GIVE
WAR A CHANCE?
Iraq
2.0: The REAL Reason Hawks Oppose the Iran Deal
In
unguarded moments, many hawks concede they are against an agreement in
principle. As Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s strategic affairs
minister Yuval Steinitz admitted recently, “we are against a deal in general.” Similarly, Senator Tom
Cotton, author of the embarrassing letter imploring Iran’s Supreme Leader to
scuttle the deal, admitted to an audience at the Heritage Foundation before
writing the letter: The end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended
consequence of Congressional action, it is very much an intended consequence. A
feature, not a bug, so to speak. So, despite their protests that what they’re
really after is a “better deal,” their own words betray the truth: They oppose
any deal. Vox’s Max Fisher suggests that the reason is because their real desire is to change the Iranian regime by force, and a
diplomatic deal makes that less likely. More
Adelson
Holds Court as Kristol Blasts Corker, AIPAC
The
Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and Its Implications for U.S. Sanctions
Policy
Generally
speaking, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act is being offered as an oversight
bill… However, the legislation exceeds the scope of oversight by withdrawing
from the President the power to implement a nuclear deal reached with Iran, both
during the period of Congressional review and thereafter should Congress enact a
Joint Resolution of Disapproval… Pending passage in both Houses of Congress, the
Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act will provide Congress a period of review and a
level of oversight over a nuclear agreement between the U.S., its P5+1 partners,
and Iran. However, the legislation will also limit the President’s authorities
to implement the terms of a nuclear deal during the period of Congressional
review and perhaps thereafter should Congress enact a Joint Resolution of
Disapproval. Such limitations threaten to delay the implementation of a nuclear
deal. More
Mass
Sen. Ed Markey joined all the other Democrats on the Foreign Relations
Committee in supporting a “compromise” bill pushed by Republican and Israel
Lobby opponents of the potential Iran agreement. Markey’s statement included
this hardly “diplomatic” assertion that he would only accept: “the most
invasive inspections possible, the most intensive enforcement provisions
possible, and the most aggressive means to remove the technological capability
for Iran to make a nuclear weapon.” Full statement here.
Mohammad
Javad Zarif: A Message From Iran
Iran
has been clear: The purview of our constructive engagement extends far beyond
nuclear negotiations. Good relations with Iran’s neighbors are our top priority. Our rationale is that the nuclear issue has been a
symptom, not a cause, of mistrust and conflict. Considering recent advances in
symptom prevention, it is time for Iran and other stakeholders to begin to
address the causes of tension in the wider Persian Gulf region… We need a sober
assessment of the complex and intertwined realities here, and consistent
policies to deal with them. The fight against terror is a case in point. One
cannot confront Al Qaeda and its ideological siblings, such as the so-called
Islamic State, which is neither Islamic nor a state, in Iraq, while effectively
enabling their growth in Yemen and Syria. More
Meanwhile,
members of the House circulated a letter supporting the negotiations. It has already been
signed by all the Mass Reps. except Kennedy (let him hear from you if you’re
in his district!). Keating, who is on the House Foreign Relations
Committee, has been unhelpful so far on Iran and Israel-related issues,
apparently signed as a result, at least in part, of a spirited pressure campaign
from his constituents on Cape Cod.
“We
must pursue diplomatic means to their fullest and allow the negotiations to run
their course – especially now that the parties have announced a strong framework
– and continue working to craft a robust and verifiable Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action by June 30. We must allow our negotiating team the space and time
necessary to build on the progress made in the political framework and turn it
into a long-term, verifiable agreement”
Iran
still respecting terms of interim nuclear deal: U.N. report
Iran has continued
to meet its commitments under an interim nuclear agreement with six world
powers, a confidential United Nations nuclear agency report seen by Reuters
showed on Monday. The monthly update by the International Atomic Energy Agency
said Iran was not enriching uranium above a fissile concentration of 5
percent... It also said Iran had not made "any further advances" in its
activities at two enrichment facilities and a heavy water reactor under
construction. More
*
* * *
Friday-Sunday,
April 24-26
PEACE
AND PLANET:
Mobilizing
for a Nuclear Free, Just, and Sustainable World
The April 24 -
26 Peace & Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear-free, Peaceful Just
and Sustainable World, in New York City and around the world, begins
today!
If you can get to
New York, there’s still time to register for the April 24-25 international
conference with its spectacular line up of plenary speakers and 44 workshops.
On Sunday,
April
26, join the Interfaith Convocation, and then hit the streets for a mass rally, march and festival, and launch of the “Global Wave”. Peace Action will meet at 17th and Broadway at
12:30 pm in front of PETCO. Round trip to NYC in one day: Get on the Bus at Alewife or Riverside MBTA station (YES,
there's still space!), or in Worcester. Mass. Peace Action will be carrying 50
posters designed by our Student Art Contest winners!
If you can’t come to New
York, there are several ways you can participate!
·
Sign up for our Thunderclap! Like Peace & Planet on Facebook, and follow Peace & Planet on Twitter. Post some tweets in the
next couple days, tagging @PeaceAndPlanet (we're using #NoNukes #70Years
#NPTRevCon #ConnectingTheStruggles), and please also tag three of your friends
or followers to make sure that our Thunderclap goes out on Friday the 24th!!
·
Sign the Peace & Planet petition. Your signatures will be
added to more than 7 million signatures from Japan that will be presented to
United Nations and NPT officials during the April 26 peace festival.
·
Watch the conference plenary sessions. They will be
livestreamed, so you can even watch from home!
·
Wave goodbye to nuclear weapons wherever you are! The “Global Wave” will be launched at the April 26 rally in New
York, with participants symbolically waving goodbye to nuclear weapons. The
Global Wave will travel west, by time zone, with public events scheduled in
Papeete, Manila, Amman, Bethlehem, Stockholm, Paris, London, Sao Paulo and
points in-between, arriving back at the UN for the opening of the NPT Review
Conference on April 27. See Massachusetts Global Wave plans here.
Next week, join
the Dialogue with Japanese A-Bomb Survivors and
Activists. Thursday, April 30, 6pm at Cambridge Friends Meeting (note: you
MUST sign up first!)
*
* * *
WARS
ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
"RUNNING WHILE
BLACK"
Protests Swell Over
Death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore Police Custody
Baltimore has
entered its fifth day of protests amid the death of Freddie Gray. The
27-year-old African-American man died Sunday from spinal injuries, one week
after Baltimore police arrested him. His family and attorney say his voice box
was crushed and his spine was "80 percent severed at his neck." A preliminary
autopsy report showed Gray died of a spinal injury. Video shot by a bystander
shows Gray screaming in apparent agony as police drag him to a van. Another
witness said the police bent Gray like a pretzel… “There are no jobs in that
community. There is no economic development happening in that community. But the
other issue is the harassment of police, the unnecessary detainment of police…
And so I think that we really need to take a look at how policing is done in
Baltimore. It cannot be disconnected from our high incarceration rate. Black
folks make up almost 80 percent of the total population in the Maryland prison
system, yet we comprise about 28 percent of the population in the state.”
More
Missouri National
Guard: Ferguson protesters are 'Enemy forces'
As the Missouri
National Guard prepared to deploy to help quell riots in Ferguson, Missouri,
that raged sporadically last year, the guard used highly militarized words such
as "enemy forces" and "adversaries" to refer to protesters, according to
documents obtained by CNN… The documents reveal that the Missouri guard was
especially concerned that "adversaries" might use phone apps and police scanners
to expose operational security. "Counterintelligence operations are directed at
supporting an information campaign. Their audience does not require the
information to be accurate and is easily swayed," one document read.
More
“KILLING AFRICA”
In many
different ways, much of the world is invested in killing Africa. At the
foundation of this push is the theft of Africa's resources, which threatens
Africa's subsistence - and is linked to the global oppression of members of the
African diaspora, known to many in the West and around the world as Black
people. While Black people in the United States 
continue to
battle discrimination and oppression at the hands of White supremacy, the
practice of subjugating Black people transcends the borders of this young
empire. Beyond whatever implications the current (though still limited) concern
for Black life brings about in the midst of ongoing police violence in the
United States, Black life is vulnerable across cultures,
internationally. More
How Punitive and
Racist Policing Enforces Gentrification in San Francisco
Stories about
gentrification typically revolve around a certain set of characters - landlords,
developers, speculators, tenants facing eviction, long-time residents and rich
newcomers. But there is another set of characters typically left out - police
and the criminal legal system. In fact, the agency that physically enforces
evictions is the Sheriff's Department. San Francisco represents a case study in
how punitive and racist police practices enforce gentrification… Landlords,
developers and speculators work in tandem with police to effectively kick out
marginalized communities, both through direct strategies and by making them feel
unwelcome. By harshly cracking down on petty offenses, enforcing evictions and
disproportionately incarcerating and killing people of color, the criminal legal
system fuels gentrification. More
Muslims the New
"Enemy Within"
For half a
century, cultural conservatives have vowed to protect America against threats
from domestic insurgencies: black militancy, feminism, the gay-rights movement.
But those insurgencies involved large and restive groups. Muslims, by contrast,
make up only 1 percent of the U.S. population… Muslims have become the right’s
greatest cultural enemy in large part because they are what remains after the
ideological collapse of the “war on terror.” …
Although most
conservatives are happy to bomb ISIS, the American right has lost its appetite
for a vast overseas struggle against jihadist terror. Instead of tempering their
view of the threat, conservatives have domesticated it. By reconceiving the
Islamist danger as a largely domestic problem, conservatives can now fight it
ferociously without having to invade any other countries. All they need to do is
prevent Muslims from Islamicizing America. More
GLENN GREENWALD: What
Explains the Power of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Middle Finger?
Like most things
that happen in a U.S. criminal court, and like most dominant narratives
propagated by the American media, the message created by exploiting this
photograph was completely misleading. All anyone has to do in order to see that
is watch the 37-second video from which the screen shot was grabbed: Rather than
some sort of calculated, sustained display of evil scorn for America and his
victims — CNN’s “defiant salute” — the actual video shows a 19-year-old
prisoner bored from sitting alone for hours in a jail. The middle finger was
preceded by other gestures that he maintained longer. He was using the camera as
some sort of mirror and appears to be occupying and mildly amusing himself. The
still photo was shown by prosecutors rather than the video because the former is
menacing and the latter is not. More
Vets for Peace: Spare
Tsarnaev
“I’m opposed to
the death penalty in any circumstances, on moral and ethical grounds. More
importantly to me, I’m trying to get a discussion between this crime of
terrorism and war and peace,” said Warfield. Warfield said the marathon bombings
were an example of “blowback” meaning the blasts were the fruits of hawkish
American foreign policy that included drone strikes and assassinations various
countries around the world. “We Americans should be more serious about insisting
on peace by our government,” he said. “We are now getting caught up in this
insanity.” More
Just over 30,000
individuals contributed nearly half of all money. It is no coincidence that this
proportion has increased steadily as economic inequality has increased…
Candidates devote 80 percent of their time to begging rich people for money. Any
extremist Republican can get a billionaire sugar daddy. The
world's eighth richest man can summon the entire Republican primary field to kiss his ring. Millionaires
are now complaining about being ignored in favor of billionaires. The
average member of Congress is a millionaire. More
Kansas wants the poor
to pay for tax cuts for the rich
Wealthier
Kansans are paying much less in taxes after Republican Gov. Sam
Brownback overhauled the state's income tax a few years ago. Brownback and other
Republican officials hoped that more generous policies would stimulate the
economy, bringing more revenue into the state's coffers and making up the
difference on the bottom line. It didn't work… One thing they're not
considering: asking the wealthy to chip in. Instead, in a legislature that last
week barred welfare recipients from using their benefits to go
swimming or watch movies, the proposals that look most likely to succeed are
sales and excise taxes that would be paid disproportionately by Kansas's poor
and working class. More
Corporations now
spend more lobbying Congress than taxpayers spend
funding Congress
Corporations now
spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures – more than
the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.16 billion) and Senate ($820
million). More
America's Political
Obsession With the "Middle Class" Hurts Workers
It’s an odd
state of affairs when nine out of ten people imagine themselves to be part of
the middle class, as The New York Times’ Patricia Cohen recently pointed out.
“The middle-class label is as much about aspirations among Americans as it is
about economics,” Cohen observes. “But a perspective that was once characterized
by comfort and optimism has increasingly been overlaid with stress and anxiety.”
… Making huge swathes of working people believe they belong with the middle
class convinces them that they are already well enough off to be fine without
class-based agitation, and also distances them from those with whom they
genuinely share class concerns. When you add in that Great American Virtue of
individualism—think postage-stamp lawns and neat, isolated suburban
households—that the middle class is known for, solidarity among the working
class becomes difficult to imagine. More
As Corporate Forces
Push TPP Fast Track Bill, Progressives Draw Battle Lines
Warning that
passing Fast Track legislation would amount to rubber-stamping corporate trade
pacts like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, progressives are vowing to hold
members of Congress accountable for their votes on the compromise bill announced Thursday—and reminding them of how dangerous such
trade policies are for the public, workers, and the planet… The open warring
among Democrats over fast-track trade legislation, and the party’s broader
existential crisis on free trade, grew more pronounced Thursday as senior
lawmakers announced a breakthrough on the trade bill. Many Democrats still feel
the burn, 20 years later, of lost manufacturing jobs from the North American
Free Trade Agreement — pushed through by former President Bill Clinton — and
they fear another Democratic president is on the verge of turning his back on
working-class Americans by negotiating a trade deal that would send jobs
overseas. More
The Trans-Pacific
Partnership Won’t Be a Good Deal for American Workers
TPP proponents
who highlight the treaty’s estimated net national gains while ignoring its
likely regressive distributional outcomes are hiding the ball from policymakers.
The net national gains from trade have the exact same root as the regressive
distributional outcomes—they both stem from reshuffling of domestic production
away from labor-intensive import-competing sectors—and you cannot have one
without the other… In fact, studies that show the TPP will increase overall
American national income also show that it will cause substantial reshuffling of
domestic production away from labor-intensive import-competing sectors. This
will clearly inflict damage on large groups (probably the majority) of American
workers. More
*
* * *
*
* * *
NEW
WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
How the
US Contributed to Yemen’s Crisis
Not
long ago – at the height of the Arab Spring in 2011 – a broad-based, nonviolent,
pro-democracy movement in Yemen rose up against the U.S.-backed government of
dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. If Washington and Saudi Arabia had allowed this
coalition to come to power, the tragic events unfolding in Yemen could have been
prevented… Meanwhile, the United States and Saudi Arabia, joined by the other
monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), presented a plan whereby Saleh
would step down. According to the deal, he and other top officials in the regime
would be granted immunity from prosecution, and a plebiscite would be held
within 60 days to ratify the transfer of power to Saleh’s vice-president, Major
General Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. Pro-democracy protesters largely rejected this
U.S.-Saudi mandate for Hadi. It soon became apparent that despite occasional
calls for Saleh to step down – such as US ambassador to the United Nations Susan
Rice’s strong statement in early August – the Obama administration was deferring
to its autocratic GCC allies on the peninsula to oversee a political
transition. More
US
generals: Saudi intervention in Yemen ‘a bad idea’
The
fact that the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen was planned and launched
independently of the U.S. was, in McCain’s eyes, a rebuke of the
administration’s policies. “These countries, led by Saudi Arabia, did not notify
us nor seek our coordination or our assistance in this effort,” he said during a
March 26 committee hearing, “because they believe we are siding with Iran.” A
senior commander at Central Command (CENTCOM), speaking on condition of
anonymity, scoffed at that argument. “The reason the Saudis didn’t inform us of
their plans,” he said, “is because they knew we would have told them exactly
what we think — that it was a bad idea.” Military sources said that a number of
regional special forces officers and officers at U.S. Special Operations Command
(SOCOM) argued strenuously against supporting the Saudi-led intervention because
the target of the intervention, the Shia Houthi movement — which has taken over
much of Yemen and which Riyadh accuses of being a proxy for Tehran — has been an
effective counter to Al-Qaeda. More
Houthi
arms bonanza came from Saleh, not Iran
But
the assumption that the Houthis have been looking to Iran to train their troops
or supply their need for weapons ignores the most basic facts of their
ascendance. The Houthis built up their military forces from virtually nothing to
as many 100,000 troops today through a series of six wars with Yemeni government
troops… In the process, the Houthis acquired a new bonanza of weapons that had
been provided by the United States over the previous eight years. According to Pentagon documents acquired under the Freedom of
Information Act by Joseph Trevithick, the Defence Department had delivered about
$500 million in military hardware to the Yemeni military from 2006 on… In light
of the reality that the Houthis are already flush with American arms that may be
worth as much as hundreds of millions of dollars, the flurry of media excitement
over the US Navy sending another warship to intercept an Iranian flotilla of
arms is an odd bit of burlesque that ought to be in an embarrassment.
More
Sale of
U.S. Arms Fuels the Wars of Arab States
To
wage war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is using F-15 fighter jets bought from Boeing. Pilots from the United Arab Emirates are flying Lockheed Martin’s F-16 to bomb both Yemen and Syria. Soon, the
Emirates are expected to complete a deal with General Atomics for a fleet of
Predator drones to run spying missions in their neighborhood. As the
Middle East descends into proxy wars, sectarian conflicts and battles against
terrorist networks, countries in the region that have stockpiled American
military hardware are now actually using it and wanting more. The result is a
boom for American defense contractors looking for foreign business in an era of
shrinking Pentagon budgets — but also the prospect of a dangerous new arms race
in a region where the map of alliances has been sharply redrawn. Last week,
defense industry officials told Congress that they were expecting within days a
request from Arab allies fighting the Islamic State — Saudi Arabia, the
Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt — to buy thousands of American-made
missiles, bombs and other weapons, replenishing an arsenal that has been
depleted over the past year. More
Cartoon:
Death & Destruction, Inc.
(click on the image
to play in your browser)
US Military Spending
Still Up 45% Over Pre-9/11 Levels; More Than Next 7 Countries
Combined
Despite a
decline in military spending since 2010, U.S. defense expenditures are still 45
percent higher than they were before the 9/11 terror attacks put the country on
a seemingly permanent war footing. And despite massive regional buildups spurred
by conflict in the Ukraine and the Middle East, the U.S. spends more on its
military than the next seven top-spending countries combined, according to new
figures compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute (SIPRI). That’s nearly three times as much as China, and more than
seven times as much as Russia. More
ISIS, Iraq, and the
Lessons of Blowback
The Free Syrian
Army (FSA), the “moderate” armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of
attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assad’s forces are
Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is
now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in
part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries:
Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way
to 
Jabhat al-Nusra,
to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra
commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is
another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi
project.” …ISIS achieved scale and consequence through Saudi support, only to
now pose a grave threat to the kingdom and the region. It’s this concern about
blowback that has motivated Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey and
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to encourage restraint in arming Syrian rebels.
President Obama has so far heeded these warnings. More
Saudi Arabia is
'biggest funder of terrorists'
Saudi Arabia is
the single biggest contributor to the funding of Islamic extremism and is
unwilling to cut off the money supply, according to a leaked note from Hillary
Clinton. The US Secretary of State says in a secret memorandum that donors in
the kingdom still "constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni
terrorist groups worldwide" and that "it has been an ongoing challenge to
persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi
Arabia as a strategic priority". In a separate diplomatic cable published by
WikiLeaks last night, the militant group which carried out the Mumbai bombings
in 2008, Lashkar-e-Toiba, is reported to have secured money in Saudi Arabia via
one of its charity offshoots which raises money for schools.
More
U.S. says might talk
to Iran about regional stability, cites Syria
The U.S. State
Department said on Monday it might talk with Iran about promoting
regional stability, noting it had been open to including Iran in past efforts to
achieve a Syrian peace deal if Tehran had altered its policy. But it drew a
distinction between talking to Iran about issues beyond its nuclear program and
actually working with Tehran on such matters, something Washington has ruled
out… Washington was put in an awkward position since it blames Tehran for much
of the instability and because it does not wish to upset Gulf Arab allies who
fear a nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran may pave the way to a wider
U.S.-Iranian entente. More
Drone Strikes Reveal
Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die
The drone’s
vaunted capability for pinpoint killing appealed to a president intrigued by a
new technology and determined to try to keep the United States out of new
quagmires. Aides said Mr. Obama liked the idea of picking off dangerous
terrorists a few at a time, without endangering American lives or risking the
yearslong bloodshed of conventional war… The president’s announcement on
Thursday that a January strike on Al Qaeda in Pakistan had killed two Western
hostages, and that it took many weeks to confirm their deaths, bolstered the
assessments of the program’s harshest outside critics. The dark picture was
compounded by the additional disclosure that two American members of Al Qaeda
were killed in strikes that same month, but neither had been identified in
advance and deliberately targeted.
In all, it was a
devastating acknowledgment for Mr. Obama, who had hoped to pioneer a new, more
discriminating kind of warfare. Whether 
the episode
might bring a long-delayed public reckoning about targeted killings, long hidden
by classification rules, remained uncertain.
Even some former
Obama administration security officials have expressed serious doubts about the
wisdom of the program, given the ire it has ignited overseas and the terrorists
who have said they plotted attacks because of drones. More
Military Veterans
Target US Drone Strikes In TV Ads
A group of
military veterans is taking aim at U.S. drone strikes overseas with graphic TV
ads directly asking Air Force pilots to stop flying the unmanned aircraft, calling
the operations immoral and illegal… The two 15-second spots show images from a
drone operations video screen, an explosion and civilians searching through
rubble after a drone attack. On-screen messages read “Drone killings violate law
and morality” and “Drone pilots. Please refuse to fly. No one has to obey an
immoral law.” More (Watch an ad here.
)
U.S. dispatches elite
troops to train Ukrainians
Hundreds of
elite American paratroopers on Monday began training Ukrainian soldiers in the
highest level training mission the United States has yet to undertake in that
Eastern European nation. The Pentagon said that the assignment of 300 “Sky
Soldiers” – the proud name for members of the Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade
Combat team – to conduct the training was a significant upgrade from earlier
U.S. military exercises with Ukrainians, which previously were undertaken by
National Guard units… As the U.S. paratroopers arrived in Ukraine last week to
prepare for the training, the Kremlin criticized the exercises. “The
participation of instructors and specialists from a third country on the
territory Ukraine . . . is far from aiding in the resolution of the conflict,”
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Friday.
“To the contrary, it helps to destabilize the situation.”
More
Walled off: In
non-rebel eastern Ukraine, frustrations with Kiev mount
It's been
nicknamed the "Great Wall of Ukraine." Its planned combination of barbed-wire
fences, watchtowers, berms, and tank traps along Ukraine's 1,300-mile border
with Russia look like something you'd find on one of Israel's borders with its
hostile neighbors… But in nearby Kharkiv, an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking
city of one-and-a-half million, mention of the wall is mostly greeted with
snorts of irritation. The idea of splitting permanently and irrevocably from
Russia wins virtually no acceptance. Many people here have family and friends in
Russia, the local economy is heavily dependent on trade with Russia, and some
say they just can't wrap their heads around the idea of a frontier being there
in the first place… "People in the western Ukraine are inclined to tighten their
belts and think 'we're at war with Russia, of course there must be sacrifices.'
But people here say, 'we lived better under [deposed President Viktor]
Yanukovych, before these new people came"… People here overwhelmingly voted for
Mr. Yanukovych in 2010. More
How Ukraine
Commemorates the Holocaust
Though Official
Washington and the mainstream U.S. media continue to dutifully ignore the key
role played by neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s February 2014 coup and in the post-coup
regime’s subsequent military offensives against ethnic Russians in the
east, Ukrainian politicians can’t stop their arms from snapping into Heil Hitler
salutes like the fictional character Dr. Strangelove. They can’t hold back this
reflex even as the world stopped this week to recall the Nazi barbarity that
claimed the lives of some six million Jews as well as other minorities…
Ukraine’s honor-the-Nazi-collaborators vote came amid increased repression of
opposition politicians and journalists who dare to criticize the U.S.-backed
regime as it moves to repudiate the political settlement envisioned by
February’s Minsk-2 agreement and instead prepares for a resumption of the war to
crush the resistance in eastern Ukraine once and for all. More
* *
* *
ISRAEL, PALESTINE. .
. and the US
Thousands return to
destroyed Palestinian villages in Israel
Approximately
10,000 people of all ages — mostly Palestinian citizens of Israel — took part in
the 18th annual March of Return Thursday, on the land where the destroyed
Palestinian village of Hadatha once stood. Setting out under an ominous sky, the
demonstrators walked across the lands of the former village, wearing keffiyehs,
waving flags and singing… The March of Return, which always coincides with
Israeli Independence Day, commemorates the Nakba and calls for the right of
return for Palestinians who were expelled from or fled the land in 1948. The
destination changes each year, to one of the more than 400 villages that were
destroyed during or following the war. Hadatha, which is located southwest of
Tiberias in the Lower Galilee, had around 600 inhabitants before being
depopulated across May and June of 1948; now, the area consists of wild fields
and scattered groves of trees. More
Why Gaza Casualties
were so High: Israel relaxed rules re: high-explosives in populated
areas
In a new report entitled
‘Under Fire,’ Action on Armed Violence found that Israel has “gradually relaxed”
rules regarding the use of unguided high-explosive weapons in populated areas,
greatly increasing the risk to Palestinian civilians. “Despite a stated
commitment by the IDF to civilian protection, and much advertised measures such
as pre-strike warnings, when it comes to the use of Israeli artillery on
Palestinians there is a wide gap between public rhetoric and the reality on the
ground,” the report said. Over 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the 51-day
conflict and 10,000 injured, with 69 percent of the fatalities civilians and at
least 501 children, according to the United Nations. More
Adelson vs.
Saban
Israeli-American
businessman Haim Saban, a major donor and fundraiser for the Democratic Party
and one of those closest to the Clintons, was not happy with the results of the
2008 election campaign… He is returning to the arena with all his financial
resources, assuming that Clinton becomes the Democratic presidential candidate.
She will be opposed by an as yet unknown Republican candidate, but if it’s Jeb
Bush, Governor Chris Christie or another black horse like Marco Rubio, we can
assume that no less stormy than the public contest will be the war behind the
scenes – between the major fundraiser for the Democrats and the biggest donor to
the Republicans (of all times), Sheldon Adelson, who invested at least $93
million in Mitt Romney in 2012 and lost. Adelson declared at the start of the
present campaign that this time he would focus on the candidate with the best
chances (after losing time and money financing Newt Gingrich in the 2012
primaries), and that he would invest far greater sums than in the past if
necessary. All this means that the coming election campaign will be
characterized by a behind-the-scenes battle between the two pro-Israel
philanthropists. More
OTHER
EVENTS
Thursday, April 30:
Dialogue with
Japanese A-Bomb Survivors and Nuclear Weapons Abolitionists, 7:00pm,
Friends Meeting
At Cambridge in Cambridge. Space limited, MUST pre-register HERE: http://goo.gl/forms/ZE5qNW9YWz Accepting the event is NOT
sufficient 47 Japanese anti-nuclear weapons community activists, joined by two
survivors of the 1945 A-bomb attacks (hibakusha), will visit Boston April 30 to
educate and meet with students and community groups. The two survivors are Mr.
Tadao Yamato, age 74, and Mr. Shiro Kawamoto, age 78, both from Shizuoka, Japan.
The activists will be in the U.S. because the world’s governments are gathering
at the United Nations April 27 for a major nuclear weapons conference, the Non
Proliferation Treaty Review. They will join with peace, anti-nuclear weapons and
community activists from across the United States and around the world at Peace
and Planet, a march, rally and peace festival on April 26 which will demand that
the nuclear powers commence the good faith negotiations for the complete
elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
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* * * *
CONTACTING DPP
and Joining Our Work:
To make it
easier to get involved with DPP, we've decided to publish contact info for our
coordinators in every issue of this update. We will also regularly publish
upcoming meetings of work committees, create a brochure or flyer about DPP, and
greet new people at monthly meetings with an explanation of how we work. Here's
how to reach them.
Facilitation
Team:
Jack Snyder jack_snyder_bos@yahoo.com
Becky
Pierce beckyp44@verizon.net
Sydney
Miller sydsail@gmail.com
Where: M.I.T.
• 77 Massachusetts Avenue • Main Entrance • Cambridge