Medea Benjamin's Blog, page 3

There Is No Future in War: Youth Rise Up, a Manifesto

By Ben Norton, Tyra Walker, Anastasia Taylor, Alli McCracken, Colleen Moore, Jes Grobman, Ashley Lopez, Sara Al Harbi, Sophia Arman

Once again, US politicians and pundits are beating the drums of war, trying to get our nation involved in yet another conflict. A few years ago it was Iran, with “all options on the table.” Last year it was a red line that threatened to drag us into the conflict in Syria. This time it’s Iraq.

We, the youth of America, have grown up in war, war war. War has become the new norm for our generation. But these conflicts–declared by older people but fought and paid for by young people–are robbing us of our future and we’re tired of it.

There is no future in war.

We, the youth of America, are taking a stand against war and reclaiming our future.

War does not work. Period.

War does not work from an economic perspective.

In 2003 US politicians orchestrated the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq based on blatant lies—lies that have cost the American people over $3 trillion.

Imagine what we could have done with this money:

With $3 trillion dollars, we could have guaranteed free higher education for all interested Americans. Instead, we are wallowing in over $1 trillion in outstanding college loan debt.

With $3 trillion, we could have created a system of universal health care. Instead, affordable health care is still out of reach for many Americans and we have no idea if there will even be a Medicare system when we are old enough to retire.

With $3 trillion we could have renovated our decrepit public schools and crumbling public infrastructure, giving us the kind of foundation we need for a thriving nation in the decades to come.

With $3 trillion we could have created a national energy grid based not upon environmentally destructive fossil fuels, but upon renewable energy sources–something that our generation cares passionately about.

Our true foes–– those endlessly gunning for war–– have been waging an economic war against us. Our foes are the ones who say we must increase Pentagon spending while we cut food stamps, unemployment assistance, public transportation, and low-income housing. They are the ones who want to destroy the social safety net that past generations have worked so hard to build. They are the ones who underfund our public schools – which are more segregated today than they were under Jim Crow – and then privatize them. They are the ones who throw hundreds of thousands of young people in prison, thanks to the racist and classist war on drugs, and then privatize the prisons to exploit and profit off of incarcerated citizens who make close-to-zero wages.

Throwing money at war does nothing to address the real issues we face. We, the youth of our country, are the ones who will feel this pain. The cost of war is sucking us dry; it is burdening us with debts we will never be able to pay back.

And war doesn’t even work to create jobs. Politicians say they can’t cut the Pentagon budget because the weapons manufacturers create much-needed jobs. Yes, our generation need jobs. But if members of Congress really wants to use federal spending to help us find employment, the military is the worst investment. A $1 billion investment in military spending nets 11,600 jobs. The same investment in education reaps 29,100 jobs. Whether it’s education, healthcare or clean energy, investments in those sectors create many more job opportunities than the military. The military-industrial complex does a great job lining the pockets of politicians; it does a lousy job creating an economy that works for all.

War does not work from a national security and defense perspective.

The war apologists claim war makes our future “safer” and “freer.” But since the tragic 9/11 attack, the US military response has made the world a more dangerous place. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Libya, the use of predator drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and countless other examples of military operations have only increased violence and hatred. Iraqis and Afghans are certainly no safer and freer; we are certainly no safer and freer.

We refuse to let our brothers and sisters, both here and abroad, die for access to cheap Persian Gulf oil. The Iraqis, the Afghans, the Iranians, the Libyans, the Somalis, and the people of any other country our military circles like vultures, are not our enemies. They oppose terrorism more than we do; they are the ones who must bear its brunt. We must oppose US intervention not because we don’t care about them, but because we do.

War does not work from an environmental perspective.

War is not environmentally friendly. It never has been, and it never will be. Bombing destroys the environment. It damages forests and agricultural land. It ravages ecosystems, endangering species, even forcing some into extinction.

Bombing contaminates water and soil, often leaving it unsafe to use for centuries, even millennia. This is especially true with nuclear and chemical weapons, such as those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the missiles containing depleted uranium the US used in Iraq. And because of weapons like these, infant mortality, genetic mutation, and cancer rates are exponentially higher in the civilian areas targeted. Children in Fallujah, Iraq, a city hit hard by these weapons, are born without limbs and missing organs.

The environmental costs of war are clearly not limited to isolated moments; they persist for many lifetimes. Heavy military vehicles, in conjunction with deforestation and climate change, lead to the emission of toxic dust from the ground. Even if their homes and livelihoods haven’t been destroyed by bombs, citizens who inhale these toxins are much more susceptible to a wide variety of diseases and health problems.

The US Department of Defense has long been the country’s largest consumer of fossil fuels. Military vehicles consume obscene quantities of oil for even small tasks. If we truly care about reversing, or at least mitigating, anthropogenic climate change—what many scientists recognize as a literal threat to the future of the human species—eliminating war would be an incredibly effective first step.

War does not work from a human rights perspective.

The world isn’t any safer and freer for the million Iraqi civilians who died. How is freedom supposed to come at the tip of a bomb?

The debate rages back and forth; “specialists” fill the TV airwaves, repackaging the same tired excuses we’ve heard for years. Most of these “experts” are old white males. The people actually affected by our bombs and our guns–mostly young people of color–are nowhere to be seen. Their voices are silenced, their voices shouted over by the corporate media, by hawkish politicians, and by the profit-hungry military contractors.

War does not work from a historical perspective.

War has never been about freedom and liberation; war has always been about profit and empire. American historian Howard Zinn once said “Wars are fundamentally internal policies. Wars are fought in order to control the population at home.”

Military intervention gives US corporations free reign in the countries we destroy. We bomb the country, targeting public infrastructure, and our corporations build it back up again. Fat cat CEOs make millions, even billions; the country, the people of the country, are left with mountains of debt. Our corporations own their infrastructure, their industrial capital, their natural resources. War is always a lose-lose for the people. Economic and political elite in both countries will make a fortune; the people of both countries will be the ones who have to pay for this fortune.

Defenders and purveyors of war have always done empty lip service to ideals like “freedom” and “democracy”; they have always repeated tired, vacuous tropes about “assisting,” or even “liberating” peoples.

How can we trust a country that says its brutal military invasion and occupation is “humanitarian,” when, at the same moment, it is supporting repressive dictators around the world? Saddam Hussein was on the CIA payroll since the 1960s. While we were invading Iraq to “overthrow tyranny” and “free” the Iraqi people, we were supporting the King Fahd’s theocratic tyranny in Saudi Arabia, the brutally repressive Khalifa family in Bahrain, and Mubarak’s violent regime in Egypt, among countless other unsavory dictators.

When we invaded Afghanistan to “free” the Afghan people from the Taliban, the corporate media failed to mention that Ronald Reagan had supported the Mujahideen, who later became the Taliban, and the Contras throughout the 1980s. He called the latter “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers,” while they were disemboweling civilians in a campaign of terror.

These historical events are absolutely pertinent to contemporary discussions of war. We must learn from them, as to not repeat them in the future, as to not fall for the same past political tricks.

Our naysayers say we are against the troops. We are not against the troops. US troops are disproportionately from less-privileged backgrounds. Military recruiters target impoverished communities of color, and there are many recorded instances of them using deceptive tactics to get young citizens to sign long binding contracts. These are the troops that die in US military operations. They are not our enemies. We refuse to let our brothers and sisters be cannon fodder. The real people against the troops are the ones who send our country’s poor to die in rich people’s wars.

How many times do we have to be lied to, how many times do we have to be tricked, how many times do we have to be exploited until we say enough is enough? We are tired of war! War accomplishes nothing. War only fattens the wallets of economic and political elites, leaving millions dead in its wake. War only leads to more war, destroying the planet and emptying the national treasury in the process.

We, the youth of the United States of America, oppose war.

We oppose war not because we don’t care about the rest of the world; we oppose war precisely because we do.

We oppose war not because we don’t care about our security; we oppose war precisely because we do.

We oppose war not because we don’t care about our troops; we oppose war precisely because we do.

We oppose war not because we aren’t concerned with our future; we oppose war precisely because we do.

There is no future in war. Join us.

A Visit with Mujica

By Dianne Budd, MD|August 27th, 2014

What if there was an honest politician?  One whose entire life has been lived consistently and lovingly?   Yeah, right.

An American delegation recently met with the President of Uruguay.  Generous, honest, practical, authentic, brilliant, even precious – these were some of the adjectives that arose repeatedly in the group’s description of him.

Jose “Pepe” Mujica is an unprecedented politician. He lives on a tiny farm on the outskirts of Montevideo  raising chrysanthemums with his life partner and his 3 legged doggy Manuela, “the most loyal member of the government” (who, he notes sadly, with her 18 years, is developing cataracts).  He is an atheist who drives an old VW bug & lives on less than $15,000 USD a year, as he gives 90% of his salary (of about $12,000 a month) to groups that benefit the poor, and some small entrepreneurs.  He thinks he might be the only President who rises to let the dog (who sleeps with them, very unusual in Uruguay) out to answer nature.  He has suggested that the Presidential palace be changed into a homeless shelter.   His lifelong concern for justice led him to join the Tupamaros in the 1960s.  The Tupamaros are a group that, from its inception, acted as Uruguay’s Robin Hood in feeding and supporting the poor, as they believe that poverty is  a political issue. Their slogan  ”Words divide us; action unites us” could be the motto of the Mujica government.

In the 60s and 70s the rise of militarism and dictatorship in Latin America (under the direction of the USA) infected Uruguay.  Inspired by the Cuban Revolution the Tupamaros arose.   As more and more constitutional rights were being stripped away under the guise of anti-Communism (sound familiar?) the Tupas orchestrated many clever actions, always careful to not damage the people.  This earned them worldwide recognition.  As they succeeded in revealing government corruption, thus embarrassing the elite, the police became increasingly brutal.  Uruguay became the most tortured country on earth with 1 in 50 falling victim to the increasing violence and repression.  The Tupamaros responded with kidnappings and targeted assassinations. In 1970 they executed Dan Mitrione who had been sent from Washington to teach the Uruguayan military how to torture without killing (so the torture could continue).   Unfortunately the victim was, in addition to being a trained torturer, also the father of 9 children and the tide of public opinion began to change.

During these years Jose Mujica was arrested multiple times, imprisoned and tortured because of his beliefs.  In 1972 he was one of 9 political prisoners selected for extreme castigation and cruelty.   For more than two years he was confined, alone, to the bottom of an old trough. In isolation and such extreme deprivation, he experienced horrid mental and physical effects.  Despite this he is now guided by a powerful humanism and great love. Mujica radiates warmth and sincerity.   He believes in ”Ni vencidos, ni vencedores”  (no winners or losers) and that “it is a mistake to think that power comes from above, when it comes from within the hearts of the masses”.

A fortunate group of norteamericanos recently had a personal meeting with this unique world leader.  Led by Andrés Thomas Conteris, an activist with Nonviolence International, Closegitmo.net  and Democracy Now! en Español, the assemblage of 17 folks  met with President Mujica on 13 August 2014.

The group was put together by Task Force on the Americas at the suggestion of Medea Benjamin co-founder of CODEPINK and author of  10 Reasons to Love Uruguay’s President José Mujica.  Their goals for this trip included learning more about Uruguay’s recent progressive changes including recognition for same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and the legalization of marijuana.  In recent years this small country has focused on reducing poverty and redistributing the nation’s wealth , while encouraging growth.

After meeting Mujica, participants’ impressions frequently overlapped.  He was repeatedly noted to be “so real, so humble, so pragmatic”.  One group member noted, “his sparkling eyes spoke so lovingly”.  Another participant,  Janice Sevre-Duszynska, said  “You could trust him with your life”.

President Mujica values practicality.  He weighs Uruguay’s place in the world, and in Latin America, when making decisions and uses this awareness in his approach to issues, especially noting the importance of working with the rest of Latin America. Despite its size, he believes that Uruguay can set an example for other nations to follow. He hopes that by clearly communicating Uruguay’s willingness to repatriate Guantanamo prisoners, he will do exactly that.

Contentious issues that the group discussed with Mujica included the School of the Americas and Haiti.  Although he noted the SOAs’ sordid past, he is not planning any changes in Uruguay’s policies concerning it.  Last year Uruguay sent 3 students to the SOA, renamed WHINSEC.  Part of his rationale appeared to be that he feels the SOA is less important, less significant, now than in past decades, and that its influence is continuing to diminish.  Part of that decrement, according to Mujica, is because China is training more Latin American troops, and partly because of the relatively greater importance of groups such as the OAS. He referred to the SOA as a “travel agency” for the military, and noted that troops sent there are paid 3 x what they receive at home.

The need to work with the country’s neighbors was part of the decision regarding Haiti. Uruguayans are currently in Haiti as part of the UN peacekeeping troops. These troops have a reputation for repressing the Haitian people, and  Mujica  is committed to bringing all Uruguayans home. The group was told that Uruguay went into Haiti, in some part, because Brazil did.  The President believed that had Uruguay and Brazil not gone into Haiti, the USA would have, and he wanted to play a role in preventing that.   One third of Uruguay’s original Haitian force are home, 8 to 9 hundred remain.

Mujica is, of necessity, a complicated leader – but one whose policies are reality based. In contradistinction to recent US presidents Mujica doesn’t “talk to God” (GW Bush) or deal with drugs by “just say(ing) NO” (Reagan).   He instead saw legalizing marijuana as a chance to “steal the marijuana market from the narcotic traffickers”.  Recognizing that the use of MJ is less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes, he, without encouraging its use, chose to create economic opportunity for Uruguay instead of denying its widespread use that allows traffickers to make millions.

In stating “our politics are very simple” he reflected on the recognition of gay rights.   Again, I can’t help but compare. Our (USA) ex-Presidents seemed to have made decisions based on myth and bigotry.  Ronald Reagan viewed homosexuality as “an abomination” on religious grounds, and Richard Nixon said that homosexuality  ”destroyed the Greeks”. *   Instead, President Mujica has chosen extant biology in deciding to recognize gay marriage. “You have to deal with reality”.  Not to mention kindness and equity.

Mujica’s awareness of Uruguay’s place in the world does not keep him from taking big actions.   In macho Latin America, this leader sees the importance of the right to abortion.  He views it with the humanism and authenticity he is known for.  He spoke to the group of the complexity of abortion, the need for support for women making this difficult decision – whatever decision they make.  He also noted that abortion, and the necessity of abortion, is a poverty issue; a health issue, yes, but largely a poverty issue.

Many members of the group were impressed by his obviously powerful intelligence.  He spoke without notes, remembered every question from a long series, and answered then in order of their being asked.  His impressive memory touched the group leader especially, as Mujica remembered  Andrés’ cousin who was murdered by the Contras in Nicaragua who Reagan labeled “freedom fighters”.  President Mujica recalled his name, Marcos Conteris Iglesias, and his death, in August 1985.

This unique man, the leader of a very special South American country truly sets an example, both personally and politically, for all of us.

- Dianne Budd, MD

Punta del Este /San Francisco

*  Nixon also said:  ”I don’t even want to shake hands with anybody from San Francisco!”

CODEPINK rejects President Obama’s escalation of US military involvement in the Middle East

It is with great sorrow that we listened to President Obama’s speech about escalating US military intervention in Iraq and Syria to counter to horrific policies of ISIS. We have watched in horror over the past decade how the US invasion of Iraq opened the floodgates of sectarian hatred and supported an abusive Shia government, leading to the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis and the empowering of ISIS.

Our hearts break for the suffering people in the region but we firmly believe that US military intervention has been a central ingredient in fueling the violence and further intervention will be counterproductive. The solutions will be political and economic, not military: the Sunnis and Kurds must feel that the central government in Baghdad represents their interests so they will unite against ISIS; countries must stop arming ISIS and purchasing the oil they control; the peace process to settle the Syrian war must be reignited, with civil society and women’s groups at the table; massive amounts of humanitarian aid must be provided to deal with the devastating consequences of war (surely if there are billions for war, there must be billions for aiding refugees and rebuilding).

Many Americans have unfortunately been whipped up by the media, Congressional hawks, and now the Obama administration to support this latest round of intervention. But we are certain that this support is neither deep nor strong nor long-term. After 12 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the drone wars, Americans across the political spectrum realize that these interventions have not defeated extremist groups and have only drained our resources from much needed programs at home. They will soon understand the folly of this new round of intervention in complicated civil and regional wars.

CODEPINK put up a mighty fight against President Bush’s wars, and we have continued to expose and oppose President Obama’s foreign policies that promote violence and injustice. For years now we have been organizing against the immoral drone wars, the administration’s failure to close the Guantanamo prison, US support for repressive regimes from Israel to Saudi Arabia to Egypt, the hundreds of overseas military bases and the bloated Pentagon budget. The only ones to benefit from these militaristic policies are the arms dealers and the military contractors.

CODEPINK will work with the broader peace movement at home and abroad to mobilize opposition to this most recent escalation of US intervention. We will continue to support our partners in the region, particularly women’s groups, and to advocate for policies that promoting life-affirming activities.

Join us: sign this petition to President Obama telling him notto bomb Syria and Iraq!

The name of the Goddess

By Genevieve Vaughan

The escalation towards war is continuing, the media is beating the drum and tension is increasing every day. In the Middle East the new enemy is ISIS. When I first heard the term I thought of the great Egyptian Mother Goddess of that name. Did this terminology mean that the US would soon be fighting against the Mother Goddess? In a way this is true. Wars are always patriarchal, men against men, and mothers always suffer.  All their years of love and work are gone in the flash of a gun or a bomb. The Goddess is discredited and disempowered by war.

Isis, the first daughter of Earth (Geb) and Sky (Nut)  was also the Goddess of magic, of healing and of reunification. She put the pieces of her husband Osiris back together again after he had been killed and dismembered by his jealous brother Set. She is the goddess of rebirth and reincarnation and is a guide of protection of the spirits of the dead. She is the mother of Horus and her image holding him her arms preceded the many images of Madonna and child. Her cult continued from 2500 BCE until Medieval times. Many people in the women’s spirituality and pagan movements today honor her as the embodiment of mothercare and energies of peace and magic.

For those who try to be open to the spiritual commitments of others, it is contradictory to call a group with whom we may soon be at war by the name of a deity who is loved and honored by many. I believe that people who identify with  Goddess Spirituality and pagans generally, are mostly Spiritual Progressives. They honor Nature and the energies of Peace. Taking the name of their Goddesses in vain is like taking the name of any other deity in vain.

We live in such a maelstrom of media spin and we only know what the spinmasters tell us. We attacked Iraq in 2003 on the pretext of information that was false. How do we know what is true now? Our war lust is a flow that can be directed at will by those in power.

Is it possible at least  to salvage this name of the Mother Goddess? An alternative acronym already exists. It is ISIL, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Or there is also the simpler IS, Islamic State. There too, I would hesitate. Will we be fighting IS? Being?, the Great I Am? It sounds like we are on the edge of final destruction. By playing with these holy words, we are playing with fire.

 

Genevieve Vaughan is an American expatriate semiotician, peace activist, feminist, and philanthropist, whose ideas and work have been influential in the intellectual movements around the Gift Economy and Matriarchal Studies.

Ukraine Conflict: Red Meat for Anemic NATO Alliance

By Medea Benjamin

The footage of President Obama strolling through the ancient ruins at Stonehenge was an apt bookend to the meeting of NATO, a Cold War relic that should have been abolished after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. But while hundreds of protesters marched through the streets calling for NATO to be dissolved—“From Iraq to Ukraine, NATO only causes pain,” they chanted—NATO leaders saw the crisis in Ukraine as an opportunity to breathe new life into the moribund military alliance.

The recent NATO meeting in Wales was supposed to be about how to wind down NATO’s 12-year military adventure in Afghanistan—without admitting the monumental failure of leaving behind a fractured, impoverished nation that can’t even figure out who won the last election. Afghanistan, however, was barely mentioned. Nor was the disastrous NATO intervention in Libya that has resulted in a failed state rife with violence. And while there was some handwringing about how to deal with ISIS, it was clear most NATO countries did not want to join Obama in a new military quagmire. The meeting’s main focus was the conflict in Ukraine, a conflict that NATO played a key role in creating.

A creature of the Cold War created in 1949 to defend Europe from Soviet expansion, NATO did not dissolve when the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully. But it did assure Russia that it would not expand eastwards beyond the reunified Germany, and it would not station significant numbers of troops in Eastern Europe.

NATO broke the pledge. In 1999, it admitted three former Warsaw Pact countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In 2004, it admitted the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Today the NATO security alliance covers 28 member states. It does not include Ukraine, but Ukraine is pushing for NATO membership.

One does not have to sympathize with Putin’s oligarchic authoritarianism or its annexation of Crimea to recognize the West’s intimidation. When Ukraine’s corrupt but elected president was overthrown in a US-backed coup, it was scarcely paranoid for Russia to see the takeover of the neighboring state as a threat to its core interests.

For the past six months, fighting between the Moscow-backed eastern Ukrainian resistance and the NATO-backed nationalists has led to thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Instead of seeking to reduce tensions, British Prime Minister David Cameron used the Summit to announce the creation of a new rapid-reaction force of 4,000 troops. The force, to be made up of troops provided by member states on a rotating basis, would be capable of deploying on 48 hours’ notice to protect any NATO member from external aggression, which under the current circumstances means the Baltic States.

While NATO insists that is has no plans for new permanent bases in Eastern Europe, it announced that troops will be rotated to the region every four months, creating what it calls a “persistent” presence. The force will be supported with logistics and equipment, including weapons and fuel pre-positioned in Eastern European countries closer to Russia. This will be enhanced by more military exercises and air patrols, as well as exercises in Ukraine. And the US government has already have committed some $60 million to provide the Ukraine military with items like night vision goggles, body armor, and communications equipment.

Adding to Russia’s sense of encirclement, NATO is also building missile interceptor shields. NATO insists this will be purely defensive and is intended to thwart any future missile attack by a rogue state such as Iran or North Korea. But Russia views NATO deployment of interceptor missiles and radars in Romania, the Czech Republic and Poland as another form of intimidation.

NATO’s encroachment in Russia’s backyard and its backing of the Ukraine government’s bombardment of the eastern part of the country threatens not only a new Cold War, but an armed conflict between Russia and NATO-aligned countries. With Russia possessing thousands of nuclear weapons, the conflict could well spiral out of control.

The protesters outside the Summit were well aware of the danger. Russian activist and scholar Boris Kagarlitsky told the protesters said that while Putin’s government is no model of democracy, the stationing of NATO troops next to its border violates Russia’s security and stokes the conflict. He also said that the Ukrainian government’s bombing of rebel areas has led to a severe humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding into Russia—a humanitarian crisis that the West has ignored.

During the NATO meeting, while Western leaders were calling for more troops in the region and more sanctions against Russia, the government of Ukraine and the pro-Russia separatists were actually talking peace. In fact on the last day of the Summit, NATO leaders were surprised when Ukraine’s president announced a ceasefire. But instead of being greeted with cheers, NATO leaders treated the announcement as a distraction and vowed to push ahead with new sanctions. “I don’t think we want to be distracted from our determination to impose further sanctions in response to Russia’s major military adventure into Ukraine by these noises off about a possible ceasefire,” said UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond.

Why be distracted by a ceasefire, or put energy into promoting a non-violent solution to the conflict in Ukraine? NATO, after all, is a military alliance and, as the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

The protesters, by contrast, had much more constructive proposals. Use the United Nations to reinforce the peace process. Scrap the missile defense shield. No Western troops in the Baltic states. And dismantle the NATO war machine.

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights organization Global Exchange. She is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

Posse What?! The Increasing Militarization of the Police

by Elizabeth Barger, CODEPINK Tennessee

Over the past decades, people have been noticing an increasing militarization of our civilian law enforcement. We have seen lessening of protection for people and more protection of corporate property and actions. Our traditional American rights and values of “liberty and justice for all” are fading.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law. Its intent (in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807) was to limit the powers of Federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce the state laws. It was passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction and was updated in 1981.

The military is trained in the use of deadly force against an enemy. Public law enforcement is trained, ideally, to keep friends and neighbors, community members safe from harm. Good police training emphasizes the safety of citizens, including officers of the law, who are citizens concerned with the safety and well being of the people they serve.

In the past I have worked as a trainer with law enforcement in Tennessee under the Department of Justice. It has given me great satisfaction to know these dedicated public servants who truly care for the people in their communities and take seriously the motto, “Protect and Serve.”

However, my own Tennessee Senator, Lamar Alexander, suggested replacing Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol with military armed services in direct violation of the law. It concerns me when I see a growing aggressive and military consciousness in some of our agencies, particularly from Homeland Security. It is very unsettling to see fiercely dressed, heavily armed and unidentified police dealing with peaceful crowds.

Millions of dollars are needed for upkeep of heavy military armaments and vehicles loaded into civilian law enforcement agencies. A recent Sunday edition of the Nashville Tennessean, my local newspaper, featured the millions of tax dollars spent on military equipment going to Tennessee police agencies. The lure of using military ordinance developed for national defense to support civilian law and order is expensive and dangerous. In the wrong hands these weapons become the tools of oppression and violence. The cost of maintenance alone would be better used developing community relations and public safety and education.

The law in America is traditionally served when police understand that everyone is innocent until proved guilty in a court of law. Too often we are beginning to see punishment on the street with NO due process as a form of law enforcement, especially when dealing with minorities. The murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, was not an isolated tragedy and has become a national flashpoint in response to police shootings.

The US Constitution puts regulation and funding of military actions under Congress. and limits appropriations to 2 years. The Second Amendment provides that a WELL-REGULATED militia is necessary to the security of a free state to counter balance the power of the national army.

Vigilante hate groups have used Posse Comitatus to take advantage of economic crisis in rural areas. The racist beliefs of these ‘so called Patriot’ groups are wrapped in Dominion Christian theology and coated with tax resistance and the fear of gun control. Daniel Levitas, the author of a forthcoming book on Posse Comitatus and the Christian Identity movement, indicates the violence of the movement is presently on the upswing.

But, the Second Amendment is not the most important part of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment says that Congress

cannot make a law that favors the establishment of one particular religion;
or that prohibits the free exercise of religion;
or that restricts freedom of speech or of the press,




or the right of the people to gather and engage in peaceful demonstrations and to petition the government for redress of their grievances.

The Fourth Amendment is being overridden by the passage of the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Acts in 2012 and 2013, and the mass surveillance and bulk data collection practices of the NSA that move very close to treason against the laws of the land.

The Fifth Amendment deals with criminal offenses explicitly and states that no person may “…be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.” Poorly trained officers very often ignore it when they shoot citizens in panic, or as punishment. We see this happen in many cases as exemplified by the police shooting in Ferguson, MO and many other communities.

We have seen the law and Constitution willfully ignored when the Eighth Amendment states, “there can be no excessive bail or fines, nor cruel and unusual punishment.” Peaceful protesters are more and more often kept in jail through excessive fines and long sentences for practicing their 1st Amendment rights.

Keeping the military and civilian policing separate is an American tradition. The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights show clearly that the founding fathers were concerned about the danger of arrogant military thinking and oppression that they had suffered from, by the unlimited power of kings and state churches.

Elizabeth Barger is a longtime CODEPINK organizer and a community leader and resident of the famous intentional rural community, The Farm in Summertown, TN.

Beware of Exploding Gifts from Uncle Sam

In a brilliant August 17 segment of Last Week Tonight, HBO host John Oliver ripped into small towns that have equipped their police with war-like military equipment. One town was Keene, New Hampshire, where their military-grade armored personnel truck was acquired to protect critical targets –– like the annual Pumpkin Festival. Another was Doraville, Georgia. Oliver showed a wild video clip from the Doraville Police Department’s website, with a Ninja-dressed SWAT team going for a joyride in a souped-up armored personnel carrier, all set to a heavy metal song called “Die MotherF***er Die.”

In a visit to Doraville last week, I asked Officer Gene Callaway why his sleepy town of 8,000, which hasn’t had a murder since 2009, needed an armored personnel carrier (APC). “The vehicle provides Doraville with a scalable response and ensures the safety of police officers,” he answered. Scalable response? Safety of police officers? Doraville has never been a crime-ridden town. “We at Doraville are proud to be ranked 39th in safest cities in Georgia,” Callaway himself bragged. It seems the most useful task the APC performed was pulling 18-wheelers back onto the salted lanes of Route 285 during snowstorms. Oh, and let’s not forget that “the kids love playing on it” when it rolls up to the county fair, Callaway told me.

Doraville’s armored vehicle is a gift from Uncle Sam, as part of the billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment now flowing from the federal government to state and local police departments. Not only is it an incredible waste of taxpayer money, but it gets people–including children–accustomed to seeing military vehicles on their streets. Worst of all, it is causing police to act like soldiers, especially since one of the stipulations of getting this equipment is that it must be used within one year of receipt.

The Doraville Police, embarrassed by the negative publicity from their video, took it down (they insist that the theme music was unauthorized). Now on their website you can see much more benevolent images, such as three smiling police officers, one dressed as Santa Claus, with two young girls who are the recipients of the “Santa Pop Program” that pairs police with “less-fortunate children.”

But let’s face it. Military toys, constantly dangled before the police at law enforcement exhibits and fairs, are hard to resist. And with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security giving out this stuff for free, why not get some hand-me-downs? Doraville and Keene are just two of thousands of cities and towns throughout the nation that have successfully applied for surplus equipment from a federal government agency.

Your head will spin if you take a look at this map the New York Times published on August 21. It lists the counties that have received military surplus and the supplies they’ve received. The acquisitions under the Department of Defense (DOD) program since its inception in 1991 are valued at $5.1 billion, with $449.3 million given out in fiscal year 2013 alone. In just the past 5 years, as part of Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997, the Pentagon has given away “tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft” to counties in every state throughout the country.

While attention is now focused on the DOD’s program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a program that is three times the size. This year alone, DHS plans to give away $1.6 billion worth of military equipment for counterterrorism, border security and disaster preparedness. Thanks to DHS, every squad car in Fargo, North Dakota, has assault rifles and kevlar helmets and 1,500 beat cops in Philadelphia are trained to use AR-15s.

DHS is also giving out money for a few dozen police departments to experiment with drones. When the Federal Aviation Administration opens US airspace to drones in the coming years, civil liberty advocates fear that the nation’s 18,000 police departments will be lining up for DHS grants to get their latest toy–a toy that has the capacity to spy, stun, maim and kill.

This is already starting. In May 2012, DHS began distributing $4 million in experimental grants to help local law enforcement agencies buy their own small drones, opening a new market for politically connected drone makers as the wars overseas shrink. The sheriff’s department in Montgomery County, Texas received a $250,000 grant to buy a drone, which in April 2014 crashed into Lake Conroe and was destroyed. In 2013, citizens of Seattle pressured police into returning two drones they had received from DHS grants for $82,000. The drones were then pawned off on the LA Police Department, which is now facing a citizen backlash to get rid of them.

In the past, Congress has done nothing to rollback the handouts. When Congressman Alan Grayson introduced legislation in June to limit funding to the 1033 program, it was quashed by an overwhelming vote of 355-62, including 35 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who voted against it. House Democrats reportedly voted against Grayson’s legislation because it’s “hard to say ‘no’ to your local police chief when they are explaining to you how this equipment could help and in what type of situation.”

But the killing of Michael Brown and Ferguson’s subsequent conversion into a warzone is leading to a critical discussion on racism and police power in America, and also to a new awareness about how our police forces have become more and more like the military.

United States Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) has plans to try again in September, when Congress reconvenes. He is introducing a bill that would ban police departments from receiving armored vehicles, armored drones, high caliber weapons, gun silencers, and stun grenades under the Defense Department’s 1033 Program.

Given the roadblocks to get any bill passed in Congress, though, it’s critical to put pressure on state and local governments to opt out of receiving military equipment. CODEPINK has launched a campaign for people to pressure their local governments to pass resolutions pledging not to apply for nor accept military gear from the Defense Department or the Department of Homeland Security and to decommission supplies they already have.

Our police departments should not become dumping grounds for weapons makers looking for new clients to replace sales for waning wars abroad. Nor should they be repressive agencies that treat the public, especially black men, like enemies. Nor should they be militarized to deal with real or imagined threats of terrorism. Counterterrorism is supposed to be under the purview of the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, NSA and more.

There is simply no reason for police to be armed like the military. As the ACLU says in its excellent report War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, “Our neighborhoods are not warzones, and police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies.” The police must be made to “protect and serve” our communities, not wage war on the people who live in them.

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights group Global Exchange. She is the author of the book Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control.

SAMPLE LOCAL RESOLUTION TO DEMILITARIZE POLICE FORCES

WHEREAS, the rapid militarization of police throughout the United States has led to a rise in instances of abuses of police powers, which poses a serious threat to the constitutional rights of the American people, including the residents of [INSERT TOWN NAME HERE]; and

WHEREAS, the federal government and the [INSERT STATE NAME HERE] have thus far failed to provide reasonable restrictions and oversight on the use of military grade weapons by police; and

WHEREAS, the federal government has in fact incentivized the militarization of police through the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program and the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Grant Program;

NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED, that the [INSERT CITY GOVERNMENT HERE] will refuse to apply for or accept any funds under the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program or the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Grant Program that would go towards purchasing the following: 1) automatic weapons not generally recognized as particularly suitable for law enforcement purposes, including those that are .50 caliber or greater, 2) tactical vehicles, including highly mobile multi-wheeled vehicles, armored vehicles, and mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, 3) drones that are armored and/or weaponized 4) aircraft, 5) grenades, including flash-bang grenades, stun grenades, and grenade launchers, 6) silencers, or 7) long-range acoustic devices, and will remove from active use any of the above military items that are currently in use.

Confronting Militarism with Gravity, Humor and Joy

Medea Benjamin’s speech upon accepting the Aachen Peace Prize on behalf of CODEPINK

First let me thank the Aachen Peace Prize Committee for the great honor of receiving this prestigious award. We at CODEPINK are delighted to be awarded along with with musical phenomenon Lebenslaute. What a joyful and classy way to work for justice!

CODEPINK also believes in bringing joy to our protests. We love to sprinkle our rallies and actions with music, dance, song, art and theater. When tensions with our adversaries start to boil, we dance. When police threaten to arrest us, or after they arrest us, we sing.  When we want to educate the public, we use humorous street theater. We showed our disgust with military hardware in our streets by burying a tank and turning it into a giant flower pot. Last week we had a hula-hooping party at the White House under the banner: Hoops Not Bombs.

We do, of course, have a serious side. We traveled to tribal areas in Pakistan to meet with victims of US drone strikes; we met in Yemen with family members of Guantanamo detainees; we built playgrounds in Gaza. Often in harm’s way,  we’ve been teargassed in Bahrain, deported from Israel, beaten up by government thugs in Egypt, held up at gunpoint in Pakistan.


At home, we’ve become famous for bold interventions at Congressional hearings, Presidential talks, press conferences, business summits and political party conventions. We speak out against war, torture, human rights abuses. We harass war criminals such as Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and support whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. We just raised money to save the home of John Kiriakou, a CIA agent who blew the whistle on torture and is now in prison (while the torturers go free).

I must admit that sometimes it feels like we’re amateur firefighters struggling against professional arsonists. We run from one disaster to another—Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, Libya, Ukraine, Iran, domestic flare-ups—desperately trying to put out the flames.

Who would have thought that after a decade of a disastrous occupation in Iraq, we’d be struggling again, today, to stop our government from a new round of military intervention in Iraq! If only George Bush had only listened to the global peace community in February 2003 when we poured out into the streets in 600 cities worldwide, millions strong, to try to stop the invasion of Iraq. Unleashing a tsunami of sectarianism, the US invasion opened the Gates of Hell to the brutal forces of ISIS. And the kinder, gentler President Barack Obama really thinks that the US can once again bomb Iraq into peace? As our singer/songwriter friend Michael Franti says, “You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb it into peace.” (I’m sorry if that’s a hard line to translate.)

The triumphalist rhetoric we hear about US airstrikes to defeat ISIS in Iraq today are echoes of the assessments of the 2011 U.S./NATO bombings in Libya, which was sold to the public as a humanitarian mission to liberate the people from the autocrat Muammar Gaddafi. But Libya is now a failed state, riven by competing militias, largely ungovernable, with Gaddafi’s looted weapons in the hands of jihadist extremists who are spreading out from the Sinai Peninsula to Mali, from Northern Africa to northern Nigeria.

What about Afghanistan? After over 12 years of US/NATO intervention, it remains one of the poorest countries on earth, with a weak, corrupt central government, where women are still terribly repressed and where farmers are still planting record opium crops.

Almost 13 years after the 9/11 attacks, there are more al-Qaeda-like groups around the world; they have become more organized and have more members. Today, al-Qaeda, ISIS and jihadist groups are in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Mali, Nigeria, and the list goes on.

Oblivious to its disastrous mistakes, the military and CIA have turned to drone warfare as a way to target militants without having to put US troops in danger. The drone wars, where people are obliterated by Hellfire missiles on the basis of suspicious behavior with no attempt to capture them or try them in a court of law, has been the focus of CODEPINK’s attention for the past five years. We have written a book on Drone Warfare and traveled to 200 cities to educate the public. We protest at the US Air Force bases where the pilots are stationed, at the White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the factories and homes of drone manufacturers, the homes of government officials, congressional offices. We have helped turn public opinion against drone warfare, forced the government to talk about its covert program, and shamed them into reducing the number of drone strikes. With the help of our European allies, particularly Germans, we have created a global network against drones used for killing, spying and repression, and we are planning our first global day of action on October 4.

During a December 2013 visit to Germany, I tried to speak with Chancellor Merkel about German complicity in the drone wars. The previous day 15 civilians, including several children, were tragically killed by a US drone strike on a wedding party in Yemen. The pilot who pushed the button, sitting at a computer in the US, transmitted a signal to Ramstein Air Base in Germany—a signal that was then relayed to a US drone deployed at a base near Yemen. The US Air Force’s Air Operations Center at Ramstein, with its satellite relay station and staff of 650 people, played a key role in killing these innocent Yemenis, as it does in all the US drones strikes in the Mideast, Pakistan, and Africa.Ex-US drone pilots have testified that every US drone strike begins with a phone call to Ramstein.

I wanted to make Chancellor Merkel aware that by allowing the United States to use Ramstein for drone wars, the German government shares the guilt for thousands of murders, including in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia where neither the US nor Germany nor NATO are officially at war.

Chancellor Merkel and her government claim to have no knowledge of the role of Ramstein in the US drone wars, even though many respected German media outlets have published reports about this. Chancellor Merkel and the German government also deny any knowledge about the role of AFRICOM, the United States Africa Command in Stuttgart. But AFRICOM is in charge of all US Department of Defense operations on the African continent and surrounding waters.

When AFRICOM was founded in 2007, more than a dozen African countries refused to host it. The German government finally agreed to host it, but without the knowledge or consent of the German people or the Parliament. US defense officials at that time said that AFRICOM would coordinate relationships with friendly African militaries and work with agencies like USAID to bring humanitarian aid to Africa.

Now, about 1500 people work at AFRICOM’s Stuttgart headquarters, among other things directing about 5,000 US troops in Africa. Following the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a US military pivot to Africa that is perhaps even more important than the pivot to Asia. There are now twice as many missions in Africa as six years ago and new drone bases throughout the continent.  In the new Global War on Terror in Africa, US personnel in Stuttgart are directing more than a mission a day in almost every African country, from Libya to the Central African Republic, from Somalia to South Sudan, including selecting targets for drone strikes.

The heightened visibility of the US military in Africa has led to increased recruitment and activity by jihadist groups, accelerating the spiral of violence.

While Chancellor Merkel did not meet with me, I did meet many conscientious elected officials, including Andrej Hunko of Aachen, and activists from civil society who strongly oppose the German government’s complicity with US militarism.

Germans have every right to insist on respect for international law and the German constitution, which forbids the preparation of war of aggression from German soil. Since the US military facilities in Germany are of such critical importance for US war-making, the German people could and should firmly demand that the German government require the US to adhere to the law, especially when operating on German soil. Instead of colluding in extra-judicial killings and spying on each other, our nations should be working together to strengthen the rule of law.

One of the few positive trends in the last decade is that in the United States, the American people have become not only war-weary but war-wise, understanding that US overseas military adventures have not made us safer, have not benefited the countries we invaded and have siphoned off trillions of dollars that would have been better spent shoring up our crumbling infrastructure, schools and healthcare system.

Obama’s plan in August 2013 for US military involvement in Syria generated an extraordinary outpouring of opposition in communities across the United States, forcing him to step back from a bombing campaign, and instead negotiate a deal to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons. Americans support diplomatic talks with Iran to find a non-military solution to their nuclear program. And by a 2-to-1 margin, they say the US should not get “too involved” in the conflict in the Ukraine.

There is one other silver lining. The August 7 grotesque police murder of the young black man Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri unleashed an uproar across the nation and opened people’s eyes, in shock, to the way our military has pushed its weapons of war on police departments.  Tanks, assault weapons, camouflage uniforms, tear gas—little did Americans know that these have become commonplace in local law enforcement agencies. There are now nationwide calls to demilitarize the police forces and dismantle federal programs that dump surplus military supplies on our cities and towns.

It is time to think boldly about how to seize this moment to roll back the militarization of our communities, our nations, our planet. It is time to explore genuine nonviolent alternatives and new models—people-to-people diplomacy, international peacemaking teams, weapons embargoes, citizen summits, people’s tribunals, global boycotts, cross-border caravans and flotillas to show solidarity with people in need.

It is time to debate what it will take to move to a world beyond war, where we stop glorifying warriors and failed wars, where we stop funding murder and instead free up our vast resources to address our most critical common adversaries, like the global climate crisis that threatens future life on the planet.

At CODEPINK, we are ready for the challenge and this award gives us added strength and motivation for the hard work ahead, work we will continue to infuse with our trademark creativity and sense of humor and joy. Thank you again for this beautiful honor.

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights group Global Exchange. She is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

One Year After Egypt’s Rab’a Massacre, US Still Funding Repression

It has been one year since the August 14, 2013 Rab’a Square massacre in Egypt, when the Egyptian police and army opened fire on demonstrators opposed to the military’s July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. Using tanks, bulldozers, ground forces, helicopters and snipers, police and army personnel mercilessly attacked the makeshift protest encampment, where demonstrators, including women and children, had been camped out for over 45 days. The result was the worst mass killing in Egypt’s modern history.

The government’s systematic effort to obscure what took place, beginning with sealing off the square the next day, has made it difficult to come up with an accurate death toll. But a just-released Human Rights Watch report, based on a meticulous year-long investigation, found that at least 817 and likely well over 1,000 people were killed in Rab’a Square on August 14.

The report contains horrific first-hand accounts. One protester recalled carrying the dead, piles of them. “We found limbs that were totally crushed. There were dead people with no arms, obviously a tank ran over them. Imagine you are carrying piles of bodies, it is something you can’t imagine. Even the bodies that you are carrying, you carry an arm of a person, alongside the leg of another person.”

A student from Cairo University recounted that the ground was a “sea of blood” and how she watched the bleeding protesters in horror, “knowing that I was not able to do anything besides watch them die.”

A doctor described the scene at the mosque in the square: “I have never seen anything like what I saw when I stepped inside. The entire floor was covered in bodies. To slow down the decomposition, people had put ice around the bodies. But the ice had melted and mixed with the blood, leaving us wading in blood and water.”

Human Rights Watch’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, and the director of its Middle East and North Africa division, Sarah Leah Whitson, had planned to be in Cairo this week to release the report, but were held at the airport and denied entry into Egypt.

The systematic and intentional killing of unarmed protesters is a crime against humanity and those responsible should be investigated and held accountable. At the top of the chain of command during the Rab’a massacre was then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who orchestrated the military overthrow of democratically-elected Morsi. But neither Sisi nor any government officials have been prosecuted for the killings. On the contrary; Sisi has managed to usurp even more power, becoming Egypt’s president via rigged elections.

Since the massacre, Sisi has overseen a year of intense government repression that has included the arrests of tens of thousands of people, including Islamists and leftist political activists. More than 65 journalists have been detained and some, like three Al Jazeera journalists, have been sentenced to 7-10 years in prison. Egypt’s criminal justice system has become a cruel joke; sentencing 1,247 people to death in trials makes a mockery of the word “justice”. In many cases defendants were not brought to their trials and lawyers have repeatedly been barred from presenting their defense or questioning witnesses.

Amnesty International has documented the sharp deterioration in human rights in Egypt in the past year, including the surge in arbitrary arrests, torture and deaths in police custody. Amnesty says torture is routinely carried out by the military and police, with members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood particularly targeted. Among the methods of torture employed are electric shocks, rape, handcuffing detainees and suspending them from open doors.

Gen. Abdel Fattah Osman, who heads the media department at the Interior Ministry, denied the accusations of torture and rape in prisons and declared that “prisons in Egypt have become like hotels.”

I had a minor taste of this regime’s “hospitality” when I attempted to enter Cairo on March 3, 2014 as part of a women’s peace delegation. I was stopped at the airport, detained for 17 hours, and then thrown to the ground and handcuffed so violently that my shoulder popped out of its socket. Instead of allowing me to go to the hospital to have my arm reset, as the doctors insisted, I had my scarf stuffed into my mouth, was dragged through the airport and deported to Turkey. I was never given any explanation as to why I was detained, attacked, arrested and deported. To this day, months later, the pain in my arm is a daily reminder of the thugs who run Egypt today.

While the global human rights community has watched in horror as the basic rights of Egyptians have been torn asunder, some regional governments, particularly Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, have embraced Sisi and are providing billions of dollars of support. Perhaps this is not surprising, given that they are autocratic regimes that want to stave off democratic change in their own countries.

But what about the Western nations that pride themselves on their democratic values? European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton criticized the use of force by the military-backed government, but later assured Sisi that the EU would provide 90 million euros worth of financial assistance. And in December 2013, she even took her family on a Christmas holiday to Luxor, meeting with Egypt’s minister of tourism just a few weeks after dozens of peaceful protesters were killed.

The US case is similar. According to US law, a coup is supposed to have consequences. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who wrote the legislation, said, “Our law is clear: U.S. aid is cut off when a democratically elected government is deposed by military coup. This is a time to reaffirm our commitment to the principle that transfers of power should be by the ballot, not by force of arms.”

The US government refuses to even obey its own laws, which would entail cutting the $1.3 billion to the Egyptian military. Too much is at stake for powerful interests:

·      The US wants Egypt to fulfill its commitment to the 1979 Camp David Accords, which ensures Egypt’s complicity in the Israeli occupation of Gaza. This complicity became clear during the latest Israeli attack, where Sisi helped squeeze the Palestinians by closing off the border between Egypt and Gaza.

·      The US wants to ensure priority access for US Navy ships to the Suez Canal, as well as the flow of oil and gas through the canal.

·      “Aid” to Egypt is really a subsidy for US weapons exporters. Most of the money never gets to Egypt but goes to powerful U.S. military contractors such as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin that make the tanks and fighter jets that get sent to Egypt (whether or not the Egyptian military wants the equipment).

When Secretary of State John Kerry visited Sisi on June 22, he announced that the US would release $575 million of the $1.3 billion. He told Sisi, “I am confident that we will be able to ultimately get the full amount of aid.” And now Kerry is strengthening Sisi’s hand by making him a key player in the ceasefire talks between Israel and Gaza, despite the fact that Sisi has been an enemy of Hamas—a group he considers too closely linked with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

On this terrible anniversary of the Rab’a massacre, Egyptians are still mourning the dead, nursing the injured and crying out for help from the prisons and torture chambers. But the “Western democracies”, dancing with the dictator, have turned a deaf ear to their cries. That’s why activists the world over are marking the occasion by showing solidarity and by calling on their governments to break ties with Sisi’s regime.

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human rights group Global Exchange. She was brutally assaulted by Egyptian security guards at the Cairo airport while trying to enter the country in March 2014.