WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, AUGUST 4, 2021

 

33.   WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, August 4, 2021

OMNI’S ANNUAL REMEMBRANCE OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

     OMNI will resume its annual Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and this year Celebrate the new UN Treaty banning nuclear weapons, on Sunday evening of August 8, at OMNI, 7p.m.  Join with us in sorrow and yearning for the abolition of weapons of mass destruction capable of omnicide.  Please contact OMNI Director Gladys Tiffany or OMNI President Kelly Mulhollan either to offer your help or to express your support by attending.  

     Despite the dispiriting Covid 19 and dangerous variants and continued failure of our leaders to meaningfully oppose the climate catastrophe or nuclear weapons, we gather at a time of hope with these two events:  The UN Treaty to Abolish Nuclear Weapons came into force on January 22 when the necessary number of nations ratified the Treaty (the US not signing), and COP26 UN Climate Change Conference will convene in Glasgow, Scotland, November 1-12, 2021.

        Thus this year our Hiroshima/Nagasaki action will encompass Remembrance, Protest, and Praise.   

      Mayor Jordan will read the city’s Proclamation.   Prof. Art Hobson and Abel Tomlinson will speak.  Still on the Hill and other musical groups will play.   And more, believing we can abolish nuclear weapons if we will, and we still have time.

      Please mark August 8 on your calendar now.

Dick Bennett, OMNI Founder

 

Hiroshima Nagasaki Commemoration

Sun Aug 8 - 7:00 pm - at Omni Center

Outdoors, In-person as of now

Livestream and recorded on

Facebook the Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology page

(Video page: https://www.facebook.com/omnicenter/videos/?ref=page_internal)

 

There are critical nuclear issues going on right now, at the same time critical covid issues are also on the table. If possible, Omni will hold the annual commemoration in person on the lawn at Omni on Sunday August 8. Many wise people will be uncertain about meeting in-person, so the event will also be live-streamed and recorded. If you aren't vaccinated, please don't endanger yourself by attending. But some will be present, including Mayor Lioneld Jordan who will present the traditional proclamation on the day.

 

We commemorate the Nuclear Ban approved by the United Nations in January this very year, and will talk about the shocking announcement that the University of Arkansas College of Engineering has contracted with a supplier of nuclear weapons to design weapons of mass destruction.

 

In addition we will honor the dead of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and other war casualties, and hear music from local musicians Kelly and Donna Mulhollan, and Dr. Nikola Radan of the University Music program,

 

More information at the Facebook link here.

 

Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology

3274 N. Lee Ave, Fayetteville 72703

www.omnicenter.org

 

Announcing: Video recordings from #NoWar2021

Greta, World BEYOND War  6-24-21	11:00 AM (11 minutes ago)
Dear Dick, We're excited to announce that we are releasing the video recordings from the #NoWar2021 Conference to the public! You can find all of the recordings, as well as the slides and other recommended resources from our speakers, on the conference website here. #NoWar2021 was a truly global event that brought together 445 participants from across 33 countries to unravel the war machine, from the mining of minerals to weapons expos to war zones. We heard from over 50 speakers from around the world who shared their stories of the impact of war and militarism, as well as successful tactics for demilitarizing their communities. We heard about the power of grassroots organizing to shut down weapons fairs, to halt plans for military bases, to divest cities from weapons, and so much more. If you couldn't join us live for #NoWar2021, we invite you to watch the recordings on your own time and share the links with your friends! Feeling inspired and energized to take action after #NoWar2021? Enroll in our free online Organizing 101 training to learn more about World BEYOND War's mission and campaigns, grassroots organizing strategies and tactics, and how to start up a WBW chapter. Here's the link to sign up. Organizing 101 is free to the public, virtual, and completely self-paced so you can do the training on your own time. For a world beyond war, Greta Zarro , Organizing Director World BEYOND War, greta@worldbeyondwar.org P.S. . . . please stay tuned for an announcement about #NoWar2022 in the coming months. World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating for the abolition of the institution of war. Donate to support our people-powered movement for peace. World BEYOND War | 513 E Main St #1484 | Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA

On US aggression abroad (War OF Terror) and repression at home (War ON Democracy) I can’t recommend anyone better than Tom Engelhardt’s own writings and those he promotes (TomDispatch), like John Dower’s two books, War Without Mercy and The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War Two, and Karen Greenberg’s Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump

Karen Greenberg, The Age of Unaccountability? July 8, 2021 Only recently, more than 18 years after President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq and quickly declared victory ("Mission accomplished!"), Joe Biden once again ordered U.S. air strikes, three of them, against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias in that country's borderlands with Syria.  In the process, he reportedly killed several militiamen, but also possibly a child. And within 24 hours, at least one of those militias had responded by launching rocket attacks on a U.S. base in... no kidding... Syria!  And so it goes, and has gone, in American war-making in the twenty-first century. Of course, no one in official Washington refers to such acts as "war" any longer as that might bring Congress, the part of our government with the constitutional power to declare such a state, into play.  In fact, as Karen Greenberg wrote recently at the American Prospect, "The refusal to distinguish war from hostilities overall has been a landmark piece of the war on terrorism architecture. It’s worth noting that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force to counter those responsible for 9/11 does not use the word 'war' itself." And keep in mind that, whatever U.S. troops may be doing in Syria, there are also 2,500 U.S. troops still in Iraq so many years later, though why (since the Iraqi parliament has demanded their departure) remains open to question. What generally doesn't remain open to question, at least in this country, is the power of an American president to order such strikes or similar drone assassination attacks launched -- as Donald Trump did against a key Iranian general at Baghdad International Airport in 2020 -- at any moment of his choosing. Biden and crew cited no particular authority for striking Syrian and Iraqi targets again, other than the right to self-defense under international law (in Iraq and Syria, no less!). They certainly didn't cite any congressional authorization. And the Iraqi government didn't authorize such attacks, instead protesting them vehemently. But these days, in this country's somewhat dwindling but never-ending war on terror, one thing that never truly seems to be at stake is what Greenberg, a TomDispatch regular and author of the upcoming book Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump, sadly highlights today: accountability. Instead, it appears that an accountability crisis of the first order is coming home big time. That was obviously true in the Trump years when the president was quite literally accountable for nothing he did, no matter how damaging. Now, sadly enough, it seems to be spilling over into the Biden years as well. But let Greenberg tell you this sorry tale of a system that seems to become less accountable by the moment. Tom     America's Accountability Problem Is Anyone Responsible Anymore? By Karen Greenberg America has an accountability problem. In fact, if the Covid-19 disaster, the January 6th Capitol attack, and the Trump years are any indication, the American lexicon has essentially dispensed with the term "accountability." This should come as no surprise. After all, there's nothing particularly new about this. In the Bush years, those who created a system of indefinite offshore detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, those who implemented a CIA global torture program and the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance policy, not to mention those who purposely took us to war based on lies about nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, were neither dismissed, sanctioned, nor punished in any way for obvious violations of the law. Nor has Congress passed significant legislation of any kind to ensure that all-encompassing abuses like these will not happen again. Click here to read more of this dispatch.

 

A People’s Guide to the War Industry -3: Bribery and Propaganda

https://scheerpost.com/2021/06/29/chris-hedges-speaks-on-american-sadism/   Christian Sorensen, Consortium News

May 28, 2021 - When war is your business, peace is your enemy, writes Christian Sorensen. Third in a five-part series on the military-industrial-congressional complex.