Medea Benjamin's Blog, page 18

Americans on long-term hunger strike to close Gitmo prison

by Medea Benjamin

Unreported in the mainstream press is the dramatic long-term hunger strike by a group of Americans in solidarity with the hunger strikers in Guantanamo prison. The fasters include CODEPINK cofounder Diane Wilson (on a water-only fast since May 1), Veterans for Peace member Brian Wilson (May 12), and former president of Veterans for Peace, Elliott Adams. Below is an interview with Elliott Adams, who began his hunger strike on May 17.

Why did you decide to take this dramatic action, which entails such personal sacrifice?

What is happening in Guantanamo is despicable. Just think about it: 86 prisoners are cleared by the government– the Department of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security over a year ago, and they’re still being held. Many of them have been held for over 11 years!

Now the prisoners’ access to their attorneys has also been reduced. They have a new rule that to meet with their attorneys, they have to go through a draconian search process, which includes people touching their genitals and anus, violating their religion.

The prisoners in Guantanamo are desperate. They see no sign that they will ever get out of that place. They’ve tried the legal route but now realize that even though the government has decided not to charge them and admits that they’re not a threat to US national security, they’re still going to be held. The only way they can see to get out is to starve themselves.  That is a level of desperation that Americans don’t understand.  And instead of releasing them or giving them trials, the government is brutally force-feeding them.

It’s disgusting. It’s a violation of our moral and religious principles, international law, national law; it’s a violation of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the things that are supposed to define America. It goes against the very principles I thought the American flag stood for when I was a young man.

I just can’t sit and enjoy my life when my country is doing such terrible things to these people. It’s up to us to force our government to get them out of there.

How are you feeling physically?  Have you lost a lot of weight?

I’m losing 1-1.5 pounds every day. I got rid of excess fat, and I can physically see my muscles deteriorating. I feel tired at times.

As soon as you start a long-term fast, your electrolytes get out of balance; you face potential heart problems. Once you start digesting the body a little bit, you immediately face potential kidney damage. The reduced diet may lead to nerve damage. It can be a very high-risk thing to be doing. There is also the aspect that it is uncomfortable not to eat.

But these are tiny things compared to what those men at Guantanamo are experiencing.

Have you done any hunger strikes in the past?

This is the first indefinite one I’ve done. The last one I had to stop after nine days due to health problems.

How long are you planning to continue the hunger strike?  What will convince you to start eating again?

My hunger strike is open-ended. I don’t know when we’ll see significant motion but I need to see some real action, not just nice words.

What has been the reaction of your family and friends?

Most of the people who love me think it’s crazy; it’s wrong; it’s stupid.  Fortunately, my wife is still putting up with me.  She’s been very patient for many, many years.

How do you feel about the fact that dozens of hunger strikers are being force-fed every day?

It’s really simple: it’s torture. So says the American Medical Association, the World Medical Association, and anybody with a conscience. To force-feed a conscious person is torture.

What do you think President Obama should be doing?

He should start by invoking the national security waiver that allows him to release the 86 prisoners who have been cleared for release.  He needs to stop talking and take action.

It reminds me of when George McGovern ran for president in 1972. People said to him, “You’re in favor of getting out of Vietnam, but that’s a really complicated issue.  How do you do that?”  His answer was, “I’d try ships and planes.”  It’s time we start getting people out—on ships and planes.

Do you see similarities between the way prisoners in Guantanamo are treated and prisoners in the US are treated?

Yes, absolutely. In both cases, we have situations that are immoral.  Here in the US we’ve been holding prisoners in solitary confinement, 24 hours a day by, for decades! It’s as wrong as what’s happening at Guantanamo, just a different flavor of torture and abuse.

Do you think military courts can provide Guantanamo prisoners with a fair trial?

No, of course not—that’s why they created the military courts.  In an extreme hierarchy like the military, you cannot have a fair trial.  The judge, the prosecutor, the jury—everybody is subject to what they’re told.  That’s the way it works.  It’s like saying the Spanish Inquisition or Salem Witch Hunt held fair trials.  The whole idea of a military trial is an oxymoron.

More importantly, our civilian court system works.  We have certainly tried and handled in our court system people far worse than those at Guantanamo. We can handle it. We can give them a fair trial.

Why do you think President Obama is not releasing those prisoners in Guantanamo who have been cleared for release?

Somewhere in the hierarchy of the Democrat party, someone is thinking it will cost votes.  They calculate that if they release the cleared prisoners, the Republicans will call them soft on terrorists.  That is why we have to build grassroots support for releasing the prisoners.  We have to make it a good political move for them.  We have to force our government to do what’s right.

What do you say to Americans who think the Guantanamo prisoners are “the worst of the worst” and should stay there?

I don’t think those people know much about these prisoners. I think they ought to educate themselves, and then they’ll discover that it’s pure hogwash—these people are not the worst of the worst.  I can guarantee you the US prisons hold people far worse than those at Guantanamo, people so fundamentally mean you wouldn’t even believe it. I’m not saying all of the people at Guantanamo are saints, but to say that they are the worst of the worst is a misunderstanding. In fact, our own government has determined that the majority of them should be cleared because they represent no threat to US society.

How do you think the situation at Guantanamo is seen overseas, particularly in the Muslim world?

People all over the world have lost respect for us because they see us violating the principles we are supposed to stand for and the principles of international law. In the eyes of the world, Guantanamo delegitimizes the government, the country, and even you and me because we’re paying for it. That’s why I think Guantanamo is a risk to our national security.

It’s also a violation of the American dream, the “grand experiment” that President Abraham Lincoln referred to. We can’t sit idly by while that experiment is ruined.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of www.codepink.org and www.globalexchange.org. To help shut down Gitmo, go to www.closegitmo.net.

Follow the Money: F-35 basing in Vermont Sweet for Developers

by Medea Benjamin and James Marc Leas

Is the Vermont Air National Guard being used for corrupt purposes having nothing to do with its military mission? The answer is yes. Big time. And for big money. In the article, “Those who “Fudged” Should not be Allowed to Judge” we described how military brass fudged their own scoring process to get Senator Leahy’s home state of Vermont on the list as the “preferred alternative” for basing the F-35. We know who loses: thousands of Vermonters whose homes are in noise and crash zones. This article will follow the money to see who benefits from the corrupt practices of the military brass who fudged.

The developers who stand to gain the big money did not have to invest their own dollars to position themselves. They got the taxpayers to do that for them. The City of Burlington applied for and received a federal grant of $40 million to buy 200 families out of their affordable homes near the airport entrance, and the City now holds title to most of those homes. 55 have so far been demolished. Another hundred homes stand vacant awaiting demolition. Other homes are awaiting purchase for demolition.

The federal government put up the money to buy those 200 homes as “mitigation” for noise being made by the F-16 jet fighter currently flown by the Vermont Air National Guard at the local Burlington International Airport. The 200 homes are in a zone that is being blasted by a noise level from the F-16 jets that the federal government considers so loud that their neighborhood is “unsuitable for residential use.” A report about Burlington International Airport prepared for the Federal Aviation Administration (the “FAA report”) says that “land acquisition and relocation is the only alternative that would eliminate the residential incompatibility” with that noise level (page 29).

Certain Vermont officials, including Senator Leahy and Governor Shumlin, continue to repeatedly suggest that the F-35, which the Air Force draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) says is more than four times louder than the F-16, would be fine for thousands more Vermont families who live in affordable neighborhoods of Winooski, Burlington, Williston, and South Burlington Vermont. The Air Force draft EIS says the F-35 would put 3410 homes within that same noise contour that the federal government considers “unsuitable for residential use.”

But here is how the developers stand to make their millions: according to a chart in the FAA report (page 6), different land uses have different federally mandated noise limits. Noise levels that make a home “unsuitable for residential use” are perfectly fine for commercial and industrial use. This may be because residential use generally involves children going out to play, open windows during spring, summer, and fall, family conversation, and sleeping. Hotels and other commercial buildings may have permanently closed windows and incorporate other measures in design and construction to achieve substantial sound reduction. This difference in FAA mandated noise limits is what the big money people will exploit.

The FAA report indicates that the land left after the homes are demolished within the high noise contours is not scheduled to be left as green space. Taking into account the fact that land unsuitable for residential use can still be used for commercial and industrial activity, the FAA report calls for adoption of a “Reuse Plan.” In fact, the FAA report says, “preparation of a property reuse plan is an FAA grant requirement.” Thus, the affordable residential properties the City of Burlington acquired with $40 million of federal funds in South Burlington are officially being demolished for the purpose of making the land available for the non-residential commercial reuses.

The emptied land from those 200 families is being eyed by certain developers who stand to make lots of money by putting up commercial buildings near the airport entrance—similar to the commercial development one sees at other airports. The president of one of the state’s biggest commercial developers, Ernie Pomerleau, is a member of the Airport Strategic Planning Committee. Its meetings openly discuss things like building hotels and other commercial real estate on land next to the airport that used to be a thriving community of tiny affordable homes. In an interview on WPTZ TV on June 6, 2013 Pomerleau said, “”Should there be a hotel? Yea, if it works for Burlington and South Burlington I would fully encourage that.”

Vermont Air Guard vastly increased F-16 noise

Commercial flights had nothing to do with driving out the 200 families. The Air Force draft EIS states that “The contribution of civilian aircraft is negligible compared to the military aircraft contribution” to Burlington airport noise (page BR4-21). In the neighborhood near the airport entrance, the major component of F-16 noise comes from the use of the afterburner by F-16s for routine takeoffs.

Routine afterburner use on takeoff was not required with the original configuration of the F-16. Only when the Vermont Air Guard switched from an external fuel tank located under the fuselage to tanks mounted under the wings did pilots find that they needed to use the afterburner for takeoff.

The F-16 fuel tanks, the afterburner, the noise, and federal funds were all methodically and smoothly used to remove the two hundred families living peacefully in affordable homes. Without any hearing, a thriving community of affordable homes was destroyed in favor of the Vermont Air Guard changing the position of its external fuel tank—and in favor of making this consolidated acreage available to commercial developers.

The only remaining obstacle between those developers and giant profits is the level of South Burlington City Government willingness to rezone the newly vacated land from residential to commercial.

Buying an election in Vermont

Just in time to push that rezoning for commercial development, heavily moneyed interests recently formed a political action committee (PAC) and spent an unprecedented amount to almost literally purchase seats on the South Burlington City Council for two pro-developer candidates in the March 2013 election. While the amount spent was among the highest ever to buy a city council seat in Vermont, it is a tiny fraction of the projected gain developers can expect from redeveloping the land when the remaining houses are torn down and Burlington makes the land available to the commercial developers.

The Air Force says the F-35 is more than four times louder than the F-16. Just as F-16 noise was vastly increased and harnessed to acquire federal money for use to eliminate residential neighborhoods and make their valuable real estate near the airport entrance available to commercial developers, F-35 noise might in another way work magic for the developers: to facilitate major airport expansion goals. The F-35 is so loud that any amount of noise from the goal of doubling commercial jet traffic will be totally negligible compared to the F-35 noise. Just as the shift in the F-16’s external fuel tanks and routine afterburner use is now being leveraged to remove housing near the airport entrance for commercial development, continued massive military jet noise from the F-35 can be leveraged for ambitious airport expansion to pass zoning and Vermont environmental review.

The fudge reported by the Boston Globe may only be the frosting on the cake.

The ones who “fudge” should not be the ones to judge

With thousands of Vermont families and their homes at risk, with the integrity of the Air Force basing process undermined, with questions swirling about whether facts or political influence drives the basing decision, and with personal gain by a certain commercial developer an underlying factor, an independent and impartial investigation is needed to determine whether the numbers were fudged, and if so by whom and at whose behest. If indeed numbers were fudged, the Pentagon officials who fudged should not be allowed to continue to be the ones to make the final decision. And they should be prosecuted.

No more tricks–the process was fixed, the F-35 should be nixed

If fudging was essential for Burlington to come out on top, that alone should be enough to stop the process. Honest Vermont public officials and the Vermont Air National Guard should now join with local residents and Burlington area clergy in asking the Air Force to skip Burlington for the first F-35 basing round.

But we can have no confidence in view of a money-soaked scheme by which noise zones are being put to use to drive personal gain for rich commercial developers while thousands more families in affordable homes are being put at risk.

Now is the time to build a national grass roots movement demanding an immediate halt in any plan to base the F-35 in Burlington or anywhere else and to call for canceling the entire F-35 program.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of the peace group www.codepink.org and the human right group www.globalexchange.org. James Marc Leas is a patent lawyer in South Burlington Vermont and is active with the http://www.stopthef35.com/ coalition

CODEPINK Delegation to Yemen- Day 1

By Jodie Evans

2 a.m. and Tighe and I just arrived to Sana’a International Airport.

An hour later Terry, Pam and Bob got in.  We arrived to our hotel in the Old city of Sana’a and were ready for some sleep. An hour into our sleep, we woke up to the beautiful sound of the fajr athan (the call of prayer).  We drifted off for a few hours and woke up again at 7 a.m. We enjoyed a tasty breakfast with our new friend Luai, and then headed together to our first meeting across town.

We were greeted by Abdul Rahman Barman, a HOOD lawyer who represents Abdulelah Haider Shaye and many of the Guantanamo prisoners and US drone survivors. Despite Abdul Rahman being one of the busiest men in Yemen, he was kind enough to set aside time to talk and share stories, information, and photos with us.

He holds the violence of the drone attacks in his heart and describes the devastation it’s left on young lives. His team works for Human Rights in Yemen and obviously have their hands full. After a little while, we were joined by Baraa Shiban, the project coordinator from Reprieve, the human rights group based in London.

Listening to Abdul Rahman and Baraa speak, we learned how former President Saleh took advantage of Al-Qaida’s growing presence in the Arabian Peninsula — or better known as AQAP– and would exaggerate the threat to the United States to secure funding for himself. We also learned through US cable leaks in 2012 that Saleh gave the U.S. “an open door to terrorism”. This strategy was counter-productive and strengthened and helped AQAP grow.   When a loved one is killed for no reason by our counter-terrorism policies, and their deaths are being denied by both Yemeni and U.S. governments, Yemenis feel that there is no other way but to seek revenge and join a militant group. They mention that in some cases, you even see recruitment happening in the jails, where petty thieves come out as Al-Qaida operatives, motivated again by revenge.

Everyone we met today had the same message– the only answer to the violence is dialogue.  During our HOOD meeting, we were told that many in AQAP want to be in dialogue and reintegrated into society, but the Yemeni government and U.S. government continues to alienate them by refusing dialogue and dropping bombs.

In our second meeting we met with The Youth Organizing Committee. They told us that the key component of their work during the revolution was dialogue. Those who had grievances came together and spent 3 weeks learning to trust each other and find points of unity and common ground. Their goal was to get rid of Saleh and collectively build towards transition and a new post-revolutionary Yemen.

The CODEPINK delegation to Yemen met with families of Guantanamo prisoners today. This family has agreed to join CP to meet with the US Ambassador to Yemen to discuss closing Gitmo.

Despite Yemenis being strongly opposed to the drone strikes and Guantanamo Bay Prison, Yemenis say the bigger and underlying issue is a humanitarian and economic crisis. At least half of Yemen’s population are forced to worry about where they will be getting their next meal from. In addition to food insecurity, education, electricity and other basic needs are also being ignored by the Yemeni government.

At the offices of the Yemen Polling Center we were given the results of their last security concerns poll — we were surprised to learn that drones or Al-Qaida didn’t register. The view from the US is that AQAP has a huge stronghold in Yemen; however, there is more fear of the well armed and much larger militias that the power struggling tribal leaders have, which has lent to whispers of a swiftly approaching civil war. The more powerful factions in the militia-citizen dynamic are funded by the United States, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Such a power play is reinforced by racism in electoral representation: for example, the tribe that experiences the most racism consists of 2 million of the 24 million in Yemen but has one seat of the 500.

Our friends here tell us that they have watched the country dissolve over the last 11 years and what is really missing is a country the people feel allegiance to. Corruption, warring factions and a horrific US-backed dictator have unraveled and destroyed the infrastructure of Yemen. Yemenis have been turned against each other by power interests just like in Iraq and Syria. A proxy war is taking place and everyone has power but those who live here.

Money is spent on Yemen but not “in” Yemen; instead of investing in development and education, billions have been wasted on the militarization of the country which in return, uses that force against its own people. It is beyond heartbreaking.

Yemen is so beautiful. The streets is full of the honking of horns, explosions of firecrackers at a distant wedding and the barking of dogs. Here in the old city the electricity just went off so we are in the pitch dark. What stays with me the most from the day was the generosity and kindness of the Yemenis we met. They are grateful that we are here showing a different kind of support from what they are used to by the international community, listening and standing in solidarity with the Yemeni people’s right to self-determination.

Electricity is back on and I must send this in this window of opportunity. Until tomorrow.

How Broke Does the U.S. Have to Be to Cut Military Spending?

by Lisa Savage and Janet Weil

How broke does the U.S. have to be to reduce military spending?

The omnibus military spending bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)  rolled out of the House Armed Services Committee pulling a trailer load of amendments. In the same week as news broke of school closings in Chicago and Philadelphia for lack of funding, only two members of the committee, California representatives Jackie Speier and John Garamendi, had the presence of mind to vote “no” on $637.5 billion more for drones, nukes, and missile “defense” in FY2014.

The NDAA speeds through a House of Representatives packed with liberals and conservatives who take massive campaign contributions from military contracting firms. Democrats take their lead from President Obama, who proposed the $1.15 trillion annual budget that includes a whopping 56.5% military share of the discretionary spending pie.

Source: National Priorities Project

Despite sequestration and claims that the U.S. is too broke to adequately fund food stamps, Head Start, or “Meals-on-wheels” for the elderly, the NDAA contains $85.8 billion for the war in Afghanistan plus another $7.7 billion for the Afghan Security Forces. These funding levels are $52.2 billion over what sequestration would supposedly require — an additional $1 billion a week.

The House Armed Services Committee also passed a “Sense of Congress” endorsement of a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014 as well as ongoing funding for the Afghan Security forces. Thus the U.S. “withdraws” from Afghanistan.

Why does Congress keep voting for military spending when the U.S. is supposedly so broke?

It is as if they have never seen the study by economists at the University of Massachusetts, “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending,” demonstrating that investing in any other sector produces more jobs than putting money into the military. Funding education, manufacturing energy efficient home components or light rail, even just giving taxpayers cash rebates, generate up to twice as many full-time, full-benefit jobs as building weapons does.

As military spending has continued to gobble up more than half the federal spending pie every year of the Obama administration, economic conditions have continued to deteriorate for the majority of people in the U.S. According to the U.S Census, 13 percent of people in the U.S. now live in poverty. Children fare even worse: 1 in 6 live below the federal poverty line. Job growth following the financial crisis of 2008 occurred almost entirely in sectors where workers do not make a living wage, and economic migration to the U.S. has slowed. Entire generations are struggling with historically high levels of debt for education.

How broke do we have to be before Congress really reduces military spending? It’s past time to bring our war dollars home and put them to work meeting people’s needs.

Austerity is no basis for true security.

CODEPINK Statement Regarding Twitter

We would like to apologize for our recent actions that displayed an undeniable insensitivity to persons of color, especially women of color.

As an organization, we strive to speak truth to power and stand for human rights for all. We respect intersectionality and strive to stay aware of the many forms of privilege among our group. We would like to make an unequivocal apology to Michelle Obama, Alicia Keys, and everyone who took offense to messages we posted on Twitter.

By tweeting about how Michelle Obama “should have” responded to Ellen Sturtz’s interruption, we behaved in such a way that reflected a long history of white women dictating how Black women should behave. Our actions were not in keeping with our own values as an organization. While yesterday’s interruption was not a CODEPINK action, it is exemplary of CODEPINK tactics, and the way we responded to it was insensitive and thoughtless.

When the process of petitioning, lobbying and writing letters fails, and when mainstream media ignores the real issues, interruptions of high-profile officials are one tactic to make our voices heard. Because it crosses the line of agreed-upon civility, this tactic is always messy.

We appreciate all the people who gave us instant feedback over Twitter and it has been and will continue to be a learning opportunity for CODEPINK. We are immediately reviewing our process and criteria for social media use, as an organization, and we invite any of our our critics to speak with us directly about issues of race and privilege in order to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

Onward to peace and justice,

The CODEPINK Staff

Leaving Truth Outside at Bradley Manning’s Trial

By Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright

“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.” –H.L. Mencken

It was an early morning, getting out to Ft. Meade, Maryland by 7am to join the group of hearty activists standing out in the rain, greeting the journalists coming into the Bradley Manning hearing with chants of “Whistleblowing is not a crime, Free Bradley Manning.” The activists, many with groups like The Bradley Manning Support Committee, Veterans for Peace, CODEPINK and Iraq Vets Against the War, had come from all over the country to show support for Manning during the upcoming weeks of the trial.

After a stint at the bullhorn, we got into the car to drive onto the base and get on line to try to get into the courtroom or the overflow room. With Ann Wright’s retired military ID, we got to bypass the long line of cars snaking around the checkpoint and breeze right in. About a dozen people were already on line, in the rain. Some were well-known characters, like professor Cornel West, author Chris Hedges, lawyer Michael Ratner and ACLU lawyer Ben Wisner; others were individuals who had come from as far away as Ireland and Mexico to support Manning.

It’s great that court martial trials are open to the public. But it’s absurd that this epic trial is being held in a tiny courtroom that only fits a total of 50 people. “It’s a trial of the century being conducted in a shoebox,” complained attorney Michael Ratner. Only 16 spaces were allocated to the public; the rest had to go to an overflow theatre that seated about 100, or a trailer next to the courtroom with room for 35. The press had a separate room where they could bring their computers and phones, although they were not allowed to transmit anything during the trial—just during the breaks.

Going through security for the courtroom, we were not allowed to bring any electronics. And there was a bit of a dust-up around t-shirts: some people with slogans on their shirts were made to turn them inside out, while others escaped the censors. It seems that “LOVE”, “Peace” and “Stay Human” could sneak by, but “TRUTH” and “Free Bradley” didn’t make it.

Once inside, we immediately saw the back of Bradley Manning’s shaved head, and his wire-rimmed glasses jutting out from the side. “He looks just like my grandson,” said CODEPINK Barbara Briggs from Sebastapol, California. “How tragic that this 25-year-old is facing life in prison.”

It was also sad to see that almost none of Manning’s family was there—only an aunt and cousin.

Manning had requested a court-martial by judge rather than by a jury of his peers.The judge, Colonel Denise Lind, said last month she would close parts of the trial to the public to protect classified material.

The Prosecution presented its opening statement using an extensive power point that detailed the charges and specifications, and a brief synopsis that the testimony each witness will give.  The Prosecution said that FPC Manning had purposefully aided and abetted the enemy through the Wikileaks documents that Manning downloaded. He concluded by saying that Osama bin Laden requested and received a copy of internal U.S. military logs of the war in Afghanistan from another member of al-Qaeda.

The Defense’s opening statement responded that Manning is young and naïve but with good intentions.  Manning’s attorney David Coombs said Manning thought that the public should know what goes on in war and how one’s government operates.  He was troubled by the response of the government to requests for information from the Reuters news agency concerning the deaths of their journalists from an Apache helicopter attack (the video now known as Collateral Murder), as well as the 2009 Gharani air strike that killed 150 civilians.  Coombs insisted that Manning made the documents available for the public, not for the enemy, and that the documents leaked were largely publicly available information with no critical intelligence sources.

At a pretrial hearing in February, Manning admitted to 10 offenses that could land him 20 years in prison. But the government insisted on upping the ante by accusing him of “aiding the enemy”—a charge that could result in life in prison. The court-martial may take 2 or 3 months to complete the presentation of evidence for the 12 counts to which Manning has not plead guilty. Numerous secret witnesses will be testifying for the prosecution.

While the “aiding the enemy” charge is going to be very difficult to prove, Michael Ratner, the president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the fact that the government is pursuing this charge ”sends a message to every soldier and every journalist that they are literally taking their lives in their hands if they dare speak out against wrongdoing.”

Manning’s trial, which is slated to last three months, is the most stark example of the Obama administration’s relentless stance against whistleblowers. “This president has tried to prosecute six whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, twice as many as all previous presidencies combined,” said Cornell West. “President Obama is determined to stop the public from knowing about government wrongdoing.”

In pretrial proceedings, Manning said his motivation was to “spark a domestic debate over the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” Certainly that debate is long overdue. So is the debate about right of the public to be informed about what our governments are doing in our name.

 

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org), cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart., and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).

Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.  She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia.  In December, 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  She is the co-author of the book “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”  (www.voicesofconscience.com)

Medea Benjamin: that woman is worth paying attention to Mr. President

By HP Charman MD.

A fearless little CodePink lady upstaged your counter terrorism speech

And challenged every point you were trying to preach

“You can close Guantánamo today”

But you won’t for your critics hold you at bay

Those innocents held without charges for years

Surely harbor justified feelings of revenge and you fear

One of them implicated in a future attack

Would permit your critics to put a knife in your back

And make the tragic ludicrous Benghazi perseveration

A romp in the park in comparison

And while you have justified killing with flowery rhetoric befitting our times

Medea constantly reminds you of your inescapable war crimes

For there is nothing precise about a drone attack

And the innocents killed represent a mark most black

On your soul that in the long run make us less safe for sure

As you are creating enemies by the score

And what about Abdulrahman Al-Alawki the 16 year old

Citizen you killed… And the truth about which you have not told

For what you are doing is giving yourself the right

To judge, to sentence and to kill with a drone on site

She urged you to end now the signature strikes with their

Tortured circular logic that equates age, sex and activity with terror

For with this definition your conscience is assuaged since by definition

Anyone killed is a terrorist and you require no contrition

So Mr. Pres. Nobel prize-winning assassin I contend

You have been confronted by a force of wisdom

You thought she had not been listening that you had not been heard

But the fact of the matter is she hung on each and every one of your words

And what she did not hear was you coming out with policies new

That would redeem you as a speaker of truth

Instead she heard your politically expedient blame

Justifying your actions and inactions in a manner most lame

No Mr. Pres. Nothing you said I think

Could begin to compare with the courageous lady from Code Pink

Listen Mr. Pres. She is showing you a path to salvation.

Close your ears and you’re headed for damnation

“Rumsfeld Lied, People Died”

By Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern Calfornia

 

When I heard that the war criminal known as Donald Rumsfeld would be appearing in the area, I could not wait to confront him. Along with handful of enlightened citizens and friends, we showed up at his event at the resting place of his fellow liar, Richard Nixon.

Along with two good friends at a cost of $50 each, we decided to enter the event as attendees and force ourselves to listen to more lies and also receive even bigger lies packed into his new book, “Rumsfeld’s [dumb] Rules.”

The venue was lit up and nearly full with empty heads in suits and satins. Then came the lying king to live music and he starts off with a complaint that the emcee’s introduction was “moderately good.” I do not know if he wanted us to know the length of his lying life or simply state his age but it went something like, “I am just about one third of our nation’s age and that it makes me old and our nation very young.” No kidding, I thought!

We had decided to give him some space to feel comfortable before launching our vocal missiles. So his other rants included the advice to his daughter that “she should not worry about who to work for but to find and hang out with intelligent people.”  I hope that the young lady would not consider her father in that category.

Then he expressed his shock that the “realities [of our nation] lie outside the 60 square miles of Washington.” I wish he had discovered that before “shocking” the mothers and their children of Iraq and later Afghanistan.  He followed that up with another obscene admission that “as a wrestler, I always look at things from my opponent’s perspective.”  I so wished he could have applied this rule to allow himself to see the world from the perspective of his millions of victims.

We three were getting a bit testy and restless. There came the opportunity when he said that what keeps him awake is “America’s weakness because we ‘only’ spend 4% of our GDP on defense.” That was it for us …

Brian stood up and yelled:  “The ends do not justify the means.” On hand were a bunch of paid uniformed goons to quickly drag Brian out. I stood up, following Brian’s cue, looked into the eyes of the liar and yelled: “Rumsfeld lied; people died!”

The well-lit venue with empty suits and satins were in shock at our uncivilized outbursts. “Take them out!  Throw them out!” were some of the compliments I was able to hear clearly from the empty suits and satins.

Oh yes, thrown out we were in a matter of seconds but not before those few precious seconds were captured on camera by a courageous grandmother and comrade. Click here to watch.

The lessons I learned from this adventure are that those who have destroyed the lives of others deserved to be yelled at, unashamedly. And that they are nothing more than empty suits and must be treated as such. And that this is the best expression of democracy. So I invite you now to visit your local bookstore and if you find the liar’s new book, Rumsfeld’s Rules – grab a copy or copies – and move them to the criminal section. This can be your important contribution to protect and defend our dying democracy. If, however, you’d like to join me next time another liar visits our town, you know well how and where to reach me. I cannot wait to have you by my side for our next adventure!

Get involved in CODEPINK’s Campaign to Arrest War Criminals.

Yemenis Have Moms Too

By Jodie Evans and Charles Davis

He disappeared more than a decade ago, just 18-years-old and teaching abroad, separated from  his family for the first time in life. His mother and father, sick with worry, heard nothing. For all they knew he was dead. Then, one day they opened a newspaper and learned their son was being held in a military prison run by the US of A, accused of – but never charged with – being an enemy of the state.

Were Abdurahman al-Shubati a US citizen, his case would be featured on CNN, his face plastered on television screens next to a graphic listing his days in prison without trial. Some go-getting entrepreneur would be selling yellow wristbands with his name and “#solidarity” printed on them. The president, affecting the right level of empathy for the family and strong but stately anger toward his captors, would be telling us: “Never forget” and “There will be justice.”

But Abdurahman was born in Yemen. Which means he’s not entitled to all those rights said to be endowed to us by our creator, at least in the eyes of the US government. And that means, despite being detained since 2001 and formally cleared of any wrongdoing in 2008, he remains trapped in a prison cell at Guantanamo Bay, slowly starving to death. A combination of racism, Islamophobia and simple guilt by association, have caused the U.S. government to keep him locked up.

Since Barack Obama became US president after pledging to close Guantanamo, which his administration is now seeking to expand, conditions at the military prison have only gotten worse, prisoners there who were once promised their freedom complaining of physical and mental torture. Though he has unilaterally waged war, Obama has decided that he can’t – nay, won’t – unilaterally free them. In fact, the opposite: he issued an executive order creating “a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.” The Obama administration has unilaterally decided that dozens of men will never be tried so much as in a military tribunal because the evidence against them was obtained through torture, but that they can never be freed because they are nonetheless deemed “too dangerous.”

Not that the US government is too keen on freeing anyone else, either. A US military committee has already determined that Abdurahman, like 57 other Yemenis imprisoned at Guantanamo, should be returned home; that he spent his 20s in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and with which he wasn’t even charged, much less convicted. Obama, however, refuses to release the men, ostensibly out of fear they may seek revenge against their former captors once they return to Yemen.

Understandably, this has created a sense of hopelessness among the 166 people still imprisoned at Guantanamo. More than 100 of them are now on a hunger strike. What other option is left them at this point? Because of their symbolic act of defiance, however, they are being tortured even more – “how dare you embarrass us by dying” – with US personnel force-feeding them to avoid another public relations problem (the United Nations says the practice is simply “unjustifiable”).

“Can you imagine what this is like for a mother?” asks Abdurahman’s own mom in an appeal for his freedom. “To imagine my son in such a loveless place, refusing nourishment to protest his detention; to think of him being painfully force fed – it breaks my heart every second of every day.  Don’t they realize we are human beings, not stones?”

As Mothers’ Day is celebrated this year in the US, a holiday in the fight for peace and justice, Abdurahman and more than a hundred others never charged with crimes will be sitting in prison cells, alone. George W. Bush will get to hug his mom. Michelle Obama will get to hug her children, but the mothers of Guantanamo prisoners don’t get to hug theirs- ever. The best they can hope for is a phone call every two months.

In an to women of the world, writer and activist Julia Ward Howe – the originator of the Mother’s Day we celebrate – implored her readers to not let their children become complicit in the machinery of war and injustice; to not let them unlearn the lessons they were taught “of charity, mercy and patience”; to not let them “be trained to injure others.”

Here in the 21st century, we need to relearn those lessons and focus on training our children to be instruments of peace, not oppression. Right now, too many kids of American mothers are making mothers in other countries cry. We need to teach them that the practice of compassion and mercy shouldn’t stop at one’s mailbox or a country’s borders. Mothers overseas are in anguish over the kidnapping and loss of their children too.

Join us in calling on Michelle Obama to open her heart to the cries of Abdurahman’s mother and ask Barack to send those cleared home and to expedite the closing of Guantanamo. Join Diane Wilson on her 11th day outside the White House and over 1000 others in a fast of solidarity with the prisoners.

Jodie Evans is the co-founder of CODEPINK @heartofj

Charles Davis is a writer living in Los Angeles @charliearchy

On Mother’s Day, Contact Michelle Obama

by Frances Mendenhall

Everyone knows the story of Amanda Berry, Gina deJesus, and Michelle Knight, the three Cleveland teens, now adults, who were kidnapped and held captive for 10 years or so by a sadistic sexual predator and his two brothers. The joy and relief of their families, to have their daughters back is unimaginable, and the rest of the country celebrates with them.

What we also need to remember, on this Mother’s Day, is the 170 prisoners still held in Guantanamo, in our name, with our tax dollars. Very few of the detainees at Guantanamo have been charged with anything, let alone brought to trial. Eighty-six of them have been cleared for release. Their plight is so desperate that over 100 of them have been fasting for the last three months, seeing death as the only way to escape their misery.

Many detainees have been at the prison for more than a decade, with no prospect for release or transfer, or even trial, in their future. Meanwhile, they have seen President Obama promise to close the prison in the first year of his administration, only to blame his failure to do so on divisive party politics. While blaming Congressional obstruction for blocking plans to close Guantanamo, he has even been reluctant to fight the political battles necessary to make any progress on the issue.

Who are the detainees? One cleared detainee is a British citizen, Shaker Aamer. He has been cleared for release twice, but is still behind bars after 11 years. Kuwaiti prisoner Fouzi Al Awda, has been held for 11 years while the Kuwaiti government, another US ally, has repeatedly called for his repatriation.

Many Americans believe that anyone detained at Guantanamo must be guilty of terrorism. However, just as the three women in Cleveland did nothing to deserve their abuse and captivity, many of the prisoners held in Guantanamo were picked up because someone in their village had a vendetta against them, or someone who wanted the reward, turned them in to the US military. For the most part, any detainee who has enough court-admissable evidence against him, has already been tried.

We all know how we feel about the injustices done to the young women in Cleveland. But for most of the detainees in Guantanamo, the injustice is also great, also deserving of our compassion. More compelling, however, for the detainees, we, whose elected officials act in our name, bear the responsibility.

What to do?

What can President Obama do? Congress has imposed unprecedented restrictions on detainee transfers, but President Obama still has the power to transfer men right now. He should use the certification/waiver process created by Congress to transfer detainees.

Nonetheless, repeated efforts to prompt the President to do the right thing have failed. Now, on Mother’s Day, it is time to lobby the First Lady.

Contact Michelle Obama:

Tell the President to Close Guantanamo

Fax # 202-456-2461