Football Opponents or Racial Adversaries?

"It felt like a hostile environment. The only message I had [for his distraught players] was we need to be better men ... and I asked them to stifle everything they had."

"Their response [game referees] was they were not hearing anything."

"It was at that point [continuing racial epithets] that I decided the game needed to be over."

"We have experienced [racism at games] before, but not to this level or degree. This was very hostile, very unsafe, and the environment was not suitable for competition."

Willie McGinnis, football coach, Roxbury Prep High School Wolves, Rosbury, Massachusetts

 

"I broke down, I watched racism ruin what’s something that was supposed to be good to them, Friday night lights but instead we were ridiculed, called N bombs by players, faculty, staff, spectators and were taunted all night."

"I was approached by police for absolutely no reason. There were reporters wanting to interview us, these same racist people that waited for a reaction. It was all a set up, cruisers and wagons. I’m angry that to this day things like this still happen, feeling powerless in a lose lose situation."

Roxbury assistant football coach Jamaal Hunt

 

"If it’s determined there was any type of criminality relative to that incident I’ll review that with the district attorney’s office."

"I have not seen any video or audio evidence concerning those allegations, but they are certainly not going to be ignored…we’ll interview people who were there, and we welcome anybody with information to provide it to us."

Georgetown Police Chief Donald Cudmore

Screen grab of melee at Georgetown High School football game

"I know a lot of the kids who go to the game, they wouldn't say that word to an African American, and I know [many] of the people in the stands and walking the sidelines, adults ..."

"If they heard any kid saying that to that team, they would have went right up to that kid and grabbed him."

Tim Manning, player parent, Georgetown Middle High School Royals, Georgetown, Massachusetts

"[There are] many different versions of what happened at this game ... swirling around on social media. [School officials and police are investigating.]"

Carol Jacobs, superintendent, Georgetown Public Schools 

 

"We call on the Georgetown district to fully collaborate with us to investigate this incident and to take strong actions to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again."

"Our priority will remain the safety and well-being of our community as we continue to advocate for racial justice, love and respect." 

Roxbury Prep School spokesperson, Roxbury, Massachusetts

 

Last Friday night in Georgetown, Mass., the Roxbury Prep High School Wolves were set to play a game against the Georgetown Middle High School Royals. A football game between two high school football teams, as normal an occurrence as can be imagined in the United States, or for that matter anywhere else. There is, however, a difference between the two schools and thus between the two teams -- in that Georgetown's student body is 93 percent White, and Roxbury Prep students are 97 percent either Black or Latino.

Still Americans, still high school students, still boys studying to be men, enjoying team sports and excelling at both. There was an estimated 450 people present at the field to watch a routine night of  high school football. Those present witnessed a fight break out between the two teams, obviously unsportsmanlike. And then the game was cancelled. Then came the explanation, that the Royals players endured an evening of racial catcalls slung at them by Georgetown players.

In tears, the Black players told their coaches that the "N" word and taunts about looking like apes and monkeys. The Royals coaches spoke to the Georgetown players' coaches, asking them to speak to their players about repeatedly hurling racial slurs at the opposing team. And it appears that the Royals' coaches made no effort to put a halt to the taunting. When first coach McGinnis heard from his players of the racial slurs, he told them to respond "using our pads". Play the game to win.

By the second half of the game the taunts and racial slurs were escalating, the Royals, the Roxbury students kept telling their coach were calling them the N-word repeatedly. A group of fans approached the back of the Wolves bench to interact with players until one of the assistant coaches instructed the crowd to retreat. It was about then that coach McGinnis was treated to the N-word himself. No one 'mishears' that kind of soul-searing language.

That led five men, fathers of Wolves players, to form a protective line around their team. Again coach McGinnis reported the racial slurs to the referees, who heard nothing themselves that might move them to take action. Leading 44-8 by the end of the third quarter, the Royals had succeeded in fully demoralizing the Wolves, when a fight broke out. Which was when the two Georgetown police officers assigned to the event called in for support.

A Royals player had shoved a Wolves team member and another Royals player held the Wolves player. Leading four Wolves players, coach McGinnis and others to rush the field to separate the two sides. The N-word surfaced again. When the police dispersed the crowd, coach McGinnis returned to his sideline, his team deciding to go on playing until two players approached their coach again tearfully, that the racial epithets were continuing.

The Wolves headed off the field, to Royals players chanting the N-word. Superintendent Carol Jacobs was at the game but heard no racial slurs. Her intention is to bring in an independent investigator. 

From left, Roxbury Prep parents Larry Fisher, Deborah Manago, and Missy Brown look on as Roxbury Prep hosts Millis at West Roxbury High on Sept. 24, a week after a skirmish broke out late in Georgetown High's game against Roxbury Prep. Roxbury Prep alleges racial slurs prompted the fight.   Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe

 

Chinese Diplomacy

"It has long been a fully proven fact that this is an incident of political persecution against a Chinese citizen, an act designed to hobble Chinese high-tech companies."

"The so-called 'fraud' charges against Ms.Meng Wanzhou are purely fabricated."

"Canada should draw lessons and act according to its own interests."

"General Secretary Xi Jinping made important instructions."

Hua Chunying, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson 

 

"The U.S. government concocted the incident to repress Chinese high-tech companies and obstruct China's development."

"[Meng's arrest was the culmination of a] dirty [U.S. game to destroy Huawei.] Over the past two years and more the U.S. wasted no time in suppressing Huawei, cooking up disinformation to smear Huawei and coercing its allies to boycott Huawei."

China's ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou landed back in China on Saturday morning after a B.C. court dropped her extradition case following a plea agreement with the United States. CBC

 

So there, Canada, smarten up! Beijing does not appreciate upstart nations interfering in its smooth sailing. To act on a request by a neighbouring country with which you have an extradition agreement, as is common between neighbours and allies in democratic alliances, and by the act of apprehending the chief financial officer of Huawei Technology, China's communications giant, was a very unwise decision. You have it direct from the horse's...er Communist Party of China's mouth.

China is celebrating Ms.Meng's release from her injudicious and cruel detention, languishing in one of her two Vancouver mansions, out on bail, escorted and protected whenever she goes out on a shopping expedition. Wearing an ankle bracelet that looks quite chic with her designer garments. Passing the time with her husband, taking up pleasant distractions like calligraphy, painting, corresponding with friends and supporters, and shopping, shopping, shopping. Truly an ordeal.

Days after her apprehension in December of 2018 two Canadians on business in China were summarily arrested and a year later charged with espionage. The reasoning being that if Canada feels it is justified in detaining a very important Chinese citizen, daughter of the founder of Huawei no less, Beijing feels justified in incarcerating under harsh conditions befitting the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, businessman Michael Spavor and diplomat Michael Kovrig. 

And while Ms.Meng had high-priced lawyers arguing her case in a Vancouver courtroom and to the media at large, exonerating her from any purported wrong-doing the two Michaels were denied lawyers and only sporadically permitted Canadian consular assistance. Held for close to three years on spurious charges, undergoing interminable interrogation sessions, occupying solitary jail cells where the light is never turned off, sentenced to fifteen years of their lives in prison.

But never discount diplomacy and the capacity of two nations at a competitive tension-war to finally accommodate one another by each agreeing to sacrifice a principle. For China the losing-face principle, for the United States, something very similar sourced from an unseemly jostling for advantage in a cut-throat world of upsmanship and prestige and market control.

Is everybody happy? Meng Wanzhou is feted in China as a 'survivor' of cruel Western imperialist skulduggery. Beijing boasts of its uncompromising stance of national dignity; no one, no government, no human-rights group may sling arrows at its performance as a world-class bully, swallowing Tibet, threatening Taiwan, yanking democracy out from under Hong Kong's unique status, imprisoning Uyghurs, imposing its ownership on airspace and contested geographies with Japan, India, Philippines, Vietnam.

And Beijing, with concrete verification that threats and intimidation and 'wolf' diplomacy are the characteristics that have proven hugely successful for it, will now carry on while plumbing the abysmal depths of dictatorial officiousness, proven to work marvellously well; ultimatums designed to make other nations cower, and when they fail to, smoothly engaging in self-righteous propaganda assuring the Chinese public that all is well with their world, Beijing and the CCP is in charge...

 

Return to Canada of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig

"I think now that we've got the two Michaels back it's time for us to stop pussyfooting around, it's time for us to make a clear statement about where we stand in the region."

"And we can't condone a number of other things China is doing. The violation of their own international commitments to respect the autonomy of Hong Kong, systematic cultural genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, increasing drumbeats of war on the Taiwan Strait, these are all completely unacceptable geopolitically and from Canadian values perspective."

"So we have to position ourselves on the right side of history on these issues."

"There has traditionally been a lack of consensus within the Canadian foreign policy establishment as to whether it's better to try to engage China and accommodate China, or basically stand firmer on principles when Canadian principles and values conflict with Chinese principles and values and Chinese foreign policy goals. I think it's time to get beyond that."

David Welch, professor of political science, University of Waterloo

Tremblors and Volcanic Eruptions: Devastation, La Palma

"We have a flow to the north that is moving quickly ... this lava comes from more interior areas of the crater and its temperature is about 1,250 degrees."

Miguel Angel Moreuende, director, volcano response committee, La Palma 

"The ash cloud originating from the volcanic eruption makes it necessary to maintain the temporary stoppage of flights to La Palma..."

"The flights scheduled for today have been cancelled."

Aena, Spain's airport operator

 

"Activity is picking up again. The volcano has been producing intermittent explosions with ash emissions from the new cone, at intervals of roughly every 10 minutes."

Update Mon 27 Sep 2021 12:07

"To put the eruption into perspective, the newly lava-covered surface of 221 hectares (2,21 sq km) corresponds to 0,3 percent of the island's total surface of 708 sq km."

"It is interesting to look at the volume of lava erupted so far: if an average thickness of the lava flows of 10 m is assumed and the total surface covered is 212 hectares (=100x100=10,000 sq meters), the volume is approx. 10x2,120,000 or roughly 20 million cubic meters."
"This does not include the volume of the cone and the erupted ash, but likely the latter are much smaller than the volume of the lava flows and can be neglected. In any case, the volume of erupted material is in the same order of size as the previously modeled magma volume estimate that had been intruded during the earthquake swarm (also around 20 or more million cubic meters)."
"If these figures are correct (which is far from certain), the eruption indeed might have exhausted the available magma, but the near future will certainly tell."

VolcanoDiscovery

The Cumbre Vieja volcano spews lava, ash and smoke as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane on the Canary island of La Palma in Sept. 26, 202 (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

A week after the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma erupted, the airport has been re-opened, but all flights in or out have been cancelled. The volcano continues to spout lava, emitting ash clouds over the area surrounding it, forcing people to cover themselves with umbrellas to keep from being entirely plastered with thick falling volcanic ash. "They laugh at us because of the umbrella, but if we don't use it, we end up covered in ash", explained Waldo Nasco, an engineer.

Two active lava flows are now in action, one is a swiftly-flowing mass to the north, the other a slower one flowing to the south. Drone footage capturing photographs for Reuters shows a rapid, wide stream of red hot lava down the crater's slopes, inching its way past homes with swaths of land and buildings entirely engulfed by the black mass of languidly moving, older lava.

In Todoque, the village church which had narrowly missed being engulfed in lava days earlier when lava stopped just short of it, was destroyed on Sunday, the bell tower crumpling under the weight of the flow. Director of the island's volcano response committee, Morcuende, declared that those people who had been evacuated from three towns under the volcano would now be safe to return to their homes; they are the fortunate ones whose homes are still standing.

People swept away volcanic ash from outside the environs of the church of Colegio Sagrada Familia de Nazaret, after mass on Sunday. Pope Francis, during his weekly blessing in St.Peter's Square, sent a message of "closeness and solidarity" to those affected on La Palma. 

 

A new explosive phase took place on Friday, as the uncertainty of when the eruptions would cease and the Cumbre Vieja volcano would return to its normally quiescent state consumed the minds of the 83,000 population of the island in the Canary Islands group.

Ash emission this morning, September 27 (image: Eva Kubelková)

The Enduring Deterrent Effect of Amputations and Public Executions

Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi AP

"Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments." 

"No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Qur'an."

"Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security [deterrent effect. The Cabinet is studying whether to do punishments in public and will] develop a policy."

"[The Taliban would allow television, mobile phones, photos and video] because this is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it."

"[The Taliban views the media as a way to spread their message.] Now we know instead of reaching just hundreds, we can reach millions."

"We had complete safety in every part of the country [in the late 1990s of their previous rule]."

Taliban co-founder, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi

The Taliban swiftly grasped control of Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of U.S troops from the country last month. There are continuing signs the Taliban's hardline views and tactics are not a thing of the past. (West Asia News Agency/Reuters)

 

"It’s not a good thing to see these people being shamed in public, but it stops the criminals because when people see it, they think ‘I don’t want that to be me'."

Amaan, Kabul store owner

 

"In our Sharia it's clear, for those who have sex and are unmarried, whether it's a girl or a boy, the punishment is 100 lashes in public."

:But for anyone who's married, they have to be stoned to death..."

"For those who steal: if it's proved, then his hand should be cut off."

Taliban judge in Balkh, Haji Badruddin

The genteel reassurance has been revealed for what it was, a purely temporary ruse to persuade the outside world that the Taliban are really responsible caretakers of Afghanistan. Not what the media in the West make them out to be; fanatical Islamist fundamentalists following sharia to the letter of its laws as they interpret them; no shades of grey, rigidly black-and-white: guilty as charged renders an accused vulnerable to amputation or public execution.

 

The Taliban view corporal punishment as educational devices; a warning to any others who might conceivably be contemplating criminal offences, anathema in the considered opinion of the pious Islamists who honour Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by closely following sacred instructions on managing lawbreakers by extracting painful punishments of permanent disfigurements (lopping off ears and noses), amputations (complete disablement), or surrender of life itself.

 

It has started. Once again capital punishment for social crimes is meted out; kidnapping meriting death, the body hung in a public square hanging off a crane. For lesser crimes public humiliation will do; steal bread because you're hungry and bread will be stuffed in your mouth, and you paraded as a criminal-thief displayed on the back of a truck as it drives down busy streets, drawing the attention of shoppers, business people, idlers and burqa-clad women. Citizens are required to witness, to take note, to understand this could be their fate should they dare to bring offence.

 

People look up at a dead body hung by the Taliban from a crane — not shown in this image — in the main square of the city of Herat, in western Afghanistan, on Saturday. (The Associated Press)

 

As yet the governing council of the Taliban is undecided whether public executions will take place in public. As an entertainment with a message 'Do not emulate the forbidden actions of these criminal elements among you. See how they pay the price for their actions!' And when executions are in the offing the public is informed and advised that attendance is not optional. Unless they can be trusted to view at a distance via social media; a new and improved innovation; marrying modern technology to ancient barbaric rituals.

 

Nooruddin Turabi, a Taliban co-founder known for formulating and administering the rules of deterrence in the first iteration of the governing Taliban, and now a venerable 60 years of age, has been reappointed to the vital role of overseeing the vice and virtues of the people of Afghanistan. Morality is a subject of great moment to this government. It must be upheld as the pinnacle of Islamic values, instructing all of the expectations incumbent upon them as proud citizens of an ancient country. 

 

There have been reports of women's rights being brutally restricted   Reuters

 

City streets will once again be patrolled by the morality police, and dress infractions by women will be instantly met with appropriate punishment; the public humiliation of public beatings. The lesson driven home, if need be, that it is better, much, much better for one's peace of mind, much less reputation to be honoured as a modest woman in full compliance with Islamist custom and sharia law, to be fully encased in stifling dark fabric, peering at the world through a narrow slit, taking care no inch of bare skin can be seen by helplessly lascivious men.

No more music, no more dancing, no more drama classes, or parties. None of which do honour to Islam. Men and women must not be seen in close proximity; women should ideally be accompanied by male family members, never speaking to men, nor looking directly at them without betraying their wantonness. Requiring due correction. The greater tolerance of social mores not in concert with Islamist principles hinted at previously have been reconsidered.

 

Men's beards must be fully visible, not snipped short and they too must dress themselves modestly. However, this new Taliban reiteration is not destined to completely re-enact previous restrictions where girls may not under any circumstances attend school or exit their homes, as long as the sexes are completely separated some concessions may apply in educating girls. The expansion of the previous edicts that only females may administer medical services to females has been expanded to include women judges sitting in judgement of other women.

The more tolerant Taliban will now permit television, cellphones and media. "This is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it. Now we know instead of reaching just hundreds,we can reach millions". The Taliban has exited the dark ages....

 

On September 8, 2021, journalists Nemat Naqdi (left) and Taqi Daryabi were tortured and beaten by Taliban fighters for reporting on women’s rights.

MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES

Submarines for Canada: to go Nuclear or Not?

"Canada's ability to exert influence in its vast maritime domain will be tested as the demand for resources and northern sea access increases in the coming decades. [Canada needs replacement submarines for its fleet of four diesel-electric aging submarine fleet, in recognition of countries like Russia and China's aggressiveness and the] relative decline [of the United States]."

"It wasn't that long ago that the only option for that [submarines capable of operating in and under ice in the Arctic] was to consider nuclear propulsion. [Now technology is sufficiently advanced to allow] a broader conversation about other options."

"[The U.S. is in decline] due to competing internal and external pressures including fleet overstretch, divided domestic institutions, quasi-isolationism, trade protectionism, and the return of great power rivalries for the first time in 80 years [placing more pressure on American allies]."

"With China and Russia building up their respective nuclear and non-nuclear submarine fleets, it will become harder for Canada to ignore the need to maintain its submarine capability."

Macdonald-Laurier Institute paper

 

"We need to move forward with a viable program to replace the current capability. And what that looks like, I don't know, but it starts by having what I would characterize as a mature, open and transparent conversation."

"[Complex procurements like this can take 12 to 15 years that] gives us one to two years to really get this project properly initiated and oriented."

"Defence expenditures in Canada are always subject to significant criticism [but even those who won't like the idea can be receptive] when the conversation is well informed."

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, Canadian Navy

"Getting out of the sub business would mean that our friends and allies would take Canada even less seriously in defence matters than they do now."

"[It would also] effectively cede operational control over our coastal and Arctic waters to others, [both allies and enemies]."

Kim Nossal, professor emeritus, international relations, Queen's University

Canada purchased four Victoria-class submarines, including HMCS Corner Brook, from Britain in the late 1990s.

Canada has four aged and aging submarines in its fleet. These are submarines; the HMCS Chicoutimi, HMCS Corner Brook, HMCS Windsor and HMCS Victoria bought second-hand from Britain when it decided to focus on replacing its fleet with nuclear submarines and placed its diesel-engine fleet in mothballs. Canada bought them second-hand for $750 million in 1998 under the Chretien Liberal-led government. They were a headache from first delivery, having been mothballed and left to rust for five years in Britain. Repairing dents, rust, leaks, and fire-damage cost Canada infinitely more for its bargain-basement investment.

The succeeding Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper mused about replacing the four submarines with a nuclear fleet, but typically knew that such an expenditure would not sit well with the Canadian public, and shelved an idea whose time had come. Since then, the need to replace the fleet has only grown more urgent. The situation is not unknown to Canada's allies in NATO, where the country has failed to live up to NATO's requirement that member-countries expend an average of 4% of GDP on military preparedness. Canada's expenditure is under 1.3%

HMCS Windsor, one of Canada's four Victoria-class long range patrol submarines, in Halifax port in 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

The current federal government has allocated up to $10 billion to modernize and maintain its current submarine fleet, an allocation whose initiatives sees "serious questions remain" whether Canada will be ready with replacements by the time the fleet is decommissioned at some time between 2035 and 2042. Which may "not appear to be a particularly urgent timeline", commented Vice-Admiral Norman, who wrote the foreword on the report pointing out that complex procurements take years to effect.

The recent furor of the agreement between the United States, Great Britain and Australia to supply Australia with nuclear plans with a view to acquiring a nuclear fleet and cancelling its contract with France to build such a fleet, serves to place a focus on Canada's laid-back attitude to its own maritime defence at a time when Russia is claiming territorial waters in areas contested by Canada, and China is building an Arctic-capable fleet of its own. AUKUS has offended France, with the cancelled contract valued at $60 billion from its publicly-owned shipyard.

Canada's need for submarines capable of operating in and under the ice is paramount. The Royal Canadian Navy created a team beginning the process of current fleet replacement in July; all such ventures in Canada move at glacial speed, reflecting the relative disinterest of the government of the day focusing or failing to, on a theme likely to result in an "extremely controversial debate" over the necessity of Canada acquiring them to begin with, in the public mind. 

The current submarine fleet has spent more time undergoing maintenance and repairs dry-docked than it has operationally, requiring billions resulting from multiple problems with the submarines, from their delivery to the present. Even a British Member of Parliament expressed  his amazement that Canada would agree to purchase the aged, decommissioned British submarines, stating they were in a parlous state before delivery and Canada had made an extremely poor decision in acquiring them. As the old British maxim goes: 'penny-wise and pound-foolish'.

A 2003 estimate placed cost of four new submarines between $3 and $5 billion; "we can easily expect that 20-year-old estimate to be higher", pointed out the report. Not quite in the vicinity of Australia's projected $60-billion cost for its planned nuclear fleet, but substantially more than the now-modest cost of yesteryear. Canada requires those submarines for surveillance and intelligence, building alliances and deterring opponents, alongside monitoring Canadian waters. The report pointed out Russia's submarines are active in the Arctic and North Atlantic to an extent not seen since the Cold War era.

The fire damaged HMCS Chicoutimi, one of the Canadian military's four submarines, arriving at the Victoria Shipyards from Halifax in 2009.  Photograph By BRUCE STOTESBURY, Times Colonist

"And That's Shameful" Einsatzkommando 10a

This photo taken from a the body of a dead German officer who was killed in Russia shows a German firing squad shooting Soviet-Jewish civilians in the back as they sit beside a mass grave in the Babi Yar ravine on the outskirts of Kiev.  AP

"Oberlander found comfort and freedom in Canada. His victims were denied the right of life, of family of happiness, of children and grandchildren -- all of which Oberlander celebrated in abundance."

"It is a sad day not because he died, but because Canada has been exposed in terms of allowing men and women like Oberlander to come to this country, live here in peace and never face justice. And that's shameful."

"He very successfully played a very poor Canadian immigration system -- and won."

"Every government, it doesn't matter if it was Conservative government or Liberal government throughout the postwar period, has blame on this file, as does the very poor Canadian justice system."

Bernie Farber, CEO, Canadian Anti-Hate Network

"The peaceful demise of Helmut Oberlander on Canadian soil is a stain on our national conscience. The fact is that this country slammed its doors on Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, then allowed some of their tormentors into Canada and failed to deport them."

Michael Mostyn, CEO, B'nai Brith Canada

"The delays in these cases were unconscionable. The result was justice for victims of the crime addressed in these cases was denied."

David Matas, senior legal counsel, B'nai Brith Canada

 

"Canada's war record on first admitting Nazi war criminals and then failing to properly investigate and then deport them is a national shame."

"While victims of the Holocaust were brutally murdered, Nazi war criminals mostly died peacefully in this country."

"Many have literally gotten away with murder."

Avi Abraham Benlolo, chairman, Abraham Global Peace Initiative, Toronto

After the mass murder of 33,771 Jews at Babyn Yar, Ukraine, September 1941 (public domain)

 

Helmut Oberlander, a resident of Canada since he and his wife applied for immigration in 1952, held permanent residence status from 1954 forward, becoming a citizen of Canada in 1960. On his immigration application he failed to disclose his status as a former German soldier in World War II, knowing that this would invalidate his application. Legally, he had no right to Canadian citizenship. A false declaration on an immigration application, evidence of participation in war crimes would make him inadmissible.

He was an ethnic German living in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, when it was invaded by Nazi forces. He was conscripted and assigned work as a translator for Einsatzkommando 10a (Ik10a), a special police task force operating in occupied territory. His claim to innocence rests in his arguing that he was a teen at the time of his conscription, and that he never personally took part in the killings conducted by the death squad he was associated with. Merely an innocent observer. 

There is the philosophical observation that an observer is a participant merely by being at the scene of an atrocity. And that observing while working as an enabler as a translator, the claim of innocence is in and of itself an utter absurdity. He was actively engaged with the killing squads whose purpose was to act as roving killers in uniform armed with deadly weapons seeking out vulnerable victims whom local populations were less than loathe to identify and on occasion more than willing to help in their eradication. They too were/are guilty of crimes against humanity.

When I was a child I recall the horrors of whispered agonies of my parents and their friends over the unspeakable atrocities taking place in Nazi Germany. There were underground pamphlets passed around detailing news of massacres and cattle cars and transports, and work camps and concentration camps and death camps ... the scale of which would be revealed to the world at large in good order. I remember my parents speaking in hushed, disbelieving voices with their friends, post Holocaust of someone they know walking along Bloor Street in Toronto and suddenly confronting a guard from Auschwitz.

Photo Courtesy B'nai Brith Canada

"Helmut Oberlander has passed away peacefully. In the end, he was surrounded by loved ones in his home."

"Notwithstanding the challenges in his life, he remained strong in his faith. He took comfort in his family and the support of many in his community. He gave generously to charity, supported his church and was a loving family man. He will be dearly missed."

Oberlander family statement

 

My parents came to Canada in the pre-war years. My father, an orphan living on the streets of Warsaw was sent to Canada by a philanthropic Polish society of Jews, to work as an indentured farmhand until such time as his passage was paid off and he was free to become a free man, albeit younger then than Oberlander. My mother and her sister came as young girls after their parents were murdered in the Pale of Settlement by a mob of White Russians. They worked in garment factories to repay distant relatives in the U.S. who had paid for their passage to Canada. 

During the war years entrance to Jews facing annihilation in Europe was closed off. Canada had all the Jews it would tolerate. They would have to find haven elsewhere. Japan, though part of the Axis, helped some Jews escape Europe into China. Canada turned away desperate Jewish refugees sailing on the German passenger vessel,  the St.Louis looking for haven abroad. It was not to be.

 

It was, in fact, former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who was convinced by Jewish human-rights lobbyists that Canada had a moral and human-right responsibility to identify and either prosecute or surrender German Nazi war criminals settled as good citizens in Canada, back to Germany to stand trial there for their participation in war crimes where they could inform a court 'nicht schuldig". Being part of a "mobile killing unit" is a criminal offence and a war crime.

Helmut Oberlander, a retired businessman of 97, is dead in Waterloo, Ontario. It was 35 years ago that a commission set  up to find and prosecute Canadians born in Germany, who had Nazi affiliation in the Third Reich, that Helmut Oberlander became its first target. During those 35 years he used every legal opportunity available to him to defend himself in court, to counter charges, to appeal to higher authorities to overturn judgements not in his favour. Anything to avoid deportation.

Oberlander's citizenship was revoked in 2001 in 2007 in 2012. The final time, in 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada would not hear his appeal of the last revocation of his citizenship, accepting the reality that because of fraudulently entering the country, citizenship was invalid. Which would enable his deportation. But there were always more avenues of appeal. The final judgement was in the works, with the Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator prepared to rule on his motion of dismissal. No need now.

 

"If you would have talked to me in 2019, I would have said I'd be surprised. But if you talked to me in probably April or May 2020, I would say I would not be surprised we'd hit this point."

"A lot of the mistakes that we definitely fell into in 1918, we hoped we wouldn't fall into in 2020. We did."

"The internet can be a double-edged sword. It provides us with the opportunity to receive the CDC and the World Health Organization [updates] and to share information much more quickly. But that also means we can spread misinformation quickly as well."

"We have absolutely seen -- especially with long COVID -- that young people are far from invincible.

[No matter how good the science and public health advice are], those things are only as good as the behavioral response."

"We'll get new variants [including some that might cause reinfection. But eventually], I do think those variants will be closely enough related, probably, to the things we've already been vaccinated against or  the things we've already been exposed to that it won't cause the same sort of severe disease."

"Essentially, what the vaccine does is it gives you your first and second exposure for free -- without the dangers of Covid-19."

"That's extremely helpful, and that goes a long way to reducing mortality."

Stephen Kissler, epidemiologist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

The "In America: Remember" public art installation in Washington, DC, commemorates all Americans who have died from Covid-19. On September 18, more than 660,000 small plastic flags were at the site, some with personal messages to those who died.  CNN

The United States -- arguably the most technologically advanced and the most powerful and wealthy country in the world -- has become the country whose experience in protecting its population and controlling the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 stands out as the most miserable of performances with few exceptions. Italy and Spain in Europe come to mind when thinking of COVID-control failures. But the United States stands out as the ultimate failure, given its advantages.

In the United States the COVID-19 pandemic has now surpassed the death toll of the 1918 influenza pandemic, a situation that most American experts feel was completely avoidable, once the miracle of effective and safe vaccines emerged. Now, from day one of the emergence of COVID-19 in the U.S. to the present, a total death count of 675,445 has been revealed in the account of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. A century ago the influenza pandemic killed 675,000 Americans.

 

The Oakland Municipal Auditorium in California was converted to a temporary hospital with volunteer nurses from the American Red Cross in 1918.

During the time of the great and deadly influenza epidemic there were no vaccines, and nor were there respirators. In this modern era of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic there are approved, efficacious and safe vaccines developed in a surprisingly short interval between the arrival of COVID and the first wave that shook the world. Medical science rose to the occasion enabling vast populations to be inoculated against the virus and promising to stop COVID in its tracks. It has done just that in some areas of the world, while many others are still struggling to achieve control.

In the United States, out of its total population of about 350 million people, 70 million Americans eligible to receive the vaccine doses and urged by the medical community and government agencies to do so, have refused. They are the vulnerable wedge that defeats the country's efforts to achieve a level of control over the virus. These are not vaccine-hesitant people who wait for more definitive data and assurances that those who have been vaccinated suffer no great harm -- but the hard-core anti-vaccination corps in society.

"To have so many people who have died with modern medicine is distressing. The number we are at represents a number that is far worse than it should be in the U.S.", stated Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Research Institute. This, at a time when the original virus's onslaught has succumbed to the Delta variant, a far more contagious mutant. The initial wave struck the country a hard blow until it leveled off, leaving the hope that the solution had been found, with vaccine availability.

Now, with the Delta variant representing the new face of COVID's destructive power the U.S. sees itself in a danerous new phase, fading the hope that control was close. There are some differences from the 1918 plague; there was a much smaller population in the U.S. at the tme The Influenza pandemic struck  young people, unlike COVID which to the present has been less of a threat to the young than it is to those 65 and older. The 1918 pandemic cut a swath of death in a 14-to15-week period. COVID-19 has lasted an interminable 18 months and is ongoing.

And then there is this to consider about numbers; the excess death total estimated out of the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the total number at 830,443 fatalities, leaving the possibility that the numbers cited could represent an undercount, a situation common to many countries as they struggle to decipher the damage wrought to population health. In the U.S. it was December of 2020 when the vaccinations became available for immediate use. Since that time, the great majority of  deaths have occurred among the unvaccinated.

"Vaccines are a paramount part of the strategy, but we have failed on other measures as well.

We're fighting this war with two hands behind our back", observed Eric Topol the Scripps director.

 

A nurse tends to a Covid patient at a hospital in Oklahoma City. Some hospitals in the worst-affected US states are rationing care due to the latest wave of the virus  Nick Oxford/Reuters

"Controlling the pandemic depends on two factors: the leadership provided by government and public behaviour." 

"On both fronts the U.S. has done poorly compared to other countries."

Dr. Ali Mokdad, professor of global health, University of Washington

"It is so frustrating that we are facing another Covid surge in hospitals, which could have been prevented." 

"About 99 per cent of COVID patients we see in ICU are unvaccinated . . . That is the impact of misinformation."

Matthew Crecelius, intensive care unit nurse, Michigan