Call In Day to Obama (202-456-1111)

Tuesday, May 7th

This week both President Obama and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that they were considering arming the rebels due to allegations that the Assad government had used chemical weapons. The Obama administration is only having a public debate about overtly arming the Syrian rebels. In reality, despite the Obama administration’s rhetoric regarding Syria, the U.S. has been intervening in Syria’s conflict for awhile, by having the CIA coordinate arms into Syria and U.S. military forces train Syrian rebels in Jordan. There are widespread reports in the Western press saying that, on May 3, Israel launched another bombing raid on Syria which could be used to try to further involve the U.S. in Syria’s civil conflict.

The mass media’s discussion concerning U.S. action in Syria is war propaganda. It’s promoting an imperialist view that the U.S. has the ‘responsibility to protect’ and an assumption that U.S. military aid or action will improve the situation. In actuality, there is no reason to not assume that the U.S. wouldn’t end up occupying Syria indefinitely in order to prop up a puppet Obama would install as a Washington-friendly leader. While the reports of bloodshed are hard to hear about, in reality the decision about what government to have in Syria belongs to Syria, and U.S. involvement would only expand the conflict.

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center says that 62% of Americans oppose any intervention in Syria. Now more than ever it is important for people to call President Obama at 202-456-1111 or email him to say NO to expanded intervention in the Syrian conflict. Public opinion is on our side. We need to show it.

Join with others across the country on Tuesday, May 7th to say:

· No weapons to Syrian rebels

· No to supporting Israel’s attacks on Syria

· No to U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil conflict

Call in day initiated by the Minnesota and Chicago Anti-War Committees.

Last week the Colombian government and the FARC (the largest rebel group in Colombia) resumed peace talks in Cuba.  The Colombian government has little incentive to negotiate so long as their war is funded by U.S. tax dollars.  Now is the time to take action to bring an end to military aid, to stand in solidarity with the Colombian people, and their struggle for peace with justice.

U.S. aid fuels Colombia’s 49-year civil war.   The Fellowship of Reconciliation reports, “Since 2000, the United States has spent more than $6 billion on ‘Plan Colombia,’ as part of the ‘drug war’ and ‘war on terrorism’ — 80% of it military aid. Colombia has received more U.S. military aid during this period than any country outside the Middle East. Support of the escalation has been bipartisan, and the Obama administration has continued this approach, disguising a bloody counterinsurgency as a war on drugs… ”

In its 2012 annual report, Human Rights Watch concluded, “The U.S. remains the most influential foreign actor in Colombia…Thirty percent of US military aid is subject to human rights conditions, which the U.S. Department of State has not enforced.”

Please call President Obama to support the peace talks, and stop sending military aid to Colombia at 202-456-1111. 

The U.S. should not send military aid to fuel a civil war, especially since doing so undermines peace talks now happening.  Tell the president to take a real stand for peace in Colombia, and discontinue all aid to its repressive government.

There has been a discussion nationally within the peace movement about the internal conflict in Syria, but it is now very clear the US is escalating warlike moves on Syria. 

1. President Obama has declared the Syrian Opposition Coalition the official representative of the Syrian people. This recognition is a step towards legitimizing further US military intervention in Syria.
2. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently signed an order to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey with 400 American personnel.
3. The USS Eisenhower, an American aircraft carrier that holds eight fighter-bomber squadrons and 8,000 men, has arrived at the Syrian coast, indicating US preparation for a potential ground intervention.
4. There is fear-mongering rhetoric reminiscent of the war on Iraq.  The Obama administration continues its claims that Syria will use chemical weapons against its own people, providing the US with a rationale for inflicting “consequences” on Syria.
5. The US has been waging a secret war on Syria for more than a year, including setting up command centers in Turkey, providing Syrian rebels with training, and coordinating weapons shipments to rebel forces.

It is critical that President Obama and Congress hear from us:

NO to US War on Syria

NO to ALL forms of US military intervention

Including military aid and training to rebels, logistical support, no-fly zones, CIA involvement, drone attacks, assassinations, military observers, private contractors, and military troops.

• email the White House
• Call President Obama:  White House switchboard 202-456-1414
• Call your Senators and Representatives: 877-429-0678

From WAMM worldwidewamm.org

In the wake of Sandy Hook, we must admit that we have a much bigger problem than just gun control in this country. We cannot pretend to be surprised by this kind of thing anymore. It happens every couple of months, and the shock and horror of it have become a sort of numb that I feel about the whole everything. The whole news broadcast, as it is dealt out to me, leaves me feeling helpless and numb. In fact, I took it upon myself to throw out my TV years ago- for my own mental health- and to avoid being sucked into watching the news elsewhere (since it is broadcast in shops and bars, and in the headlines of every newspaper on every street corner). Still, it seeps in and I hear about this shooting from my friends and it makes me cry. Me too, Mr. Obama, I cried when I heard the news too.

But with all the due callousness of a long time peace advocate- what else do you expect? This is what happens in a gun-crazed and violent society, like the one we live in today. This is what you get when the leader of our nation deems himself able to assassinate whomever he wants, wherever he wants, for his own “secret reasons” and never be held accountable. It is a classic case of “Do as I say, don’t do as I do” and if you don’t like to think so- here is another example:

If we are to believe that this gunman is solely responsible for this atrocity, and not just a product of the society that he comes from, then let’s call him a terrorist. And let’s say this schoolhouse was in Northern Pakistan instead of Northern America.

See the difference?

The President gets information that a dangerous terrorist is in a schoolhouse in Pakistan, and what does he do? He orders the strike to have him killed and a Hellfire missile is sent to bomb the entire building. Instead of 27 dead, every person in or near the schoolhouse would be under a pile of rubble and there would be no heroes, no survivors- not even a death toll. It is the official practice of our government NOT to count the bodies of the civilian dead, so that they can wave this strike in our faces later and say

“See? We got our man! One terrorist dead. Now give us another billion dollars.”

Now do you see how big the problem really is? It’s not just about guns. It is the acceptability, and the normality of murder. Murder by any other name, is still murder. And we see it glorified on the news every single day. And what we don’t hear about, mass murder on a scale that any would-be serial killer could envy, is being carried out by our government in our name and with our tax dollars. Every. Single. Day.

People want to talk about video games, and I say TALK. But really, it is a much deeper love of violence than that. Have you ever heard the term war-porn? There are websites set up with official U.S. government footage of drone assassinations, where users can comment and chat with each other while dark figures are blown up on the screen.

Sound a little fucked up to you? How about throwing the term “porn” in there to remind us that violence against women goes hand in hand with this kind of war-loving mentality. That rape is so common in our military that a female solider is more like to get attacked by her own fellow soldiers, then be wounded in combat.

But military service isn’t safe for women? Video games promote violence? These things have nothing to do with one crazy person gunning down a bunch of school kids. Unless of course you look at it as a whole, and see these things as the mere surfacing of the affects of war and violence on our collective psyche.

American culture is a many faceted and beautiful thing. No one thing can be considered the cause of the state of our society, but sometimes it takes only one story for the whole of the conversation to change. Take what happened to Trayvon Martin, another act of gun violence, where what is an everyday reality for black youth in this country came to the forefront of our national attention. It is up to us to make sure these children-all of the innocent children- did not die in vain. Let us take the time to see things clearly for what they are. The man who did this needed help, help he did not receive, and we all pay the price. We must teach our children to love and respect themselves and each other- before they reach for a gun. Until that day, when I see the news idly prattling on in the background somewhere- I will continue to look away.

And I will continue to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the so-called War on Terror (as it as produced more terror in eleven years for “them” and for “us” then the attacks on 9/11 could ever justify) until it is over, and not one more bomb is dropped. My heart goes out to the mothers and fathers of those children. I believe killing children is the worst war crime, because children do not hate. We teach them that by how we behave. And it is time to change the lesson.

Posted on December 13, 2012 b y Democracy Now!

The Pentagon has quietly confirmed plans to replenish the U.S.-made munitions used by Israel in its recent assault on the Gaza Strip. The website Common Dreams reports that Congress has been notified of a $647 million deal to resupply the Israeli Air Force with the bombs and missiles that rained on Gaza over the course of the eight-day siege. The U.S.-backed Israeli attack killed more than 180 Palestinians, including many children. Congress is expected to approve the deal this week.

Posted on December 13, 2012 by OpEdNews

By David Swanson (about the author)

Veterans For Peace urgently calls on the United States and NATO to cease all military activity in Syria, halt all U.S. and NATO shipments of weapons, and abandon all threats to further escalate the violence under which the people of Syriaare suffering.

NATO troops and missiles should be withdrawn from Turkey and other surrounding nations.  U.S. ships should exit the Mediterranean.

Veterans For Peace is an organization of veterans who draw upon their military experiences in working for the abolition of war.  We have not entered into this work without consideration of many situations similar to the current one in Syria. 

Peace negotiations, while very difficult, will be easier now, and will do more good now, than after greater violence.  Those negotiations must come, and delaying them will cost many men, women, and children their lives.

No good can come from U.S. military intervention in Syria.  The people of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan,Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and dozens of other nations in Latin America and around the world have not been made better off by U.S. military intervention.

While experts have great doubt that the Syrian government will use chemical weapons, while accounts of past use are dishonest, and while claims that such use is imminent are unsubstantiated and highly suspicious, the most likely way to provoke such use is the threat of an escalated foreign intervention.  Required now by practicality, morality, and the law is de-escalation.

The possession or use of one kind of weapon cannot justify the use of another.  Were the Syrian government to use chemical weapons against Syrians, the United States would not be justified in using other kinds of weapons against Syrians.  The United States possesses chemical and biological weapons, as well as nuclear weapons, and possesses and uses cluster bombs, white phosphorus, depleted uranium weapons, mines, and weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles  — none of which justifies military attacks on the U.S. government.

The United States’ own military actions kill far more civilians than combatants.  The United Statesfacilitates and tolerates governments’ abuses of their own people in nations around the world and around Western Asia, notably in Bahrain – not to mention in Syria, to which the United States has in recent years sent victims to have them tortured.  The world does not believe U.S. motivations for intervention in Syria are humanitarian.  The motivation has been too openly advertised as the overthrow of a government too friendly with the government of Iran and insufficiently subservient to NATO.  Syria has been on a Pentagon list for regime change since at least 2001.

The threat of war, like the use of war, is a violation of the U.N. Charter, to which both the United Statesand Syria are parties.  War without Congressional declaration is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Another U.S. war will not only breed hostility.  It will directly arm and supply those already hostile to the U.S. government. 

How many times must we watch the same mistakes repeated? 

The options are not limited to doing nothing or escalating warfare.  Nonviolent resistance to tyranny has proven far more likely to succeed, and the successes far longer lasting.  Nations and individuals outside of Syria should do what they can to facilitate the nonviolent pursuit of justice.

But Syria’s struggles should be controlled by the Syrian people without military intervention.  The first step is a cease-fire and de-escalation.  The U.S. military and NATO can assist only by departing.

by Jess Sundin on 12/08/12

No government is legally bound to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but as people of conscience, we are bound by it. Here in the heart of the empire, we have to build an anti-war movement that demands respect for human rights.

US wars are an affront to human rights. These wars kill thousands and thousands of people, destroy whole cities, wipe out infrastructure needed for survival, and poison the environment for generations to come. There is no freedom under occupation, when people are ruled by regimes that serve foreign interests. Assassinations – carried out by drones, Marines and the CIA – ignore the rule of law.  Military aid to brutal regimes puts the blood of countless Colombians, Palestinians and others on American hands. Human rights are not won by military intervention. Just the opposite.

Human rights are no excuse for war, and should never serve as a stick to beat other nations with. When war makers propose “humanitarian” intervention, we have to look for the real interests of imperialism in the conflict. The US is not neutral. Our rulers want to expand their economic, military and political power across the globe.

With war or sanctions, the US is not looking to liberate the peoples of Iran and Syria, any more than it was doing this in Viet Nam and Iraq. These countries are targets because they assert their independence from the will of Washington. Just as human rights are founded on respect for human dignity and equality, the anti-war movement must found itself on respecting the dignity and equality of nations, upholding the right to self-determination.

Even as the Egyptian people amassed in Tahrir Square, the US supported President Mubarak, because he helped them protect Israel. The same with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where human rights abuses are off the charts. So long as their governments follow the US wishes, there will be no talk of “humanitarian” intervention.

The ultimate example is Israel, where illegal settlements, assassinations, the apartheid wall, the siege of Gaza, the denial of the right of return, are all ignored by Washington. No Israeli crime against Palestine is challenged by the US, whose standing in the region depends on Israel. The US is not concerned about human rights. The US seeks only to maintain its own power.

The US government can never be a champion of human rights. More than half the world has abolished the death penalty, while here, the Supreme Court upholds the murder of innocent men like Troy Davis. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, and most of these prisoners are Black and Latino. Some are held under torturous conditions of solitary confinement, like Bradley Manning. There is no respect for human rights in murder, racism and torture.

Political freedoms are also protected in the Universal Declaration, but not respected in the US. Even the Anti-War Committee became targets, our work criminalized, by FBI raids and a grand jury investigation.

According the UN, “human rights – the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, to peaceful assembly & association & to take part in government …have been at the centre of the historic changes in the Arab world over the past two years, in which millions have taken to the streets to demand change. In other parts of the world, the “99%” made their voices heard through the global Occupy movement protesting economic, political & social inequality.”

This statement points out an important truth: Human rights, and any real social change, can only be won by people’s movements. US intervention stands in the way of real justice in some places, while destroying it outright in others. As an anti-war movement in the US, we must build a movement that stands in solidarity with the peoples of the world, in their struggles for liberation, and against every war for empire.

Posted on December 9, 2012 by WAMMToday

Speech delivered in Minneapolis on International Human Rights Day December 8, 2012

by Sarah Martin, Women Against Military Madness

Make no mistake about it.

The U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) powers, along with their proxies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are deeply responsible for the human rights disaster in Syria in which 40,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have become refugees.  Just this past week in a city where there had not been fighting, a mortar fired by the rebels slammed into a school and killed nine children.

U.S. plans for regime change in Syria go back at least until 2003 when Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act. This phase began using the cover of the Arab Spring.

To sell this inhumane and despicable aggression to the American public, a relentless propaganda campaign demonizing the Assad regime has been carried out, aided as usual, by a compliant corporate media. International law recognizes the sovereignty of a country and its borders.  But this is ignored. The focus, instead, becomes regime change.

It’s a familiar story. The ruler of the country is labeled a “dictator” and focused on as though he were the only one involved in the government of the country.   It’s said the rebels want to get rid of him simply in order to enjoy Western-style democracy.  So the people must all be on the side of the rebels against their own government. Therefore, when the armed forces proceed to repress the armed rebellion, what is happening is that “the dictator is killing his own people.” And finally, it is “the Responsibility to Protect” of the international community—i.e., NATO— to help the rebels in order to destroy the country’s armed forces and get rid of (or kill) the dictator.

Either unreported or minimized is how the U.S./NATO have fueled and fomented the violence from both outside and inside Syria. U.S./NATO and their proxies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have armed, funded, trained and given means of communication for the armed insurgents in Syria to carry out assassinations, car bombings, sniper shootings, kidnappings, etc.

Barely reported in the media is the fact that months before, in March 2011, the U.S. sent Robert Ford as an ambassador to Syria. Under Ambassador Negroponte, he played a key role in implementing the Pentagon’s “Iraq Salvador Option” which supported Iraqi death squadrons and paramilitary forces modeled on the experience of  Central America.  His appointment, at the very least, added fuel to the fire, if not igniting it.

Not widely known is that in November 2011 The Arab League, European Union and U.S. began imposing economic sanctions, a form of warfare, against Syria on the pretext of stopping state-sanctioned violence against protesters. Stepped-up sanctions and freezing of Syrian assets caused the value of the Syrian pound to drop by 50 percent against the dollar, with the cost of necessities often tripling.  In this way those bent of regime change hoped the Syrian people would blame their government and turn against it.  The sanctions also had the effect of weakening the country before attacking it just like they did with Iraq.

When the United Nation’s (UN) representative offered a “peace plan;” it was the Syrian rebels and their Western and Arab League backers who rejected it.  Syria accepted it.

As for humanitarian intervention—the centrist Brookings institution makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is a pretext for long-planned regime change. Is military intervention ever humanitarian?  NO.

The objective of the U.S./NATO alliance is to ultimately displace and destroy the independent secular Syrian State with a complaint regime.  Syria has fiercely supported self determination for Palestine. It is a strong ally of Hezbollah and Iran. The U.S./NATO want Israel (aka the 51st state and a foothold in the Middle East) to be the strongest in the region. Thrusting Syria into helpless chaos is part of the preparation of an eventual war against Iran, but it is also implicitly part of a drive to reduce the influence of Russia and, eventually, China.

Because China and Russia will not go along with the U.S. and NATO, and because the U.S. elections are over, the threats against Syria are escalating and ominous. President Obama is now considering several options for deeper intervention, including the possibility of openly and directly arming certain rebel factions.

The administration is repeating the same tired, desperate—and if you think about it for even a minute—ridiculous WMD accusations that the Syrian army is preparing to use chemical weapons, threatening that the consequences will be dire if they are used.

NATO has just approved of stationing U.S.-made Patriot missiles along the Turkish border for what it claims is “defense.” Keep in mind, that over the past two years Syria has been fighting terrorists armed, funded, and equipped by NATO, of which Turkey is a member. Turkey has admitted its role in harboring and providing logistics for foreign fighters flooding across the border into Syria. Despite this collusion, Syria has gone through extraordinary lengths to avoid a confrontation with Turkey.  And now it is supposed to be that Turkey needs protection?

In the past couple of days we hear of proposed negotiations between Russia, the U.S. and the UN envoy to decide what to with Syria—another grand colonial move to decide on the fate of yet another country.  So much for national sovereignty and self determination.

What will happen in Syria is unclear, but what is clear is the role of the peace movement.  It is our job to oppose our government’s brutal aggressive actions toward Syria.  We insist on Self-Determination for Syria!  We demand Hands off Syria! We must continue to speak out, to march, to rally and to call for an End to U.S./NATO Intervention!

The Human Rights Day march was organized by the Twin Cities based Anti-War Committee.

Sarah Martin is a member of Women Against Military Madness.

Posted on December 8, 2012 by FightBack! News

Jess Sundin at Human Rights Day rally (FightBack! News)

Minneapolis, MN – About 75 people rallied here Dec. 8, the weekend before International Human Rights Day, to say no to the U.S. using human rights to justify wars and sanctions.

Jess Sundin, of the Twin Cities based Anti-War Committee told the crowd, “With war or sanctions, the U.S. is not looking to liberate the peoples of Iran and Syria, any more than it was doing this in Viet Nam and Iraq. These countries are targets because they assert their independence from the will of Washington. Just as human rights are founded on respect for human dignity and equality, the anti-war movement must found itself on respecting the dignity and equality of nations, upholding the right to self-determination.”

Sundin emphasized, “The U.S. government can never be a champion of human rights.”

Sarah Martin, of the Women Against Military Madness Middle East Committee stated, “The objective of the U.S.-NATO alliance is to ultimately replace the independent secular Syrian state with a complaint regime. Syria has fiercely supported self-determination for Palestine. It is a strong ally of Hezbollah and Iran. It does not do the bidding of Israel or the U.S. Thrusting Syria into helpless chaos is part of the preparation of an eventual war against Iran.”

Sundin and Martin are among the Twin Cities anti-war activists who were raided by the FBI and called before a Chicago grand jury investigating “material support of terrorism.” Mick Kelly, who was also raided by the FBI, denounced the federal investigation into anti-war and international solitary activities as violation of human rights and an attempt to criminalize solidarity.

Misty Rowan, of Anti-War Committee speaking at Human Rights Day protest (FightBack! News)

The event, which included a ten-block march thought the surrounding neighborhood, was organized by the Anti-War Committee. Endorsers included the Minnesota Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Communities United Against Police Brutality, the Joe Callahan Support Committee, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, National Lawyers Guild (MN Chapter), U of MN Students for a Democratic Society, Veterans for Peace Chapter 27 and Women Against Military Madness.