(Port) Coquitlam Odysseus

(Port) Coquitlam, Classics, Culture, and the Confessions of a Returned Expat

Captain Robert Semrau

Filed under: Current Issues — July 24, 2010 @ 5:59 pm

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Image of Captain Robert Semrau taken from 24 Hours News

The man above, Captain Robert Semrau, is by all accounts a good man and a good soldier. He was recently charged with murder for allegedly killing a “98% dead” enemy soldier on the battlefield. He was acquitted, but was convicted of “disgraceful conduct,” a crime that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. He is awaiting sentencing. Recently, he went on the record in a gracious, dignified manner to say that he would be happy to serve his country again.

My heart goes out to Capt. Semrau. He saw a badly injured enemy soldier on the battlefield. According to various international treaties, he was under a legal obligation that in my opinion makes no sense: to provide medical aid to the soldier who would have been his target only a short time before. The following is based on a letter I have sent the Prime Minister’s Office. I would like to encourage every Canadian to write to our government to demand justice for this man–and by justice, I mean the application of common sense.

Dear Prime Minister,

Hello; I am writing about the appalling debacle that was the Capt. Semrau trial.

Mr. Prime Minister, this case should never have come to trial. Capt. Semrau, a soldier who served our country with distinction in military operations in Afghanistan, is now facing the prospect of prison and a discharge from the military for allegedly killing an enemy combatant on the battlefield.

It’s bad enough that Canada sends its troops to battle without decent military equipment; it is inexcusable that we send them into harm’s way with fatally-flawed legal equipment.

The application of the law under which Semrau was charged comforts our enemies and paralyzes our soldiers. I do not doubt that hesitancy caused by this trial will now begin to cost Canadian soldiers’ lives. Furthermore, it is obvious that without the 911 and medical services available in urban Canadian centres, the enemy soldier would have died a slow, agonizing death. In this case, the tradition of victors on the battlefield provides an appropriate course of action.

Please do what is necessary to have Semrau pardoned and compensated, and to ensure that no soldier suffers under these laws and conventions that have incriminated a good soldier. In the event that the law is not the problem, then the bureaucrats who brought these charges forward on the basis of the law should be disciplined.

Incidentally, I do not know Capt. Semrau, nor have I ever met him, but I would like to see him supported by the country that sent him to war.

Thank you for considering these comments; please support our troops, and bring justice to this good man and loyal soldier.

I would like to encourage my few readers to write similar letters and to offer Capt. Semrau what support they can.

Phenomenal

Filed under: Current Issues,Federal Politics,Politics — July 24, 2010 @ 5:46 pm

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Image of Capt. Bews parachuting down after ejecting via CTV, with a credit to “Kurt’s Kustom Photography.”

I am quite in awe of the ability of the military engineers to design the system that allowed Capt. Brian Bews to pull this off:

While the AP video above is best, the video the BBC has is currently #1 on that site.

I very much dislike it when people with one-track minds read political faults into every news situation, but I can’t help thinking that the Conservative moves to replace our aging CF-18′s are supported by whatever malfunction occurred in this plane. Meanwhile, this kind of plane is what a recent news story reported as keeping us safe in the north after US planes were grounded because of safety concerns. One might well wonder if both countries’ patrol planes are down–and the sentence is one I’d rather not finish. The only proper response to this situation is for our government to move ahead with all possible speed to give us up-to-date military aircraft.

A Few Photographs from the MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory & Queen Elizabeth Park

Filed under: BC & Vancouver,Life of Nathan,Photoblogging — July 9, 2010 @ 9:20 pm

MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory interior

Interior of the MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park

I’m feeling more or less better now, and fingers crossed, this will continue. Anyway, here are a few pictures I took in Queen Elizabeth Park and its MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory back in early May. I’m not very happy with almost any of the landscape pictures I took at that time, and I hope to return there again at some point this summer to do a better job. I did like the bamboo shot, below, though:

Bamboo in Queen Elizabeth Park

The Conservatory has always been very special to me. I remember going there with my family when I was a boy, and tearing up and down the pathway. The bridge always fascinated me, and was fun to go over. Now that I am a man, the garden seems much smaller, and I walk through it slowly. What was once fun has become wonder, peace, and contemplation. There is a feeling of wellness there that is hard to match elsewhere in the city. I certainly hope that the Conservatory stays open.

The next two pictures were taken inside the Conservatory. I liked the flowers in the picture below, though the picture seems too dark:

Flowers in the Bloedel Conservatory

I also liked the flowers in this next picture, too, though I had a lot of trouble focusing:

More flowers in the MacMillan Bloedel Conservatory

The final picture shows downtown, Vancouver, from the city’s highest point:

Downtown, Vancouver from Queen Elizabeth Park


In other news, I have been reading voraciously on the Skytrain and bus. I find that the older I get, the more I find time to read. I’ve made conscious decision to try to spend less time on the internet in order to read more books. I’m not sure this is happening that much, but my long commute time makes for a very good opportunity.

Images of Tranquility and Images of Asian Vancouver at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden

Filed under: Aesthetics,BC & Vancouver,Life of Nathan,Photoblogging — July 2, 2010 @ 7:11 pm

Flower bud in the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens

Back in very early March, when it was winter from a botanical perspective (though most certainly not one in terms of temperature), my family and I took in the Van Dusen Botanical Garden. Like the gardens in the movie Being There, for many of the plants, it was winter. That said, at the time, it felt like spring. I found much to be moved by there, and I hope to go back often. The photos that I’ve posted here (and you can click on them for the full versions) gave me a certain amount of pleasure both to take, and, now, to post. Their tranquility and life are both needed.

Rainbow in fountain at the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens

Transparent leaf

Bees in a hive at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden

Wooden bridge over calm water at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden

Stone Archway in the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens

Turtles at Van Dusen Gardens

The next image, while not one I was satisfied with in terms of lighting, shows these lovely minimalist, concrete square-ish dwellings that seem to mysteriously rise from the water pool. I fell in love with them immediately, and I would love to live in them if I could ever afford it. The people who live in them must have a lot of opportunity for wonder, contemplation, and creativity.

Dwellings, which mysterious seem to arise from the water at the back of the Van Dusen Botanical Garden; as Chance says in "Being There": "Oh, I could live here!"

The cherry blossom trees were blossoming most beautifully. They are my favourite deciduous trees:

Cherry Blossom Trees in blossom at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden

In the Van Dusen Botanical Garden, there are two diminutive Asian treasures: a Japanese “meditation garden,” a rock of which is shown below…

Rocks in the Japanese meditation garden

…and this, shown in three images from close-up to farther away:

Lotus flower design element in Korean pavilion at the Van Dusen Gardens

Detail of Korean pavilion at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden

Korean pavilion at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden

The Korean pavilion is not a plant, but it fits nicely in the garden. Vancouver is privileged to have a beautiful Japanese garden and an equally lovely, though very different Chinese one (the subject of a future blog post). It’s nice to see a bit of traditional Korean architecture–decorated with lotus flower designs, no less–in the garden, too. I’m going to remember the Van Dusen Botanical Garden and these pictures I took there, and mentally retreat into this wondrous space now and then.

Many Thoughts

Filed under: Life of Nathan — July 2, 2010 @ 6:55 pm

The last week was a very difficult one for me, and many thoughts, many of which were most unpleasant, have been going through my head.

I have also taken a break from Aristophanes. (more…)

My Thoughts on Israel

Filed under: Current Issues — June 29, 2010 @ 9:26 pm

I really want to get beyond the Israel topic as a topic of this blog, and it seems the only way for me to do this is to hash things out once and for all.

The modern state of Israel should never have come into existence. It did so because many centuries of prejudice within mostly Christian communities culminated in the Holocaust, and Western guilt saw the creation of the modern state of Israel as a workable solution, if one may use the word in this context. This is, of course, half the story. Zionist writers and enthusiasts, writing after a thousand years of European anti-Semitism, had encouraged a wave of Jewish immigrants to Palestine; these settlers bought land from the Palestinian Arabs, and began setting up shop. As these waves of immigrants grew larger, with the sad example of the Holocaust in the background, Jewish terrorists attacked British interests. The UN mandate followed, setting up a tiny Israel in British Palestine in 1948.

War followed immediately, with Syria, Jordan and Egypt invading the region’s youngest state. The nation was invaded on the very day it declared itself a sovereign state, with the full imprimatur of the UN. Israel quite correctly saw the Arab opposition to its very existence, and routed its neighbours immediately. Some twenty years and another war later, Israel saw that it was about to be attacked from several sides again, and launched the pre-emptive Six-Day War in which it annexed the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Gaza strip from Egypt, in addition to the Sinai Peninsula.

The Yom Kippur War in the early seventies began as a surprise attack by the Arab states of Egypt and Syria; after initial setbacks, Israel repulsed the invaders, who attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Within the same decade, Egypt made peace with Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula; Egypt ceded control of the Sinai Peninsula, as Jordan would do some years later with the West Bank. Syria never gave up its claim to the Golan Heights.

It was during this time that Israel began to expand the settlements into the West Bank and Gaza Strip in earnest. The reasons were obvious: with decades of proven animosity on the part of its Arab neighbours, the Israeli government felt compelled to try to widen its narrowest places. At the same time, the ultra-Orthodox desired to settle all of “‘eretz Israel.”*

In time, the Palestinians launched, under the control of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization (which had itself threatened Jordan’s King Hussein), the First Intifada. Israel responded with various measures, and the situation went downhill.

In the Oslo Accords, the PLO’s leader, Arafat, was offered a two-stated solution, but was not offered East Jerusalem as a capital city; this provided him the excuse he was looking for. After carefully building up strength, the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada, complete with numerous suicide bombings of Israelis in ordinary places, such as bus stops, pizza restaurants, and an old folks home, within Israel proper. I will never forget the lynching of the two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah: the Palestinian mob who killed them tortured them to death and waved their blood-stained hands in the air. Then they picked up the soldiers’ phones and taunted their families.

Now, I happen to think Israel should have been willing to cede East Jerusalem (Arab in demographics anyway), but the fact is it didn’t. Still, that wasn’t a good excuse for the Palestinians to reject the accords. In time, the Palestinian position, not weakened in the slightest, would be buttressed by increased arms, mostly provided by Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and in Palestine by Hamas.

Hamas’s stated goal is Israel’s destruction. Both the PLO and Hamas have provided a school curriculum that glorifies suicide bombers and encourages hatred of Jewish Israelis. Hamas made it illegal for Palestinians to sell land to Israel–now a capital offense. Suspected collaborators are tortured and killed. Amidst numerous suicide bombings, Israel built the infamous security wall in the West Bank. Saddam Hussein, who provided $10,000 US for the families of suicide bombers, was killed in the second Iraq war, and Israeli civilian casualties plummeted as Israel tightened its grip on Gaza and West Bank. The latter would be somewhat quiet, while literally thousands of rockets over the next decade would fall on Israeli soil from Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon and Hamas-controlled Gaza.

So much for the history. I think we can say Israel should not have expanded the settlements it did. It should have offered the Palestinians East Jerusalem. The country should never have existed at all.

But all that said, the Palestinians have now to accept the presence of a Jewish state in Israel–it has existed since before most of them, and most Israelis–were born. The Palestinians have been programmed by their terrorist government to see the extermination of Jewish Israel as the only solution. With each gap in the regular hostilities that now take place so often, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon arm themselves with ever deadlier weaponry.

The international community, routinely led by the Middle Eastern Arab countries and Iran, routinely condemns Israel. Israel is hamstrung in its ability to defend itself.

As I see it, either total military victory, or a total Jewish withdrawal from Israel, would end the conflict–though hardly satisfactorily, obviously. I see the only hope in the so-called international community strong-arming the Arabs into recognizing Israel with no “right of return” for the displaced generations of Palestinians, millions of them, who have been raised in, but never welcomed by, the countries that have hosted them for sixty years. The issue isn’t so much the principle, but the logistics: an influx of that size into a country the size of Vancouver Island just could not be absorbed. The Palestinians, now wanted by neither Jordan nor Egypt, must recognize Israel’s right to exist. If Gaza and Lebanon continue to be the source of attacks on Israeli soil, as they are, then Israel must be permitted to deal them permanent blows to force them to cease their hostilities; Gaza must then be put under direct rule. Lebanon is trickier, as it is the proxy of Syria, itself the proxy of Iran. Israel cannot easily strike at Iran, but it should give Syria and Lebanon an ultimatum: no attacks from your soil, or else. No other sovereign nation would be denied the right to defend itself, and any other nation would have responded with far more power than the Israelis have. At some point, the much-vaunted “international community” must cease its putative support for the terrorists so that all parties in this tiny strip of land can recognize that where they are now, minus some recent settlements, is where they will have to be, in peace.


*The Ultra-Orthodox, who demand the entire land of Palestine and move into settlements in Palestinian areas, refuse to serve in the military forces that all Israeli young men must be a part of. They are despised by many secularists in Israel as provokers of the Palestinians who refuse to accept the consequences of their actions.

The Single Best Article on the Israel Raid…

Filed under: Current Issues — June 4, 2010 @ 8:31 pm

…is here. The thing that bothers me is that many highly ranked comments on the CBC news stories about this incident have openly called for the Israeli Jews to leave the modern country of Israel and settle elsewhere. There’s not even a pretense of balance anymore. This deeply saddens me.

In other news, what happened to my images? My beautiful banner seems to have disappeared, as have all the other images. My guess is that Netfirms has been messing around with site security certificates. I’ve emailed them for support.

UPDATE (June 8th): The images are back. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with the problem, but I’m glad that it has been resolved.

One of the Most Beautiful Moments of My Life…

Filed under: Life of Nathan — June 1, 2010 @ 6:56 pm

…occurred two nights ago. I put my little son to bed, and I said, “I love you, [real name of Young Telemachus].” He usually tells me he loves me, too, but this time he said nothing, and his eyes were closed. I thought he was asleep, and I closed the door. A few moments later, I heard crying, and I opened the door, and asked him what was wrong. He said, “I just wanted to tell you I love you.”

On the Flotilla of “Aid Activists” and Israel’s Raid

Filed under: Current Issues — May 31, 2010 @ 10:53 pm

It was with great dismay that I read this morning a largely one-sided portrayal of the recent Israeli raid on a flotilla of “aid” ships that recently tried to enter Gaza from the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately, as the day progressed, more thorough reports began to surface.

From the news reports, I have read that the Turkish organization that sponsored the flotilla is a terrorist organization. I have also seen with my own eyes a video of the “activists” brutally beating Israeli commandos as they entered the ship. A detailed source of the activists’ aggression can be found here.

I believe that Israel has the right to place Gaza under embargo as long as the Hamas terrorist organization that controls Gaza (1) refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and (2) continually makes preparations for war by seeking access to heavy weaponry, and (3) permits attacks to be launched at Israeli citizens from Gazan territory. If Israel gives in to international pressure to remove the blockade, Hamas will gain in strength in weapons, and Israel will lose, in time, its sovereignty.

I believe that the criminal, terrorist organization that used naive Western activists on this mission got exactly what it wanted: an international public condemnation of Israel, based largely on emotion, without regard for facts. I hope Israel has the strength to defend itself, and I hope that one day, the enemies that occupy that narrow strip of land can be truly at peace.

On Translink and the UBC Line

Filed under: BC & Vancouver,Current Issues — May 24, 2010 @ 10:50 pm

The following is a very brief summary of a *late* note I have just sent Translink. I neglected to copy my text, and I don’t have time to write exactly the same words I just sent them. Unfortunately, Translink’s official period of feedback has ended.

Basically, Translink needs to extend the present Millennium line from VCC-Clark to UBC. This is really the only option. Doing this would allow for potentially thousands of UBC students, faculty, and staff to get to the main campus without negatively impacting the traffic on Broadway. It would also help to facilitate the commute of those who come in from the Tri-Cities once the Evergreen Line is completed. Significantly, it would also help to attract riders from the Tri-Cities and get them off the road system. Extending the Skytrain system is the simplest, most elegant, greenest, and most efficient (in terms of road traffic) solution to the problem.