,
 A
hearty "thank you" toCourage to Resist, which just issued a call
to "all U.S. military personnel to resist any effort to pursue a new military
attack on Iraq via troops, bombs, drones or any other means. In keeping with
our Mission Statement, we affirm that, just as there was never any legitimate
reason for the United States to send military forces to Iraq in the past, there
is not now any reason for the United States to participate militarily in the
affairs of the people of Iraq."
It is absolutely essential to put before the US public the need for visible
resistance to US re-escalation and occupation of Iraq.
 Jason Ditz
writes on Antiwar.com that 750 US Special Forces are
in Iraq and weapons are pouring in. "300 Hellfires the US already sent were
burned through weeks ago, and theMaliki government is requesting another
1,400." Ditz also reported, "All signs point to the US 'advisers' getting
ready for direct combat operations in both Iraq and Kurdistan, with the Pentagon
shipping Apache attack helicopters to Baghdad to 'protect American interests' in
the capital, and deploying combat troops to fly them."
Drone Memo Concentrates What's Not Legit about
US Targeted Killing by Debra Sweet
"Now, drones have been deployed by the U.S. in
Iraq, as part of what Foreign Policy magazine warns of as
'mission creep.' Going over ten years of the Pakistan campaign, it points out
that the drone strikes were at first said to be used only on 'senior level al
Qaeda' who posed an immediate threat to the U.S. homeland. But, 'the CIA's
estimated 372 drone strikes in Pakistan, which killed some 2,800 people, a vast
majority were not an effort to eliminate senior al Qaeda members who pose a
threat to the U.S. homeland -- which was the very reason armed drones were sent
there in the first place. "It warns that in Iraq, 'in addition to the 300
U.S. military and intelligence advisors that President Obama sent in June, there
are roughly 1,000-1,700 additional private security contractors in Iraq,
according to advisors to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Thus, U.S. armed drones
could be providing force protection for up to 2,000 people over an area of
hundreds of square miles,' and that there is 'sustained confusion' over what
mission these drones could be deployed in."
When ICE buses tried to
drop children off at a US detention center in Murrietta, CA, last week, a crowd
of anti-immigrant "go home" protesters blocked the buses. The sight recalled
nothing so much as the White Citizens Councils greeting Freedom Riders in the
South, or racist crowds demanding segregation of schools.
In a most bizarre twist, the Dean of Morgan State University's Journalism
schoolsuggested sending the children to
Guantanamo because there's a lot of empty space there. NO! Close that
torture camp now.
But on July 4, and since, immigration rights supporters showed up in equal
and larger numbers. Revolution reported
"People came to the immigration detention center in
Murrieta from all over Southern California and beyond on the 4th of July to
insist that the children with and without parents flooding across the border in
Texas be treated humanely, with care and concern, and not as animals or
criminals. And they came to challenge and confront the reactionaries whose ugly
anti-immigrant xenophobia and pro-USA chauvinism has been given center stage in
the national—and international—news all week...
"A high school student, dressed in white, told
Revolution she had set up an event page on Facebook calling on friends to come
dressed in white, and to march silently from the Wal-Mart a half mile away to
the detention center. Though she was only familiar with a couple of her new
'virtual' friends, 30 people showed up for the July 4th march!
"A number of people from Murrieta came to oppose
the racists. Two sisters from Murrieta—one in high school, the other in college
with a young daughter—came together, carrying two handmade signs that each said:
'Our Land Is Your Land. Bienvenidos!' over a rippling American flag. They had
first come to the detention center on Tuesday after hearing that anti-immigrant
forces were out there."
A few photos capture a little of the chaotic and very political scene, which
has continued for days.
A very popular Tweet:
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World Can't Wait Conversation
Tomorrow evening: Thursday,
July 10
10pm Eastern / 7pm Pacific
Topics for discussion: Iraq.
Immigration, Gaza, and recent Supreme Court decisions and the hot summer
coming.
Register for dial-in info.
More
courageous resistance:
Over the next 19 days they are raising $25,000.
Want to sponsor youth and others on the tour? DONATE HERE via Indiegogo.
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Outrageous: Torture Lawyer John Yoo Given Endowed Chair by UC Berkeley Law
School
Caricature credit:
DonkeyHotey
Curt Wechsler writes on FireJohnYoo.net
The selection of John Yoo to fill an endowed faculty chair at Boalt Hall has
raised righteous indignation across the board, from academics to un-credentialed
people of conscience. The appointment represents a huge leap in institutional
complicity in war crimes. Where neglect in enforcement of ethical conduct was
excused by platitudes of powerlessness from the former dean, the
current administration (new Dean, new Chancellor) appears to embrace the
politics of exceptionalism: that international law may be selectively employed.
Indeed, promotion of John Yoo's hyperbole has helped to normalize illegal
government policy on what might be better labelled a "war of terror."
Yoo's public role continues to grow as he promotes expanded Presidential
powers, increased state surveillance, and targeted killing, and everything else
that is favored by the neocons and effectively executed by the Democrats. He is
a heavily featured speaker on the state security lecture circuit.
Although World
Can't Wait's projects FireJohnYoo.net and WarCriminalsWatch.org already document
Yoo's political activities and although we continue to organize protests
whenever possible, we see the response to this appointment as a potential
turning point in public opinion among alumni, faculty, and in the wider
community.
This fall is the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement
that erupted at Berkeley in 1964 and opened up resistance to arbitrary
authority across the country and for a generation. Will the university be
allowed to co-opt that movement, or will we challenge everyone to reject the
university model of supporting the status quo?
We seek your
thoughts as to how we might mount an effective public campaign sanctioning U.C.
for its complicity and, at a minimum, deplorable lack of ethical judgment
evident in this appointment, while at the same time parlay such a campaign into
an effective condemnation of the so-called "legal" justification for the use of
torture and for Guantanamo's legitimacy.
Write me with your rants, proposals, poems, articles.
And please share this news with anyone you know who has a connection to UC
Berkeley or the UC system.
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Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't
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