What would be the best way to resolve various crises in the Middle East?

Though the documentary shown during the breakout session today did not relate directly to the issues in the Middle East, various conflicts and disagreements did come up from time to time, namely the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Iraq. I suppose you could include Afghanistan and Iran in this, as well.

Now, in terms of circles of knowers, I'm pretty far removed from these conflicts, though I know there are Diploma Programme IB students at Poudre who are quite close.

Nevertheless, these are my ideas about how some of them might be resolved, or simply my opinions on what would be most just:

Israel/Palestine: Either allow the formation of a Palestinian state from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, put the region under control of the UN with input from both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, or eliminate the West Bank and Gaza Strip zones and incorporate the country under joint leadership, perhaps with a legislature composed half of Palestinians and half of Israelis and two prime ministers.

Iraq: The US needs to withdraw its troops, if not immediately definitely within a year or a year and a half. I'm also aware that there are conflicts between Shiite (Sh'ia) and Sunni Muslims as well as the Kurds. So far as I can tell, one of the main conflicts is that the plurality of the population is Shiite, so the Sunnis (who were in control prior to the US-led invasion) are concerned that a Shiite majority in the legislature will lead to the government ignoring the needs of Sunni Iraqis. The Kurds, on the other hand, want their independence, though I'm not clear on why it is denied them. I think the best solution seems to give the Kurds their independence (if this means taking territory containing a Kurdish majority from other countries to the north of Iraq do so). The Sunnis can either form their own government or join neighbouring Saudi Arabia (as I understand natural and economic resources are scarce in central Iraq, which is primarily populated by Sunnis). The Shiites can choose a new capital and form their own government in the South (primarily populated by Shiites). The other option is to either stick with the current government and try to even out the majorities either with or without the Kurds.

Disclaimer: these are to an extent just ramblings. As I said before, I am not very close to the issues mentioned here at all, and don't mean to offend anyone. Those who are more informed that I (Karam? Meredith?), please shed some more light on the issues and let us know how you think they might be resolved.

Seminar Movie

So I couldn't post on the seminar blog so i decided to post here!!!!! So in the movie there was one thing that i noticed that didn't really seem fair. It seemed like through out the movie, all of the countries were expected to know about America. and then they made fun of the Americans for not knowing about other cultures. It was like they expected the US to know to know about 5 other cultures when they only knew about 1. It would be interesting to ask them about cultures other than the US and see what they knew

Vincent

Magistrate Jostad has sent you an email!

Hey, It's a great day to be alive.

A new decision out of the Colorado Supreme Court today --- reversing thedistrict court's suppression of various statements --- Judge O'Hara up in Steamboat --- based upon the fact that the defendant was not in custody..... Well, I, of course, thought of you IB students --- you could read this decision and know what it means!! Might be a good question on an exam or something, eh?

Here's the opinion: http://www.cobar.org/opinions/opinion.cfm?opinionid=7034&courtid=2

Ms. King's class EQ test

If you are in Ms. King's third period class, please take the emotional intelligence test at the link below prior to coming to class on Friday. Please bring in a printout of your results.

http://queendom.com/tests/take_test.php?idRegTest=1121

Cheers,
Group 3

Logic and Girl Power

My sister sent me this video today. (It is the entrance video for this website which I have included below.) I doubt that she wanted me to dissect it for logical fallacies, but I guess that is sometimes what happens with an IB education. I think that video does have a very interesting message behind it. But what logical fallacies are they willing to commit to make a more powerful message?

www.girleffect.org

WATCH THE VIDEO BEFORE YOU READ ON, PLEASE.
The one generalization that bugs me the most in this video is that of the Girl in poverty. Granted, that is often the situation (from what I know) and is how the western media often displays it . . . but aren't they degrading the people which they are fighting to help? Are they dehumanizing them by clumping them all together?

Ethics in regards to law and justice... in a theatrical format

I just went to see Lobby Hero at the Bas Bleu Theatre and found it to be quite interesting to look at from a ToK perspective. The play discusses ethics, the law, and justice - somewhat applicable to our recent discussions, but also interesting of its own right. Just throwing this out to anyone here interested in theatre and ethics, among other things... more information can be found at the Bas Bleu website. [a warning: due to the setting of the show, profanity is very common in the dialogue...]

If/once you've seen the play, let me know what you think in the comments - if you haven't seen it yet and want to, beware of spoilers....

Logical fallacies

I stumbled upon this today while browsing the web, and given our recent lessons on logical fallacies, felt it appropriate to post here....



Source: http://xkcd.com/385/ - xkcd is a webcomic written by a former NASA roboticist and also has several other comics regarding various ToK topics...

Change?

Obama promised change for the government and for the people of America. Is he really going to bring change to Capitol Hill?

Black first family 'changes everything'

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/15/obama.family/index.html

I thought this was a very interesting article, and it certainly brings up some good questions. Is the media still portraying Blacks in a "dark light?"

define: torture

I thought I understood this unit, but apparently not. Perhaps this is because I have accepted the idea that there is an absolute truth to everything, and whether or not we can know it, it is always there. So, if something is, according to absolute truth based on reports from victims, torture, then how can it simply be defined differently, or remain undefined, and be acceptible under the Geneva Convention? Why, if something is not directly labeled by a government as torture, but is, why is it okay? I don't understand.

Torture's Terrible Toll

After reading the two positions on the issue of torture by John McCain and Sam Harris, where do you stand on the issue? Why? Which justifications and Ways of Knowing were the most convincing to you?

Belief-O-Matic

If you have been neglecting the seminar blog, there is an interesting post on religion that I recommend taking a peek at.