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Sunday, November 09, 2014
ISRAEL,
PALESTINE, GAZA. . . and the US
AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL: Israeli ‘callous indifference’ in attacks on family homes in
Gaza
Israeli
forces have killed scores of Palestinian civilians in attacks targeting houses
full of families which in some cases have amounted to war crimes, Amnesty
International has disclosed in a new report on the latest Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip.
Families under the Rubble: Israeli attacks on inhabited homes
details eight cases where residential family homes in Gaza were attacked by
Israeli forces without warning during Operation Protective Edge in July and
August 2014, causing the deaths of at least 104 civilians including 62 children.
The report reveals a pattern of frequent Israeli attacks using large aerial
bombs to level civilian homes, sometimes killing entire families. “Israeli
forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks
on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused,” said
Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty
International. More
Gaza
Cut Off From All Sides As 'Collective Punishment' Deepens
Despite
widespread calls for increased humanitarian aid and economic activity, the
approximately 1.8 million people living in the Gaza Strip have been further
isolated from the outside world following Israel's closure Sunday, and Egypt's
closure last week, of border crossings into the Palestinian territory. The
Israeli Defense Ministry stated Sunday it has closed its Erez and Kerem Shalom
crossings to Gaza in response to a single rocket fire from Gaza, which resulted
in no injuries, deaths, or damages. Gisha, a legal center that advocates for
Palestinian freedom of movement, reported Monday that both passages remained closed for a
second day, save for extremely limited transport of fuel in and medical
patients.
The
U.S.-backed Egyptian government last week shut the Rafah crossing into Gaza and
commenced destroying Egyptian nearby homes to create a so-called "buffer
zone" along the border. More
Israeli
Cease Fire Violations and Media Propaganda
After
Israel assassinated 6 Hamas members in July, Hamas responded with rocket fire
into Israel. U.S. officials unanimously proclaimed that Israel had a right to
defend itself. The press uncritically repeated these assertions, despite no such
self-defense justification existing in international law. Israel went on to carry out the slaughter of 2,150 Palestinians, including 578 children.
Civilians accounted for at least 70% of all Palestinian deaths. On August 26,
2014 after the conclusion of Protective Edge a new cease fire was reached that called for cessation of
hostilities, opening all crossings to Gaza, and permitting fishing for a
distance of six nautical miles, increasing up to 12 miles. Since then, Israeli
cease fire violations have been an almost daily occurrence. More
Rejectionism
from a Minister in the Israeli Government. .
FOR
ISRAEL, TWO-STATE IS NO SOLUTION
Israel
cannot withdraw from more territory and cannot allow for the establishment of a
Palestinian state in the West Bank. If we were to pull out of the West Bank, the entire
country would become a target for terrorists who would be able to set up rocket
launchers adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem and on the hills above the
runways of Ben-Gurion International Airport and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Take the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians demand that Israel withdraw from this
narrow piece of land, which borders Jordan. But if we do so in today’s climate,
we potentially open the door for the Islamic State and other extremists to flood
into the new Palestinian state. We cannot take that risk. More
The
Peace Process Hustle
An
intractable process, one that never seems to resolve itself, is either no
process at all or a fraudulent one contrived to hide an ulterior motive. The
so-called Israeli-Palestinian (at one time the Israeli-Arab) “peace process,”
now in its sixth decade (counting from 1948) or fourth decade (counting from
1967) is, and probably always has been, just such a fraud. More
Israel
moves to outlaw Palestinian political parties in the Knesset
The
Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly last week to suspend Haneen
Zoabi, a legislator representing the state’s large Palestinian minority, for six months as a campaign to silence
political dissent intensified. The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, voted by 68 to 16 to endorse a decision in late July by its
ethics committee to bar Zoabi from the chamber for what it termed “incitement.”
It is the longest suspension in the Knesset’s history and the maximum punishment
allowed under Israeli law… But Zoabi is not the only Palestinian representative
in the firing line. Earlier this year the Knesset raised the threshold for
election to the parliament, in what has been widely interpreted as an attempt to
exclude all three small parties representing the Palestinian minority. One in
five citizens of Israel belong to the minority. More
A
Small Band of Activists Is Humiliating an Israeli Shipping Giant
Capping
a series of victories by a modest band of pro-Palestinian activists, an
Israel-based shipping company has re-routed a container ship from the Port of
Oakland, where protestors had vowed to keep the ship from unloading, to an
alternate destination in Russia. The company, Zim Integrated
Shipping Services is one of the largest cargo shipping outfits in the world,
but of late it has seen its operations seriously disrupted by a small group of
activists motivated by the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement (BDS),
which targets companies implicated in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian
Territories. Zim is an Israel-based company, and the “Block the
Boat” movement – a combined effort of labor activists and Palestinian
solidarity groups – has successfully stopped its ships from docking at Oakland
ports several times since this summer. More
Pentagon
Praises, Aims to Copy Israel Tactics in Gaza
The
United States sent a team of senior officers to Israel three months ago to learn
from Israel's tactics in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza over the summer,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said on Thursday. Dempsey
praised the IDF for taking "extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and
civilian casualties" in its war against Hamas. The militant organization,
Dempsey said, "had become very nearly a subterranean society," burrowing
underground and hiding amongst the civilian population. More
WALT:
Netanyahu's Not Chickenshit, the White House Is
News
flash: Plenty of U.S. politicians -- including Bill Clinton -- have disliked Netanyahu intensely, and for
pretty obvious reasons. He's smug, pretentious, bombastic, and plays fast and loose with facts (which hardly makes him unique
among world leaders), and he sometimes treats U.S. officials with contempt. If
you're Obama, Kerry, or one of their aides, and you've been working overtime
trying to get a peace deal and save Israel from its suicidal settlements policy,
and you get precisely zero help from Netanyahu and his lieutenants, a degree of
irritation is to be expected… U.S. officials are prevented from taking this
obvious step by the lingering political clout of AIPAC and other groups in the
lobby. When they speak in public or on the record, they have to pretend that the
"special relationship" is hunky-dory, even when it is obvious to even casual
observers that it is not.
More
Tell
Congress not to Reward Israel's Discrimination against U.S.
Citizens
Having
a U.S. passport doesn't protect you from Israel's brutality and discrimination,
especially if you're a Palestinian-American. Just ask Sandra Tamari, Nour Joudah, Tariq Abu Khdeir, or the family of Orwa Hammad. Or ask journalist Rula Jebreal, who writes in The New York Times this week of her and her daughter
being strip-searched at Ben-Gurion Airport. For the past two years, in
coordination with a nationwide network of organizations and activists, we helped
stall AIPAC's top-priority legislation -- The United States-Israel Strategic
Partnership Act. The Senate version of the original bill would have rewarded Israel's discrimination against U.S. citizens,
granting Israelis visa-free access to the United States while Israel continues
to systemically mistreat and deny entry to Americans of Arab or Muslim heritage,
or those who are critical of Israel's policies.
*
* * *
OTHER
EVENTS
In Boston
DAYS OF
ACTION AGAINST THE NEW US WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!
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Tuesday,
November 11
12:00 pm Park Street Station Boston
Rally
followed by the Armistice Day Parade of Veterans for Peace
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Saturday,
November 15
1:00 pm Park Street Station Boston
Rally
and march to Downtown Crossing with a mock drone and
die-in
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Stop the Bombing
in Syria and Iraq
Bring the troops
home now
Stop sending
weapons into the region which are leading to so much bloodshed
Support
humanitarian aid, through neutral institutions, for victims of the
conflict
Support
self-determination and the demilitarization of the area
Tuesday,
November 11
ARMISTICE
/ VETERANS DAY PARADE AND VIGIL
1st Parade steps off at 1:00 pm – our parade will follow the same route then we will continue to Faneuil Hall for our Armistice / Veterans Day for Peace Event.
Parade at noon;
rally 3:00 pm
Faneuil Hall •
Boston
Attention Veterans
& Peace Activists
Please Join
Veterans For Peace and The Leftist
Marching Band for
Armistice / Veterans Day Peace Parade and Peace Event
Armistice / Veterans Day Peace Parade and Peace Event
Houses of Worship
throughout Massachusetts will Ring Bells for Peace at 11:00 am, November
11th
Armistice Day /
Veterans Parade for Peace & Faneuil Hall Peace Event
Veterans for
Peace will proudly walk
behind the first parade on Armistice / Veterans Day in Boston. We honor and
celebrate the original intention for Armistice Day – a Day of Peace.
Veterans from
different eras will recite original works of Poetry, Prose and Song
* *
* *
DORCHESTER
VOTERS SEND A MESSAGE:
“Get
Big Money Out of Politics”
Big
Money in the elections
also has its effects – on both parties, as I wrote a few years ago in the Dorchester Reporter. Large
donors bolster the Republican Party while keeping the Democrats on a short,
Neo-Liberal leash. That’s why modern “Liberalism” is mostly defined by
supporting individual rights but avoids (with a few exceptions like Elizabeth
Warren) populist economic themes. 
Voters understand
the role of money in politics, but have few means of expressing their opinion or
effecting change. An exception was the advisory question that was placed on the
ballot in part of Dorchester by the work of DPP in collaboration with “MOVE TO AMEND”:
We
the People, Not We the Corporations
The
ballot question called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to saying
that corporations are not people and money is not a form of
speech – it must be regulated in political campaigns.
Two-thirds
of voters agreed!
QUESTION
5-12th Suffolk
Total
Number of Precincts 15
Total
Votes 6779
Number
of Uncast Votes (blanks) 3541
YES
4604 67.92%
NO
2175 32.08%
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* *
ELECTION
2014: Two Americas, Two States of Massachusetts
You’ve all been
watching and reading about “The Republican Landslide” in this election, but few
commentators note how unreal this is as any kind of broad democratic (small
“d”!) expression. For one thing, any political shift is magnified by our
winner-take-all electoral system, where the winning side takes office – and the
losing side, no matter how small the margin, gets nothing. This effect has
become even more lopsided in recent years as Republican state legislatures –
building on demographic 
trends -- have
distorted the electoral maps to concentrate the Democratic electorate into fewer
districts, allowing for more safe, majority conservative Congressional seats.
In 2012, Democratic Congressional candidates actually got more votes nationwide,
even as the Republican solidified their majority in the House of
Representatives.
trends -- have
distorted the electoral maps to concentrate the Democratic electorate into fewer
districts, allowing for more safe, majority conservative Congressional seats.
In 2012, Democratic Congressional candidates actually got more votes nationwide,
even as the Republican solidified their majority in the House of
Representatives.
Then there is the
intentionally unrepresentative system of two Senate seats for every state,
regardless of population. The states that “turned over” this year to produce a
Republican majority – North Caroline, Iowa, Montana, Colorado, Arkansas, South
Dakota and West Virginia – have 14 Senators representing a combined population
of 24 million; California alone has 38 million residents, but only two
Senators. This is no accident. The framers of the US Constitution were at
pains to limit popular sovereignty and to protect the control of elites in the
various states, along with their undue influence on the Federal government. It
was also a means to offer protection and guarantees for the continuation of
slavery.
Meanwhile, the
Democrats, especially in the contested states, ran tepid, relatively
conservative campaigns that did little to stir enthusiasm among the voters and
allowed the Republican message about the economy to resonate without serious
challenge. The Right mobilized its base with a barely-disguised undercurrent of
racism and a well-funded, relentless campaign of fear-mongering over “terror,”
Ebola and supposed “threats to the border.” At the same time, Republican
legislatures have also 
enacted voting
regulations aimed at suppressing the natural Democratic-leaning vote. As a
result, the electorate across the country this year was much whiter and
older than in 2012 – and more Republican-leaning. The overall turnout was just
37%.
enacted voting
regulations aimed at suppressing the natural Democratic-leaning vote. As a
result, the electorate across the country this year was much whiter and
older than in 2012 – and more Republican-leaning. The overall turnout was just
37%.
However, when there
was a clear-cut populist option, such as raising the minimum wage or voting for
paid sick leave, these measures all passed. A look at the Massachusetts
electoral result for Question 4 (Earned Sick Leave) also shows a clear
geographic, racial and class map: the measure passed handily in the cities and
towns of the eastern and western parts of the state, losing in the wealthier
suburbs and mostly white rural towns.
So in short, we
have two separate Americas voting every two years. We have one that is more
representative, that includes about 60 percent of voting age adults. Then we
have one where we can barely get a third of voting age adults to turn out, and
is much whiter and older than the country. And Democrats can win easily with the
one, and Republicans can win easily with the other. More
A Big
Night For Minimum Wage Increases
Voters
in five states endorsed minimum wage increases Tuesday. Significantly, minimum
wage initiatives carried the day even in states where Republicans won statewide
offices. In Arkansas, for example, Republican Tom Cotton won a hard-fought
victory over incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor. Yet a ballot initiative to
raise the state’s minimum wage to $7.50 won the support of nearly two-thirds of
voters. Similarly, voters in Nebraska and South Dakota approved minimum wage
hikes even as they elected or re-elected Republicans in Senate and gubernatorial
races. More
Beyond
Mid-Election Babble: What's the Alternative?
The
right-wing Republican sweep of Congress testifies to a massive memory and
educational deficit among the US public and a failure among progressives and the
left regarding how to think about politics outside of the established boundaries
of liberal reform. The educative nature of politics has never been more crucial
than it is now and testifies to the need for a new politics in which culture and
education are as important as economic forces in shaping individual and social
agency, if not resistance itself… The biggest challenge facing those who believe
in social justice is to provide an alternative discourse, educational
apparatuses, vision and modes of identification that can convince the US public
that a real democracy is worth fighting for, and that such struggles need to
begin immediately before the elected oligarchs and the financial interests they
serve close down any hope of a future in which matters of justice and equality
prevail. More
*
* * *
The
Wars Abroad, the Wars at Home
Martin
Luther King: “The
bombs that are falling [overseas] are exploding in our cities”
BPD
Petitions - Please Sign & Share!
Many of you have
already signed the ACLU petition to the BPD calling for three key reforms. The
petition is now online here: End Racially Discriminatory Police Practices in Boston (for
residents of Boston) and Support the Movement to End Racially Discriminatory Police
Practices in Boston (for people who aren’t residents of Boston). We
encourage you to sign one of these two petitions and share widely among
friends and supporters!
*
* * *
NEW
WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Concerned
About ISIS, but Also About Endless War? Back Limits on the Use of Force
In
response to the US bombing of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Iraq and Syria,
which Congress has never explicitly approved, members of Congress long concerned
about presidents and Congresses skirting the constitutional role of Congress in
deciding when the United States will use military force have introduced H. Con. Res. 114, "Urging Congress to debate and vote on a
statutory authorization for any sustained United States combat role in Iraq or
Syria." When Congress returns from recess after the election in November, it
will still not have debated and voted on a sustained US combat role in Iraq or
Syria, even though a "sustained combat role" is obviously what the Pentagon is
doing and plans to do. Polls have shown that the majority of Americans think that Congress should debate and
vote. Members of Congress can show that they back the public's desire for a
Congressional debate and vote by supporting H. Con. Res. 114.
More
Please
strongly encourage your Congressional Reps to sign on to proposed House
Resolution 114.
THREE
MA REPS are co-sponsors: CLARK, MCGOVERN & TSONGAS!
thanks
for your continued advocacy! SIGN PETITION
Obama
to seek new war powers from Congress
President
Barack Obama said Wednesday he would work with Congress on new war powers to
fight Islamic State militants and expressed cautious optimism about whether the
international face-off over Iran's nuclear program will be resolved — two issues
that could prove harder for the White House to maneuver with Republicans in
charge on Capitol Hill. More
THE
PRESSURE TO ESCALATE
From
the beginning, the president had repeatedly and insistently taken one
thing off that famed “table” in Washington on which all “options” reputedly
sit: the possibility that there would ever be American “boots on the ground” in
Iraq -- that is, military personnel sent directly into combat. This, in effect,
represented what was left of Obama’s previous proud claim that he had gotten us
out of Iraq never to return. Assumedly, it also represented a bedrock
formulation in a situation that otherwise seemed to be in a constant state of
flux. In a way that has been rare in the history of American civilian-military
relations, Dempsey and others in the Pentagon simply refused to accept this. No
matter what the commander-in-chief’s bottom line may have been, they evidently
saw the future quite differently and didn’t hesitate to say so. …Under the
pressure of a powerful national security state (and the various complexes that
have grown to gigantic proportions around it), in a Washington in which beating
the drums for war has become a reflexive act and Republican hawks may well rule
the roost.
More
How
Many Muslim Countries Has the U.S. Bombed Or Occupied Since 1980?
Barack Obama,
in his post-election press conference yesterday, announced that he would seek an Authorization for Use of
Military Force (AUMF) from the new Congress, one that would authorize
Obama’s bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria—the one he began three months ago. If one were being generous, one could
say that seeking congressional authorization for a war that commenced months
ago is at least better than fighting a war even after Congress explicitly
rejected its authorization, as Obama lawlessly did in the now-collapsed country of Libya. When Obama began
bombing targets inside Syria in September, I noted that it was the seventh predominantly Muslim country
that had been bombed by the U.S. during his presidency (that did not count Obama’s bombing of the Muslim minority in the Philippines). I
also previously noted that this new bombing campaign meant
that Obama had become the fourth consecutive U.S. President to order bombs
dropped on Iraq. More
DRONE-STRIKE
FEMINISM
Of
all the justifications the Obama administration has employed to sanctify yet
another war on Iraq, none have been more disingenuous than the portrayal of the
latest US bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS,
aka ISIL) as a feminist rescue mission… But if airstrikes are warranted because
ISIS is engaged in sexual violence, then the governments of the nations the US
has appointed to spearhead its anti-ISIS coalition may need to be bombed as
well—namely, the Iraqi, Egyptian and Saudi regimes… The voices of women-led
Iraqi civil society groups are completely absent from the establishment media.
You won't see any mention in the corporate press of the Organization of Women's
Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which, along with its sister organization MADRE,
strongly opposes US airstrikes and holds the US responsible for creating and
perpetuations the sectarian violence that fueled ISIS's rise to power.
More
The
Middle East’s Unholy Alliance
They’ve
been referred to as “moderates” and even the “Axis of Reason”. Now, America’s friends in Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are in talks to form a joint military force to intervene throughout the Middle East
and “deal with extremists in the region.” …
For
its purposes, the United States is today closely aligned with the reactionaries
of our time. In the face of free and fair electoral victories by groups such as
the Muslim Brotherhood, the U.S. has tended to rationalize their decision to
side with the ancien régime as being in defense of liberal values… Rather than
relying upon an old order which is both brutal, corrupt, and unlikely to survive
in the long term, the United States should take the farsighted and principled
position of committing itself to democracy in the region – even if it doesn’t
always like who wins.
More
But
fighting them in Syria!
Obama
Coordinating With Iran In Islamic State Fight, Growing Evidence
Suggests
Adding
to mounting evidence that President Barack Obama's administration
sees Iran as something of a partner in its fight against the Islamic State, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Obama wrote to
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month about the campaign
against the Islamic State. The WSJ reported last week that the U.S. had assured Iran that it
would not be targeting the forces of its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, as
it began striking targets in Syria.Like that news, the latest revelation will
likely stir consternation among many of Obama's current partners in this
campaign. From Arab nations that have launched their own strikes against the
militant group to moderate U.S.-backed Syrian rebels who are presently besieged by Iranian forces aiding the Syrian regime,
key Obama allies see collaborating with Iran as unacceptable because of the
country's unwavering support for Assad. More
Obama
Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic
State
President
Barack
Obama secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the
middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State
militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence.
The letter appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State
and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal. Mr. Obama stressed
to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on
Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of
Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline, the same people say.
More
Syrian
rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda
Two
of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both
the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda. The US and its allies were
relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a
ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been
receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and
TOW anti-tank missiles. But on Saturday night Harakat Hazm surrendered military
bases and weapons supplies to Jabhat al-Nusra, when the al-Qaeda affiliate in
Syria stormed villages they controlled in northern Idlib province. The
development came a day after Jabhat al-Nusra dealt a final blow to the SRF,
storming and capturing Deir Sinbal, home town of the group's leader Jamal
Marouf. More
A Syrian Speaks Out. .
.
Why
arming the rebels will fuel Syria's inferno
Aleppo
is a microcosm of Syria. The suffering here is just as real and horrible as it
is everywhere else. It does not distinguish friend from foe or regime loyalist
from opposition supporter. It affects us all. Ironically, this shared suffering
might be the only thing that unites Syrians now, but I believe they are also
united by an urgent desire to stop the suffering and end the war and killing
that is causing it… Those who justify the continuation of our death and
suffering either do so on the premise of liberating our lives from tyranny or on
the premise of protecting it from extremism. Both are lies, of course, but they
do have one truth in common as we jokingly note here: They all want to
“liberate” our lives from this earthly world… Arming the rebels is de facto
arming the extremists, period.
More
*
* * *
Diplomacy
with Iran More Necessary than Ever
If
Nuclear Negotiations With Iran Fail, US Will Be to Blame
Nuclear
negotiations between Iran and P5+1 – the five permanent members of the United
Nations Security
Council
plus Germany – have entered their critical stage. The original Geneva interim agreement expired last July, but both
sides agreed to extend the deadline for reaching a comprehensive agreement to
November 24. Much progress has been made, but some difficult issues have
remained unresolved… At a symposium in Washington on October 23, Wendy Sherman,
Under Secretary of State who leads the US negotiation team with Iran, asserted that, "We hope the leaders in Tehran will agree to
the steps necessary to assure the world that this program will be exclusively
peaceful. If that does not happen, the responsibility will be seen by all to
rest with Iran." Given all the concessions that Iran has made, given US
excessive demands on Iran, and given the fact that, in effect, the US is trying
to impose a new and illegal interpretation of Iran’s obligations under the NPT
and its SG Agreement and the meaning of "peaceful nuclear program," it will be
the US that will be blamed for the failure of the negotiations, not
Iran.
More
One
month from now, we could be celebrating a historic nuclear deal with Iran. This
is our chance to solve one of America’s greatest security concerns without
dropping a single bomb. But that's not stopping some in Congress from trying to
kill the deal before its even finalized. A deal with Iran is within reach, but
time is short. Take Action!
Please urge your Members of Congress to support this historic opportunity.
Please urge your Members of Congress to support this historic opportunity.
Israel,
Iran, and the Republican Victory
The
Republicans’ Senate victory offers Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu new
hope for outmaneuvering President Barack Obama on Iran; in the coming weeks, he
could use a Republican-led Congress to sabotage negotiations with the Islamic
Republic on its nuclear program. But the victory would be short lived. By
scuttling the talks, Netanyahu could empower Iran’s hardliners… With Republicans
now in control of Congress, Israel’s concerns will fall on more receptive ears.
But that could spell more trouble than Israel expects. If the P5+1 (the
permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) and Iran reach an
agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by the November 24 deadline, any continued
effort to oppose the agreement would no longer be just toughness on Iran. It
would also be directly against the United States. More
Israeli
policy on Iran is threat to its 'special relationship' with America
American
interests are far more threatened by Netanyahu’s Iran positions than by his
reluctance to make peace with the Palestinians: the direct costs to America of
Israeli settlement expansion and peace process intransigence over the past six
years pale in comparison to the potential costs of a hot American war with
another Middle Eastern country (especially a country whose regional power
outstrips by orders of magnitude any actor the US has fought over the past
decade). For example, an eminent bi-partisan panel of experts from the Iran
Project warned last year that the “unintended consequences” of an
American attack on Iran could lead to the US being bogged down in an “all-out
regional war”.
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Damn-As Obama Escalates With 1500 Additional Troops-
As Obama,
His House And Senate Allies, His “Coalition Of The Willing” Beat The War Drums-Again- Stop The
Escalations-No New U.S. War In Iraq- No Intervention In Syria! Immediate
Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops And Mercenaries!
Stop The U.S. And Allied Bombings! –Stop The Arms Shipments …
As Obama,
His House And Senate Allies, His “Coalition Of The Willing” Beat The War Drums-Again- Stop The
Escalations-No New U.S. War In Iraq- No Intervention In Syria! Immediate
Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops And Mercenaries!
Stop The U.S. And Allied Bombings! –Stop The Arms Shipments …
Frank Jackman
comment:
As the Nobel
Peace Prize Winner, U.S. President Barack Obama, abetted by the usual suspects
in the House and Senate as well as internationally, orders more air bombing
strikes in the north and in Syria, sends
more “advisers” to “protect” American outposts in Iraq, and sends arms
shipments to the Kurds, supplies arms to the moderate Syrian opposition if it
can be found to give weapons to, guys who served in the American military
during the Vietnam War and who, like me, belatedly, got “religion” on the war
issue as a kneejerk way to resolve the conflicts in this wicked old world might
very well be excused for disbelief when the White House keeps pounding out the
propaganda that these actions are limited when all signs point to the slippery
slope of escalation. And all the time saying the familiar (Vietnam era familiar
updated for the present)-“we seek no wider war”-meaning no American combat
troops. Well if you start bombing places back to the Stone Age, cannot rely on
the Iraqi troops who have already shown what they are made of and cannot rely
on a now non-existent “Syrian Free Army” which you are willing to get whatever
they want and will still come up short what do you think the next step will be?
Now not every event in history gets exactly repeated but given the recent
United States Government’s history in Iraq those old time vets might be on to
something. In any case dust off the old banners, placards, and buttons and get
your voices in shape- just in case. No New War In Iraq –Stop The Bombings- No
Intervention In Syria!
***
Here is something to think about:
Workers and the oppressed have no interest in a victory by one combatant
or the other in the reactionary Sunni-Shi’ite civil war. However, the
international working class definitely has a side in opposing imperialist
intervention in Iraq and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops
and mercenaries. It is U.S. imperialism that constitutes the greatest danger to
the world’s working people and downtrodden.
Saturday, November 08, 2014
As The 100th
Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars)
Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poets’ Corner
In say 1912, 1913,
hell, even the beginning of 1914 before the war clouds got a full head of steam
in the summer they all profusely professed, artists who saw the disjointedness
of modern industrial society and put the pieces to paint, sculptors who put
twisted pieces of metal juxtaposed to each other, writers of serious history
books proving that, according to their Whiggish theory of progress, humankind had moved beyond war as an instrument
of policy, writers of not so serious novels drenched in platitudes and hidden
gabezo love affairs put paid to that notion in their sweet nothing words that
man and woman had too much to do to denigrate themselves by crying the warrior’s
cry and the maidens strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets, musicians whose
muse spoke of delicate tempos and sweet muted violin concertos, and poets, ah, those
constricted poets who bleed the moon of its amber swearing, swearing on a stack
of seven sealed bibles, that they would go to the hells before touching the hair
of another man, that come the war drums they would resist the siren call, would
stick to their Whiggish, Futurist, Constructionist, Cubist, world and blast the
war-makers to hell in quotes, words, chords, clanged metal, and pretty pastels.
And then the war
drums intensified and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out,
poets, artists, sculptors, writers, serious and not, musicians went to the
trenches to die deathless deaths in their thousands for….
THE KAISER AND BELGIUM
He said: "Thou petty people, let me pass.
What canst thou do but bow to me and kneel?"
But sudden a dry land caught fire like grass,
And answer hurtled but from shell and steel.
He looked for silence, but a thunder came
Upon him, from Liège a leaden hail.
All Belgium flew up at his throat in flame
Till at her gates amazed his legions quail.
Take heed, for now on haunted ground they tread;
There bowed a mightier war lord to his fall:
Fear! lest that very green grass again grow red
With blood of German now as then with Gaul.
If him whom God destroys He maddens first,
Then thy destruction slake thy madman's thirst.
_Stephen Phillips_
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