David Swanson's Blog, page 135
September 6, 2013
Talk Nation Radio: Rep. Alan Grayson on Syria: House Will Vote No, Obama Will Heed
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-rep-alan
Congressman Alan Grayson is leading efforts within Congress to prevent an attack on Syria. He explains why, points to huge popular agreement, says the votes are lining up, and that President Obama will not attack Syria if the House votes against it. Congressman Grayson has a petition set up at http://DontAttackSyria.com
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download or get embed code from Archive or AudioPort or LetsTryDemocracy.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://davidswanson.org/talknationradio
September 5, 2013
Video: Forum on Preventing an Attack on Syria
Videos filmed by Les Solomon.
The Charlottesville Forum on Preventing a U.S. Attack on Syria was held in Charlottesville VA at the Friends Meeting House on September 4, 2013. Speakers included: David Swanson, John Whitehead, Helena Cobban, Roy Hange, and Dave Norris, with lots of public discussion. Congressman Robert Hurt's Director of Outreach was present, and in Video #8 a member of the audience asks him to respond to what he's heard. Congressman Hurt himself agreed the next morning to meet with the organizers of this event at his Charlottesville office at 11:30 a.m.
Sponsored by WarIsACrime.org, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Amnesty International Charlottesville, Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine.
David Swanson is the author of books including War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He is the host of Talk Nation Radio. Swanson blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online activist organization RootsAction.org. Swanson also works on the communications committee of Veterans For Peace, of which he is an associate (non-veteran) member. Swanson is Secretary of Peace in the Green Shadow Cabinet.
John Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. He is president of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization. He authors a widely syndicated column and hosts a national public service radio campaign. His most recent book is A Government of Wolves. See Rutherford.org.
Helena Cobban is the founding owner of Just World Books, a Charlottesville-based book publisher. Previously, she had a long career as a writer and researcher on world affairs, focusing on the Middle East. She speaks Arabic and has reported and written extensively about Syria for nearly 40 years. Her 2000 book on the Syrian-Israeli peace talks of 1992-96 was published by the U.S. Institute of Peace. From 2008 through 2011 she was a member of the U.S.-Syria Working Group of Search for Common Ground. She is a member of Charlottesville Friends Meeting (Quakers) and sits on the board of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Roy Hange is a Mennonite pastor who has spent 30 years studying Western Asia (the Middle East). He has lived for 3 years in Egypt, 6 in Syria, and 1 in Iran. Hange has taught peace building at Eastern Mennonite University and the University of Virginia. See CharlottesvilleMennonite.org.
Dave Norris has served as a Charlottesville City Council Member or Mayor since 2006. He's executive director of the Charlottesville Institute. Norris has served as Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge, Executive Director of PACEM, Associate Director of Madison House, and Interim Director of the Public Housing Association of Residents. He is founder of the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival. He has been a leading advocate for anti-war resolutions on Charlottesville City Council and in the U.S. Conference of Mayors, spoke at the Military Industrial Complex at 50 conference and will be MCing the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice's 30th anniversary celebration on September 21st. See CvilleDave.Blogspot.com.
September 4, 2013
A Modest Proposal for Syria
It is a melancholy object to those who view videos of Damascus, when they see the streets, the roads, and doorways, crowded with the bodies of those reportedly killed with the wrong weapons by the wrong people.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this 1,000 or more bodies is an outrage not to be tolerated in a nation that has killed off 100,000 or more in recent years with perfectly respectable weapons and seen its neighbors in Egypt murder thousands just a few weeks ago, to the clear satisfaction of the International Community.
Conceivably, Syria will set itself aright and return to more acceptable styles of population elimination. But my intention is very far from being confined to providing only for the next 10,000 or 100,000 corpses. There are some 20 million people in Syria, some of whom may die rightly, and some wrongly, if left to chance. To make matters worse, they are fleeing the nation by the millions at an increasing pace.
This need not be. We in the United States have a responsibility. Syrians are not less worthy of proper deaths than ourselves. We need spare no financial expense due to prejudices of religion or ethnicity. It is time for us to step up as the International Community, while the rest of the world's nations fail. We can make sure Syrians meet a proper end.
Let me be clear, when we used White Phosphorus to burn holes straight through men, women, and countless children in Fallujah, the International Community approved. When we deployed new types of napalm despite the apparent lack of jungle foliage in Iraq, the International Community was satisfied. There is no more proper death than through depleted uranium, injestion of which brings a most glorious chemical demise. All of these avenues are available, and we should let a thousand flowers bloom in the Syrian streets.
But the ultimate solution is one which we have become the supreme masters of: cluster bombing. The United States stands nearly alone in the world as a proponent of the legal use of both land mines and flying land mines, also known as cluster bombs. These weapons are efficient and beautiful, creating a great variety of injuries as well as death. Most importantly, they will generate terror. Refugees will flee in all directions in such numbers that starvation and disease will wipe out huge swaths of the population.
As hunger takes over, opportunities will be found to restore a proper, if temporary, balance to the Syrian diet. I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in Virginia, that a young healthy Syrian child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled. Sources within Syria report that hearts and livers are a delicacy.
The benefits of my scheme are so numerous that one is apt to forget the central and most significant objective, which will be accomplished with complete and total success if our actions are swift and comprehensive. That is: we will stop the wrong people killing anyone with weapons deemed unacceptable by the International Community.
Enough with halfway measures, I say! Enough with telling the Democrats we won't join another endless war beyond our control on the side of Al Qaeda! Enough with assuring Republicans we'll stand shoulder to shoulder with terrorists until Iran is destroyed or Russia launches nukes! We have the technology. We have the stockpiles. Wipe every Syrian out with acceptable weaponry today! It's our humanitarian responsibility!
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Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal" that the poor eat their children as a form of SATIRE. Unless you know what satire is, please do not contact me about this article. Thanks!
September 3, 2013
Who the Missiles Will Hurt
Believe it or not -- after John McCain played video games on his phone during a hearing on bombing Syria, and Eleanor Holmes Norton said she'd only vote to bomb Syria out of loyalty to Obama -- there are decent people in the United States government who mean well and take their responsibilities seriously. One of them, who works on actual humanitarian aid (as opposed to humanitarian bombs) spoke to me.
He said that, beyond those who will inevitably be killed by U.S. missiles in Syria, and those who will die in the escalated violence that is very likely to follow, a great many additional people may suffer for reasons we aren't paying attention to.
Congressional Progressive/Pentagon Caucus
Back in 2007, the Congressional Progressive Caucus helped organize 90 Congress members to commit to voting against war funding. Most of them turned around and voted for war funding. That was a high point for the CPC. Since then, its commitments -- such as to vote against corporate healthcare -- have hardly been taken seriously, and so it's hardly been news when most members have gone back on their commitments.
The CPC has shifted in recent years away from pretending to take a stand on things, and instead toward issuing statements full of non-committal rhetoric. That, too, is now a stage in the devolution of the CPC to which we can look back with nostalgia.
The CPC, on the question of a new war on Syria, is choosing to do nothing at all. In fact, one of its two co-chairs is actively promoting war. Compare this whip list with this list of CPC members. You'll notice that virtually no members of the House of Representatives have taken any position on whether or not to attack Syria. That includes most of those who claimed they wanted the president to allow a vote, as the Constitution requires. The same is true for the CPC: virtually nobody has a position.
Those firmly committed to attacking Syria, in the House, include four Republicans, five non-CPC Democrats, and CPC Co-Chair Keith Ellison. Those firmly committed against this madness include 10 Republicans, three non-CPC Democrats, and four CPC Democrats.
Ellison was first elected as an opponent of war and an advocate for impeaching George W. Bush for the crime of war, but reversed his positions immediately upon election. He just recently responded to pressure from Veterans For Peace in Minnesota and introduced into the Congressional Record acknowledgment that the Kellogg-Briand Pact bans all war. He then turned around and threw his support in behind the next war.
The other co-chair of the CPC, Raul Grijalva, is listed as "leaning nay," along with nine other Democrats (two of them in the CPC) and 15 Republicans. We've learned, however, what solid commitment means to these weasels, so you can imagine what "leaning" signifies.
The CPC has no requirements for membership. A member need not hold any progressive positions. There are no required actions. A member need not oppose even the worst atrocities our government inflicts on us or the world. The CPC doesn't fund its members' elections in this corrupt buyer-takes-all system. A CPC member is exactly as dependent as any other Congress member on the bosses of a party, for funding, for committee positions, and for pork in a district. The CPC offers no serious megaphone for progressive views, leaving members as susceptible to the manufactured militarism of the corporate media as anyone else.
Perhaps, at long last, it's time for Congress members Grayson, Nolan, McDermott, and Rangel to establish a Congressional Peace Caucus, which would differ from the Congressional Progressive/Pentagon Caucus. Congressman Grayson has pointed out that the Chemical Weapons Convention requires criminal prosecution for its violation -- not the bombing of a country, which is itself, of course, a crime. That ought to be a simple enough position for any elected official in favor of the rule of law to grasp. If drones get to have their own caucus, why doesn't the rule of law get one? This is, after all, the legislative branch of government.
Nearly a century ago, if a woman wanted to join the Women's Peace Union, she had to sign a pledge, including this:
"We affirm it is our intention never to aid in or sanction war, offensive or defensive, international or civil, in any way, whether by making or handling munitions, subscribing to war loans, using our labor for the purpose of setting others free for war service, helping by money or work any organization which supports or condones war."
A Congressional Peace Caucus, were there such a thing, might use a pledge like this:
"We affirm it is our intention never to aid in or sanction war, offensive or defensive, international or civil, in any way, but to actively oppose all war, and to seek to deny all funding for war or war preparations, and to treat the waging of war in violation of treaties to which the United States is party as an impeachable offense."
If someone joined that caucus, even if it were just one person, I would begin to see the value in elections and caucuses that others manage to discern through the mists of pretense and sycophancy that currently enshroud Capitol Hill.
Talk Nation Radio: Patrick Cockburn: Missiles Won't Make Peace in Syria
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-patrick
Patrick Cockburn is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979 for the Financial Times and, presently, The Independent. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. His articles are at http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/patrick-cockburn
You can say no to attacking Syria here: http://bit.ly/LWd85d
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download or get embed code from Archive or AudioPort or LetsTryDemocracy.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://davidswanson.org/talknationradio
September 2, 2013
Caveman Credibility and its Costs
Sending a bunch of $3 million missiles into Syria to blow stuff up will kill a great many men, women, and children directly. It will also kill a great many people indirectly, as violence escalates in response -- an established pattern recognized even by the war-promoting Washington Post.
August 30, 2013
Charlottesville Forum on Preventing a U.S. Attack on Syria
A free, public, town-hall forum on Preventing a U.S. Attack on Syria: why and how.
Wednesday, September 4, 6:30 p.m.
Sign up to attend on FaceBook now
http://on.fb.me/15njYej
Friends Meeting House
1104 Forest Street
Charlottesville VA
(map http://mapq.st/15GOooV )
Speakers:
Helena Cobban
John Whitehead
Dave Norris
Roy Hange
David Swanson
and You
Helena Cobban is the founding owner of Just World Books, a Charlottesville-based book publisher. Previously, she had a long career as a writer and researcher on world affairs, focusing on the Middle East. She speaks Arabic and has reported and written extensively about Syria for nearly 40 years. Her 2000 book on the Syrian-Israeli peace talks of 1992-96 was published by the U.S. Institute of Peace. From 2008 through 2011 she was a member of the U.S.-Syria Working Group of Search for Common Ground. She is a member of Charlottesville Friends Meeting (Quakers) and sits on the board of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
John Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. He is president of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization. He authors a widely syndicated column and hosts a national public service radio campaign. His most recent book is A Government of Wolves. See Rutherford.org.
Dave Norris has served as a Charlottesville City Council Member or Mayor since 2006. He's executive director of the Charlottesville Institute. Norris has served as Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge, Executive Director of PACEM, Associate Director of Madison House, and Interim Director of the Public Housing Association of Residents. He is founder of the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival. He has been a leading advocate for anti-war resolutions on Charlottesville City Council and in the U.S. Conference of Mayors, spoke at the Military Industrial Complex at 50 conference and will be MCing the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice's 30th anniversary celebration on September 21st. See CvilleDave.Blogspot.com.
Roy Hange is a Mennonite pastor who has spent 30 years studying Western Asia (the Middle East). He has lived for 3 years in Egypt, 6 in Syria, and 1 in Iran. Hange has taught peace building at Eastern Mennonite University and the University of Virginia. See CharlottesvilleMennonite.org.
David Swanson is the author of books including War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He is the host of Talk Nation Radio. Swanson blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online activist organization RootsAction.org. Swanson also works on the communications committee of Veterans For Peace, of which he is an associate (non-veteran) member. Swanson is Secretary of Peace in the Green Shadow Cabinet.
Cruise Missile Law Enforcement
The White House is treating the Syrian government like a potential drone strike victim.
President Barack Obama's preferred method for dealing with targeted individuals is not to throw them into lawless prisons. But it's also not to indict and prosecute them.
On June 7th, Yemeni tribal leader Saleh Bin Fareed told Democracy Now that Anwar al Awlaki could have been turned over and put on trial, but "they never asked us." In numerous other cases it is evident that drone strike victims could have been arrested if that avenue had ever been attempted.
