Posts Tagged ‘wars’

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Kashmir dispute main cause of tension in South Asia

September 29, 2009

Kashmir Media Service,

New York, September 26 (KMS): The Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has said that Kashmir dispute is the main cause of tension in South Asia and needs to be resolved without any further delay. Addressing the OIC Foreign Ministers’ Conference in New York, the APHC Chairman said, because of its impact on relations between Pakistan and India, the conflict over Kashmir directly affects the peace and stability in the entire region, which is home to millions of people.

Mirwaiz maintained that the APHC was committed to bring about a peaceful and political solution to the dispute through meaningful dialogue among Pakistan, India and Kashmiris’ genuine leadership. He demanded demilitarization of Jammu and Kashmir, complete withdrawal of Indian troops from town and villages of occupied Kashmir and repeal of all draconian laws including Disturbed Areas Act, Public Safety Act and Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

The APHC Chairman said that human rights violations should be stopped and the international rights organisations should be allowed to have access to the occupied territory. He also called for the restoration of the rights of peaceful association, assembly and demonstrations, unconditional release of all political prisoners, freedom of all political leaders to travel abroad and allowing people to people contact on either side of the Line of Control.

Mirwaiz appealed to the leaders of the Islamic countries to use their moral and political influence to help resume the peace process for a just and honourable settlement of the Kashmir dispute and to grant the people of Kashmir their inalienable right of self-determination.

Complete text of the APHC Chairman’s speech is as follows

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary General, Excellencies, distinguished guest, ladies and gentlemen,
Assalam-u-Alaikum Warahmatula-e-Wabarakatuhu,
I am enormously grateful for the opportunity to address this highly esteemed gathering of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on the subject of Kashmir.  I was also invited to participate in the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Damascus, Syria in May 2009. However, I could not attend that meeting because I was not given the travel document by the Government of India.

Excellencies, today, at this august body, I stand before you not just as a representative of the Kashmiri people struggling for their inalienable right of self-determination, but, more importantly as a ‘believer’. A believer who is urging the Ummah to reclaim its intellectual and spiritual glory.  A believer who is proud of the accomplishments of the Organization of Islamic Conference, yet, recognizes that there is much work still to do.

The Foreign Ministers in this annual coordination meeting aim to discuss various issues related to the United Nations’ agenda in order to enhance cooperation and coordination among the OIC Member States at the UN.  The importance of this initiative cannot be overstated. And, we need to be sure that our cooperation cannot be built on the hatred of anyone or anything, rather it should be undertaken with a love for ourselves and our traditions.

The present Charter of the Organization was adopted by the Eleventh Islamic Summit held in Dakar on 13-14 March 2008, which laid down the objectives and principles of the organization and fundamental purposes to strengthen the solidarity and cooperation among the Member States. The Organization has the singular honor to galvanize the Ummah into a unified body and have actively represented the Muslims by espousing all causes close to the hearts of over 1.5 billion Muslims of the world. The Organization has consultative and cooperative relations with the UN to protect the vital interests of the Muslims and to work for the settlement of conflicts and disputes involving Member States. One such conflict is that of the Jammu and Kashmir.

It bears no reiteration that the Kashmir conflict primarily involves the life and future of the people of the land. However, unresolved dispute is at the underlying cause of tension between two nuclear rival – India and Pakistan.  Because of its impact on relations between these two neighboring countries, it directly affects the peace and stability in an unstable region, which is home to more than 1.2 billion people, and the peace and security of many more nations beyond.

It has been a cause of two wars and numerous battles between the two neighbors, India and Pakistan.  The place has been aptly described by the former US President, Bill Clinton as the “most dangerous place” on earth. The situation has taken an ominous turn since the Mumbai attacks o November 26, 2008. With extremist threat growing in the region, the escalating turmoil in Kashmir promises to engulf the entire region extending from Afghanistan to Bangladesh.

Excellencies, the APHC is committed to a peaceful and political solution to the Kashmir dispute. We believe that for a meaningful dialogue between Pakistan, India and the Leadership of Jammu & Kashmir the following measures need to be taken.

1.  To demilitarize the arena of conflict – the State of Jammu and Kashmir – through a phased withdrawal of the troops;

2.  Complete withdrawal of India’s military presence from Kashmiri towns and villages;

3.  Immediate repeal of all draconian laws including Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act and Public Safety Act and Armed Forces Special Powers Act;

4.   End to violations of human rights and allowing the international human rights organisations to have access to Kashmir;

5. The restoration of the rights of peaceful association, assembly and demonstrations;

6.    The unconditional release of all political prisoners;

7.     Freedom of all political leaders to travel abroad; and

8.   To allow people to people contact on either side of the Line of Control.

Excellencies, we trust you will bring your immense moral and political influence to bear on initiating a peace process which will lead to a speedy, just an honourable settlement of the dispute and to restore the inalienable right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir.

I thank you, Excellencies for your patient hearing.

See also, Resolving the Kashmir Conflict

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Posted in Human rights, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Afghan War and the German Peace Movement

September 23, 2009

Reider Braun, Foreign Policy In Focus, Sep 18, 2009

On September 4, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force conducted an airstrike on a fuel tank hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. The attack killed dozens of people including civilians, according to NATO sources. However the German Minister of Defense, Franz Josef Jung, has stubbornly denied that the attack harmed civilians, insisting instead that “only Taliban were killed.” Jung even verbally attacked NATO and EU statements on the topic, saying that “other countries should not interfere.”

Because of this unjustifiable military strike German citizens, who have never forgotten the two world wars, have finally begun to realize that Germany is at war. A majority continues to demand the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a demand that has only become amplified by the obvious fraud in the recent Afghan elections. According to a September 12 poll, 59% of the Germans were in favor of a withdrawal. Although Germans have rejected their government’s rhetoric and policies toward Afghanistan the resistance is largely passive, with no massive uproar on the streets.

This latest attack has revealed the reality of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan. It is not a “stabilization effort” (as the speaker of the Minister of Defense called it on September 4). Nor is the German Bundeswehr providing “development aid.” Germany is engaged in an authentic military action that has led to many civilian deaths.

World War II lasted less than six years. The war of the West in Afghanistan, however, has been going on for eight years as of this October. In this war, 40 nations have provided soldiers and modern military gear. But despite this large-scale effort, NATO has been unable to defeat the Taliban, eradicate drug cultivation or rebuild the economy in apparently calm areas. The toll on the Afghan population, especially in light of the previous two decades of war, has been immense.

Minister of Defense Jung and the German government should stop pretending that Germany is involved in a humanitarian operation. There can be no development assistance as long as foreign soldiers occupy the country. For years humanitarian aid organizations such as Caritas, Welthungerhilfe, Medico, and Kinderhilfe Afghanistan have complained that “civil-military co-operation” undermines civil aid to the point that it becomes useless. Echoing these criticisms, the organization Developing Politics of German Non-Government Organizations has demanded a strict separation of military actions and humanitarian aid.

For Germany to play a true humanitarian role in Afghanistan, it must withdraw German troops from the country. Supporters of Germany’s military involvement argue that chaos will reign after the military troops withdraw and the Taliban will take over power. But the Taliban enjoy greater support now because it is fighting against foreign occupation. Remove the foreign occupiers and Taliban support will dwindle.

The Germany peace movement is currently conducting many actions to end the war in Afghanistan, most recently several regional public meetings on September 9. It will continue these actions even after the presidential elections on September 27. Die Linke, the only party in Germany that supports immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, has seen its support rise from 10% to 14% in the wake of the bombing. It is time for Germany to withdraw its troops and for the minister of defense to step down.

Reiner Braun is the executive director of the German International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, program director for International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

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Disgrace in The Hague

September 18, 2009

Gideon Levy, Haaretz/Israel, Sept 17, 2009

There’s a name on every bullet, and there’s someone responsible for every crime. The Teflon cloak Israel has wrapped around itself since Operation Cast Lead has been ripped off, once and for all, and now the difficult questions must be faced. It has become superfluous to ask whether war crimes were committed in Gaza, because authoritative and clear-cut answers have already been given. So the follow-up question has to be addressed: Who’s to blame? If war crimes were committed in Gaza, it follows that there are war criminals at large among us. They must be held accountable and punished. This is the harsh conclusion to be drawn from the detailed United Nations report.

For almost a year, Israel has been trying to argue that the blood spilled in Gaza was merely water. One report followed the other, with horrifyingly identical results: siege, white phosphorous, harm of innocent civilians, infrastructure destroyed – war crimes in each and every report. Now, after the publication of the most important and damning report of all, compiled by the commission led by Judge Richard Goldstone, Israel’s attempts to discredit them look ludicrous, and the empty bluster of its spokespersons sound pathIsatic.

So far they have focused on the messengers, not their messages: the researcher for Human Rights Watch collects Nazi memorabilia, Breaking the Silence is a business and Amnesty International is anti-Semitic. All cheap propaganda. This time, though, the messenger is propaganda-proof. No one can seriously claim that Goldstone, an active and ardent Zionist, with deep links to Israel, is an anti-Semite. It would be ridiculous.

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Although there were some propagandists who actually tried to use the anti-Semitism weapon against him, even they knew this was farcical. One had to hear the moving interview that Goldstone’s daughter Nicole gave to Razi Barkai on Army Radio Wednesday, to understand that he is in fact a lover of Israel and its true friend. She spoke, in Hebrew, of the mental anguish her father experienced and of his conviction that, had he not been there, the report would have been much worse. All he wants is an Israel that is more just, she explained.

Neither can anyone doubt his legal credentials, as a top-level international jurist with an impeccable reputation. The man who found out the truth about Rwanda and Yugoslavia has now done the same regarding Gaza. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague is not only a legal authority, he is also a moral authority; therefore complaints about the judge won’t hold water. Instead, it is time to look closer at the accused. Those responsible are first and foremost Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi. So far, incredibly, none of them has paid any price for their misdeeds.

Cast Lead was an unrestrained assault on a besieged, totally unprotected civilian population which showed almost no signs of resistance during this operation. It should have raised an immediate furor in Israel. It was a Sabra and Chatila, this time carried out by us. But there was a storm of protest in this country following Sabra and Chatila, whereas after Cast Lead mere citations were dished out.

It should have been enough just to look at the horrendous disparity in casualties – 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli – to shake the whole of Israeli society. There was no need to wait for Goldstone to understand that a terrible thing had occurred between the Palestinian David and the Israeli Goliath. But the Israelis preferred to look away, or stand with their children on the hills around Gaza and cheer on the carnage-causing bombs.

Under the cover of the committed media, and criminally-biased analysts and experts – all of whom kept information from coming out – and with brainwashed and complacent public opinion, Israel behaved as if nothing had happened. Goldstone has put an end to that, for which we should thank him. After his job is done, the obvious practical steps will be taken.

It would be better for Israel to summon up the courage to change course while there is still time, investigating the matter genuinely and not by means of the Israel Defense Forces’ grotesque inquiries, without waiting for Goldstone. Olmert and Tzipi Livni must be brought to pay for their scandalous decision not to cooperate with Goldstone, although at this point that is spilled milk. Now that the report is on its way to the ICC and arrest warrants could soon be issued, all that remains to be done is to immediately set up a state inquiry commission in order to avert disgrace in The Hague.

Perhaps next time we set out to wage another vain and miserable war, we will take into account not only the number of fatalities we are likely to sustain, but also the heavy political damage such wars cause.

On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Israel, deservedly, is becoming an outcast and detested country. We must not forget it for a minute.

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Posted in Commentary, crime, Gaza, Human rights, Palestine, Peace Movement, Uncategorized, war, war crimes, War Criminals, warmongers, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Ramsey Clark: ‘A Free People Will Not Permit Torture’

September 9, 2009

By Ramsey Clark, Information Clearing House, September 9, 2009

Throughout history, torture has always been an instrument of tyranny. The very purpose of the Grand Inquisitor was to compel absolute obedience to authority. Torture was the weapon he used in the struggle to force freedom to submit to authority.

Fear is the principal element in both public acceptance of torture and individual submission to it. The frightened public is persuaded that only torture can force confessions essential to prevent catastrophic acts—terrorism in the present context. The frightened victim is persuaded torture will be unbearable, or be his death.

Franklin Roosevelt spoke truth when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Justice Black warned wisely, “We must not be afraid to be free,” dissenting in In re Anastaplo. Anastaplo was a law school classmate of mine who refused to take a non-Communist oath, a requirement for admission to the Illinois bar at the time. We have failed to follow this wisdom, a failure of faith urged by Lincoln at the then Cooper Institute: “Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

At stake is our cultural insistence that America has faith in freedom, that America is, or aspires to be, the land of the free and the home of the brave. At risk is the image of America, which might become Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and rendition to torture chambers in client States.

Now we are confronted by the brutish and brazen mentality of Dick Cheney, only one of George W. Bush’s many vices. Having concealed truth by refusing to release records and after the destruction of evidence, Cheney proclaims, “I am very proud of what we did”—a war of aggression that has devastated and fragmented Iraq and Afghanistan, and created a danger to peace in Pakistan and beyond. The same wars that have left 5,000 U.S. soldiers dead and maybe 30,000 with impaired lives, spread corruption within the Bush administration, politics in prosecutors offices, the worst recession in 70 years caused by the failure to police his greedy friends and supporters, boasting of torture by any other name.

Cheney wants us to believe “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the phrase he prefers to torture, “were absolutely essential” in successfully stopping another terrorist attack on the U.S. after 9/11. This is utterly false, a matter of indifference to Cheney who may be getting desperate. These “enhanced interrogation techniques” were, however, torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture of 1984, an international treaty ratified by 184 nations, including the United States a decade late in 1994. The Convention, which is part of the supreme law of the land under the U.S. Constitution, recognizes “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” and “that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.”

Thus, the U.S. is treaty bound to prosecute all persons, high and low, who have authorized, condoned or committed torture if our word in the international community is to mean anything.

The Convention requires each signatory to ensure that all acts of torture are offenses under its criminal law. It requires prosecution, or under specific conditions, extradition to another nation for prosecution of alleged torturers.

Former FBI agent Ali H. Soufan is only one of the key U.S. intelligence and investigative officials directly involved in the key interrogations who have publicly condemned the “enhanced interrogation techniques.” He has explained how the practice not only failed to obtain reliable or new information, but was also harmful. He concluded an op-ed article in the New York Times on Sept. 6, which stated that “the professionals in the field are relieved that an ineffective, unreliable, unnecessary and destructive program, one that may have given Al Qaeda a second wind and damaged our country’s reputation is finished.”

The struggle to prosecute torture by U.S. agents is related to the struggle over health care legislation and troop increases in Afghanistan. Real health care reform would end the theft of major national resources by the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and the wealth seeking medical profession at the expense of the lives and health of the poor and middle class.

We should remember that a decade before he gave us “What is good for General Motors is good for the nation,” Charles E. Wilson, once President of General Motors, and later Secretary of Defense under President Eisenhower, wrote in the Army Ordinance Journal in 1944: “War has been inevitable in our human affairs as an evolutionary force … Let us make the three-way partnership (industry, government, army) permanent.” Notice what comes first for Wilson, whose credo was “Let us have faith that might makes right.”

President Obama faces all three of these challenges, torture in our name, health care and Afghanistan at once. If he fails to insist on full investigation of torture and prosecution of all persons found to have authorized, directed or committed it, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, he will lose all three, because his adversaries in each are the same.

We want to thank every member of the IndictBushNow movement for their work. The announcement that a Special Prosecutor has been appointed to investigate the crimes committed during the Bush administration is a critical step. It was the action taken by you and people all around the country that made this possible. Now we will build on this momentum. The voice of the people must and will be heard.

http://www.impeachbush.org

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Posted in Commentary, Human rights, President Barack Obama, torture, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war, war crimes, warmongers | 3 Comments »

Tariq Ali: On Obama and American Empire

August 23, 2009

Kasama, Aug 21, 2009

Posted by Mike E

Tariq Ali has been a fixture of the radical British left for over forty years — when he emerged as a prominent figure within the Trotskyist movement. Now widely respected as a novelist and political commentor — he speaks here on the meaning of Obama’s victory and questions connected to the war encroaching on Pakistan. This talk was given at the Marxism 2009  conference in Britain.

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Cindy Sheehan: We have the moral high ground

August 21, 2009

By Cindy Sheehan, Information Clearing  House, Aug 21, 2009

“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love…” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1958

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal…” Dr. King, 1967

I remember back in the good ol’ days of 2005 and 2006 when being against the wars was not only politically correct, but it was very popular. I remember receiving dozens of awards, uncountable accolades and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Those were the halcyon days of the anti-war movement before the Democrats took over the government (off of the backs of the anti-war movement) and it became anathema to be against the wars and I became unpopular on all sides. I guess at that point, I could have gone with the flow and pretended to support the violence so I could remain popular, but I think I have to fiercely hold on to my core values whether I am “liked” or not.

Killing is wrong no matter if it is state-sanctioned murder or otherwise. Period. Not too much more to say on that subject, except what I quote above from Dr. King.

However, while the so-called left is obsessed over supporting a very crappy Democratic health care plan, people in far away countries are being deprived of their health and very lives by the Obama Regime’s continuation of Bush’s ruinous foreign policy.

I was never dismayed when the so-called right attacked me and called me names for protesting Bush. However, something inside me gets a little sick when I hear people who claim to be peace activists supporting the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, a policy that is not like Bush’s in the fact that it’s much worse.

I have been called a “racist” from the so-called left. In these people’s opinion, I was totally justified in protesting Bush, but I am a racist for protesting the same policies under Obama. When I opposed Bush’s policies, I was called traitor, anti-American, anti-Semitic, and other names I cannot print. Name-calling is a great way to shut down critical thinking and discussion. And, not to mention, I think the murder of innocent life in the Iraq-Af-Pak regions is racist and morally corrupt.

There are many people in this country who oppose Obama because they’re racist, but I am not one of them. I oppose Obama’s policies because they are wrong…again, period!

One cannot obfuscate when innocent lives are being destroyed, here and abroad. We cannot allow “political reality” to get in the way of morality. Human sacrifice is not worth the political reality. Violence, killing, war and more war are NEVER the solution to any problem. Period.

If Obama has violent shadow forces around him pulling him in the direction of violence, which begets more violence and more resistance; then we, especially people in the peace or anti-war movements need to gather and organize to pull him in the direction towards peaceful conflict resolution and solutions that aren’t based on exploiting people’s fears, anxieties or ignorance.

I am going to Martha’s Vineyard because we have the moral high ground. The war supporters aren’t going to protest Obama’s wars. They are strangely silent over his foreign policy, unless they are praising it.

I am going to Martha’s Vineyard because someone has to speak for the babies of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that do not deserve the horrible fate that has been handed to them by the US Military Industrial Complex. The voiceless need a voice, and even if I am called every name in the book by all sides, I will speak up for them.

I am going to Martha’s Vineyard because so many people have been blinded to the fact that the system has momentum that rolls on and over and around no matter who is the titular head of the system.

Let’s just pretend that elections are fair in this country and my candidate, Cynthia McKinney, won for president. If she wasn’t able to rein in the systemic violence, then I would be going wherever she vacationed to protest her policies, too. I guess at that point, I would not only be called “racist,” but I would be called a “self-hating female.”

In a recent conversation someone was trying to convince me that I should not be so stridently opposed to Obama’s policies and I responded that today 75 people were killed and 300 people were wounded in a bomb blast in Iraq and 26 mostly women and children were killed in a wedding party in Afghanistan this week and she said: “Oh, that wouldn’t be acceptable if it happened here.”

And that ‘s the problem: it’s not acceptable if it happens anywhere, to anybody, no matter who is President of the USA.

Not only is the death toll mounting for innocent civilians but also is once again climbing for our troops.

While the “festivities” are occurring on Martha’s Vineyard next week, there are families all over the world who will never again be able to fully feel festive. Ahhhh…. everyone should just stand down, relax and sip an Obamarita on the beach…Hope reigns once again in The Empire.

And, yes, we are going to Martha’s Vineyard to get attention. We vehemently want to call attention to all of the points I have made above.

Even though there is a small anti-war, peace movement in this country, there still is one and this movement has the moral high ground and punditry, personal attacks, glitzy marketing, or “political realities won’t drown us out.

Members of Dr. King’s own caucus tried to convince him not to publicly speak out against the Vietnam war, and that’s when he delivered his brilliant Beyond Vietnam speech at the Riverside Church in NYC exactly one year before he was assassinated. That speech was in response to the critics. Dr. King took the moral high ground when he said: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

That time has now come, once again. By our silence we are betraying humanity.

Love the President or hate him, or anywhere in between, but we must speak out loudly and without any timidity against the institutional violence of the US Empire.

For more information please email, or call: Laurie Dobson – lauriegdobson@yahoo.com – (207) 604-8988 or Bruce Marshall – brmas@yahoo.com (802) 767-6079

Or donate to help with the expenses: Go to: www.CindySheehansSoapbox.com

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Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Peace Movement, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war, warmongers | Leave a Comment »

Barnsby to Prime Minister Gordon Brown

August 9, 2009

Dear Gordon Brown

The fact that you are on vacation and delegated control of Great Britain to whichever fellow Torturer or Nuclear Maniac Harriett Harman, Lord Mandelson or Allan Johnson shows your   complete inability to comprehend the gravity of the present world situation. You should immediately recall Parliament, although that is probably beyond your provenance now – the Speaker of the House of Commons should call Parliament and you would be at once deprived of your liberty unless you immediately renounce the wars you are waging.

An equally important effect of such a renunciation would be that vast sums now spent on war would be available for peaceful purposes and the present Economic Crisis would disappear and we could all sleep safely in our beds at night.

Unless you do this you will be arraigned before the same court that tried the Nazis in 1945 and charged with Crimes against Humanity.

GEORGE BARNSBY

August 8, 2009

————————————————————

The Barnsby Blog, August 9, 2009

NO MORE WAR

As the folly and wickedness of the wars being waged by Obama and
supported by Brown is recognized anti-war feeling sweeps across the world. On Wednesday the largest EU countries Germany and France united against the war in Iraq. Thirty two US Mayors of the Institute for Policy Studies are mobilising to prevent a war against Iran. And the British Army General in Afghanistan, Sir David Richards says that British involvement in Afghanistan could take 80 years and this echoes the opposition of his predecessor Sir Richard Dan who also opposed the war in Afghanistan. Only madmen can continue to support this slaughter and the Torture and Nuclear madness that is involved.

Fortunately in Wolverhampton we have a Sikh mayor Surjan Singh Duhra who we shall certainly ask if he will join the US Mayors anti-war appeal and what he can do to promote it. This brings me back to Frank Spittle who wrote the original letter which I sent to the Mayor asking him to support Frank’s Send a Vet Scheme which has since blossomed into a campaign to send 2nd World War Vets back to the countries where they served their time.
Everything I have received today has a connection direct or indirect
with Peace and Multiculturalism and pride of place again goes to Frank Spittle. He has produced a portrait of a First World War Communist which has not so far been incorporated into our  History of the Communist Party of Wolverhampton, but which certainly will in future. Chris Knowles is the name and he worked in Frank Spittle’s father’s factory after the war. Chris had been decorated for bravery with the DCM. More about Chris will follow.

Continues >>

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The Contours of Recent American Foreign Policy

August 3, 2009

Searching For Enemies

By Gabriel Kolko, Counterpunch, July 31 – August 2, 2009

War, from preparation for it through to its aftermath, has defined both the essential nature of the major capitalist nations and their relative power since at least 1914. War became the major catalyst of change for revolutionary movements in Russia, China, and Vietnam. While wars also created reactionary and fascistic parties, particularly in the case of Italy and Germany, in the longer run they brought about domestic social changes of far-reaching magnitude. The Bolshevik Revolution was the preeminent example of this ironic symbiosis of war and revolution.

Continues >>

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America’s Wars: How Serial War Became the American Way of Life

July 24, 2009

By David Bromwich |  TomDispatch.com, July 22, 2209

On July 16, in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the “central question” for the defense of the United States was how the military should be “organized, equipped — and funded — in the years ahead, to win the wars we are in while being prepared for threats on or beyond the horizon.” The phrase beyond the horizon ought to sound ominous. Was Gates telling his audience of civic-minded business leaders to spend more money on defense in order to counter threats whose very existence no one could answer for? Given the public acceptance of American militarism, he could speak in the knowledge that the awkward challenge would never be posed.

Continued >>

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America’s “Bases of Empire”

June 27, 2009

By Stephen Lendman | Global Research, June 27th, 2009

Besides waging perpetual wars, nothing better reveals America’s imperial agenda than its hundreds of global bases – for offense, not defense at a time the US hasn’t had an enemy since the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.

So when they don’t exist, they’re invented as former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles W. Freeman, Jr., suggested in a May 24, 2007 speech to the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs:

“When our descendants look back on the end of the 20th century and the beginning of this one, they will be puzzled. The end of the Cold War relieved Americans of almost all international anxieties.” As the world’s sole remaining superpower, “We did not rise to the occasion.”

“We are engaged in a war, a global war on terror, a long war, we are told….How can a war with no defined ends beyond the avoidance of retreat ever reach a convenient stopping point? How can we win (any war let alone the hearts and minds of millions) with an enemy so ill-understood that we must invent a nonexistent ideology” for justification.

Continued >>

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Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Uncategorized, US policy, USA | 1 Comment »

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