so black and white. This viewpoint has had many transitions over the centuries, with conflicting voices. Duke (1995) states: “The idea that government should determine for its people which psychoactive drugs they are free to consume and jail them for using others is a fairly recent arrival in the United States. Except for an occasional fling with prohibition at the state level, Americans were free until 1914 to consume any drugs they chose and to buy from anyone who chose to sell them. Those rights were widely exercised” (p. 571.)  Certain drugs that are considered too dangerous today to be legal and available to the public were seen as being harmless and beneficial in the past. Various illegal drugs including cannabis, cocaine, LSD (also called acid), heroin, opium, and methamphetamine were once legal. The recreational use of some of these drugs, were seen as being no different than drinking alcoholic beverages to chemically change mood and perception for the user. These drugs could be even found in everyday products and were not always used just for their potential mood and perception altering side effects. Huebert (2011) states: “For most of U.S. history, all drugs were legal. How legal? As libertarian writer Harry Browne put it, “Few people are aware that before World War I, a 9-year-old girl could walk into a drug store and buy heroin.” In fact, before Bayer sold aspirin, it sold Heroin™ as a “sedative for coughs…”(para.2.) These substances and the products they were in were believed to be safe enough that both adults and children could use them without dangerous side effects.  These drugs were also utilized for medical and psychiatric purposes. People were prescribed them by their doctor or psychiatrist to assist them with various medical and psychiatric illnesses and disorders. The scientific, medical, and psychiatric communities studied them and believed that they could be present and future answers to certain illnesses and disorders.

Overtime the war on drugs stopped the recreational use of these drugs and discontinued or slowed the study of these substances and any present or future benefits they may have contributed to society. It took them out of the hands of the American public that once were trusted to use them. It also took most of these substances out of the hands of the scientific, medical, and psychiatric communities. Drugs that were allowed to be studied and used by science were placed under heavy rules and regulations. The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was put into place in 1970 and has gradually strengthened control over drugs deemed illegal in the United States.  The Drug Enforcement Admiration’s Controlled Substance Schedules (2012) states: “Schedule I Controlled Substances have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of substances listed in Schedule I are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), peyote, methaqualone, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (“Ecstasy”)” (para.4.)  The war on drugs has slowing created a billion dollar black market. It has put these illegal drugs in the hands of dangerous drug cartels, organized crime, and terrorism organizations, taking them out of the hands of law abiding American citizens and the scientific communities.

The Financial and Human Cost of the War on Drugs

Becker and Murphy (2013) state: “President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971. The expectation then was that drug trafficking in the United States could be greatly reduced in a short time through federal policing—and yet the war on drugs continues to this day” (para.1.) The official war on drugs in the United States has been going on for over forty years, costing federal and state governments trillions of dollars with little positive results. The various major drug trades including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine continue to grow and manufacture their products in the United States or other countries and sell it to American and foreign users. The importation and exportation of illegal drugs involves both non-dangerous mom and pop growers and manufacturers and extremely dangerous drug cartels. These drug cartels have ties to organized crime, the illegal gun trade, human trafficking, and terrorist groups around the world.

The Office National Drug Control Policy (2012) states: “Drug trafficking organizations and associated criminal groups pose a persistent and dangerous threat to communities across the United States” (para.2.) Federal and state law enforcement agencies must have the resources and manpower to control the flow of drugs into the United States from other countries, which may also include illegal guns and modern day slaves. State and local law enforcement agencies must control the growing and manufacturing of drugs and the conflicts between those in the drug trades. This is both to keep the public safe and to try to control the sale and use of drugs. The United States taxpayer pays for the surveillance, arrests, prosecution and public defense, housing, and medical and dental care of those that have broken drug laws. Branson (2012) states: “About 40,000 people were in U.S. jails and prisons for drug crimes in 1980, compared with more than 500,000 today. Excessively long prison sentences and locking up people for small drug offenses contribute greatly to this ballooning of the prison population… A Pew study says it costs the U.S. an average of $30,000 a year to incarcerate an inmate, but the nation spends only an average $11,665 per public school student”(Para. 10 and 14.) Without proper drug addiction treatment both inside and outside the prison system, a number of drug offenders are rearrested and put back into the legal system.

The war on drugs not only costs the United States money and manpower, it affects the safety and well-being of millions of people around the world wherever it is being fought. Federal and state law enforcement agents and officers put their lives on the line every day protecting our borders from the exportation and importation of drugs by traffickers. They protect the public from local drug growers, drug manufacturers, and drug dealers and arrest those that buy the drugs. The conflict between federal, state, and foreign law enforcement and those in the drug trade and conflicts between competing drug growers, manufactures, and dealers causes a dangerous situation. The Global Commission on Drug Policy (2012) states: “Overwhelming evidence now clearly demonstrates that, analogous to the case of alcohol prohibition in the United States early in the 20th century, prohibition of drugs has contributed to increased levels of drug related mortality and drug market violence” (p. 15.) Those killed in these conflicts are the collateral damage of the war on drugs that can never be won.

The non-violent drug offenders are affected negatively by the war on drugs. Those that are prosecuted for non-violent drug possession are put into the prison system with criminals that have committed murder, rape, armed robbery, and other violent crimes. The non-violent drug offenders are exposed to the prison lifestyle and other criminality. Prison life includes isolation, over population, and physical and sexual assault. Even if there is a drug treatment available in the prison setting the stresses of prison life and violence and the availability of smuggled drugs into the prison system may affect its outcome. Garland (2006) States: “Overcrowding, cruel conditions and a lack of constructive activities for inmates fuel violence in America’s prisons and threaten public safety because most inmates return to their communities ill-prepared for daily life…”(para.1.) After release, the non-violent drug offender may repeat their drug addiction or commit other crimes that might include violent acts learned in prison. The over population of the United States’ prison system also allows the release of violent offenders before non-violent offenders because of mandatory sentences for drug possession. These mandatory laws endanger the public when violent offenders are released before non-violent offenders to relieve a prison’s overpopulation.

The illegal drug user is also negatively affected by the war on drugs even if they never become part of the court and prison systems or the victim of the illegal drug trade’s violence. The illegal drugs that are sold to the user have no regulations in their cultivation or production. The plant based substances in illegal drugs may have been grown with illegal and toxic pesticides and fertilizers that have been banned around the world because of the dangerous chemicals that they contain. The plants may have also been exposed to herbicides that are used by law enforcement agencies and military personnel around the world to eradicate drug farms and plantations. Organic and chemically synthesized drugs including cocaine and methamphetamine may have been processed with toxic substances. These chemicals may include ammonia, levamisole, sulfuric acid (drain cleaner), lithium (batteries), methanol/alcohol (gasoline additives), and other household products that can be obtained legally and economically. The toxic chemicals used in the production of these drugs also can affect their level of potency and chemical side effects.  Boesler and Lutz (2012) state: “Drugs bought through criminal networks are often cut with contaminants; dealers sell more potent and risky products; and high-risk behaviors such as injecting and needle sharing in unsupervised and unhygienic environments are commonplace” (para.12.) In these conditions the illegal drug user is exposed to chemicals that can cause health risk including cancer, heart and brain damage, and other long-term or fatal disorders. Sharing needles and other drug paraphilia can help spread diseases including HIV/AID and hepatitis. The illegal drug user that wants help for their addiction may feel they cannot risk being arrested by law enforcement or harmed by their drug dealer, so they never seek help for their addiction.

If The United States Stopped the War on Drugs

Ending the war on drugs could save the United States government billions of dollars a year and taxing the sale of drugs could add to the United States budget. Miron and Waldock (2010) state:  “…legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition… drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco” (executive summary para.2 and 3.)  These savings and the new tax revenue that would come from the sales of these drugs could help fund health care, medical and pharmaceutical research, and better treatment for those that have addiction problems. Millions of people in the United States go without proper health care and some die of preventable illness. Part of the new revenue could be put into funding a government health care program that would not affect the funding of other government programs. The new revenue could also help finance ongoing medical and pharmaceutical research and to study drugs like marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, opiates, and other drugs to see if there is any beneficial components to cure and treat medical and psychiatric illnesses and disorders and to better understand their addictive properties. Legalization would allow addicts to receive treatment for their addictions just like an alcoholic or someone addicted to prescription drugs, without the fear of being arrested by law enforcement or harmed by their drug dealers.

The legalization of drugs would gradually stop the violence that prohibition promotes. Baird (2012/2013) states: “Drugs have little intrinsic value. It’s prohibition that gives an astronomical “price support” to traffickers. The profits are enormous and so are the violence and corruption needed to protect them” (p. 29). Legalizing and taxing drugs would authorize the growing and manufacturing of these drugs by legitimate farmers and manufacturers.  This would take the drug business slowly out of the hands of the illegal drug cartels, organized crime, and terrorism organizations. These criminal elements would no longer be able to profit or benefit from the United States and most of the foreign drug trade because growers, manufacturers, and dealers would no longer have to depend on their protection and financing to keep in business. The legalization of drugs would also strength the United States national security. Miron (2009) states: “Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers” (para.10). If the war on drugs was stopped terrorist would no longer receive protection money from drug growers and manufacturers, and it could possibly create American allies on the war on terrorism.

The legalization of drugs would also allow for the regulation of drug production and safety. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida (2013) states: “{There is} no quality control. When drugs are illegal, the government cannot enact standards of quality, purity or potency. Consequently, street drugs are often contaminated or extremely potent, causing disease and sometimes death to those who use them” (para.11.) Legitimate growers could not use dangerous illegal pesticides and fertilizers to cultivate their crops. Manufacturers could not use dangerous household products in the production of their legalized drugs. Both would be facing finds and even prison time if they did not follow strict guidelines from federal and state regulations. If a person chose to use these legalized substances, they would have the same protection as those that take over-the-counter and prescription drugs and those that drink alcohol.

Conclusion

Just like alcohol and most narcotic prescription drugs, illegal drugs are not without their side effects and/or addiction issues. There are those that can use a substance occasionally for years for recreational purposes and never become addicted to that substance. Others can use a substance once or twice and become completely addicted. This can be found in those that drink alcoholic beverages and those that take prescription drugs.  But somehow today certain mood and perception altering substances that once were seen as harmless and beneficial to society are considered more dangerous to the user and must be controlled and made illegal.  This reasoning is why the United States started the “War on Drugs” that continues today. The war on drugs has cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars and endangered millions of lives over the forty some years it has been fought. The war on drugs has not stopped the growing and manufacturing of illegal substances. This war has not stopped the importation or exportation of these drugs into the United States and it has not stopped the selling and use of these drugs.  It has given violent drug cartels, organized crime, and terrorism organizations around the world control of these substances and taken them out of the hands of the scientific communities and the American public. The war on drugs has made these substances more dangerous to the user because of the way they are grown and produced and has not cured addiction.  Those that are addicted to these substances rarely get the drug treatment they need. Those that enter the penal system are exposed to prison violence and overpopulation and are lost in the system. The war on drugs has failed in its mission and must be stopped.

Update on Marijuana Laws 2018: From 1996 to the present, various states have legalized some form of the use of medical and recreational marijuana, including Alaska (medical and recreational), Arkansas (medical), California (medical and recreational), Colorado (medical and recreational), Connecticut (medical), Delaware (medical), Florida (medical), Illinois (medical), Hawaii (medical), Louisiana (medical) Maine (medical and recreational), Maryland (medical), Massachusetts (medical and recreational), Michigan (medical), Minnesota (medical), Montana (medical), Nevada (medical and recreational), New Hampshire (medical), New Jersey (medical), New Mexico (medical), New York (medical), Ohio (medical), Oregon (medical and recreational), Pennsylvania (medical) Rhode Island (medical), Vermont (medical and recreational), and Washington (medical and recreational), plus Washington DC (medical and recreational). References:

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida (2013). Against drug prohibition. ACLU of Florida. Retrieved from: http://www.aclufl.org/take_action/download_resources/info_papers/19.cfm?print=true 

Baird, V (2012 / 2013). Long and violent “war on drugs” has been a colossal failure. CCPA Monitor, 19(7), 28-29. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.glacier.sou.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=15&sid=d0633c7a-929b-4407-9217-0123e448ad73%40sessionmgr11&hid=26

Becker, G, Murphy, K (2013). Have we lost the war on drugs? The Wall Street Journal-Eastern, 260(160), C1-C2. Retrieved from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324374004578217682305605070.html

Boesler, M,  Lutz, A (2012). 32 Reasons why we need to end the war on drugs. Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/32-reasons-why-we-need-to-end-the-war-on-drugs-2012-7?op=1   

Branson, R (2012). War on drugs a trillion-dollar failure. Special to CNN. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-drugs/index.html

Duke, S.B., (1995). Drug prohibition: an unnatural disaster. Faculty Scholarship Series. 27, 571.Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/812/  

Drug Enforcement Admiration (2012). Controlled substance schedules. The Justice Department. Retrieved from: http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/index.html#define

Garland, G (2006). U.S. prisons called risk to lives. The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved from: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-06-08/news/0606080061_1_america-prisons-violence-inmate            

Global Commission on Drug Policy (2012). The war on drugs and HIV/AIDS: how the criminalization of drug use fuels the global pandemic. Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Retrieved from: http://globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/themes/gcdp_v1/pdf/GCDP_HIV AIDS_2012_REFERENCE.pdf

Huebert, J.H, (2011). When all drugs were legal. Retrieved from: http://www.lewrockwell.com

Miron, J, (2009). Commentary: legalize drugs to stop violence. CNN. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/miron.legalization.drugs/index.html    

Miron, J, Waldock, K (2010). The budgetary impact of ending drug prohibition. CATO Institute. Retrieved from: http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf

The Office National Drug Control Policy (2012). Law enforcement and criminal justice reform. The White House. Retrieved from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/law-enforcement-and-criminal-justice-reform

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World War II would affect millions from 1939 to 1945 and millions more ever since. The United States actually got off rather easy, no attacks on the home country and the lowest amount of casualties. But the rest of the major powers couldn’t say the same. The Soviet Union lost twenty million people with huge damage, especially a ruined Stalingrad. France had to put up with four years of German occupation. Poland and other nations nearly had their Jewish populations wiped out. Japan had to endure the horror of the first atomic bomb. The biggest damage may well have been Germany itself as their cities lay in ruins and they would become a divided nation. 70 years later and it’s still stunning to look back on the horrors of this conflict and the cost it inflicted on so many. It was also a photographer’s dream as even as major cities celebrated the war’s end, far too many had to put up with the effects of its damage. That includes a ruined Berlin and various unique ways the Allies “celebrated” their victory. Some pictures are famous but others are less known yet have a power to strike you majorly. It’s a reminder of the worst conflict in human history and a shame to one nation in particular. Here are 15 powerful images from the end of World War II and why it should always be remembered.

#1 The Doctor’s Last View Until the day he died, Harry Truman defended the use of the atomic bomb. As he argued, not using the bomb would have meant an invasion of Japan and Truman said there was no way he could live with all the casualties that would cost. He knew the damage caused by the bomb but felt it was worth it in the end. It did force Japan’s surrender yet it also kick-started a dangerous new era. The Soviets would work fast to get their own bomb and that would begin the arms race that created the Cold War. To this day, the fears of a nuke going off are terrifying to so many. The damage at the time was very harsh. The Allies were prepared for the destructive part of the bomb but working with radiation was still an unknown field. Thus, they didn’t fully understand the real damage of the bomb would be its fallout affecting thousands of survivors. This picture showcases a doctor from a local Nagasaki hospital as he looks over what was his home. Leaning on a staff to take in the horror, it’s a powerful shot. The man would pass on from radiation sickness to show the too human cost of this event.

#2 Ike And The Camps There had been reports of course but the Allies weren’t sure to believe it. It wasn’t just the idea it could be propaganda or some unknown factor. It was the simple fact that many could not accept the idea that a 20th century civilization could do something as horrific as the Holocaust. That Germany would actually attempt to wipe an entire people off the face of the Earth was just terrifying and astounding it could have happened without anyone knowing of it. When the camps were discovered, hardened soldiers wept at the sight of inmates little more than skeletons and the gas chambers on display. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a veteran general but even he was driven to sickness when he toured a camp. He wasn’t alone as George Patton, one of the toughest men alive, vomited at the sight of the mass graves. This photo has Ike taking in the conditions and obviously affected. He issued the order that the German citizens of nearby camps would work on clean-up duty, declaring they had to know what was really going on. Indeed, this would affect Eisenhower when he later ran for President to try and ensure such an atrocity didn’t happen again.

#3 A Nation’s Dishonor To many in the U.S. military, an invasion of Japan was the nightmare scenario. They knew the Japanese troops would be dug in and the mentality would be “death before dishonor.” That’s not to mention the civilians who would either be used as canon fodder or fighting themselves. The conservative estimates were deaths on both sides in the hundreds of thousands and thus dropping the bomb saved countless lives. While his generals objected, Emperor Hirohito knew the only option was to offer surrender. This photo shows a village square after the news is announced. Dozens are on their knees, either praying or weeping while others mill about in disbelief. It was just a shocking turn for the nation, to be brought down so low and know it was over. They could have taken fighting until there was nothing left but in so many ways, surrendering to save lives was a dishonor for Japan that took a longer time to recover from than the bombs.

#4 The Leftovers Even before the war began, the Nazi war machine was building up. Hitler had been planning this for years and prepared for a massive strike within a certain time frame. He was smart to keep much of it hidden so when Germany launched its attacks, the European nations were astounded at how much machinery and technology they had. Indeed, the Nazis made a lot of advances in sciences to the point that both the U.S. and USSR were recruiting members after the war to aid in the space programs. While checking out a mine near Tarthun in 1945, an American team was stunned to stumble onto the tunnel to a massive underground factory. There, they discovered a jet of partly completed He-162 fighter jets (better known as Junkers) among various other vehicles in a huge factory. It was a jarring sight, the revelation the German still had a lot of firepower on their side but just lacked the manpower and resources to get them out and going against the Allies. It also showed how it would take years after the war to find and wipe out every bastion of the German war machine.

#5 Elbe Day War makes for strange bedfellows, as the old saying goes. The U.S. and Great Britain knew full well Joseph Stalin was a madman just as bad (if not worse) than Hitler. But they also knew they needed the Russian war machine to combat Germany and that Stalin hated Hitler more than anyone else. So while they didn’t get along too well, they put on a show of being close allies in order to defeat the Axis. The Soviets were determined to reach Berlin first, wanting revenge for the millions killed by the Germans while the U.S. wanted to get the job done. It built up to April 25th, 1945 as Soviet and American troops met by the Elbe River. It signified they had basically cut Germany in half, the two sides having a good time meeting and posing for photos. Any hope Germany had was gone as their Allies continued their advance. While the U.S. and Soviets would become enemies soon, this showcased the alliance that brought the Axis down.

#6 Overflowing Camps What goes around comes around. It should be no surprise that the treatment of allied prisoners of war by the Nazis wasn’t that great. Most camps were horrible affairs with abuse, bad food, harsh conditions and more. Let’s just say there’s a good reason Hogan’s Heroes is cited as total fiction and utterly laughable in a way. Many German commanders seemed to enjoy using their camps as their private kingdoms to mistreat prisoners a lot. As the tide turned, some commanders were ordered to execute their prisoners rather than set them free. However, most were wise enough to know doing so would just be a death sentence and others refusing to cross that line. Thus, as more and more German units surrendered, Allied camps were soon pushed to the breaking point. This pic showcases that, a camp yard packed shoulder to shoulder with captured troops who are clearly not having a good time. It was still up in the air what would happen to them afterward with arguments how culpable they were in the Nazi atrocities. As this pic shows, the German should have been a little more careful how they treated prisoners before they got the same.

#7 The Battle Of Nations The Battle of Nations was created in 1913 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig. That massive conflict was the alliance of nations that defeated Napoleon, forcing him to return to France. The imposing tower is nearly three hundred feet tall, mostly concrete with terrific views of the city. Whenever Hitler visited Leipzig, he used the tower for meetings and enjoyed comparing himself to those German heroes. When the Allies advanced on Berlin, Leipzig was a major stop and it was a hard-fought conflict. At one point, 150 SS fanatics dug in inside the tower and intended to hold out as long as they could. In the end, the Allies forced their surrender with heavy artillery. This amazing photo shows a U.S. soldier taking in the damage with the statues around him seeing to look down in disdain as if hating this intruder here. It was one of the last holdouts of the German army and linking it to a major historical moment for the nation just makes this pic more haunting.

#8 The Captured As the war wound down, it was obvious Germany was going to lose. Some held out hope but the Allied strength was far too much. It took a few days for the world of V-E Day to get around, especially to units in remote areas so there were still pockets of resistance here and there. But that wasn’t enough to stop the Allied advance and the Nazis realized it was done. This pic showcases a band of German soldiers in the forest forced to surrender. What’s notable is the U.S. soldier taking them in is part of the ground-breaking African-American units who were making headway in the war (the armed services wouldn’t be desegregated until 1948). The idea of the soldiers of “the Master Race” being led to captivity by a black man is just a delicious irony. If anything, it sums up the fall of Germany, their elite soldiers taken in by one of the ‘inferiors” they despised and how the world was changing.

#9 Soviet Domination To the Germans, the knowledge of the Soviets coming at them was terrifying. The USSR had never gotten over Germany’s sneak attack on them in 1941 and the brutal combat that followed. Indeed, Russia lost nearly twenty million people, soldiers and civilians, to the German war machine. That included the bloody battle of Stalingrad that lasted two years and rendered the town a near ruin. So when the tide turned on Germany, the Soviets led the way with a brutal ferocity that could outdo anything the Nazis could throw at them. That was proven when they stormed into an already bombed out Berlin, the Soviet troops lashing out at any German civilian unfortunate enough to be in their way. The atrocities under Stalin are well known as the man was possible worse than Hitler and the rest of the Allies were content to just let Russia take the brunt of the assault. This led to this photo of a Soviet soldier raising the hammer and sickle flag over the captured Reichstag. It marked the domination of the USSR but also a precursor to how Berlin would become divided for decades and a warning of the power of the Soviet Union at its height.

#10 Hiroshima Horror When Harry Truman became Vice-President, he was mostly a political strawman with little real power and no inside knowledge of the Allied war plans. Truman was as shocked as everyone else when Franklin Roosevelt suddenly died in April of 1945, making Truman the 33rd President of the United State. Truman knew he had a big job ahead but was taken aback when he was let in on the existence of the atomic bomb and its power. With Germany defeated, the Japanese were holding out and making it clear they would not give up easily. Weighing the lives of possibly hundreds of thousands of American troops and twice as many Japanese civilians, Truman decided there was one course of action. On August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. In one instant, the town was nearly vaporized off the face of the Earth. Two days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and the Japanese had no choice but to give up. The sight of the wiped out city is chilling and even though it saved many lives, one has to wonder if it was worth the price in terms of horrible aftermath.

#11 Lowered Standards Say what you will about Joseph Stalin (like how he was a murderous cold-blooded psychopath responsible for millions of the deaths of his own people) but the man had a flair for the dramatic. It wasn’t enough for Stalin to show off the Soviet might in combat, he had to do it constantly at home as well. It was he who instigated the “May Day” parades, the annual event where the Soviet troops marched through Moscow to proudly proclaim their might. With the annual event in 1945 coinciding with the end of the war, Stalin went all out. He had troops show off captured German vehicles in terrible shape to illustrate the Nazi defeat as well as rescued Soviet POWs. The big move was a long line of soldiers holding up Nazi standards. At a signal, they proceeded to lower them to the ground then marched forward, rubbing the flags in the dirt like brooms. The crowds loved it, signifying the end of the Nazi regime and one can’t blame Stalin for wanting to make a show of their defeat.

#12 The Colorful Ruin Color photography was just coming into being in the 1940s and still quite rare. Black and white was just cheaper and much easier as color cameras tended to be rather bulky and hard to handle. Yet it was a given that for an event as important as the war, getting some color pics was vital. Thus, we have this stunning wide show of a fully colored ruined Berlin. It’s even more gripping than in black and white, showcasing the bombed out buildings and collapsed floors of the buildings and homes. Below, one can see the gates set up by Allied soldiers as German civilians clearly try to get back to see what is remaining of their homes and belongings. The sky seems far too nice for such a scene, the mostly blue skies with some clouds showcasing a lovely day that just makes the scene sadder. It showcases how, of all the people he hurt, Hitler might have given the worst damage to his own nation.

#13 The Reichstag Opened in 1894, the Reichstag was the meeting place for the German parliament, basically the equivalent to Capitol Hill in the United States. An imposing structure, it was a popular spot for visitors to see and recognized as the central place of not just Berlin but the entire nation. In 1933, it was heavily damaged by a fire blamed on Communists. Newly installed Chancellor Adolf Hitler thus used this to suspend rights and begin rounding up “suspects.” It’s not accepted that the Nazis themselves set the fire as part of Hitler’s takeover plans. With Hitler in control, the Parliament moved to the Kroll Opera House the few times it actually met. When Berlin was the target of massive bombings in the war, the Reichstag sustained even heavier damage. The Red Army made it a major target for its symbolism and this showcases how the building was practically read to fall in on itself, its domed ceiling a skeletal structure. It was abandoned for years with even talk of tearing it down but it was decided to restore it for historical value. It became a site for Germany’s reunification in 1990 and today is one of the most visited spots in Germany, remarkable given how badly it suffered.

#14 The Gaping Gate Built in 1791, the Brandenburg Gate has been one of the icons of Berlin. Ironically created as a symbol of peace by King Frederick William II, the Gate is well known for its bold columns, large top and the statue of a chariot pulled by four horses with a goddess on top. For decades, only the royal family was allowed to pass under the central column but by the 20th century, that had faded as it was a prime tourist spot for the country. When the Nazis rose to power, they used the Gate as a symbol of Germany’s might with massive rallies by it. During the fall of Berlin, the Gate was a major target and sustained damage from tank shells yet amazingly was able to keep standing. This showcases Soviet troops with the smoking gate in the background, still mostly intact, including its statues. After the war, both East and West Berlin worked together to repair the Gate as a symbol of good will. It was totally restored in 2002 and today, Germany intends to remember this as the product of peace it was intended for.

#15 The Rhine And The Ruins While it begins in Switzerland, the Rhine is most closely associated with Germany (fun trivia: The German pavilion at Epcot Center in Disney World was to have a Rhine boat ride). It’s been a key icon of the nation ever since it was part of the Roman Empire and forms a border between Germany and France that’s long been a source of conflict. It was also a symbol of Germany’s pride and might and so was both a target and obstacle for an Allied invasion. Indeed, an attempt to capture key bridges in Operation Market Garden became a major Allied failure. But the Germans couldn’t hold out forever as the Allies were able to capture some key bridges before they could be destroyed. That set the stage for brutal battles, especially by Cologne, the largest city on the Rhine. This pic showcases the devastation, the city a bombed out ruin. Several of the bridges are destroyed, a cathedral still standing but marked by damage. It took years for Cologne to recover and a startling showcase for the beauty of nature marked by man’s horrors.

Source: TheRichest