For the first time this December, I’ll be joining Amnesty International’s annual Write-A-Thon, an effort of everyday through first professional people of all walks and nations, which effort asks various Eastern and Western hemisphere nations to abide by their Constitutions re those jailed either without trials or for simply showing interest in peaceful democracy-advocating movements.

Have I become an arch-hippie or some such? Not at all…I’m not advocating any nation on earth do or not do anything else, and point out in each letter that Constitutional adherences may more easily isolate which government(s) would or would not be cause(s) of terrorist codlings or other unpopular issues.

The recent bombings in Mumbai point out how when all nations, even all UN Security Council ones, are afraid or unwilling to act against a single rather small nation which (regardless of named leaders) admits terrorist use, not only are innocent lives lost as collateral damage to global hamstringings, big powers look like the anti-democracy acts of terrorists are the tacit warnings of big nations themselves.

An example: in the same year Chinese President Hu Jintao is shown in USA media bypassing officials and meeting with USA corporate heads, China imprisons a man for 10 years for the “crime” of using “Yahoo!” to contact a pro-democracy website. Instantly, some media and pundits accuse China of masterminding global economic woes; they throw in “clinchers” that China then provided so much global credit, including to Iran and Pakistan, it HAS to be THE nation blocking progress (later, “unless it’s Putin or how about…”).

Yet truth is, China doesn’t set USA or other non-Chinese protocols; in the Eastern hemisphere, even Iran…providing scads of oil to China…there accused China of backing the USA in the Mid East! A number of Mid East nations, led by those of opinion oil for leaders and sand for their people works for them, discourage involvement in democratic processes…and most use terror tactics or threats to ensure alternative fuels will languish while competing between themselves via their own “by from us or else!” quest for profits. Some Mid East nations will even do their own 180 turn on Saddam Hussein and say “the USA just grabbed for oil”; with the USA across an ocean as its troops disrupt westward terror movement, but China and Russia much closer to loose terror players, is it any wonder they sit on their hands re Pakistan, jab at the USA and democracy movements, and such, out of self-protection? Or ask Doudou Diene to paint the USA as racist to Muslims, racists to Latinos, or both, so more “has” to be spent avoiding such charges to break funds re Mid East troop presence/defense (as well as bankrupt Latinos, USA nationals, and all thereto immigrants, by coincidence), to shield against the rodomontades of their own hemispheric pundits and European Union critics?

Well, I don’t believe ANY nation on earth should be held hostage to an otherwise impotent blowhard simply issuing one press release for this hemisphere, another for that one…and playing all ends to a comfortable middle. Recently, as Pakistan with or without Mushareff admits using Qaeda to destabilize(?) Afghani Pashtun tribal leaders, Pakistani-based terrorists hit USA and UK targets (and Hindus!) in Mumbai; Mushareff in 1999 introduced the “Islam as race” article conflating Pakistani State Islam into a new “race” to extort from India, and it appears post-Mushareff that the beat goes on with added twist India’s trade/martial allies better back off “or else!”…no wonder a year ago China said its State Bank would concentrate on China alone, what with so many nations it lends to accruing sour images! But that may only make Pakistan MORE terror-exporting in its thirst for easy money for its leaders’ use…which doesn’t even seem to include their own people.

The biggest 20^th Century Cold War tactic was that some nations played big guys against each other, wagged their fingers at all of them, did nothing themselves, and took foreign aid from all sides to shut up. In the spirit of respectfully submitting that lawful treatment of political prisoners and peaceful democracy proponents is a step toward credibility that a nation isn’t a Cold War rekindler, or isn’t a proper recipient of certain criticisms, or both, or hoping to make cash as a “nag”, again, this is why as a Conservative I’m joining Amnesty International’s annual appeal for clemency and Constitutional conducts.

By the way, it’s also why I’m asking Obama voters to not be hard on him for not just zooming out of Iraq, and am asking election-losing Conservatives how it sounds to say “let things globally and USA rights-wise lie, even if not tethered to war on terror, and don’t worry…we can still do what we always do economically: force out X amount employees so they quit and get no unemployment insurance, then hire same X of even unqualifieds to same positions and claim we also created jobs…repeat as needed”.