54. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS,
December 29, 2021
The Syria Deception: The Public Has
Been Hoodwinked Yet Again into Supporting a Criminal War of Aggression—and One
That Has Been Effectively Lost
By Jeremy Kuzmarov on Jul 08, 2021
United States warmakers
have become so skilled at propaganda that not only can they wage a war of
aggression without arousing protest; they can also compel liberals to denounce
peace activists using language reminiscent of the McCarthy era.
Take the case of Syria. The people and groups one would normally count on to
oppose wars […]
The post The Syria Deception: The Public Has
Been Hoodwinked Yet Again into Supporting a Criminal War of Aggression—and One
That Has Been Effectively Lost appeared first
on CovertAction Magazine.
Stop
Excluding Military Pollution from Climate Agreements, from World Beyond War. 7-23-21.
Target: Participants in
COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, November 1-12, 2021
We encourage
individuals and organizations to sign the petition below, and also ask
organizations to sign a similar petition created by Conflict and Environment
Observatory here. Organizations that are interested in
cosponsoring this petition through Action Network can see how that would
work here and contact us here.
We encourage groups
and individuals to organize events to advance this message on or about the
International Day of Peace during Climate Week, September 21, 2021,
as well as on or about the big day of action in Glasgow on November 4,
2021. Resources and ideas for events are here.
To: Participants in COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, Glasgow,
Scotland, November 1-12, 2021 From World Beyond War.
As
a result of final-hour demands made by the U.S. government during negotiation
of the 1997 Kyoto treaty, military greenhouse gas emissions were exempted from climate negotiations. That
tradition has continued.
The
2015 Paris Agreement left cutting military greenhouse gas emissions to the
discretion of individual nations.
The
UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, obliges signatories to publish annual greenhouse gas emissions, but
military emissions reporting is
voluntary and often not included.
NATO
has acknowledged the problem but not created any specific requirements to
address it.
There
is no reasonable basis for this gaping loophole. War and war preparations are major greenhouse gas emitters. All
greenhouse gas emissions need to be included in mandatory greenhouse gas
emission reduction standards. There must be no more exception for military
pollution.
We ask COP26 to set strict greenhouse gas emissions limits that make no
exception for militarism, include transparent reporting requirements and
independent verification, and do not rely on schemes to "offset"
emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from a country’s overseas military bases
must be fully reported and charged to that country, not the country where the
base is located.
BACK FROM THE BRINK
https://preventnuclearwar.org/endorse/
We’re
bringing communities together to prevent the growing threat that nuclear weapons pose to our health, environment, and all we
hold dear.
JOIN US
THE CALL
The threat of nuclear war is real and growing. Global
tensions are on the rise. The United States is spending billions of dollars to
rebuild its entire nuclear arsenal, accelerating a new arms race and diverting
funds urgently needed for social, economic, and environmental programs. It is high time we change our priorities and reimagine national
security to better address the challenges of the 21st century.
Back from the Brink: The Call to Prevent Nuclear War is
a national grassroots campaign seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons and
fundamental change in U.S. nuclear weapons policy. We’re calling upon the U.S.
to enter into negotiations now with the other nuclear-armed states for a
verifiable, enforceable, timebound agreement to eliminate their weapons. We
also call on the U.S. to unilaterally adopt several key policies to reduce the
danger of nuclear war while these negotiations proceed.
A safer, healthier, and more just world is possible. We
celebrate the entry into force of the U.N.
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), an
historic treaty signed by 122 nations that bans nuclear weapons under
international law in the same manner as biological and chemical weapons. The
TPNW is the international mechanism for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Back from the Brink provides a U.S. roadmap to accomplish this goal.
We call on the United States to lead a global effort
to prevent nuclear war by:
Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among
nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals
N
Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons
first
N
Ending the sole, unchecked authority of any U.S.
President to launch a nuclear attack
N
Taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger
alert
N
Cancelling the plan to replace the entire U.S.
nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons
See this image
Ronan Farrow . War on
Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence. April 24, 2018.
A harrowing exploration of the collapse of American diplomacy
and the abdication of global leadership, by the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer
Prize in Public Service.
US foreign policy is undergoing a dire transformation, forever
changing America’s place in the world. Institutions of diplomacy and
development are bleeding out after deep budget cuts; the diplomats who make
America’s deals and protect its citizens around the world are walking out in
droves. Offices across the State
Department sit empty, while abroad the military-industrial complex has assumed
the work once undertaken by peacemakers. We’re becoming a nation that shoots
first and asks questions later.
In an astonishing journey from the corridors of power in
Washington, DC, to some of the most remote and dangerous places on
earth―Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Korea among them―acclaimed investigative
journalist Ronan Farrow illuminates one of the most consequential and poorly
understood changes in American history. His firsthand experience as a former
State Department official affords a personal look at some of the last standard
bearers of traditional statecraft, including Richard Holbrooke, who made peace
in Bosnia and died while trying to do so in Afghanistan.
Drawing
on newly unearthed documents, and richly informed by rare interviews with
warlords, whistle-blowers, and policymakers―including every living former
secretary of state from Henry Kissinger to Hillary Clinton to Rex Tillerson―War on Peace makes a
powerful case for an endangered profession. Diplomacy, Farrow argues, has declined after decades of political
cowardice, shortsightedness, and outright malice―but it may just offer America
a way out of a world at war. (from Amazon)
ENDING WAR WITH PASHTUN
AFGHANISTAN MEANS REDUCING WAR?
NO! STOP THE NEW COLD WAR WITH
CHINA AND RUSSIA
STOP THE
NEW COLD WAR WITH CHINA
Tomgram: David Vine, Biden Builds Back Worse (When It Comes
to China) 10-21-21
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TomDispatch via gmail.mcsv.net
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8:37 AM (0 minutes ago)
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David Vine, Biden Builds
Back Worse (When It Comes to China)
October
21, 2021
[Note for
TomDispatch Readers: Just a small reminder
that signed, personalized copies of William deBuys's remarkable new
book, The Trail to Kanjiroba:
Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss,
are still available at the TomDispatch donation
page for
contributions of at least $100 ($125 if you live outside the U.S.A.).
Of it, Dahr Jamail, someone TD readers
will remember well, has said, "Written in the spirit of
Mathiessen's Snow Leopard, The Trail to Kanjiroba is
a pilgrimage into the unknown of the inner realms. DeBuys's heartfelt,
raw, poetically written personal peregrination is a true service to
life on an increasingly disrupted planet." At the very least, make
sure to get yourself a copy! Tom]
Let me make my own
position on China all too clear. I'm distinctly "soft" on
that country. I always have been. After all, it represents a remarkable
civilization, one I studied in graduate school. Among my greatest
regrets is never having visited there, never having made it to the
Great Wall or any of its other memorable historical landmarks. China
has indeed "risen" from the nightmare of the nineteenth and
much of the twentieth centuries to become one of the two great powers
on this planet, which is, I think, a remarkable accomplishment. Yes, of
course, there are aspects of its governance that are deplorable (but
it's in good company there). Still, at this potentially calamitous
moment on Planet Earth, working with, not
preparing for war against, China should be the order of the day.
Unfortunately, I
seem to be in the minority in a country where being soft on China is
one of the worst insults around. Early in the 2020 election campaign,
for instance, Joe Biden criticized Donald
Trump for just that. He "rolled over for the Chinese" on
Covid-19, claimed one Biden campaign ad. And, of course, the
then-president returned the favor, tweeting, "China wants Sleepy
Joe sooo badly... Joe is an easy mark, their DREAM CANDIDATE!”
As it happens, both
were quite wrong about the other. Trump, of course, whacked the Chinese
(and American consumers,
as well) with those tariffs of his, which Sleepy Joe has
adamantly kept in place since
entering the Oval Office. Meanwhile, as with Washington's new AUKUS pact in
Asia that will provide Australia with nuclear-powered subs or the new CIA spy center that's
to focus on China alone, the Biden foreign-policy team has been hot to
trot when it's come to creating a new Cold War in Asia. As it turns
out, both administrations stationed U.S.
Marines and a special-operations unit on the island of Taiwan for the
first time (without even notifying Congress) and both have sold that
island's government copious new weapons
systems.
Both have been
similarly intent on creating anti-Chinese alliances in the region, but
the Biden administration has been doing all this far more coherently,
as TomDispatch regular David
Vine, author most recently of the all-too-aptly titled The United States of War: A
Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the
Islamic State, suggests today.
Of course, for a land that spends more on its military-industrial
complex than the Chinese could ever imagine, more than at least
the next 11 countries combined
(and hasn't won a war of significance, including in Afghanistan, since
1945), an enemy remains sadly necessary. Despite the fact that the
Chinese have, as Vine indicates, done remarkably little of an
aggressive nature in the world in recent years, congressional
majorities of Democrats and Republicans would never agree to fund the
Pentagon at levels now
almost beyond imagining without just such a foe.
Meanwhile, both
countries continue to make war on
the planet in an unprecedented manner in terms of greenhouse gas
emissions and so on we go. Let Vine, an expert on this country as a war
and garrison state, fill you in. Tom
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Do You Want
a New Cold War?
The AUKUS
Alliance Takes the World to the Brink
By David Vine
Before it's too
late, we need to ask ourselves a crucial question: Do we really -- I
mean truly -- want a new Cold War with China?
Because that's just
where the Biden administration is clearly taking us. If you need proof,
check out last month's announcement of
an "AUKUS" (Australia, United Kingdom, U.S.) military
alliance in Asia. Believe me, it's far scarier (and more racist) than
the nuclear-powered submarine deal and the French diplomatic kerfuffle
that dominated the media coverage of it. By focusing on the
dramatically angry French reaction to losing their own agreement to
sell non-nuclear subs to Australia, most of the media missed a
much bigger story: that the U.S. government and its allies have all but
formally declared a new Cold War by launching a coordinated military
buildup in East Asia unmistakably aimed at China.
Click here to read more of
this dispatch.
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RUSSOPHOBIA
NATO 'Master Plan' aimed at Russia
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Global
Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space via sendinblue.com
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Oct 24, 2021, 7:27 PM
(11 hours ago)
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Washington always looking for another war
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By Bruce Gagnon
It didn't take long for the US to up the ante with
China and Russia. So soon after the crushing defeat from 20 years
of death and destruction in Afghanistan we find Washington
stirring the fire pit and looking for more trouble.
It's really no surprise. Just take a close look at
US history - one filthy war after the other.
Just this past week we've seen 'F the EU' Victoria
Nuland go to Moscow hoping for an audience with Putin. She only
got to meet with lower level, but competent Russian diplomats,
and came away with nothing other than furthering the divide
between our two nations. Actually, that might have been the US
strategy.
The word is that Nuland went in with a list of
Washington's demands. Russia said 'nyet' and handed Nuland a list
of their own. Of course Nuland said 'No' and was then sent packing
back to the US.
Secretary of War Lloyd Austin (former Raytheon
board member) just stopped in Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania
before heading to Brussels for hand-wringing with the NATO
clowns.
Austin stated during a news conference in
Bucharest that the purpose of these visits was to highlight “the
importance of deepening cooperation among our Black Sea allies
and partners to deter and defend against Russian malign
activities in the region.”
That's the political hype. His real purpose in
Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania? Spur them to make trouble for
Moscow in any way and every way they possibly can. And I'm sure
Austin said the magic words, 'Of course the US will back you if
you get into a fight with Russia. First, we'll supply you with
more weapons and plant more of our troops in your nation to
protect you from the Russian bear.'
At the Brussels meeting NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg said the following:
· Allies
will kick off a $1.16 billion NATO Innovation Fund to develop
dual-use emerging and disruptive technologies. NATO will also
establish its first artificial intelligence strategy to
incorporate data analysis, imagery, and cyber defense.
· The
allies are spending more on defense and they agreed to increase
the readiness of forces.
· Significant
improvements are being made to alliance air and missile defenses.
NATO calls for strengthening conventional capabilities with
fifth-generation jets, adapting exercises and intelligence, and
improving the readiness and effectiveness of the nuclear
deterrent.
· We
exchanged views on how to preserve the gains and
ensure Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for
terrorists.
· NATO’s
new strategy ensures that the alliance will have “the right
forces in the right place at the right time.”
They also characteristically took at shot at China
from behind the safe walls of NATO HQ in Brussels with a stream
of rhetoric.
Austin’s remarks followed the completion of a
two-day NATO ministerial where he said officials offered “unique
perspectives” on China, which he noted remains the Pentagon’s
“primary pacing challenge.”
“Indeed, I applaud NATO’s work on China and I made it clear that
the United States is committed to defending the international
rules-based order which China has consistently undermined for its
own interests,” Austin told reporters.
At an October 21 CNN town hall, Joe Biden was
asked about China.
“I just want to make China understand that we are
not going to step back, we are not going to change any of our
views.” Biden said. Asked whether the US would come to Taiwan’s
defense if it were attacked, he replied: “Yes, we have a
commitment to do that.”
Now let's analyze this NATO meeting and the
comments on China just a bit.
First, who has Russia invaded? Since the US
orchestrated coup in Ukraine in 2014 (when the Russian-ethnic
people in Crimea voted to ask Russia to take them back into the
federation) there has been no invasion of anyone near its
borders. At the same time US-NATO has been holding war games
repeatedly all along Russian borders. When Moscow has responded
by holding counter-war games inside its own country Washington
and Brussels have howled in condemnation. Talk about a
double-standard!
And please note the words above by Austin -
"I applaud NATO’s work on China" - just what does that
mean?
NATO has gone global. The North Atlantic Treaty
Alliance has now decided that it should be 'defending democracy
in the Pacific'. Who is the aggressor in this case? What right
does NATO have to decide it is the new global cop?
Can't lick Afghanistan so let's take on China
& Russia
NATO has no legitimate reason to exist today - the
Soviet Union and their Warsaw Pact Alliance are long gone. Russia
just built an undersea natural gas pipeline called Nord Stream 2 to
furnish fuel to Europe in order to help alleviate their current
energy crisis. It's a big business deal for Moscow. Why would
Russia want war with Europe?
The insanity of US-NATO is exposed for anyone
willing to see the obvious. Washington and Brussels got their
high-tech asses kicked by a ill-armed rag-tag but determined
Taliban in Afghanistan. Now they somehow dream that they can take
on both China and Russia who have formed a military alliance as
they watch the NATO endless war machine heading their way.
I understand that all these moves by US-NATO
absolutely benefit the military industrial complex which has
installed one of their agents (Lloyd Austin) as secretary of war.
But do these psychopaths actually believe they can start a war
with China and Russia and possibly win? Don't they know that such
a war would go nuclear in a hot flash?
It's obvious that the US-NATO war cabal are
blinded by power and greed. There can be no other explanation
that comes close to making sense.
It's a dangerous and dirty game these fat cats are
playing - at the same time that climate crisis rages in our
faces, legions of people face evictions from their homes, and the
basic cost of living goes sky high.
Are we heading for a collapse in the US and around
the globe? How could that not be happening under these present
conditions?
And the US-NATO response?
How about another war?
Which party in Washington is leading this descent
into hell?
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US PEACE PRIZE Presentation
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The US Peace Prize will be awarded on November 4. This
year’s nominees are: Julian Aguon, Bruce Gagnon, David
Hartsough, National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth,
and World BEYOND War. You
may read about their antiwar/peace work in the US Peace Registry.
The announcement and 2021 presentation will be made at the beginning of this
online event. Click here to register.
The US Peace Memorial
Foundation honors Americans who stand for peace by publishing the US Peace Registry, awarding the US Peace Prize, and working to promote and raise
funds for the US Peace Memorial in Washington, DC. We celebrate these
role models to inspire other Americans to speak out against war and work for
peace.
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US Peace Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity.
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Effort to Repeal AUMF removed from National Defense Authorization
Act:
Push to repeal Iraq war
powers snags in overloaded Senate
As the NDAA goes down to the wire, the congressional attempt to
reclaim AUMFs is a casualty of war.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/07/congress-aumf-war-powers-repeal-scrapped-523888
HELEN KELLER AGAINST WAR
Strike Against
War, delivered before the Women's Peace Party ...
https://www.afb.org ›
helen-keller › books-essays-speeches
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against
manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike
against ...
Transcription
for Helen Keller's speech "A Protest Against ...
https://www.afb.org ›
HelenKellerArchive › p=helenkeller...
It is doubtful if the workers themselves can stop war: but they can do much to
defend themselves against attacks upon their rights by by their fellow-workers
in ...
OMNI’S WWW IS DEDICATED TO ENDING THE US ENDLESS WARFARE STATE
A "peacetime" military
10-26-21
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Natasha
- About Face Veterans via email.actionnetwork.org
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6:30 AM (1 hour ago)
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Hi
Dick-
I
remember the moment I realized my service in the military wasn’t what
it was supposed to be. It’s a moment a lot of us remember - September
11th, 2001. And thanks to About Face, I am able to do something about
it.
Serving
the Air Force, we were told that our work was being done during
‘peacetime’ - that is, I was supporting a global network of hundreds of
bases that were constantly monitoring shipping routes, conflict zones,
and countries we determined as threatening to democracy.
Truth
is, we were never at peace, but I didn’t know it.
After
9/11, there has never been a return to even a pretense of peace. Permanent
war is now justified as a fight against terrorism.
With
your investment in our work, together, we can stop it. Make a donation
to About Face today and help us bring an end to endless war.
One
of the strongest ways we stop war is by having the people who fought
them speak out against it — to expose what’s really happening behind
closed doors.- For example: - why is Biden asking for the biggest
military budget ever even after the war in Afghanistan is ‘over’? Why
is congress approving a 5% raise for the military? Will we ever return
to a peacetime military? We witness war profiteering first
hand, as trillions are handed over to contractors in no-bid contracts
while aid for people decimated by war evaporates and veteran’s benefits
are privatized out of reach.
We
will make all war profiteers pay and are organizing to speak out this
veteran’s day. Can we count on you to support us in ending these wars?
Thank
you for having our back. Together, we will take on the deadly forces of
war and win.
Sincerely,
Natasha Erskine
CO-Director, About Face
About Face: Veterans Against The War
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