Medea Benjamin's Blog, page 23

Ladies in Pink Slips: Learning from 10 Years of Creative Resistance to War

By Gayle Brandeis

Ten years ago, a group of women dressed in hot pink and stood in the snow in front of the White House to protest the looming war in Iraq. CODEPINK Women for Peace emerged that day, and we are thrilled this November, 2012, to be celebrating a decade of creative, colorful resistance.

Watch Our 10 Year Anniversary Video to find out what we've learned from a decade of bold protest!

We’ve learned a lot over these past ten years–about ourselves, about the world, about how to make a difference. Here are ten of our most profound lessons:

1. Be Bold

From the start, we knew that to change public opinion on the war, we would need to engage in bold, attention-getting actions that could push the issues onto the front page. Ever since, we’ve tried not to do anything timid, whether we’re dropping giant pink slip banners from the tops of buildings, or wrapping the world’s largest knitted scarf around the White House with a Mother’s Day call for peace, or assembling massive aerial images to make our message as loud and clear and communal as possible. Our hearts may pound when we launch these bold actions, but we’ve learned that the most amazing things happen when we push past our fear.

2. Disrupt Business as Usual

We refuse to be cornered into a protest pen.  We’ve learned it’s important to get inside, whether we’re in a congressional hearing, or disrupting a political convention, or staging citizens’ arrests during expensive fund raisers. The image of our own Desiree Fairooz holding up bloody hands to Condoleezza Rice was one of the most widely shared news images of 2007. If we want things to change, we need to expose the public relations efforts of the armed and dangerous, and what better way to do that than confront their propaganda head on?

3. Be a Rapid Responder

CODEPINK was founded to stop the war in Iraq before it even began, and ever since, we have been committed to responding immediately to any new crisis so we can expose injustice before it gets entrenched and inspire change. Whether we are delivering medical aid to Gaza immediately after Israeli bombing, or marching outside BP headquarters in Texas just after the oil spill, or creating a “Make Levees not War” action in the Tidal Basin in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and fundraising for relief efforts, or standing with Occupy Wall Street from day one, we are often one of the first progressive groups on the ground to be a voice for change. Witnessing the shift in warfare to using robotic planes, we staged protests outside of drone bases, led a delegation to Pakistan, and co-founder Medea Benjamin authored Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control in advance of major news coverage or academic studies on the topic of killer drones.  Right now, just one week after the election, we are in DC to call on President Obama and the newly elected Congress to implement a People’s Peace Platform and lay out serious demands for the next four years.

4. Be Creative and Make Beautiful Trouble

The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were so outrageous, we knew we needed to counter them with outrageously creative action. We built a giant pink bed to roll down the street in DC, telling our leaders to “Wake up and end war.” We stood in muddy bikinis to protest Ahava’s illegal Israeli settlement-produced cosmetics. We staged a mock naval blockade of Congressman Gary Ackerman’s houseboat on the Potomac with canoes and rafts after he introduced a resolution to block ports in Iran (when he walked up to his boat and saw us, he called it the “most creative protest he had ever seen” and engaged the group in a lively half hour discussion that ended with him promising to do whatever he could to prevent war with Iran.) Some of our creative tactics were featured in the new book Beautiful Trouble: An Activist Toolbox for Revolution.  We will keep coming up with wild new ways to draw attention to absurdities and abuses of power–sometimes matching outrageousness with outrageousness is the only way to shake things up!

5. Cross Borders

For all of our pink boas and glitter, CODEPINK is deeply serious about creating peace. One of the things we are most proud of is our building of bridges across closed borders.  We organized delegations to go into Iraq when few Americans were going there.  We have taken trips to Iran and Afghanistan to connect with the people and hear their ideas for peace, and recently joined a massive stop drones peace march in Pakistan to show what real citizen diplomacy looks like. In the aftermath of the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2009, we coordinated a delegation into Gaza that delivered humanitarian aid and gift baskets to women on International Women’s Day, and since then we’ve coordinated numerous delegations into Gaza, Israel and the West Bank to join nonviolent Palestinian-led campaigns for human rights, justice and equality.  We make important human connections in places our country has dehumanized, and in the process, hope to change the larger story about these countries. It’s harder to bomb a place when you know its people’s names and faces; when you are aware of their fears and dreams.

6. Harvest Ideas Locally

CODEPINK is a network of creative people, not a hierarchy. Communities all over the country create their own local CODEPINK actions, staging “I Miss America” pageants and “Walk in their Shoes” campaigns (laying out hundreds of shoes, each tagged with the name of a person killed in Iraq to drive home the human cost of war), and getting their mayors to agree to Bring Our War $$ Home, and hosting movie nights and house parties to raise awareness about important issues. Our next big action could be inspired by a local group in a small town in Iowa.… maybe even you!

7. Connect the Dots

It’s important to us to make connections–connections between issues, such as our “Bring Our War $$ Home” which connected the dots between the war and the economy, as well as connections with other movements and organizations, so we can strengthen and amplify our voices together. We are proud to have co-founded United for Peace and Justice, the largest umbrella peace organization, and continue to build bridges with other groups to make sure we can make a difference together. While we primarily focus on anti-war efforts, we’ve joined in struggles for climate justice, immigration reform, women’s reproductive rights, and civil liberties, to name a few.  As we say in our mission statement, we’re not just about ending war; we are working to change our national policy to prioritize life-affirming activies such as healthcare, education, and green jobs, over runaway military spending.  Recognizing the link between war and violence against women, we will be joining Eve Ensler’s Billion Women Rise day of creative actions on February 14, 2013.

8. Have Fun!

CODEPINK has never been about fists in the air. We want to smash paradigms without smashing windows. Our name started as satire–a play on Bush’s color-coded terror alert system–and it is important to us to hold on to that spirit of playfulness. Making a difference doesn’t have to be a chore–we’ve proven again and again that it can be fun and energizing to change the world. Whether we’re dressing up like vaginas to protest the Republican war on women, or moving Bush’s memoir from the “Autobiography” shelves to the “Crime” or “Horror” sections of the bookstore, or tossing bras to “bust up” big banks, we find ways to illuminate the darkness with a light and playful touch.

9. Be the Change

We are modeling the world we want to live in through our grassroots leadership and autonomous local organizing. We’re planting peace gardens in New Orleans, delivering medical aid and blankets to war survivors from Iraq to Palestine, and finding other creative and affirming ways to embody our belief in the power of love over fear, justice over violence.

10. Tell the Story

If a pink slip drops and no one sees it, did it happen?  We get our actions out quickly and tell the story behind the work. Changemaking is about stories and heart, not just statistics and graphs. We certainly try hard (and often succeed) in getting mainstream media coverage, but can’t count on it. So we have learned to write our stories, tweet them, film and edit our own youtubes. When we confront a key official who is launching drone attacks in Pakistan, people in Pakistan will hear about it minutes later!  We’ve penned our own books, Stop the Next War Now and Drone Warfare, and been featured in numerous activist anthologies.

We are eager to continue to write the story of CODEPINK over the next 10 years and beyond; we know that we still have so much to learn, and we are excited and energized for the challenges ahead. We hope that you will be part of CODEPINK’s story as it unfolds.

Gayle Brandeis is an award-winning novelist and activist with CODEPINK.  She currently lives in Riverdale, California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pushing Obama’s Arc Toward Peace

Pushing Obama’s Arc Toward Peace

Medea Benjamin

Foreign policy played a minor role in a presidential election that focused on jobs, jobs, jobs. But like it or not, the United States is part of a global community in turmoil, and U.S. policies often help fuel that turmoil. The peace movement, decimated during the first Obama term because so many people were unwilling to be critical of President Obama, has a challenge today to re-activate itself, and to increase its effectiveness by forming coalitions with other sectors of the progressive movement.  Over the next four years, this movement must grapple with key issues such as the Afghan war, killer drone attacks, maintaining peace with Iran, US policy vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine, and the bloated Pentagon budget.

Despite President Obama’s talk about getting out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the U.S. military still has some 68,000 troops and almost 100,000 private contractors there, at a cost of $2 billion a week. And Obama is talking about a presence of U.S. troops, training missions, special forces operations, and bases for another decade. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of Americans think this war is not worth fighting, a sentiment echoed in a recent New York Times editorial “Time to Pack Up.” It is, indeed, time to pack up. The peace movement must push for withdrawal starting now—and definitely no long-term presence! Veteran’s Day should be a time to take a hard look at the impact of war on soldiers, particularly the epidemic of soldier suicide.  We must also look at the devastating impact of war on Afghan women and children, particularly as winter sets in. Despite the billions of dollars our government has poured into development projects, Afghan children are literally freezing to death.

American drone attacks are out of control, killing thousands in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, many of them civilians. Drones are sowing widespread anti-American sentiment and setting a dangerous precedent that will come back to haunt us. Anti-drones protests have sprung up all over the United States at air forces bases where the drones are piloted, at the headquarters of drone manufacturers, at the CIA and in Congressional offices. Our job now is to coordinate those efforts, to launch a massive public education campaign to reverse pro-drone public opinion, pass city resolutions against drone use, and to call on our elected officials to start respecting the rule of law. If we strengthen our ties with people in the nations most affected, as we have begun to do on our recent CODEPINK delegation to Pakistan, and join in with those at the UN bodies who are horrified by drone proliferation, we can make progress in setting some global standards for the use of lethal drones.

Also looming ominously is a possible Israeli attack on Iran that would draw the US into a devastating regional war. Almost 60 percent of Americans oppose joining Israel in a war with Iran. We must make sure Obama and Congress hear that voice above the din of AIPAC lobbyists gunning for war, and steer clear of dragging the US into yet another Middle Eastern conflict.  Public opinion campaigns such as the “Iranians We Love You” posters on busses in Tel Aviv, and cross-cultural exchanges in Iran and the US bring humanity to a tenuous political situation.  We also must renew efforts to oppose the crippling sanctions that are impacting everyday citizens in Iran, and rippling out to spike food prices elsewhere, including Afghanistan.

Perhaps hardest of all will be to get some traction on changing US policy towards Israel/Palestine. The grassroots movement to stop unconditional financial and political support for Israel is booming, with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation building networks across the country. Campaigns to boycott and divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation continue to win victories and attract global support. We’re unlikely to see the Obama administration and Congress condemning settlements, human rights abuses, or the ongoing siege of Gaza, much less cutting off the $3 billion a year that helps underwrite these abuses. But we can continue to shift public opinion and gain more allies in Congress, with an openness to reaching out to libertarians and fiscal conservatives calling for cuts in foreign aid.  In the aftermath of the election, Jewish Voice for Peace and interfaith allies have pledged to continue efforts to call for US aid to Israel to be conditioned on compliance with international law.

And then there’s the bloated Pentagon budget. At a time when the nation is looking at how best to allocate scarce resources, all eyes should be on the billions of dollars wasted on Pentagon policies and weapons that don’t make us safer. From the over 800 bases overseas to outdated Cold War weapons to monies given to repressive regimes, we need a rational look at the Pentagon budget that could free up billions for critical social and environmental programs.

Key to building a vibrant peace movement in the next four years is coalition-building, reaching out to a broad array of social justice groups to make the connections between their work and the billions drained from our economy for war. Environmentalists, women’s rights advocates, labor unions, civil rights—there are so many connections that have to be rekindled from the Bush years or started anew.

Finally, we have to provide alternatives to the worn narrative that the military interventions around the world are making us more secure. It’s time to demand alternatives like negotiations, creative diplomacy and a foreign policy gearing toward solving global problems, not perpetuating endless war. The UN declared November 10th “Malala Day” in honor of Pakistan’s 15-year-old Malala Yousefzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for supporting education for girls.  This tragedy awoke international commitments to ensuring girls can get to school, a relatively inexpensive goal with major returns for the advancement of women’s rights, health, prosperity, and security.  Wouldn’t it be nice to see our government prioritizing funds for school over drone warfare and endless weapons stockpiling?

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King. If we can connect these foreign policy issues with domestic needs and climate change, if we can follow the powerful examples of mass direct action movements from Chile to Egypt, and if enough people practice democracy daily rather than waiting until the next presidential election, then maybe–just maybe—we’ll be able to push the arc of Obama’s second term in the direction of peace and justice.

 

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK (www.codepink.org) and Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org), and is author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

 

 

A Chat With Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan

Having recently returned from Pakistan meeting with drone victims, on November 4 my partner Tighe Barry and I were having a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. The discussion turned to John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism chief and the key person making decisions about drone strikes. We wondered if Brennan ever had a chance to meet innocent drone victims, as we did, and feel their pain.

“Maybe we should go to his house and talk to him,” quipped Tighe. We laughed at the absurdity of the idea but decided to do a little bit of research. Fifteen minutes later, we were out the door, driving to a Virginia suburb an hour south of Washington DC. I had no idea if it was really John’s address, but it was a lovely day for a drive—and Tighe was willing to indulge me.

Exiting the freeway, we came to an area of rolling hills, green grass and private horse farms. As we approached what we thought might be John Brennan’s street, we were sure it was a mistake. How could this be? It was a nondescript upper middle class neighborhood, with children playing in the yards—no security, no government vehicles. The house was in a cul-de-sac sandwiched between two other houses, without so much as a fence surrounding it.

I decided to go knock on the door to make sure we were wrong.  A middle-aged, white-haired guy in a casual sweater and jeans opened the door, accompanied by someone who l assumed was his wife.

Could this really be John Brennan? The same man who championed “enhanced interrogation techniques” under President Bush? The same man who now decides, on “terror Tuesdays”, who will be on the CIA kill list? The guy who developed the Orwellian “disposition matrix”—a blueprint for disposing of terrorist suspects for at least another decade?

I hesitated. He looked much younger and thinner than I remembered, and he looked like such a nice man. And would someone who spent his career in the CIA and was the nation’s counterterrorism czar be answering his own door?

“John?,” I asked. “Yes,” he replied tentatively. I continued, still doubting that he was really John Brennan. “I’m sorry to bother you at your home on a Sunday, but I wanted to talk to you about a recent trip.”

“A trip?”, he asked, squinting his eyes and cocking his head to the side. “A trip to where?” “Pakistan,” I answered. “Ohhhhh,” he said.

What he really meant was, “Oh shit.” For it was at that moment I realized he was indeed John Brennan, and he realized that I knew exactly who he was.

“How did you know where I live?,” the spy-extraordinaire asked. I was suddenly nervous, knowing this was a man who put people on kill lists. Thinking quickly, I told him I had friends in the neighborhood who gave me his address.

He asked for a business card, and I ran back to get one from the car—where Tighe was waiting. We exchange looks, OMG!

When I went back and handed the card to Brennan, he glanced at it and muttered, “Ah, CODEPINK. I thought that’s who you were.” The last time we met I was being dragged out of the Woodrow Wilson Center by a 300-pound security man while yelling “I love my country! You’re making us less safe. Shame on you Mr. Brennan.”

I knew I didn’t have much time so I starting talking fast—telling him I had just returned from a delegation to Pakistan meeting with drone victims, how heartbroken I was to hear their stories, how terrible it is that these drone attacks are causing so much suffering to innocent people and turning the entire Pakistani population against us.

He insisted that it wasn’t true, that we weren’t harming civilians. “But we met with people who lost their children, their fathers, their loved ones—we have photos of little children….” I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to tell him about the journalist Karim Khan who lost his son and brother or about 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed when trying to document drone strikes. I wanted to talk to him about the statistics provided by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that say conservative estimates of civilian casualties add up over 1,000.

“It’s just not true,” he repeated, dismissively. “You are being manipulated.”

By this time, the woman who joined him at the door had become very agitated. “You shouldn’t be coming to our house on a Sunday. We rarely get to see him as it is. You should talk to him in an appropriate place.”

I pleaded. “I’ve tried many times to do that, but never receive a response.” I asked for a number where I could reach him to set up a meeting, but he refused. “I have your information, I can reach you,” he claimed, waving my bright pink business card in the air.

Worried that he might be about to call in the police, or the CIA, or maybe even a drone, I finally desisted and thanked him for his time. “I want you to know, John, that I am doing this from my heart, because I care about the lives of innocent people everywhere and I care about our country.” With that, he slammed the door.

 

Medea Benjamin, codirector of www.codepink.org , is author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control .

 

US Delegation’s Message of Peace Received Warmly in Pakistan: Citizen diplomacy in Pakistan’s tribal areas: “You are welcome!”

by Medea Benjamin and Robert Naiman

The US peace delegation photographed in Islamabad, Pakistan on October 4th, 2012. (Photo: Flickr / 23rdstudios.com)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Many Americans have an image of Pakistan and its people as “teeming with anti-Americanism.” Americans see images on TV of angry Pakistani demonstrators burning American flags. Indeed, polls say three of four Pakistanis view the United States as an enemy.

But in the last week, we and thirty other Americans have been blessed with an experience few Americans have shared, seeing a more hopeful side of the relationship of the people of Pakistan to Americans. For the last week in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and then in the nation’s tribal areas, our delegation that came to Pakistan to protest U.S. drones has been showered with tremendous hospitality, warmth and friendship.

The tribal area our peace delegation visited last weekend borders Waziristan, which since 2004 has been continuously hit with U.S. drone strikes. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 2,500 and 3,200 people have been killed in these drone strikes. A recent report from Stanford and NYU law schools noted that only 2 percent of these deaths were “high-level” targets. The rest were civilians, including women and children, and low-level fighters.

Moreover, as the report highlighted, in addition to those who have been killed and injured, the entire population of Waziristan, especially children,have been terrorized by the drones that have been constantly circling overhead, 24 hours a day, because people don’t know who is going to be targeted or when the drones might strike. “The drones have changed our way of life,” we were told by Karim Khan, a Waziri who lost his son and brother to a drone strike. “People are now afraid to attend community meetings, funerals or weddings; some are even afraid to send their children to school.”

Pakistanis we met in the tribal areas last weekend are largely people who haven’t seen Americans in 10 years, since the start of the “global war on terror.” This is both because the Pakistan government doesn’t allow foreigners into the region and because of the fear Americans have of the “lawless” tribal areas. The State Department travel advisory says that due to security concerns, the U.S. government restricts travel by U.S. officials in the areas we visited this weekend.

This means that many young Pakistanis in the tribal areas have never seen an American in their lives. All they may know about America is that it is a country that conducts and promotes violence in the region, whether by drone strikes, the war across the border in Afghanistan, or a U.S.-promoted offensive by the Pakistani military that displaced more than a hundred thousand people in South Waziristan.

Our group was invited by political leader Imran Khan to join an anti-drones rally in Waziristan and the special government permission we received marked the first time that the Pakistani government has admitted foreigners into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in nearly a decade. Despite rumors that our group would be targeted by anti-American militants, on the journey from Islamabad to Waziristan the delegation received overwhelming support from Pakistanis who held processions along the route. When we arrived in the town of Hatala to spend the night, we were swamped by hundreds of Pakistanis, particularly teenage boys, who rushed to look at this rare species and have their pictures taken with us.

The following day, the government, citing security concerns, closed the road that would have taken us to the planned rally site in Kotkai, a town in the heart of South Waziristan. So the American group held a rally with Imran Khan in the place where we had spent the night.

To the cheers of a teeming group of Pakistanis, we walked on stage holding anti-drone signs and pictures of children who have been killed in drone attacks, and delivered an apology for the death of innocent people. “We want you to know that these Americans you see here have been fighting for years against this drone policy, and will continue to do so until we put an end into to these barbaric attacks. We want to live in peace and harmony with our brothers and sisters in this region,” we told the crowd.” Their response brought tears to our eyes. “You are welcome! We want peace!,” they chanted over and over, smiling, waving and cheering.

Our delegation’s call for peace, and the pictures of us with our anti-drone signs, have been carried on the Pakistani television and print media all week long. Millions of Pakistanis have seen us and heard our message. As one Pashtun man told us, putting his hand over his heart, “If you came here to win our hearts and minds, you have won mine.”

We aren’t under any illusions that our single delegation will by itself abolish the drone strikes and transform the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan to one based on peaceful cooperation. But we are convinced that current U.S. policy towards Pakistan, with its emphasis on military might and marginalization of negotiations as a means of trying to address Pakistan’s security problems, is dangerously misguided and counterproductive, feeding an endless cycle of violence. Americans and Pakistanis are being taught to fear and distrust each other, instead of being encouraged to seek political resolutions of conflicts. Such a short-sighted policy won’t make Americans more safe. It’s time to fundamentally re-think U.S. policy towards Pakistan, and an important step forward is for Americans to see Pakistanis in the tribal areas as fully human.

 

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).

Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East. You can contact him here.

Bring Your Vagina To The Castro Theatre in San Francisco!

[image error]At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, CODEPINK confronted the GOP’s attack on women. We donned vagina costumes—taking them into anti-choice events, singing all the way. Our vaginas became the talk of the town, with Current TV doing a whole video on their design and calling them “omnipresent.”

You have a chance to join these vagina warriors!

CODEPINK wants YOU—to Bring Your Vagina to The Castro Theatre on October 10th to support Cecile Richards and Planned Parenthood. INFORUM at The Commonwealth Club is giving FREE entry to anyone dressed as a vagina. Any questions? Send Nancy an email.

Watch a video of our vagina protest for women’s rights!

Together, in San Francisco we will form a team of women (and vagina-friendly folks) who will continue to be unafraid to speak up for our rights and our lives. We will bring our costumes, pink boas, creativity, and inspiration to celebrate Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards and ourselves!

The backstory:

In June, during a debate over one of the most restrictive anti-choice bills yet, Michigan state Rep. Lisa Brown read a letter from a voter that concluded with a message for Republican Speaker of the House Jase Bolger:

“Finally Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you are all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”

Bolger promptly barred Rep. Brown from speaking on the House floor the next day. Apparently Michigan Republicans think it’s okay to legislate vaginas, but not okay to talk about them. Thousands of women and vagina-supporters gathered at the Michigan Capitol for a special performance of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues and a protest rally.

Eve Ensler famously said: “My vagina’s furious and it needs to talk.” Our vaginas need to talk, too. They need to talk about the way women’s rights are threatened worldwide–from anti-choice legislation to inappropriate rape jokes to economic inequality to war and occupation overseas that disproportionately affect women’s lives.

Bring your vagina costume to the Castro Theatre on October 10 for FREE entry for what guarantees to be a vagina extravaganza!

View the slideshow of the best of CODEPINK at the RNC!

Mad Women Descend on the Republican Convention

By Rae Abileah  

“When one door closes, another dress opens,” says an ad exec on HBO’s hit show Mad Men.  I admit it: lately I’ve been mad about Mad Men, scrambling through episodes with a strange intrigue of looking through a portal to a time when lady secretaries were totally subordinate to their suited bosses.  Gawking and groping women was par for the corporate course, and brandy and cigarettes were meeting staples—just another day at the office.  It’s a fascinating look into a foregone era, one most of my twenty-something colleagues never experienced and possibly can’t even imagine.

While it may seem quaint that ladies fussed about lipstick and putting steak on the table by 5:30pm while the boys did the “real work,” there’s nothing cute about the full picture: sexual harassment in the workplace, back-alley abortions, limited access to birth control for the privileged few, rampant homophobia and racism, glass ceilings that must have seemed shatter-proof.

Now some fifty years later we can look back with an incredulous (and satirical) eye – yet some of the key things that set us apart from those bygone days seem to be reemerging.  This past year women’s reproductive rights have come under threat in an alarming way.  Heck, Michigan State Rep. Lisa Brown couldn’t even say the word “vagina” without being censured by her conservative male colleagues.

The latest assault came last week when Republican Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin said that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  Someone quickly posted a facebook meme that said “‘Good news – your body shut down that rape baby.’ Said no doctor ever.”  If elected vice president, Paul Ryan is determined to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers and cut women off from crucial health care.  Ryan voted against the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act that allows women to be paid the same amount as men. Republican values prioritize building killer drones and new weapons of mass destruction over providing affordable, accessible healthcare.  Women’s rights are taking a serious pounding from anti-choice legislation to economic inequality that disproportionately affects women.  The new GOP mantra: Women’s rights? They can take what’s left.

I’m part of the generation that embraced Take Back the Night rallies in college, marching through the city streets declaring that our short skirts were not an excuse for rape. It’s the generation that stages readings of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues and reclaims the word “slut” in national walks.  I grew up wearing pants, wielding power tools, and playing soccer.  My first gynecology appointment was at a Planned Parenthood.  To me and many of my classmates at Barnard College, protesting the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was a natural extension of our feminist principles and understanding that occupation wouldn’t lead to liberation.  Women’s leadership and self-determination are key to a successful, thriving society.  I’m of the mindset that if you can’t say the word vagina, don’t legislate it.  And there are thousands of like-minded women across this country, Mad Women whose outrage is fueling powerful action.

We, and our vaginas, are angry that our bodies are repeatedly violated by attempts to control our access to healthcare and our responsibility for our futures.  But we won’t allow that anger to fuel violence or rage.  Instead, we creatively unleash our voices for equality.  As Eve Ensler said, “My vagina’s furious and it needs to talk.”

That’s why CODEPINK is organizing a vagina posse (www.codepink.org/rnc) to speak out about the war on women at the Republican National Convention in Tampa next week.  We’ll take to the streets in giant vagina costumes and sing “Take Your Vagina to the RNC,” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuF4kdktyrE) a new convention anthem written by the troubadors of Emma’s Revolution. We’ll join the Planned Parenthood pink bus for a powerful rally to reclaim the streets.  And we’ll stand with the countless organizations – from Ensler’s VDAY to UltraViolet to NOW – working to ensure respect for our bodies.

The past couple of weeks in the lead-up to the RNC I’ve found myself saying “vagina” on public radio, something that I’ve certainly never done before.  It’s strangely empowering.  Just saying the word takes the mysticism out of it – makes it less intimidating.  Vagina.  Vagina.  Vagina.   My body, my choice, my voice.

Unlike Mad Men’s world of advertising, which seeks to fool and trick people into believing in something (usually superficial), activism is about making the invisible truth visible.  We are in the business of exposing reality—yes, sometimes at the cost of what may seem vulgar or inappropriate.  Putting daylight on the truth can illuminate the way forward.  One vagina at a time.

It’s time to close the door on the era that trumpeted the subjugation of women. And it’s time we unzipped the lies and aired the truth: vaginas are powerful and beautiful, and whatever your genitalia, everyone deserves to have access to reproductive care and full health coverage.

 

Rae Abileah is the co-director of CODEPINK Women for Peace ( www.codepink.org ).  She lives in San Francisco, CA and can be reached at rae@codepink.org .

At Drone Convention, Zero Tolerance for Peace

When are we, as a nation, going to have a frank discussion about drones and remote-controlled killing? One might think that such a dialogue could take place when thousands of people come together, once a year, at the gathering of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). Wrong.

But AUVSI, the lobby group for the drone industry, brooked no dissent at its August 6-9 Las Vegas Convention. When I, as author of a new book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, tried to rent a room at the Convention Center to give a presentation on my book, AUVSI vetoed my request. When I tried to register as a journalist, I was told that I did not meet their criteria, but they refused to say what that criteria was. And after registering online as a normal participant and paying the $200 fee, when I appeared to get my badge I was yanked off the line, surrounded by police, and told I would be arrested if I set foot in the Convention Center during the duration of the gathering.

The same thing happened to Father Louie Vitale, an 80-year-old Franciscan priest who had registered and pre-paid for the conference. Father Vitale is known for his dignified, faith-driven stance against war, including drone killing. “There’s something from my Air Force days that fascinates me about drones, which is one of the reasons I wanted to get in to see the exhibits,” said Father Vitale, “but I also wanted to have conversations with some of the drone manufacturers and operators.” That was not to be. Unprovoked, Father Vitale found himself surrounded by Convention Security and Las Vegas police, who threatened him with arrest.

CODEPINK supporter and writer Tighe Barry flew all the way from Washington DC to attend the conference. Pre-registration confirmation in hand, he was given his badge, only to find it snatched away from him 20 minutes later. “I was sitting quietly in a session on the integration of drones into US airspace when I was grabbed by security agents and pulled out of the room. How sick is that?” said Barry. “These people are crazy!”

A few peace activists did not get immediately stopped by AUVSI’s thuggish security, but two of them were banned when they dared to simply ask a few probing questions to the exhibitors at the booth of General Atomics, the company making the lethal Predator and Reaper drones. “I was merely asking if the company feels any responsibility when its products are used to kill innocent people in places like Pakistan and Yemen,” said Jim Haber of Nevada Desert Experience, a group that has been peacefully protesting nuclear weapons for decades.

Janis Sevre-Duszynska, a writer for National Catholic Reporter, was allowed inside but was overwhelmed by the experience. “Walking through the exhibit hall was surreal. It is all about performance, speed, targets and sales—nothing about consequences,” said Sevre-Duszynska.  “It felt like a war zone, and I felt like an alien. There didn’t seem to be others who were questioning the deadly uses of this technology.”

CODEPINK cofounder Jodie Evans, who managed to get in for a few hours, had the same alien feeling—especially from a women’s perspective. “There were so few women it was spooky,” said Evans. “I would say the ratio of men to women was about 500 to one—and some of the women were girlfriends of the guys. Let’s just say the Ladies Room was empty.”

Lockheed Martin used the occasion to announce that it had completed flight tests for a new drone that can be repowered in the air by laser. “You know what they named their drone? The Stalker,” said Evans, who is a longtime advocate for women’s rights. “Misogynistic, macho and violent messages were everywhere—stalking, neutralizing, eliminating the enemy—and of course the phallic symbols start with the drones themselves.”

Mary Lou Anderson, Council Member of Nevada Desert Experience, who was also ejected from the trade show floor, noted that there was a huge discrepancy between the keynote addresses that focused on the potential civilian uses and benefits of drones versus the overwhelming presence of the military in the exhibit hall. “I would say over 85% of the vendor and manufacturer exhibitors were either entirely military based, or partnered with the military and police.”

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps had their exhibits. So did weapons manufactures such as General Atomics (maker of the Reaper and Predator drones), Northrop Grumman (maker of the Gray Eagle, known for its “lethal persistence”) and Boeing (maker of the Phantom Eye).

Other exhibitors were military bases like Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and Edward Air Force Base in California that are trying to rent space out to private companies to test and develop drones, and universities like the University of North Dakota touting their training programs for drone operators.

“Some of us are worried about the unregulated proliferation of drones, and the innocent people who are being killed in our remote-controlled wars” said Jim Haber, who lives in Las Vegas and often vigils outside the nearby Creech Air Force Base where drones killing people in Afghanistan are being piloted. “But AUVSI is worried about peace—and people who profess pro-peace views. I suppose they see us as bad for business.” Indeed, some of the sessions addressed the dronemakers’ concern about finding new markets with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down.

Outside the Convention Center, protesters staged a die-in to commemorate the innocent people killed by lethal drones. And the next morning at 6 am, a handful of peace activists headed out to Creech Air Force Base 40 miles away to greet military personnel driving into the base, some of whom are drone operators.

The group included Father Vitale and 75-year-old Father Zawada, who sat on his walker in the blazing sun. Vitale and Zawada held a banner that read “Ground the Drones, Lest You Reap What You Sow.” Another vigiler held a sign with a friendly-looking bee saying “Make Honey, Not Drones.”

“Peace be with you, brother,” the priests called to the military personnel in their cars. Overhead, a menacing Reaper pierced the desert sky.

Twenty minutes later, alerted to the ragtag pro-peace group, several large police SUVs came careening down Route 95 towards the base. AUVSI is not the only group threatened by devout peacemakers.

 

Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, is cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange.

Devout peaceniks drummed out of drone convention

By John L. Smith

The Las Vegas convention scene enjoys a worldwide reputation for its hospitality. From pornography to pizza, industry shows attract millions of conventioneers to the Strip each year.

But this week at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International forgot to leave out the welcome mat for a couple of harmless critics who attempted to be credentialed for the industry group’s Unmanned Systems North America 2012 gathering. The drone convention, touted to feature 8,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors and representatives from 40 countries, continues through Thursday.

With all that lethal technology, you would think organizers would be secure enough to allow a pair of devout peaceniks to look around the place. But on Sunday, Franciscan father the Rev. Louis Vitale and CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin were politely informed their attendance was not desired. As Vitale tells it, security escorted them from the convention registration area.

That didn’t stop them from planning a Tuesday “die-in” near the drone convention in protest of the use of the technology to wage war that, they claim, takes a devastating toll on innocent civilians. For the uninitiated, dies-ins are like sit-ins, only with a touch more drama.

For her part, Benjamin is the author of “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control” and a co-founder of the women’s peace activist group.

Vitale, now 80, is well-known to longtime locals as an indefatigable peace protestor. The priest has been arrested more than 200 times and has served many months in jail for his dedication to the cause of peace.

Merely getting turned down for a convention credential constituted a slow Sunday for Vitale, who expressed surprise being identified as persona non grata at the drone convention.

“I didn’t know they’d know who I was,” he says.

In recent years, the increased use of drone aircraft in battle has drawn the attention of Vitale and many other peace activists, from the gates of the Nevada National Security Site near Mercury to the entrance to Creech Air Force Base at Indian Springs. Creech is home to Predator and Reaper drones, the remotely operated crafts known for their surveillance and combat capability.

For Vitale, who served in the Air Force before joining the Franciscans, the advanced technology hasn’t translated into cleaner combat. The much-touted precision of the drone aircraft has kept American military out of harm’s way, but it hasn’t eliminated the high price of civilian casualties in the war zones.

To many, this is part of the price paid to defeat a treacherous enemy and maintain our national security. To Vitale, Benjamin and their colleagues, it’s too great a price. And then he asks, “What is the impact on the people, what is the impact on our own people?”

The priest believes the incidents of predator operators suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder will be epidemic. His own experiences are anecdotal, he admits, but his conversations with British and U.S. military drone operators have been deeply troubling. Those onboard cameras not only spot suspected enemy targets, he notes, but they also reveal the damage wrought in unprecedented detail.

One Air Force veteran he spoke with talked of going from the “soccer part of his day (with his schoolchildren) to the killing part of his day,” Vitale recalls. “He said the civilian casualties really bother him. ‘When that happens, I don’t sleep,’ he said. You’re bombing people, and it turns out to be civilians.

“What is the impact on our people?”

Vitale’s cause may be spiritual, but to his critics, every step he takes is political. To be a devout practitioner of nonviolence is to ask questions about America’s role on the world stage.

And that puts Vitale, Benjamin and their friends in the American peace movement on the outside looking in just about everywhere they go.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. He also blogs atlvrj.com/blogs/smith. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith.

Death by Drone: Rast, Smith, and al-Awlaki

By Laura Mills

 

1. Benjamin Rast (23) was serving in Afghanistan as a Navy Medic when a US Predator drone killed him on April 6, 2011.

2. Jeremy Smith (26), a Marine Staff Sergeant, was killed in the same misguided strike.

3. Anwar al-Awlaki (40), a radical Muslim cleric living in Yemen when a US Hellfire Missile finished him on September 30, 2011.

One of these deaths is not like the others.  At least not upon first glance.

The deaths of the two U.S. troops were accidental, chalked up to friendly fire, the inevitable, price of war.  General David H Petraeus, then-commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, expressed his “deepest sorrow” over the unintended losses of Rast and Smith.  They became the first American troops to die at the far-off hands of military drones, operating half a world away in U.S. Air bases.

Meanwhile, Al-Awlaki’s death marked another first – the first targeted killing of a U.S. citizen by American forces.  The government trumpeted it as a victory in both the war on terror and the (not-so secret) CIA drone campaign in the Middle East.  His unprecedented assassination provoked a speech six months later by Attorney General Eric Holder in which he declared target killings of citizens as lawful if “the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack.”

But none of these deaths are what the government would have you believe.  All three of them bear witness to the horrible potential of drones for undeserved deaths and mangled constitutional rights.

After the fact, it is the families of the dead who are left to defend those they have already lost.  Anwar al-Awlaki will finally receive his trial posthumously.  His father, Nasser al-Awlaki, has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights to bring a case against top CIA and U.S. military officials.  Along with compensation, they hope to push the Obama administration to reveal its legal explanations for the premeditated murder.  The Attorney General’s remarks hide all logic behind the convenient label of “classified information”.  Thus, the government continues to evade transparency, while al-Awlaki has never been charged of a crime.  They have never presented any evidence implicating al-Awlaki in acts of terrorism.  His being a member of al-Qaeda does not make his crimes self-evident.

Now Nasser al-Awlaki appears for second appearance in court.  Prior to his son’s death, he had tried – unsuccessfully – to make the courts bring charges against his son.  Sadly, his return to court has a three part foucs.  Samir Kahn, al-Qaeda propagandist and U.S. citizen, died as collateral damage in the strike against al-Awlaki.  A month later, al-Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman, also a U.S. citizen died in a drone strike.  He had no ties to al-Qaeda.  He was sixteen years old.

Rather than delve into the U.S.’s horrific flippancy about civilian casualties, let me return to the two characters from the opening of this article, Rast and Smith.  In the face of these troops’ deaths, the continuous applause for the surgical precision of drones rings hollow.  Drones are marketed to the public on the claim that they operate with unprecedented accuracy through intense, infrared cameras.  Their pilots are safe in offices removing room for human error under the chaos of war.

Rast, Smith, and Al-Awlaki are three very different men, yet all looked like militants under the robotic eyes of the drone.

Robert Rast, father of Benjamin, has been shown the video footage of the combat scene in which his son was killed.  He has seen how little clarity the camera provided, how it really could have been anyone on the ground.  But it was his son, his innocent son.  For that reason he sits on his front lawn every day surrounded by pictures and flags, waiting to tell his story to anyone who will listen.  This week he bought a model of a drone to hover ominously over this makeshift memorial.  He calls for greater accountability from the Pentagon and steps to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.

Smith’s father, Jerry, has professed his forgiveness to whoever ultimately killed his son.  Although those pilots names were redacted, he knows they meant to save his son.  The death was a mistake.

Both fathers express important truths about drone warfare.  Something must be changed.  But where does blame fall along the chain of command that erroneously mistook allies for enemies?  The crew at Creech Air Force Base who pressed the button, the Air National Guard intelligence specialists viewing the drone’s live feed, or the fellow Marines who called for a strike?

Rather than ensure precision, drone warfare has only complicated the process of picking targets for the military.  Rast and Smith join (how many?) Afghani civilians as innocent people in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  (And to think they hope to build drones with the power to identify targets and fire on their own without human oversight!)

Drones do not make killing cleaner.  They make it easier.  Too easy to use, too easy to violate national sovereignty, too easy to evade accountability when mistakes are made.  Too easy to shrug off the fifth amendment that says all citizens have right to due process.  Too easy to kill.

The military must not use drones so casually, and must be made accountable when things go wrong.  The CIA, which has never shown accountability to really anyone, should be banned from using them entirely.

We need to stop pretending drones are a trustworthy technology, free of error.  We need to stop pretending civilian deaths are irrelevant, inevitable, or unimportant – American or not.  We need to stop pretending terrorists are some superhuman force who are so evil basic right do not apply to them.

Rast, Smith, and al-Awlaki.  One of these deaths is not like the other, but none of these deaths bode well for the right to life in the United States.

CODEPINK Protester Victorious Over AIPAC Assailant

It is not every day that the voices for justice triumph over the actions of the rich and powerful, especially when it comes to the Israel-Palestine debate. That’s why it is so important to acknowledge and celebrate the settlement just negotiated by CODEPINK activist Rae Abileah and her lawyers after suing American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) volunteer lobbyist Stanley Shulster.

It all started on May 24, 2011, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, DC speaking before a joint session of Congress. Abileah, a 29-year-old Jewish woman who has traveled to the West Bank, Israel and Gaza, was in the audience. She became more and more appalled as she listened to Netanyahu’s speech and watched our congresspeople giving him a stream of standing ovations. “I couldn’t watch this hero’s welcome for a man who supports the continued building of illegal settlements, won’t lift the siege of Gaza, and refuses to negotiate with the Palestinian unity government,” said Abileah.

So Abileah did what most people would never have the courage to do. She got up and shouted: “No More Occupation! Stop Israeli War Crimes! Equal Rights for Palestinians!” And she unfurled a banner that read: “Occupying Land is Indefensible!”

She was immediately grabbed, violently pulled toward the floor, and gagged—not by the Capitol Police but by a member of the audience, Stanley Shulster, a retired attorney from Ashland, Oregon, who had traveled to Washington DC to attend the yearly conference of the Israel lobby group AIPAC.  An online bio for Shulster revealed that he was an unpaid lobbyist, a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces, and a Navy veteran.  In his bio Shulster bragged that he “grabbed the woman who heckled the Prime Minister while he was speaking.”

Abileah was rushed to the hospital, where she was treated for neck and shoulder injuries. She subsequently had to undergo months of physical therapy, chiropractic care and other treatments to heal from these injuries.

But Abileah was also determined to pursue her attacker. She pressed charges and got a warrant for his arrest, and she filed a civil suit for damages. Thanks to the tenacity and generosity of her attorneys, they just reached a settlement in which Shulster was forced to pay her medical fees and issue an apology.  In the joint statement issued by Shulster and Abileah, Shulster acknowledges that he “respects the right of Ms. Abileah to hold a different view on the Israel-Palestine conflict and believes she holds this view in good faith,” and Abileah does the same.  Both Abileah and Shulster recognize “the right, as Americans, to agree to disagree peacefully.”  This might sound like a common sense statement but coming from a man who works with the IDF and AIPAC, which routinely categorizes any critique of Israel as anti-Semitic, this is extraordinary.

It is indeed a rare victory, as there is a history of attacks against US nonviolent activists defending Palestinians rights and most of the time, the attackers face no consequences. In 2007, a peaceful protester outside an AIPAC Conference in Washington DC was attacked and put in a chokehold. In this case, the police arrested the assailant, but they also arrested the woman who was attacked! In 2010, while standing on a public sidewalk, I was hit in the face by an AIPAC conference attendee, and the police refused to even take a police report.  A few months later a protester and I were slugged with a book bag by an attendee at another pro-Israeli government conference, and the police once again refused to help.  Students at the University of New Mexico were hit by audience members during a non-violent protest, and in November 2010, members of the pro-Occupation group Stand With Us (SWU) pepper-sprayed several members of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Video footage of the 2011 AIPAC Annual Gala shows the assault of a young woman who held a banner reading “Silencing Dissent Delegitimizes Israel.”

“This time, the justice system worked for me,” said a triumphant Abileah, “I hope it sends a message to aggressive Israeli Occupation supporters around the country that they don’t have the right to assault us; we have the right to express our views peacefully.  Just as violence is not the answer to the Israel-Palestine conflict, it won’t work to silence critique and outcry in the US.  This is a bittersweet victory—no one should suffer from a violent attack for just speaking up for equality and human rights.”

Of course, for the Palestinian people who live under Israel’s 45-year-old military occupation, violence dominates everyday life. The brutal 2008 invasion of Gaza left 1,400 people dead and crushed homes, schools, businesses—even hospitals. In the West Bank, peaceful protesters are regularly tear-gassed, shot, beaten, thrown into prison without trials.

“My neck pain was a small price to pay compared with the sacrifices made by Palestinian, Israeli, and international nonviolent protesters who’ve risked their bodies and lives to defend the basic human rights of the Palestinian people,” said Abileah. “But with this victory over an AIPAC volunteer lobbyist, perhaps more Americans will be encouraged to speak out and stand up for human rights and free speech.”

Ms. Abileah will donate a portion of the funds from Shulster to legal and medical aid for peaceful Palestinian protesters in the West Bank.

 

Medea Benjamin (medea@codepink.org) is the co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange . 

 

Embed options:

Image of Ms. Abileah and assailant Mr. Shulster in the Capital:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lls6xhIOv71qavauy.jpg

 

Video of Rae Abileah interviewed on Democracy Now the day after the assault:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMMuHmvuWc0