tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32027050041739533402024-03-06T16:18:45.424-05:00Beaver County Peace LinksCarl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.comBlogger343125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-89404613313619231162024-03-06T16:17:00.001-05:002024-03-06T16:18:12.193-05:00BCPL Activists Visit Congressman Deluzio's Office Demanding Gaza Ceasefire<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXAbi-hmavkXAJqm5lUvk6_WyI2-1ZTFBam_KeL8zpN6uh0LHPLszAkMGd5bUj5D2gkN8DRbVyOVmW4NrP9ATXhYv7GiAUlLpQyU0HjGGIrZ53zmumI1DqDWiVmwbxmgw6-_Ho1J5h9tKRcg9hNhvgezq_uf5BAWuMvve5kfwhnw7cmqXcA9b1lEB4UQ/s410/BCPL-letter-on-Gaza.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="410" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXAbi-hmavkXAJqm5lUvk6_WyI2-1ZTFBam_KeL8zpN6uh0LHPLszAkMGd5bUj5D2gkN8DRbVyOVmW4NrP9ATXhYv7GiAUlLpQyU0HjGGIrZ53zmumI1DqDWiVmwbxmgw6-_Ho1J5h9tKRcg9hNhvgezq_uf5BAWuMvve5kfwhnw7cmqXcA9b1lEB4UQ/w428-h397/BCPL-letter-on-Gaza.png" width="428" /></a></div><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>From left to right: Carl Davidson, Peter Deutsch, Jerry DeSena, Marcia Lehmann, Linda Stanley, Randy Shannon. Seated: Tina Shannon</i>.</span><p></p><p>Beaver County Peace Links visited the local office of our Congressman March 5 to deliver a letter expressing our views of a immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and self-determination for Palestine, among other points. See the full text below. We also vigiled for a while along the highway outside the Center township shopping center where it is located. We plan regular vigils in the months to come outside the Courthouse in Beaver, PA.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsTcf89X0R-Fmd8ow9OqxG152M4xYN5tIb89WHvAikgNxxd9akFHuy0i97g1rW1LUxRVTmLnUIAybAmG7dUVekDd257MM6bTStTTo-Z1PPd8rgKqYLet-ELsYt40Ac4q6KcC6yzuuPkw6vsDQrgPNOEUBkTpu-DYNb28kabTRseZOy097488lWbfTphUo/s410/Screenshot%202024-03-06%20145733.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="172" data-original-width="410" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsTcf89X0R-Fmd8ow9OqxG152M4xYN5tIb89WHvAikgNxxd9akFHuy0i97g1rW1LUxRVTmLnUIAybAmG7dUVekDd257MM6bTStTTo-Z1PPd8rgKqYLet-ELsYt40Ac4q6KcC6yzuuPkw6vsDQrgPNOEUBkTpu-DYNb28kabTRseZOy097488lWbfTphUo/w464-h194/Screenshot%202024-03-06%20145733.png" width="464" /></a></div><br /><p>Here's text text of our letter:</p><div style="text-align: left;">Dear Rep. Deluzio:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />We are Beaver County Peace Links bcpeacelinks.net/, a local peace/anti-war citizens group that formed in 1972. As your constituents, we write this letter with heavy hearts, knowing that our US taxpayer dollars are going to support Israel in its war of revenge that has broadened to genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We must also speak out and oppose Israeli policies of 75 years of land-grabs, destruction of homes, unjust incarceration and killings of innocents by Jewish settlers and the IDF in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />We acknowledge the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7th and the suffering of the Israeli people. We support all the inhabitants, Israeli and Palestinian, to live in peace with a just outcome. However, this vicious cycle of 75 years of cruel dispossession and fierce oppression against the Palestinians must cease! Americans are now awake to these atrocities.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />We ask you to speak out and call on the Biden Administration to IMMEDIATELY enact the following:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />1. A permanent CEASEFIRE NOW!<br />2. Stop US weapons to Israel - follow US arms-transfer laws, treaties & policies<br />3. Immediately restore UNRWA humanitarian aide to all Palestinians at prewar quantities<br />4. Self-Determination for Palestinian governance</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Also, it is preposterous and contradictory that on one hand the US weapons reap horrific death, maiming and destruction upon the Palestinians, but with the other hand the US air<br />drops inadequate MRE’s to those same starving people. It will be even more difficult for the US to continue the rhetoric of establishing itself as a beacon of democracy in the world after these hypocritical acts of defying our own arms-transfer laws and policies, while being party to this level of intentionally-inflicted suffering of civilians.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />We call on you to provide leadership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, use the UN Resolutions on the conflict as a guide, and take a stand with the four points above, as other progressive House Members have done.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Sincerely for real peace,<br />Beaver County Peace Links Steering Committee</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Carl Davidson, acting President<br />Linda Stanley, Vice President<br />Peter Deutsch, Secretary<br />Marcia Lehman, Treasurer<br />Jerry DeSena<br />Sr. Kari Pohl<br />Nancy O’Leary<br />Rev. Todd Davis (Ret.)</div><p> </p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-55627943568419254492024-02-24T17:07:00.002-05:002024-02-24T17:07:57.013-05:00'Hands off Rafah!' protest in East Liberty<p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://media1.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/imager/hands-off-rafah-protest-in-east-liberty/u/slideshow/25460358/2-16-cp-handsoffrafah01.jpg?cb=1708364747" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="652" height="299" src="https://media1.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/imager/hands-off-rafah-protest-in-east-liberty/u/slideshow/25460358/2-16-cp-handsoffrafah01.jpg?cb=1708364747" width="449" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #434343; font-family: "Open Sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><i>Hundreds of people participated in the "Hands off Rafah" protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine from the University of Pittsburgh outside of Target in East Liberty on Feb. 16, 2024. Protesters marched down Penn Ave. demanding justice and calling for a ceasefire in Rafah, a city in Gaza.</i></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #949494; font-family: "Open Sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">By</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #949494; font-family: "Open Sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"> </span><a href="https://www.pghcitypaper.com/author/mars-johnson" rel="author" style="background-color: white; color: #d62726; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Open Sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; outline: 0px;">Mars Johnson</a> <span style="text-align: center;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pittsburgh City Paper</span></i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">On Friday, February 16, hundreds of people participated in the “Hands off Rafah” protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine from the University of Pittsburgh outside of Target in East Liberty. Protesters marched down Penn Ave. demanding justice and calling for a ceasefire in Rafah, a city in Gaza. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/hands-off-rafah-protest-in-east-liberty/Slideshow/25460087">Go Here for Slideshow of Pictures</a></span></h2><p> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><i><br /></i></p><p><br /></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-29146898632456175252024-02-05T15:11:00.001-05:002024-02-05T15:12:44.383-05:00 Scores Of Gaza War Protestors Detained At PA Capitol<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pennlive.com/resizer/e7rTfm9K_bk6O6MB7JIqZRY-TMU=/800x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/W7NPHMXW5RHSPKTAQDPOLBXHFQ.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="600" src="https://www.pennlive.com/resizer/e7rTfm9K_bk6O6MB7JIqZRY-TMU=/800x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/W7NPHMXW5RHSPKTAQDPOLBXHFQ.jpg" width="499" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>Police detain more than 100 people protesting at Pa. Capitol Monday who want Pennsylvania to divest from Israeli bonds</b></h3><p><b>By Zack Hoopes</b></p><p><i>Pennlive.com</i></p><p>More than 100 people protesting the war in Gaza were detained at the Pennsylvania Capitol on Monday.</p><p>The protestors were handcuffed with zip ties by Capitol police and state troopers and taken into custody of the Capitol police after refusing to leave the Rotunda, the main hall of the Capitol, police said.</p><p>Those who were detained were released after being held for less than an hour. They were issued citations by Capitol police for $40.</p><p>The protestors organized a rally outside the East Wing of the Capitol Monday morning to call on the state to divest millions held in Israeli government bonds.</p><p>They moved inside the Capitol around noon holding banners reading “30,000 Killed in Gaza,” “Fund PA Schools and “Fund PA Transit.” The protestors were led away to a holding area in the Capitol about 1:30 p.m. and released around 2:20 p.m.</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-56975643220076934922023-12-17T16:34:00.001-05:002023-12-17T16:34:13.253-05:00 Carpet Bombing Is Not ‘Self-Defense’<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pittnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/O_CarpetBombing_AP-1200x800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Photo: Fire and smoke rise following Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023." border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="321" src="https://pittnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/O_CarpetBombing_AP-1200x800.jpg" width="536" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>By Sofia Uriagereka-Herburger</b> </p><p><i>The Pitt News Senior Staff Columnist</i></p><p>OCTOBER 31, 2023 - When white phosphorus comes in contact with human skin, it can burn all the way down to the bone. Even if one is able to extinguish it, it can continue burning. The person it is burning through will feel completely alone, even if there are others risking the same agony to help them. It burns the respiratory tract and damages eyesight. It is not even considered a chemical weapon by the international community anymore — it’s an incendiary one. The use of it against civilians is widely classified and understood as a war crime. Israel has launched white phosphorus into Gaza since Oct. 10, with even earlier yet unconfirmed reports. </p><p>Israel has killed over 8,000 Palestinians in the last three weeks in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 on Israel, which killed approximately 1,400 Israelis. </p><p>Before anything else, I feel that some things must be stated, if only for the sake of not straying from the argument at hand. Targeting civilians is unacceptable. All civilian deaths are horrific, and the pain felt by those in mourning is impossible to ignore. I sincerely hope that the Israeli state engages in negotiations and that Hamas safely returns the Israeli hostages to their families soon. </p><p>Neither this article nor any expression of a desire to see Palestinians live in peace is a cheapening or a disparaging of the loss felt by Palestinians and Israelis alike. I understand that for many, the deaths of Israeli civilians are the first deaths they have heard of in this “conflict” and that for many, this is their first time attempting to recognize the depth of violence that has besieged Palestine for the better part of the last century. I understand that the sudden visibility of violence makes grief complex and that the level of propaganda enforced in the U.S. makes it genuinely difficult for people to even recognize it. All that said, there is nothing in the world that justifies the actions of the Israeli state towards Palestinian civilians. Nothing. </p><p>There does not exist an excuse for the killing of 8,000 people. I will not entertain any justification for it, and neither should anyone interested in emerging from this period of hideous violence — an end which will hopefully not signal the total destruction of Gaza — with any semblance of a conscience intact. Please, for your own sake, listen to the thousands of Palestinian voices urging you to recognize their humanity and the thousands of Jewish voices urging an end to the weaponization of their grief and profound faith as justification for genocide. </p><p>There will never be a justification for a military this powerful to exercise such a brutal hegemony on a civilian population with no military, and no bomb shelters, even. Under this apartheid, Palestinians do not even have the right to leave behind their homes, to escape – Israel sends airstrikes to where it directs Palestinians to flee. In Gaza, they do not have tanks. They do not have missiles, or white phosphorus, or over $260 billion in aid from the U.S.</p><p>As of Oct. 25, Israel has dropped 12,000 tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip, a site commonly referred to as an “open-air prison,” roughly the size of Detroit, with approximately 2 million inhabitants, more than half of which are children. If you cannot comprehend the repugnancy of dropping 12,000 tons of bombs on a civilian population, if those figures are not enough for you, perhaps contextualization will help. That is an estimated equivalence to the tonnage of the nuclear bomb the American government dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>I sometimes wonder, when reading and listening to the vitriolic racism that people espouse, when someone has the temerity to suggest that Palestinians deserve to live in peace on their own land — what would these people, who object so staunchly, have said about Japan in 1945?</p><p>What would they have said in the days of apartheid in South Africa? What did they say during the U.S. occupation of Iraq that killed over 1 million? I think I know the answer. </p><p>I think it’s clear by now that anyone who seeks to paint all civilians — including children — as insidious, violent, “savages,” as “sons of darkness,” has no ability to recognize the humanity of anyone who does not look like them. Anyone who justifies the collective punishment of thousands — anyone who gives a state defined by many as an active apartheid state on multiple occasions the moral authority to punish civilians — cannot recognize the depravity they condone. </p><p>I have had people try to make the case to me that the children in Gaza, in particular the 17-year-olds, are going to eventually “join Hamas” if they are not “already in it.” If this is what you tell yourself when something will not let you sleep at night — some persistent, intangible feeling, in the core of your ribs or at the back of your mind — then maybe I’ll be the first to tell you that feeling is guilt, and it is rotting away inside you. Do you know a 17-year-old? Have you ever met one? Is there anything in the world that you think would justify a bomb tearing them into pieces? Is there anything that would make it logical for them to suffocate slowly under rubble? </p><p>I’m writing this on Oct. 29, which marks 23 years since photographers captured barely 15-year-old Faris Odeh throwing a rock at an Israeli tank. The image became famous and synonymous with the bravery and the stark reality of the lives of Palestinian children. All the “complexity” constantly referenced as an excuse for the silence from the rest of the world vanished, as if the willingness captured in the photo — the willingness of Faris, at 5-foot-4, to die, the willingness of the soldiers in the tank, of the tank itself, to kill — had wiped away the fog. On Nov. 8, eleven days after the photo was taken, the Israeli Defense Force shot him in the neck. He bled to death. </p><p>Another picture made famous over two decades ago, of Jamal Al-Durrah trying desperately to shield his 12-year-old son Muhammad from IDF gunfire, came from a video. Journalist Talal Abu Rahma was able to record the IDF shooting the twelve-year-old boy in his father’s arms. Abu Rahma was accused of somehow “staging” the video and was not vindicated by French courts until 2013. Israel has banned the journalist from returning to Gaza since 2017.</p><p>There are no words in this limited language, perhaps in any language, that can explain what it is like to watch that footage. I remember the first time I saw stills from it, years ago now, and asked myself the question I have been unable to answer, and to stop asking, since that moment. How can anyone look at a child’s fear, take in a father’s love, take in the desperation and the humanity and the terror so potent it is immobilizing, then look down a barrel and shoot? </p><p>That video is 23 years old, and Muhammad Al-Durrah and Faris Odeh’s names, for so many of us, have served as arguments more powerful than any present in a UN speech or in seemingly spineless American journalism. Just two names, not even a complete sentence. This is a state that kills children with no hesitation. This is a state that has been filmed and photographed committing those killings. The international communities that we give the powers of governance to have known this for 23 years at the very least. They have watched as these children throw rocks at tanks, as these civilians are crushed under tons of explosives. What else is there to say? </p><p>Jamal Al-Durrah, Muhammad’s father, appeared in another video last week on Oct. 15. His brothers were killed in Israel’s airstrikes, and he wanted to say goodbye to them. I want to know what those who refuse to criticize apartheid, or indiscriminate bombing, or shooting civilians, have to say to him. I want to know what explanation they have for the level of brutality and grief he has dealt with. </p><p>I want to hear a justification for indiscriminate strikes. I want to hear how they are possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, just “self-defense.” I want to hear these cowardly, blunderingly foolish, profoundly cruel politicians explain why “now is not the time to call for a ceasefire.” Explain it as if you were talking to a child. As if you were talking to a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old, and you had just sent billions of dollars to the military that shot them to death. </p><p>If you hear people calling for a ceasefire, begging for an end to bombs and white phosphorus and for desperately needed medical aid, and you find it possible to object to that, because you view that as somehow “condoning terrorism,” I urge you to reexamine how deeply rooted your prejudices are. I urge you to try and remember the value of a human life, the value of every person you love and have ever loved, and imagine what it would be like if a state dropped a bomb on you and ended each of those lives. Eliminating every memory, every fight, every secret, every favorite color, every future aspiration. Eliminating all the nuance and contradictions that make each singular life worth celebrating and protecting. Destroying over three thousand children’s bodies before those complexities could even have the chance to become full-fledged. </p><p>Israel has killed at least 3,324 children in three weeks. As of Oct. 26, Israel has destroyed 47 bloodlines in Palestine. Every single member of these 47 families that managed to survive the occupation and the apartheid is gone. The children, the elderly, those so resoundingly, unequivocally innocent that even the pundits and the politicians and the ordinary racists who call any Palestinian of a certain age a “terrorist” have nothing to say. </p><p>And what else is left to say, really? Peace will not come to Gaza without, at the very least, a ceasefire. A ceasefire is not possible without many powerful people and institutions making a concerted effort to remember the humanity of the Palestinians, which they have denied for so very long. </p><p>As for those of us who watch, from continents away, as the country that we live in finances and condones an attempt at genocide, we cannot look away. We cannot look back in 10 years and write long-form essays asking “how this happened.” We cannot resign ourselves, or perpetrate the profound ignominy of acting as though Gaza is already gone. </p><p>There may come a day when this violence ends, and even a day when peace is no longer a faraway dream even for children. But there will never be a day when the war crimes committed against Palestinians will be justified or forgotten. </p><p>Sofia Uriagereka-Herburger writes about politics and international and domestic social movements. Write to her at sou5@pitt.edu. </p><p><br /></p><p>bombingIDFIsrael-Palestine</p><p>About the Contributor</p><p>Sofia Uriagereka-Herburger, Senior Staff Columnist</p><p>Sofia Uriagereka is a senior majoring in Anthropology. She writes primarily about politics, both domestic and international.</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-74431092446072108092023-09-28T15:10:00.003-04:002023-09-28T15:10:57.142-04:00NEEDED: A Stronger United Nations to Achieve World Peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.laprogressive.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_760/MjAxMDg1Nzk0MTIxNjg4NzU3/peace.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="760" height="365" src="https://www.laprogressive.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_760/MjAxMDg1Nzk0MTIxNjg4NzU3/peace.webp" width="510" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><b><i>The Ukraine War is the latest sign that all nations should recognize to indicate the necessity to move beyond national isolation toward cooperation and unity.</i></b></p><p><b>BY LAWRENCE S. WITTNER</b></p><p><i>LA PROGRESSIVE, SEP 27, 2023</i></p><p>Addressing the UN Security Council on September 20th, 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a heartfelt plea “to update the existing security architecture in the world, in particular, to restore the real power of the UN Charter.”</p><p><br /></p><p>This call for strengthening international security under the aegis of the United Nations makes sense not only for Ukraine―a country suffering from brutal military invasion, occupation, and annexation by its much larger, more powerful neighbor, the Russian Federation―but for the nations of the world.</p><p><br /></p><p>For thousands of years, competing territories, nations, and empires have spilled rivers of blood and laid waste to much of the world through wars and plunder. Hundreds of millions of people have died, while many more have been horribly injured or forced to flee their shattered homelands in a desperate search for safety. World Wars I and II, capped off by the use of nuclear weapons to annihilate the populations of entire cities, brought massive suffering to people around the globe.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1945, this mad slaughter and devastation convinced far-sighted thinkers, as well as many government leaders, that human survival was dependent upon developing a framework for international security: the United Nations. The UN Charter, adopted in a conference in the spring of that year in San Francisco by 50 Allied nations, declared that a key purpose of the new organization was “to maintain international peace and security.”</p><p><br /></p><p>The UN Charter, which constitutes international law, included provisions detailing how nations were to treat one another in the battered world emerging from the Second World War. Among its major provisions was Article 2, Section 4, which declared that “all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Furthermore, Article 51 declared that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Although the UN Charter provided for a General Assembly in which all member nations were represented, action to maintain international peace and security was delegated primarily to a UN Security Council with 15 members, five of whom (the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France) were to be permanent members with the right to veto Security Council resolutions or action.</p><p><br /></p><p>Scroll to Continue</p><p>Recommended Articles</p><p>Invading Iraq on Lies to Inflict Savagery Willfully Ignored by Those in Power</p><p>Invading Iraq on Lies to Inflict Savagery Willfully Ignored by Those in Power</p><p>BY DEREK ROYDENSEP 22, 2023</p><p>Conformist Enablers</p><p>Are Elected Democrats Just Conformist Enablers of Biden for 2024?</p><p>BY NORMAN SOLOMONSEP 25, 2023</p><p>Racist, Not Racially Motivated: Calling Out Racist, White Supremacist Attacks</p><p>Racist, Not Racially Motivated: Calling Out Racist, White Supremacist Attacks</p><p>BY DAVID A. LOVESEP 23, 2023</p><p>Not surprisingly, the right of any of these five nations to block Security Council peace efforts, a right they had insisted upon as the price of their participation in the United Nations, hamstrung the world organization from enforcing peace and international security on numerous occasions. The most recent instance has occurred in the case of the Ukraine War, a conflict in which, as Zelensky lamented, “all [Security Council] efforts are vetoed by the aggressor.” As a result, the United Nations has all too often lacked the power to enforce the principles of international law confirmed by its members and enshrined in its Charter.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some people are perfectly content with the weakness of the United Nations. Fierce nationalists, as exemplified by Donald Trump and his Republican followers, are contemptuous of this or any international security organization, and many would prefer its abolition. Others have little use for the United Nations but, instead, place their hopes for the maintenance of international peace and stability upon public and governmental acceptance of great power spheres of influence. Meanwhile, a segment of the international Left ignores the United Nations and insists that world peace will only be secured by smashing “U.S. imperialism.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Sadly, those forces opposing international organization and action fail to recognize that their proposals represent not only a return to thousands of years of international strife and mass slaughter among nations, but, in today’s world, an open door to a nuclear holocaust that will end virtually all life on earth.</p><p><br /></p><p>Compared to this descent into international chaos and destruction, proposals to strengthen the United Nations are remarkably practical and potentially effective. Zelensky has suggested empowering the UN General Assembly to overcome a Security Council veto by a vote of two-thirds or more of the Assembly’s nations. In addition, he has proposed expanding the representation of nations in the Security Council, temporarily suspending membership of a Security Council member when it “resorts to aggression against another nation in violation of the UN Charter,” and creating a deterrent to international aggression by agreeing on the response to it before it occurs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, there are numerous other ways to strengthen the United Nations as a force for peace and to help ensure that it works as an effective international agency for battling the onrushing climate catastrophe, combating disease pandemics, and cracking down on the exploitative practices of multinational corporations. Its member nations could also rally behind the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (still unsigned by the nuclear powers), agree on a UN program to handle the burgeoning international refugee crisis, and provide the world organization with substantially greater financial resources to reduce global poverty and mass misery than it currently receives.</p><p><br /></p><p>Indeed, the horrific Ukraine War is but the latest canary in the coal mine―the danger signal that people of all nations should recognize as indicating the necessity for moving beyond national isolation and beginning a new era of global responsibility, cooperation, and unity.</p><p><br /></p><p>The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.</p><p><br /></p><p>ARMED CONFLICTUNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCILEUROPE/RUSSIAUKRAINEUNITED NATIONS</p><p>Lawrence S. Wittner</p><p>BY LAWRENCE S. WITTNER</p><p>Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at Aardvark?</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-1889075406599997512023-09-04T16:38:00.003-04:002023-09-04T16:38:59.218-04:00Online Forum: Selling War with China<p> <span class="tribe-event-date-start" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wed September 6 @ 8:00 pm</span><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font-family: var(--tec-font-family-sans-serif); font-size: var(--tec-font-size-3); font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: var(--tec-font-weight-regular);"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font-family: var(--tec-font-family-sans-serif); font-size: var(--tec-font-size-3); font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: var(--tec-font-weight-regular);">-</span><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font-family: var(--tec-font-family-sans-serif); font-size: var(--tec-font-size-3); font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: var(--tec-font-weight-regular);"> </span><span class="tribe-event-time" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">9:00 pm</span><span style="background-color: white; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font-family: var(--tec-font-family-sans-serif); font-size: var(--tec-font-size-3); font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: var(--tec-font-weight-regular);"> </span><span class="timezone" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: var(--tec-color-text-event-date); font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">EDT</span></p><div class="post-43613 tribe_events type-tribe_events status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry tribe_events_cat-raytheon-antiwar-campaign cat_raytheon-antiwar-campaign" id="post-43613" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="tribe-events-event-image" style="align-self: flex-start; border: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: var(--tec-spacer-7); margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; order: 1; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 920.24px;"><img alt="" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image lazyautosizes lazyloaded" data-eio-rheight="481" data-eio-rwidth="544" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina.jpg" data-srcset="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina.jpg 544w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina-300x265.jpg 300w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina-150x133.jpg 150w" decoding="async" height="481" sizes="544px" src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina.jpg" srcset="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina.jpg 544w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina-300x265.jpg 300w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EncirclChina-150x133.jpg 150w" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="544" /></div><div class="tribe-events-single-event-description tribe-events-content" style="border: 0px; color: var(--tec-color-text-primary); font-family: var(--tec-font-family-sans-serif); font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; order: 1; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 920.24px;"><h2 style="border: 0px; color: var(--tec-color-text-primary); font-family: var(--tec-font-family-sans-serif); font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.5rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: var(--tec-font-weight-bold); line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wednesday September 6th @ 8:00pm</h2><p style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: var(--tec-font-size-4); font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: var(--tec-line-height-2); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://secure.everyaction.com/hXdYYWR1vUattRnDJxIvPA2" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--tec-color-link-accent); border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: var(--tec-transition-color); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Register" class="alignnone wp-image-16751 size-full lazyloaded" data-eio-rheight="41" data-eio-rwidth="134" data-src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/button_register.jpg" decoding="async" height="41" src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/button_register.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; height: auto; margin: 1.25rem 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="134" /></a></p><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The drums of US/NATO war against China are getting louder and louder, even as the war in Ukraine continues. We are led to believe that China may “invade” Taiwan at the same time that we officially affirm that Taiwan is a province of China. The US sends arms, advisors, and officials to Taiwan, escalates its military encirclement of China, enacts sanctions against China, and conducts continuous propaganda about the supposed threat that China presents to world security.</div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We are being sold a war with China that could lead to nuclear annihilation. How did we get to this point? What are the forces at work and who profits from all this? This webinar will address these questions from the perspective that US imperialism aims to dominate the world and all its resources to the benefit of its capitalist ruling class.</div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://secure.everyaction.com/hXdYYWR1vUattRnDJxIvPA2" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--tec-color-link-accent); border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: var(--tec-transition-color); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Register" class="alignnone wp-image-16751 size-full ls-is-cached lazyloaded" data-eio-rheight="41" data-eio-rwidth="134" data-src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/button_register.jpg" decoding="async" height="41" src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/button_register.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; height: auto; margin: 1.25rem 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="134" /></a></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="alignright wp-image-43596 lazyautosizes lazyloaded" data-eio-rheight="226" data-eio-rwidth="300" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-300x226.jpg" data-srcset="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-300x226.jpg 300w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-150x113.jpg 150w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-326x245.jpg 326w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-80x60.jpg 80w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511.jpg 348w" decoding="async" height="156" sizes="207px" src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-300x226.jpg" srcset="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-300x226.jpg 300w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-150x113.jpg 150w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-326x245.jpg 326w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511-80x60.jpg 80w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CarlZha-e1690560481511.jpg 348w" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: right; font: inherit; height: auto; margin: 0.3125rem 0px 1.25rem 1.25rem; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="207" />Presenters:</span></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Carl Zha</span></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Carl Zha was born in China, grew up in China and the United States, and is a Cal Tech graduate. He is the host of the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://silknsteel.podbean.com/&source=gmail&ust=1690645614673000&usg=AOvVaw36DfWk4UFhxTzPQPH8tZt7" href="https://silknsteel.podbean.com/" rel="noopener" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--tec-color-link-accent); border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: var(--tec-transition-color); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Silk and Steel Podcast </a>focusing on China, history, culture and politics</div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-43595 alignleft lazyautosizes lazyloaded" data-eio-rheight="300" data-eio-rwidth="255" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo-255x300.jpg" data-srcset="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo-255x300.jpg 255w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo-127x150.jpg 127w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo.jpg 684w" decoding="async" height="200" sizes="170px" src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo-255x300.jpg" srcset="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo-255x300.jpg 255w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo-127x150.jpg 127w, https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Christian-Sorensen-photo.jpg 684w" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: left; font: inherit; height: auto; margin: 0.3125rem 1.25rem 1.25rem 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="170" />Christian Sorensen</span></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Christian Sorensen is an author and researcher focusing on the corporations that profit from war. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he is the author of the book <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Understanding the War Industry</i>. His work is available at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://warindustrymuster.com/&source=gmail&ust=1690645614673000&usg=AOvVaw3sn7HAcvtoDoYdylSktlb4" href="http://warindustrymuster.com/" rel="noopener" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--tec-color-link-accent); border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: var(--tec-transition-color); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">warindustrymuster.com</a>. His substack, launching August 1st, is <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/&source=gmail&ust=1690645614673000&usg=AOvVaw3tc89xswoLRoEkqRb9r8bA" href="http://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/" rel="noopener" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--tec-color-link-accent); border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: var(--tec-transition-color); vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">thebusinessofwar.substack.com</a>.</div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://secure.everyaction.com/hXdYYWR1vUattRnDJxIvPA2" style="border-bottom: 1px solid var(--tec-color-link-accent); border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: var(--tec-transition-color); vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Register" class="alignnone wp-image-16751 size-full ls-is-cached lazyloaded" data-eio-rheight="41" data-eio-rwidth="134" data-src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/button_register.jpg" decoding="async" height="41" src="https://masspeaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/button_register.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; font: inherit; height: auto; margin: 1.25rem 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" width="134" /></a></div><div class="addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content addtoany_content_bottom" style="border: 0px; clear: both; font: inherit; margin: 16px auto; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-title="Selling War with China" data-a2a-url="https://masspeaceaction.org/event/selling-war-with-china-war-industries-resisters-network-2/" style="border: 0px; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; touch-action: manipulation; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="a2a_button_facebook" href="https://masspeaceaction.org/#facebook" rel="nofollow noopener" style="border: 0px; 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font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: var(--tec-font-weight-bold); letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 1.3; margin-bottom: var(--tec-spacer-1); margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">DETAILS</h2><dl style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: var(--tec-spacer-1); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><dt class="tribe-events-start-date-label" style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: var(--tec-line-height-3); list-style-type: square; margin: 0 0 var(--tec-spacer-0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Date:</dt><dd style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font: inherit; list-style-type: circle; margin: 0 0 var(--tec-spacer-0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><abbr class="tribe-events-abbr tribe-events-start-date published dtstart" style="border-bottom-style: dashed; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; cursor: help; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="2023-09-06">Wed September 6</abbr></dd><dt class="tribe-events-start-time-label" style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: var(--tec-line-height-3); list-style-type: square; margin-top: var(--tec-spacer-3); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Time:</dt><dd style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font: inherit; list-style-type: circle; margin: 0 0 var(--tec-spacer-0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><div class="tribe-events-abbr tribe-events-start-time published dtstart" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="2023-09-06">8:00 pm - 9:00 pm <span class="tribe-events-abbr tribe-events-time-zone published " style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">EDT</span></div></dd><dt class="tribe-events-event-categories-label" style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: var(--tec-line-height-3); list-style-type: square; margin-top: var(--tec-spacer-3); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Event Category:</dt><dd class="tribe-events-event-categories" style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font: inherit; list-style-type: circle; margin: 0 0 var(--tec-spacer-0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><a href="https://masspeaceaction.org/events/category/middle-east-wars/raytheon-antiwar-campaign/" rel="tag" style="border: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Raytheon Antiwar Campaign</a></dd><dt class="tribe-events-event-url-label" style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: var(--tec-line-height-3); list-style-type: square; margin-top: var(--tec-spacer-3); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Website:</dt><dd class="tribe-events-event-url" style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font: inherit; list-style-type: circle; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><a href="https://secure.everyaction.com/hXdYYWR1vUattRnDJxIvPA2" rel="external" style="border: 0px; color: #4c89bf; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_self">https://secure.everyaction.com/hXdYYWR1vUattRnDJxIvPA2</a></dd></dl></div></div></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-24487751801874524702023-03-30T16:16:00.000-04:002023-03-30T16:16:01.823-04:00April 1: Beaver County March for Our Lives<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mobilizeamerica.imgix.net/uploads/event/Image%203-29-23%20at%208.49%20PM_20230330005021122025.jpeg?auto=format&crop=faces&fit=crop&h=494.24083769633506&w=944" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="800" height="310" src="https://mobilizeamerica.imgix.net/uploads/event/Image%203-29-23%20at%208.49%20PM_20230330005021122025.jpeg?auto=format&crop=faces&fit=crop&h=494.24083769633506&w=944" width="591" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Community Event</p><p>Beaver County March for Our Lives organized by PA Democratic Party</p><p>Time</p><p>Saturday, April 1</p><p>12 – 1:30pm EDT</p><p>Location</p><p>Beaver County Courthouse</p><p>810 3rd St</p><p>Beaver, PA 15009</p><p>Map</p><p>About this event</p><p>We're co-hosting a March for Our Lives rally with the Beaver County Young Democrats and other Beaver County allies. Join us to remember the victims of gun violence, show your support for gun safety reforms, and demand our representatives act NOW.</p><p>Speakers include Josh Fleitman of Cease Fire PA, Beaver County commissioner candidate Julian Taylor, Officer Kate Kelly, and others.</p><p>Hand-held, family-friendly signs are encouraged. No sticks or poles please</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-62699333821452239082023-01-03T11:52:00.005-05:002023-01-03T11:55:24.352-05:00Decry the Merchants of Death<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://progressive.org/downloads/18429/download/20221228_075752.jpeg?cb=bc6de93457c37105855b3043ed73405a&w=1500&h=844" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="283" src="https://progressive.org/downloads/18429/download/20221228_075752.jpeg?cb=bc6de93457c37105855b3043ed73405a&w=1500&h=844" width="504" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><b>Peace activists take on the Pentagon and its “corporate outposts.”</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>By Kathy Kelly </b></p><p><i>The Progressive</i></p><p>DEC 30, 2022 - Days after a U.S. warplane bombed a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing forty-two people, twenty-four of them patients, the international president of MSF, Dr. Joanne Liu walked through the wreckage and prepared to deliver condolences to family members of those who had been killed. A brief video, taped in October, 2015, captures her nearly unutterable sadness as she speaks about a family who, the day before the bombing, had been prepared to bring their daughter home. Doctors had helped the young girl recover, but because war was raging outside the hospital, administrators recommended that the family come the next day. “She’s safer here,” they said.</p><p>The child was among those killed by the U.S. attacks, which recurred at fifteen minute intervals, for an hour and a half, even though MSF had already issued desperate pleas begging the United States and NATO forces to stop bombing the hospital. </p><p>Dr. Liu’s sad observations seemed to echo in the words of Pope Francis lamenting war’s afflictions. “We live with this diabolic pattern of killing one another out of the desire for power, the desire for security, the desire for many things. But I think of the hidden wars, those no one sees, that are far away from us," he said. “People speak about peace. The United Nations has done everything possible, but they have not succeeded.” The tireless struggles of numerous world leaders, like Pope Francis and Dr. Joanne Liu, to stop the patterns of war were embraced vigorously by Phil Berrigan, a prophet of our time. </p><p>“Oppose any and all wars,” he urged. “There has never been a just war.” “Don’t get tired!” he begged people, adding, “I love the Buddhist proverb, ‘I will not kill, but I will prevent others from killing.’ ”</p><p>People who’ve embraced his message continue meeting at the Pentagon, as happened December 28 when activists commemorated the “Feast of the Holy Innocents.” Christians traditionally dedicate this day to the remembrance of a time when King Herod ordered the massacre of children under two years of age because of a paranoid belief that one of the recently born children in the region would grow up to oust Herod from power and kill him. Activists gathered at the Pentagon held signs decrying the slaughter of innocents in our time. They’ll protest the obscenely bloated military budget which the U.S. Congress just passed as a part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. </p><p>As Norman Stockwell of The Progressive recently noted, “The bill contains nearly $1.7 trillion of funding for FY2023, but of that money, $858 billion is earmarked for the military (‘defense spending’) and an additional $45 billion in ‘emergency assistance to Ukraine and our NATO allies.’ This means that more than half ($900 billion out of $1.7 trillion) is not being used for ‘non-defense discretionary programs’—and even that lesser portion includes $118.7 billion for funding of the Veterans Administration, another military-related expense.”</p><p>By depleting funds desperately needed to meet human needs, the U.S. “defense” budget doesn’t defend people from pandemics, ecological collapse, and infrastructure decay. Instead it continues a deranged investment in militarism. Phil Berrigan’s prophetic intransigency, resisting all wars and weapons manufacturing, is needed now more than ever. </p><p>Outraged by the reckless slaughter of innocent people in wars ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan, Phil Berrigan insisted that weapons manufacturers profiting from endless wars should be held accountable for criminal activity. The weapons corporations rob people, worldwide, of the capacity to meet basic human needs.. </p><p>The appallingly greedy Pentagon budget represents a corporate takeover of the U.S. Congress. As the coffers of weapons manufacturers swell, these military contractors hire legions of highly paid lobbyists tasked with persuading elected officials to earmark even more funds for companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon United, and General Atomics. According to militarists, stockpiles of weapons must be used up, in order to justify more weapons manufacturing. Media complicity is necessary, and can be purchased, in order to frighten U.S. taxpayers into the continued bankrolling of what could become worldwide annihilation. </p><p>Phil Berrigan, who in his lifetime evolved from soldier to scholar to prophetic anti-nuclear activist, astutely linked the racial oppression he opposed as a civil rights activist to the rising oppression caused by militarism. He likened racial injustice to a terrible hydra that contrives a new face for every area of the world. Throughout his life, Phil Berrigan identified with people menaced by the hydra’s new faces of war. Elaborating on this theme in a book called No More Strangers, published in 1965, he wrote that the dispassionate decision of people in the United States to practice racial discrimination made it “not only easy but logical to enlarge our oppressions in the form of international nuclear threats.”</p><p>How can we in the United States prevent the killing that goes on, in our name, in multiple wars, exacerbated by weapons made in the U.S.A? How can we resist the growing potential, acute scourge of a nuclear exchange as warring parties continue issuing nuclear threats in Ukraine and Russia?</p><p>One step we can take involves both political and humanitarian efforts to hold accountable the corporations profiting from the U.S. military budget. Drawing on Phil Berrigan’s steadfastness, activists worldwide are planning the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal scheduled to be held November 10 to 13, 2023. The Tribunal intends to collect evidence about crimes against humanity committed by those who develop, store, sell, and use weapons to commit crimes against humanity. Testimony is being sought from people who’ve borne the brunt of modern wars, the survivors of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, and Somalia, to name but a few of the places where U.S. weapons have terrified people who’ve meant us no harm.</p><p>“We render you, corporations obsessed with war profiteering, accountable; answerable!,” declares the Reverend Dr. Cornel West on the Tribunal’s website.</p><p>On November 10, 2022, organizers of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and their supporters served a “subpoena” to the directors and corporate offices of weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon United, and General Atomics. The subpoena, which will expire on February 10, 2023, compels them to provide to the Tribunal all documents revealing their complicity in aiding and abetting the United States government in committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, bribery, and theft.</p><p>People menaced by the hydra’s new faces of war often have nowhere to flee, nowhere to hide. Thousands upon thousands of the victims are children.</p><p>Mindful of the children who are maimed, traumatized, displaced, orphaned, and killed by all of the wars raging today, we must hold ourselves accountable as well. Phil Berrigan’s challenge must become ours: “Meet me at the Pentagon!” Or at its corporate outposts.</p><p>Humanity literally cannot live in complicity with the patterns that lead to bombing hospitals and slaughtering children.</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-90093447295774618122022-12-13T10:58:00.004-05:002022-12-13T10:58:49.668-05:00Target Ukraine: Melitopol & Wagner<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1139994/story_image/GettyImages-1245251510.jpg?1670080058" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="333" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/1139994/story_image/GettyImages-1245251510.jpg?1670080058" width="501" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i>By @crymzyn</i></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i>Daily KOS</i></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">December is here and the Ukrainian War for Independence continues apace. Hopefully, historians will agree with me with the name suggestion because that is what is truly going on. Ukraine, along with Georgia, is the only former Soviet state that had the audacity to defy Moscow and align with the West. Both countries have been invaded and their territory seized and now Ukraine, the larger of the two, is taking the fight to their former imperial masters for their independence. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><br /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">So where are we today? Ukraine’s liberation of the west bank of the Dniepr river with the taking of Kherson has firmly put Ukraine’s military on the offensive. While at this point of the war Russia was unlikely to mount a serious offensive from Kherson, by simply holding on to it they at least had the option of future operations to either move north and threaten the city of Dniepr or move west and threaten Mykolaiv and Odesa with either direct invasion or placing them under artillery and rocket bombardment should the opportunity present itself. This meant that Ukraine had to liberate Kherson and secure its western and rearward areas before another focused offensive in the east could begin. There are also political considerations as well as Kherson was the only regional capital occupied by Russia during the 2022 invasion and retaking it puts the Putin regime under increasing criticism by their far-right militant nationalists, which are far more of a threat to his regime than the liberal and democratic left which have been either imprisoned or fled the country. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;">While things have been more or less quiet militarily since the liberation of Kherson for a few weeks, that may have just changed yesterday with a large-scale HIMARS bombardment of Melitopol and the beginning of the systematic destruction of Russian command posts, logistics centers, and troop concentrations. What many Russian soldiers had believed to be a relatively safe rear area has now been turned into an inferno as Russia now has to face the very real prospect of an offensive that seeks to split the Russian-occupied territory in two if Ukraine can take Melitopol and then reach the Sea of Azov. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;">Meanwhile, the city of Bakhmut has been the object of near obsession by Wagner, Putin’s personal army, since the summer. Ukraine's territorial defense forces have been bravely holding on during the assault while Wagner continues to throw their forces against it. Ukraine has now sent reinforcements from the Kherson operation to help bolster its defenses. Yet, a lot more than just replacements came in with both artillery and likely Ukrainian armor showing up. Wagner may now find themselves in a far more precarious position than they realize. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;">The interesting thing about the Wagner group is that they are not integrated into Russia’s military command. They have essentially no communications with Russia’s normal ground units that are adjacent to them or bother telling the Russian military command even what they are doing, due to both their misplaced elitism and Prigozhin’s own private ambitions. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;">This creates a fault line that Ukraine can exploit as they can cleave between Wagner’s position and the Russian military with an offensive due to the lack of coordination between Wagner and the Russian Army. This can result either in an encirclement of Wagner's forces near Bakhmut or force Wagner into an inglorious retreat. And I believe there would be no love lost between Russia’s Army and Wagner as the Russian military has not been able to integrate Wagner into their chain of command or operational plan. Wagner only answers to Putin and Prigozhin and seeing them defeated would both embarrass Putin and nearly destroy his personal Army, which Russia’s senior military leadership wouldn’t mind seeing happen as this would force Putin to work through them rather than through Wagner. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3c3736; font-family: "Open Sans"; letter-spacing: 0.125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;">Interesting times are afoot and while we celebrate the holidays, let us keep the brave people of Ukraine in our thoughts and prayers as they endure this struggle and emerge into what Churchill called the “bright, sunlit lands of peace.”</p><p><br /><a class="cnx-ui-ps-cta cnx-cta-align-with-content" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/12/2141525/-As-NYC-black-tie-dinner-speech-shows-the-insurrectionist-movement-is-alive-and-well-and-plotting?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main&traffic_source=Connatix" rel="nofollow" style="align-items: center; 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z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-wrapper cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-image-container cnx-ui-ps-image-background cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); animation: 0s ease 0s 1 normal none running none !important; background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transform: matrix(1.1, 0, 0, 1.1, 0, 0); transition-delay: 0s !important; transition-duration: 0s; transition-property: none; transition-timing-function: ease !important; width: 600px;"><img alt="Ukraine update: Russian propagandists show how to turn a humiliating defeat into a great victory" src="https://img.connatix.com/pid-9acded4a-e487-4783-8546-85e7ff1f604b/066a45f3-c5e2-4600-9c8a-13bebf6b3a4e/538d4adf-b1bc-49b6-9dc9-f539b4e7214b.jpg?crop=600:338,smart&width=600&height=338&format=jpeg&quality=60&fit=crop" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: 337.5px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; object-fit: unset; padding: 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle; width: 600px;" /></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto !important; max-width: 600px !important; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-player-wrapper cnx-size-responsive" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-container cnx-in-ps-landscape cnx-bp-md-st cnx-close-off cnx-close-float-on cnx-bp-xl-v" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box; color: #3c3736; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-size: 16px; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; user-select: none; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui cnx-ui-ps cnx-is-playing" id="id_544c8b0716f744aca76a142b187f4bab" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px; z-index: 10;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slider cnx-mod-no-transition" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slide-container" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-wrapper cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-bg" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto !important; max-width: 600px !important; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-player-wrapper cnx-size-responsive" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-container cnx-in-ps-landscape cnx-bp-md-st cnx-close-off cnx-close-float-on cnx-bp-xl-v" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box; color: #3c3736; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-size: 16px; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; user-select: none; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui cnx-ui-ps cnx-is-playing" id="id_544c8b0716f744aca76a142b187f4bab" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px; z-index: 10;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slider cnx-mod-no-transition" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slide-container" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-wrapper cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto !important; max-width: 600px !important; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-player-wrapper cnx-size-responsive" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-container cnx-in-ps-landscape cnx-bp-md-st cnx-close-off cnx-close-float-on cnx-bp-xl-v" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box; color: #3c3736; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-size: 16px; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; user-select: none; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui cnx-ui-ps cnx-is-playing" id="id_544c8b0716f744aca76a142b187f4bab" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px; z-index: 10;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slider cnx-mod-no-transition" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slide-container" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-wrapper cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-bg" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto !important; max-width: 600px !important; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-player-wrapper cnx-size-responsive" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-container cnx-in-ps-landscape cnx-bp-md-st cnx-close-off cnx-close-float-on cnx-bp-xl-v" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box; color: #3c3736; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-size: 16px; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; user-select: none; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui cnx-ui-ps cnx-is-playing" id="id_544c8b0716f744aca76a142b187f4bab" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px; z-index: 10;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slider cnx-mod-no-transition" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slide-container" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-wrapper cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-image-container cnx-ui-ps-image-background cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); animation: 0s ease 0s 1 normal none running none !important; background-color: whitesmoke; box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transform: matrix(1.1, 0, 0, 1.1, 0, 0); transition-delay: 0s !important; transition-duration: 0s; transition-property: none; transition-timing-function: ease !important; width: 600px;"><img alt="Morning Digest: We've got the best guide around for every member and district in the 118th Congress" src="https://img.connatix.com/pid-9acded4a-e487-4783-8546-85e7ff1f604b/066a45f3-c5e2-4600-9c8a-13bebf6b3a4e/f1188d6d-9518-42c2-9eec-b430172d22fd.jpg?crop=600:338,smart&width=600&height=338&format=jpeg&quality=60&fit=crop" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: 337.5px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; object-fit: unset; padding: 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle; width: 600px;" /></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto !important; max-width: 600px !important; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-player-wrapper cnx-size-responsive" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-container cnx-in-ps-landscape cnx-bp-md-st cnx-close-off cnx-close-float-on cnx-bp-xl-v" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box; color: #3c3736; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-size: 16px; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.125px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; user-select: none; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui cnx-ui-ps cnx-is-playing" id="id_544c8b0716f744aca76a142b187f4bab" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex: 1 1 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 409.496px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px; z-index: 10;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slider cnx-mod-no-transition" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-slide-container" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; flex-shrink: 0; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: none 0s ease 0s; width: 600px; z-index: 1;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-wrapper cnx-is-paused" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-ui-ps-slide-bg" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.12); box-sizing: content-box; display: block; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; 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transform: none !important; transition: none 0s ease 0s !important; white-space: nowrap; width: auto;">Insurrectionists ready to ‘cross the Rubicon’ in their</cnx></cnx></cnx></a></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx></cnx><cnx class="cnx-main-container cnx-in-desktop cnx-ps cnx-main-container-flex" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex !important; font-family: Roboto, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto !important; max-width: 600px !important; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; width: 600px;"><cnx class="cnx-player-wrapper cnx-size-responsive" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: content-box; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; line-height: 1; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><cnx class="cnx-playspace-container cnx-in-ps-landscape cnx-bp-md-st cnx-close-off cnx-close-float-on cnx-bp-xl-v" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); 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margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"><iframe allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen="" id="goog_112433300" src="https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.549.0_en.html#goog_112433300" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color-scheme: light; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: relative;"></iframe></div></div></div></div><div class="cnx-ad-bid-slot cnx-ad-bid-slot-id-2ad332d6-d3d1-4f48-966b-f9c8a0abbb73" id="cnx_bid_slot_a54f09ad-3c18-436b-b922-bf6d86d6d83d" style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); box-sizing: border-box; grid-area: adslot / adslot / adslot / adslot; height: 337.5px; left: 0px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><div class="cnx-ad-slot" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; height: 337.5px; justify-content: center; left: 0px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><div class="cnx-ad-slot" id="cnx-ad-slot-e42b1021-e9f7-4dbd-861d-00eef9d4f2cd" style="align-items: center; background-color: transparent !important; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; height: 337.5px; justify-content: center; left: 0px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 600px;"><div style="background-color: transparent !important; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"><iframe allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen="" id="goog_112433302" src="https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.549.0_en.html#goog_112433302" style="border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color-scheme: light; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: relative;"></iframe></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-58652117236656135992022-08-16T10:27:00.004-04:002022-08-16T10:27:55.787-04:00 The Case Against a New Arms Race<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://cdn-live.foreignaffairs.com/sites/default/files/styles/_webp_large_2x/public/images/2022/08/09/GettyImages-1222402724.jpg.webp?itok=Xkga49bQ" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="285" src="https://cdn-live.foreignaffairs.com/sites/default/files/styles/_webp_large_2x/public/images/2022/08/09/GettyImages-1222402724.jpg.webp?itok=Xkga49bQ" width="429" /></a></div><p><i>Photo: Russian nuclear missile during a military parade in Moscow, June 2020 Mikhail Svetlov / Getty Images</i></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Nuclear Weapons Are Not the Future</h3><p><b>By Rose Gottemoeller</b></p><p><i>Foreign Affairs</i></p><p>August 9, 2022 - As Russian President Vladimir Putin marched his army into Ukraine on February 24, he issued dire warnings to the West. Any state that sent its troops to fight Russia, he said, would face “ominous consequences”—the likes of which the world has “never seen in [its] entire history.” His country was ready to act and had made “the necessary decisions” to respond if attacked. “I hope that my words will be heard,” he declared.</p><p>Putin didn’t explicitly state what those consequences would be, or what attacks he had in mind. But to anyone listening, the message was clear enough. If the West directly intervened in Ukraine, Russia would use its nuclear arsenal.</p><p>Putin’s invocation of nuclear war has reignited debates about deterrence and the utility of nuclear weapons. It has led Admiral Charles Richard, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command responsible for nuclear deterrence, to argue that the United States may need more nuclear weapons to deter and defend against Russia and also China, which are both modernizing their nuclear forces. “We do not necessarily have to match weapon for weapon,” he said in March. “But it is clear what we have today is the absolute minimum.” Proponents of a nuclear buildup point out that in the coming years, China could rapidly acquire more nuclear weapons, or that Iran, a newcomer, could develop and deploy them for the first time. The United States, the argument runs, risks weakening its own security if it doesn’t amass a larger nuclear arsenal to maintain its advantage over rivals.</p><p>But it would be a mistake for the United States, or any state, to embark on a nuclear arms race during this time, when a revolution is afoot in other types of military technology. New defense innovations promise not just to transform warfare but also to undermine the logic and utility of nuclear weapons. With advances in sensing technology, states may soon be able to track and target their adversaries’ nuclear missiles, making the weapons easier to eliminate. And with nuclear weapons more vulnerable, innovations such as drone swarms—large numbers of small automated weapons that collectively execute a coordinated attack—will increasingly define war. A fixation on building more nuclear weapons will only distract from this technological revolution, making it harder for the United States to master the advances that will shape the battlefield of the future.</p><p><b>NOWHERE TO HIDE</b></p><p>Although the Soviet Union considered using nuclear weapons for warfighting, for decades, nuclear weapons have primarily been seen as instruments of deterrence. These bombs, the thinking goes, are so destructive and invite such uncompromising retaliation that their use in wartime imperils the very existence of the human race. U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev captured this idea at a 1985 summit when they declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>But the development of lower-yield warheads and higher-accuracy missiles in the 1980s encouraged some experts to believe that nuclear weapons could become practical tools of war. The debate at that time around so-called neutron weapons stemmed from the notion that such a bomb, accurately delivered, could wipe out an entire tank battalion without killing tens of thousands of civilians.</p><p>In the wake of Russia’s invasion, some foreign policy commentators, including New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, have called for the United States to build its own such stockpile—as China and Russia have done. Proponents of the weapons argue that if the United States does not deter these weapons with lower-yield bombs of its own, then China and Russia will take advantage of a “deterrence gap,” using such weapons on the battlefield and then daring Washington to escalate by launching its big strategic missiles against Beijing or Moscow. As the argument goes, the United States will never attack Moscow in response to a small nuclear attack against a German military base. In order to deter the Russians, Washington has to be able to strike them with the same low-yield weapons that they might use in Europe.</p><p><b><i>The technology revolution is passing nuclear weapons by.</i></b></p><p>In the 1980s, however, Western publics recoiled against the notion that low-yield strikes were somehow cleaner than larger nuclear weapons. The fact that they would produce little physical damage but would efficiently kill people brought protesters into the streets across Europe and the United States. Faced with this stark reaction, the United States embarked on a long campaign to develop highly accurate conventional weapons, which could effectively retaliate against nuclear attack.</p><p>The case for low-yield nuclear weapons will be no easier to make today than in the 1980s, especially since the technology revolution is passing the weapons by. There are limits to further innovation in new nuclear weapons development since one can split the atom in only so many ways. Dialing nuclear yield up or down, increasing or decreasing destructive power—these are all well-understood phenomena that will not change the deterrent balance or make the public more accepting of nuclear use. The same is true of missiles that will deliver nuclear weapons. Since the 1980s, they have become steadily faster and more accurate, and have acquired greater range and maneuverability. Hypersonic weapons are the latest expression of these trends.</p><p>These are not the innovations that count today. The most consequential innovations happening now are those that change the environment in which traditional nuclear missile systems must operate. Today, sensor systems on satellites and other platforms are providing ever-sharper imagery and location information for military facilities, weapons, and equipment—day and night, in cloud cover or clear weather. As big data analysis begins to quickly make sense of myriad images and predict changes in them, forces will eventually be able to conduct real-time targeting. Even mobile nuclear missiles and submarines may become subject to such tracking and targeting in the future, as quantum computing and sensing take hold. </p><p>The implications for nuclear deterrence are stark. All nuclear weapons states have depended on the ability to hide and protect some nuclear missiles so that they would be available to retaliate if somehow an adversary carried out a successful first strike. Such “second-strike retaliatory forces” have been the essential insurance policy that enabled all the nuclear weapons states to feel confident that, even if their adversary surprised them, they would retain the means to respond with nuclear weapons. This retaliatory option is a strong factor in the stability of nuclear deterrence.</p><p>With the technology revolution driving in the direction of real-time targeting, however, even the stealthiest or most well-protected mobile weapons will become vulnerable in the future. The day may come when the nuclear weapons states must question the viability of their retaliatory forces because of their vulnerability to attack.</p><p><b>SMART MODERNIZATION</b></p><p>This future threat argues not for abandoning nuclear weapons but for carrying forward a careful modernization of them. As President Barack Obama first said in his Prague speech in April 2009, as long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States must maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal. The modernization program for the nuclear forces of the United States is very much underway and is receiving the funding that it requires. Replacing the submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and bombers will take well over a decade, but the process is vital to ensure that the United States remains secure from nuclear attack during a fraught period of global competition.</p><p>In particular, the United States must watch China. China has gone from a nuclear posture depending on a small force of missiles intended for second-strike retaliation to something else. For the past several years, Beijing has been building silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in its western and northern desert while also building up its warhead numbers. Still, there is no need to panic. Even if it quintuples its stockpile, as some experts are predicting, China’s number of warheads will still be well below the numbers in the U.S. arsenal in 2030.</p><p>Washington must remain alert, as well, to what Russia is doing. The country is a highly capable and experienced military nuclear power with a leader whose belligerence is breathtaking. Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling is unlike anything seen in the seven decades since nuclear weapons were last used to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War II.</p><p><i><b>The United States will not be the one to launch a nuclear arms race.</b></i></p><p>But under the New START treaty, both the United States and Russian Federation cannot deploy more than 700 delivery vehicles—missiles and bombers alike—or more than 1,550 warheads. New START remains in force until February 2026. As long as both parties adhere to the treaty, which they have continued to do even during the Ukraine war, the United States will be able to carry out its nuclear modernization in a stable and predictable environment. This predictability is the key reason to replace the treaty before it ends in February 2026: Russia cannot race to build up its strategic nuclear forces while New START limits are in place, as long as the treaty contains a regime that can verify Russia is sticking to its obligations.</p><p>China is well below the New START limits today, but if it tries to build up to 700 delivery vehicles and 1,550 deployed warheads, Washington will see it coming with enough time to do something about it. The United States will not be the one to launch a nuclear arms race, but it will respond to others who do.</p><p>Secure on the nuclear modernization front, the United States must turn its attention to the technological revolution. China’s intention is to dominate the new technology space. It has the clear goal of being the world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030, and it is putting substantial resources into achieving that objective. Beijing has already put artificial intelligence to work in tightening the security bubble around China’s society and economy, gaining an enormous amount of experience with the technology in the process. If the United States is not careful, China will outrun U.S. artificial intelligence innovation, leading to a dangerous gap in military capabilities. And artificial intelligence is only one arena where China is seeking dominance. The Chinese also have biotechnology, quantum computing, and other sectors in their sights.</p><p>Choosing to focus on this technological competition is not easy at a time when the Russian Federation is pounding Ukraine in an unprovoked and unwarranted military invasion. The security of the United States, however, depends on its ability to stay in this race, to compete, and to succeed. The last thing the United States needs, as it is trying to prevail in new technologies, is a nuclear arms race. The wisest choice for Washington, then, is to modernize its nuclear force posture as planned while putting its main emphasis on developing and acquiring new technologies for military applications. A nuclear arms race is a sidetrack that is not in the U.S. national security interest.</p><p><i>ROSE GOTTEMOELLER Steven C. Házy Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is the former NATO Deputy Secretary-General and U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.</i></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-2747789183205615322022-06-16T12:06:00.001-04:002022-06-16T12:06:51.019-04:00Students, Teachers Call For Stricter Gun Laws at Beaver's March For Our Lives Rally<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/06/10/NBCT/ce484f1c-6d58-43c6-b7bd-05bfb381d5a1-DSC_1881.JPG?width=660&height=440&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="660" height="335" src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/06/10/NBCT/ce484f1c-6d58-43c6-b7bd-05bfb381d5a1-DSC_1881.JPG?width=660&height=440&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp" width="502" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Photo: </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Community organizer Julian Taylor speaks behind students at Beaver County’s March For Our Lives rally on Thursday, calling for stricter gun laws. “These are our future lawyers, our future presidents, our future leaders,” he said. “It’s time for us to have their back.”</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>By Chrissy Suttles</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Beaver County Times</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">June 10, 2922 - </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">BEAVER — In April, Iain Eastman’s former student opened fire on two teens in a Chippewa Township parking lot.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Those bullets missed the intended targets – instead striking a nearby structure – but it’s not the first time Eastman’s been touched by gun violence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">A Blackhawk High science teacher and father, Eastman is also a hunter and gun owner of three decades. Responsible firearm owners, he said, have an obligation to advocate for common sense gun laws in America.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As an educator, he vividly remembers his first in-service day dedicated to active shooter training in the wake of Sandy Hook’s massacre. Rather than improving curriculum, he spent the day learning how to disarm an assailant and build barricades to protect his students.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“There’s not a safe place anymore,” he told a crowd of about 100 people on the steps of the Beaver County Courthouse Thursday night. “There’s no ‘Beaver bubble’ that’s gonna protect us anymore. I used to teach in Baltimore. Four years after I left, there was a shooting on the first day of school in the cafeteria.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Blackhawk High science teacher Iain Eastman speaks at Beaver County's March For Our Lives rally in Beaver Thursday.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Just weeks after an 18-year-old man slaughtered 19 children and two teachers with an AR-15-style rifle at a Texas elementary school, local residents, politicians and activists honored the victims and demanded stricter gun laws at a March For Our Lives rally in Beaver.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Eastman said he knows gun control works because fully automatic weapons – as opposed to semi-automatic weapons like AR-15-style rifles used in Uvalde and other mass shootings – are already highly regulated in America and rarely end up in the hands of civilians.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>'What if that happened to me?'</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Among the demonstrators Thursday were local students who shared the trauma of enduring regular active shooter drills and questioning their safety in the classroom. One Aliquippa Middle School student whose first name is Dashawn said he was afraid to return to school after hearing about the recent Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“What if that person came to my school?” he asked. “It just had me thinking…what if that happened to me? How would my mom feel?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Residents of all ages honored the victims of gun violence and demanded stricter gun laws at a March For Our Lives rally in Beaver.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker’s sister, Diedre, was shot and killed by her former boyfriend at her Valley Terrace apartment more than a decade ago.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“She was murdered by a man that should never have had a gun, stole a gun and shot my sister,” he said. “My mom still cries. I still cry. I miss her every day. It’s been 12 years, and I still wish I could hear her voice in my head. But I can’t.”<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Politicians can be replaced, Walker said in a soul-stirring speech, but the lives of loved ones can not.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“The graveyard is full of dreams deferred, missions not completed and mothers' crying,” he said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Maria Smalley, president of the Beaver County Young Democrats and a mother of three, said the prevalence of national gun violence has prompted many sleepless nights.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">A candlelight vigil held during Beaver County’s March For Our Lives rally honoring the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“For years now, I’ve had this recurring dream,” Smalley said. “I’m in a crowd with all my kids and my nephew. There’s four of them and one of me. I can hear gunfire in the distance and I can’t escape because, no matter how hard I try, I have two hands and I have four babies. I can't save them.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Barriers to meaningful reform</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">More than 45,200 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including self-inflicted gunshots, murders and accidents.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“Nobody is trying to take all the guns away, but we can do stuff to make us safer,” Smalley said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-17, Mount Lebanon, praised the U.S. House’s recent vote to pass the "Protecting Our Kids Act,” a legislative package designed to strengthen national gun laws. The legislation would, in part, raise the minimum age to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, ban high-capacity magazines, define gun storage requirements and crack down on ghost guns – untraceable firearms often made using kits purchased online.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Demonstrators pledge to stay active in the movement to end American gun violence at Beaver County’s March For Our Lives rally Thursday.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Although the bills will likely face defeat in the Senate, Lamb credited activists like those at Thursday’s rally with keeping the pressure on lawmakers. He blamed the continued inaction in Washington, D.C., on deep-pocketed gun lobbyists and partisan gridlock.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“These bills are getting bigger and stronger with more teeth every time we go back to the drawing board,” Lamb said.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Chris Deluzio, the Democrat running for Lamb’s soon-to-be-vacated 17th Congressional District seat, called routine shootings in schools, grocery stores and movie theaters “insanity.” The Iraq War veteran condemned “weapons of war in the hands of 18-year-olds.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“My friends and I had the best training in the world,” he said. “You know what those weapons were designed for? A single purpose: To swiftly and efficiently kill people in battle. They don’t belong on our streets; they don’t belong in our schools.”</span></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-70143471632253523552022-04-13T14:44:00.000-04:002022-04-13T14:44:03.367-04:00Understanding 'The Correlation of Forces'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/threebigpowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="615" height="274" src="https://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/threebigpowers.jpg" width="480" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span><p><b><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Why Russia Fumbled in Ukraine, China Lost Its Way, and America Should Exercise Restraint</span></i></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">By Michael Klare</span></b></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Tomdispatch</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In Western military circles, it’s common to refer to the “balance of forces” — the lineup of tanks, planes, ships, missiles, and battle formations on the opposing sides of any conflict. If one has twice as many combat assets as its opponent and the leadership abilities on each side are approximately equal, it should win. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Based on this reasoning, most Western analysts assumed that the Russian army — with a seemingly overwhelming advantage in numbers and equipment — would quickly overpower Ukrainian forces. Of course, things haven’t exactly turned out that way. The Ukrainian military has, in fact, fought the Russians to a near-standstill. The reasons for that will undoubtedly be debated among military theorists for years to come. When they do so, they might begin with Moscow’s surprising failure to pay attention to a different military equation — the “correlation of forces” — originally developed in the former Soviet Union.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">That notion differs from the “balance of forces” by placing greater weight on intangible factors. It stipulates that the weaker of two belligerents, measured in conventional terms, can still prevail over the stronger if its military possesses higher morale, stronger support at home, and the backing of important allies. Such a calculation, if conducted in early February, would have concluded that Ukraine’s prospects were nowhere near as bad as either Russian or Western analysts generally assumed, while Russia’s were far worse. And that should remind us of just how crucial an understanding of the correlation of forces is in such situations, if gross miscalculations and tragedies are to be avoided.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The Concept in Practice Before Ukraine</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The notion of the correlation of forces has a long history in military and strategic thinking. Something like it, for example, can be found in the epilogue to Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel, War and Peace. Writing about Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, Tolstoy observed that wars are won not by the superior generalship of charismatic leaders but through the fighting spirit of common soldiers taking up arms against a loathsome enemy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Such a perspective would later be incorporated into the military doctrine of the Russian Bolsheviks, who sought to calculate not only troop and equipment strength, but also the degree of class consciousness and support from the masses on each side of any potential conflict. Following the 1917 revolution in the midst of World War I, Russian leader Vladimir Lenin argued, for example, against a continuing war with Germany because the correlation of forces wasn’t yet right for the waging of “revolutionary war” against the capitalist states (as urged by his compatriot Leon Trotsky). “Summing up the arguments in favor of an immediate revolutionary war,” Lenin said, “it must be concluded that such a policy would perhaps respond to the needs of mankind to strive for the beautiful, the spectacular, and the striking, but that it would be totally disregarding the objective correlation of class forces and material factors at the present stage of the socialist revolution already begun.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">For Bolsheviks of his era, the correlation of forces was a “scientific” concept, based on an assessment of both material factors (numbers of troops and guns on each side) and qualitative factors (the degree of class consciousness involved). In 1918, for example, Lenin observed that “the poor peasantry in Russia… is not in a position immediately and at the present moment to begin a serious revolutionary war. To ignore this objective correlation of class forces on the present question would be a fatal blunder.” Hence, in March 1918, the Russians made a separate peace with the German-led Central Powers, ceding much territory to them and ending their country’s role in the world war.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As the Bolshevik Party became an institutionalized dictatorship under Joseph Stalin, the correlation-of-forces concept grew into an article of faith based on a belief in the ultimate victory of socialism over capitalism. During the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras of the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet leaders regularly claimed that world capitalism was in irreversible decline and the socialist camp, augmented by revolutionary regimes in the “Third World,” was destined to achieve global supremacy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Such optimism prevailed until the late 1970s, when the socialist tide in the Third World began to recede. Most significant in this regard was a revolt against the communist government in Afghanistan. When the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party in Kabul came under attack by Islamic insurgents, or mujahideen, Soviet forces invaded and occupied the country. Despite sending ever larger troop contingents there and employing heavy firepower against the mujahideen and their local supporters, the Red Army was finally forced to limp home in defeat in 1989, only to see the Soviet Union itself implode not long after.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">For U.S. strategists, the Soviet decision to intervene and, despite endless losses, persevere was proof that the Russian leaders had ignored the correlation of forces, a vulnerability to be exploited by Washington. In the 1980s, under President Ronald Reagan, it became U.S. policy to arm and assist anticommunist insurgents globally with the aim of toppling pro-Soviet regimes — a strategy sometimes called the Reagan Doctrine. Huge quantities of munitions were given to the mujahideen and rebels like the Contras in Nicaragua, usually via secret channels set up by the Central Intelligence Agency.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">While not always successful, these efforts generally bedeviled the Soviet leadership. As Secretary of State George Shultz wrote gleefully in 1985, while the U.S. defeat in Vietnam had led the Soviets to believe “that what they called the global ‘correlation of forces’ was shifting in their favor,” now, thanks to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, “we have reason to be confident that ‘the correlation of forces’ is shifting back in our favor.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">And yes, the Soviet failure in Afghanistan did indeed reflect an inability to properly weigh the correlation of all the factors involved — the degree to which the mujahideen’s morale outmatched that of the Soviets, the relative support for war among the Soviet and Afghan populations, and the role of outside help provided by the CIA. But the lessons hardly ended there. Washington never considered the implications of arming Arab volunteers under the command of Osama bin Laden or allowing him to create an international jihadist enterprise, “the base” (al-Qaeda), which later turned on the U.S., leading to the 9/11 terror attacks and a disastrous 20-year “global war on terror” that consumed trillions of dollars and debilitated the U.S. military without eliminating the threat of terrorism. American leaders also failed to calculate the correlation of forces when undertaking their own war in Afghanistan, ignoring the factors that led to the Soviet defeat, and so suffering the very same fate 32 years later.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Putin’s Ukraine Miscalculations</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Much has already been said about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s miscalculations regarding Ukraine. They all began, however, with his failure to properly assess the correlation of forces involved in the conflict to come and that, eerily enough, resulted from Putin’s misreading of the meaning of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan. <i>Continued</i></span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Like many in Washington — especially in the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party — Putin and his close advisers viewed the sudden American withdrawal as a conspicuous sign of U.S. weakness and, in particular, of disarray within the Western alliance. American power was in full retreat, they believed, and the NATO powers irrevocably divided. “Today, we are witnessing the collapse of America’s foreign policy,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian State Duma. Other senior officials echoed his view.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This left Putin and his inner circle convinced that Russia could act with relative impunity in Ukraine, a radical misreading of the global situation. In fact, along with top U.S. military leaders, the Biden White House was eager to exit Afghanistan. They wanted to focus instead on what were seen as far more important priorities, especially the reinvigoration of U.S. alliances in Asia and Europe to better contain China and Russia. “The United States should not, and will not, engage in ‘forever wars’ that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars,” the administration affirmed in its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance of May 2021. Instead, the U.S. would position itself “to deter our adversaries and defend our interests… [and] our presence will be most robust in the Indo-Pacific and Europe.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As a result, Moscow has faced the exact opposite of what Putin’s advisers undoubtedly anticipated: not a weak, divided West, but a newly energized U.S.-NATO alliance determined to assist Ukrainian forces with vital (if limited) arms supplies, while isolating Russia in the world arena. More troops are now being deployed to Poland and other “front-line” states facing Russia, putting its long-term security at even greater risk. And perhaps most damaging to Moscow’s geopolitical calculations, Germany has discarded its pacifist stance, fully embracing NATO and approving an enormous increase in military spending.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But Putin’s greatest miscalculations came with respect to the comparative fighting capabilities of his military forces and Ukraine’s. He and his advisers evidently believed that they were sending the monstrous Red Army of Soviet days into Ukraine, not the far weaker Russian military of 2022. Even more egregious, they seem to have believed that Ukrainian soldiers would either welcome the Russian invaders with open arms or put up only token resistance before surrendering. Credit this delusion, at least in part, to the Russian president’s unyielding belief that the Ukrainians were really Russians at heart and so would naturally welcome their own “liberation.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">We know this, first of all, because many of the troops sent into Ukraine — given only enough food, fuel, and ammunition for a few days of combat — were not prepared to fight a protracted conflict. Unsurprisingly, they have suffered from strikingly low morale. The opposite has been true of the Ukrainian forces who, after all, are defending their homes and their country, and have been able to exploit enemy weaknesses such as longand sluggish supply trains to inflict heavy losses.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Buy the Book</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">We also know that Putin’s top intelligence officials fed him inaccurate information about the political and military situation in Ukraine, contributing to his belief that the defending forces would surrender after just a few days of combat. He subsequently arrested some of those officials, including Sergey Beseda, head of the foreign intelligence branch of the FSB (the successor to the KGB). Although they were charged with the embezzlement of state funds, the real reason for their arrest, claims Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist, was providing the Russian president with “unreliable, incomplete, and partially false information about the political situation in Ukraine.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As Russia’s leaders are rediscovering, just two decades after the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan, a failure to properly assess the correlation of forces when engaging in battle with supposedly weaker foes on their home turf can lead to disastrous outcomes.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">China’s Faulty Assessments</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Historically speaking, the Chinese Communist Party leadership has been careful indeed to gauge the correlation of forces when facing foreign adversaries. They provided considerable military assistance, for example, to the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, but not so much as to be viewed by Washington as an active belligerent requiring counterattack. Similarly, despite their claims to the island of Taiwan, they have so far avoided any direct move to seize it by force and risk a full-scale encounter with potentially superior U.S. forces.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Based on this record, it’s surprising that, so far as we know, the Chinese leadership failed to generate an accurate assessment of either Putin’s plans for Ukraine or the likelihood of an intense struggle for control of that country. China’s leaders have, in fact, long enjoyed cordial relations with their Ukrainian counterparts and their intelligence services surely provided Beijing with reliable information on that country’s combat capabilities. So, it’s striking that they were caught so off-guard by the invasion and fierce Ukrainian resistance.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Likewise, they should have been able to draw the same conclusions as their Western counterparts from satellite data showing the massive Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders. Yet when presented with intelligence by the Biden administration evidently indicating that Putin intended to launch a full-scale invasion, the top leaders simply regurgitated Moscow’s assertions that this was pure propaganda. As a result, China didn’t even evacuate thousands of its own nationals from Ukraine when the U.S. and other Western nations did so, leaving them in place as the war broke out. And even then, the Chinese claimed Russia was only conducting a minor police operation in that country’s Donbas region, making them appear out of touch with on-the-ground realities.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">China also seems to have seriously underestimated the ferocity of the U.S. and European reaction to the Russian assault. Although no one truly knows what occurred in high-level policy discussions among them, it’s likely that they, too, had misread the meaning of the American exit from Afghanistan and, like the Russians, assumed it indicated Washington’s retreat from global engagement. “If the U.S. cannot even secure a victory in a rivalry with small countries, how much better could it do in a major power game with China?” asked the state-owned Global Times in August 2021. “The Taliban’s stunningly swift takeover of Afghanistan has shown the world that U.S. competence in dominating major power games is crumbling.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This miscalculation — so evident in Washington’s muscular response to the Russian invasion and its military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region — has put China’s leaders in an awkward position, as the Biden administration steps up pressure on Beijing to deny material aid to Russia and not allow the use of Chinese banks as conduits for Russian firms seeking to evade Western sanctions. During a teleconference on March 18th, President Biden reportedly warned President Xi Jinping of “the implications and consequences” for China if it “provides material support to Russia.” Presumably, this could involve the imposition of “secondary sanctions” on Chinese firms accused of acting as agents for Russian companies or agencies. The fact that Biden felt able to issue such ultimatums to the Chinese leader reflects a potentially dangerous new-found sense of political clout in Washington based on Russia’s apparent defenselessness in the face of Western-imposed sanctions.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Avoiding American Overreach</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Today, the global correlation of forces looks positive indeed for the United States and that, in a strange sense, should worry us all. Its major allies have rallied to its side in response to Russian aggression or, on the other side of the planet, fears of China’s rise. And the outlook for Washington’s principal adversaries seems less than auspicious. Even if Vladimir Putin were to emerge from the present war with a larger slice of Ukrainian territory, he will certainly be presiding over a distinctly diminished Russia. Already a shaky petro-state before the invasion began, it is now largely cut off from the Western world and condemned to perpetual backwardness.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">With Russia already diminished, China may experience a similar fate, having placed such high expectations on a major partnership with a faltering country. Under such circumstances, it will be tempting for the Biden administration to further exploit this unique moment by seeking even greater advantage over its rivals by, for instance, supporting “regime change” in Moscow or the further encirclement of China. President Biden’s March 26th comment about Putin — “this man cannot remain in power” — certainly suggested a hankering for just such a future. (The White House did later attempt to walk his words back, claiming that he only meant Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors.”) As for China, recent all-too-ominous comments by senior Pentagon officials to the effect that Taiwan is “critical to the defense of vital U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific” suggest an inclination to abandon America’s “one China” policy and formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state, bringing it under U.S. military protection.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In the coming months, we can expect far more discussion about the merits of such moves. Washington pundits and politicians, still dreaming of the U.S. as the unparalleled power on planet Earth, will undoubtedly be arguing that this moment is the very one when the U.S. could truly smite its adversaries. Such overreach — involving fresh adventures that would exceed American capacities and lead to new disasters — is a genuine danger.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Seeking regime change in Russia (or anywhere else, for that matter) is certain to alienate many foreign governments now supportive of Washington’s leadership. Likewise, a precipitous move to pull Taiwan into America’s military orbit could trigger a U.S.-China war neither side wants, with catastrophic consequences. The correlation of forces may now seem to be in America’s favor, but if there’s one thing to be learned from the present moment, it’s just how fickle such calculations can prove to be and how easily the global situation can turn against us if we behave capriciously.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Imagine, then, a world in which all three “great” powers have misconstrued the correlation of forces they may encounter. As top Russian officials continue to speak of the use of nuclear weapons, anyone should be anxious about a future of ultimate overreach that will correlate with nothing good whatsoever.</span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Copyright 2022 Michael Klare</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.</span></i></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-68471608958867440482022-01-31T09:07:00.000-05:002022-01-31T09:07:14.369-05:00Can Ukrainians Survive East-West Conflict & Their Own Bad Actors?<p> </p><div class="post__entry-header " style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -31px; margin-right: -31px; position: relative; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; z-index: 1;"><br /></div><div class="post__entry" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(235, 239, 245); border-bottom-style: solid; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(235, 239, 245); border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(235, 239, 245); border-right-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 30px 30px; position: relative; z-index: 1;"><div class="post__entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 35px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/facebook/public/field/image/Ukraine-ethnolinguistic-map-ic-1-30-2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="600" height="254" src="https://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/facebook/public/field/image/Ukraine-ethnolinguistic-map-ic-1-30-2022.jpg" width="484" /></a></div><br /><div class="ssba-classic-2 ssba ssbp-wrap left ssbp--theme-1" style="background-color: #e1e2e3; box-sizing: border-box; color: #272727; display: inline-block; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 658.021px;"></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The ethnic and cultural history within the formation of Ukraine, among other things, makes the resolution of the current situation immensely challenging.</em></p><h1 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 40px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">By Jerry Harris and Garret Virchick</strong></h1><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Ukraine has once again exploded into contention between Russia and the West. Where should the Left stand in this conflict? More importantly, caught between East and West, how can Ukraine resolve its internal problems based on its independence and self-determination?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">To understand today’s situation, we need to start with a bit of history. In 1654 significant parts of modern-day Ukraine were incorporated into Tsarist Russia. The southern and eastern sections were added in 1920, while the far western region integrated in the 1940s, after 200 years under Austro-Hungarian rule. Crimea was added in 1954, and Ukraine as a modern nation came into existence in 1991, when 93 percent of the country approved a referendum declaring itself an independent state.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">But that overwhelming vote in favor of independence contrasts starkly with the diversity of opinions about the current state of affairs in the country. There are deep divisions in Ukraine stemming from the regional divisions of history, language, identity, culture, and religion.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;">INDEPENDENCE AND THE RISE OF THE OLIGARCHS</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">After independence, the economy of Ukraine revolved around the export of raw materials, such as agricultural goods, iron ore, and coal. The eastern part of the country was industrialized and closely integrated with Russia. The western parts are more agrarian and looked increasingly towards the European market. The oligarchs that came to power through the privatization of state-owned corporations did little to develop the internal market, instead exporting billions to offshore tax havens.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">As in many countries, globalization followed by the <a href="https://unctad.org/webflyer/trade-and-development-report-2015" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">worldwide economic collapse in 2007</a> wreaked havoc in Ukraine. GDP fell, national debt grew, and millions left the country to find work in Russia and the EU, causing a 13% drop in the population. This economic crisis and the corruption of the ruling class brought on the recent turmoil. Although outside interference by Europe and the U.S. played a role in stoking the anger of the people, the root of the rebellion that took place in 2013 wasn’t foreign manipulation but internal conditions.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;">EUROINTEGRATION VS NATIONALISM</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">The modern globalized economy has seen a heightening of the contradiction between transnational capitalists and national capitalists. Transnational capitalists in Ukraine called for deeper integration into the European economy. These billionaires advocated ending protections for the internal markets in exchange for recognition from Europe, which would destroy various sectors of industry and increase unemployment. This strategy was opposed by national capitalists still attached to the internal economy and lacking sufficient capital to join the transnational elite.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">This contradiction laid the groundwork for political upheaval in 2013, as President Victor Yanukovych sought loans to meet Ukraine’s skyrocketing debt obligations. The $17.5 billion offered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came with neoliberal “reforms” that the transnational capitalists favored. The $15 billion Russian package contained no such reform demands and was backed by Ukraine’s national bourgeoisie.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Yanukovych vacillated between the two packages. His political base was in the country’s pro-Russian east. In the end he opted for the Russian package, which outraged Ukrainians in the country’s west who wanted stronger ties with Europe. This set off massive demonstrations that came to be called Euromaidan, after Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square in Kyiv where the protests took place. The civil unrest combined with government repression became increasingly violent on both sides with 130 confirmed deaths. By February Yanukovych was forced to resign and fled to Russia.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">DEMOCRACY OR NEOFASCISM?</strong></h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">While the mass of Maidan protesters were largely liberal pro-Western activists, the absence of progressive leadership left a vacuum that was filled by anti-Russian right-wing nationalists, many of whom celebrated the pro-Nazi activities of Ukrainian fascists in World War II. With an ideological, cohesive, and motivated membership, they were able to play a leadership role.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Yanukovych was replaced as president by one of the lesser Ukrainian oligarchs, Petro Poroshenko. Many people in the eastern region felt that this violated the national elections. Some had never fully accepted the 1991 split with Russia. A movement arose that began to call for autonomy or independence. In response, the new government in Kyiv launched armed attacks which they called an anti-terrorist offensive, even though the eastern protests were no different than the beginnings of the protests in the west. Ethnic and regional differences were inflamed. Supporters of the new government labeled Eastern Ukrainians as vulgar, ignorant, and less educated. In the east, the new government was painted as a fascist junta, a threat to Russian language and cultural rights.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">This conflict led to civil war. The government formed by Poroshenko was in the hands of neoliberal pro-Western elites. But proto-fascist forces were an important part of the governing alliance. The Svoboda party, which claims the tradition of the pro-Nazi Ukrainian Insurgent Army that participated in the mass killing of 70,000 Jewish and Polish citizens in World War II, received six cabinet positions. In addition, to help put down the revolt in the east, right-wing militias like the Azov battalion were recruited. The Azov battalion carries the Wolfsangel flag, formerly used by Hitler’s SS.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Poroshenko was ultimately defeated by Volodymyr Zelensky in the 2019 presidential elections. Zelensky, a reality TV star, rode to victory on an anti-corruption campaign. But his popularity has been waning and his regime is becoming more autocratic. He recently <a href="https://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2021/08/26/ukraine-president-bans-opposition-media-strana-ua-and-sanctions-editor-in-chief/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">banned an opposition news site</a> and sanctioned its editor.</p><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_5052" style="background-color: white; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.09) 0px 1px 6px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 25px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 10px 10px 0px; width: 1034px;"><img alt="" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5052" class="wp-image-5052 size-large" height="695" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://www.organizingupgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ukraine_regions_map-1024x695.png" srcset="https://www.organizingupgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ukraine_regions_map-1024x695.png 1024w, https://www.organizingupgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ukraine_regions_map-300x204.png 300w, https://www.organizingupgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ukraine_regions_map-768x521.png 768w, https://www.organizingupgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ukraine_regions_map-1536x1042.png 1536w, https://www.organizingupgrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ukraine_regions_map-2048x1389.png 2048w" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 638.027px;" width="1024" /><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-5052" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 5px 10px 7px; text-align: center;">Ukraine regions. Map by Peter Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons</p></div><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;">RUSSIA, CRIMEA, AND THE ROOTS OF THE CURRENT CONFLICT</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Under attack and labeled as “terrorists,” the people in eastern Ukraine organized armed self-defense militias to combat the western military offensive. But the battle did not stay internal. Russian arms and volunteers quickly crossed the border to join the fight. Many of these volunteers were reactionary pan-Slavic nationalists. Alexander Borodai, who became prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in the Donbas region of Ukraine, came from a group that published the far-right newspaper <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Zavtra</em>. His rebel commander, Igor Strelkov, is known as a Christian religious zealot.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">In a violation of national sovereignty, Russia invaded Crimea in early 2014 and eventually annexed the region. Vladimir Putin maintained that if the people of Crimea or Novorossiya (a proposed confederation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in Donbas) want to secede, they have the legitimate democratic right to do so. Left scholar and activist <a href="http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/812" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Alexander Buzgalin</a> pointed out Putin’s hypocrisy, given his denial of democratic rights to nationalities within Russia that also want self-determination.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea led to economic sanctions by the West. As Russian Marxist <a href="http://links.org.au/node/3790" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Boris Kargarlitsky points out</a>, “The situation confronting our elites in this respect is more or less straightforward; they cannot enter actively into confrontation with the West without dealing crushing blows to their own interests, to their own capital holdings and to their own networks, methods of rule and way of life.” According to Credit Suisse, Russia’s 110 billionaires control 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. There is no doubt that the economic boycott has hurt.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">In the West, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/380bda96-e93d-11dc-8365-0000779fd2ac" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Gideon Rachman</a>, the political editor for the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Financial Times</em> made <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310160783_The_Conflict_in_Ukraine_Between_Two_Worlds" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">similar observations</a>: “The deep connections between politics and business in modern Russia mean that the country’s most powerful people often have a direct personal stake in the continued prosperity of Western Europe. They have business relationships to maintain, investments to protect, houses in the south of France, children at school in Britain…people with international business interests tend not be nationalists. They cannot afford to be.” But this also held true for Western transnational capitalists; the ties are a two-way street crossing borders and nationalist politics. Hurting Russian economic interests hurt Western interests as well.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">While the sanctions have hurt, in the long term Russia’s strategy seems to focus on keeping Ukraine out of NATO, protecting Russian language and cultural rights, and maintaining strong ties with the Ukrainian economy.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">NATO AND THE RUSSIAN BUILDUP ON THE BORDER</strong></h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">The Ukrainian people are bearing the brunt of the conflict between competing capitalist interests. Transnational capitalists want a country integrated into Europe, and they unite with proto-fascists to ensure that direction. Capitalists rooted in the internal economy support right-wing nationalists and religious zealots to maintain their power. Russia amasses troops on the border demanding that Ukraine not join NATO. Western elites say it’s up to Ukrainians to decide, while holding meetings with Russia without Ukrainian representatives. But what do the Ukrainian people really want?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">In a recent <a href="https://lefteast.org/ukrainians-far-from-unified-on-nato/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">article</a> published in LeftEast, Volodymyr Ishchenko points out that Ukrainians are far from unified about NATO. He calls the Euromaidan movement a deficient revolution that did not form any national unity, but simply benefited a section of elite oligarchs. Ukraine’s neutral status is ingrained in its constitution, which expressly forbids it from entering any military bloc. In fact, NATO membership was supported by only a small minority prior to the events of 2014. Although support for NATO membership jumped up to 40 percent after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, it may still be a minority opinion in the population.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Ishchenko further points out the reasons for the increase in support. One is that Russia’s invasion convinced previously skeptical Ukrainians to seek protection against further Russian hostilities. But also, and perhaps more importantly, <a href="https://www.ponarseurasia.org/the-demise-of-ukraine-s-eurasian-vector-and-the-rise-of-pro-nato-sentiment/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">the survey</a> no longer included the most pro-Russian Ukrainian citizens in the east of the country!</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 40px;">IS THERE A PATH FORWARD?</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">In December of 1917 the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Councils declared the formation of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The Congress formed a close alliance with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and after a long civil war, in 1922 became a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These first worker-led revolutions inspired millions of people around the world. But while there were tremendous advances made by the working classes, there were also serious mistakes made in these first attempts at building socialist society. Socialism in Ukraine ended in failure with the breakup of the USSR in 1991. To build a truly democratic socialism today it will take a critical examination of both the <a href="https://roadtoliberation.org/on-the-crisis-of-socialism/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">internal and external factors</a> that led to this collapse.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">In the past 31 years post-Soviet Ukraine has done little to solve the problems that arose during those 75 years of Soviet-style socialism. And it is equally true that geopolitical maneuvers by the United States and EU in the West or Putin’s Russia in the East will not provide the answers. Ukraine’s problems must be solved by the diverse sectors of Ukrainian society.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">To that end, the U.S. Left must oppose any attempt by the Biden administration to include Ukraine in NATO. The expansion of NATO is doing little to provide peace and stability. Rather its move into Eastern Europe is seen as a provocation, heightening the tensions in the region. CODEPINK, the women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarization, has put out a <a href="https://www.codepink.org/ukraine_nato" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">petition</a> demanding NATO and the US stop escalating the conflict in Ukraine.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="https://lefteast.org/ukrainians-far-from-unified-on-nato/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Ishchenko suggests</a> that the <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-are-the-minsk-agreements-on-the-ukraine-conflict-7659646/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Minsk Accords</a>, which brought about a ceasefire after the Russian invasion of Crimea and massive fighting, might offer a path forward by involving the pro-Russian, breakaway eastern portions of Ukraine with the rest of the country in decision-making about the country’s future. But there is no international body with the legitimacy and the will to elbow Russia and NATO out of the way and bring all factions of Ukrainians to the table.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">As this article goes to press tensions are high in the region, with Russian troops amassing on the border of Ukraine. While nothing is certain, a Russian invasion is a strong possibility. When and if that happens, civil war within Ukraine is likely. There is already maneuvering in Kyiv. Poroshenko recently returned to Kyiv to face charges leveled by Zelensky, who accuses him of treason and support for terrorism during his tenure as president, when he allowed the purchase of coal from mines controlled by Russian-backed separatists in the east. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/world/europe/petro-poroshenko-russia-ukraine.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Poroshenko</a>, who has a base in Ukrainian nationalist politics, is criticizing Zelensky for giving ground to Russia in peace negotiations.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 0px;">Short of the emergence of a progressive people’s movement in Ukraine, there may be little that can be done to stabilize the country and prevent bloodshed. But what is also needed, given the role of Putin’s Russia, is a strategy the Bolsheviks called “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jul/26.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d5001e; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">revolutionary defeatism</a>.” Lenin called on revolutionaries to wage a campaign advocating the defeat of their own government during World War I as the Tsar sent countless Russian soldiers to die in that imperialist war. Progressives in Russia should consider this if Putin decides to invade Ukraine. Learning the lessons of the past is the order of day for all of us working to build a better, more socialist future.</p><div class="ssba-classic-2 ssba ssbp-wrap left ssbp--theme-1" style="background-color: #e1e2e3; box-sizing: border-box; color: #272727; display: inline-block; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 658.021px;"></div></div></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-34839132363595043452022-01-04T09:52:00.000-05:002022-01-04T09:52:32.572-05:00Stop the new Nuclear Weapons Money Pit Missile, the 'Ground Based Deterrent System'<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://www.peaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/titan-1.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="359" src="https://www.peaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/titan-1.jpg" width="479" /></a><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat;"><b>By Kevin Martin</b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat;"><b><i>Peace Action</i></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat;"><b>The U.S. is in the early stages of developing a new nuclear weapons system, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) dubbed the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent or GBSD but more accurately described as the Money Pit Missile. Its initial price tag is $100 billion, with a lifetime cost of well over twice that. The GBSD is designed to replace the Minuteman III missiles now deployed in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado. Northrop Grumman serves as the main contractor, with many subcontractors involved as usual in large military projects. </b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">1. Legislation:</span>Critics, including Peace Action and dozens of other organizations, think the GBSD is too expensive and unnecessary, even dangerous and provocative, and runs counter to the direction the US and the world needs to go in, toward eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide. The program’s fate will likely be decided this year, so action to stop this monstrosity before it gets too much traction (and funding) is timely. Following are resources for education and action:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/982" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">U.S. Senator Ed Markey’s</b></a> and <a _target="_blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2227" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Representative Ro Khanna’s</b></a> <span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ICBM Act</span> (Investing in Cures Before Missiles Act)</span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Articles/Reports:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Peace Action President Kevin Martin’s</span><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/02/26/trillions-our-tax-dollars-new-nuclear-missiles-lets-stop-omnicider" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"> op-ed in Common Dreams</a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://thebulletin.org/2021/02/why-is-america-getting-a-new-100-billion-nuclear-weapon/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</a></span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (long but good article by Elisabeth Eaves, it delves into local, national and global aspects of the issue.)</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.coloradodaily.com/2021/03/26/peace-train-money-pit-missile-vs-nuclear-ban-treaty/" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Excellent op-ed</a></span> by Judith Mohling of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/cold-war-era-weapon-100bn-us-plan-to-build-new-nuclear-missile-sparks-concern" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Guardian on the early state of play on the issue</a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/03/09/whats-behind-the-biden-administrations-new-100-billion-nuclear-missile-system/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Covert Action Magazine’s</b></a> <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">article adds information on policy and politics.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Federation of American Scientists’ </span><span style="border: 0px; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Alternatives-to-the-GBSD-Feb.-2021.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">report on Alternatives to GBSD</a></span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. Another report is to be published soon. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a _target="_blank" href="https://3ba8a190-62da-4c98-86d2-893079d87083.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ba8a1_4fc6773b970a4c199e287785cb66ba9a.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: #4ba5c7; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Report by William Hartung</b></a><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Center for International Policy) on the special interest lobby behind Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3e3c40; font-family: Montserrat; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.66em; margin: 0px 0px 30px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </p></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-23504494621433889242021-11-18T12:17:00.002-05:002021-11-18T12:17:49.884-05:00Can History Teach Us Anything About The Future Of War – And Peace?<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxLRVEA2kHKyNkm4_zIbtCcwh3Lhl9rZsdI2bfHsLcAqMSF3GKllNn3ysX2xsK5sTEQo4FhpkPwzRJTrbQVwFPkPyd7ItxpSgT0eaHQninMSC-iJ_HfDkya-tcWvM5mWqqGaLSaKltuTE/s1020/china-women-troops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="1020" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxLRVEA2kHKyNkm4_zIbtCcwh3Lhl9rZsdI2bfHsLcAqMSF3GKllNn3ysX2xsK5sTEQo4FhpkPwzRJTrbQVwFPkPyd7ItxpSgT0eaHQninMSC-iJ_HfDkya-tcWvM5mWqqGaLSaKltuTE/w489-h293/china-women-troops.jpg" width="489" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) march in Beijing, China, 2019. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">A decade on from psychologist Steven Pinker’s declaration that violence is declining, historians show no sign of agreeing a truce</span></b></h3><p><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">By Laura Spinney</span></b></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The Guardian</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Nov 7, 2021 - Ten years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published <i>The Better Angels of Our Nature, </i>in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms – including war – was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled <i>The Darker Angels of Our Nature</i>, in which they attacked his “fake history” to “debunk the myth of nonviolent modernity”. Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question – can we learn anything about the future of warfare from the ancient past? – remains an important one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Pinker thought we could and he supported his claim of a long decline with data stretching thousands of years back into prehistory. But among his critics are those who say that warfare between modern nation states, which are only a few hundred years old, has nothing in common with conflict before that time, and therefore it’s too soon to say if the supposed “long peace” we’ve been enjoying since the end of the second world war is a blip or a sustained trend.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In 2018, for example, computer scientist Aaron Clauset of the University of Colorado Boulder crunched data on wars fought between 1823 and 2003 and concluded that we’d have to wait at least another century to find out. Clauset doesn’t think it would help to add older data into the mix; indeed, he thinks it would muddy the picture.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“It’s up to researchers who study substate-level violence to substantiate their claims that the dynamics of such violence are relevant to the dynamics of war and, in my view, they haven’t done a great job there,” he says.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Most researchers accept that there is a difference between war and interpersonal violence – and that these two things are governed by different forces – but there is disagreement over where to draw the line between them. Historian and archaeologist Ian Morris of Stanford University, author of War! What Is it Good For? (2014), is among those who say that the nature of collective violence hasn’t changed much in millennia, it’s just that human groups were smaller in the past. For him, therefore, a massacre of a couple of dozen of hunter-gatherers in Sudan around about 13,000 years ago, the earliest known example of collective violence, is relevant to a discussion of modern warfare.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Archaeologist Detlef Gronenborn of the RömischGermanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz, Germany, agrees. In 2015, he and others described a massacre among Europe’s earliest farmers at a place called SchöneckKilianstädten in Germany, about 7,000 years ago. More than two dozen individuals were killed by blunt force instruments or arrows and dumped in a mass grave, their lower legs having been systematically broken either just before or just after death. The absence of young women from the group suggested that the attackers may have kidnapped them. Gronenborn says that massacres of entire communities were frequent occurrences in Europe at that time and that one of their hallmarks, judging by the human remains, was the desire to erase the victims’ identity. “The only difference between then and now is that of scale,” he says.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But while some researchers may agree with Pinker that prehistoric and modern warfare are essentially the same phenomenon, they don’t necessarily agree with him that the evidence points to a longterm decline. Pinker based his claim that prehistory was extremely violent on around 20 archaeological sites spanning 14,000 years. Those sites unequivocally attest to ancient violence, says historian Dag Lindström of Uppsala University in Sweden, “but they cannot be used for quantitative comparative conclusions”. We simply have no way of knowing how representative they were.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>Collective violence has been one way in which societies have reorganized themselves to become more humane and prosperous</b></span></h3><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“The further you go back in time, the more difficult it becomes to have an accurate assessment of how many people died in battle,” says historian Philip Dwyer of the University of Newcastle in Australia, who coedited The Darker Angels of Our Nature. Civilian death counts are even less reliable, he says, and have likely been significantly underestimated throughout history. In Dwyer’s view, all war-related statistics are suspect, undermining attempts to identify long-term trends.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Others think the statistics can be informative. Gronenborn’s work is feeding into larger-scale efforts to identify and explain patterns in collective violence. One such effort is the Historical Peace Index (HPI), a collaboration between Oxford University and the group behind Seshat: Global History Databank – a scientific research project of the nonprofit Evolution Institute – to map warfare globally over the past 5,000 years. Their goal, as the name suggests, is to try to understand the causes and consequences of war, with a view to building more peaceful and stable societies.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The argument of those taking this kind of approach is that the more data you gather, the more you can identify meaningful patterns. Gronenborn, for example, says that it is beginning to look as if collective violence was cyclical in neolithic Europe. One hypothesis he and others are testing is that mounting internal social tensions fuelled explosions of violence, with external shocks such as climate fluctuations acting as triggers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The awkward truth is that collective violence has been one way in which societies have reorganised themselves to become more humane and prosperous. But as societies changed, so did the reasons they went to war.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“People always want to know: what was the earliest war?” says bioarchaeologist Linda Fibiger of Edinburgh University. “But it would be more interesting to ask: how did neolithic people define violence? What was their concept of war?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Any debate over the decline – or not – of war must take into account its changing nature, Dwyer says, adding that it didn’t stop changing 200 years ago. In the decades since the second world war, for example, major international conflicts have become less frequent, but small wars have proliferated. This has happened, argues Yale University historian Samuel Moyn in his new book, Humane, in part because over the 20th century the justification for war shifted to peacekeeping and the defence of human rights, ensuring that war shrank in scale but became “for ever”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The trouble with small-scale wars, as Clauset and others have found, is that they have a strong tendency to escalate, especially if they go on for a long time. In 2019, political scientist Bear Braumoeller of Ohio State University published Only the Dead, in which he argued that the risk of escalation today was as high as it had been when European leaders sent their troops to war in the summer of 1914, believing they would be home by Christmas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“When it comes to the propensity of war to spiral out of control and produce mindboggling death tolls, we live in the same world that they lived in,” he wrote.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Why war escalates so easily is not well understood, but Braumoeller says it’s a “good bet” that technology is a factor. Scientist Peter Turchin of the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, one of Seshat’s cofounders, agrees. He says that stepwise advances in military technology – he calls them “military revolutions” – may have been major drivers of collective violence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The military revolution, singular, is the term historians use to describe the period of rapid technological and social change that began in the 16th century with the advent of portable firearms. But Turchin says there were others. One of the most important got under way about 3,000 years ago, across a swath of Eurasia south of the steppes, when archers armed with irontipped arrows first mounted horses.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Each time, the technology handed an advantage to those who had it, stimulating a technological and eventually social arms race. And that technology wasn’t even necessarily devised for military ends. The farming revolution, which ushered in the neolithic period, was also a military revolution, because the advances that gave farmers new tools also gave them new weapons. And some have argued that war became more lethal in the early 1800s in part because of the newfound ease of moving troops and supplies by rail.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“The upshot was that, with more soldiers on a given battlefield, it took more deaths on both sides to win a battle and therefore more deaths to win a war,” Braumoeller says.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Many people perceive technological change to be accelerating. The 20th century saw at least one military revolution, as a result of which we have nuclear weapons and the capacity to wage war in space. The early nuclear weapons were so destructive and so bad at hitting targets that they acted as effective deterrents and helped usher in this current period of stability, Morris says, but counterintuitively, we may have more grounds to worry now that they are generally smaller and more precise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Morris sees parallels between the period we’re living through now and the late 19th century when international conflicts were few, but small-scale insurgencies and civil wars proliferated, and some of them, such as the Boer war, spiraled out of control. That long peace was finally shattered in 1914 and this one will be eventually too, he thinks.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">What the cause and who the belligerent parties will be in the war that breaks the peace is not yet possible to say of course, though there has been much speculation – for example that it may involve Chinese military action against Taiwan. Nevertheless, for those who believe that the past can be instructive about the present, just not in the way Pinker does, Better Angels recalls a slew of books published on the eve of the first world war that proclaimed that war between the great powers was a thing of the past.</span></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-29363936405048542822021-09-04T13:04:00.002-04:002021-09-04T13:04:51.051-04:00America Doomed? Or Huge Opening for the Progressive Agenda?<p> </p><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div class="addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content addtoany_content_top" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; margin: 16px auto;"><div class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-title="America Doomed? 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border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.5s linear 0.2s;" width="557" /><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; caption-side: bottom; display: table-caption; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.nancyohanian.com/" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Nancy Ohanian</a></figcaption></figure></div><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">By Thom Hartmann<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span>Independent Media Institute</p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Some Americans feel like we’re living through a “last days” biblical Revelation kind of scenario.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">There’s a worldwide pandemic that is even killing our children; climate change has drowned the East Coast while the West Coast is on fire; emergency workers and firefighters are struggling with Covid; and a group of rightwing billionaires and religious freaks have seized control of one of our political parties and are hell-bent on pushing us back to the 19th century, crushing democracy and rolling back voting rights while taking ever-more control over women and minorities.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Many Americans are being crushed by this. People losing their homes to wildfire or floods; losing their jobs to an economy battered by recession, pandemic and environmental crisis; facing huge medical bills simply because they got sick in America. Others are caught in doom-scrolling loops, obsessing on all the bad news that fills our airwaves.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />For some it’s so overwhelming they simply give up or check out. They retreat altogether from reading the news and participating in politics, immersing themselves instead in alcohol, yoga or Netflix.</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignright" style="background: none; border-bottom: 3px solid rgb(134, 134, 134); border-top: 3px solid rgb(134, 134, 134); box-shadow: rgb(129, 129, 129) 7px 7px 8px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 10px 0px 10px 30px; max-width: 420px; padding: 14px; position: relative; text-align: center; text-indent: 10px;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; margin: 0px; padding: 24px 16px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.25em; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><span class="has-inline-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: maroon; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Some will give up and walk away from political activism, giving the billionaires, trolls and the GOP what they want; others realize the importance of doubling down <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">now </em>on our activism.</span></span></p></blockquote></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />But, as the old cliché goes, times of great crisis are also truly moments of great opportunity, and, while some will give up and walk away from political activism, giving the billionaires, trolls and the GOP what they want, others realize the importance of doubling down <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">now </em>on our activism.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />My SiriusXM colleague <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://joemadison.com/" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Joe Madison</a> has taught me the difference between “movements” and “moments.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In 1872, Susan B Anthony voted in the presidential election; she was immediately arrested and convicted the following year for voting while female. It was a moment that seemed like a setback, but it was also a turning point that reinvigorated a movement.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />When Reconstruction failed in 1876, it was a terrible moment for African-Americans, but it didn’t stop the broad and growing movement to create a true multiracial, multiethnic democracy in this country. Examples from that time to today number in the thousands, and thankfully activists never gave up.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />We have a Republican Party entirely captured by rightwing billionaires and polluting industries; members of the GOP are now calling for “<a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/31/madison-cawthorn-elections-bloodshed-serfaty-ebof-vpx.cnn" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">bloodshed</a>“ as a way of solving political conflict. Some <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/16/2016369/-57-elected-Republicans-were-part-of-the-Jan-6-rally-and-riot-Thousands-want-to-run-against-them" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">participated</a> in an attempt to seize the US Capitol and assassinate the Vice President and Speaker of the House.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The so-far-successful effort to use vigilantes to intimidate low-income women in Texas is poised to spread across the United States through newly energized Republican-controlled legislatures. Five hardcore rightwingers on the Supreme Court have given it their stamp of approval.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Republicans, again with SCOTUS approval, have changed voting laws in 19 states now so <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/06/politics/voting-laws-analysis/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">they can rig elections</a> to maintain their power in defiance of the majority of American voters.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />This is a true moment of crisis on so many different levels, which is why it’s not only critical that we seize this moment to throw ourselves into meaningful political activism, but <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">also</em> to take care of ourselves at deep emotional and spiritual levels.</p><figure class="wp-block-embed alignright is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 1em; max-width: 360px; text-align: right; width: 360px;"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; min-width: 280px; position: relative;"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 500px; width: 360px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1432559014349529096" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=laprogressive&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1432559014349529096&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.laprogressive.com%2Famerica-doomed%2F&sessionId=b65a23d4bc74ca7299bacdccb807820005dacf23&siteScreenName=laprogressive&theme=light&widgetsVersion=1890d59c%3A1627936082797&width=500px" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; flex-grow: 1; height: 563px; max-width: 100%; position: static; visibility: visible; width: 360px;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div></div></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Louise and I have been going in “awe walks” where we take a walk for a mile or two and go out of our way to look for things that strike us with “moments of awe.” </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Clouds, trees, a particularly extraordinary plant, a squirrel preparing for winter, a group of enthusiastic young people: life is such an extraordinary miracle and it’s so easy to take for granted. We go out of our way to look for the awe-inspiring and miraculous every day, and then to be thankful for and appreciative of it.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">We’ve been reaching out more to old friends, too, and reestablishing regular family Zoom meetings and other ways of maintaining human contact. There’s some <a data-wpel-link="external" href="http://ccare.stanford.edu/uncategorized/connectedness-health-the-science-of-social-connection-infographic/" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">fascinating new research</a> that shows that maintaining meaningful human connections through life extends both the quality and length of life more effectively than even a good diet!</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">However we do it, we need to keep ourselves well-charged, inspired and enthusiastic during this time of multiple and seemingly an ending crisis.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Throughout most of our 20s, Louise and I had a poster on our bedroom wall with a saying that has been attributed to many over the years but most often to Calvin Coolidge:</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts.</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.</em></p><div class="wp-block-image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><figure class="alignleft size-full" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table; float: left; margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0px;"><img alt="thom hartmann" class="wp-image-323295 lazyloaded" data-ll-status="loaded" height="301" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" src="https://eadn-wc05-258979.nxedge.io/cdn/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/thom-hartmann-200.jpg" srcset="https://eadn-wc05-258979.nxedge.io/cdn/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/thom-hartmann-200.jpg 200w, https://eadn-wc05-258979.nxedge.io/cdn/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/thom-hartmann-200-199x300.jpg 199w" style="border-radius: inherit; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.5s linear 0.2s;" width="200" /></figure></div><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">As Bernie Sanders loves to say, and I echo every day on my show, “Despair is not an option.” We must persist.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">There is work to do, and, as a wonderful bonus, it gives life meaning and keeps us deeply connected with great allies! </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Tag, you’re it!<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Thom Hartmann<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span>Independent Media Institute</p></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-48069265483996674482021-08-12T15:55:00.000-04:002021-08-12T15:55:03.012-04:00Biden Must Stop Bombing Afghan Cities<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/helmund-1200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="800" height="259" src="https://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/helmund-1200.jpg" width="461" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>American flag is lowered as U.S. soldiers leave Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, May 2, 2021. Photo: Afghan Ministry of Defense Press Office.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>CODEPINK via LA Progressive</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Nine provincial capitals in Afghanistan have fallen to the Taliban in six days – Zaranj, Sheberghan, Sar-e-Pul, Kunduz, Taloqan, Aybak, Farah, Pul-e-Khumri and Faizabad – while fighting continues in four more – Lashkargah, Kandahar, Herat & Mazar-i-Sharif. U.S. military officials now believe Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, could fall in one to three months. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">It is horrific to watch the death, destruction and mass displacement of thousands of terrified Afghans and the triumph of the misogynist Taliban that ruled the nation 20 years ago. But the fall of the centralized, corrupt government propped up by the Western powers was inevitable, whether this year, next year or ten years from now. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">President Biden has reacted to America’s snowballing humiliation in the graveyard of empires by once again dispatching U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to Doha to urge the government and the Taliban to seek a political solution, while at the same time dispatching B-52 bombers to attack at least two of these provincial capitals.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province, the bombing has already reportedly destroyed a high school and a health clinic. Another B-52 bombed Sheberghan, the capital of Jowzjan province and the home of the infamous warlord and accused war criminal Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is now the military commander of the U.S.-backed government’s armed forces. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that U.S. Reaper drones and AC-130 gunships are also still operating in Afghanistan. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The rapid disintegration of the Afghan forces that the U.S. and its Western allies have recruited, armed and trained for 20 years at a cost of about $90 billion should come as no surprise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The rapid disintegration of the Afghan forces that the U.S. and its Western allies have recruited, armed and trained for 20 years at a cost of about $90 billion should come as no surprise. On paper, the Afghan National Army has 180,000 troops, but in reality most are unemployed Afghans desperate to earn some money to support their families but not eager to fight their fellow Afghans. The Afghan Army is also notorious for its corruption and mismanagement. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The army and the even more beleaguered and vulnerable police forces that man isolated outposts and checkpoints around the country are plagued by high casualties, rapid turnover and desertion. Most troops feel no loyalty to the corrupt U.S.-backed government and routinely abandon their posts, either to join the Taliban or just to go home. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">When the BBC asked General Khoshal Sadat, the national police chief, about the impact of high casualties on police recruitment in February 2020, he cynically replied, “When you look at recruitment, I always think about the Afghan families and how many children they have. The good thing is there is never a shortage of fighting-age males who will be able to join the force.” (Continued)<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But a police recruit at a checkpoint questioned the very purpose of the war, telling the BBC’s Nanna Muus Steffensen, “We Muslims are all brothers. We don’t have a problem with each other.” In that case, she asked him, why were they fighting? He hesitated, laughed nervously and shook his head in resignation. “You know why. I know why,” he said. “It’s not really our fight.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Since 2007, the jewel of U.S. and Western military training missions in Afghanistan has been the Afghan Commando Corps or special operations forces, who comprise only 7% of Afghan National Army troops but reportedly do 70 to 80% of the fighting. But the Commandos have struggled to reach their target of recruiting, arming and training 30,000 troops, and poor recruitment from Pashtuns, the largest and traditionally dominant ethnic group, has been a critical weakness, especially from the Pashtun heartland in the South. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The Commandos and the professional officer corps of the Afghan National Army are dominated by ethnic Tajiks, effectively the successors to the Northern Alliance that the U.S. supported against the Taliban 20 years ago. As of 2017, the Commandos numbered only 16,000 to 21,000, and it is not clear how many of these Western-trained troops now serve as the last line of defense between the U.S.-backed puppet government and total defeat. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The Taliban’s speedy and simultaneous occupation of large amounts of territory all over the country appears to be a deliberate strategy to overwhelm and outflank the government’s small number of well-trained, well-armed troops. The Taliban have had more success winning the loyalty of minorities in the North and West than government forces have had recruiting Pashtuns from the South, and the government’s small number of well-trained troops cannot be everywhere at once.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But what of the United States? Its deployment of B-52 bombers, Reaper drones and AC-130 gunships are a brutal response by a failing, flailing imperial power to a historic, humiliating defeat. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The intellectually and strategically bankrupt U.S. military and CIA bureaucracy has a history of congratulating itself for fleeting, superficial victories.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The United States does not flinch from committing mass murder against its enemies. Just look at the U.S.-led destruction of Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq, and Raqqa in Syria. How many Americans even know about the officially-sanctioned massacre of civilians that Iraqi forces committed when the U.S.-led coalition finally took control of Mosul in 2017, after President Trump said it should “take out the families” of Islamic State fighters?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Twenty years after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed a full range of war crimes, from torture and the deliberate killing of civilians to the “supreme international crime” of aggression, Biden is clearly no more concerned than they were with criminal accountability or the judgment of history. But even from the most pragmatic and callous point of view, what can continued aerial bombardment of Afghan cities accomplish, besides a final but futile climax to the 20-year-long U.S. slaughter of Afghans by over 80,000 American bombs and missiles?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The intellectually and strategically bankrupt U.S. military and CIA bureaucracy has a history of congratulating itself for fleeting, superficial victories. It quickly declared victory in Afghanistan in 2001 and set out to duplicate its imagined conquest in Iraq. Then the short-lived success of their 2011 regime change operation in Libya encouraged the United States and its allies to turn Al Qaeda loose in Syria, spawning a decade of intractable violence and chaos and the rise of the Islamic State. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In the same manner, Biden’s unaccountable and corrupt national security advisors seem to be urging him to use the same weapons that obliterated the Islamic State’s urban bases in Iraq and Syria to attack Taliban-held cities in Afghanistan. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But Afghanistan is not Iraq or Syria. Only 26% of Afghans live in cities, compared with 71% in Iraq and 54% in Syria, and the Taliban’s base is not in the cities but in the rural areas where the other three quarters of Afghans live. Despite support from Pakistan over the years, the Taliban are not an invading force like Islamic State in Iraq but an Afghan nationalist movement that has fought for 20 years to expel foreign invasion and occupation forces from their country. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In many areas, Afghan government forces have not fled from the Taliban, as the Iraqi Army did from the Islamic State, but joined them. On August 9th, the Taliban occupied Aybak, the sixth provincial capital to fall, after a local warlord and his 250 fighters agreed to join forces with the Taliban and the governor of Samangan province handed the city over to them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">That very same day, the Afghan government’s chief negotiator, Abdullah Abdullah, returned to Doha for further peace talks with the Taliban. His American allies must make it clear to him and his government, and to the Taliban, that the United States will fully support every effort to achieve a more peaceful political transition. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But the United States must not keep bombing and killing Afghans to provide cover for the U.S.-backed puppet government to avoid difficult but necessary compromises at the negotiating table to bring peace to the incredibly long-suffering, war-weary people of Afghanistan. Bombing Taliban-occupied cities and the people who live in them is a savage and criminal policy that President Biden must renounce. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The defeat of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan now seems to be unfolding even faster than the collapse of South Vietnam between 1973 and 1975. The public takeaway from the U.S. defeat in Southeast Asia was the “Vietnam syndrome,” an aversion to overseas military interventions that lasted for decades. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As we approach the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we should reflect on how the Bush administration exploited the U.S. public’s thirst for revenge to unleash this bloody, tragic and utterly futile 20-year war. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The lesson of America’s experience in Afghanistan should be a new “Afghanistan syndrome,” a public aversion to war that prevents future U.S. military attacks and invasions, rejects attempts to socially engineer the governments of other nations and leads to a new and active American commitment to peace, diplomacy and disarmament. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-19918950224375041802021-08-01T11:55:00.000-04:002021-08-01T11:55:41.554-04:00The First Atomic Bombs: The End of WWII or the Start of the Cold War <p> </p><h1 class="title" id="page-title" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom: 1px solid black; border-top: 1px solid black; color: #993300; font-family: arial, georgia, verdana; font-size: 20.8px; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 100; line-height: 19.344px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 8px 10px;">Invitation to an online talk</h1><div class="region region-content" style="color: #666666;"><div class="block block-system" id="block-system-main"><div class="content"><article about="/videos/first-atomic-bombs-end-wwii-or-start-cold-war" class="node node-videos und node-full clearfix" id="node-2301" typeof="sioc:Item foaf:Document"><div class="content"><div class="field field-name-field-event-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden" style="float: left; font-family: arial, georgia, verdana; font-size: 13px; padding-right: 6px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" content="2021-08-09T13:00:00-05:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime" property="dc:date" style="float: left; font-weight: bold; padding-right: 6px;">Monday, August 9, 2021 - 1:00pm</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-time-zone field-type-text field-label-hidden" style="font-family: arial, georgia, verdana; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">CDT</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-speakers field-type-text field-label-hidden" style="font-family: arial, georgia, verdana; font-size: 14.56px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 5.2486px; margin-top: 6.99813px;"><div class="field-items"><h2 style="text-align: left;">Gar Alperovitz</h2></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-video field-type-video-embed-field field-label-hidden" style="font-family: arial, georgia, verdana; font-size: 13px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="embedded-video"><div class="player" style="height: 0px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 393.746px; position: relative;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="embedded-video" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hf3lbWywpa0?width=640&height=360&theme=dark&autoplay=0&vq=large&rel=0&showinfo=1&modestbranding=0&iv_load_policy=1&controls=1&autohide=2&wmode=opaque" style="height: 393.746px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 699.992px;" width="640"></iframe></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-zoom-link field-type-link-field field-label-hidden" style="color: #c85009; font-family: arial, georgia, verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 6.99813px; margin-top: 6.99813px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84525644658" style="color: #c85009; margin-bottom: 1%; margin-top: 1%; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">YOU MAY WATCH ON THIS PAGE OR CLICK HERE TO JOIN VIA ZOOM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Following on his August 8 talk at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on the moral aspects of the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 76 years ago,<b> Gar Alperovitz</b> will look at the geopolitical implications of that fateful decision. Was it the opening shot in the Cold War, designed to send a message to the Soviet Union? It established U.S. dominance in the Pacific and put the U.S. in a powerful position to shape post-war Europe. A nuclear arms race was soon to follow as tensions grew between the two former allies. Some have argued that the existence of nuclear weapons and the fear of nuclear annihilation helped prevent military conflict between the US and USSR during the Cold War. But smaller proxy wars killed millions in the global South and wasted trillions of dollars of resources, leaving us all less secure.</span></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In recent years the public has become aware of the existential threat climate change presents for humanity. But how about the threat of nuclear war and the nuclear winter that will surely follow? Billions of people will either be annihilated instantly or face slow starvation as agriculture collapses. Today humanity urgently needs nuclear disarmament. Yet most of the treaties that had limited nuclear weapons have been cast aside by President Trump and the Biden Administration is increasing our nuclear arsenal, threatening a new arms race. With a new Cold War developing with China and maybe Russia, the importance of treaties limiting nuclear weapons becomes clearer. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has now set their doomsday clock at 100 seconds before midnight. The need for citizen action is urgent.</span></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Gar Alperovitz is a distinguished historian, political economist, activist, writer, and government official. For fifteen years, he served as the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, and is a former Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University; Harvard’s Institute of Politics; the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. He is a co-founder of <a class="western" href="http://democracycollaborative.org/" style="color: #666666; text-decoration-line: none;">The Democracy Collaborative</a>, a research institution developing practical, policy-focused, and systematic paths towards ecologically sustainable, community-oriented change and the democratization of wealth. He is also the co-chair of <a class="western" href="http://thenextsystem.org/" style="color: #666666; text-decoration-line: none;">The Next System Project</a>, a project of The Democracy Collaborative. He was the architect of the first modern steel industry attempt at worker ownership in Youngstown, Ohio. Among his many books are The Next American Revolution: Beyond Corporate Capitalism and State Socialism and Principles of a Pluralist Commonwealth. His earlier books include Atomic Diplomacy and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth.</span></p></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-41974565233383495402021-07-31T12:27:00.001-04:002021-07-31T12:27:17.456-04:00Make Normalization With Cuba A Priority<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.thefloridastar.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-16-at-7.32.39-PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="800" height="311" src="https://www.thefloridastar.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-16-at-7.32.39-PM.png" width="470" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="article__subhead" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Roboto Condensed", sans-serif;">If Biden doesn’t lift Trump’s harsh restrictions on the island, it may well cause the next migration crisis.</span></span></b></p><p class="byline oht-article-meta" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Roboto Condensed", sans-serif; font-style: italic; margin-top: 4px !important;"></p><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="font-size: 16px;">By Medea Benjamin</b></div><p></p><div><b><i>Florida Global Star</i><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Roboto Condensed", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /></b><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Roboto Condensed", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><table id="amazon-polly-audio-table" style="border: 0px !important; width: 924.011px;"><tbody style="border: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><tr style="border: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><td id="amazon-polly-audio-tab" style="border: 0px; 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box-sizing: border-box; clip-path: polygon(0px 0px, 0px 0px, 0px 0px); clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); display: inline-block; float: none; height: 32px; line-height: 32px; opacity: 1; overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; width: 32px;">Share</span></a></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Silvia from Miami, Eduardo from Hialeah, Abel from Lakeland. The names pour in on the<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.codepink.org/syringes4cuba&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNFB4rDSrF8YSnyRN9uOsxl3h4t0Sg" href="https://www.codepink.org/syringes4cuba" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank"> donations page</a> for “Syringes to Cuba” as Carlos Lazo promotes the campaign on his popular Facebook livestream.</i></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">An energetic Cuban American high school teacher in Seattle, Lazo created a group called<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://puentesdeamor.com/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNFHnku5UMzdSfxk7xNXTIpSneXjkg" href="https://puentesdeamor.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank"> Puentes de Amor,</a> Bridges of Love, to unite Cuban Americans who want to lift the searing U.S. blockade that is immiserating their loved ones on the island.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">The Syringes to Cuba initiative was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ghpartners.org/syringes4cuba/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNH7ISKbSPHnKKyLdqmxk81CmeHWew" href="https://ghpartners.org/syringes4cuba/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">started</a> by the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://savinglives.us-cubanormalization.org/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNHMxSaPzUHEG7uEOFfbHYvYr9PMdg" href="http://savinglives.us-cubanormalization.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">Saving Lives Campaign</a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ghpartners.org/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNHKBn3FuaZfySDdkBJ0WmXjLmFLRw" href="https://ghpartners.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">Global Health Partners</a> to help Cuba vaccinate its people against COVID-19. The campaign has raised over $350,000 and ordered 4 million syringes.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">Cuba’s economic situation is dire. The economy <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210525-oxfam-urges-biden-to-normalize-ties-with-cuba&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNEOCPlZwgS7_XJ5C5289ahNnV9xZg" href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210525-oxfam-urges-biden-to-normalize-ties-with-cuba" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">shrank</a> by 11 percent last year — a result of the pandemic and the tightening of the embargo under former President Trump. Trump added over 200 restrictive measures, including limiting remittances Cuban Americans can send to their families, restricting U.S. flights, and prohibiting cruise ships from docking in Cuban ports.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">As a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNEDyb3ZKlthz1zPM25JBoXlY2grWQ" href="https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">final stab</a>, Trump took the completely bogus step of adding Cuba to the U.S. list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” which discourages investments and limits the entry of foreign currency.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">As a candidate, Joe Biden <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/updated-2020-candidates-answer-10-questions-on-latin-america/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNFJC3k4Z8Oj0uQiAs9GcUCVbIHL8A" href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/updated-2020-candidates-answer-10-questions-on-latin-america/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">pledged</a> to “promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.” Since then, however, Biden has not moved an inch.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">In April, Press Secretary Jen Psaki callously <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-white-house-press-secretary-jen-psaki-holds-briefing-5&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNECxOkjGoPi8G-c67XyDeXYAqX0aQ" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-white-house-press-secretary-jen-psaki-holds-briefing-5" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">claimed</a> that changing U.S. policy towards Cuba was not a priority. On May 25, the State Department even <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-says-it-is-surprised-irritated-by-new-us-terrorism-charge-2021-05-25/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNHBS_UpSd6rAoVbTnCUgmXQ2bXN_Q" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-says-it-is-surprised-irritated-by-new-us-terrorism-charge-2021-05-25/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">announced</a> that it would continue Trump’s determination that Cuba does not cooperate with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">On June 23, the UN General Assembly will hold its yearly vote calling for the U.S. to lift its embargo on Cuba. Every year since 1992, the world’s nations overwhelmingly <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1050891&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNF03ZTGdZLhvUM3v-719WssBVKg8Q" href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1050891" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">reject</a> the embargo.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">In 2016, the Obama administration broke with 25 years of U.S. opposition to the UN resolution by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/10/543832-us-abstains-first-time-annual-un-vote-ending-embargo-against-cuba&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNEE4OktTVwbDU3rv0o_q9Otkj-lVw" href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/10/543832-us-abstains-first-time-annual-un-vote-ending-embargo-against-cuba" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">abstaining</a>. A new lobby group, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://acere.org/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNGLVUOg9D5CKgj8xY6FUQofn9CNGg" href="https://acere.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">ACERE</a> (Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect), with the support of over 100 organizations, is calling on Biden not to oppose this year’s resolution.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">Instead, they say, Biden should announce measures to provide relief and a return to diplomacy.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">A push for action has also come from the grassroots, through creative and growing anti-blockade car and bicycle caravans held on the last Sunday of every month. The largest of the nation’s caravans winds through the heart of the pro-blockade world: Miami.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">In the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://eldiariolatinoamericano.com/el-silencio-de-miami-es-peor-que-el-de-los-corderos-pero-lo-que-callan-es-lo-que-mas-ruido-hace/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNFANn9JIMajsCrS4BdS3_wSUC08ig" href="https://eldiariolatinoamericano.com/el-silencio-de-miami-es-peor-que-el-de-los-corderos-pero-lo-que-callan-es-lo-que-mas-ruido-hace/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">May 30</a> Miami caravan, over 200 people participated, most of them Cuban Americans. “We’ve had 10 of these caravans so far,” said <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v%3D162688392408466%26ref%3Dsearch&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNE8vhm-ISkU2mKnjKr5pXFM4yoPwQ" href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=162688392408466&ref=search" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">organizer</a> Jorge Medina. “Each one is bigger than the last and the energy is fantastic.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">Congress has been pushing Biden as well. This March, 80 representatives, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://rush.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rush-cohen-lee-moore-75-democratic-colleagues-urge-president-biden-to&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNEsVtjMFBBMrOVjROVkUCHHTwbIOQ" href="https://rush.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rush-cohen-lee-moore-75-democratic-colleagues-urge-president-biden-to" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">led</a> by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), sent Biden a letter urging him to reverse Trump’s draconian policies and return to the diplomatic path.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">On May 21, Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/5/sens-moran-klobuchar-leahy-introduce-legislation-to-lift-cuba-trade-embargo&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNHNOvrd9GnqZpdMZnwvMJnMfKKuWA" href="https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/5/sens-moran-klobuchar-leahy-introduce-legislation-to-lift-cuba-trade-embargo" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">introduced</a> the bipartisan Freedom to Export to Cuba Act that would eliminate legal barriers to Americans doing business in Cuba, a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wola.org/2021/05/freedom-export-to-cuba-act-introduced/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNHHeua6Z3ZfZguscyGJz-gfAQUKRg" href="https://www.wola.org/2021/05/freedom-export-to-cuba-act-introduced/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">popular</a> idea with farm and business groups interested in trade and export opportunities.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">Biden ignores the crisis in Cuba at his own peril.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">The dire food and medicine shortages caused by the pandemic and the blockade may well spark a migration crisis. Cuba expert Bill LeoGrande <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.upi.com/Top_News/Voices/2021/04/19/cuba-Cuba-economy-US-migrants-immigration/8331618833769/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNFNSSluBU-QDAcjfQ7Lg8VrLXCIow" href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/Voices/2021/04/19/cuba-Cuba-economy-US-migrants-immigration/8331618833769/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">predicts</a> “a mass exodus of desperate people” if Biden doesn’t act soon.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;">Biden would do well to heed the warning and, with the stroke of a pen, lift trade and travel restrictions and allow unrestricted remittances. This would infuse money into Cuba’s economy, alleviate needless suffering, and fulfill Biden’s promise to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://otherwords.org/authors/medea-benjamin/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNE2QVAH6xQEYaJ7sYRHfJj0X2nRBg" href="https://otherwords.org/authors/medea-benjamin/" rel="author noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">Medea Benjamin</a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 1.5;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Medea Benjamin is cofounder of</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.codepink.org/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNG4J5zPkymG1XOkKQrQQrWMWzxAiw" href="https://www.codepink.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">CODEPINK for Peace</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">, and author of several books, including</i><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/No-free-lunch-revolution-today/dp/0935028188&source=gmail&ust=1626563601656000&usg=AFQjCNEuSMpXVmk336HtLlCMBKRNBW7I9A" href="https://www.amazon.com/No-free-lunch-revolution-today/dp/0935028188" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank"> <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">No Free Lunch: Food and Revolution in Cuba</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">. This op-ed was adapted from </i><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://fpif.org/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601657000&usg=AFQjCNFVACeJbKN0rGhwocyf5esvY4rBZA" href="http://fpif.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Foreign Policy In Focus</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;"> (<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://fpif.org/&source=gmail&ust=1626563601657000&usg=AFQjCNFVACeJbKN0rGhwocyf5esvY4rBZA" href="http://fpif.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;" target="_blank">fpif.org</a>) and distributed by <a class="autohyperlink" href="http://otherwords.org/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222;">OtherWords.org</a>.</i></p></div></div></div></div>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-31632438722647213722021-06-14T13:35:00.002-04:002021-06-14T13:37:06.288-04:00Rural Teacher Pedro Castillo Poised to Write a New Chapter in Peru’s History<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.4583464.1622738363!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300_160/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="300" height="262" src="https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.4583464.1622738363!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_300_160/image.jpg" width="492" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>Castillo, the son of illiterate peasants, overcame vicious media attacks and is on the verge of defeating Keiko Fujimori, the scion of a Peruvian political dynasty.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>By Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>NACLA</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">June 8, 2021 - With his wide-brimmed peasant hat and oversized teacher’s pencil held high, Peru’s Pedro Castillo traveled the country ahead of the June 6 election exhorting voters to get behind a call that has been particularly urgent during this devastating pandemic: “No más pobres en un país rico”— No more poor people in a rich country. In a cliff-hanger election with a huge urban-rural and class divide, it appears that the rural teacher, farmer, and union leader is about to make history by defeating powerful far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori, scion of the country’s political “Fujimori dynasty.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">With 95 percent of the vote counted, Castillo led with 50.3 percent over Fujimori’s 49.7 percent. With her opponent in the lead by a narrow margin, now Fujimori is challenging the results, alleging widespread fraud. Her campaign has only presented evidence of isolated irregularities, and so far there is nothing to suggest a tainted vote. However, she can challenge some of the votes to delay the final results, and much like in the United States, even an allegation of fraud by the losing candidate will cause uncertainty and raise tensions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Castillo’s victory will be remarkable not only because he is a leftist teacher who is the son of illiterate peasants and whose campaign was grossly outspent by Fujimori. But also, there was a relentless propaganda attack against him that touched on historical fears of Peru’s middle class and elites. This campaign was similar to what happened recently to progressive candidate Andrés Arauz, who narrowly lost Ecuador’s presidential elections in April, but even more intense. <i>Continued</i><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Grupo El Comercio, a media conglomerate that controls 80 percent of Peru’s newspapers, led the charge against Castillo. Its media outlets accused him of being a terrorist with links to the Shining Path, a guerrilla group whose conflict with the state between 1980 and 2002 led to tens of thousands of deaths and left the population traumatized. Castillo’s link to the Shining Path link is flimsy: while a leader with the education workers’ union SUTEP, Castillo is said to have been friendly with the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (Movadef), a group alleged to have been the political wing of the Shining Path. In reality, Castillo was a rondero when the insurgency was most active. Ronderos were peasant self-defense groups that protected their communities from the guerrillas and continue to provide security against crime and violence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Two weeks before the elections, on May 23, 18 people were massacred in the rural Peruvian town of San Miguel del Ene. The government immediately attributed the attack to the remnants of the Shining Path involved in drug trafficking, although no group has taken responsibility yet. The media linked the attack to Castillo and his campaign, whipping up fear of more violence should he win the presidency. Castillo denounced the attack and reminded Peruvians that similar massacres had occurred in the run-up to the 2011 and 2016 elections. For her part, Fujimori suggested Castillo was linked to the killing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">On the economic front, Castillo has been accused of being a communist who wants to nationalize key industries and would turn Peru into a “cruel dictatorship” like Venezuela. Billboards along Lima’s main highway asked: “Would you like to live in Cuba or Venezuela?” referring to a Castillo win. Newspapers linked Castillo’s campaign to the devaluation of the Peruvian currency and warned that a Castillo victory would hurt low-income Peruvians the most because businesses would shutter or move overseas. Time and time again, the Castillo campaign has clarified that he is not a communist and that his aim is not to nationalize industries but to renegotiate contracts with multinationals so that more of the profits stay with the local communities.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Meanwhile, Fujimori was treated with kid gloves by the media during the campaign, with one newspapers claiming that “Keiko guarantees work, food, health and an immediate reactivation of the economy.” Her past as a first lady during her father Alberto Fujimori’s brutal rule is largely ignored by corporate media. She is able to claim that “fujimorismo defeated terrorism” without being challenged on the horrors that fujimorismo inflicted on the country, including the forced sterilization of over 270,000 women and 22,000 men for which her father is on trial. He is currently in prison over other human rights abuses and corruption, though Keiko promised to free him if she won. The media also ignored the fact that Keiko is out on bail as of last year, pending a money-laundering investigation, and without presidential immunity, she will probably end up in prison.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The international media was no different in its unbalanced coverage of Castillo and Fujimori. Bloomberg warned that “elites tremble” at the thought of Castillo as president, and a Financial Times headline screamed “Peru’s elite in panic at prospect of hard-left victory in presidential election.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Peru’s economy has grown impressively over the past 20 years, but that growth did not raise all boats. Millions of Peruvians in the countryside have been abandoned by the state. On top of that, like many of its neighbors—including Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador—Peru has underinvested in health care, education, and other social programs. Such choices so decimated the health care system that Peru now has the shameful distinction of leading the entire world in per capita Covid-19 deaths.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In addition to the public health disaster, Peruvians have been living through political turmoil marked by an extraordinary number of high-profile cases of corruption and four presidents in three years. Five of its last seven presidents faced corruption accusations. In 2020, Congress impeached and unseated President Martín Vizcarra, also accused of corruption, and replaced him with Manuel Merino. Many denounced the maneuver as a parliamentary coup, leading to several days of massive street protests. Just five days into his tenure, Merino resigned and was replaced by current interim President Francisco Sagasti.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">One of Castillo’s key campaign promises is to convoke a constitutional referendum to let the people decide whether they want a new constitution or wish to keep the current one. Written in 1993 under the regime of Alberto Fujimori, the current constitution entrenched neoliberalism into its framework.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“The current constitution prioritizes private interests over public interests, profit over life and dignity,” reads Castillo’s platform. His campaign proposes that a new constitution include: recognition and guarantees for the rights to health, education, food, housing, and internet access; recognition for Indigenous peoples and Peru’s cultural diversity; recognition of the rights of nature; redesign of the state to focus on transparency and citizens’ participation; and a key role for the state in strategic planning to ensure that the public interest takes precedence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">On the foreign policy front, Castillo’s victory will represent a huge blow to U.S. interests in the region and an important step towards reactivating Latin American integration. He has promised to withdraw Peru from the Lima Group, an ad hoc committee of countries dedicated to regime change in Venezuela.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In addition, Castillo’s Peru Libre party has called for expelling USAID and for the closure of U.S. military bases in the country. Castillo has also expressed support for countering the Organization of American States and strengthening both the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The victory is also a good omen for the Left in Chile, Colombia, and Brazil, each of which will have presidential elections over the next year and a half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Castillo will face a daunting task, with a hostile Congress, a hostile business class, a hostile press, and most likely, a hostile Biden administration. The support of millions of angry and mobilized Peruvians demanding change, along with international solidarity, will be key to fulfilling his campaign promise of addressing the needs of the poorest and most abandoned sectors of Peruvian society.</span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and author of books on the Middle East and Latin America, is in Peru with an election observer delegation organized by ProgressiveInternational. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and campaigner with CODEPINK.</span></i></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-5052351727952908292021-05-16T17:15:00.005-04:002021-05-16T17:15:50.357-04:00Moral Questioning and the American War Machine<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1785138/military.webp?w=790&f=61f590c2ecb760b1cc4b2a274853ac8b" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="790" height="254" src="https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1785138/military.webp?w=790&f=61f590c2ecb760b1cc4b2a274853ac8b" width="423" /></a></i></div><i><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></i><p></p><p><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Members of the US Army 1st Division 9th Regiment 1st Battalion unload heavy combat equipment including Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles at the railway station near the Pabrade military base in Lithuania, on October 21, 2019. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>By Marianne Williamson</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Newsweek Columnist</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">April 29, 2021 - In the 1960s, the war on poverty, the civil rights movement and anti-war movements made strides against what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the triple evils of poverty, racism and militarism." None of the three was eradicated, of course, but they were certainly hit hard. President Lyndon B. Johnson built a federal framework for poverty eradication, legalized segregation was abolished and the Vietnam War came to an end in the face of massive protest. While no one at the time thought America's problems had all been solved, those struggles for justice were real and in many ways successful.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Today, a similar era of protest has erupted as a new generation of Americans—representing even greater numbers—struggles to tackle existential threats and injustices in our midst. Desire to end poverty is expressed in calls for a higher minimum wage, union protections, a tax system that doesn't favor the rich and the removal of college loan debt. Desire to end systemic racism is expressed in Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, and increased calls for police and criminal justice reform. Americans are pushing back passionately in the face of economic and racial injustice.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Yet the "third evil" decried by Dr. King—militarism—does not get the passionate protest today that it got in the 1960s. Perhaps this is due to the fact that during the Vietnam War, it was everyone's son, brother, husband, lover or friend constantly threatened by the specter of a low draft number, whereas today there is no draft at all. Today's armed forces are manned by a volunteer army, making their deployment here or there far easier to ignore. The military is so much a part of the way we function that those born since 9/11 have grown up never having known an America not at war. They never knew a time when we didn't have over 800 military bases in over 150 countries, and on every continent in the world except Antarctica. To them, a sign that says "Ban the Bomb" would be seen as a quaint reminder of a time gone by. The system has succeeded in distracting and exhausting people to the point of acquiescence. All they have to do is tell us we're leaving Afghanistan, and we're too distracted to ask then why they're still spending all that money.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">What a tragedy that is. For American militarism today is no less dangerous, and no less a threat to our democracy and to our world, than it has ever been. In fact, it is more so. It is a budgetary behemoth that pollutes our planet, defines our economy, undermines our moral authority around the world and recklessly increases the risk of nuclear tensions all in the name of our "security."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In no area has the wool been pulled over the eyes of the modern American than in the area of our perpetual war machine. Every year—unchallenged and under-investigated by our mainstream media—in slavish devotion to defense contractors who fuel their campaigns, both political parties pass an increasingly gargantuan National Defense Authorization Act in easy breezy lockstep. Our military budget, almost twice the size of the military expenditures of every other country on Earth, is like a sacred edict handed down from on high, treated with some weird political reverence as though to question it is to suggest that our safety and security do not matter.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But this has little to do with our safety and security, and everything to do with how things work in Washington. Our current secretary of Defense is a former general and Raytheon board member, in defiance not only of Congress' own injunction against military leadership at the DOD (they simply waived their rule for Secretary Jim Mattis under Donald Trump, then did the same for Lloyd Austin), and seemingly with no concern that someone who had just been a board member at one of America's major defense contractors just might have a teensy bit of proclivity for seeing our defense through the eyes of those for whom the most money is to be made.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">President Joe Biden's $715 billion proposed defense budget this year has less to do with our security than with our economy, as 54 cents of every dollar of discretionary spending in America is spent on defense related activity. Politicians tout how many jobs are created by the defense industry, in clear absence of any moral consideration of what all that equipment is used for and whether it serves humanity that the United States is the world's biggest supplier of arms as well as the biggest perpetrator of military misadventures. While it's been proven that investment in education and infrastructure actually provides more return on investment in terms of job creation, there is very little serious talk of how to move us from a war economy to a peace economy. MSNBC and CNN aren't going to touch that any more than Fox will.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Romantic views of the U.S. military as a purveyor of freedom have withered away, the coattails of World War II having long given way to the cynical truth of our post-war military involvements. The people of the world no longer see America as a champion of democracy, and rightfully so. The U.S. military has become less a purveyor of freedom and more a purveyor of protection for the corporate forces they represent, from the military defense industry to the fossil fuel industry and more. No less powerful a person than the vice president of the United States said recently that, "For years and generations, wars have been fought over oil"—she said she had learned this from "attending a lot of meetings on foreign policy"— and it hardly made a headline. My God, how cynically accepting we are of people in other parts of the world dying so we can keep the lights on in every room of the house.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">I guess it's good we're not even pretending anymore. But perhaps we could drink in what that means. The perverse size of our military budget does not simply represent money that could have been used to help people in the United States; it also represents a lot of harm done to people in other parts of the world for reasons that are neither altruistic nor even honest. What a moral void exists in the center of the American psyche now, that the murderous mistakes of Vietnam, Iraq and Libya have earned little more reaction from political officialdom than, "Oops. Yeah, we probably shouldn't have done that."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">There are people raging at the machine, to be sure. The People over Pentagon campaign has called for a $200 billion reduction, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus has proposed a 10 percent reduction in annual defense spending. The Friends Committee on National Legislation and others have argued vigorously for an end to U.S. support of Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen. But it's the people ourselves who need to rise up now against the military madness in our midst.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">It's important we understand how aberrational is this chapter in our history. At the outset of World War II, the United States didn't have a standing army. By the end of that war, our triumphant military machinery was not dismantled but rather repurposed for the post-war era. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander during World War II turned president seven years later, warned us in his 1961 Farewell Address of the dangers of the "military industrial complex." Interestingly enough, he originally called it the "military-congressional-industrial complex," and he was right. This isn't just an unholy alliance between the military and industry; it's a corrupt, murderous and immoral three-way.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed," said Eisenhower. "This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Those words would mean so much less were they not spoken by the man who had himself led America's military through World War II, a man who knew as few ever did what it means to fight a necessary, even a moral war. The man who led the D-Day invasion was hardly soft on the military. But he was strong on the moral questioning of war, and that is what we are lacking today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Marianne Williamson is a Newsweek columnist, best-selling author, political activist and spiritual thought leader. She is founder of Project Angel Food and co-founder of the Peace Alliance, and was the first candidate in the 2020 presidential primary to make reparations a pillar of her campaign. She is the author of 13 books, among them Healing the Soul of America and A Politics of Love.</i></span></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-76411264307647145612021-05-04T16:29:00.003-04:002021-05-04T16:29:56.627-04:00Progressives in Congress Should Unite to Slash Biden’s Military Budget<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><a href="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021_0504-pramila-jayapal-barbara-lee-1536x981.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="800" height="308" src="https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021_0504-pramila-jayapal-barbara-lee-1536x981.jpg" width="482" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Rep. Barbara Lee speaks as Rep. Pramila Jayapal looks on during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on November 19, 2019.OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>By Medea Benjamin & Marcy Winograd, </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Salon via Truthout</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">May 4, 2021 - Imagine this scenario: A month before the vote on the federal budget, progressives in Congress declare, “We’ve studied President Biden’s proposed $753 billion military budget, an increase of $13 billion from Trump’s already inflated budget, and we can’t, in good conscience, support this.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Now that would be a show-stopper, particularly if they added, “So we have decided to stand united, arm in arm, as a block of ‘no’ votes on any federal budget resolution that fails to reduce military spending by 10 to 30 percent. We stand united against a federal budget resolution that includes upwards of $30 billion for new nuclear weapons — slated to ultimately cost nearly $2 trillion. We stand united in demanding the $50 billion earmarked to maintain all 800 overseas bases, including the new one under construction on Okinawa, be reduced by at least one-third, because it’s time we scaled back on plans for global domination.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">“Ditto,” they say, “for the billions the president wants for the arms-escalating Space Force, one of Trump’s worst ideas, right up there with hydroxychloroquine to cure COVID-19. And, no, we don’t want to escalate our troop deployments for a military confrontation with China in the South China Sea. It’s time to ‘right-size’ the military budget and demilitarize our foreign policy.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Progressives uniting as a block to resist out-of-control military spending would be a no-nonsense exercise of raw power, reminiscent of the way the right-wing Freedom Caucus challenged the traditional Republicans in the House in 2015. Without progressives on board, President Biden might not be able to secure enough votes to pass a federal budget that would then greenlight the reconciliation process needed for his broad domestic agenda.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">For years, progressives in Congress have complained about the bloated military budget. In 2020, 93 members in the House and 23 in the Senate voted to cut the Pentagon budget by 10% and invest those funds instead in critical human needs. A House Spending Reduction Caucus, co-chaired by Reps. Barbara Lee of California and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, emerged with 22 members on board, including all four members of the “Squad” but also quite a few more moderate or mainstream Democrats.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">We also have the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the largest in Congress, now with almost 100 members in the House and Senate. Caucus chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., is all for cutting military spending. “We’re in the midst of a crisis that has left millions of families unable to afford food, rent and bills,” she told The Nation. “But at the same time, we’re dumping billions of dollars into a bloated Pentagon budget. Don’t increase defense spending. Cut it — and invest that money into our communities.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Now is the time for these congresspeople to turn their talk into action.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Consider the context. Biden urgently wants to move forward on his American Families Plan rolled out in his recent address to Congress. The plan would tax the rich to invest $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years in universal preschool, two years of tuition-free community college, expanded health care coverage and paid family medical leave.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In the spirit of FDR, Biden also wants to put America back to work with a $2 trillion infrastructure program that will begin to fix our decades-old broken bridges, crumbling sewer systems and rusting water pipes. This could be his legacy, a Green New Deal-lite to transition workers out of the dying fossil fuel industry.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">But Biden won’t get his infrastructure program and American Families Plan with higher taxes on the rich, almost 40% on income for corporations and those earning $400,000 or more a year, unless Congress first passes a budget resolution that includes a top line for military and non-military spending. Both the budget resolution and the reconciliation bill that would follow are filibuster-proof and only require a simple majority in the House and Senate to pass.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Easy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Maybe not.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">To flex their muscles, Republicans may refuse to vote for a budget resolution crafted by the Democratic Party that would open the door to big spending on public goods, such as pre-kindergarten and expanded health care coverage. That means Biden would need every Democrat in the House and Senate on board to approve his budget resolution for military and non-military spending.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">So how’s it looking?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In the Senate, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state that went for Trump over Biden more than two to one, wants to scale back Biden’s infrastructure proposal, but hasn’t sworn to vote down a budget resolution. As for Sen. Bernie Sanders, the much-loved progressive, ordinarily he might balk at a record high military budget. But if the budget resolution ushers in a reconciliation bill that lowers the age of Medicare eligibility to 60 or 55, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee might feel compelled to hold his fire.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">That leaves antiwar activists wondering if Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a critic of the Pentagon budget and “nuclear modernization,” would consider stepping up as the lone holdout in the Senate, refusing to vote for a budget that includes billions for new nuclear weapons. Perhaps with a push from outraged constituents in Massachusetts, Warren could be convinced to take this bold stand. Another potential holdout could be California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who co-chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, the committee that oversees budgeting for nuclear weapons. In 2014, Feinstein described the U.S. nuclear arsenal program as “unnecessarily and unsustainably large.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Over in the House, Biden needs at least 218 of the 222 Democrats to vote for the budget resolution expected to hit the floor in June or July. But what if he can’t get to 218? What if at least five members of the House voted no — or even just threatened to — because the top line for military spending was too high and the budget included new “money pit” land-based nuclear missiles to replace 450 Minuteman III ICBMs, deployed since the 1970s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Polls show that most Democrats oppose “nuclear modernization” — a euphemism for a plan that is anything but modern, given that 50 countries have signed onto the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which would make nuclear weapons illegal, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) requires the U.S. to pursue nuclear disarmament to avoid a catastrophic accident or intentional nuclear holocaust.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Now is the time for progressive congressional luminaries such as the Squad’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Presley to unite with Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Jayapal, as well as Lee, Pocan and others in the House Spending Reduction Caucus to stand as a block against a bloated military budget.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Will they have the courage to unite behind such a cause? Would they be willing to play hardball and gum up the works on the way to Biden’s progressive domestic agenda? Odds will improve if constituents barrage them with phone calls, emails and visible protests. In a time of pandemic, it makes no sense to approve a military budget that is 90 times the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The billions saved from “right-sizing” the Pentagon could provide critical funds for addressing the climate crisis. Just as we support putting an end to our endless wars, we also support putting an end to our endless cycle of exponential military spending. This is the moment to demand a substantial cut in the Pentagon budget — and to defund new nuclear weapons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Medea Benjamin is a co-founder of CODEPINK and the fair trade advocacy group Global Exchange. She is the author of Drone Warfare (OR Books, 2012) and has played an active role in the Green Party. She has a master’s degree in both public health and economics. In 2012, she was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation’s Peace Prize. She is also recipient of the 2014 Gandhi Peace Award and the 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America served as a 2020 Democratic delegate for Sen. Bernie Sanders and co-founded the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. As coordinator of CODEPINK Congress, she spearheads Capitol Hill calling parties to mobilize co-sponsors and votes for peace and foreign policy legislation.</i></span></p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-58923324439563151432021-05-01T14:06:00.000-04:002021-05-01T14:06:34.370-04:00A Kinder, Gentler Foreign Policy?<p><strong style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">By Marc Pilisuk </strong></p><header class="entry-header" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 32px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><a data-wpel-link="external" href="http://www.peacevoice.info/" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 300; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">PeaceVoice</a></h1></header><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div class="wp-block-image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1em;"><figure class="alignleft size-large" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table; float: left; margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0px;"><img alt="Gentler Foreign Policy" class="wp-image-368454 lazyloaded" data-ll-status="loaded" height="359" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px" src="https://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cold-war-decay-450.jpg" srcset="https://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cold-war-decay-450.jpg 450w, https://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cold-war-decay-450-225x300.jpg 225w, https://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cold-war-decay-450-150x200.jpg 150w" style="border-radius: inherit; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.5s linear 0.2s;" width="269" /></figure></div><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Happily, in some measure, in his first three months in office, Joe Biden has shown a needed system change toward healing, sharing, caring, helping, and cooperation in his domestic policy achievements and goals. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Sadly, an equally urgent need for structural change is missing from his foreign policy agenda. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">The progressive steps taken by the Biden administration so far are important and commendable. Reaffirmations of the steps needed for protection against the spread of the Covid virus have gone remarkably well. Provisions for an economic stimulus targeting the neediest of our society are welcome. In addition, there is much to admire in the goals on environmental sustainability, the new levels of visible concern over violent actions whether by police or civilians, and the appointment to cabinet positions of competent indigenous and union leaders are all signs that this administration may be leading an important historical change. Progressive critics are reluctant to declare this another FDR moment citing the depth of problems still remaining. Nevertheless the Biden overtures represent a dramatic opening for continued dialogue on needed policies. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">But in foreign policy, the old games persist. Since 1947, the United States has been mired in a national defense policy, typically with bipartisan support, in which the world is seen as a battle ground for geopolitical and economic influence. We have been led by policy officials such as Henry Kissinger, Dean Rusk, Madeleine Albright, and Condoleezza Rice. However bright they may be, they worked within an inadequate paradigm of thought. </p></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">In this world the players at the table of nations are not the needy individuals within countries but rather their sovereign leaders. Each nation is assumed to be participating for its own advantage. The guiding line has been, in words attributed to Henry Kissinger: “We do not have principles, we have interests.” </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Given this assumption, we have formed a strange network of allies and adversaries. Throughout the Cold War and beyond, the major adversaries were assumed to be trying to destroy us. National leaders who posed threats to American economic domination were met with specific strategic actions, even if those foreign national leaders were operating in the interests of their own people and posed no threat to the people of the US (e.g., Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile). </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">The U.S. response has too often been a demonization of their leaders, economic sanctions that punish their citizens, interference with their elections, military interventions, assassinations and a domination of media to assure us that we are the good guys and those challenging us are enemies. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">We have nurtured a class of highly competent military leaders who move comfortably with the heads of major military production facilities. We have invested great resources in military intelligence and surveillance which have reaped an extensive dossier on the misdeeds of other nations and have used this information to keep legislators and the media “informed” about what the military establishment chooses to share. And if all public-facing information they can muster fails to make their case, they fall back on two basic lines: 1. national security, and 2. If you knew what we know, you would all agree with us. These veils permit misdirection and lies.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">While we endlessly claim to be fighting for democracy, we have in truth overthrown democratically elected leaders when they are perceived as interfering with extracting profits—including <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-48638209" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Guatemala</a>, <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cia-assisted-coup-overthrows-government-of-iran" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Iran</a>, <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/democratic-republic-congo/2014-06-16/what-really-happened-congo" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Congo</a>, and <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/world/americas/chile-coup-cia-museum.html" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Chile</a>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">The reason I term this an inadequate paradigm of thought is that it has inspired potential adversaries to operate in the same way, creating a toxic dynamic. It has also interfered with the development of international peacekeeping institutions. It has served to preserve the dominance of nations manipulated by transnational corporations and has led to obscene extremes of inequality. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Nowhere is this clearer than in the military and trade arrangements with El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Haiti, in which governments sustained by the U.S. appropriate once viable farmlands and distribute them to external mining and agribusiness interests. This displaces people and forces a massive flow of refugees and asylum seekers, virtually all to our southern border.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Appointments to key positions of officials like Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan reflect a continuation of the view that foreign policy is a game of military threats and economic bullying and blockades. Early practices of the Biden administration have so far pointed toward a continuity of this dangerous order of geopolitical manipulation. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Remarks by Biden publicly calling Putin a killer and leveling gross accusations against China reflect the least possible way for peaceful remediation of the underlying issues. The old policy is seen in the bombing of Syria and in continuing to supply weapons and training to oppressive authoritarian governments such as the Saudi monarchy and the UAE regardless of their record in human rights. Such policies remind us of how we were brought into economically and morally costly wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. These policies are used to justify <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-rein-in-inflated-military-budgets/" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">more than half</a> of the federal discretionary budget for military purposes.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">U.S. government officials continue to promise technological advances in weaponry, claimed to be essential for security while not being able to make us safer against any of the major threats to human life. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">In very different ways the isolationist popularity of Donald Trump and the humanist popular support for policies by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren reflect the dissatisfaction of many people with policies supporting an American empire. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">It is time for the Biden administration to show the same courage in negotiating for peace with all countries that it has shown in domestic reform. The dangers posed by radioactive and chemical contaminants, like viral infections and the plight of displaced people, are not problems that can be solved by competitive pressures. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">An environment with water and air safe to assure life requires cooperation beyond the actions of any particular country, while global climate chaos is accelerated by a massive military patrolling the planet and consuming <a data-wpel-link="external" href="https://energyindemand.com/2019/06/22/us-military-is-worlds-single-largest-consumer-of-oil-and-as-a-result-one-of-the-worlds-top-greenhouse-gas-emitters/" rel="noreferrer noopener external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef4f4f; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">more carbon fuels</a> than any other sector. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">Punishing and threatening some nations guilty of severe suppression of human rights while condoning and assisting similar outrages by strategic partners is bad policy. The world we need must replace national or corporate interests with human needs. Mutual aid is so much more adaptive than mutual threats.</p><p class="has-drop-cap" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">In a world increasingly threatened by nuclear annihilation, there is need for a new vision in which adherence to the values of peace with justice and environmental sustainability are prominent. This goes with support for the international institutions supporting them like the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the International Criminal Court. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;">The outmoded world of aggressive gamesmanship will need dramatic U.S. reformist initiatives if it is ever to change. </p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-12529557223362765392021-04-11T16:43:00.002-04:002021-04-11T16:45:26.890-04:0010 Problems With Biden's Foreign Policy—and One Solution<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/pages/30278/attachments/original/1615578951/biden_endless_war_0.jpg?1615578951" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="800" height="250" src="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/pages/30278/attachments/original/1615578951/biden_endless_war_0.jpg?1615578951" width="479" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><i>President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, Feb. 16, 2021, in Washington. (Photo: White House/Lawrence Jackson)</i></p><p><b>By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies</b></p><p><i>Codepink.org</i></p><p>Biden is following in the footsteps of Obama and Trump, who both promised fresh approaches to foreign policy but for the most part delivered more endless war.</p><p>The Biden presidency is still in its early days, but it’s not too early to point to areas in the foreign policy realm where we, as progressives, have been disappointed--or even infuriated.</p><p>There are one or two positive developments, such as the renewal of Obama's New START Treaty with Russia and Secretary of State Blinken’s initiative for a UN-led peace process in Afghanistan, where the United States is finally turning to peace as a last resort, after 20 years lost in the graveyard of empires.</p><p>By and large though, Biden’s foreign policy already seems stuck in the militarist quagmire of the past twenty years, a far cry from his campaign promise to reinvigorate diplomacy as the primary tool of U.S. foreign policy.</p><p>In this respect, Biden is following in the footsteps of Obama and Trump, who both promised fresh approaches to foreign policy but for the most part delivered more endless war.</p><p>By the end of his second term, Obama did have two significant diplomatic achievements with the signing of the Iran nuclear deal and normalization of relations with Cuba. So progressive Americans who voted for Biden had some grounds to hope that his experience as Obama’s vice-president would lead him to quickly restore and build on Obama’s achievements with Iran and Cuba as a foundation for the broader diplomacy he promised.</p><p>Instead, the Biden administration seems firmly entrenched behind the walls of hostility Trump built between America and our neighbors, from his renewed Cold War against China and Russia to his brutal sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Syria and dozens of countries around the world, and there is still no word on cuts to a military budget that has grown by 15% since FY2015 (inflation-adjusted). </p><p>Despite endless Democratic condemnations of Trump, Biden’s foreign policy so far shows no substantive change from the policies of the past four years. Here are ten of the lowlights:</p><p><b>1. Failing to quickly rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement</b>. The Biden administration’s failure to immediately rejoin the JCPOA, as Bernie Sanders promised to do on his first day as president, has turned an easy win for Biden’s promised commitment to diplomacy into an entirely avoidable diplomatic crisis.</p><p>Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and imposition of brutal “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran were broadly condemned by Democrats and U.S. allies alike. But now Biden is making new demands on Iran to appease hawks who opposed the agreement all along, risking an outcome in which he will fail to reinstate the JCPOA and Trump’s policy will effectively become his policy. The Biden administration should re-enter the deal immediately, without preconditions. </p><p><b>2. U.S. Bombing Wars Rage On - Now In Secret.</b> Also following in Trump’s footsteps, Biden has escalated tensions with Iran and Iraq by attacking and killing Iranian-backed Iraqi forces who play a critical role in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Biden’s February 25 U.S. airstrike predictably failed to end rocket attacks on deeply unpopular U.S. bases in Iraq, which the Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution to close over a year ago. </p><p>The U.S. attack in Syria has been condemned as illegal by members of Biden’s own party, reinvigorating efforts to repeal the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that presidents have misused for 20 years. Other airstrikes the Biden administration is conducting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are shrouded in secrecy, since it has not resumed publishing the monthly Airpower Summaries that every other administration has published since 2004, but which Trump discontinued a year ago. </p><p>3<b>. Refusing to hold MBS accountable for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi</b>. Human rights activists were grateful that President Biden released the intelligence report on the gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi that confirmed what we already knew: that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) approved the murder. Yet, when it came to holding MBS accountable, Biden choked.</p><p>At the very least, the administration should have imposed the same sanctions on MBS, including asset freezes and travel bans, that the U.S. imposed on lower-level figures involved in the murder. Instead, like Trump, Biden is wedded to the Saudi dictatorship and its diabolical Crown Prince.</p><p><b>4. Clinging to Trump’s absurdist policy of recognizing Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela.</b> The Biden administration missed an opportunity to establish a new approach towards Venezuela when it decided to continue to recognize Juan Guaidó as “interim president”, ruled out talks with the Maduro government and appears to be freezing out the moderate opposition that participates in elections.</p><p>The administration also said it was in “no rush” to lift the Trump sanctions despite a recent study from the Government Accountability Office detailing their negative impact on the economy, and a scathing preliminary report by a UN Special Rapporteur, who noted their “devastating effect on the whole population of Venezuela.” The lack of dialogue with all political actors in Venezuela risks entrenching a policy of regime change and economic warfare for years to come, similar to the failed U.S. policy towards Cuba that has lasted for 60 years. (Continued)<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><b>5. Following Trump on Cuba instead of Obama</b>. The Trump administration overturned all the progress towards normal relations achieved by President Obama, sanctioning Cuba's tourism and energy industries, blocking coronavirus aid shipments, restricting remittances to family members, putting Cuba on a list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” and sabotaging Cuba's international medical missions, which were a major source of revenue for its health system. </p><p>We expected Biden to immediately start unraveling Trump’s confrontational policies, but catering to Cuban exiles in Florida for domestic political gain apparently takes precedence over a humane and rational policy towards Cuba, for Biden as for Trump. </p><p>Biden should instead start working with the Cuban government to allow the return of diplomats to their respective embassies, lift all restrictions on remittances, make travel easier, and work with the Cuban health system in the fight against COVID-19, among other measures. </p><p><b>6. Ramping up the Cold War with China.</b> Biden seems committed to Trump’s self-defeating Cold War and arms race with China, talking tough and ratcheting up tensions that have led to racist hate crimes against East Asian people in the United States. But it is the United States that is militarily surrounding and threatening China, not the other way round. As former President Jimmy Carter patiently explained to Trump, while the United States has been at war for 20 years, China has instead invested in 21st century infrastructure and in its own people, lifting 800 million of them out of poverty.</p><p>The greatest danger of this moment in history, short of all-out nuclear war, is that this aggressive U.S. military posture not only justifies unlimited U.S. military budgets, but will gradually force China to convert its economic success into military power and follow the United States down the tragic path of military imperialism.</p><p><b>7. Failing to lift painful, illegal sanctions during a pandemic.</b> One of the legacies of the Trump administration is the devastating use of U.S. sanctions on countries around the world, including Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Syria. UN special rapporteurs have condemned them as crimes against humanity and compared them to medieval sieges. Since most of these sanctions were imposed by executive order, President Biden could easily lift them. Even before taking power, his team announced a thorough review, but, three months later, it has yet to make a move.</p><p>Unilateral sanctions that affect entire populations are an illegal form of coercion, like military intervention, coups and covert operations, that have no place in a legitimate foreign policy based on diplomacy, the rule of law and the peaceful resolution of disputes. They are especially cruel and deadly during a pandemic and the Biden administration should take immediate action by lifting broad sectoral sanctions to ensure every country can adequately respond to the pandemic. </p><p><b>8. Not doing enough to support peace and humanitarian aid for Yemen. </b>Biden appeared to partially fulfill his promise to stop U.S. support for the war in Yemen when he announced that the U.S. would stop selling “offensive” weapons to the Saudis. But he has yet to explain what that means. Which weapons sales has he canceled? </p><p>We think he should stop ALL weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, enforcing the Leahy Law that prohibits military assistance to forces that commit gross human rights violations, and the Arms Export Control Act, under which imported U.S. weapons may be used only for legitimate self defense. There should be no exceptions to these U.S. laws for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, Egypt or other U.S. allies around the world.</p><p>The U.S. should also accept its share of responsibility for what many have called the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today, and provide Yemen with funding to feed its people, restore its health care system and rebuild its devastated country. A recent donor conference netted just $1.7 billion in pledges, less than half the $3.85 billion needed. Biden should restore and expand USAID funding and U.S. financial support to the UN, WHO and World Food Program relief operations in Yemen. He should also press the Saudis to reopen the air and seaports, and throw U.S. diplomatic weight behind the efforts of U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths to negotiate a ceasefire. </p><p><b>9) Failing to back President Moon Jae-in's diplomacy with North Korea. </b>Trump's failure to provide sanctions relief and explicit security guarantees to North Korea doomed his diplomacy and became an obstacle to the diplomatic process under way between Korean presidents Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, who is himself the child of North Korean refugees. So far, Biden has continued this policy of Draconian sanctions and threats.</p><p>The Biden administration should revive the diplomatic process with confidence-building measures such as opening liaison offices, easing sanctions, facilitating reunions between Korean-American and North Korean families, permitting U.S. humanitarian organizations to resume their work when COVID conditions permit, and halting U.S.-South Korea military exercises and B-2 nuclear bomb flights. </p><p>Negotiations must involve concrete commitments to non-aggression from the U.S. side and a commitment to negotiating a peace agreement to formally end the Korean War. This would pave the way for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and the reconciliation that so many Koreans desire — and deserve. </p><p><b>10) No initiative to reduce U.S. military spending.</b> At the end of the Cold War, former senior Pentagon officials told the Senate Budget Committee that U.S. military spending could safely be cut by half over the next 10 years. That goal was never achieved, and instead of a post-Cold War “peace dividend,” the military-industrial complex exploited the crimes of Sept. 11, 2001 to justify an extraordinary one-sided arms race. Between 2003 and 2011, the U.S. accounted for 45% of global military spending, far outstripping its own peak Cold War military spending. </p><p>Now the military-industrial complex is counting on Biden to escalate a renewed Cold War with Russia and China as the only plausible pretext for further record military budgets that are setting the stage for World War III.</p><p>Biden must dial back U.S. conflicts with China and Russia, and instead begin the critical task of moving money from the Pentagon to urgent domestic needs. He should start with at least the 10 percent cut that 93 Representatives and 23 Senators already voted for. In the longer term, Biden should look for deeper cuts in Pentagon spending, as in Rep. Barbara Lee's bill to cut $350 billion per year from the U.S. military budget, to free up resources we sorely need to invest in health care, education, clean energy and modern infrastructure.</p><p><b>A Progressive Way Forward</b></p><p>These policies, common to Democratic and Republican administrations, not only inflict pain and suffering on millions of our neighbors in other countries but also deliberately cause instability that can at any time escalate into war, plunge a formerly functioning state into chaos or spawn a secondary crisis whose human consequences will be even worse than the original one.</p><p>All these policies involve deliberate efforts to unilaterally impose the political will of U.S. leaders on other people and countries, by methods that consistently only cause more pain and suffering to the people they claim - or pretend - they want to help.</p><p>Biden should jettison the worst of Obama’s and Trump’s policies, and instead, pick the best of them. Trump, recognizing the unpopular nature of U.S. military interventions, began the process of bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, which Biden should follow through on. </p><p>Obama’s diplomatic successes with Cuba, Iran and Russia demonstrated that negotiating with U.S. enemies to make peace, improve relations and make the world a safer place is a perfectly viable alternative to trying to force them to do what the United States wants by bombing, starving and besieging their people. This is in fact the core principle of the United Nations Charter, and it should be the core principle of Biden’s foreign policy.</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202705004173953340.post-15236194096284667332021-03-24T16:04:00.003-04:002021-03-24T16:04:21.171-04:00Asians and Asian Americans Living in Pittsburgh Fear Harassment and Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://9b16f79ca967fd0708d1-2713572fef44aa49ec323e813b06d2d9.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/1140x_a10-7_cTC/GA-PARLOR-SHOOTINGS-7-6-1616149473.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="800" height="280" src="https://9b16f79ca967fd0708d1-2713572fef44aa49ec323e813b06d2d9.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/1140x_a10-7_cTC/GA-PARLOR-SHOOTINGS-7-6-1616149473.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Nancy Riley-James, 42, reacts at the makeshift memorial outside Gold Spa on March 18, 2021.</i></p><p><b>By Bill Schackner</b></p><p><i>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</i></p><p>MAR 19, 2021 - Christina Ong, a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, has never been harassed on the street herself, but reading about the rise of anti-Asian incidents nationally made her nervous in recent months to leave her Bloomfield apartment alone.</p><p>“I left my house maybe once every two weeks, and that really impacted my physical and mental health,” she said Thursday. </p><p>“I generally think I am a really optimistic person and enjoy being around people, but I have these underlying worries that people are perceiving me in a certain way. I am wearing a mask, but they still can tell I’m Asian. So, is there going to be retribution?”</p><p>Even before a deadly mass shooting Tuesday in Atlanta drew public outrage, fear had been quietly building for months in cities, including Pittsburgh, where thousands of Asians and Asian Americans live, work and study on its campuses. </p><p><b>Asian women say shootings point to relentless, racist tropes</b></p><p>Irrational rhetoric blaming them for the COVID-19 pandemic, some spread on social media, has added to what some see as a more deeply rooted bias against Asians.</p><p>The suspect in the Atlanta attacks told investigators he wanted to eliminate a source of his sexual addiction, police said. But after months of escalating incidents, some violent, it was not lost on many in the general public that six of the eight people killed in multiple massage parlor attacks were Asian women.</p><p>Agencies — from the FBI and Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, to lawmakers and advocacy groups around the country — say they are monitoring the string of incidents.</p><p>“The lethal wave of xenophobia and racism towards the [Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders] community calls the ‘Beloved Community’ to lock arms in unity to denounce these acts,” commission Executive Director Chad Dion Lassiter said.</p><p>Moved by mounting incidents, Penn State University officials this month reiterated earlier assurances from school President Eric Barron to international students and others, including those of Asian descent.</p><p>“You are welcome here,” he wrote. “Your presence enriches our university and the educational experience of all of our students.”</p><p><b>Hundreds in Atlanta rally against hate after spa shootings</b></p><p>Ms. Ong, 28, whose grandparents are from China, is from Sacramento, Calif. She is studying sociology and also works as a researcher for the Asian American Pacific Islander COVID-19 project. As such, she has heard firsthand stories of Asian Americans who have been the victims of harassment. She said women are more likely than men to be harassed in the street, and blue-collar and older individuals are more visible and thus vulnerable. </p><p>The problem is affecting behaviors as routine as grocery shopping.</p><p>“In conducting interviews with people across the country for this project, I’ve heard stories of people saying, like, ‘Yeah, well, when I’m in the grocery store, I … have to run to an aisle that’s empty because I don’t want to cough or sneeze around other people,’” Ms. Ong said. (continued)<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>She shares an apartment in Bloomfield but moved home to Sacramento in August, in part because she did not own a car and did not want to rely on a bus — or walking — especially these days.</p><p>According to U.S. Census data, 57,000 Asians reside in the eight counties surrounding Pittsburgh, all but about 10,000 in Allegheny County.</p><p><b>Not a new problem</b></p><p>A little over a year ago, there were just 12 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. None were in Pennsylvania.</p><p>Even so, Asian and Asian American students were facing xenophobia and racism, Marian Lien, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the time. She could not immediately be reached Thursday.</p><p>Classmates asked one college student to put on a mask to attend class, even though the student had not recently been to China. Another said dormmates had asked her to move to a single room, Ms. Lien said.</p><p>Businesses were affected, too, including one Chinese restaurant owner who said profits at the time were 50% below normal.</p><p>Following the Atlanta attack earlier this week, Pitt’s Asian Studies Center posted to its website a strong condemnation:</p><p>“Because the victims are Asian, this act of violence, following on other acts in different parts of the country, produces a threat that is profoundly serious and deeply felt by our community of students, faculty and staff,” it read in part.</p><p>Joseph Alter, the center’s director, said he has not heard of any high-profile cases of harassment in Pittsburgh. But he said social media vitriol against Asians and cases of violence against Asians in other parts of the country has led to a general sense of anxiety.</p><p>“There’s a palpable sense of fear and anxiety amongst the community that we represent,” he said.</p><p>“If you are driving to a neighborhood that is new and unfamiliar, and you stop at a red light and a car pulls up next to you, you don’t know what they’re thinking. But you think that they may be thinking about everything that is circulating through social media,” he explained. </p><p>“And so it’s incredibly demoralizing. And it produces this kind of pervasive sense of stress.”</p><p>Ms. Ong said Asian men and women are often discriminated against in distinct ways.</p><p>“Asian men are racialized as emasculated. And that’s super harmful to their psyche,” she said. “Asian women are racialized generally as, like, exotic or … sexual objects, essentially, which is what the Atlanta shooting really exemplifies.”</p><p>She added, “I think there might be this misconception that once everyone’s vaccinated, when things are back to in person … all that hate rhetoric will go away. But we know that’s not true.”</p><p>Bill Schackner: bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter @Bschackner. The Post-Gazette’s Joel Jacobs contributed to this story.</p>Carl Davidsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00215874972566616424noreply@blogger.com0