Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Maybe if you never call a war a war, you never have to call peace peace.
North Korea wants a peace treaty before beginning denuclearization. South Korea wants a peace treaty, period. The U.S., which conducted the war in violation of the U.S. Constitution, is still resisting.
How the U.S. Helped Prevent North Korea and South Korea From Reaching Real Peace in the 1950s by Michael Pembroke (Time)
The Long War
A new 'Costs of War' report published by Brown University's Watson Institute shows the actual costs incurred by the U.S. as part of its global 'war on terror' that widely contradicts the cost of war figures put together by the Pentagon in its report.
Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include:
370,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
It is likely that many times more than 370,000 people have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
200,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.
Over 6,800 US soldiers have died in the wars.
We do not know the full extent of how many US service members returning from these wars became injured or ill while deployed.
Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been reported as required by law, but it is likely that at least 6,900 have been killed.
10.1 million million Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons, in grossly inadequate conditions.*
The US has made an estimated 76 drone strikes in Yemen, making the US arguably at war in that country.
The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.
US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.
The cost for the Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan wars totals about $4.8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion through 2054.
The ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.
Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from political power and experience high rates of unemployment and war widowhood.
Compelling alternatives to war were scarcely considered in the aftermath of 9/11 or in the discussion about war against Iraq. Some of those alternatives are still available to the US.
* Source: The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) (2015).
Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include:
370,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
It is likely that many times more than 370,000 people have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
200,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.
Over 6,800 US soldiers have died in the wars.
We do not know the full extent of how many US service members returning from these wars became injured or ill while deployed.
Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been reported as required by law, but it is likely that at least 6,900 have been killed.
10.1 million million Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons, in grossly inadequate conditions.*
The US has made an estimated 76 drone strikes in Yemen, making the US arguably at war in that country.
The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.
US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.
The cost for the Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan wars totals about $4.8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion through 2054.
The ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.
Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from political power and experience high rates of unemployment and war widowhood.
Compelling alternatives to war were scarcely considered in the aftermath of 9/11 or in the discussion about war against Iraq. Some of those alternatives are still available to the US.
* Source: The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) (2015).
Newspeak
"War is Peace" has been the watchword of U.S. foreign policy for decades. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama: each liked to wave his gun around. Dropping bombs on people is a presidential pastime, because it is as easy as ordering dessert and, for the commander in chief, politically risk free, American voters valuing as they do looking tough over being tough. Joining the Democrats in rechristening the various military adventures he inherited as "Trump's wars" will not end militarism. To succeed, the peace movement, should it remobilize, will need to take on both parties. Both are drenched in blood.
You don't just get to break things
Since the Middle East refugee crisis is a consequence of America's militarized foreign policy, doesn't it follow that we have a moral responsibility to lend a hand to its victims?
Germany, with a population of about 80 million, is admitting between 200,000 and 300,000 displaced persons; since we are about four times bigger (and have a lot more room), in fairness, shouldn't we invite 800,000 and 1,200,000 souls to relocate here?
Alternatively, or additionally, shouldn't we mount a Marshall Plan-style program targeted on Greece, which not only is suffering the most from the influx of refugees but is also the victim of the predator banks that we unleashed?
The Long War is almost exclusively a U.S. project. Don't we have an obligation to take responsibility for what we've wrought?
Every important movement faces significant push-back
That doesn’t mean it won’t succeed.
One of the hardest things for activists to hold in mind is that they are not alone. Most people, however well-intentioned, will wait for what Martin Luther King called a "more convenient season" to move to action. So the activist must not only organize but represent.
One of the hardest things for activists to hold in mind is that they are not alone. Most people, however well-intentioned, will wait for what Martin Luther King called a "more convenient season" to move to action. So the activist must not only organize but represent.
'It’s worth remembering that the civil rights protesters of the 1950s and ’60s faced as much derision then as the Ferguson and New York protesters do today … probably more. In 1964, the American National Election Studies, as part of its biennial survey, began asking Americans whether they thought civil rights leaders “are trying to push too fast, are going too slowly, or are … moving about the right speed.” The responses are most telling. Among whites, 84 percent of Southerners, and 64 percent of non-Southerners, said that civil rights leaders were pushing too fast."The rest of the story: For most, there's never a right time to protest by Seth Masket (Pacific-Standard)
The War Party outvotes the Democrats and Republicans
This is not an endorsement of his candidacy -- no doubt there are other issues to consider, but it's worth noting that in his campaign Ted Lieu, one of the horde running to succeed Henry Waxman, has taken a stand against unconstitutional domestic spying.
That this is important is demonstrated by the fact that Jim Sensenbrenner's Orwellian USA Freedom Act just breezed through the House, 303-121 (here's the roll, if you want to see how your rep voted). Most members from both parties are eager to continue unconstitutional, warrant-less bulk spying against U.S. citizens. Leaders of the opposition included the reliable Florida firebrand Alan Grayson and our own Zoe Lofgren, who in debate said "regrettably, we have learned that if we leave any ambiguity in the law, the intelligence agencies run a truck right through that ambiguity."
Only 70 Democrats and 51 Republicans voted against the bill, which enables and codifies large-scale, unconstitutional domestic spying. No incumbent who voted for this monstrosity (looking at you, Nancy Pelosi) deserves your vote on June 3rd or in November. Many CA Democrats did vote to protect constitutional rights, but citizens in places like Mill Valley, the Bay Area, Davis, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, the Coachella Valley and San Diego need to ask themselves if they are outraged enough to withhold their support from the likes of Pelosi, Jared Huffman, John Garamendi, Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, Ami Bera, Jim Costa, Lois Capps, Julia Brownley, Judy Chu, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Grace Napolitano, Raul Ruiz, Linda Sánchez, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Maxine Waters, Juan Vargas, Scott Peters and Susan Davis.
With so many candidates in contention, the open primary next month gives you an opportunity to express your support for constitutional government.
That this is important is demonstrated by the fact that Jim Sensenbrenner's Orwellian USA Freedom Act just breezed through the House, 303-121 (here's the roll, if you want to see how your rep voted). Most members from both parties are eager to continue unconstitutional, warrant-less bulk spying against U.S. citizens. Leaders of the opposition included the reliable Florida firebrand Alan Grayson and our own Zoe Lofgren, who in debate said "regrettably, we have learned that if we leave any ambiguity in the law, the intelligence agencies run a truck right through that ambiguity."
Only 70 Democrats and 51 Republicans voted against the bill, which enables and codifies large-scale, unconstitutional domestic spying. No incumbent who voted for this monstrosity (looking at you, Nancy Pelosi) deserves your vote on June 3rd or in November. Many CA Democrats did vote to protect constitutional rights, but citizens in places like Mill Valley, the Bay Area, Davis, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, the Coachella Valley and San Diego need to ask themselves if they are outraged enough to withhold their support from the likes of Pelosi, Jared Huffman, John Garamendi, Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, Ami Bera, Jim Costa, Lois Capps, Julia Brownley, Judy Chu, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Grace Napolitano, Raul Ruiz, Linda Sánchez, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Maxine Waters, Juan Vargas, Scott Peters and Susan Davis.
With so many candidates in contention, the open primary next month gives you an opportunity to express your support for constitutional government.
Third party? Now? How about now? No? Maybe now?
The arguments for a People's Party become ever more compelling. Clinging to the faith that the Democrats any more than the Republicans will dismantle the corporate-security state is like believing in angels.
In a new book, Ralph Nader reminds us that the militarization of American diplomacy began with Bill Clinton and that Obama has doubled down on the excesses of George Bush and Dick Cheney. In Unstoppable, Nader demands an end to “unconstitutional wars and unchecked militarism.” Barack Obama, he writes, “has extended the Bush doctrine by declaring his unilateral right, as secret prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, to destroy anybody, anywhere in the world, including American citizens, suspected to be engaged in alleged terrorist activities, all this vaguely and loosely defined as anti-U.S. security," extending the illegal reach of wars of choice, invasions, incursions, and drone attacks, without regard for international law or national boundaries.
For the average citizen, the growth of corporate power bolstered by the security apparatus has been matched by a corresponding decline in quality of life. Enough is enough. Building new organizations, like a third party, and restoring old ones, like the Labor Movement, to challenge the status quo will not be easy. But without that effort, our national decline, now in its fifth decade. will continue until it is irreversible.
Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State by Ralph Nader (Amazon Kindle).
In a new book, Ralph Nader reminds us that the militarization of American diplomacy began with Bill Clinton and that Obama has doubled down on the excesses of George Bush and Dick Cheney. In Unstoppable, Nader demands an end to “unconstitutional wars and unchecked militarism.” Barack Obama, he writes, “has extended the Bush doctrine by declaring his unilateral right, as secret prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, to destroy anybody, anywhere in the world, including American citizens, suspected to be engaged in alleged terrorist activities, all this vaguely and loosely defined as anti-U.S. security," extending the illegal reach of wars of choice, invasions, incursions, and drone attacks, without regard for international law or national boundaries.
For the average citizen, the growth of corporate power bolstered by the security apparatus has been matched by a corresponding decline in quality of life. Enough is enough. Building new organizations, like a third party, and restoring old ones, like the Labor Movement, to challenge the status quo will not be easy. But without that effort, our national decline, now in its fifth decade. will continue until it is irreversible.
Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State by Ralph Nader (Amazon Kindle).
Empire: "They" just don't have our "values"
A benefit of Ron Paul's quixotic presidential run is realized when he asks his audiences to walk in the shoes of people on the receiving end of our program of "exporting democracy." How would we feel if a foreign army rolled down our streets, occupied our capital, used drones, missiles and Apache helicopters to rain terror on the heads of our children? As for the rest, as Winslow Myers writes,
The rest of the story: Occupying Fears About Iran by Winslow Myers (Consortium News 2012-01-07).
Winslow Myers, the author of Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide, serves on the board of Beyond War, a non-profit educational foundation whose mission is to explore, model and promote the means for humanity to live without war.
See, also: Recognizing the "Unpeople" by Noam Chomsky (Truthout 2012-01-07)
End of the pro-democracy pretense by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2012-01-03)
candidate Mitt Romney demagogues the security issue by advocating more “full-spectrum dominance,” or candidate Rick Santorum waxes bellicose about doing more to stop Iran’s nuclear program; Barack Obama is forced to maintain his own cred by dubious if popular ventures like high-tech extra-judicial assassinations.As we build toward a hot war with Iran, it is worth examining how our attitude toward nuclear arms is animated by the same cultural biases.
“Our” nuclear weapons are justified by our need for security, while “theirs” indicate an unacceptable aggressiveness.Parenthetically, will there be a peace candidate -- will someone stand against militarism and empire -- in November?
The rest of the story: Occupying Fears About Iran by Winslow Myers (Consortium News 2012-01-07).
Winslow Myers, the author of Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide, serves on the board of Beyond War, a non-profit educational foundation whose mission is to explore, model and promote the means for humanity to live without war.
See, also: Recognizing the "Unpeople" by Noam Chomsky (Truthout 2012-01-07)
End of the pro-democracy pretense by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2012-01-03)
Afghanistan: Enough, already.
"Simply put, we believe the human and financial costs of the war are unacceptable and unsustainable. It is bankrupting us. The United States should devise an exit plan to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan, not a plan to stay there four more years and 'then we'll see.' This doesn't mean that we abandon the Afghan people - rather, we should abandon this war strategy. It is a failure that has not brought stability to Afghanistan and has not enhanced our own security. As the retired career Army officer Andrew J. Bacevich has written, to die for a mystique is the wrong policy.
"It is easier for politicians to 'go along' rather than make waves. But we were elected to do the right thing, not what is politically expedient. The discussion of Afghanistan shouldn't be about politics, which we acknowledge are difficult, but what is right for our country. And the right thing is to end this war." -- Rep. James P. McGovern(D-MA) and Rep. Walter B. Jones(R-NC).
The rest of the story: The solution in Afghanistan: Get out. (Washington Post 2011-02-18).
"It is easier for politicians to 'go along' rather than make waves. But we were elected to do the right thing, not what is politically expedient. The discussion of Afghanistan shouldn't be about politics, which we acknowledge are difficult, but what is right for our country. And the right thing is to end this war." -- Rep. James P. McGovern(D-MA) and Rep. Walter B. Jones(R-NC).
The rest of the story: The solution in Afghanistan: Get out. (Washington Post 2011-02-18).
Peace & Justice: A few thoughts from MLK this holiday weekend
"...three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical infantilism: racial injustice, poverty, and war." -- Rev. Martin Luther King, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
Peace & Justice: Martin Luther King's Legacy
Peter Rothberg writes in The Nation:
A Bold Design for a New South, March 30, 1963
Hammer of Civil Rights, March 8, 1964
Let Justice Roll Down, March 15, 1965
The Last Steep Ascent, March 14, 1966
In the mid-1960s, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. contributed an annual essay to The Nation on the state of civil rights and race relations in the United States. His last piece, from March 14, 1966, could have been written today: "Jobs are harder to create than voting rolls. Harmonizing of peoples of vastly different cultural levels is complicated and frequently abrasive."Here are links to the essays:
A Bold Design for a New South, March 30, 1963
Hammer of Civil Rights, March 8, 1964
Let Justice Roll Down, March 15, 1965
The Last Steep Ascent, March 14, 1966
Thanks to YouTube we can also watch King's remarkable oratory like the I Have a Dream speech delivered on the national mall in Washington, DC in 1963, near the spot where Barack Obama took his oath of office two years ago.
Peace Games: Part of the way with... oh, never mind.
"You all are combat troops not doing a combat mission, although it looks, smells and feels and hurts a lot like combat." -- Lt. Col. Andy Ulrich, Hawija, Iraq (August 31, 2010).You may remember a time when Barack Obama was widely admired for a speaking style that was compelling and forthright. Even when you disagreed with him, as I did during his late run for the White House, you admired the clarity, directness and emotional uplift of his addresses. So you had to be disappointed with his uninspiring performance last Tuesday, even as you sympathized with the spot he's in. The chasm between the American self-image as the defender of freedom and justice and its true role as the enforcer of class and property rights around the globe has become so vast that no U.S. politician can be clear and forthright about anything.
The president's immediate problem Tuesday was that he was trying to paint the lipstick of withdrawal on the pig of our continuing occupation of Iraq.
However you describe the actions of the 50,000 plus troops and many more thousands of "security contractors" who remain in Iraq, "it looks, smells and feels and hurts a lot like combat." A mission statement is a form of marketing: it is meaningless without action. The new mission statement for Iraq can't alter reality; as Matthew Yglesias wrote yesterday on American Prospect, "there's simply no redeeming an irredeemable mission." All Obama's version of "mission accomplished" really offered was another opportunity for George Orwell to roll over in his grave.
The most chilling aspect of the speech was its unequivocal embrace of American militarism (the expenditure of "vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home," as he accurately put it). Even as he admitted that "our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work," the president had no concrete proposals to take us from making war to creating jobs.
Somehow in the past two years the Iraq war has mutated in Obama's mind from something illegal and "dumb" to the penultimate stop in an unbroken line of heroic actions "that stretches from Lexington to Gettysburg; from Iwo Jima to Inchon; from Khe Sanh to Kandahar," an "unbroken line" that the president presumably knows includes a barbarous civil war and almost continuous episodes of territorial expansion, genocide, colonial brutality, war crimes and unprovoked aggression. Khe Sanh, for pete's sake (along with the Tet Offensive, it was Khe Sanh that turned the tide of public opinion against the war in Vietnam).
Ultimately the speech was less about the conclusion of military operations in Iraq than it was a billboard for American militarism in general ("the steel in our ship of state") and in particular this Democratic administration's embrace of permanent war in Afghanistan ("As we speak, al Qaeda continues to plot against us" -- all four or five dozen of them). The peace movement and the left in general have some tough decisions ahead. It is clear by now that taking sides reflexively with the Democrats in every fight ends with being taken for granted by the party's leaders on every front. There may be times when supporting a pro-military Democrat makes sense -- because he or she has been a reliable ally (in the fight for affordable, universal health care, say, or for equal rights under the law), but it is becoming increasingly difficult to take seriously on economic justice issues those Democrats that support aggressive militarism and runaway DOD spending.
The Democratic Party needs to learn that progressives are serious about change.
Are we?
Happy Fourth of July
It is going on 40 years since Phil Ochs composed some of the quintessential songs of the folk era. The creator of The War Is Over would be appalled, though, that I Ain't Marching Anymore and What Are You Fighting For? have lost none of their relevance. I still miss Phil.
The Long War: "...a fool’s errand." - Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has joined the Out of Afghanistan Congressional Caucus in opposing the war in Afghanistan and speaking out against the war’s continued funding.
“Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we waste there, is a waste,” said Nadler. “An intelligent policy is not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed.…It will take tens of years, hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, and we don’t need to do it. We don’t need to do it. We, frankly, have no right to do it. It’s a fool’s errand, and I just hope and pray that we get wise enough to stop sending our young men and women to waste their lives there, and our money that could be used to prop up our own people.”
Below is the text of Nadler’s remarks, as delivered:
“Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we waste there, is a waste,” said Nadler. “An intelligent policy is not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed.…It will take tens of years, hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, and we don’t need to do it. We don’t need to do it. We, frankly, have no right to do it. It’s a fool’s errand, and I just hope and pray that we get wise enough to stop sending our young men and women to waste their lives there, and our money that could be used to prop up our own people.”
Below is the text of Nadler’s remarks, as delivered:
I am Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York. I got started in politics in opposition to the war in Vietnam because we thought that it was a mistake. I don’t think that too many historians would disagree today – that every dollar spent and every life wasted in Vietnam was just that – a waste. It did not enhance the security of this country by one bit because it was based on a false premise.
Afghanistan is the same. Every dollar we spend, every life we waste, is a waste. It does not enhance the security of the United States, which is what ought to be our goal. We were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is our enemy and we must fight them. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan; it made sense to go in and destroy those bases, and we did. We have every right, we have every duty to destroy bases, to take out bases that are being used to plot attacks on the United States. But we are told today that there are fewer than one hundred Al Qaeda personnel in all of Afghanistan – their bases are in Pakistan, but we are not invading Pakistan. They have bases in Somalia and Yemen, but we are not invading Somalia and Yemen, G-d forbid we should.
An intelligent policy might be to attack the bases from which mayhem is being plotted against the United States wherever they are. An intelligent policy is not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed. No government in Afghanistan, no government in Kabul, has ever been able to make its run and rule the country.
Why have we undertaken to invent a government that is not supported by the majority of the people, that is corrupt, and to impose its will, to impose it on the country? Afghanistan is in the middle of what is, at this point, a 35 year civil war. We have no business intervening in that civil war, we have no ability to win it for one side or the other, and we have no necessity to win it for one side or the other. We have the duty to make sure that bases are not used, but bases can be attacked, specific bases. We don’t have to – this whole idea of counter-insurgency, that we are going to persuade the people, those left alive after our firepower is applied, to love the government that we like is absurd.
It will take tens of years, hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, and we don’t need to do it. We don’t need to do it. We, frankly, have no right to do it. It’s their country. If they want to have a civil war, we can’t stop them. We can’t choose the rulers that they have, we don’t have to like the rulers that they have, we don’t have to like their choices. It’s not up to us.
We should not be spending – aside from making sure that specific bases are not being used against us – we should not be spending a nickel, should not be wasting a life. And the lives that are being spent there by our brave men and women are being wasted, because they’re being spent in pursuit of an unintelligent, unthought-through, unachievable, and unnecessary goal.
So we ought to pull our troops out as rapidly as possible, and I don’t mean by as rapidly as possible as soon as the Afghans can take over. Why are all the Afghans fighting on the other side? We can’t train the Afghans on our side to fight, why? Not because they’re not bright, not because they’re any less literate or more literate than the Taliban. Because the people fighting on our side have no will. They don’t have the motive. You can’t instill that. If they had the will and the motive they wouldn’t need our help. Without the will and the motive, our help cannot help.
So, it’s a fool’s errand, and I just hope and pray that we get wise enough to stop sending our young men and women to waste their lives there, and our money that could be used to prop up our own people.
The Long War: Endless. Pointless.
"Ultimately, the public is at fault for this catastrophe in Afghanistan, where more than 1,000 G.I.’s have now lost their lives. If we don’t have the courage as a people to fight and share in the sacrifices when our nation is at war, if we’re unwilling to seriously think about the war and hold our leaders accountable for the way it is conducted, if we’re not even willing to pay for it, then we should at least have the courage to pull our valiant forces out of it." -- The Courage to Leave by Bob Herbert (New York Times 2010-06-11)
Politics: California Democrats should write in peace
On primary day, one symptom of the dysfunction of the California Left is the free ride given to generally liberal representatives, such as Brad Sherman in the 27th CD, who support the security state. It's not that a peace candidate would be expected to prevail, but that voters should have the opportunity to express their opinions on our militarized foreign policy.
Although, like his Valley colleague Howard Berman, he is too liberal to pledge the fraternity of congressional Blue Dogs (whose past and present members, for context, include the likes of former Richard Nixon aid Walter Minnick, Travis Childers, Heath Shuler, Harold Ford Jr., Kirsten Gillibrand, Gary Condit, GOP converts Parker Griffith, Ralph Hall and Blue Dog-founder now mega-lobbyist Billy Tauzin), on foreign affairs and military issues Sherman's record is practically indistinguishable from other Democratic supporters of the military-industrial complex, such as Jane Harman, who are more frank about their political allegiances. On a press call last week with a right-wing pro-Israel organization he revealed his plan to seek the prosecution of any Americans on board the aid flotilla that attempted to break the Israeli siege of Gaza. Citing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Sherman said he’ll ask “the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what was clearly an effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization.” Gee, does that apply to U.S.citizens who enlist in the IDF, too?
As they go to the polls today to try to shoot down such corporate-sponsored mischief as Props 16 and 17, liberal voters, especially in precincts represented by dogs, might consider writing in protest votes for persons, such as MLK or Gandhi, identified with non-violence. Only in the 36th CD, where Marcy Winograd is campaigning hard against Jane Harman, does a dog face a serious challenge, but it would be news if other BDs such as Adam Schiff, Jim Costa, Dennis Cardoza, Loretta Sanchez, Joe Baca and Mike Thompson inspired measurable peace tallies. Also, it's worth remembering that so-called progressives like Lynn Woolsey, Henry Waxman and others in the Incumbent Self-Protection League went out of their way to endorse Harman over Winograd. As long as the Obama administration and Congressional leadership continue to pursue illegal, ill-conceived and counter-productive actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, withholding votes from all but the handful of actively anti-war Democrats makes political sense.
Although, like his Valley colleague Howard Berman, he is too liberal to pledge the fraternity of congressional Blue Dogs (whose past and present members, for context, include the likes of former Richard Nixon aid Walter Minnick, Travis Childers, Heath Shuler, Harold Ford Jr., Kirsten Gillibrand, Gary Condit, GOP converts Parker Griffith, Ralph Hall and Blue Dog-founder now mega-lobbyist Billy Tauzin), on foreign affairs and military issues Sherman's record is practically indistinguishable from other Democratic supporters of the military-industrial complex, such as Jane Harman, who are more frank about their political allegiances. On a press call last week with a right-wing pro-Israel organization he revealed his plan to seek the prosecution of any Americans on board the aid flotilla that attempted to break the Israeli siege of Gaza. Citing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Sherman said he’ll ask “the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what was clearly an effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization.” Gee, does that apply to U.S.citizens who enlist in the IDF, too?
As they go to the polls today to try to shoot down such corporate-sponsored mischief as Props 16 and 17, liberal voters, especially in precincts represented by dogs, might consider writing in protest votes for persons, such as MLK or Gandhi, identified with non-violence. Only in the 36th CD, where Marcy Winograd is campaigning hard against Jane Harman, does a dog face a serious challenge, but it would be news if other BDs such as Adam Schiff, Jim Costa, Dennis Cardoza, Loretta Sanchez, Joe Baca and Mike Thompson inspired measurable peace tallies. Also, it's worth remembering that so-called progressives like Lynn Woolsey, Henry Waxman and others in the Incumbent Self-Protection League went out of their way to endorse Harman over Winograd. As long as the Obama administration and Congressional leadership continue to pursue illegal, ill-conceived and counter-productive actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, withholding votes from all but the handful of actively anti-war Democrats makes political sense.
The Long War: Educating Congress
A little sad that we need
A Teach In on Capitol Hill: What Congress Must Do to End U.S. Wars and Help Secure a Peaceful Middle East
What: An Educational briefing on the U. S. agenda in the Middle East, its consequences and development of a strategy/plan to withdraw. Emphasis will be on constructive, interactive dialogue among panelists and attendees.
When: Thursday, April 29, 2010, 1:45pm – 4:00pm
Where: Gold Room (2168), Rayburn House Office Building, Independence Ave and C Street SW, Washington, D.C.
Moderator: Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D - Ohio)
Panel: Chris Hedges, Jeremy Scahill, David Swanson, Ann Wright
Free and open to the public, the media, members and staff of Congress; beverages will be served
Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Princeton University. He left the Times after being issued a formal reprimand for denouncing the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. He has written nine books, including Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the international best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has won numerous awards for his reporting, including the prestigious George Polk Award, which he won twice. While a correspondent for Democracy Now!, Scahill reported extensively from Iraq through both the Clinton and Bush administrations. He has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS’s The NewsHour, Bill Moyers Journal and is a frequent guest on other radio and TV programs nationwide.
David Swanson is the author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. He holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson is Co-Founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, creator of ProsecuteBushCheney.org, and Washington Director of Democrats.com, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, Voters for Peace, and the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, and chair of the Robert Jackson Steering Committee. AfterDowningStreet was named Most Valuable Progressive by The Nation Magazine in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
Ann Wright spent thirteen years in the U.S. Army and sixteen additional years in the Army Reserves, retiring as a Colonel. In 1987, she joined the Foreign Service and served as U.S. Deputy Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the evacuation of 2,500 people from the civil war in Sierra Leone, the largest evacuation since Saigon. She was on the first State Department team to go to Afghanistan and helped reopen the Embassy there in December 2001. On March 19, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wright cabled a letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stating that without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil-rich country would be a disaster. She is a member of Veterans for Peace and is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Sponsors: EndUSWars.org, AfterDowningStreet.org, Code Pink: Women for Peace, Democrats.com, Progressive Democrats of America, The Nation, and Gray Panthers of Metro Washington.
Contact: Herb Hoffman, 207-646-5431 or pala at maine.rr.com
...but we do.
A Teach In on Capitol Hill: What Congress Must Do to End U.S. Wars and Help Secure a Peaceful Middle East
What: An Educational briefing on the U. S. agenda in the Middle East, its consequences and development of a strategy/plan to withdraw. Emphasis will be on constructive, interactive dialogue among panelists and attendees.
When: Thursday, April 29, 2010, 1:45pm – 4:00pm
Where: Gold Room (2168), Rayburn House Office Building, Independence Ave and C Street SW, Washington, D.C.
Moderator: Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D - Ohio)
Panel: Chris Hedges, Jeremy Scahill, David Swanson, Ann Wright
Free and open to the public, the media, members and staff of Congress; beverages will be served
Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Princeton University. He left the Times after being issued a formal reprimand for denouncing the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. He has written nine books, including Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the international best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has won numerous awards for his reporting, including the prestigious George Polk Award, which he won twice. While a correspondent for Democracy Now!, Scahill reported extensively from Iraq through both the Clinton and Bush administrations. He has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS’s The NewsHour, Bill Moyers Journal and is a frequent guest on other radio and TV programs nationwide.
David Swanson is the author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. He holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson is Co-Founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, creator of ProsecuteBushCheney.org, and Washington Director of Democrats.com, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, Voters for Peace, and the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, and chair of the Robert Jackson Steering Committee. AfterDowningStreet was named Most Valuable Progressive by The Nation Magazine in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
Ann Wright spent thirteen years in the U.S. Army and sixteen additional years in the Army Reserves, retiring as a Colonel. In 1987, she joined the Foreign Service and served as U.S. Deputy Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the evacuation of 2,500 people from the civil war in Sierra Leone, the largest evacuation since Saigon. She was on the first State Department team to go to Afghanistan and helped reopen the Embassy there in December 2001. On March 19, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wright cabled a letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stating that without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil-rich country would be a disaster. She is a member of Veterans for Peace and is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Sponsors: EndUSWars.org, AfterDowningStreet.org, Code Pink: Women for Peace, Democrats.com, Progressive Democrats of America, The Nation, and Gray Panthers of Metro Washington.
Contact: Herb Hoffman, 207-646-5431 or pala at maine.rr.com
...but we do.
The Long War: A murderous action by U.S. forces -- caught on tape
In the longer piece on Peace Action West that this is cut from, Rebecca Griffin argues that we must face the "truly horrifying" costs of the American military adventure in Afghanistan.
"Light 'em all up."
In the years since the "incident," as Reuters has tried to uncover what happened, U.S. military authorities have stonewalled, whitewashing the horrific actions of our gunners as within the rules of engagement. Watch the video: if these fighters are acting within officially sanctioned parameters, then the rules need to be changed. You can't win the hearts and minds of people by murdering them.
In the video, there are two separate attacks on civilians on the ground: at the first, the gunships fire on an unthreatening group whose main offense seems to be that they are men of fighting age; then they unload on a van of people attempting to tend to the wounded and dying from the first attack. The pilots and gunners sound both bloodthirsty and oddly detached, like teenage boys yelling "Kill! Kill! Kill!" in a video arcade.
Although from the air, the helicopter crews couldn't have known that children were in the cab of the Good Samaritans' van -- "Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Haha," American reliance on massive preemptive force makes the killing of civilians certain -- premeditated -- and therefore criminal. Firing on a van of medical workers doesn't spawn political martyrs, it makes real ones. If soldiers who commit acts like these are not held accountable, more such tragedies will be impossible to avoid. Of course, if we weren't there at all, such tragedies would be impossible to occur.
The Afghan war itself is counter-productive and stupid as policy and needs to be brought swiftly to a conclusion. In any war, it is a certainty that some innocent people will be harmed. But Obama's expansion of this war -- essentially an intervention in a civil war -- is especially tragic, because the certainty of the outcome -- the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from the country -- and the willingness of the other side to negotiate create the conditions for a swift settlement.
The Obama administration, which claims to prefer diplomacy to force, could use the threat of immediate withdrawal to make Karzai negotiate a deal with the Taliban (an outcome made all the easier now that the Afghan president has threatened to join the Taliban as his way of punishing the Americans for criticizing his gangsterish regime). The sooner an agreement is reached the more the Taliban will be deterred from expanding its influence beyond its sanctuaries in the south and east, the more U.S. gains in the recent fighting can be consolidated, and the more reduced will be the opportunities for corruption and fraud in the areas controlled from Kabul.
Even assuming that the entry into Afghanistan was unavoidable in the aftermath of 9/11, there is little question that the project has soured and cannot be won militarily. Comparisons to the Vietnam war are inexact, but there is one eerie echo from that conflict: we appear to be destroying Afghanistan in the effort to save it. Dialogue and serious compromise are far more likely to produce a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan than blasting villagers from helicopters and pilotless drones.
Obama will not be able to go into the next presidential campaign without progress toward peace in the region, which means that there will be a sit-down with the Taliban sooner or later. Sooner is infinitely preferable. If the corrupt, inept Karzai is an obstruction to peace, he can easily be bargained away as part of the final deal (someone should slip Karzai a copy of the biography of Vietnam's President Diem -- it's possible he takes American rhetoric seriously; it's probably better for all concerned if he finds out now with whom he's in bed).
A negotiated settlement soon would not only save American and Afghan lives, but would avoid a precipitate withdrawal just before 2012 that would embarrass the American president and leave Afghanistan in ruins. Surely we'd rather spend our billions rebuilding the country than destroying it. Better to negotiate a compromise that takes into account the aspirations of both sides in the conflict (by which I mean Kabul and the Taliban) for the future of the country than to continue a policy that is to the advantage of no one. One thing all sides can probably agree on: Afghanistan's future must not, will not, can not include occupation by American troops.
The rest of the story: Debate war as it is, not as you want it to be by Rebecca Griffin (Peace Action West Groundswell Blog 2010-04-06)
Transcript of the audio from the WikiLeaks video
Like Abu Graib, defenders of American militarism will claim the actions on this video are aberrant. But graphic combat porn is pretty easy to find:
Special Forces Firefight with Insurgents in Iraq (night time); Night Attack on Al Qaeda; Mosul Firefight as music video; Iraq - AH-64 Apache; Asaeb Ahul Haqq RPG attack; etc. ad infinitum.
“This Is How These Soldiers Were Trained to Act”–Veteran of Military Unit Involved in 2007 Baghdad Helicopter Shooting Says Incident Is Part of Much Larger Problem (Democracy Now 2010-04-12).
Veterans of Wikileaks video write "Letter of Reconciliation" to Iraqis Injured in Attack (Civilian-Soldier Alliance): Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord, members of Bravo Company 2-16, are making a stand against the war and are rallying supporters. Go to LetterToIraq.com to read the letter they are sending to the Iraqis who survived the Apache attack
.
Actions: Donate to Peace Action West. Help provide information and support to those in the military on ways of standing up for their beliefs through work being done with the GI Rights Hotline. If you are a veteran or service-member, see Iraq Veterans Against the War or Courage to Resist's websites to get involved in anti-war work. Support and spread the word about the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, embracing those within the military or veteran communities who want to talk about their experiences and work towards other options. Question the training that our government and our tax money puts our impressionable young people through: if we object to this video, we need to look at what training led to it. Check out books like On Killing and pressure political and military leaders to reconsider the psychological methods that teach soldiers to dehumanize. Look at what we teach our children, work towards starting peace studies programs in your schools. Question where our tax money is really going and why so much is spent on warfare. Inform yourself on the deeper priorities of our society by watching for example, The Story of Stuff and ask yourself if your lifestyle is contributing to those mistaken priorities.
by Rebecca Griffin
The US military admitted earlier this week that US special operations forces killed five innocent civilians in Gardez, including two pregnant women. The two women leave behind sixteen motherless children. While the military has denied any kind of cover-up of the raid, there were signs of evidence tampering at the scene:
And in what would be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”Civilian casualties have been a continued source of outrage in Afghanistan, and General McChrystal has received praise for his attempts to lower the number of civilian casualties. While the intent is admirable, it is unrealistic in practice. McChrystal recently commented on their inability to decrease the number of shootings of innocent people at military checkpoints with the startling admission that, “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.”
A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemary Bashary, said that he did not have any information about the Afghan investigation, which he said remained unfinished.
In an interview, a NATO official said the Afghan-led investigation team alerted American and NATO commanders that the inquiry had found signs of evidence tampering. A briefing was given by investigators to General McChrystal and other military officials in late March.
“There was evidence of tampering at the scene, walls being washed, bullets dug out of holes in the wall,” the NATO official said, adding that investigators “couldn’t find bullets from the wounds in the body.”
Following this tragic story comes the release of a video of US soldiers in a helicopter firing on civilians in Iraq as though they were in a video game. The soldiers killed over a dozen people in the suburb of New Baghdad, including two journalists working for Reuters. (Warning: the video is disturbing and contains some explicit language.)
Wikileaks received the video and supporting documents from military whistleblowers and the Pentagon has confirmed that the video is authentic. It paints a disturbing picture of soldiers shooting into a group of mostly unarmed civilians, and at times laughing about it, with authorization from their superiors. When a van arrives to pick up the wounded and dead, they open fire, wounding two children. One of the pilots can be heard saying, “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”
Julian Assange of Wikileaks made an important point about the nature of the video on Democracy Now this morning:
What’s important to remember is that every step that the Apache takes in opening fire is authorized. It does pause before shooting. It explains the situation, sometimes exaggerating a little to its commanders, and gets authorized permission.The Pentagon has stated that an investigation was already held into the incident and no one is being charged with wrongdoing.
These are not bad apples. This is standard practice. You can hear it from the tones of the voices of the pilots that this is in fact another day at the office. These pilots have evidently and gunners have evidently become so corrupted, morally corrupted, by the war that they are looking for excuses to kill. That is why you hear this segment, “Come on, buddy! Just pick up a weapon,” when Saeed, one of the Reuters employees, is crawling on the curb. They don’t want him for intelligence value to understand the situation. The man is clearly of no threat whatsoever. He’s prostate on the ground. Everyone else has been killed. They just want an excuse to kill. And it’s some kind of—appears to me to be some kind of video game mentality where they just want to get a high score, get their kill count up. And later on you’ll hear them proudly proclaiming how they killed twelve to fifteen people.
There have been a lot of euphemisms and opaque language used in the debate about the merits of the current strategy in Afghanistan. Many proponents of the war build support around benign-sounding efforts like “population-centric counterinsurgency strategy.” They portray this effort as a more friendly form of war, with the vision of the US troops sweeping into Marja, scaring the bad guys out of town, dropping in a new government and bringing peace and stability to the people. These two incidents are surely just two of many in the hellacious reality of war. Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal makes an important point about civilian casualties:
Perhaps right on cue there is this horrifying story that not only did US Special Operations forces kill three Afghan women, they covered up the crime – even going to far as to dig bullets out of the bodies of the victims. It is yet another reminder that for all the talk of protecting civilians – and all of General McChrystal’s noble efforts to prevent civilian deaths — they are still happening, and they are still undermining our population centric goals in Afghanistan (again when you put 100,000 US troops, who are trained to kill and protect themselves, in a foreign country none of this should be even slightly surprising).That’s not to even mention the nearly more than 1,000 US and ISAF soldiers who have died. That trend will only continue with the impending increase in troop levels. The first three months of 2010 already saw double the American casualties of the same period in 2009. Thousands of soldiers have been wounded, and their stories are seldom told to the American public.
And as much as I hate to write it, this is likely only going to continue – and we wonder why we can’t convince local Afghans to side with us?
When we debate this war, let’s be real about what we are debating. Let’s not debate a sanitized version of military efforts in Afghanistan. Those who think that the war in Afghanistan is essential to our security must weigh our gains against the dirty, messy reality of US and Afghan casualties, not an unrealistic vision of soldiers sitting safely in rooms piloting unmanned drones and Afghans embracing the military presence despite the occasional accidental air strike.
"Light 'em all up."
In the years since the "incident," as Reuters has tried to uncover what happened, U.S. military authorities have stonewalled, whitewashing the horrific actions of our gunners as within the rules of engagement. Watch the video: if these fighters are acting within officially sanctioned parameters, then the rules need to be changed. You can't win the hearts and minds of people by murdering them.
In the video, there are two separate attacks on civilians on the ground: at the first, the gunships fire on an unthreatening group whose main offense seems to be that they are men of fighting age; then they unload on a van of people attempting to tend to the wounded and dying from the first attack. The pilots and gunners sound both bloodthirsty and oddly detached, like teenage boys yelling "Kill! Kill! Kill!" in a video arcade.
Although from the air, the helicopter crews couldn't have known that children were in the cab of the Good Samaritans' van -- "Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Haha," American reliance on massive preemptive force makes the killing of civilians certain -- premeditated -- and therefore criminal. Firing on a van of medical workers doesn't spawn political martyrs, it makes real ones. If soldiers who commit acts like these are not held accountable, more such tragedies will be impossible to avoid. Of course, if we weren't there at all, such tragedies would be impossible to occur.
The Afghan war itself is counter-productive and stupid as policy and needs to be brought swiftly to a conclusion. In any war, it is a certainty that some innocent people will be harmed. But Obama's expansion of this war -- essentially an intervention in a civil war -- is especially tragic, because the certainty of the outcome -- the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from the country -- and the willingness of the other side to negotiate create the conditions for a swift settlement.
The Obama administration, which claims to prefer diplomacy to force, could use the threat of immediate withdrawal to make Karzai negotiate a deal with the Taliban (an outcome made all the easier now that the Afghan president has threatened to join the Taliban as his way of punishing the Americans for criticizing his gangsterish regime). The sooner an agreement is reached the more the Taliban will be deterred from expanding its influence beyond its sanctuaries in the south and east, the more U.S. gains in the recent fighting can be consolidated, and the more reduced will be the opportunities for corruption and fraud in the areas controlled from Kabul.
Even assuming that the entry into Afghanistan was unavoidable in the aftermath of 9/11, there is little question that the project has soured and cannot be won militarily. Comparisons to the Vietnam war are inexact, but there is one eerie echo from that conflict: we appear to be destroying Afghanistan in the effort to save it. Dialogue and serious compromise are far more likely to produce a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan than blasting villagers from helicopters and pilotless drones.
Obama will not be able to go into the next presidential campaign without progress toward peace in the region, which means that there will be a sit-down with the Taliban sooner or later. Sooner is infinitely preferable. If the corrupt, inept Karzai is an obstruction to peace, he can easily be bargained away as part of the final deal (someone should slip Karzai a copy of the biography of Vietnam's President Diem -- it's possible he takes American rhetoric seriously; it's probably better for all concerned if he finds out now with whom he's in bed).
A negotiated settlement soon would not only save American and Afghan lives, but would avoid a precipitate withdrawal just before 2012 that would embarrass the American president and leave Afghanistan in ruins. Surely we'd rather spend our billions rebuilding the country than destroying it. Better to negotiate a compromise that takes into account the aspirations of both sides in the conflict (by which I mean Kabul and the Taliban) for the future of the country than to continue a policy that is to the advantage of no one. One thing all sides can probably agree on: Afghanistan's future must not, will not, can not include occupation by American troops.
The rest of the story: Debate war as it is, not as you want it to be by Rebecca Griffin (Peace Action West Groundswell Blog 2010-04-06)
Transcript of the audio from the WikiLeaks video
Like Abu Graib, defenders of American militarism will claim the actions on this video are aberrant. But graphic combat porn is pretty easy to find:
Special Forces Firefight with Insurgents in Iraq (night time); Night Attack on Al Qaeda; Mosul Firefight as music video; Iraq - AH-64 Apache; Asaeb Ahul Haqq RPG attack; etc. ad infinitum.
“This Is How These Soldiers Were Trained to Act”–Veteran of Military Unit Involved in 2007 Baghdad Helicopter Shooting Says Incident Is Part of Much Larger Problem (Democracy Now 2010-04-12).
Veterans of Wikileaks video write "Letter of Reconciliation" to Iraqis Injured in Attack (Civilian-Soldier Alliance): Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord, members of Bravo Company 2-16, are making a stand against the war and are rallying supporters. Go to LetterToIraq.com to read the letter they are sending to the Iraqis who survived the Apache attack
.
Actions: Donate to Peace Action West. Help provide information and support to those in the military on ways of standing up for their beliefs through work being done with the GI Rights Hotline. If you are a veteran or service-member, see Iraq Veterans Against the War or Courage to Resist's websites to get involved in anti-war work. Support and spread the word about the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, embracing those within the military or veteran communities who want to talk about their experiences and work towards other options. Question the training that our government and our tax money puts our impressionable young people through: if we object to this video, we need to look at what training led to it. Check out books like On Killing and pressure political and military leaders to reconsider the psychological methods that teach soldiers to dehumanize. Look at what we teach our children, work towards starting peace studies programs in your schools. Question where our tax money is really going and why so much is spent on warfare. Inform yourself on the deeper priorities of our society by watching for example, The Story of Stuff and ask yourself if your lifestyle is contributing to those mistaken priorities.
AfPak: Congress will debate war policy in January
It is the job of the legislature, not the chief executive, to decide questions of war and peace. In January, the Congress will debate whether the war in Afghanistan and military operations in Pakistan will continue and, if so, with what degree of intensity. In this video, Rep. Dennis Kucinich makes the case for the legislature's constitutional responsibilities.
Actions:
Call Afghanistan - A Petition to Take Action Against the War
Contact your representatives in Congress
Actions:
Call Afghanistan - A Petition to Take Action Against the War
Contact your representatives in Congress
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