Medea Benjamin's Blog, page 6

Press Conference on Behalf of Imprisoned Qatari Poet, Mohammed al-Ajami

On Tuesday, June 10, 2014, the campaign to free Muhammad Ibn-Dheeb al-Ajami, including representatives from human rights groups, PEN America, and CODEPINK, held a press conference calling for the release of imprisoned Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami.

Speakers included Lex Paulson, a former Congressional staff and now a professor; Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch; Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK; Ikram Yakoubi, a Tunisian artist and cofounder of Atlas Leaders; Tighe Barry, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and Hollywood film art director; and Ann Wright, retired Colonel of the US Army and State Department official, who read a statement on behalf of PEN.

On November 16, 2011, Qatari poet Mohammad al-Ajami was handed a life sentence (which was later reduced to 15 years) for “insulting the Emir,” Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and “inciting to overthrow the ruling system.” These claims came after a recording was posted on YouTube of al-Ajami reciting his poetic tribute to the Arab Spring, “Tunisian Jasmine.” Since November of 2011, al-Ajami spent much of the time in solitary confinement. The featured speakers at the press conference called on the new Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to release Al-Ajami immediately.

In his poetic tribute to the Arab Spring, “Tunisian Jasmine,” Mohammed declared, “Enough with tyrannical regimes! Tell the one who torments his people that tomorrow someone else will take his place. He should not rest assured that the country belongs to him or his offspring because the country belongs to the people and so does glory. Join your voices in a chorus for a single destiny. We are all Tunisian in the face of repression.”

Medea Benjamin said that she wants people in the United States to know that the Qatari government, which positions itself as a moderate, modern Arab state, is imprisoning a poet. “It is very strange for us to see someone being arrested for poetry,” she stated on behalf of CODEPINK. “Poets hold a special place in our societies, using their words to speak truth and inspire us. Al Ajami deserves to be respected and valued for his work, not persecuted and imprisoned.”

Qatar, a major US ally in the Middle East, considers itself to be a defender of human rights. “Qatar, after all its posturing as a supporter of freedom, turns out to be determined to keep its citizens quiet, as we have seen the hammer come down on people like Mohammed,” said human rights leader Joe Stork.

Ann Wright called on our State Department to have the courage to tell the Qatari government to treat al-Ajami with the respect he deserves. Lex Paulson stated that we are not asking Qatar to adopt American laws, but even under its own laws, Mohammed has not been fairly treated. The Qatari government has failed Mohammed.

Human rights activists have been organizing on behalf of al-Ajami across the world. Last year, British MP George Galloway introduced a motion, signed by 14 members of Parliament, calling on the British government to intervene on al-Ajami’s behalf. The peace group CODEPINK organized hundreds of Americans to write poems to him and the group held a demonstration at the Qatari Embassy in Washington, DC.

Lex Paulson, a professor of human rights in Paris who has met with al-Ajami’s lawyers in Doha, stated that when he visited al-Ajami in prison, he was told that he kept writing poetry in his mind while in solitary confinement. He is sure that his spirit is “as undimmed and unquenched as I first met him.” In some verses of his latest poem, Poem From a Prison Cell, al-Ajami leave us with words of warning:

Tell your children, east and west

—and keep telling them, until

the birds sing it in the branches—

that a people without opinions

is nothing but a herd that’s thirsty

yet blind to the nearby oasis

Press Coverage of CODEPINK Press Conference in Support of the Return of Sgt. Bergdahl

Officials Predicted Detainees in Bowe Bergdahl Swap Would Rejoin Taliban [http://online.wsj.com/articles/offici...], The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2014

Code Pink, American Muslim Alliance welcome home Bowe Bergdahl [http://twitchy.com/2014/06/10/code-pi...], Twitchy, June 10, 2014

Fewer than 2 Dozen Protesters Show Up at Pro-Bergdahl White House Rally [http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/10/few...], The Daily Caller, June 10, 2014

Antiwar activists protest smear campaign against former POW Bowe Bergdahl [https://archive.org/details/BoweBergd...], Internet archive, June 10, 2014

Activists And Veterans Hold Rally In Support Of Bowe Bergdahl’s Release [http://www.google.com/hostednews/gett...], Getty Images, June 10, 2014

Code Pink, American Muslim Alliance Welcome Home Bowe Bergdahl [http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/blo...], Free Republic, June 10, 2014

Акция протеста у Белого дома: возвращение домой сержанта Бергдала (Translation: Protest at the White House: Sergeant Bergdahl Returning Home) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HLRw...], RTVi, June 10, 2014

Linchamiento mediático contra Bow Bergdahl en EEUU [http://www.hispantv.com/detail/2014/0...], HispanTV, June 11, 2014

Bergdahl was discharged from US Coast Guard before Afghan tour [http://www.straitstimes.com/news/worl...], The Straits Times, June 12, 2014

Statements in support of al-Ajami

“In October of last year, two PEN representatives waited for five hours at the guardhouse of Doha Central Prison in the hope that the permission that they had been granted to visit Mohammed al-Ajami would be honored. Phone calls to the prosecutors’ office, to lawyers, to prison guards and back in the hot desert wind were all for naught. The team left Qatar without meeting Mohammed, but not without knowing that he had heard we were there to express our solidarity.

PEN has been fighting for Mohammed al-Ajami’s right to create, and to read, his own poetry since he was first arrested in Qatar in November 2011. Around the world, PEN members from our network of 145 centers have written letters, read his words, petitioned, and spread the urgent call for his release through social and traditional media.

 

PEN is an organization of writers, for writers, and Mohammed is one of us. PEN fights for freedom of expression wherever it is threatened. We maintain lines of solidarity, and engage in writer to writer contact. If you’re a writer in prison or under threat anywhere in the world, our members will stand up for you, will be your voice when you can’t speak.

 

Al-Ajami’s detention is a clear violation of universal freedom of expression norms and laws, including Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For his poetry, and his poetry alone, he is serving a 15-year sentence. He has exhausted his legal options, with the Court of Cassation upholding his sentence the day the PEN delegation arrived last October. But there is still time to make this right. We call on the Emir of Qatar, His Excellency Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to grant Mohammed al-Ajami an unconditional release in the spirit of Ramadan.

 

To Mohammed al-Ajami: PEN looks forward to finally meeting you upon your release. Until then, know that we are with you, and that you are not alone.

 

 

PEN American Center

PEN Center USA

June 10, 2014″

Latest Poem by Mohammed al-Ajami

Poem From a Prison Cell by Mohammed al-Ajami

Translated by Katrien Vanpee and Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Is it my mind or my heart that I’ve lost

to you, Arab lands, home of enemies?

If you held our minds with law and reason

if you respected our opinions

then you’d hold my heart as well

Who am I? Don’t ask the days about me—

I’m nothing but a prisoner

in an isolation cell

Here in my country, oppression

is what takes our rights away

Here, ignorance

determines our convictions

Here, the people

no longer have a voice, cannot

spell out the language of reproach

My country, if insight required an apology

I’d never stop apologizing

Tell your children, east and west

—and keep telling them, until

the birds sing it in the branches—

that a people without opinions

is nothing but a herd that’s thirsty

yet blind to the nearby oasis

Fight for your convictions: this is how

you ride your steeds and bear your arms

against a ruler who seeks to oppress

and who molds your silence

into a pretext for injustice

Tell them that I, stubborn, persistent

was unmatched in my victory

and my defeat

Time may have disgraced me

but I haven’t been easy for time to shackle

Lord of rabble, what of yours compares

to the thrones of Ibn Ad’s people

in Iram, the city of pillars

which God spoke of in His revelation?

You’ve been insincere, a false prophet on earth

though you, like Jesus, spoke in the crib

You’ve wounded truth, and my proud allegiance

is lifeless now, and clad in black

How can you expect obedience

when you call for injustice?

If we obeyed you, then what would become of our principles?

When we pray, who do we pray to?

To God, or to God’s servants?

There’s no room for virtue under oppression

there’s no room for vice on the road of justice

Whoever wrongs and deceives his people

will never be able to guide them

If history were objective, it would tell

how you’ve sought glory in my so-called enmity

Go ahead and be miserable, though you and I

are not enemies

I avoid enmity, and make enemies

only of those who are truly worthy

If you ask after my finest day

on an occasion when words of pride are called for

I’d call history to mind, and say:

It was when I was a prisoner in my own country

for when you shackled my wrists

history gave me strength

and confidence in victory

These disgraceful chains

are power in my hands, not power

for those who lord it over me

Doors and guards, wake me up gently

whenever I sleep too long

It is not desire

but fear

that makes me ask this, fear

that the enemies will see my weakness when I sleep…

though I no longer know

if my eyes are closed, or if

I’ve been awake all this time

 

(Original Arabic version)

هام فيك العقل أم هام فؤادي
يا بلاد العرب يا دار الاعادي
ان ملكتي العقل قانوناً و فكراً
بأحترام الرأي ملكتي فؤادي
من أنا لا تسألي الأيام عني
ما انا إلا سجينٍ انفرادي
في بلادي يسلب الاجحاف حقي
في بلادي حقق الجهل اعتقادي
في بلادي لم يعد للشعب صوتٌ
كي يُهجي مفردات الانتقادي
يا بلادي ان يكن للبعد عذراً
صغت عذرا كل ما طال بعادي
اخبري أبنائك شرقاً و غرباً
ريثما يشدو على الاغصان شادي
ان شعبا دون رأي ليس إلا
كـ قطيعٍ هائم في كل وادي
جاهدو بالرأي إن الرأي كان
كأمتطاء الخيل او نقل العتادي
عند سلطانٍ سعى بالأمر جورا
اوجد الصمت له عذر التمادي
اخبريهم انني كنت فريداً
في أنتصاري وانكساري و عنادي
صاغني وقتي بأذلال ولكن
لم أكن للوقت سهل الانقيادي
سيد الاوباش لو ملكت امرا
كعروش السوء من قوم ابن عادٍ
التي فالوحي قال الله عنها
حين قال ( ارم ذات العماد)
لم تكن فالارض صديقاً نبياً
ان تكلمت صغيرا فالمهادي
قد جرحت الحق زورا فستطاشا
كبرياء العهد في ثوب الحدادي
كيف ترجو طاعة تدعو لذنبٍ
ان اطعناك فسحقا للمبادي
هل نصلي فرضنا حين نصلي
للعباد ام إلى رب العبادي
في امتهان الظلم خرمٌ للمكارم
في انتهاج العدل درء للفسادي
من يكن للناس تضليلاً وشراً
لم يكن للناس يوما خير هادي
بعدائي ربما اهديك مجداً
ان يكن للمجد تاريخٌ حيادي
فبتئس لسنا باعداء بتاتا
فالعداء كان عداء احادي
لا اعادي غير من كان جديراً
بعدائي عند ما فعلاً اعادي
سألي ما اكثر الايام فخراً
كل ما نادى إلى الفخر المنادي
حينما استرجع التاريخ كانت
عندما كنت سجينا في بلادي
حينما وثقت بالقيد يدايا
وثق التاريخ بالنصر اعتدادي
ان ذل القيد دون المجد عزاً
للأيادي قبل اصحاب الأيادي
ايها الابواب والسجان لطفاً
ايقظوني كل ما زاد رقادي
ليس شوقاً انما خوفاً لكي لا
تنظر الاعداء ضعفي في رقادي
رغم إني لم أعد أدري بحالِ
هل غفت عيناي ام طال سهادي

So Obama Really Can Close Gitmo

Medea Benjamin and Alli McCracken

Over the weekend the government of Qatar brokered a dramatic deal between the US and the Taliban to swap five Guantánamo prisoners for Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier held as a prisoner of war for almost five years. Flexing his political clout, President Obama demonstrated his ability to navigate with ease through the Congressional obstacles in the way of releasing prisoners from Guantánamo. Some House Republicans accused the President of breaking the law to get his way. But the Obama administration made it clear that the President had added a “signing statement” to the bill restricting the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, saying that the restrictions violated his Constitutional prerogative.

Called “the hardest of the hardcore” by hawkish Republican Senator John McCain, the Guantánamo prisoners released in the swap have been identified as high-level Taliban operatives. According to Human Rights Watch, one of those released, Mullah Norullah Nori, could be prosecuted for possible war crimes, including mass killings. All of the men were recommended for continued detention because of their “high-risk” status. Qatar has assured the US that the released men will be held and monitored in Qatar for at least a year, but some US officials are highly critical of the move, saying that the men are likely to return to their former positions within the Taliban.

If Obama is willing to take the risk with these “high-risk” prisoners, and if he really wants to close Guantanamo as he has claimed many times, why hasn’t he been using his authority all along  to release the 77 prisoners already cleared for release? Of the remaining 149 Gitmo prisoners, 77 were cleared by the President’s Guantánamo Review Task Force –– meaning the US government has deemed them innocent or not a threat to Americans. But since President Obama’s speech at the National Defense University in May of 2013, in which he reiterated his promise to close the detention facility, only 12 of these men have been transferred.

In his May 23 speech, the President also announced he was lifting a self-imposed ban on repatriating Yemeni prisoners, who represent the majority of remaining prisoners. Yet over one year later, not one Yemeni has been transferred. If finding a safe place to transfer prisoners is indeed a problem, President Obama could immediately accept the generous offer of Uruguay’s President Mujica to take five men from Guantánamo.

By releasing the five Guantánamo prisoners without prior Congressional approval, President Obama has blown away the excuse that his hands are tied by Congress. He should use his authority to free all the cleared prisoners, such as the five below:

1. Tariq Ba Odah, a Yemeni national, has been detained at Guantánamo since February 2002 and cleared for release since 2009. In February of 2007, he began the longest running hunger strike at Guantanamo that continues to this day. He is force-fed daily. He says his hunger strike is the only way that he has to communicate to those of us who have our freedom how barbaric it is to be put in a cell for a decade without charge.

2. Yunis Abdurrahman Shokuri is a 46-year-old citizen of Morocco who has been held in Guantánamo for over 12 years. As his lawyers at Reprieve explained, “Younous has consistently been one of the most cooperative, peaceful prisoners at the base; he says he bears Americans no ill-will. His greatest wish is to be reunited with his wife and continue with the quiet life that was interrupted by America’s ‘war on terror.’”

3. Ghaleb Nassar Al-Bihani, a diabetic Yemeni citizen, copes with his anxiety and depression through exercise, including yoga. Mr. Al-Bihani has been imprisoned for the last 12 years on the basis of allegations that in 2001 he was an assistant cook for a Taliban-affiliated group that later disbanded––yet he has never been charged with a crime.

4. Fahd Ghazy, a Yemeni citizen, has been detained at Guantánamo since 2002. Imprisoned just months after getting married and having a child at the age of 17, he is one of the last remaining prisoners detained as a juvenile. Fahd was cleared for transfer by President Bush in 2007, and again by the Obama administration in 2009. He is now 29 years old and has spent over one-third of his life in Guantánamo without charge.

5. Shaker Aamer is a former UK resident and Saudi Arabian national who has been held at Guantánamo without charge since 2002. Despite the willingness of UK authorities to permit Aamer’s return to the UK and rejoin his family, he remains imprisoned. He has spent much of his time held in solitary confinement, and has been involved in protesting against conditions at the camp, including participating in hunger strikes.

The president should also use his authority to release another prisoner wrongly held: former CIA official John Kiriakou, imprisoned for telling the truth about CIA waterboarding and torture. Kiriakou’s family is in danger of losing their home while he serves time a 30-month prison sentence, and the peace community has rallied to their defense.

President Obama acted courageously to secure the release of Bowe Bergdahl. Now he must act courageously to deal with the remaining Guantanamo prisoners by freeing the 77 who have been cleared and by freeing—or securing fair trials—for the rest.

This is precisely what Bob Bergdahl, father of the swapped prisoner, is calling for. “I don’t think anybody can relate to the prisoners in Guantánamo more than our family, because it’s the same thing,” he said. “How could we have such a high standard of judicial process for horrible war criminals [during World War II] … and yet now we can go for 10-11 years without even having judicial process? It’s just wrong.” President Obama can, and must, right this wrong.

 

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

Alli McCracken (@AlliMcCrack) is the national coordinator for the peace group CODEPINK, based in Washington DC. She is an avid supporter of whistleblowers and hopes you will make a donation to help John Kiriakou’s family keep their home.

Note to CODEPINK by Heather Kiriakou

Like many parents, our children and their happiness mean everything to John and me. They have one chance to grow up and the last thing we want is for this nightmare to be the defining moment of their childhood. Thus, prior to and during John’s incarceration, our main focus has been trying to ensure that Chris, Costa, Max, Kate & Charlie are minimally impacted by it.

The reason John accepted the plea deal was to minimize his time away from the kids and not risk missing too milestones in their young lives. John has always been a very involved and devoted father and we miss him terribly. While the kids are remarkably resilient, his absence has been painful for each of the children in different ways. For example, Charlie, our 2 year-old, is angry that he cannot pick up the phone and call daddy. Max, our 9 year-old, has developed chronic nausea because he is constantly worrying about his dad. Kate, our 7 year-old, cries herself to sleep many nights because she misses John’s bedtime stories and the folk songs they sang together. The best remedy for the kids has been keeping them as busy as possible to make time go quickly until our family can be reunited.

Your Father’s Day fundraiser will ensure that the children will be able to spend their summer days doing fun activities and enjoying their childhoods rather than focusing on John’s absence. We are so incredibly lucky to have people like you who are willing to make personal sacrifices to ensure the well-being of our family during this extraordinarily difficult time. John and I are very grateful for your love and support.

Sincerely,

Heather

Inspiration for Your Friday

by Janet Weil

“Does my sassiness upset you?” – Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014)

This past week was punctuated, for me as for many people, by the news of two very different sorts of deaths. The natural passing away, at age 86, of author/performer/teacher Maya Angelou at home after a long life of many achievements; and the tragic horror of the murders (and suicide) of young students in Santa Barbara .

The news of Dr. Angelou’s death brought me a gentle sadness, along with memories of first reading “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” as a young woman, and gratitude for her example as a strong, ever-evolving woman.

The images and sounds of the post-mass-shooting coverage (I was away from TV and computer all weekend, so I missed this as breaking news) were both shocking and all too familiar. I felt a complex mix of disgust, horror, worry for an acquaintance getting her PhD at UC Santa Barbara, and a sort of enraged numbness. Again and again and again – how many of these atrocities will we as a country submit to before serious changes take place?

Catching up on #YesAllWomen on twitter, and then Rebecca Solnit’s insightful commentary on Democracy Now, I felt a measure of satisfaction that the woman-hatred foundational to this killing was finally being outed, analyzed, and protested; and that women’s voices were being heard as central to this narrative.

It all made me think of the hate mail that I have read, and at times responded to, at info@codepink.org since I first took on that responsibility in late 2007 (with some long breaks). At the time, CODEPINK in the SF Bay Area was involved in a long struggle to vigil daily in front of, and attempt to remove, the Marines Officer Recruiting Station near the University of California at Berkeley. As news of this campaign spread, hate mail flooded into the inbox, sometimes hundreds in a day, expressing fury over our daring to contest the public presence of a military recruiting office, defending the Marine Corps from our supposed “treachery” and objecting to us, politically active antiwar women, with obscene denunciations. Sometimes the emails included threats of physical assault, rape or even death.

I had never read such a stream of invective – I came to call it “The Spew” – and it was emotionally challenging, sometimes harrowing. My colleagues were also receiving hate mail and we were getting hate calls in the office as well. First thing in the morning, I always knew when CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin had been on Fox News because the hate mail would come pouring in again.

One of my responses was to add a message to the auto-reply that any emails containing obscenities would not be answered. A few guys wrote in objecting to THAT! Pretty quickly I created a routine: delete The Daily Spew, and focus on answering some of the emails, often from boys in high school or college, who wrote in genuinely concerned that we “hated” the Marine Corps, or couldn’t understand how we could be against a war “to protect Americans.” These I answered with all the patience I could muster, and sometimes had the satisfaction of receiving respectful, appreciative replies.

After some months, I began to regard The Spew in a different way: as a teaching. I recognized the absolute ineffectiveness of these emails, their unpersuasive, predictable emptiness. I also thought about my own uses of language when angry, and how examining this is central to peace work.

And more. I began to “hear” the emails as voices raised in a collective wail of frustration: “I’m so unhappy, so angry, so confused, so at the mercy of my own feelings – help me, listen to me, make it better!”

As the mother of a baby son, I had learned, through a haze of fatigue, how to respond to his wail and “make it better.” Much later in life, my son grown to adulthood, I recognized the same quality of unmet need in these abusive emails – but unlike an infant’s legitimate need for comfort, these demands from adolescents or adult men came from their unexamined sense of entitlement to use violent language, threat and projection against an unknown woman/women. They were outrageous. And pathetic.

And very related to the foreign policy of the United States after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (themselves a grotesque display of male rage and futility on a mass scale). “We HAD to go to war… to strike back… to detain ‘enemy combatants’… to use torture to get information… to keep troops in the country…”

No, “we” did not need to do any of those things. That is the classic defense of the abuser: “she made me do it.” A tiny elite of neocons CHOSE to do those things, or to order others to commit those war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, for their own selfish reasons. The rest of us, with the noble exception of some individuals and groups, including I’m proud to say CODEPINK, mostly stood by, in a sort of anxious apathy, and let them do it – with our tax dollars, our young men and women, and our national reputation. The shame and waste of 2 long foreign wars has been immense, and added to those is the slower chronic horror of what Jeremy Scahill has named “dirty wars” of drone strikes and surveillance.

The hate mail slowed to a trickle, then died down almost completely. Now people write expressions of gratitude, of interest, of appreciation. A few men have written to info email this year to say that they’ve come to see that CODEPINK was right about the Iraq war, or sometimes other issues, and that they appreciate our persistence or integrity. These inspire me – because they show me that people, even those rigidly opposed to us years ago, can change their minds and hearts.

What can’t we change, if we keep walking toward a more peaceful world? What can’t we do together for justice? Who can we reach out to? Whose minds and hearts do we need to speak to? And how do I, do we, without sentimentality or unrealistic expectations, but with an open curiosity, communicate with those we disagree with or oppose?

As Maya Angelou would say – did say: “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Inspiration for Your Friday

by Janet Weil

Even by the low standards of what passes for democratic process on Capitol Hill, May 22 — with the FY15 NDAA, the NSA “reform” bill and David “Killer Drone Memo” Barron under consideration, virtually simultaneously — was a very bad news day for those who cherish the rule of law, not partisan party politicking.

In the House of “Reps” Speaker Boehner thwarted a vote on an amendment to the NDAA, to repeal the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, aka “blank check for war.” Congressmen Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) among others got to their feet to denounce this subversion of process, as did California Congresswoman Barbara Lee. But then, without further fuss, the House voted 325 – 98 FOR spending $600.7 billion of the people’s hard-earned tax dollars for more war in Afghanistan, 1000+ military bases overseas, “modernized” nuclear weapons, drones, the F-35, the NSA, and more. The indefinite detention provisions in FY13 and FY14 National “Defense” Authorization Act still stand after an amendment to repeal it by Congressman Adam Smith“failed on a vote of 191 to 230.”

As members of the House were embracing and patting shoulders at the conclusion of the vote (I stared dumbfounded at C-SPAN 1) Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, former G-man and NSA surveillance enthusiast, urged his colleagues to view classified documents on the NSA before voting on a so-called “Freedom” Act (nicknamed Freedumber on twitter) which every digital privacy and constitutional rights group suddenly decided was too eviscerated for them to support any longer. Rogers reminded members of the House, who have sworn an oath to the US Constitution including the 4th amendment, that they had to sign a “no leaking to the public” promise before viewing the classified docs.

I switched to C-SPAN 2 for coverage of the Senate, and who was making a calm yet forceful explanation of what “due process” really means, with regard to assassination of US citizens by US drone strikes? (We know of at least 4 who have been murdered this way, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki.) Not Chair of the Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy. Not “progressive leaders” Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. And certainly not Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Dianne Feinstein. No, the senator explaining that due process means in public, with 2 adversarial sides, and not just in the executive branch of the government – not secret, one-sided, and only involving Obama and his advisors – was Republican libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky. He was arguing against the nomination of David Barron to a federal judgeship, a nomination which CODEPINK strongly opposed. I – and CODEPINK as a national organization — will never agree with Senator Paul on most of his positions, including on abortion, coal mining or immigration, but I have to say I was impressed with his defense of elementary principles of constitutional law, and his plea to his colleagues to vote as if a president of “the other party” were ordering these drone strikes.

The Senate voted to confirm Barron, 53 – 45. Only 2 Democratic senators had the independence to vote against the wishes of their president, who is rewarding Barron for services rendered with a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary, a step below the Supreme Court.

So where do I go for inspiration, the intake of fresh air and renewal after mentally living in the windowless chambers of Congress? To the grassroots. I turn to news from the Walk for Peace between San Francisco to Beale Air Force Base, home of the world’s largest surveillance drone, the Global Hawk. To photos and accounts from around the world of people protesting the continuing atrocities and denial of due process in Guantanamo’s torture facility. To this joyous, funny, celebratory music video from Yemen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISAr....

And I look forward to walking outdoors this weekend in the newest US national park, Pinnacles, where I hope to see a California condor, brought back from the brink of extinction and now soaring over the chaparral.

Reading part of “The Earth Path” by Starhawk for inspiration this morning, I found this in the “Creation” chapter:

“…this air that we breathe is a gift of the early ancestors [who evolved to breathe oxygen] …life by its very nature is a great power of creativity and transformation, a power that will prevail. And when I doubt, all I need to do is take a breath, in and out, and receive the gift of the ancestors.” (p. 48)

I wonder if the debates, deliberations and votes in Congress would be different if those chambers and hearing rooms had windows open to the sky, the wind, birds, clouds, and the voices of the people outside. Do closed spaces lead to closed minds and hearts?

Postscript: The FY15NDAA and the “Freedom” Act are not yet law – the battles over these bills will now be taken up in the Senate, and there’s much to do to oppose and/or amend them.

Inspiration for Your Friday – Number 5

By Janet Weil

Even by the low standards of what passes for democratic process on Capitol Hill, May 22, — with the FY15 NDAA, the NSA “reform” bill and David “Killer Drone Memo” Barron under consideration, virtually simultaneously — 2014 was a very bad news day for those who cherish the rule of law, not partisan party politicking.

In the House of “Reps” Speaker Boehner thwarted a vote on an amendment to the NDAA, to repeal the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, aka “blank check for war.” Congressmen Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) among others got to their feet to denounce this subversion of process, as did California Congresswoman Barbara Lee. But then, without further fuss, the House voted 325 – 98 FOR spending $600.7 billion of the people’s hard-earned tax dollars for more war in Afghanistan, 1000+ military bases overseas, “modernized” nuclear weapons, drones, the F-35, the NSA, and more. The indefinite detention provisions in FY13 and FY14 National “Defense” Authorization Act, by the way, still stand after an amendment by Congressman Adam Smith to repeal it “failed on a vote of 191 to 230.”

As members of the House were embracing and patting shoulders at the conclusion of the vote (I stared dumbfounded at C-SPAN 1) Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, former G-man and NSA surveillance enthusiast urged his colleagues to view classified documents on the NSA before voting on a so-called “Freedom” Act [link] (nicknamed Freedumber on twitter) which every digital privacy and constitutional rights group suddenly decided was too eviscerated for them to support any longer [link]. Rogers reminded these elected officials who have sworn an oath to the US Constitution including the 4th amendment that they had to sign a “no leaking to the public” document before viewing the classified docs.

I switched to C-SPAN 2 for coverage of the Senate, and who was making a calm yet forceful explanation of what “due process” really means, with regard to assassination of US citizens by US drone strikes? (We know of at least 4 who have been murdered this way, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki link.) Not Chair of the Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy. Not “progressive leaders” Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. And certainly not Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Dianne Feinstein. No, the senator explaining that due process means in public, with 2 adversarial sides, and not just in the executive branch of the government – not secret, one-sided, and only involving Obama and his advisors – was Republican libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky. He was arguing against the nomination of David Barron to a federal judgeship, a nomination which CODEPINK strongly opposed.  I – and CODEPINK as a national organization — will never agree with Senator Paul on most of his positions, including on abortion, coal mining or immigration, but I have to say I was impressed with his defense of elementary principles of constitutional law, and his plea to his colleagues to vote as if a president of “the other party” were ordering these drone strikes.

The Senate voted to confirm Barron, 53 – 45. Only 2 Democratic senators had the independence to vote against the wishes of their president, who is rewarding Barron for services rendered with a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary, a step below the Supreme Court.

So where do I go for inspiration, the intake of fresh air and renewal after mentally living in the windowless chambers of Congress? To the grassroots. I turn to news from the Walk for Peace between San Francisco to Beale Air Force Base, home of the world’s largest surveillance drone, the Global Hawk. To photos and accounts from around the world of people protesting the continuing atrocities and denial of due process in Guantanamo’s torture facility. To this joyous, funny, celebratory music video from Yemen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISArE-H0cY.

And I look forward to walking outdoors this weekend in the newest US national park, Pinnacles link, where I hope to see a California condor link, brought back from the brink of extinction and now soaring over the chaparral.

Reading part of “The Earth Path” link by Starhawk for inspiration this morning, I found this in the “Creation” chapter:

“…this air that we breathe is a gift of the early ancestors [who evolved to breathe oxygen] …life by its very nature is a great power of creativity and transformation, a power that will prevail. And when I doubt, all I need to do is take a breath, in and out, and receive the gift of the ancestors.” (p. 48)

I wonder if the debates, deliberations and votes in Congress would be different if those chambers and hearing rooms had windows open to the sky, the wind, birds, clouds, and the voices of the people outside. Do closed spaces lead to closed minds and hearts?

Postscript: The FY15NDAA and the “Freedom” Act are not yet law – the battles over these bills will now be taken up in the Senate, and there’s much to do to oppose and/or amend them.

Standing Up, One Year Later: President Obama’s Broken Foreign Policy Promises

A year ago, on May 23, 2013, I was in the audience at the National Defense University when President Barack Obama gave his major foreign policy address. Having worked for years trying to close the Guantanamo prison and stop US drone attacks, I was crushed to realize that the president’s speech was ending and he had not announced any significant change of course on either policy. My heart was pounding with fear—it’s not an easy thing to interrupt a president, but I decided to speak up.

I tried to channel the anguish of Guantanamo prisoners like Moath al-Alwi, held without trial since 2002 and on his ninth month of a hunger strike. I cringe just thinking about Alwi’s daily force-feeding, where he is strapped to a chair with a tube shoved down his nose, leaving him violently vomiting and in excruciating pain. I thought of the tears of 13-year-old Awda Al-Shubati, a sweet young girl I met in Yemen who sobbed while clutching a worn picture of the father she has never seen because he has been held in Guantanamo—with no chance of a trial–since the time she was born.

I thought of innocent drone strike victims, like 68-year-old Pakistani grandmother Manama al-Bibi, blown to bits by a Hellfire missile while picking okra in her family’s field, or Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old American obliterated while eating dinner with his teenage friends in a small Yemini village. My mind raced through the dozens of photos I have seen of children whose lives have been snuffed out, forever, with the press of a button from a remotely controlled Predator drone.

I stood, heart pounding even harder, and shouted “You are the Commander in Chief, you have the power to release the 86 prisoners who have already been cleared for release!” I continued to speak out about closing Guantanamo and ending the drone strikes as the Secret Service and FBI surrounded me, and grabbed at my arms. I told them in a low voice “I’m having a dialogue with the President. You really don’t want to pull me out, because that will be very, very bad for everybody” and that bought me a little more time.

It was clear he was listening, and he responded graciously. “The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to,” he said. “I’m willing to cut [her] some slack because it’s worth being passionate about this. Is this who we are? Is that something our Founders foresaw?”

One year later, though, these profound questions still weigh heavily on our nation. While the President announced that he was appointing new senior envoys to deal with the Guantanamo fiasco, merely 12 prisoners have been released all year, leaving 154 men still locked up. Shamefully, 77 of them were cleared for release years ago—meaning the US government has deemed them innocent or not a threat to Americans—but remain behind bars. Most of the others are still held without trial. The President’s inability to secure fair trials or the release of cleared prisoners continues to exact an unbearable human toll.

Regarding drone attacks, the President pledged in his speech to only target terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people and only when there is “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured.” From 2012 to 2013, the number of attacks in Pakistan has indeed decreased by almost 50% (from 50 strikes to 27), which is a positive development. But in Yemen, there has been a spike of new strikes and according to the Yemeni legal group HOOD, most of the militant suspects killed could have been captured and tried instead. And the promise to carefully guard civilian lives proved empty when drone missiles tragically hit a wedding party on December 12, leaving twelve innocent party-goers dead.

President Obama said that the deaths of innocent people from the drone attacks will haunt him as long as he lives. But he is still unwilling to acknowledge those deaths, apologize to the families, or compensate them.

In that May 23 speech, the President talked about the controversial drone strike that killed American-born cleric Anwar Awlaki. He announced that he had authorized “the declassification of this action, and the deaths of three other Americans in drone strikes to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue.” On May 20 the administration announced that it would declassify one of the drone memos, complying with an April 21 court order–– but did not say when this would happen. Obama awarded the drone memo author, David Barron, with a federal judgeship.

In another move to crush transparency, the Obama administration has taken the over 6,000-page report on the use of torture during the Bush years, laboriously researched by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and placed it in the hands of the very entity that carried out the torture, the CIA, to redact before making it public. Many believe the torture report will never see the light of day or will be so edited as to make it worthless.

Meanwhile, both Guantanamo and drone attacks have become recruiting tools that have helped  embolden terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and increased anti-American sentiment worldwide. The military hammer the US government has been using against terrorist suspects for over 12 years has not succeeded in eliminating al-Qaeda; it has helped spawn a resurgence of terrorist groups across war-torn Middle East and now into Africa.

The President’s speech included a profound assertion that “from our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions we are making will define the type of nation and world that we leave to our children.” So far, that legacy is full of tears, war debt, and broken promises.

Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the great Reverend King, recently spoke to a congregation in Oakland, California about drones. “I am saddened that enough of us have not raised up our voices and constructively said something about what President Obama is doing with these drones,” he preached. “The generals are telling him we’ve got to do this. But the community has to rise up and say that’s not who we as Americans are. That doesn’t mean that you denigrate and criticize the President in a negative way, but we certainly have to challenge. That is what Martin Luther King Jr. would be doing. He would be challenging the nation to become a better nation.”

That, indeed, is the lesson we should learn on the anniversary of the President’s address. There are many ways to be heard–not all of us have the chance to interrupt the President, but we all have the power to stand up and speak out. Write a letter to the White House or the editor of your local paper; visit your congressperson or get out on a street corner with a sign. Get involved with peace groups like CODEPINK. Find your own way to rise up and challenge our nation to become a better nation.

 

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