Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

In reviewing the year that ended last night, there are two things that stand out in my mind as particularly significant for the world at large: the burgeoning refugee crisis and the environmental agreement that world leaders drafted at year’s end in Paris. One has been ongoing throughout the year (and decade) and is the direct consequence of the misery caused by constant war and violence, and it is now beginning to significantly affect the leader-nations in the West that, directly or indirectly, feed the source of the crisis—be it through proxy war interests, massive arms sales, political and/or material support for one belligerent or another, or simply through failure to seek a disinterested international humanitarian solution to the root cause of the problem.  The other is just beginning and is a manifestation of how world leaders are finally—very late in the game—waking up to the fact that their countries can no longer ignore the extreme damage that years of corrupt, self-interes