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In Foreign Policy Debate, Romney Capitulates, Agrees With Obama In Monday’s presidential debate, GOP contender Mitt Romney persistently avoided confronting President Obama on foreign policy issues, with both candidates agreeing on most fundamental issues.
(...) But what was I to expect? For years I ironically asserted that the best way to win a Nobel Peace Prize was to wage war or support those who wage war instead of peace. An overstatement perhaps, but take a look. (...)
A very thoughtful piece. Thank you.
Note that my remaining eye hates you. ::joking:: (It's hard to read these days.)
(...) But what was I to expect? For years I ironically asserted that the best way to win a Nobel Peace Prize was to wage war or support those who wage war instead of peace. An overstatement perhaps, but take a look. (...)
(...) All the main warring states were responsible for the brutal suppression of nations, large and small, throughout the racist despotisms that were their colonial empires. In the years leading up to the first world war an estimated 10 million Congolese died as a result of forced labour and mass murder under plucky Belgian rule; German colonialists carried out systematic genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples in today's Namibia; and tens of millions died in enforced or avoidable famines in British-ruled India, while Britain's colonial forces ran concentration camps in South Africa and meted out continual violent repression across the empire.
The idea that the war was some kind of crusade for democracy when most of Britain's population – including many men – were still denied the vote, and democracy and dissent were savagely crushed among most of those Britain ruled, is laughable. And when the US president, Woodrow Wilson, championed the right to self-determination to win the peace, that would of course apply only to Europeans – not the colonial peoples their governments lorded it over.
As the bloodbath exhausted itself, it unleashed mutinies, workers' revolts and revolutions, and the breakup of defeated empires, giving a powerful impetus to anti-colonial movements in the process. But the outcome also laid the ground for the rise of nazism and the even bloodier second world war, and led to a new imperial carve-up of the Middle East, whose consequences we are still living with today, including the Palestinian tragedy.
Unlike in 1940, Britain wasn't threatened with invasion or occupation in 1914, and Europe's people were menaced by the machinations of their masters, rather than an atavistic tyranny. Those who died didn't give their lives "for freedom"; they were the victims of an empire that was a stain on humanity, the cynicism of politicians and the despicable folly of the generals. As Harry Patch, last British survivor of the trenches who died three years ago, put it, the first world war was "nothing better than legalised mass murder". (...)
The pro-peace organization is having its national convention in downtown Miami this week, looking at past U.S. military involvement in Latin America to learn lessons for the future.
With pamphlets and peace buttons, bumper stickers and self-published books, the gray-haired veterans and eager young activists at the Veterans For Peace convention in Miami this week are out to educate America on the evils of war.
The national convention began on Wednesday at the Marriott in downtown Miami and is focused on “Liberating the Americas: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean.” Highlights include speeches from author Alice Walker and filmmaker and former TV talk host Phil Donahue. The convention concludes Saturday.
VFP president Leah Bolger explained that as the United States is wrapping up wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dancing around military engagement with Iran, and starting to pick sides in Syria, these veterans are trying to draw attention to the military mistakes of the past and the perils of fighting undeclared wars. She denounced the “war on drugs” and “war on terror” as a “huge waste of money and just a premise to intervene militarily” all over the world.
The focus on Latin America is also connected to the founding of VFP in 1985 when a group of Vietnam veterans organized to oppose the Reagan administration’s involvement in the civil wars and regime changes in the southern half of the hemisphere. The group has since protested U.S. support of Nicaraguan contras, funding of death squads in El Salvador and training of dictators in Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
In the early years of the Iraq war, the membership grew to over 4,000, but the organization has struggled to attract younger veterans returning from these conflicts. Bolger said that the soldiers of this generation “have to work so hard to heal themselves,” that they probably don’t have time for anti-war activism.
Veterans manning tables at the convention also offered literature on the prolonged detainment of Wikileaks informant Bradley Manning, the ongoing environmental impact of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and drone strikes in Pakistan. They commemorated the 65th anniversary of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki and petitioned for closing Guantánamo.
Yet with all these ideas and impassioned arguments, some participants were still frustrated with the lack of concrete action.
Peter Branson, a 78-year-old retired schoolteacher from New York City, said he wants VFP to talk to the “unconverted” who still support a bloated defense department and ambitious military campaigns.
“Most progressives want to demonstrate and carry banners and hold vigils, but our job needs to be to educate the American people,” Branson said. “We need to organize locally and act nationally.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/10/2944539/veterans-for-peace-convene-in.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy
A new AP/Gfk poll is showing that the trend of opposition to the Afghan War continues, with an overwhelming 66% of Americans now opposed to the conflict, with only 8 percent of Americans remaining “strongly” in support of it.
Surprisingly, the false narrative of Obama as in touch with the opposition to the war and moving to extricate America from the conflict remains at least somewhat intact, with a slight majority (53%) approving of President Obama’s handling of Afghanistan.
Still and all, every poll is securely showing a supermajority of voters in opposition to the Afghan War, and sooner or later it seems like that opposition must make the administration’s determination to escalate and extend the war is going to become a political liability.
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the questions
why in f**k are we still there?
what happened to sane people speaking out for peace?
f'n insane, and if you think this is ok or that we should tolerate this type of murder, time for a moral check up. we absolutely shouldn't put up with this. ignoring the law and intentionally taking innocent life isn't acceptable. somebody needs to speak up and stop this, like right now. please make a phone call.
"Contrary to false denials, the U.S., under the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been bombing Yemen for the last two years, including one attack using cluster bombs that killed dozens of civilians. But what's new is that this will be a CIA drone attack program that is a massive escalation over prior bombing campaigns." Know what you're paying for when you give the government money.
The US government sure has an interesting way of defining war these days. Just a few months after the Obama administration played word games with the public by insisting that air strikes in Libya were just "kinetic military action," not acts of war, the Pentagon has now come on the record stating that it will treat all acts of cyber-hacking against the US as "acts of war."
The announcement came on the heels of a supposed cyber-attack that occurred a few weeks ago against defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Officials say when hacking incidents like this occur in the future, retaliation in the form of reverse cyber-attacks, economic sanctions, and even "military strike" may take place.
"A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response," said Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. "All appropriate options would be on the table." A White House statement also said the US plans to "respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country," implying that computer hackers could soon face retaliatory attacks by the US military.
So when the US decides to invade foreign nations, often times without necessary congressional approval, it is just a simple act of exerting kinetic energy. But when a computer hacker correctly guesses a password and breaches the security protocols of the US government or one of its contracted companies, this is an act of war. And so it goes in the arbitrary world of the military-industrial complex, where definitions of war are applied only when it benefits the corporate oligarchy.
In truth, this latest cyber fear mongering out of the Pentagon is just another excuse for those running the US government to widen the scope of those it considers to be terrorists and enemies of the state. And now that the announcement has been made, you can expect to hear about many more "cyber-attacks" that will predicate convenient excuses to launch new kinetic military actions against nations, groups, and perhaps even fellow American citizens.
The US government sure has an interesting way of defining war these days. Just a few months after the Obama administration played word games with the public by insisting that air strikes in Libya were just "kinetic military action," not acts of war, the Pentagon has now come on the record stating that it will treat all acts of cyber-hacking against the US as "acts of war."
The announcement came on the heels of a supposed cyber-attack that occurred a few weeks ago against defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Officials say when hacking incidents like this occur in the future, retaliation in the form of reverse cyber-attacks, economic sanctions, and even "military strike" may take place.
"A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response," said Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. "All appropriate options would be on the table." A White House statement also said the US plans to "respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country," implying that computer hackers could soon face retaliatory attacks by the US military.
So when the US decides to invade foreign nations, often times without necessary congressional approval, it is just a simple act of exerting kinetic energy. But when a computer hacker correctly guesses a password and breaches the security protocols of the US government or one of its contracted companies, this is an act of war. And so it goes in the arbitrary world of the military-industrial complex, where definitions of war are applied only when it benefits the corporate oligarchy.
In truth, this latest cyber fear mongering out of the Pentagon is just another excuse for those running the US government to widen the scope of those it considers to be terrorists and enemies of the state. And now that the announcement has been made, you can expect to hear about many more "cyber-attacks" that will predicate convenient excuses to launch new kinetic military actions against nations, groups, and perhaps even fellow American citizens.
