DORCHESTER PEOPLE for PEACE DPP’s Mission is to oppose current US wars and militarism as the core of our foreign policy. We work with local groups to build a multi-racial peace and justice movement throughout the neighborhoods of Dorchester; to work against the war at home -- including racism, violence, budget cuts, and political oppression; and to make clear the connection between neglect of local human needs and the movement toward a state of permanent war.  www.dotpeace.org Weekly Update:  Friday, September 11, 2015 If you don’t want to keep receiving these Updates, please reply to this email requesting to be removed from the mailing list. (See more information about this weekly email at the end) *************************************************************************** Next DPP Membership Meeting Monday, September 14: 6:30-8:30pm, Vietnamese-American Center, 42 Charles St. (Near Fields Corner T station, Parking lot available at VACC).  This meeting will focus on Summer Reports and planning for Fall Projects, including the DPP Retreat. Here are some highlights: Local Politics: Just Cause Eviction and Right to Remain - Summer and Fall Campaigns City Council Race, especially District 4 - Should we meet with candidates to promote DPP topics? National Social Issues: Tabling Project - Summer Report, Planning for Sept 19 Tabling and other fall dates. Anti-Racism Film - Select Film and October Meeting date (5 or 19?). Adams BPL location? International Events: Iran Nuclear Agreement Events in Palestine DPP Organization / Infrastructure: Retreat - Assemble a Planning Committee to Select Retreat Location and November Date, set an Agenda Facilitation Committee - Need 2 new FT members. Becky will step down this year. Jack will concentrate on meeting facilitation. Sydney will continue.   Marketing and Outreach - Update Flyer. Discuss Website use. Announcements   *   *   *   * MANTRA FOR 9/11: Fourteen Years Later Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance)… Fourteen years later, don’t you find it improbable that Washington’s post-9/11 policies in the Middle East helped lead to the establishment of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in parts of fractured Iraq and Syria and to a movement of almost unparalleled extremism that has successfully “franchised” itself out from Libya to Nigeria to Afghanistan? If, on September 12, 2001, you had predicted such a possibility, who wouldn’t have thought you mad? … Fourteen years later, isn’t it possible to think of 9/11 as a mass grave into which significant aspects of American life as we knew it have been shoveled?   More   US Gov’t Agents Involved In Almost Every Major Terror Plot Since 9/11 Since 9/11, agencies like the FBI have been tasked with preventing the next terrorist attack. However, in their zeal to catch terrorists before they strike, they’ve created more terrorist plots than any actual terror groups… The FBI is responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than any other organization. More than al-Qaida, more than al-Shabaab, more than the Islamic State.  According to Aaronson, “The FBI is much better at creating terrorists than it is at catching terrorists.” In the 14 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Aaronson said there have only been about six actual domestic terrorist incidents, including the Boston Marathon bombing and a handful of failed incidents. By contrast, he said the FBI has arrested dozens for “material support” of terrorism, usually impoverished or mentally ill Muslim-Americans who were convinced to take part in terrorist plots by high-paid undercover informants.   More   *   *   *   * IRAN: GIVE WAR PEACE A CHANCE?   Everyone must know by now that the Iran Agreement is certain to go into effect, now that Senate Democrats have (somewhat surprisingly!) held firm and denied the opponents of the deal to bring a resolution of disapproval to the floor.  Only four Democratic senators (Schumer of NY, Menendez of NJ. Cardin of Maryland, and Manchin of W.VA.) stood with the unanimous Republicans in opposing the agreement. In the House, Republican extremists are planning a more complicated response, which will have no effect on the actual agreement.  In our state, the two senators voted with the rest of the Democrats against cloture;  Representatives Neal and Keating have now declared support, making our delegation unanimously for the agreement (with Capuano technically only “leaning” but sure to vote for the deal).    More disturbing is  the anti-Iranian (and pro-Israel) rhetoric universally expressed by agreement supporters, which will limit the possibilities of real detent with Iran and a lessening of tensions in the Middle East – while flooding the region with ever more US armaments.  Some Democrats may also be planning to support a resolution to “strengthen” the agreement that will contain “poison pills” to possibly derail it.   House GOP disapproves of Iran deal in symbolic vote In an anticlimactic end to the acrimonious debate in Congress over the Iran nuclear deal, the House voted against the agreement Friday -- a largely symbolic move that won’t prevent the pact from taking effect next week.  The 162-269 vote against the accord between Obama, Iran and five other nations will have little practical effect beyond putting House lawmakers on the record, because a day earlier Senate Democrats blocked an attempt to scuttle the pact… Before the vote, House lawmakers passed two resolutions rebuking Obama on the deal. The first accuses Obama of violating a congressional review law by failing to give Congress access to documents from an independent nuclear watchdog agency and Iran. Republicans have said they are unwilling to support the larger nuclear deal without having access to information in those so-called "side-deals,” which the administration says are unrelated to the nuclear deal. The second measure, which was passed mostly along party lines, would prevent Obama from lifting any sanctions against Iran. Neither measure is likely to make it to Obama’s desk for a signature.  More   Pro-Israel Group Suffers Stinging Political Defeat The loss has raised difficult questions about the future of Aipac, a group formed in 1951 just a few years after the birth of Israel. Aipac has long drawn its political potency from its reservoirs of loyalty among members of both parties, but that bipartisan veneer all but vanished in recent weeks as the debate over the Iran deal became increasingly bitter… Aipac now faces a debate within its ranks about how to respond to the defeat, whether by exacting a political price from lawmakers — all of them Democrats — who defied its wishes and supported the Iran deal, or moving swiftly to mend fences with lawmakers and White House officials angered by the group’s efforts to kill the deal… “That poses a real challenge to an organization that absolutely requires bipartisanship to maintain its resilience and strength.”   More   The Iran Deal and the End of the Israel Lobby The miscalculations by opponents of the Iran deal began with a poor grasp of public opinion. They imagined they could foment a broad public backlash, and opponents frequently, and triumphantly, cited opinion polls showing more respondents disapproved than approved of the Iran deal. But the results of these polls varied widely. Small changes in wording produced wildly varying results, reflecting the fact that few people knew or cared much about the issue. Turning a foreign-policy issue with no immediate salience to American security — even a nuclear-armed Iran, a worst-case scenario, would not involve an attack on Americans at home or abroad — into an issue Americans would actively care about was never realistic… Over the last 15 years, the foreign-policy debate in Israel has moved steadily rightward. (In the last election, left-of-center Israeli parties relied on domestic issues, rather than appealing for territorial compromise.) The Israeli right favors either permanent occupation of the West Bank, or an occupation that lasts until such time as the Palestinians produce a pro-Zionist government, which is functionally the same thing. That perspective has become increasingly coterminous with the American “pro-Israel” view. At last year’s AIPAC conference, some 65 percent of the attendees were Republican. That skewed perspective has pushed the American Jewish establishment to the right of American Jewry as a whole.  More   Slaughtering the Truth and the False Choice of War on Iran Even outspoken supporters of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) rely on myriad entrenched myths and falsehoods about Iran's nuclear program to make their case. For instance, the constant claim that the agreement "prevents Iran from building a nuclear weapon" is a facile talking point that assumes an Iranian drive for a bomb that has never actually existed…  In essence, even the deal's own supporters buy into ahistorical, Netanyahu-inspired narratives of malevolent Iranian intent and prepare their appeals from there. Unfortunately, this is unsurprising and a direct result of the consistent failure of both the media and policymakers to present accurate information.  More   Iran's 'Nuclear Ambitions' Go Unquestioned in Coverage of Iran Deal Momentum As Democratic senators declared their support for the deal struck between Iran and six world powers–an agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action–corporate media coverage of this momentum is leaving out at least one crucial detail: the lack of evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb… Reporters Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn could have pointed out, as James Risen and Mark Mazzetti did on the Times‘ front page three years ago (2/24/12; FAIR.org, 2/9/15),  that “American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.” Or quoted, as Seymour Hersh did (New Yorker, 6/6/11), longtime IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s statement that he had not seen “a shred of evidence” that Iran was trying to weaponize its uranium. Or at least included, as basic balance, the fact that Iran had consistently maintained that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon (FAIR.org, 9/30/13).   More   Netanyahu Makes Quick Pivot From Loss on Iran Deal In the week since it became clear that Congress would not block the Iranian nuclear deal he loathes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has largely toned down his rhetoric on the issue and pivoted to others… David Horovitz, the editor of The Times of Israel news site, observed, “He is not particularly interested in playing up the fact that a deal he bitterly opposed is going through.” Mr. Horovitz added, “Although he’s not saying that the cause is lost, if he hammers away at the same level, he reminds everybody that it’s been lost.” …The stinging loss on Iran may actually remove a headache for Mr. Netanyahu, as many American leaders are wary of seeming to pile on by pressuring him on Palestinian statehood.   More   Israeli officials: Netanyahu's fight against Iran deal not a failure The senior officials claimed that Netanyahu's campaign against the deal led many Americans to understand the need for increased U.S. aid to Israel.  "There is great support for the Israeli position, both from American public opinion and from Congress," officials said, adding that the American mindset believes that Israeli is an ally and Iran is a terror-enabling state. "Even those Americans backing the deal say that the U.S. should further strengthen its relationship and alliance with Israel."   More   Clinton Wraps Last-Minute Endorsement of Iran Deal with Hawkish Threats of Military Force Though she endorsed the deal, which seeks to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by forcing controls onto the country's nuclear energy program, Clinton vowed that she would do so with skepticism and—as many have pointed out—an eye on a military alternative. "The outcome of the deal in Congress is no longer in much doubt," she said, speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., "so we've got to start looking ahead as to what's next: enforcing the deal, deter Iran and its proxies, and strengthening our allies," which was largely in reference to neighboring Israel… If elected, Clinton vowed to "deepen America's unshakeable commitment to Israel's security" by "guaranteeing Israel's qualitative military edge" in the Middle East. To do so, she said she would strengthen their missile defense system, and increase military support and intelligence sharing.   More   Will American Weapons Flood Middle East After Iran Deal? The region is about to enter a new arms race fueled by U.S. efforts to reassure Israel and various Sunni countries that feel threatened by the Shi’ite Islamist government in Tehran. Indeed, American defense companies are already signing billion-dollar deals that will support this new push — a reality that Iranian officials are beginning to understand. “This is one of the U.S. policies that we think is wrong,” a senior Iranian official told reporters during a recent briefing in New York. “If the United States wants tranquility to prevail… why is it adding to the arsenal there?”  …The Obama administration is already reaching out to regional players to begin discussing post-deal security arrangements. Israeli officials, still consumed in their fight against the deal in Congress, have thus far refused to participate in post-deal security discussions with the administration. But they are expected to do so once the agreement gets the congressional green light… The Obama administration has already approved massive arms sales programs to Saudi Arabia and other regional players. These include a major contract for upgrading the Saudi navy, a massive $1 billion arms deal to replenish Saudi munitions used up in its war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, and sales of helicopters and radar systems.  More   Sending MOPs and Bombers to Israel: Big Mistake Over the past week, the failure of the opponents of the Iran nuclear deal to kill it in Congress has become a foregone conclusion. With that in mind, advocates of war with Iran have adopted a new idea: giving Israel the means to attack Iran on its own, without US assistance. The thinking goes that the Israelis, unhindered by Obama’s fecklessness, will have the wherewithal to do what needs to be done… Sending strategic bombers to Israel is a bad idea. It’s bad enough that the Israelis probably won’t take them. But it could get even worse if they decided to make a go of it…   In recent days, the idea has proliferated. A Washington Post op-ed by Dennis Ross and David Petraeus on August 25 reiterated Deptula’s proposal. Walter Reich, former director of the US Holocaust Museum, recommended that President Obama guarantee Israeli access to Massive Ordnance Penetrators   DORCHESTER PEOPLE for PEACE DPP’s Mission is to oppose current US wars and militarism as the core of our foreign policy. We work with local groups to build a multi-racial peace and justice movement throughout the neighborhoods of Dorchester; to work against the war at home -- including racism, violence, budget cuts, and political oppression; and to make clear the connection between neglect of local human needs and the movement toward a state of permanent war.  www.dotpeace.org Weekly Update:  Friday, September 11, 2015 If you don’t want to keep receiving these Updates, please reply to this email requesting to be removed from the mailing list. (See more information about this weekly email at the end) *************************************************************************** Next DPP Membership Meeting Monday, September 14: 6:30-8:30pm, Vietnamese-American Center, 42 Charles St. (Near Fields Corner T station, Parking lot available at VACC).  This meeting will focus on Summer Reports and planning for Fall Projects, including the DPP Retreat. Here are some highlights: Local Politics: Just Cause Eviction and Right to Remain - Summer and Fall Campaigns City Council Race, especially District 4 - Should we meet with candidates to promote DPP topics? National Social Issues: Tabling Project - Summer Report, Planning for Sept 19 Tabling and other fall dates. Anti-Racism Film - Select Film and October Meeting date (5 or 19?). Adams BPL location? International Events: Iran Nuclear Agreement Events in Palestine DPP Organization / Infrastructure: Retreat - Assemble a Planning Committee to Select Retreat Location and November Date, set an Agenda Facilitation Committee - Need 2 new FT members. Becky will step down this year. Jack will concentrate on meeting facilitation. Sydney will continue.   Marketing and Outreach - Update Flyer. Discuss Website use. Announcements   *   *   *   * MANTRA FOR 9/11: Fourteen Years Later Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance)… Fourteen years later, don’t you find it improbable that Washington’s post-9/11 policies in the Middle East helped lead to the establishment of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in parts of fractured Iraq and Syria and to a movement of almost unparalleled extremism that has successfully “franchised” itself out from Libya to Nigeria to Afghanistan? If, on September 12, 2001, you had predicted such a possibility, who wouldn’t have thought you mad? … Fourteen years later, isn’t it possible to think of 9/11 as a mass grave into which significant aspects of American life as we knew it have been shoveled?   More   US Gov’t Agents Involved In Almost Every Major Terror Plot Since 9/11 Since 9/11, agencies like the FBI have been tasked with preventing the next terrorist attack. However, in their zeal to catch terrorists before they strike, they’ve created more terrorist plots than any actual terror groups… The FBI is responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than any other organization. More than al-Qaida, more than al-Shabaab, more than the Islamic State.  According to Aaronson, “The FBI is much better at creating terrorists than it is at catching terrorists.” In the 14 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Aaronson said there have only been about six actual domestic terrorist incidents, including the Boston Marathon bombing and a handful of failed incidents. By contrast, he said the FBI has arrested dozens for “material support” of terrorism, usually impoverished or mentally ill Muslim-Americans who were convinced to take part in terrorist plots by high-paid undercover informants.   More   *   *   *   * IRAN: GIVE WAR PEACE A CHANCE?   Everyone must know by now that the Iran Agreement is certain to go into effect, now that Senate Democrats have (somewhat surprisingly!) held firm and denied the opponents of the deal to bring a resolution of disapproval to the floor.  Only four Democratic senators (Schumer of NY, Menendez of NJ. Cardin of Maryland, and Manchin of W.VA.) stood with the unanimous Republicans in opposing the agreement. In the House, Republican extremists are planning a more complicated response, which will have no effect on the actual agreement.  In our state, the two senators voted with the rest of the Democrats against cloture;  Representatives Neal and Keating have now declared support, making our delegation unanimously for the agreement (with Capuano technically only “leaning” but sure to vote for the deal).    More disturbing is  the anti-Iranian (and pro-Israel) rhetoric universally expressed by agreement supporters, which will limit the possibilities of real detent with Iran and a lessening of tensions in the Middle East – while flooding the region with ever more US armaments.  Some Democrats may also be planning to support a resolution to “strengthen” the agreement that will contain “poison pills” to possibly derail it.   House GOP disapproves of Iran deal in symbolic vote In an anticlimactic end to the acrimonious debate in Congress over the Iran nuclear deal, the House voted against the agreement Friday -- a largely symbolic move that won’t prevent the pact from taking effect next week.  The 162-269 vote against the accord between Obama, Iran and five other nations will have little practical effect beyond putting House lawmakers on the record, because a day earlier Senate Democrats blocked an attempt to scuttle the pact… Before the vote, House lawmakers passed two resolutions rebuking Obama on the deal. The first accuses Obama of violating a congressional review law by failing to give Congress access to documents from an independent nuclear watchdog agency and Iran. Republicans have said they are unwilling to support the larger nuclear deal without having access to information in those so-called "side-deals,” which the administration says are unrelated to the nuclear deal. The second measure, which was passed mostly along party lines, would prevent Obama from lifting any sanctions against Iran. Neither measure is likely to make it to Obama’s desk for a signature.  More   Pro-Israel Group Suffers Stinging Political Defeat The loss has raised difficult questions about the future of Aipac, a group formed in 1951 just a few years after the birth of Israel. Aipac has long drawn its political potency from its reservoirs of loyalty among members of both parties, but that bipartisan veneer all but vanished in recent weeks as the debate over the Iran deal became increasingly bitter… Aipac now faces a debate within its ranks about how to respond to the defeat, whether by exacting a political price from lawmakers — all of them Democrats — who defied its wishes and supported the Iran deal, or moving swiftly to mend fences with lawmakers and White House officials angered by the group’s efforts to kill the deal… “That poses a real challenge to an organization that absolutely requires bipartisanship to maintain its resilience and strength.”   More   The Iran Deal and the End of the Israel Lobby The miscalculations by opponents of the Iran deal began with a poor grasp of public opinion. They imagined they could foment a broad public backlash, and opponents frequently, and triumphantly, cited opinion polls showing more respondents disapproved than approved of the Iran deal. But the results of these polls varied widely. Small changes in wording produced wildly varying results, reflecting the fact that few people knew or cared much about the issue. Turning a foreign-policy issue with no immediate salience to American security — even a nuclear-armed Iran, a worst-case scenario, would not involve an attack on Americans at home or abroad — into an issue Americans would actively care about was never realistic… Over the last 15 years, the foreign-policy debate in Israel has moved steadily rightward. (In the last election, left-of-center Israeli parties relied on domestic issues, rather than appealing for territorial compromise.) The Israeli right favors either permanent occupation of the West Bank, or an occupation that lasts until such time as the Palestinians produce a pro-Zionist government, which is functionally the same thing. That perspective has become increasingly coterminous with the American “pro-Israel” view. At last year’s AIPAC conference, some 65 percent of the attendees were Republican. That skewed perspective has pushed the American Jewish establishment to the right of American Jewry as a whole.  More   Slaughtering the Truth and the False Choice of War on Iran Even outspoken supporters of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) rely on myriad entrenched myths and falsehoods about Iran's nuclear program to make their case. For instance, the constant claim that the agreement "prevents Iran from building a nuclear weapon" is a facile talking point that assumes an Iranian drive for a bomb that has never actually existed…  In essence, even the deal's own supporters buy into ahistorical, Netanyahu-inspired narratives of malevolent Iranian intent and prepare their appeals from there. Unfortunately, this is unsurprising and a direct result of the consistent failure of both the media and policymakers to present accurate information.  More   Iran's 'Nuclear Ambitions' Go Unquestioned in Coverage of Iran Deal Momentum As Democratic senators declared their support for the deal struck between Iran and six world powers–an agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action–corporate media coverage of this momentum is leaving out at least one crucial detail: the lack of evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb… Reporters Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn could have pointed out, as James Risen and Mark Mazzetti did on the Times‘ front page three years ago (2/24/12; FAIR.org, 2/9/15),  that “American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.” Or quoted, as Seymour Hersh did (New Yorker, 6/6/11), longtime IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s statement that he had not seen “a shred of evidence” that Iran was trying to weaponize its uranium. Or at least included, as basic balance, the fact that Iran had consistently maintained that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon (FAIR.org, 9/30/13).   More   Netanyahu Makes Quick Pivot From Loss on Iran Deal In the week since it became clear that Congress would not block the Iranian nuclear deal he loathes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has largely toned down his rhetoric on the issue and pivoted to others… David Horovitz, the editor of The Times of Israel news site, observed, “He is not particularly interested in playing up the fact that a deal he bitterly opposed is going through.” Mr. Horovitz added, “Although he’s not saying that the cause is lost, if he hammers away at the same level, he reminds everybody that it’s been lost.” …The stinging loss on Iran may actually remove a headache for Mr. Netanyahu, as many American leaders are wary of seeming to pile on by pressuring him on Palestinian statehood.   More   Israeli officials: Netanyahu's fight against Iran deal not a failure The senior officials claimed that Netanyahu's campaign against the deal led many Americans to understand the need for increased U.S. aid to Israel.  "There is great support for the Israeli position, both from American public opinion and from Congress," officials said, adding that the American mindset believes that Israeli is an ally and Iran is a terror-enabling state. "Even those Americans backing the deal say that the U.S. should further strengthen its relationship and alliance with Israel."   More   Clinton Wraps Last-Minute Endorsement of Iran Deal with Hawkish Threats of Military Force Though she endorsed the deal, which seeks to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by forcing controls onto the country's nuclear energy program, Clinton vowed that she would do so with skepticism and—as many have pointed out—an eye on a military alternative. "The outcome of the deal in Congress is no longer in much doubt," she said, speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., "so we've got to start looking ahead as to what's next: enforcing the deal, deter Iran and its proxies, and strengthening our allies," which was largely in reference to neighboring Israel… If elected, Clinton vowed to "deepen America's unshakeable commitment to Israel's security" by "guaranteeing Israel's qualitative military edge" in the Middle East. To do so, she said she would strengthen their missile defense system, and increase military support and intelligence sharing.   More   Will American Weapons Flood Middle East After Iran Deal? The region is about to enter a new arms race fueled by U.S. efforts to reassure Israel and various Sunni countries that feel threatened by the Shi’ite Islamist government in Tehran. Indeed, American defense companies are already signing billion-dollar deals that will support this new push — a reality that Iranian officials are beginning to understand. “This is one of the U.S. policies that we think is wrong,” a senior Iranian official told reporters during a recent briefing in New York. “If the United States wants tranquility to prevail… why is it adding to the arsenal there?”  …The Obama administration is already reaching out to regional players to begin discussing post-deal security arrangements. Israeli officials, still consumed in their fight against the deal in Congress, have thus far refused to participate in post-deal security discussions with the administration. But they are expected to do so once the agreement gets the congressional green light… The Obama administration has already approved massive arms sales programs to Saudi Arabia and other regional players. These include a major contract for upgrading the Saudi navy, a massive $1 billion arms deal to replenish Saudi munitions used up in its war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, and sales of helicopters and radar systems.  More   Sending MOPs and Bombers to Israel: Big Mistake Over the past week, the failure of the opponents of the Iran nuclear deal to kill it in Congress has become a foregone conclusion. With that in mind, advocates of war with Iran have adopted a new idea: giving Israel the means to attack Iran on its own, without US assistance. The thinking goes that the Israelis, unhindered by Obama’s fecklessness, will have the wherewithal to do what needs to be done… Sending strategic bombers to Israel is a bad idea. It’s bad enough that the Israelis probably won’t take them. But it could get even worse if they decided to make a go of it…   In recent days, the idea has proliferated. A Washington Post op-ed by Dennis Ross and David Petraeus on August 25 reiterated Deptula’s proposal. Walter Reich, former director of the US Holocaust Museum, recommended that President Obama guarantee Israeli access to Massive Ordnance Penetrators   DORCHESTER PEOPLE for PEACE DPP’s Mission is to oppose current US wars and militarism as the core of our foreign policy. We work with local groups to build a multi-racial peace and justice movement throughout the neighborhoods of Dorchester; to work against the war at home -- including racism, violence, budget cuts, and political oppression; and to make clear the connection between neglect of local human needs and the movement toward a state of permanent war.  www.dotpeace.org Weekly Update:  Friday, September 11, 2015 If you don’t want to keep receiving these Updates, please reply to this email requesting to be removed from the mailing list. (See more information about this weekly email at the end) *************************************************************************** Next DPP Membership Meeting Monday, September 14: 6:30-8:30pm, Vietnamese-American Center, 42 Charles St. (Near Fields Corner T station, Parking lot available at VACC).  This meeting will focus on Summer Reports and planning for Fall Projects, including the DPP Retreat. Here are some highlights: Local Politics: Just Cause Eviction and Right to Remain - Summer and Fall Campaigns City Council Race, especially District 4 - Should we meet with candidates to promote DPP topics? National Social Issues: Tabling Project - Summer Report, Planning for Sept 19 Tabling and other fall dates. Anti-Racism Film - Select Film and October Meeting date (5 or 19?). Adams BPL location? International Events: Iran Nuclear Agreement Events in Palestine DPP Organization / Infrastructure: Retreat - Assemble a Planning Committee to Select Retreat Location and November Date, set an Agenda Facilitation Committee - Need 2 new FT members. Becky will step down this year. Jack will concentrate on meeting facilitation. Sydney will continue.   Marketing and Outreach - Update Flyer. Discuss Website use. Announcements   *   *   *   * MANTRA FOR 9/11: Fourteen Years Later Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance)… Fourteen years later, don’t you find it improbable that Washington’s post-9/11 policies in the Middle East helped lead to the establishment of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in parts of fractured Iraq and Syria and to a movement of almost unparalleled extremism that has successfully “franchised” itself out from Libya to Nigeria to Afghanistan? If, on September 12, 2001, you had predicted such a possibility, who wouldn’t have thought you mad? … Fourteen years later, isn’t it possible to think of 9/11 as a mass grave into which significant aspects of American life as we knew it have been shoveled?   More   US Gov’t Agents Involved In Almost Every Major Terror Plot Since 9/11 Since 9/11, agencies like the FBI have been tasked with preventing the next terrorist attack. However, in their zeal to catch terrorists before they strike, they’ve created more terrorist plots than any actual terror groups… The FBI is responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than any other organization. More than al-Qaida, more than al-Shabaab, more than the Islamic State.  According to Aaronson, “The FBI is much better at creating terrorists than it is at catching terrorists.” In the 14 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Aaronson said there have only been about six actual domestic terrorist incidents, including the Boston Marathon bombing and a handful of failed incidents. By contrast, he said the FBI has arrested dozens for “material support” of terrorism, usually impoverished or mentally ill Muslim-Americans who were convinced to take part in terrorist plots by high-paid undercover informants.   More   *   *   *   * IRAN: GIVE WAR PEACE A CHANCE?   Everyone must know by now that the Iran Agreement is certain to go into effect, now that Senate Democrats have (somewhat surprisingly!) held firm and denied the opponents of the deal to bring a resolution of disapproval to the floor.  Only four Democratic senators (Schumer of NY, Menendez of NJ. Cardin of Maryland, and Manchin of W.VA.) stood with the unanimous Republicans in opposing the agreement. In the House, Republican extremists are planning a more complicated response, which will have no effect on the actual agreement.  In our state, the two senators voted with the rest of the Democrats against cloture;  Representatives Neal and Keating have now declared support, making our delegation unanimously for the agreement (with Capuano technically only “leaning” but sure to vote for the deal).    More disturbing is  the anti-Iranian (and pro-Israel) rhetoric universally expressed by agreement supporters, which will limit the possibilities of real detent with Iran and a lessening of tensions in the Middle East – while flooding the region with ever more US armaments.  Some Democrats may also be planning to support a resolution to “strengthen” the agreement that will contain “poison pills” to possibly derail it.   House GOP disapproves of Iran deal in symbolic vote In an anticlimactic end to the acrimonious debate in Congress over the Iran nuclear deal, the House voted against the agreement Friday -- a largely symbolic move that won’t prevent the pact from taking effect next week.  The 162-269 vote against the accord between Obama, Iran and five other nations will have little practical effect beyond putting House lawmakers on the record, because a day earlier Senate Democrats blocked an attempt to scuttle the pact… Before the vote, House lawmakers passed two resolutions rebuking Obama on the deal. The first accuses Obama of violating a congressional review law by failing to give Congress access to documents from an independent nuclear watchdog agency and Iran. Republicans have said they are unwilling to support the larger nuclear deal without having access to information in those so-called "side-deals,” which the administration says are unrelated to the nuclear deal. The second measure, which was passed mostly along party lines, would prevent Obama from lifting any sanctions against Iran. Neither measure is likely to make it to Obama’s desk for a signature.  More   Pro-Israel Group Suffers Stinging Political Defeat The loss has raised difficult questions about the future of Aipac, a group formed in 1951 just a few years after the birth of Israel. Aipac has long drawn its political potency from its reservoirs of loyalty among members of both parties, but that bipartisan veneer all but vanished in recent weeks as the debate over the Iran deal became increasingly bitter… Aipac now faces a debate within its ranks about how to respond to the defeat, whether by exacting a political price from lawmakers — all of them Democrats — who defied its wishes and supported the Iran deal, or moving swiftly to mend fences with lawmakers and White House officials angered by the group’s efforts to kill the deal… “That poses a real challenge to an organization that absolutely requires bipartisanship to maintain its resilience and strength.”   More   The Iran Deal and the End of the Israel Lobby The miscalculations by opponents of the Iran deal began with a poor grasp of public opinion. They imagined they could foment a broad public backlash, and opponents frequently, and triumphantly, cited opinion polls showing more respondents disapproved than approved of the Iran deal. But the results of these polls varied widely. Small changes in wording produced wildly varying results, reflecting the fact that few people knew or cared much about the issue. Turning a foreign-policy issue with no immediate salience to American security — even a nuclear-armed Iran, a worst-case scenario, would not involve an attack on Americans at home or abroad — into an issue Americans would actively care about was never realistic… Over the last 15 years, the foreign-policy debate in Israel has moved steadily rightward. (In the last election, left-of-center Israeli parties relied on domestic issues, rather than appealing for territorial compromise.) The Israeli right favors either permanent occupation of the West Bank, or an occupation that lasts until such time as the Palestinians produce a pro-Zionist government, which is functionally the same thing. That perspective has become increasingly coterminous with the American “pro-Israel” view. At last year’s AIPAC conference, some 65 percent of the attendees were Republican. That skewed perspective has pushed the American Jewish establishment to the right of American Jewry as a whole.  More   Slaughtering the Truth and the False Choice of War on Iran Even outspoken supporters of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) rely on myriad entrenched myths and falsehoods about Iran's nuclear program to make their case. For instance, the constant claim that the agreement "prevents Iran from building a nuclear weapon" is a facile talking point that assumes an Iranian drive for a bomb that has never actually existed…  In essence, even the deal's own supporters buy into ahistorical, Netanyahu-inspired narratives of malevolent Iranian intent and prepare their appeals from there. Unfortunately, this is unsurprising and a direct result of the consistent failure of both the media and policymakers to present accurate information.  More   Iran's 'Nuclear Ambitions' Go Unquestioned in Coverage of Iran Deal Momentum As Democratic senators declared their support for the deal struck between Iran and six world powers–an agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action–corporate media coverage of this momentum is leaving out at least one crucial detail: the lack of evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb… Reporters Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn could have pointed out, as James Risen and Mark Mazzetti did on the Times‘ front page three years ago (2/24/12; FAIR.org, 2/9/15),  that “American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.” Or quoted, as Seymour Hersh did (New Yorker, 6/6/11), longtime IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s statement that he had not seen “a shred of evidence” that Iran was trying to weaponize its uranium. Or at least included, as basic balance, the fact that Iran had consistently maintained that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon (FAIR.org, 9/30/13).   More   Netanyahu Makes Quick Pivot From Loss on Iran Deal In the week since it became clear that Congress would not block the Iranian nuclear deal he loathes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has largely toned down his rhetoric on the issue and pivoted to others… David Horovitz, the editor of The Times of Israel news site, observed, “He is not particularly interested in playing up the fact that a deal he bitterly opposed is going through.” Mr. Horovitz added, “Although he’s not saying that the cause is lost, if he hammers away at the same level, he reminds everybody that it’s been lost.” …The stinging loss on Iran may actually remove a headache for Mr. Netanyahu, as many American leaders are wary of seeming to pile on by pressuring him on Palestinian statehood.   More   Israeli officials: Netanyahu's fight against Iran deal not a failure The senior officials claimed that Netanyahu's campaign against the deal led many Americans to understand the need for increased U.S. aid to Israel.  "There is great support for the Israeli position, both from American public opinion and from Congress," officials said, adding that the American mindset believes that Israeli is an ally and Iran is a terror-enabling state. "Even those Americans backing the deal say that the U.S. should further strengthen its relationship and alliance with Israel."   More   Clinton Wraps Last-Minute Endorsement of Iran Deal with Hawkish Threats of Military Force Though she endorsed the deal, which seeks to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by forcing controls onto the country's nuclear energy program, Clinton vowed that she would do so with skepticism and—as many have pointed out—an eye on a military alternative. "The outcome of the deal in Congress is no longer in much doubt," she said, speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., "so we've got to start looking ahead as to what's next: enforcing the deal, deter Iran and its proxies, and strengthening our allies," which was largely in reference to neighboring Israel… If elected, Clinton vowed to "deepen America's unshakeable commitment to Israel's security" by "guaranteeing Israel's qualitative military edge" in the Middle East. To do so, she said she would strengthen their missile defense system, and increase military support and intelligence sharing.   More   Will American Weapons Flood Middle East After Iran Deal? The region is about to enter a new arms race fueled by U.S. efforts to reassure Israel and various Sunni countries that feel threatened by the Shi’ite Islamist government in Tehran. Indeed, American defense companies are already signing billion-dollar deals that will support this new push — a reality that Iranian officials are beginning to understand. “This is one of the U.S. policies that we think is wrong,” a senior Iranian official told reporters during a recent briefing in New York. “If the United States wants tranquility to prevail… why is it adding to the arsenal there?”  …The Obama administration is already reaching out to regional players to begin discussing post-deal security arrangements. Israeli officials, still consumed in their fight against the deal in Congress, have thus far refused to participate in post-deal security discussions with the administration. But they are expected to do so once the agreement gets the congressional green light… The Obama administration has already approved massive arms sales programs to Saudi Arabia and other regional players. These include a major contract for upgrading the Saudi navy, a massive $1 billion arms deal to replenish Saudi munitions used up in its war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, and sales of helicopters and radar systems.  More   Sending MOPs and Bombers to Israel: Big Mistake Over the past week, the failure of the opponents of the Iran nuclear deal to kill it in Congress has become a foregone conclusion. With that in mind, advocates of war with Iran have adopted a new idea: giving Israel the means to attack Iran on its own, without US assistance. The thinking goes that the Israelis, unhindered by Obama’s fecklessness, will have the wherewithal to do what needs to be done… Sending strategic bombers to Israel is a bad idea. It’s bad enough that the Israelis probably won’t take them. But it could get even worse if they decided to make a go of it…   In recent days, the idea has proliferated. A Washington Post op-ed by Dennis Ross and David Petraeus on August 25 reiterated Deptula’s proposal. Walter Reich, former director of the US Holocaust Museum, recommended that President Obama guarantee Israeli access to Massive Ordnance Penetrators