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Thursday, August 21, 2014
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286 Franklin St
No to U.S.-backed
wars: Iraq, Palestine/Israel and Ukraine
Iraq
The politicians say that the United States, unlike the
brutal ISIS, are a civilized people under God. After all, they point out, we
live in a democracy, respect women, and do not impose any religion on
others.
Yes, the U.S. “humanitarian” cop of the world acts with
moderation, as when it murdered 1.5 million Iraqis during the “civilized”
decade-long war to prevent Saddam Hussein from using “weapons of mass
destruction” that everyone now knows never existed! Nevertheless, in the name of
“democracy,” George Bush did orchestrate “regime change” in Iraq and they had
“democratic” elections that the U.S. military supervised. The U.S. puppet Nouri
al-Maliki was elected Prime Minister – a real democratic leader
indeed!
Today the Obama administration has essentially forced
Maliki to resign because he had little or no support among the Iraqi people, who
he persecuted and robbed with abandon, including his own Shiite majority. His
was a U.S.-supported and approved death squad and profiteering regime, but now
he is to be dispensed with because he is no longer effective in serving U.S.
objectives.
Yesterday, when ISIS was on the Syrian side of the border,
there were no U.S. objections to its beheadings; there were no objections when
ISIS was armed and financed by U.S. allies in Qatar and Saudi Arabia – today
ruled by presumably “democratic-minded” monarchs. Yesterday, ISIS was murdering
U.S. enemies in Syria. No problem! Today it is murdering “friends” of the U.S.
in Iraq! Yesterday it was using stolen Syrian oil to fund the central U.S.
“regime change” objective – Assad’s removal. Today ISIS is using the same Syrian
oil to fund its Iraqi operations.
Yesterday, U.S. military experts insisted that it was
Syria’s Assad who had crossed Obama’s “red line” when Assad was charged with
using sarin gas on innocent Syrians. The “evidence” was “beyond dispute” the
military experts told the world. Obama was on the verge of bombing Syria, again
in the name of “humanitarian” punishment and was only curtailed by mass public
protests. Later, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh,
as well as experts at MIT and elsewhere, presented the evidence that it was the
“rebels” - the ISIS rebels - that used the sarin gas. The matter was dropped.
Obama didn’t condemn the ISIS atrocities because after all, they were fighting
U.S. enemies!
We see that U.S. weapons are supplied to friends who later
become enemies, or the enemies take and/or purchase them from U.S. allies.
ISIS is using hundreds of millions of dollars worth of modern U.S.
weapons its fighters have seized from Iraqi forces, while current friends, the
Kurds, fight with old Soviet arms.
Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential political and religious
leader in Iraq who consistently opposed the presence of foreign forces and
called for the immediate end to the occupation, had it right when he cautioned
that U.S. bombs in northern Iraq were not meant to help the Iraqi people but
rather “to protect U.S. interests.” And what are these interests? Oil! Iraq
presides over one of the world’s largest oil reserves in the world. After more
than a decade of war, the lion’s share flows into the coffers of U.S. oil
corporations.
Rather than withdrawing from Iraq, President Obama assures
us that the U.S. will continue to carry out the “limited” military missions, he
claims to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, to help stabilize the Iraqi
government, and of course, to provide humanitarian relief.
Today the named enemy has changed but the U.S. objective
remains the same. There is no humanitarian will to aid the Azidi minority or
the Kurds. Protecting U.S. interests (synonymous with the interests of the
international energy corporations) is always central to any mission. Many
military experts agree that airstrikes will not be sufficient and boots on the
ground are next.
The U.S. has been fighting against the people of Iraq
militarily and with sanctions and occupation for over 20 years. These crimes
against humanity must end.
Our demands are the same as ever:
Palestine
With greater brutality and disregard for world opinion than
ever before, Israel, with the full backing of the United States, has once again
engaged in a genocidal collective punishment of a heroic people who refuse to
leave their land or give up their rights.
To date, 2000+ Palestinian Gazans were murdered, 10,000
wounded, and 278,000 displaced from their homes. 75-85 percent of the
Palestinian dead and wounded were civilians, many women and children. Medical
facilities were bombed, and Israeli tanks shelled UN schools and refugee centers
killing over 50 and wounding hundreds more. UN High Commissioner of Human
Rights, Navi Pillay, has indicated that Israel was guilty of war
crimes.
The infrastructure of Gaza has been obliterated, with the
only power plant bombed to smithereens, virtually all water supplies and sewage
treatment facilities wiped out, and 50,000 Gazan homes blown to bits. This
horrendous death and destruction comes from one of the world’s most powerful
military states, Zionist Israel.
On the Israeli side, three civilians died, one via a mortar
and two by primitive rockets. 64 Israeli IDF soldiers were reported to have been
killed. Israel says they have the “right to defend its citizens,” and claims
its very existence is threatened by Hamas. By international law, however, the
disproportionate use of force is a war crime and particularly heinous when used
to attack an occupied people.
“Israel must attack Gaza even more mercilessly, expel the
population and resettle the territory with Jews.” These are the words of
Israel’s Deputy Speaker of the Knesset (parliament) Moshe Feiglin, a member of
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party. (See Israeli news
website Arutz Sheva, July 15.) Feiglin’s program on how it must be done includes
attacks using maximum force, with no consideration for “human shields” or
“environmental damage.” He calls for a total siege on Gaza, allowing nothing or
no-one to enter or leave. After the devastating use of firepower, he calls for
“conquering” Gaza and eliminating all armed enemies. Those who are not
connected to the “terrorists”, he says, will be allowed to leave Gaza
permanently. He further states that “Gaza is part of our Land and we will
remain there forever.” Subsequently, Gaza will “become part of sovereign Israel
and will be populated by Jews”. Those who manage to stay after a number of years
will receive permanent resident status and even Israeli citizenship, contingent
on accepting “upon themselves Israel’s rule, substance and way of life of the
Jewish State in its Land”.
In truth, Feiglin’s proposal differs little, if at all,
from Israeli’s long-standing official policy of apartheid and ethnic
cleansing.
We must never forget that the US is entirely complicit, and in fact, Israel could not continue its racist policies of brutal control and subjugation of a captive indigenous population without the political, economic and military backing of the U.S. The totality of U.S. support was blatantly demonstrated in the Senate’s unanimous bi-partisan “Vote of Shame” on July 17 to pass a resolution supporting the Israeli assault on Gaza in order to “defend its citizens and ensure its survival.” Palestinians and their rights by international law to self-defense and their very survival are never considered.Included in the resolution was the real reason Israel and the U.S. were alarmed and the trigger for the latest wave of violence against the Gazans: “Whereas Hamas entered into a unity government arrangement with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority,” it called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “to dissolve the unity governing arrangement with Hamas and condemn the attacks on Israel.” In fact, the feared unified Palestinian resistance is why the Israeli government had laid plans to attack Gaza long ago.
Armed to the teeth to the tune of $3.1 billion yearly – the
largest recipient of U.S. “foreign aid,” – an additional $500 million was almost
immediately supplied to the settler state to replenish the bombs, missiles and
other weapons of war that were “used up” on a near-defenseless Palestinian
population. Another $500 million was contributed for the Iron Dome missile
defense system, presumably to defend against the fairly ineffectual Palestinian
rockets.
The struggle for Palestinian freedom and rights has gone on
for close to 70 years. We must continue our efforts to stand with them, not just
at times of heightened Israeli escalation, and as Americans, to particularly
focus on ending the criminal collusion of the U.S. government.
Our demands remain:
Ukraine
The U.S.-backed bombing of Donetz, a city of one million in
eastern Ukraine, continues, with U.S.-trained Blackwater-type fighters directly
involved along with several well-armed neo-Nazis-led militias that have emerged
as storm troopers flying banners emblazoned with swastika-like
emblems.
An August 9 New York Times article by Andrew E.
Kramer was among the few in the corporate media that formally citied the role of
neo-Nazis forces. Kramer wrote:
“The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern:
The regular army bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic,
violent assaults by some of the half-dozen or so paramilitary groups surrounding
Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat.
“Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate
their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry
and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of
Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.”
These rightwing militias and self-appointed politically-led
forces (bolstered by neo-Nazis from countries as far away as Canada and Sweden)
are employed especially when the official Ukrainian Army has often proven to be
ineffective when ordered to fire on civilians or on volunteer soldiers who have
mobilized to defend their cities from a regime they consider illegitimate as
well as anti-Russian and chauvinist. Thousands of Ukrainian troops have refused
to fight, left Ukraine or joined the Russian Army.
The Ukrainian Army, increasingly equipped with high-tech
U.S./NATO supplied modern weapons of war, and instructed by U.S. and NATO
“advisers,” now operates with modern fighter jets that daily bomb eastern
Ukraine cities – exacting terrible casualties on civilian residents.
The present Ukrainian government drew its authority from
the February 20 U.S.-backed and neo-fascist-led coup that stormed the Ukrainian
Rada (parliament) and forced the elected President Viktor Yanukovych to flee.
The neo-fascist, anti-Semitic, hyper-nationalist, Svoboda (“Freedom”) Party,
accompanied by the virulent pro-Nazis, Right Sector formation, led the coup.
They trace their ideological roots to the pro-Nazi Ukrainian movements of World
War II.
These armed, club-wielding, and often Molotov-cocktail
bomb-throwing “democrats” had been let loose by the rump Fatherland Party
“opposition” Ukrainian parliamentary oligarchs who seized on the now-refuted
false flag accusation that Yanukovych had employed snipers to attack and murder
89 Independence Square (Maidan) demonstrators while wounding 100 others on Feb.
20.
A now confirmed phone call between the Estonian Foreign
Minister Urmas Paet and European Union Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine
Ashton, reported in the British Guardian and other newspapers, reveals
Paet’s view, stated in a verified taped conversation, that “the same snipers
[were] killing people from both sides..… behind the snipers, it was not
Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.”
This rump “new coalition,” in violation of the Ukrainian
constitution, appointed a new government that included five Svoboda and Right
Sector ministers including the two top posts in the Ukrainian military as well
as the Minister of Agriculture. The United States rapidly moved to recognize
the coup government as the legitimate authority in Ukraine.
While the original Independence Square mobilizations
demanded democratic rights and protested government political corruption, they
rapidly devolved into militarized neo-fascist-controlled, anti-Semitic and
violent racist outpourings and confrontations. Undoubtedly, the CIA, having
poured $5 billion into funding a huge number of Ukrainian anti-government NGO’s
over the past decade, played a role. Indeed both Senator John McCain and U.S.
Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland joined the protests, with McCain
appearing on the same platform as Svoboda Party leaders.
The U.S. and European Union (EU) interest was to force the
Yanukovych government to sign an “Association Agreement” that would guarantee
Ukrainian repayment of EU bailout loans via the imposition of massive
Greek-style austerity measures. These included huge layoffs of public workers,
increased taxes and a 50 percent rise in the cost of basic utilities.
On the military side, the EU/U.S.-pressured agreement was
aimed at moving Ukraine into the NATO orbit and eventually at the permanent
stationing of NATO troops – posing a more direct military threat to Russia. This
has led to heightened tension and concerns about a new Cold War.
A key, but infrequently mentioned element in the present
Ukraine government war concerns the U.S. move to acquire the unimpeded right to
frack Ukraine’s shale gas reserves, the fourth largest in the world. Indeed,
these resources figure highly in U.S. corporate efforts to replace Russia’s
exports of fossil fuels to Europe with U.S.-produced natural gas. Behind the
U.S.-backed arming and training of the Ukrainian Army and its support to the
bombing of eastern Ukrainian cities, lies $ trillions in natural resources that
the U.S. seeks to transfer to its privileged corporate interests.
Once again, we are compelled to demand:
8/19/14
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Aug 28 - Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming: Organizing Meeting for the People's Climate March
Greater
Boston Organizing Meeting
Thursday, Aug.
28 for the People’s Climate March in New York on September
21
Stop
the Wars, Stop the Warming!
Time
is urgent -- people are marching
Peace,
environment, labor and justice -- movements converging
Will
this be a turning point in people's history?
Thursday,
August 28
7pm
Encuentro
5
9
Hamilton Place Boston MA
Across
from the Park Street T
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Featuring Boston College Prof. Charlie Derber and an
organizer from 350MA | ||
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United for
Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and
community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed
after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic
justice.
Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP
today.
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| 617-383-4857 | www.justicewithpeace.org | |
Upcoming Events:
| Building a Movement of Movements: Towards the People's Climate March | Fri Aug 22 | 7:00pm | Boston Opera House | Boston |  |
| Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming: Greater Boston Organizing Meeting | Thu Aug 28 | 7:00pm | encuentro 5 | Boston |  |
| Rebecca Gordon, Mainstreaming Torture | Tue Sep 2 | 7:00pm | Walpole Public Library | Walpole | |
| Hot War: Climate Change, Conflict and Sustainability - Michael Klare | Thu Sep 11 | 7:00pm | MIT Campus | Cambridge |  |
| Global Climate Convergence | Fri Sep 19 | 5:00pm | New York City |  | |
| Helen Caldicott: Facing our Nuclear Responsibilities | Sat Sep 20 | 2:00pm | Newton City Hall | Newton Center |  |
| Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming: People's Climate March | Sun Sep 21 | 12:00pm | Columbus Circle | New York City |  |
| David Hartsough: Waging Peace – Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist | Thu Oct 2 | 7:00pm | Cambridge Friends Meeting | Cambridge |  |
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UFPJ Action Alert: No Time for Silence
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Dear Activist, The dual tragedies playing out in Gaza and Iraq are graphic reminders of the catastrophic costs of militarism. Each has multiple causes, but paramount among them, American military power and Washington’s decades-old build up of Israeli military power have caused unimaginable suffering among civilian populations. Neither story is at an end. And the need to speak up for peace and diplomacy remains urgent. Since 2001, the United States government has dealt with the problem of “terrorism” by engaging in various forms of warfare against other countries and groups, while building up the military might of its Israeli ally. And the results have been costly, harmful and counter-productive. The staggering oppression of Palestinians, the millions of people in the Muslim world killed, injured or displaced, and the level of anger now directed at the United States attests to the immorality and futility of this approach. Responding to the crisis in Gaza and Iraq, we call for:
Members of Congress are back in district this month. This is an excellent time to express concern over US policy in Gaza and Iraq -- meet with your Reps, send a letter to the editor of your local paper, demonstrate, or vigil. UFPJ is urging that in whatever action you organize, you incorporate concerns about Gaza and Iraq. Please keep us posted on your plans: rustiandgael@unitedforpeace.org The tragedy in Ferguson is the logical extension of a militarized US foreign policy applied at home. When you outfit police like an army, they end up treating the community as “the enemy.” Our police are learning to adopt the same callous indifference to death in urban communities as our military is trained to adopt in causing death and destruction in urban communities of other countries. This must be halted and reversed. We must again raise Dr. King’s prophetic 1967 warning that the violence visited by US forces upon the Vietnamese and the police violence visited upon people of color and the poor at home flowed from the same poisoned well. Click here to tell the Pentagon, Congress, and the President: No More Weapons of War for Local Police!
Resources for action
Gaza
US
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation*-- national
coalition of 400+ groups working to end U.S. support for Israel's occupation of
the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Jewish Voice for Peace -- works to achieve a lasting peace that recognizes the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians for security and self-determination. If Americans Knew -- educates the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media. Mondoweiss -- news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East from a progressive Jewish perspective. The Electronic Intifada -- an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine, its people, politics, culture and place in the world. *The US Campaign to End the Occupation is helping constituents across the country to organize in-district meetings with their Congressional offices to challenge Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights. The US Campaign is also working with groups and individuals who are planning direct actions, including bird-dogging members of Congress at events held during the August recess. If you would like to coordinate your actions, please contact Mike Coogan at development@endtheoccupation.org or call 202-332-0994.
Iraq
Moveon.org -- 8
Things To Know About The Crisis In IraqFCNL -- Responding to the Crisis in Iraq -- Without Bombs Progressive Democrats of America – The Situation in Iraq: What we Know
Ferguson
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As The 100th
Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Starts ...
Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner
Edward Shillito
Hardness of Heart
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