LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL (FLAG DAY) NEWSLETTER #4

OMNI LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL DAY (FLAG DAY June 14, 1777), NEWSLETTER #4, June 14, 2013.    Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace.  (#1 June 14, 2009; #2 June 14, 2011; #3 June 14, 2012).

OMNI’S NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT.

Half of the Project affirms nonviolent DAYs, such as United Nations Day in Support of Victims of Torture, UN Nuclear Abolition Day, and Human Rights Day.  The other half offers alternatives to violent, imperial, commercialized, or self-directed days, as with Peace Forces Day (Armed Forces Day).  See end of newsletter for full list.

My blog:
War Department/Peace Department

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See end of Newsletter for #1 and #2.

Contents #3 June 14, 2012

OMNI’s National Days Project

Patriotism for Citizens of the World

Flag Burning

Nationalism and the Flag

Patriotism and the Flag

Contents #4 June 14, 2013

Google June 11, 2013: Patriotic or Commercial Expressions

Dick, President as Cheerleader

Scahill, Dirty Wars Book and Film

Obama, Guantanamo, Torture, and Murder

Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:  http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/   For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for change.

Google June 11, 2013: Patriotic or Commercial Expressions.  OMNI offers alternatives to the myths of patriotic nationalism.

PRESIDENT AS NATIONAL CHEERLEADER ON NATIONALISTIC DAYS.

     I was a high school cheerleader and still enjoy watching.  But in political cheerleading, what the leader says and what the leader does each must be founded on the truth and they must be congruent. If not on both accounts the public will lose trust in the leader and in government officials in general.

     On and around Memorial Day 2013 President Obama gave several speeches for “the troops” and the nation.  Let’s look at the quality of them.

     At Arlington National Cemetery he exhorted the public to honor their “sacred obligation” to veterans and reminded us that “our nation is still at war.”  He described the cemetery as “a sacred place, where we honor our fallen heroes.”  And “here on this hallowed ground” of headstones is “a monument to a constant thread in the American character—the truth that our nation endures because it has always been home to men and women who are willing to give their all, lay down their lives to preserve and protect this land that we love.”  He lamented that “not all Americans may always see or fully grasp the depths of sacrifice, the profound costs that are made in our name.”  And he noted that “every loss is devastating for the parents who lose a child, the husbands and wives who lose a partner and the children who lose a parent.”  And he assured his audience that, as the one who send troops into combat he feels the losses.  “I feel it every time I meet a wounded warrior. . . .I grieve with a Gold Star family.” So “Let us never forget to always remember and to be worthy of the sacrifice they make in our name.”  He quoted from the mother of two Marines, one serving in Afghanistan, who pleaded with him not to forget about her son.  “A mother’s plea,” said Obama, “Please don’t forget.”  Finally the President blessed the troop and America.  And then a bugler played taps,a soldier’s reminder that “All is well, safely rest.”

     Using symbolic speech, he laid the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

     In an address on counterterrorism policy he said he hoped to move the nation off a war footing.  Next year’s Memorial Day “will mark the final Memorial Day of our war in Afghanistan.”  “even as we turn a page on a decade of conflict…let us never forget…that our nation is a war.”

    Michelle Obama hosted a breakfast at the White House for “Gold Star? Families of service members who have been killed.

    Their steady drum beat stimulated drums around the country.  Mayor Bloomberg at New York’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument encouraged his audience to “remember the sacrifice that was made so that we could be here.”   In South Sioux City, Neb., a statue honoring a Navy dog handler killed in Afghanistan was unveiled in his hometown.  When the subject is patriotism, Presidents lead some of the people by the nose.

      Whew!  My mother would say, depending on her mood and degree of knowledge of the subject, “that’s a mouthful,” or “takes a lot of gall.”

     And it takes a lot of cant.  Can you or anyone other than the President get away with so many pious platitudes so thoroughly undercut by the white light of contrary behavior?

     How with a solemn face can he say he has a “sacred obligation” to veterans and in the same breath that “our nation is still at war,” when he could but has not stopped the war?  

      How say Arlington cemetery is a sacred place, a hallowed ground, where we honor the fallen, when he knows the federal cemeteries are bursting their boundaries with the bodies from expansion of an aggressive empire he has surged?

     Does he believe that our nation endures because its men and women generously give their lives and protect “this land that we love,” when not one of the some fifty invasions and interventions of other countries since 1945 were necessary, legal, or moral?     

     How can he say he feels with the parents and children and spouses the “losses” (i.e., deaths) of their loved ones, and sympathizes with the wounded, when he was one of the leaders who ordered them into harms way during a decade of conflict (that is, of invasions, occupations, bombings, atrocities) and has the power to end the harms?  And what about the enemy—another construction--, has he no compassion for the victim Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani parents and children, or for the victims of military and CIA torture and murder?  Does he believe these nationalistic effusions will lead to friends and peace around the world?

     Did he really refer to a mother’s plea, and continue on to bless the troops and America, and allow taps to be played (all is not well), and lay a wreath in remembrance of all the troops blown to pieces in wars ordered by other presidents or dictators?  

     Does he think the people he (and Bush and all Memorial Day and Flag Day Presidents) loves to love can’t connect dots, are brain-washed automata?  (I suspect he does.)

     Does he not know that we know he has an option for the war drums of US Memorial Day and Flag Day—Liberty and Justice for ALL?

    

 Sources:

OMNI’s newsletters.  Here are some recent ones: 

“Obama Reminds Nation of What It Owes Veterans.”  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (May 28, 2013).

DIRTY WARS CHALLENGE FLAG DAY TO BECOME LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL DAY.

SEE JEREMY SCAHILL’S FILM AND READ HIS BOOK.

·                                 In Theaters

·                                 Coming Soon

·                                 Critics' Picks

·                                 Trailers

SNAPSHOT | JEREMY SCAHILL

His Target Is Assassinations

Excerpt: 'Dirty Wars': The documentary by Jeremy Scahill and Richard Rowley investigates covert American military operations.

By JEREMY EGNER

Published: June 6, 2013

Jeremy Scahill, an investigative foreign correspondent whose first documentary, “Dirty Wars,” opens Friday, writes for The Nation and achieved his biggest success with “Blackwater,” a best-selling book critiquing security contractors hired by the George W. Bush administration. Neither of which keeps him from being labeled a right-wing stooge by detractors.

Related

·                                 Movie Review | ‘Dirty Wars’: From the Front Lines, if You Can See Them (June 7, 2013)

Enlarge This Image

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Jeremy Scahill

“Most of my hate mail nowadays comes from liberals, not conservatives,” he said.

This is because Mr. Scahill has also been an outspoken critic of President Obama. Specifically, he disapproves of what he describes as the administration’s efforts to “normalize and legitimize” targeted assassinations — drone-executed and otherwise — Special Operations raids and other covert military practices that blur the battle lines of the war on terrorism.

“Dirty Wars” is his latest salvo. In the film (his book with the same title came out in April), Mr. Scahill investigates several American strikes that killed civilians with no apparent ties to terrorist groups, beginning with a February 2010 raid in the village of Khatabeh, Afghanistan, that killed several members of a family. An Afghan police chief and three women were among the dead. (The United States first denied and then acknowledged its role in the deaths.)

Along the way Mr. Scahill suggests that such acts are radicalizing Muslims both obscure — a man in Khatabeh talks about wanting to become a suicide bomber — and well-known, like the American cleric-turned-Qaeda firebrand Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by drones in September 2011. “We are encouraging a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Mr. Scahill said. “We are making more new enemies than we are killing actual terrorists.”

Mr. Scahill, 38, has been a frequent talking head on cable news shows and recently was awarded a $150,000 Windham Campbell literary prize. The film stands to raise his profile as it mixes disturbing events in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia with Mr. Scahill’s raw emotional responses.

He said he had resisted a prominent on-camera role, but allowed that the approach humanizes the film and builds credibility with viewers by being transparent about the imperfect art of journalism. Intense but friendly in conversation, with striking blue eyes, Mr. Scahill talked to Jeremy Egner about how making the film altered him. These are excerpts from the interview.

Q. How did this project begin?

A. There was this war within the war in Afghanistan. There was the conventional war — the Marines in Helmand Province — and then you had these night raids. But I didn’t know much about it. We started filming aftermaths of night raids and interviewing people.

How did it evolve?

I was going to be more of a tour guide to this archipelago of undeclared wars. As we started talking about how we wanted to tell the story, we realized we didn’t really have a story. We had four or five ministories, but we weren’t really doing an effective job of connecting them. David [Riker, the co-writer] said: “You’re burying a big part of the story, which is that this film has really changed you as a person. You’re not some dispassionate observer.”

How were you changed by it?

I feel gutted as a person, to be really honest. When you do this kind of work you run from one story to the next and you try not to let anything catch up with you. Once we started doing this as a more personal journey, it was like a floodgate opened of all of the horrifying stuff that I’ve seen and the stories I’ve absorbed. I was forced to confront things that I don’t think I wanted to.

Many of the images are pretty ghastly.

We tried to blur them as much as we could, in some cases, but I think people should see the aftermath.

What do you hope viewers take away from this?

I don’t have any illusions about Congress changing things, but I have faith in people. If we debate about this in our society, Congress will be forced to do something about it. If we embrace assassination as a central component of our foreign policy and continue with the mentality that we can kill our way to victory — or worse, kill our way to peace — then we’re whistling past the graveyard.

1.                           Dirty Wars: GOOGLE SEARCH   Home Page

dirtywars.org/‎

Dirty Wars · HOME · THE BOOK ... as he chases down the hidden truth behind America's expanding covert wars. ... Or host your own screening of the film.

You visited this page on 5/20/13.

2.                             Dirty Wars (2013) - IMDb

www.imdb.com/title/tt2532528/‎

 Rating: 5.2/10 - 128 votes

With a strong cinematic style, the film blurs the boundaries of documentary and fiction storytelling. Part action film and part detective story, Dirty Wars is a ...

3.                             Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield - Wikipedia, the free ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Wars:_The_World_Is_a_Battlefield‎

Dirty Wars is a 2013 documentary film directed by Richard Rowley and written and produced by Jeremy Scahill about covert U.S. warfare.

4.                             News for Dirty Wars Film

1.                  Jeremy Scahill and Dirty Wars, the Movie, Covered Up Killings, Ed Snowden, and the Future of American Democracy

OpEdNews ‎- 13 hours ago

He is the writer, with David Riker, and a producer of the documentary feature film, Dirty Wars, which won theCinematography Award for U.S. ...

2.                  Covert Conflicts, Decried In 'Dirty Wars'

NPR‎ - 4 days ago

3.                  His Target Is Assassinations

New York Times‎ - 4 days ago

5.                             'Dirty Wars' movie review - The Washington Post

www.washingtonpost.com/.../movies/dirty-wars-movie.../d1c782ee-cd2a-1...

5 days ago – Journalist Jeremy Scahill investigates the moral implications of America's underground war on terror.

6.                             Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley's New Film Exposes ...

► 36:58► 36:58

www.democracynow.org/.../dirty_wars_jeremy_scahill...

Jan 22, 2013

Premiering this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the new documentary "Dirty Wars: The World Is ...

7.                              More videos for Dirty Wars Film »

8.                             Dirty Wars - Movie Trailers - iTunes - Apple

www.apple.com/trailers/independent/dirtywars/‎

No target is off-limits for the JSOC “kill list,” even a U.S. citizen. Director Richard Rowley takes us on a chilling ride with whistle-blower Scahill. Dirty Wars is a ...

9.                             Movie Review - 'Dirty Wars' - Covert Conflicts Decried Onscreen : NPR

www.npr.org › Arts & Life › Movies › Movie Reviews

5 days ago – Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times best-seller Blackwater, contemplates what he considers the "dirty" side of America's wars. But it's ...

10.                         Dirty Wars - BRITDOC Foundation

britdoc.org/real_films/britdoc-bertha-awards/dirty-wars‎

Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of the ... With a strong cinematic style, the film unfolds through Scahill's investigation and personal ...

11.                         'Dirty Wars' movie review - NYPOST.com

www.nypost.com/.../movies/dirty_wars_review_aSAaQ7Xgyqrxrvl2nLz...‎

4 days ago – Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill has spent years tracing the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, and its targeted killings as part ...

12.                         Dirty Wars | Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/DirtyWars‎

is on Facebook. To connect with Dirty Wars, sign up for Facebook today. ... Dirty Wars. 6,551 likes · 1,752 talking about this. Movie. www.dirtywars.org. A secret ...

TERRY J. ALLEN, “STARVING FOR JUSTICE AT GITMO.”  IN THESE TIMES (July 2013). 

The 166 prisoners in Guantanamo torture prison are “trapped between a perpetual ‘war on terrorism’ and a politifal/judicial system crippled by moral cowardice and jingoism.”  One prisoner, for example, Shaker Aamer, captured 11 years ago and cleared for release in 2007, remains imprisoned.  Now he has joined more than 100 “detainees” (a grotesque euphemism) in a hunger strike than began Feb. 6.  --Dick

Contents of #1  2009

National Flag Week

Book: Capture the Flag

Dick Bennett: Principles of the Flag

Blum’s Books and Newsletter: Imperialism USA

Noam Chomsky: Torture USA

Newdow: Under God?

Contents of #2 2011

Pledge of Allegiance

Flag Day

President Obama

Avakian:  Equal Justice

Sheehan:  Patriotism and Police State

Books

  Instead of waving the flag, read and think:

  Salisbury, Mohamed’s Ghosts

  Woehrle, Contesting Patriotism

  Pfaff, The Irony of Manifest Destiny (and US        “exceptionalism”)

  Nathanson, Patriotism, Morality, Peace

NATIONAL DAYS TRANSFORMED

Feb. 14:  Standing on the Side of Love Day (formerly Valentine’s Day)

May, 2^nd Sunday: Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day for Peace (Mother’s Day)

3^rd Sat. in May: Peace Forces Day  (Armed Forces Day)

May, last Monday:  Day of Mourning for Victims of Wars (Memorial Day)

June 14:  Liberty and Justice for All Day (Flag Day)

June, 3^rd Sunday:  Father’s Day for Peace  (Father’s Day)

September 11 (9-11):  Peaceful Tomorrows Day (Patriot Day)

Oct.,  2^nd Monday: Indigenous Peoples Day (Columbus Day):

Nov. 11: World Unity Day   (Veterans Day) (Or Armistice Day in 1918 when WWI ended).

November: Fourth Thursday:  National Day of Gratitude and Atonement (Thanksgiving)

December 7:   Pacific Colonial War Day (Pearl Harbor Day)

December 25:  Love and Peacemaking Day (Christmas)

END LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL DAY (FLAG DAY) JUNE 14