BOOK FORUMS ON US NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, EMPIRE, AND WARS

OMNI’S BOOK FORUMS ON US NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, EMPIRE, AND WARS: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES




News Release

BOOK FORUM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2011, at OMNI, 6:30

Contact: Dick Bennett 442-4600

Subject: FORUM ON CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF US EMPIRE, MILITARISM, AND WARS

October 7 is Afghanistan Invasion Day.



THIS OMNI BOOK FORUM brings you BOOKS dedicated to preventing more unnecessary, illegal, catastrophic US wars by explaining why and how they occurred, the devastating consequences to the world and to the US itself, and how we might best convert from empire and militarized economy to peace and cooperation with the rest of the world. These books and others in my annotated list (contact Dick) enable us to resist effectively.



The Forum will occur on October 7, the day the US invaded Afghanistan, 2001. 6:30 PM, at OMNI, 3274 Lee Avenue, northeast of Fiesta Square across College Ave. between Liquor World and Office Depot.



PANEL



John Rule: War Is a Lie by David Swanson (13 deceptions, myths enabling US wars)

Carl Barnwell: American Wars, Paul Buchheit ed. (19 illusions, myths the US elite employ to go to war)

Paul Leonard: Four books by Chalmers Johnson (Blowback Trilogy plus Dismantling the Empire, wide-ranging indictment of US empire)

Dick Bennett: Two books by William Blum, Killing Hope and Rogue State (US has illegally intervened or invaded some 50 countries since 1945 resulting in the deaths of millions of innocents)

Mark Arnold: Richard Rubenstein, Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War (the rhetoric and the cultural and social factors that sell war)

Dick Bennett: Nicholas Davies, Blood on Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq (the illegal invasion and occupation and US combat behavior illegal under UN Charter and Geneva conventions)

Claire Detels: Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? (European nations long at war turned to peace)



Nightbird Bookstore has a special display of these and related books.



Moderator: Dick Bennett

Video: Dan Dean



There are many more exposes of the US National Security Empire (see my selective list). A single, comprehensive (encyclopedic!) book is needed on the crimes and abuses of the US War on Terror as a continuation of the Cold War and permanent war and that includes the impact of US wars on the environment, earth, and species.













NEWS RELEASE

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

OMNI CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY

CONTACT: DICK BENNETT, 442-4600



SUBJECT: BOOK FORUM ON US EMPIRE, MILITARISM, AND WAR ON TERROR



When: Friday, September 21, 2012 (United Nations International Day of Peace)

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Where: OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology

3274 Lee Ave., behind FedEx, north of Office Depot, extra parking in front of Liquor World.



Moderated by Dick Bennett



PANELISTS (IN ORDER OF PRESENTATION)

Empire Abroad

John Gray, Killing Hope by William Blum (illegalk, lethal US invasions and interventions)

John Rule, Blood on Our Hands by Nicholas Davies (US violations of Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg Principles in Iraq)

Empire at Home

Military Industrial Complex

Dick Bennett, The Military Industrial[Congressional] Complex at 50, ed. by David Swanson; The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse (both on US militarized economy).

Attack on Liberties

Bettie Lu Lancaster, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy by Susan Herman.



So long as the fear-mongering myths continue of enemies who ‘hate us for our freedoms” and “US invasions and bombings protect those freedoms,” US imperial interventions will continue, innocent people will be killed, our troops will futilely die, and our treasury wasted. People around the world hate our imperial practices. But you and I are not helpless; we are not powerless. We can contribute to an end of US wars of conquest or repression by refuting lies and fears and by advocating nonviolence, empathy, knowledge, reason, evidence, and diplomacy. Let us therefore be informed and not be silent.



This Forum reports on a few of the hundreds of books which our good scholars and publishers provide for our understanding of US imperialism and the so-called “War on Terror.” Chalmers Johnson’s “Blowback” tetralogy critically examines hundreds of aspects of the development of the US empire. Nicholas Davies’ Blood on our Hands identifies many of the specific violations of Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg principles committed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But the consequences of empire are not limited to its foreign wars. Empire also results in war against its own people—McCarthyism abroad, McCarthyism at home. Susan Herman in Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy examines case after case of unconstitutional violations of domestic liberties. Other books will be cited. For a list of 46 books on these topics, contact Dick Bennett at jbennet@uark.edu