Medea Benjamin's Blog, page 7

No to drone lawyer Barron! Sample tweets

David Barron, while at the Justice Department, wrote legal memos authorizing the killing of US citizens by drone. Now, he has been nominated to a judicial position that is just one step below the Supreme Court. His nomination is up for a vote in the Senate soon, and Senator Rand Paul plans to filibuster. Use the hashtags #NoDroneLawyer and #StandWithRand to tweet at your elected officials to let them know you oppose Barron’s judgeship appointment and they should make the drone memos available to the public!

Here are some sample tweets….

Hey @SenatorReid, we don’t want a drone lawyer to be a judge! codepink.org/stopbarron #nodronelawyer

Why isn’t @SenSanders speaking out against drone lawyer David Barron for judge? codepink.org/stopbarron #nodronelawyer

David Barron ok’s killing US citizens w/ drones, #StandWithRand to stop Barron from receiving life judgeship! codepink.org/stopbarron

Tell your Senator #NoDroneLawyer to be judge! codepink.org/stopbarron #standwithrand

David Barron rips up the Constitution, don’t let him be rewarded: codepink.org/stopbarron #standwithrand #nodronelawyer

Are you on @BarackObama’s Kill List approved by drone lawyer David Barron? codepink.org/stopbarron #nodronelawyer #standwithrand

Lawyer approves killing Americans w/ drones to be judge for life? No way! #StandWithRand & say NO to David Barron! codepink.org/stopbarron

I #StandWithRand to say no drone lawyer to be judge for life! codepink.org/stopbarron #nodrones

I #StandWithRand because the lawyer who approved killing Americans w/ drones is not fit to be an important judge! codepink.org/stopbarron

Inspiration for Your Friday

by Janet Weil

CODEPINK has always had a magical, trickster energy, from the very name of the organization satirizing the now-retired and mostly long-forgotten color-coded alert system, to our presence at locations where the president, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, or other decision-makers appear. Those locations include congressional hearings, fundraisers in hotels, international conferences, homes in fancy neighborhoods, and even golf courses — call it the geopolitical pushback of the women in pink.

CODEPINK’s energy sometimes takes the form of poetry. For your inspiration this week, I celebrate the work of poet Brenda Hillman.

A professor of poetry at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA Brenda is the author of several collections of poetry including two, “Practical Water” and “Seasonal Works With Letters of Fire” which contain poems about her activism with CODEPINK. “In A Senate Armed Services Hearing” begins with a whimsical description of General Petraeus:

“From my position as a woman/I could see/the back of the General’s head, the prickly/intimate hairs behind his ears”

Many CODEPINKers, since the organization began in 2002, have sat observing, as Brenda has done numerous times, in congressional committee chambers. Sometimes we noisily disrupt (what I call “supplement”) the testimonies of so-called experts on war, security and defense, but more often we simply and silently testify with our pink presence to the people’s desire for peace. Our silent testimony often unnerves the men (and the occasional woman) who sit at the witness tables before the committees; I was once reproached and threatened with arrest by a think tank factotum for sighing in a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing.

Brenda’s poem goes on to word-weave her own reflections during the hearing

“the Senators were stuck. What/were they thinking sitting there/as dutiful as lunch patrols/in junior high…”

with fantasies of turning into a fly buzzing around the room, and then

“…the sense/the goddess Ishtar [from ancient Babylonia, which became the modern country of Iraq] had come down/to bring her astral light with a day-wrinkled plan…”

Brenda brings the myth of the ancient land into what seems the most prosaic, banality-of-evil occasion, adding to a cliched remark during a pro-forma nomination hearing (“General I’d be interested to know”) with her devastating commentary:

“Then someone — Clinton I think it was/but it might have been Bayh –/asked whether this confirmation will/give breathing space for the new/General to unoccupy (how do the dead breathe, Senator…”

In “Seasonal Works With Letters On Fire,” her tone is often more energized, as befits a work on the theme of fire, the final collection in a four-book series on the traditional “elements” of earth, air, water and fire. In “Mists from People As They Pass: at the Port of Oakland” she assures us:

“The revolution is not far away. It is/in your heart. The violent ones/grow old/the tired ones keep saying/the system, the system, the system/unravels as we walk along.”

What prose – especially the empty assertions and bloated rhetoric of those who speak for The State — sets up as impenetrable barriers, poetry seeks to “unravel” with metaphor, with mockery, with mystery, with the music of language. As with John Lennon’s famous quote: “War is over/if you want it”, poetry describes the reality that has not yet come to pass, and creates space for the imagination and daring to bring it into being.

Drone Lawyer: Kill a 16 Year-Old, Get a Promotion

If you think that as a United States citizen you’re entitled to a trial by jury before the government can decide to kill you–– you’re wrong. During his stint as a lawyer at the Department of Justice, David Barron was able to manipulate constitutional law so as to legally justify killing American citizens with drone strikes. If you’re wondering what the justification for that is, that’s just too bad – the legal memos are classified. Sounds a little suspicious, doesn’t it? What’s even more suspicious is that now the Obama Administration wants to appoint the lawyer who wrote that legal memos to become a high-ranking judge for life.

Disturbingly, this is not the first time that the president has rewarded a high-level lawyer for paving the legal way for drone strike assassinations. Jeh Johnson, former lawyer at the Department of Defense, penned the memos that give the “okay” to target non-US citizen foreign combatants with drones. His reward? He’s now the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. These Obama nominations are eerily reminiscent of the Bush-era appointment of torture memo author Jay Bybee to a lifetime position of a federal judge.

Barron, a Harvard law professor and former legal counsel at the Department of Justice, was recently nominated by President Obama to the lifetime position of a judge on the First Circuit Court of Appeals—just one step below the Supreme Court. While at the Department of Justice, Barron wrote at least 2 secret legal memos justifying the use of lethal drones to kill Americans suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.

Should someone who has done such immense damage to the rule of law and our moral sensibilities be awarded with a judgeship on the First Circuit Court?

The Attorney General has conceded that four Americans located outside the United States have been killed by drone strikes since 2011. One of those killed was Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was attacked while in a tribal region of Yemen in September 2011. Then Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, also an American citizen, was shamefully killed in a drone strike in rural Yemen two weeks later.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that Americans suspected of committing crimes deserve to have charges brought against them, to have a chance to surrender or be captured, and to be given a fair trial. If they cannot be captured and refuse to surrender, they could be tried in absentia. But Barron helped set a terrible precedent that American citizens have no right to a judicial process—something that human rights advocates around the world have been fighting for since the signing of the Magna Carta 800 years ago.

How can Barron be a judge if he does not understand the deeply valued laws of our land, laws that include habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial? As stated in the Bill of Rights: the Fourth Amendment guarantees that a person cannot be seized by the government unreasonably, and the Fifth Amendment guarantees that the government may not deprive a person of life without due process of law. A judge is supposed to uphold the Constitution, yet Barron has already torn it down.

In an op-ed supporting Barron’s nomination, law professors Charles Fried and Laurence Tribe argue that Barron didn’t order the strikes or design the legal framework for their authorization. Certainly he didn’t order the strikes, but his job as acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel was precisely to provide legal opinions to the President, opinions that became the legal foundation on which the strikes were based.

Some Senators said they would not proceed with Barron’s nomination until they got access to the memos he has written about drone strikes. “This nomination cannot go forward unless this body — every member of this body — is given access to any and all secret legal opinions this nominee wrote on this critical issue,” Grassley said. The White House responded by allowing all interested Senators to go to a secret chamber to read “all written legal advice issued by Mr. Barron regarding the potential use of lethal force against US citizens in counterterrorism operations.” This pretense of transparency is meaningless, though, because Senators won’t be able to publicly question and challenge Barron about the memos unless they are declassified.

That’s why some senators, including Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Rand Paul, are insisting that the memos be made public. That’s all well and good, since we—the public–certainly should have the right to read them. It makes no sense for legal memos to be considered secret national security documents. Even the courts have said as much, when a federal judge in April 2014 ordered the administration to release the legal analysis to the public (an order the administration has so far ignored).

But the Senators should go further and state that David Barron is simply not fit to sit on the bench to interpret our Constitution.

In the hopes of moving our nation back to one that respects, honors and upholds the rule of law, we are pushing the Senate—particularly Majority Leader Harry Reid—to kill Barron’s nomination. Senator Rand Paul is one of the few Senators challenging Barron’s nomination. “I can’t imagine appointing someone to the federal bench, one level below the Supreme Court, without fully understanding that person’s views concerning the extrajudicial killing of American citizens,” he wrote.

Unfortunately, now that the administration has placated Senators by giving them access to Barron’s memos, he will most likely be be confirmed. There is one good thing that could come out of this, though – the sparking of a much-needed national conversation about drone warfare and U.S. policy on the use of killer drones. Does the use of drone strikes that often hit innocent people and incite hatred towards Americans actually ensure our safety, or trigger greater danger? In the meantime, we should urge our Senators to push for the public release of these classified drone memos and should oppose the appointment of David Barron. We don’t need a judge on the bench who has already shown his disregard for the Constitution and for the rights of American citizens. Tell your Senator to vote “no” for drone lawyer David Barron.

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.

10 Reasons to Love Uruguay’s President José Mujica

President José Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.” Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy. Here are 10 reasons you, too, should love President Mujica.

1. He lives simply and rejects the perks of the presidency. Mujica has refused to live at the Presidential Palace or have a motorcade. He lives in a one-bedroom house on his wife’s farm and drives a 1987 Volkswagen. “There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress,” said Mujica, referring to his time in prison. He donates over 90% of his $12,000/month salary to charity so he makes the same as the average citizen in Uruguay. When called “the poorest president in the world,” Mujica says he is not poor. “A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more. I don’t live in poverty, I live in simplicity. There’s very little that I need to live.”

2. He supported the nation’s groundbreaking legalization of marijuana. “In no part of the world has repression of drug consumption brought results. It’s time to try something different,” Mujica said. So this year, Uruguay became the first country in the world to regulate the legal production, sale, and consumption of marijuana. The law allows individuals to grow a certain amount each year and the government controls the price of marijuana sold at pharmacies. The law requires consumers, sellers, and distributors to be licensed by the government. Uruguay’s experience aims to take the market away from the ruthless drug traffickers and treat drug addiction as a public health issue. Their experiment will have reverberations worldwide.

3. In August 2013, Mujica signed the bill making Uruguay the second nation in Latin America (after Argentina) to legalize gay marriage. He said that legalizing gay marriage is simply recognizing reality. “Not to legalize it would be unnecessary torture for some people,” he said. In recent years, Uruguay has also moved to allow adoption by gay couples and openly gay people to serve in the armed forces.

4. He’s not afraid to confront corporate abuses, as evidenced by the epic struggle his government is waging against the American tobacco giant Philip Morris. A former smoker, Mujica says that tobacco is a killer that needs to be brought under control. But Philip Morris is suing Uruguay for $25 million at the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes because of the country’s tough smoking laws that prohibit smoking in enclosed public spaces and require warning labels, including graphic images of the health effects. Uruguay is the first Latin American country and the fifth nation worldwide to implement a ban on smoking in enclosed public places. Philip Morris, the largest cigarette manufacturer in the United States, has huge global business interests (and a well-paid army of lawyers). Uruguay’s battle against the tobacco Goliath will also have global repercussions.

5. He supported the legalization of abortion in Uruguay (his predecessor had vetoed the bill). The law is very limited, compared to laws in the US and Europe. It allows abortions within the first 12 weeks of the pregnancy and requires women to meet with a panel of doctors and social workers on the risks and possible effects of an abortion. But this law is the most liberal abortion law in socially conservative, Catholic Latin America and is clearly a step in the right direction for women’s reproductive rights.

6. He’s an environmentalist trying to limit needless consumption. At the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, he criticized the model of development pushed by affluent societies. “We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction,” he said. He also recently rejected a joint energy project with Brazil that would have provided his country with cheap coal energy because of his concern for the environment.

7. He has focusing on redistributing his nation’s wealth, claiming that his administration has reduced poverty from 37% to 11%. “Businesses just want to increase their profits; it’s up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce,” he told businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce. “It’s no mystery–the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources.” His government’s redistributive policies include setting prices for essential commodities such as milk and providing free computers and education for every child.

8. He has offered to take detainees cleared for release from Guantanamo. Mujica has called the detention center at Guantanamo Bay a “disgrace” and insisted that Uruguay take responsibility to help close the facility. The proposal is unpopular in Uruguay, but Mujica, who was a political prisoner for 14 years, said he is “doing this for humanity.”

9. He is opposed to war and militarism. “The world spends $2 billion a minute on military spending,” he exclaimed in horror to the students at American University. “I used to think there were just, noble wars, but I don’t think that anymore,” said the former armed guerrilla. “Now I think the only solution is negotiations. The worst negotiation is better than the best war, and the only way to insure peace is to cultivate tolerance.”

10. He has an adorable three-legged dog, Manuela! Manuela lost a foot when Mujica accidentally ran over it with a tractor. Since then, Mujica and Manuela have been almost inseparable.

Mujica’s influence goes far beyond that of the leader of a tiny country of only 3 million people. In a world hungry for alternatives, the innovations that he and his colleagues are championing have put Uruguay on the map as one of the world’s most exciting experiments in creative, progressive governance.

 

Medea Benjamin is co-founder of www.codepink.org and www.globalexchange.org. CODEPINK is co-organizing a delegation to Uruguay August 11-17. For more information contact Dale Sorensen from the Task Force on the Americas at geodale1@earthlink.net.

The Art of Resistance

By Ikram Yakoubi

We cannot talk about rebelling and social change without pointing to the important role of artists all over the world. Artists, whether famous or still anonymous, have contributed in a direct or indirect way in the process of change. Starting with the age of enlightenment in France, it was not restricted to only reason, but also was characterized by the emergence of pioneers in literature and in art who led the country toward prosperity and progress. There is no democratic process and transition that can succeed without the support and the contribution of artists.

As a Tunisian artist, I have witnessed this in my country during our “Jasmine Revolution”–the revolution that sparked the region wide Arab Spring. The uprising was not possible without the groundwork prepared by Tunisian artists, whether inside Tunisia or outside. Some of those who wanted to express their thoughts about justice and truth have been restricted to doing so through art—or meet severe punishments. Although some artists use their skills as a means for enrichment or amusement, others said “No!” and used art as a way to resist the autocratic regime of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

I can mention as a very good example the case of the Tunisian rap musician, Hamada Ben Amor, better known as “El Général.” His song “Rais Lebled” (the president of the country), released in December 2010, has been described as the “anthem of the Jasmine Revolution.” Ben Amor had been making mainly political rap songs for about two years. The songs were previously kept underground by the strict censorship of the Tunisian government of that time. On December 24, 2010, two days after his second famous protest song “Tunisia Our Country” was released on YouTube and Facebook and one week after the beginning of the protests in Tunisia, he was arrested by Tunisian police. Later on, Ben Amor was released after being forced to sign a statement that he would longer make any political songs. After the overthrow of the dictator Ben Ali, Ben Amor’s songs enjoyed enormous popularity in Tunisia, particularly “Rais Lebled’,’ which became known as the anthem of the revolution and gained him international recognition.

Also there is the Tunisian-Canadian artist known as Bendir Man, who is a composer and songwriter. This young artist has been composing his songs outside Tunisia, as he would be put in jail if he were there. This Tunisian-Canadian artist was famous for criticizing the Ben Ali regime and he was shaping them as sort of caricatures. No one can deny that Bendir Man has been one of the most famous artists who helped shape the revolutionary atmosphere in Tunisia.

In addition, anonymous street painters delivered creative messages against the dictatorship of Ben Ali. When there is no freedom of expression, artists can deliver their messages anonymously on the walls and public spaces.

As we see, artists – the prophets of change – have helped transfer the change into reality through their songs, poems, or paintings. But sadly, many artists who have been trying to make our world a better place have paid their lives, families or their freedoms. And some are still paying, like Mohamed Al Ajami

Who is “ Mohamed Al Ajami”?

Al Ajami, also known as Mohamed Ibn Al Dheeb, is a poet who was born in Qatar. He was a third-year literature student when he was sentenced on November 29, 2012 to life imprisonment in a secret trial on state security charges. Al Ajami, inspired by the Tunisian uprising, wrote a poem called “We are all Tunisians.” Months later, he was arrested when an internet video was posted of him reciting the poem in which he was lauding Tunisia’s popular uprising that led to the Arab spring rebellions across North Africa and Middle East.

In some verses of his poem, Al Ajami stated:

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.

By criticizing the Arab governments that restrict freedoms, the Qatari Government considered this poem an insult to the Qatari sheikh “Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani” and an incitement to overthrow the ruling system, which could have brought a death sentence. In February 2013, Al Ajamai’s life sentence was reduced to 15 years. It is worth mentioning that this poet spent five months in solitary confinement and his trial had been postponed five times. His lawyer Najib al-Nuaimi said, “Muhammad was not allowed to defend himself, and I was not allowed to plead or defend him in court. I told the judge that I needed to defend my client in front of an open court, and he stopped me.”

Gulf regimes have stepped up crackdowns on a range of perceived threats to their rule, including Islamist groups and social media activists. Mohamed Al Ajami’s case was a reaction from the Qatari government, a government that has been afraid to have the same Tunisian script played out in Qatar. That’s why they take drastic measures to repress and crush any future social movements and to threaten artists like Al Ajami.

It is important for us to take action against any violation of freedom of expression or speech; otherwise, human dignity for all of us is dehumanized. That is why CODEPINK is one of the pioneers that will keep defending the injustice that Mohamed Al-Ajami is still experiencing.

We should take to heart the words of George Washington: “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” Those who say “No!” to extremism, abuse, and restrictions on free speech must be supported in their plight and honored for their courage.

 

Ikram Yakoubi is a self-taught painter from Tunisia who holds a master degree in Business English. She is a co-founder and communication officer at Atlas leaders Center, a youth led association which promotes leadership and citizenship, by helping young people to develop their personal and professional skills, encouraging their civic participation and facilitating their inclusion in the process of social change and social development.

Letter to the Costa Rica Minister of Public Security

Below is a letter from the CODEPINK group in Costa Rica to Costa Rica’s Minister of Security.

Celso Gamboa Sánchez

Minister of Security

Republic of Costa Rica

We give you the most cordial and sincere welcome to the Ministry of Public Security of Costa Rica. Our expectation is that you will manage the security of our country according to the most precious principles of our nation – where the right to peace is guaranteed by the constitution; where the army has been abolished for decades; and where militarism is frowned upon by Costa Rican society.

We are women for peace in the Costa Rican chapter of Code Pink♥, an organization that emerged in the United States as a reaction to the threat codes red, orange, yellow of the Bush-era prior to the invasion of Iraq, which culminated in one of the most shameful loss of lives on our planet. We have come to ask you, don Celso, in this longed for change taking place in our country, that this new administration leads in ensuring human rights and the respect for the law, and turns away from any type of military or despotic practices that would limit the dignity of the people.

We want an end to Costa Rican police training at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia (renamed WHINSEC) and an end to training by countries like the United States, Colombia and Israel whose human rights records are incompatible with the values of Costa Rica, such as the use of torture and militarized drones against civilians. President Luis Guillermo Solís has said that he would embrace models of security and other aspects of national life like those in Finland, other Nordic countries, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom. We agree with this view. These are countries where the police are professional but not militaristic.

We understand that the response to organized crime cannot be weak or timid and that advanced technologies and professional intelligences services are required. However, we strongly oppose the spying on and electronic monitoring of ordinary citizens as has happened in the past.  Such practices not only are costly and often useless, but drain resources and attention where attention is required.

Never again should a young man like Jairo Mora be killed through the neglect and inattention of the police and his brutal murder passed off with, “he got into something that he should not have”.  Environmentalists are no longer just caring for animals and the forests.  They have become true guardians of the survival of human beings and Mother Earth. They are deserving of support and respect.

When police carry out raids and hateful evictions, excessive violence is unnecessary.  Screaming, kicking and painted faces are not necessary to perform the action. Well-trained police forces do not work that way.

The public protest by citizens deserves respect and protection as a constitutional right.  The citizen response to the violations of rights that move them to take to the streets cannot be criminalized.  We condemn the practice of police infiltrators who provoke, many times with faces masked, to make the protest appear violent and absurd to the public. We also demand absolute respect for university autonomy.

We hope that the current Minister of Public Security will not resort to tricks and traps as did a former Minister who, wishing to send police to the School of the Americas, made a hidden agreement to send the president a letter that would not be answered so as to be able to interpret it as “positive silence. This tactic allowed the then-president to “save face” and not need to publically rescind his promise. Today the fresh air that has come into politics, the overwhelming vote of more than one million three hundred thousand voters who favored the election of President Solís Rivera, can not, must not, be betrayed with age-old despicable practices.

We want care of citizens instead of bullying, especially of children, elderly and people who need it most, including sex workers. We want that our youth not be repressed or disturbed simply because of a police officer’s suspicious attitude. People who suffer from addiction should not be treated as trash by police. They deserve a chance to get out of drug or alcohol addiction.  They do not have to accept mistreatment by the police, neither the destitute nor excluded, victims of a dehumanized system. These people are entitled to government programs where with dignity and well-being they can reintegrate to society in a comprehensive way.

We propose that the Minister of Security hold periodic meetings for feedback and to correct problems found, with community groups from civil society. We urge to continue to strengthen neighborhood committees organized to maintain order and security. We wish to have a permanent exchange with people interested in improving civility and welfare with a vision of security integrated with equity and social justice.

In short, we ask protection, not bullying; prevention before crackdown; transparency not espionage. Professionalize the police force, don’t militarize it. We ask for trained civil police  who ensure compliance with the law and the rights of the people, not military training. Communicate with and respect the citizens.

In those terms, we will most sincerely welcome you as Minister of Public Security of the Republic of Costa Rica.

Letter to David Barron

May 10, 2014

Dear David Barron,

We at CODEPINK have been engaged for years in trying to stop the US use of drones for killing people. We are not legal experts but perhaps we can be considered “moral experts”—we deeply believe that people suspected of committing crimes deserve to have charges brought against them, to have a chance to surrender or be captured and to be given a fair trial. You, on the other hand, have given legal cover to the US government to take the intensely immoral position of using lethal drones to murder terrorist suspects, including US citizens. We do no think that someone who has done such immense damage to the rule of law and our moral sensibilities should be awarded with a judgeship on the First Circuit Court. We therefore request that you remove yourself from consideration of this position.

We know that the Department of Justice relied on your legal arguments to justify the targeted killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in a tribal region of Yemen in September 2011. Then his 16-year-old son, also an American citizen, was shamefully killed in a drone strike in rural Yemen two weeks later. The Attorney General conceded that four Americans located outside the United States have been killed by drone strikes since 2011.  According to the Attorney General’s letter, these Americans were killed even though they “were not specifically targeted by the United States” as part of a counterterrorism operation. We hold you, Mr. Barron, responsible for their death and for setting this terrible precedent that American citizens, to say nothing of foreigners, have no right to a judicial process—something that human rights advocates around the world have been fighting for since the signing of the Magna Carta 800 years ago.

How can you be a judge if you do not understand the deeply valued laws of our land, laws that includes habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial? As stated in Bill of Rights: the Fourth Amendment guarantees that a person cannot be seized by the government unreasonably, and the Fifth Amendment guarantees that the government may not deprive a person of life without due process of law. A judge is supposed to hold up Constitution; you have already torn it down.

We are thankful that a number of Senators have said that they will not proceed with your nomination until they get access to the memos you have written about drone strikes. Others have gone even further by saying that they want these memos to be made public. That’s all well and good, since we—the public–certainly should have the right to read those. But we feel the Senators should go further and state that you are simply not fit to sit on the bench to interpret our Constitution in a way we can feel confident and proud.

So in the hopes of moving our nation back to one that respects, honors and upholds the rule of law, we again ask for you to withdraw your nomination.

In peace,

Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin

 

Inspiration For Your Friday

by Janet Weil

For this week’s inspiration, I need look no further than the letters from Iraqi and American mothers for Mother’s Day.  From Iraqi mothers come stories of terrible suffering, violence by US soldiers and sectarian militias, and exile.  These women also write with deep sympathy and understanding to the women of a country that invaded and occupied them: “I say sister because we are sisters in humanity and we both lived through hard times imposed on us by your government under many false perceptions to justify its invasion of my country.” Read the Iraqi women’s letters, translated from Arabic, here.

From mothers in the U.S., the dominant emotions expressed are sorrow, frustration at not being able to avert the war on Iraq and sympathy: “I am sorry for the pain and suffering our government’s war has caused the Iraqi people. I do not support war and am devastated by what we have done.” Read them and send your own here.

This sort of exchange is exactly the kind of woman-to-woman connection that Julia Ward Howe envisioned when she wrote her prophetic “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, and that Anna Jarvis organized to establish a national holiday (and later deplored its commercialization).

A fascinating new study of how the brain processes stories, compared to other kinds of information, tells us about “changes in neural patterns of volunteers after reading a narrative story based on real events” and that “reading simple, humanistic stories changes what is in our blood streams.” Yes, neuroscience confirms what we already knew: we love, remember, repeat and act on stories. So let’s be mindful of the stories we pay attention to, and change both stories about ourselves (“What can one person do?” “I’m so overwhelmed…” etc.) that do not serve us, and about the world.

When my son was 3 years old, he and his playgroup buddies used to yell: “Once upon a time… THE END!” They would then burst into raucous laughter, delighted with their send-up of narrative convention.  I was delighted that they already had a sense of “metanarrative” and their ability to play with language.

War is a “story” we all need to say “Once upon a time… THE END!” to. War’s promises – that it is inevitable, solves problems, rescues the innocent, is the ultimate measure of heroism– have been shown, over and over again, to be lies or at most half-truths. It is literally a “dead end” story, one that poisons and limits imaginations even as it literally wounds and kills bodies. For refutations of war’s lies, please take a look at this book.

All over the world, women are enacting the REAL story of the “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, just not necessarily on Mother’s Day. Together we are creating a colorful, resilient, loving and dynamic “story of stories” for peace, justice and life.

On Sunday, I will join my sister codepinkers and our allies on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, as part of CODEPINK’s monthly Walk for Peace. We will carry signs and banners, remember, in particular, the grieving mothers of Iraq and Afghanistan, mourn the dead, read (some of) the words of the Mother’s Day Proclamation, and share our vision of a peaceful world with the hundreds of people going for a Sunday stroll on the bridge – and many will take photographs and talk to us.

As one woman wrote on the Mother’s Day Tumblr: “We have the power to offer to each other and to the world our compassion, our love, our determination and our hope.”

Happy Mother’s Day. Do something for peace today.

The Agony of Yarmouk

by Janet Weil

“I always thought that the only time I would move from Yarmouk would be back to Palestine” – Umm Samir (Mother of Samir), Palestinian refugee

The devastating photograph of Yarmouk Camp from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) went viral last January. Thousands stood packed tightly between between the bomb-blasted walls of what had been their home district in Damascus. Their only source of food and medical supplies – for a population of approximately 20,000 Palestinians — was what came out of the vehicles of the UN agency. And so they had gathered, still dignified but in desperate need, to receive the international aid that the UN workers had, under great risk, brought to them.

Yarmouk is a place on the Syrian map where three tragic stories intersect. The first story is the oldest: the chronic, decades-long Palestinian refugee crisis, the largest displaced population in the world. 160,000 Palestinians had lived there beginning in 1948, as part of the Palestinian diaspora. Syria was a refuge (though of course Palestinians there longed to return to their country), but now 235,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Syria itself and 60,000, alongside 2.2 million Syrians, have fled the country as of October 2013.

The second story is the narrative of war, both civil and regional, shattering the ancient land of Syria including its once-beautiful, historic capital of Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth. The UN reports that there are now 9.3 million people of diverse ethnic groups, including Palestinians, in need of basic life-supporting assistance. Over 110,000 have died in the war, and millions of children have been going without schooling except what is provided by the UN for years. Yarmouk has been an ongoing site of destruction since December 2012, when Palestinian factions, the Syria Free Army, and the Assad-controlled national army fought each other for control of the district. The district has been under siege by the Syrian government since July 2013.

The third, most specific and recent story is the denial of humanitarian aid to Yarmouk by the Assad government, among many other “hard to reach” areas. For 15 horrifying days in April, no food reached Yarmouk; people ate leaves off trees and swept herbs off the street; all the children there now suffer from malnutrition and some died of starvation. An international coalition of legal experts has recently condemned the interruption of aid, telling the UN that “there is no legal barrier to the UN directly undertaking cross-border humanitarian operations and supporting NGOs to undertake them as well.” UNRWA workers have been able intermittently to bring food and medicine since late April, but UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness tweeted on May 8: Chris Gunness ‏@ChrisGunness 12h: #UNRWA is deeply concerned that after 8 days of distribution armed conflict has again interrupted humanitarian operations in @Yarmouk RT

Read his full statement here.

Let the words of Syrian children to world leaders speak for the yearning of all for peace and home.

Please take a minute to sign this open letter to leaders of the world calling on them to immediately assist the thousands of people starving to death in Yarmouk. Time is running out, and drawing immediate and significant attention to the issue is the very least we can do.

 

Mother’s Day letter from Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother

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Dear American Mother,

I wish you a good morning, if you are reading this in the morning, and I wish you a good evening if you are reading this in the evening.

I am an Arab, eastern mother from Iraq. Today, I stand before you and share with you your day and give you my warmest regards. I may be far away physically, but my spirit is with you and I imagine myself sitting beside you.

Allow me to first start off with sending you greetings on this day, before my emotions take over my words, because I want to win your heart and express to you my most sincere feeling: allow me to wish you a very happy Mother’s Day, and blessed returns, wherever you may be, whether in your home or anywhere around the world.

Allow me to give you this letter, to hear it if you are around, or to read it if you are not. In Arabic, the word “mother” is made of four letters; they might be small in number, but they are large in who they describe and great in what they mean.

To you I say, every mother is a home, every mother is a home, every mother is a home. And the Creator (almighty) was the first to discover and learn your value and how important you are to all humanity. He created Eve and sent her down to earth to complete a noble message of motherhood and be proud of her children and their children after that for many generations after.

For you, oh, American mother, this earth you walk over lightly like the raindrops fall over it and turn it green, may a heart never learn to be far from meeting you, and you have in my heart a memory of a day in the future to meet you.

And once again, I remind you and say every mother is a home, and if a woman was not a home then we all would be orphans in this world.

And I know, someone else will ask me this question: Do you have any children? Which one is your favorite? And my answer is yes, I have five children, four boys and a daughter and they are all dear to my heart, each and every one of them. I love the youngest until he grows older, the ill until he is healed and the traveler until he returns home. And my daughter, she stands for all that a woman is and a mother would be proud of.

I always remind my children of this: never forget an eye that stayed up the night watching you sleep soundly and safely, and never neglect a soul that exists to protect you. I ask you to never desert what lies in your chest, beating with love, never tires from loving and once you ignore it a mother’s heart bleeds with pain. If you know where your heart is you will know where the love is.

I know that one day an American mother will ask me: Is your mother still around? And how much do you love her? And to that I answer yes! I do have a mother and I love her very much. I love the ocean because it is as deep as my mother’s love, I love the mountain because it stands proud like my mother, I love the sun because its rays shine from my mother, I love the moon because it glows like my mother. Yes, I love this life because my mother brought me to it, that’s who my mother is and that’s the kind of love she gave and taught me.

I miss my mother dearly, and she lives far away from me. I miss her warmth and compassion and how I miss throwing myself in her arms and share with her my worries and what sorrows I have lived through, and she in return hears me, comforts me and gives me advice and I follow it to the word!

This war that was brought on us tore me and my mother apart, it drifted me away from her, but she is always near to me in my heart and I will always long for that day she and I will be together again soon. For our hearts are homes, homes that carry hopes ended with disappointments and dreams that never saw the light. In our hearts there is nothing left but the sighs of longing to be reunited again.

I ask from you, oh American mother, to pray that I will be with my mother again, for my son to return home to me and for every mother that got separated from her child to be with them again like the sweet grains of sugar that melts in the love and compassion of their mothers, like the sun that shines after a long, dark night.

I thank you for your love and your passion, and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you on this day, and I conclude my words by asking all mothers to hold her children and embrace them warmly after she returns home from celebrating her day, for that warm embrace is what true love lies. For the love that a mother’s heart is occupied with her children’s love.

I thank you once again and I wish you many happy returns on your day. And if I live long enough, I pray that I will be celebrating your day with you in person with all my heart.