Peace and Justice Post

The U.S. has held up a country’s terrible history of poverty, repression and inequality as the pretext for a war that only aggravates poverty, repression and inequality.

Editorial

Socialist Worker, May 28, 2008

A U.S. Marine Corps general has decided not to bring criminal charges against two officers who led their unit on a March 2007 killing spree that left 19 Afghan civilians dead and 50 more wounded.

The decision infuriated Afghanis. “This is too much,” said Kubra Aman, an Afghan senator from Nangarhar. “First, they say it’s a mistake, and after that, they let them go without charges.”

A United Nations spokesperson, Aleem Siddique, made the same point in more diplomatic language. “It is disappointing that no one has been held accountable for these deaths,” said Siddique. The UN “has always made clear that there must be increased transparency and accountability of all parties to this conflict if we are to retain the trust and confidence of the Afghan people.”

Continued . . .

By Muhammad Cohen | Asia Times, May 28, 2008

NEW YORK – The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds’ stated mission is to spread Iran’s revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding “sense of the senate” resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.

Continued . . .

No Peace for Militarized U.S.

By BILL QUIGLEY | Counterpunch, May 26, 2008

Memorial Day is not actually a day to pray for U.S. troops who died in action but rather a day set aside by Congress to pray for peace. The 1950 Joint Resolution of Congress which created Memorial Day says: “Requesting the President to issue a proclamation designating May 30, Memorial Day, as a day for a Nation-wide prayer for peace.” (64 Stat.158).

Peace today is a nearly impossible challenge for the United States. The U.S. is far and away the most militarized country in the world and the most aggressive. Unless the U.S. dramatically reduces its emphasis on global military action, there will be many, many more families grieving on future Memorial days.

The U.S. spends over $600 billion annually on our military, more than the rest of the world combined. China, our nearest competitor, spends about one-tenth of what we spend. The U.S. also sells more weapons to other countries than any other nation in the world.

The U.S. has about 700 military bases in 130 countries world-wide and another 6000 bases in the US and our territories, according to Chalmers Johnson in his excellent book NEMESIS: THE LAST DAYS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC (2007).

Continued . . .

RINF.Com, May 26, 2008

By George Monbiot | We have all but forgotten the war with Iraq. We tend to see it now as little more than a “political mistake”, like the 10p tax fiasco or Labour’s mishandling of the byelection campaign in Crewe. The press and public attention have moved on and focused on more pressing matters, like the price of property.

But this mistake has killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people in a country that was doing us no harm. Mistakes of this kind – an unprovoked war of aggression – were characterised by the Nuremberg tribunals as “the supreme international crime”. Mistakes of this kind would, in any regime governed by international law, see their perpetrators put behind bars for the rest of their natural lives. But the great crime of the Iraq war has been normalised and domesticated.

So successful has this process of normalisation been that in three days’ time one of its perpetrators will be coming here – to Hay-on-Wye, the epicentre of polite society – to promote his book and sell some copies. I do not regret the fact that he is coming here – far from it – but I see it as a sign of the extent to which the great crime he helped to commit is viewed as an ordinary part of the political process.

John Bolton first made the demand for a war against Iraq as a signatory of an open letter sent to President Clinton by the Project for a New American Century in 1998. In 2001 he joined the Bush administration as the hilariously-titled Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control in the State Department. He appears to have been imposed on the department by Dick Cheney, to play the role of Colin Powell’s minder.

C0ntinued . . .

The Times, May 26, 2008

Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions.

His remark, made at the Hay-on-Wye festival which promotes current affairs books and literature, is startling because Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons, let alone how many, although the world assumes their existence. Nor do US officials deviate in public from that Israeli line. Carter, who has immersed himself since his presidency in Israeli-Palestinian relations, was highly critical of Israeli settlers on the West Bank, and of Israel’s refusal to talk to elected officials of the Islamic party Hamas, although he said that Israel’s security was his prime concern.

Carter, whose presidency was dominated by the 444-day siege in which Iran held 52 American diplomats hostage, said “my advice to the US would be to start talking to Iran now” to persuade it to drop its nuclear work. But he cited Israel’s nuclear arsenal – and those of the US, Russia, China, Britain and France – in arguing that Iran would find it almost impossible to develop, in secret, many weapons and the missiles to deliver them.

ABC News, May 23, 2008 1:48 PM

by Yunji de Nies

Independent presidential hopeful Ralph Nader spoke outside the White House Friday, calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Nader said the President has, “dishonored the White House and brought a pattern of waste.”

“A wasteful defense is a weak defense and a weak defense, inspires waste,” Nader said.

Surrounded by a handful of supporters, holding signs which read “From Katrina to Iraq, Colossal Failure,” and “Resign Bush-Cheney, Like Nixon-Agnew,” Nader charged that the President and Vice President are currently committing five impeachable offenses, on a daily basis, including: criminal use of offense against Iraq; condoned and approved systematic torture; arresting thousands of Americans — denying them habeas corpus and violating attorney/client privilege; signing 800 signing statements, precluding the president from actually having to follow the laws he signs; and systematic spying on Americans without judicial approval.

Nader also had criticism for the 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, calling Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., the “corporate candidates.”

Nader, 73, announced in February, 2008 that he is running for president again.

“If Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form,” he said at the time, arguing that as president he would take on the “bloated military budget,” reform labor laws, repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, and target corporate crime.

For more on Nader’s announcement, click HERE.

Nader, has run for president as an independent in the past three presidential elections in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Many Democrats believe he was one of the reasons then-Vice President Al Gore lost the 2000 election to Bush. Running on the Green Party ticket, Nader won more than 97,000 votes in Florida, where Gore ultimately lost to Bush by 537 votes.

Axis of Logic, May25, 2008

The Bush administration and the Pentagon are leaning heavily on Pakistan to “pacify” regions along its border with Afghanistan and to allow even more aggressive U.S. military operations there.

It is all done in the name of the fraudulent “war on terror”—a cover story to excuse the imperialist atrocities that are being committed daily against the people of the region in order to extend the geostrategic dominance of U.S. big business over this resource-rich area.

However, the people of Pakistan are resisting being dragged further into the role of U.S. surrogates in Washington’s war to control Afghanistan. As much as the U.S. pushes, they continue to push back.

A recent example of this came when the Pentagon had to quietly withdraw the appointment of Maj. Gen. Jay Hood to be its top military envoy to Pakistan. Hood was previously commander of the notorious U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo. Some 60 Pakistanis have been through that hellhole and returned to tell of the tortures and insults they received there. For Hood to become the Pentagon’s top dog in Pakistan was more than just a symbolic threat. So when word of his pending appointment got out, a firestorm of protest swept Pakistan, causing the Pentagon to switch gears.

Continued . . .

By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. Posted May 24, 2008.

For weeks, pundits have speculated about why Hillary Clinton insists on remaining in the primary race when Barack Obama has all but clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. On Friday, Clinton answered that question. It appears she’s waiting in the wings for something dreadful to befall Obama.

When asked by the editorial board of South Dakota’s Sioux Falls Argus-Ledger why she is still running, Clinton replied, “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.”

It’s astounding that a presidential candidate could verbalize such a thing when the collective American psyche still aches from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Many of us remember where we were when these heroes were shot. The pain we felt is palpable. We still suffer from their absence.

Clinton, evidently surprised at the ferocity of the reaction to her statement, made a half-baked non-apology a few hours later. She expressed regret that anything she said could have offended the Kennedy family. But she uttered not a word of repentance for her suggestion that Barack Obama’s death could inure to her benefit.

The response to Clinton’s invocation of the “A” word was swift and strong. The New York Times called it an “inexcusable outburst.” Keith Olbermann characterized it as “crass and low and unfeeling and brutal.” Noting that “the politics of this nation is steeped in blood,” he admonished Clinton: “You cannot and must not invoke that imagery, anywhere, at any time.”

Clinton’s remarks offer a look into her character. In Olbermann’s words, they “open a door wide into the soul of somebody who seeks the highest office in this country and through that door shows something not merely troubling but frightening.”

Before Friday, a groundswell of support for an Obama-Clinton ticket appeared to be building. But as New York state Sen. Bill Perkins, an Obama supporter, said when he heard Clinton’s comments, “My jaw just dropped — I think she just basically shattered her hopes of being named as vice president. To use the example of an assassination,” Perkins added, “I think, leads one to believe that she may be talking about something unfortunate happening to Barack Obama. Couple that with the other remarks she made recently about winning the white vote and her husband’s statements and I’d say something is seriously amiss.”

How, after Clinton’s ominous remarks, could Obama ever turn his back on her if she became his vice-president?

Anyone who “might be sticking around on the off-chance the other guy might get shot has no business being the president of the United States,” Olbermann declared. As Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman noted, Clinton’s is “a campaign that probably needs to be put out of its misery real soon.”

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, an uncommitted superdelegate, commented that Clinton’s remarks were “beyond the pale.” Indeed, the remaining uncommitted superdelegates should stop the bleeding now and allow us to move on with the election.

See more stories tagged with: assassination, election 2008, hillary clinton

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the President of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law.”