Category: Civilian Casualties

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Protest War and Racism, in Chicago, on August 25th

Commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention Protests

(This article is posted here.)

The following is the prepared text of remarks Rich Whitney made on behalf of the Chicago Committee Against War and Racism at a press conference on July 24th, 2018 in Grant Park in Chicago, near the statue of John A. Logan, General John Logan Statue in Grant Park, scene of one of the most iconic protests against the Vietnam War during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. 

The CCAWR has issued a Call for a demonstration against war and police violence on August 25th, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when the movement against the Vietnam War was suppressed inside the convention hall, and brutally attacked by Mayor Richard Daley’s police on the streets of Chicago. If you can, won’t you please come to Chicago, and help change the world, on August 25th!

In calling for this demonstration, the Chicago Committee Against War and Racism declares that in many respects we are confronting worse evils today than we were 50 years ago — but we are still confronting the same institutional barriers to peace and progress.

Just 11 days ago, U.S.-led coalition warplanes in Syria conducted intensive airstrikes near Abu Kamal in the Deir ez-Zor province, with estimates of civilian casualties ranging from 30 to 54, the higher estimate coming from The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. All too typically, this received little media attention. It was not part of the so-called “national conversation.” But acts like these, occurring on a regular basis, need to become part of the national conversation, and that is part of what motivates us to call for this protest. These acts of aggressive war are not somehow magically transformed into moral acts simply because relatively few U.S. personnel are at risk of harm.

In 1968, the U.S. government was engaged in one illegal war. Now the U.S. illegally bombs, drone-strikes and/or occupies territory in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen. It is responsible for millions of casualties, horrific devastation and suffering, and the displacement of millions of refugees. It has also been financing covert destabilization, “regime change” and support for repressive governments in much of Central and South America –and then it cruelly imprisons and punishes the hundreds of thousands of refugees who come to this country seeking safety and the opportunity to work. It spends $10.3 million a day of our tax dollars in military support for the repressive, now officially apartheid regime in Israel.

Every single one of these attacks on countries that never attacked the United States are illegal under established international law, including the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Nuremberg Charter and the United Nations Charter. As in 1968, we have no right to attack other nations that never attacked us.

Let us be clear. These wars are not only thoroughly immoral and illegal in their direct impacts, they are also part of a war at home against the American working class, and especially its most oppressed members, people of color. We spend over $1.3 trillion a year on wars and maintaining a military machine, including about 1,000 military bases in about 135 different countries — while working people and students are being driven into poverty and debt, and while millions of people go without access to health care, decent schools, higher education, decent and affordable housing, safe drinking water, decent public transportation and other necessities. And our government spends these colossal sums on what amounts to corporate welfare, to help ensure the continued profits of giant energy corporations, weapons manufacturers and others, to maintain an empire and continue policies of global domination that actually make us all less safe.

Read the rest of the article here or continue reading below.

Continue reading “Protest War and Racism, in Chicago, on August 25th”

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COMBAT VET, WEST POINT GRAD FORCED TO RESIGN FOR SUPPORTING ECONOMIC & RACIAL JUSTICE

By Spenser Rapone, Truthdig.com
| RESIST!
Original Link: https://popularresistance.org/combat-vet-west-point-grad-forced-to-resign-for-supporting-economic-racial-justice/

Above Photo: Fist raised, Spenser Rapone displays a slogan written inside his cap after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in May 2016. (Courtesy of Spenser Rapone via AP)

Editor’s note: On the outside, Spenser Rapone’s West Point graduation uniform looked like all the other cadets’. Underneath his dress uniform, however, was evidence of his political views: a T-shirt bearing Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara’s image, and a cap that read, inside, “Communism will win.”

The shirt and hat made waves in the U.S. military community after Rapone posted photos of them on social media in September, and now he has been given an “other than honorable” discharge. According to The Associated Press, he was charged with “conduct unbecoming of an officer” after an Army investigation determined that he “went online to promote a socialist revolution and disparage high-ranking officers.”

In the following statement for Truthdig, Rapone explains his political beliefs.

I am a combat veteran with the First Ranger Battalion, a recent graduate of West Point and a former second lieutenant who was stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y. Since identifying myself as a socialist, there has been much controversy generated by a number of my public statements.

It began with my post on social media, in which I expressed my full and enthusiastic support of former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in his fight against racial injustice, white supremacy and police brutality. After revealing a picture of myself in uniform with the hashtag #VeteransForKaepernick, I was met by solidarity from my fellow soldiers, as well as harsh blowback from my chain of command.

To this day, I stand by my convictions, despite the efforts of ranking officers to pressure me into silence. I believe that standing up for the exploited and the oppressed is the most honorable thing we can do as people. No job should hinder or repress this pursuit, which is why I decided to resign my commission as an officer in the United States Army. My conditional resignation was denied by the secretary of the Army. Instead, the military forced me into either submitting an unconditional resignation or appearing before a board of inquiry—an adversarial trial in which a jury of senior officers would determine my fate. Rather than submit to the antics of what amounts to a show trial at best, I tendered my unconditional resignation. Passing judgment on me one last time, the military determined the character of my service to be “other than honorable.” Despite the brass prolonging my time in service, I have come to the conclusion that leaving the military altogether, whatever the circumstances, is the only moral way forward. During this ordeal, I have learned that I am far from alone in my feelings of disillusionment and betrayal within the rank and file of the U.S. military.

As a teenager, I believed the United States military was a force of good for the world. I thought that I signed up to fight for freedom and democracy, to protect my loved ones and my country from harm. My experiences showed me otherwise.

After bearing witness to the senseless destruction in Afghanistan during my combat deployment to Khost Province in the summer of 2011, I knew that our wars must be stopped. I was assigned to my platoon as an assistant machine-gunner. I took part in missions where human beings were killed, captured and terrorized. However, the horror wrought by the U.S. military’s overseas ventures is not limited to combat engagements alone. Some nights, we barely did anything at all but walk through a village. As such, the longer I was there, the more it became apparent that the mere presence of an occupying force was a form of violence. My actions overseas did not help or protect anybody. I felt like I was little more than a bully, surrounded by the most well-armed and technologically advanced military in history, in one of the poorest countries in the world. I saw many of my fellow soldiers all too eager to carry out violence for the sake of violence. There is no honor in such bloodlust; quite the contrary. I saw firsthand how U.S. foreign policy sought to carry out the subjugation of poor, brown people in order to steal natural resources, expand American hegemony and extinguish the self-determination of any group that dare oppose the empire. Idealistic and without a coherent worldview yet, I thought that perhaps pursuing an officer’s commission would allow me to change things and help put a stop to the madness. I was wrong.

It soon dawned on me how pervasive the military-industrial complex is. I studied, examined my own experiences and began to grasp more completely the horrors and impact of U.S. imperialism. Learning that over a million people have lost their lives since 9/11—the vast majority being innocent civilians—began to haunt me. Seeing that up to a trillion dollars a year were being diverted from education, health care and infrastructure in the U.S. to support our 800 military bases around the world began to feel increasingly maddening. Within the Army itself, one out of three women are sexually assaulted. The death of football player and later soldier Pat Tillman by friendly fire was covered up to sell a war. Generals responsible for war crimes—from the unbridled destruction of Afghan and Iraqi villages to the construction of torture prisons—are rewarded with accolades and political power. These sad and dishonorable truths increasingly grew impossible to ignore. The military was not the noble and selfless institution the commercials and Hollywood movies made it out to be—far from it.

At West Point, I soon found myself at odds with my future role as someone tasked with the responsibility of leading soldiers into battle. However, leaving West Point after my junior year would have meant returning to the enlisted ranks or finding a way to come up with a quarter-million dollars to pay the academy back. So I stuck it out, hoping I would find a way to reconcile this contradiction. Again, I was wrong. Upon returning to Fort Benning, Ga., to begin my training as an infantry officer following graduation, I was filled with dread. It was like I was in a place simultaneously familiar and unknown. There were things I noticed that my 18-year-old self could not have recognized before. Most strikingly, I observed the scope of the brainwashing within the ranks, from bald, buzz-cut, mostly teenage infantrymen fresh out of training, to college graduates eager to lead those naïve soldiers into America’s next war. I felt witness to a collective delusion—one that I was once a part of, but had somehow miraculously escaped. After nearly a year there, as I prepared to move to my new duty station at Fort Drum, one thing became clear: I cannot be a part of this any longer. I cannot kill or die for the U.S. military—no one should.

I know that I am not alone in feeling this way. My feelings and experiences are not an anomaly. I know, because I have had conversations with others who have expressed the same sentiments.

You are out there, and should you take the same steps that I have, I am with you. While the prospect is daunting, united together we have far more power than all of the generals and politicians combined. We possess the ability to grind this entire military machine to a halt. It is high time we live up to the trust and respect bestowed upon us by the people. Let our mutual love of humanity and our desire for liberation and peace be our guiding principles.

Most importantly, let us find common cause with the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Libya and so many others who have suffered at the behest of the United States. To those soldiers who I’ve heard from, and to those I haven’t yet, I hope that you too find the courage to lay your weapons down with me, and refuse your orders to kill and die for the benefit of a handful of ruling-class elites at the great expense of the rest of us. Freedom lies on the other side. Together, let us fight to put a stop to these endless trillion-dollar wars, and let us join our brothers and sisters around the world in putting a stop to all forms of exploitation, oppression and senseless violence.

 

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Sign Against War In Syria

http://www.gp.org/oppose_military_action_in_syria 

No Military Action in Syria!

Stand with us: Demand an immediate end to ongoing US military intervention in Syria!

Far too often, the victims of US military intervention have been innocent civilians.  Already, over 400,000 have been killed and millions more have been displaced in one of the worst humanitarian crises since World War II.

Since his inauguration, President Trump has ordered raids in Yemen and air assaults on Mosul and a mosque near Aleppo that have killed scores of civilians. These crimes are compounded by his administration’s anti-Muslim immigration proposals and deportations, especially targeting Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war.

Continued US strikes inside Syria will inflict even more civilian casualties and risks further escalation of the war in Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

We live under a bipartisan system where launching 59 tomahawk missiles is a humanitarian act, but accepting Syrian refugees and others fleeing violence is considered just too dangerous.

The Green Party is calling for the immediate imposition of an arms embargo on all sides and an open door for Syrians feeling the conflict.

We are also demanding an impartial probe of the Idlib gas attacks and emergency negotiations are necessary to stop further bloodshed.

Please sign our petition and tell President Trump and Congress that military solutions won’t bring peace and stability to Syria or any other country.

 

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Why 55 U.S. Senators Voted for Genocide in Yemen

by David Swanson
MARCH 21, 2018

Tuesday’s debate and vote in the U.S. Senate on whether to end (technically whether or not to vote on whether to end) U.S. participation in the war on Yemen can certainly be presented as a step forward. While 55 U.S. Senators voted to keep the war rolling along, 44 voted not to table the resolution to end it. Of those 44, some, including “leaders” like Senator Chuck Schumer, said not a word in the debate and only voted the right way once the wrong way had won. And conceivably some could say they were voting in favor of having a vote, upon which they would have voted for more war. But it’s safe to say that at least most of the 44 were voting to end a war — and many of them explicitly said so.

I use the phrase “end a war,” despite the fact that Saudi Arabia could continue its war without U.S. participation — in part, because it’s easier, and in part because experts have suggested that Saudi Arabia could not do anything like what it is doing without the participation of the U.S. military in identifying targets and refueling planes. It is of course also true that were the United States to go beyond what was under consideration on Tuesday and cease providing Saudi Arabia with planes and bombs, and use its influence as an oil customer and general war partner to pressure Saudi Arabia to end the war and lift the blockade, the war might end entirely. And millions of human lives might be spared.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine has for years been a leading proponent of getting Congress to authorize wars, making clear that he wanted to keep those wars going but with Congressional authorization. This time was different. Kaine pushed publicly for votes to end U.S. participation in the war on Yemen. He and even his colleague from Virginia Mark Warner (!) voted to end the U.S. war. I’m not sure any senator from Virginia had ever done such a thing before. And, in fact, no senator from anywhere had ever voted on a resolution raised under the War Powers Act before, because this was the first time any senator had bothered to try such a thing. Kaine tweeted:

“Millions in Yemen may starve and 10,000-plus are dead because of a war with no end in sight, that the U.S. has stumbled into. Proud to support this proposal to direct the removal of U.S. armed forces.”

“Stumbled into”? Forget it, he’s rolling.

And Kaine was the least of it. To watch Dianne Feinstein argue for ending a war had a very Twilight Zone aspect to it. Look through the list of who voted “Nay” and re-define them in your mind as people who under just the right conditions (possibly including guaranteed failure to reach a majority) will sometimes vote to end a war. I’d call that progress.

But if you watch the debate via C-Span, the top question in your mind might not be “What incredible activism, information, accident, or luck got 44 people to vote the right way?” but rather “Why did 55 cheerful, well-fed, safe people in suits just vote for mass-murder?” Why did they? Why did they take a break for political party meetings in the middle of the debate, and debate other legislation just before and after this resolution, and walk around and chat with each other exactly as if all were normal, while voting for genocide?

The facts of the matter were presented very clearly in the debate by numerous U.S. senators from both parties. They denounced war lies as “lies.” They pointed out the horrendous damage, the deaths, the injuries, the starvation, the cholera. They cited Saudi Arabia’s explicit and intentional use of starvation as a weapon. They noted the blockade against humanitarian aid imposed by Saudi Arabia. They endlessly discussed the biggest cholera epidemic ever known. Here’s a tweet from Senator Chris Murphy:

“Gut check moment for the Senate today: we will vote on whether to continue the U.S./Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen which has killed over 10,000 civilians and created the largest cholera outbreak in history.”

Senator Jeff Merkley asked if partnering with a government trying to starve millions of people to death squared with the principles of the United States of America. I tweeted a response: “Should I tell him or wait and let his colleagues do it?” In the end, 55 of his colleagues answered his question as well as any history book could have done.

The ridiculousness of arguments for continuing the war was called out by senators on the floor. Senator Mitch McConnell and others made the claim made to them by Secretary of War (“Defense”) James Mattis, that ending U.S. participation in bombing civilians in Yemen would mean more civilian deaths in Yemen, not fewer. Others trotted out the claim made by Trump’s lawyers, parroting Obama’s lawyer Harold Koh, that bombing a nation flat is neither “war” nor “hostilities” if U.S. troops are not on the ground being shot.

Senator Bernie Sanders put a stop to such nonsense. He recommended trying telling the people of Yemen being bombed with U.S. bombs and U.S. targeting and U.S.-fueled planes that the United States is not really involved.

The idea that the full Senate should leave to a committee a matter the committee had not bother to touch in years was also appropriately laughed out of court.

Senator Mike Lee reassured his colleagues that ending the U.S. war on Yemen on grounds of illegality wouldn’t slow or halt any other illegal US wars. (I’m sure you’re relieved to hear that!)

To their credit, Senators Murphy and Lee and Sanders were very clear that a vote to table, rather than directly vote on, their resolution to end the war, would be a cowardly vote not to have a debate and not to obey the U.S. Constitution. And to their greater credit, they went ahead and had the substantive debate prior to the vote to table. In the past on at least one occasion of the many times that we’ve seen such resolutions brought forward in the House, the war-proponents talked substance while the opponents talked only procedure. This change, too, was progress.

So, why? Why did the Senate vote for genocide? And why is nobody surprised by it?

Well, the arguments made by the Senators on the right side of the debate certainly left something to be desired. Sanders spoke of the dead in the wars on Vietnam and Iraq, and they were all Americans. He said the war on Vietnam almost destroyed an entire generation of Americans. This was a war that killed 6 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, plus 50,000 from the United States. How can people come to think about one-sided slaughters if we pretend they don’t really exist?

Senator Tom Udall said that from WWII until the presidency of Donald Trump the United States was a noble, law-abiding, altruistic leader of spreading democracy, although not quite perfectly. In so saying, Udall bestows on Trump a sort of magical power, as well as rewriting U.S. history. The U.S. public was allowed no vote on Tuesday. Neither was Trump.

The resolution itself was limited, marred by loopholes, and not truly whipped for by many of those who voted against tabling it. Perhaps a stronger resolution would have failed even more badly. Or perhaps a more coherent case against war would have been more persuasive. I do not know. But the notion that you should arm and assist the Saudi dictatorship in bombing people when it’s called anti-ISIS and not when it’s called anti-Houthi seems a trickier case to make than the one that you should stop arming and assisting in the slaughter of human beings, generating more enemies, impoverishing the public, draining funds from human needs, damaging the environment, eroding the rule of law, imperializing the presidency, militarizing your culture and schools and police, and aligning your government with a brutal monarchy.

Perhaps that’s a case that has to be made to the public first and then to the senators, but many senators made clear how they were thinking. Lee was not off in trying to reassure them about the setting of precedents. One of them openly worried that if refueling bombers that were blowing up people’s homes in one country was counted as “hostilities,” then refueling bombers that were blowing up people’s homes in any country could be counted as “hostilities.” And then what kind of a world would we have?!

So, a vote against one war is never just a vote against one war. It’s a vote to challenge, if ever so slightly, the power of the war machine. These Senators are paid not to do that.

Here is a list of Senators and their 2018 bribes (excuse me, campaign contributions) from dealers of death (excuse me, defense companies). I’ve indicated how they voted on tabling Tuesday’s resolution with a Y or N. A pro-war vote is a Y:

Nelson, Bill (D-FL)     $184,675                               Y

Strange, Luther (R-AL)         $140,450                   not in senate

Kaine, Tim (D-VA)     $129,109                               N

McSally, Martha (R-AZ)       $125,245                   not in senate

Heinrich, Martin (D-NM)     $109,731                   N

Wicker, Roger (R-MS)           $109,625                   Y

Graham, Lindsey (R-SC)       $89,900                     Y

Donnelly, Joe (D-IN) $89,156                                 Y

King, Angus (I-ME)   $86,100                                 N

Fischer, Deb (R-NE) $74,850                                 Y

Hatch, Orrin G (R-UT)           $74,375                     Y

McCaskill, Claire (D-MO)     $65,518                     N

Cardin, Ben (D-MD) $61,905                                 N

Manchin, Joe (D-WV)           $61,050                                 Y

Cruz, Ted (R-TX)       $55,315                                 Y

Jones, Doug (D-AL)   $55,151                                 Y

Tester, Jon (D-MT)   $53,438                                 N

Hirono, Mazie K (D-HI)         $47,100                     N

Cramer, Kevin (R-ND)         $46,000                     not in Senate

Murphy, Christopher S (D-CT)       $44,596         N

Sinema, Kyrsten (D-AZ)       $44,140                     not in Senate

Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH)     $41,013                     N

Cantwell, Maria (D-WA)       $40,010                     N

Reed, Jack (D-RI)       $37,277                                 Y

Inhofe, James M (R-OK)       $36,500                     Y

Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI)   $36,140                     N

Gillibrand, Kirsten (D-NY)   $33,210                     N

Rubio, Marco (R-FL) $32,700                                 Y

McConnell, Mitch (R-KY)     $31,500                     Y

Flake, Jeff (R-AZ)       $29,570                                 Y

Perdue, David (R-GA)           $29,300                     Y

Heitkamp, Heidi (D-ND)       $28,124                     Y

Barrasso, John A (R-WY)     $27,500                     Y

Corker, Bob (R-TN)   $27,125                                 Y

Warner, Mark (D-VA)           $26,178                     N

Sullivan, Dan (R-AK) $26,000                                 Y

Heller, Dean (R-NV) $25,200                                 Y

Schatz, Brian (D-HI) $23,865                                 N

Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN)   $22,906                     not in Senate

Brown, Sherrod (D-OH)       $21,373                     N

Cochran, Thad (R-MS)         $21,050                     Y

Baldwin, Tammy (D-WI)     $20,580                     N

Casey, Bob (D-PA)     $19,247                                 N

Peters, Gary (D-MI) $19,000                                 N

Feinstein, Dianne (D-CA)     $18,350                     N

Moore, Roy (R-AL)     $18,250                                 not in Senate

Jenkins, Evan (R-WV)           $17,500                     not in Senate

Tillis, Thom (R-NC)   $17,000                                 Y

Blunt, Roy (R-MO)     $16,500                                 Y

Moran, Jerry (R-KS) $14,500                                 N

Collins, Susan M (R-ME)       $14,000                     N

Hoeven, John (R-ND)           $13,000                                 Y

Durbin, Dick (D-IL)   $12,786                                 N

Whitehouse, Sheldon (D-RI)           $12,721                     Y

Messer, Luke (R-IN) $12,000                                 not in Senate

Cornyn, John (R-TX) $11,000                                 Y

Cotton, Tom (R-AR)   $11,000                                 Y

Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK)       $11,000                     Y

O’Rourke, Beto (D-TX)         $10,564                     not in Senate

Rounds, Mike (R-SD)           $10,000                                 Y

Warren, Elizabeth (D-MA)   $9,766                                   N

Rosen, Jacky (D-NV) $9,655                                               not in Senate

Sasse, Ben (R-NE)     $9,350                                               Y

Portman, Rob (R-OH)           $8,500                                   Y

Nicholson, Kevin (R-WI)       $8,350                                   not in Senate

Rosendale, Matt (R-MT)       $8,100                                   not in Senate

Menendez, Robert (D-NJ)   $8,005                                   Y

Boozman, John (R-AR)         $8,000                                   Y

Toomey, Pat (R-PA) $7,550                                               Y

Carper, Tom (D-DE) $7,500                                               N

Crapo, Mike (R-ID)   $7,000                                               Y

Daines, Steven (R-MT)         $6,500                                   N

Ernst, Joni (R-IA)       $6,500                                               Y

Kennedy, John (R-LA)         $6,000                                   Y

Sanders, Bernie (I-VT)         $5,989                                   N

Scott, Tim (R-SC)       $5,500                                               Y

Ward, Kelli (R-AZ)     $5,125                                               not in Senate

Enzi, Mike (R-WY)     $5,000                                               Y

Fincher, Steve (R-TN)           $5,000                                   not in Senate

Isakson, Johnny (R-GA)       $5,000                                   Y

Lankford, James (R-OK)       $5,000                                   Y

Shelby, Richard C (R-AL)     $5,000                                   Y

Duckworth, Tammy (D-IL)   $4,535                                   N

Burr, Richard (R-NC)           $4,000                                               Y

Capito, Shelley Moore (R-WV)         $4,000                       Y

Gardner, Cory (R-CO)           $4,000                                   Y

Mandel, Josh (R-OH) $3,550                                               not in Senate

Hassan, Maggie (D-NH)       $3,217                                   N

Hartson, Alison (D-CA)         $3,029                                   not in Senate

Brakey, Eric (R-ME) $3,000                                               not in Senate

Diehl, Geoff (R-MA)   $3,000                                               not in Senate

Downing, Troy (R-MT)         $2,700                                   not in Senate

Klobuchar, Amy (D-MN)     $2,498                                   N

Blumenthal, Richard (D-CT)           $2,090                                   N

Coons, Chris (D-DE) $2,027                                               Y

Leahy, Patrick (D-VT)           $2,002                                   N

Alexander, Lamar (R-TN)     $2,000                                   Y

Bennet, Michael F (D-CO)   $2,000                                   N

Johnson, Ron (R-WI) $2,000                                               Y

Renacci, Jim (R-OH) $2,000                                               not in Senate

Rokita, Todd (R-IN)   $1,500                                               not in Senate

Masto, Catherine Cortez (D-NV)     $1,435                       not in Senate

Booker, Cory (D-NJ) $1,380                                               N

Harris, Kamala D (D-CA)     $1,313                                   N

Van Hollen, Chris (D-MD)   $1,036                                   N

Thune, John (R-SD) $1,035                                               Y

Lee, Mike (R-UT)       $1,000                                               N

Morrisey, Patrick (R-WV)     $1,000                                   not in Senate

Petersen, Austin (R-MO)     $1,000                                   not in Senate

Stewart, Corey (R-VA)         $1,000                                   not in Senate

Young, Bob (R-MI)   $1,000                                               not in Senate

Young, Todd (R-IN) $1,000                                               Y

Udall, Tom (D-NM)   $707                                       N

Lindstrom, Beth (R-MA)       $700                           not in Senate

Murray, Patty (D-WA)         $635                           N

Mackler, James (D-TN)         $625                           not in Senate

Merkley, Jeff (D-OR) $555                                       N

Barletta, Lou (R-PA) $500                                       not in Senate

Monetti, Tony (R-MO)         $500                           not in Senate

Olszewski, Al (R-MT) $500                                       not in Senate

Paul, Rand (R-KY)     $500                                       N

Faddis, Sam (R-MD) $350                                       not in Senate

Paula Jean Swearengin (D-WV)     $263               not in Senate

Vukmir, Leah (R-WI)           $250                                       not in Senate

Wilson, Jenny (D-UT)           $250                           not in Senate

Ross, Deborah (D-NC)         $205                           not in Senate

Hildebrand, David (D-CA)   $100                           not in Senate

Wyden, Ron (D-OR) $75                                         N

Singer, James (D-UT)           $50                                         not in Senate

Schumer, Charles E (D-NY) $16                             N

Sbaih, Jesse (D-NV)   $5                                           not in Senate

Roberts, Pat (R-KS)   $-1,000                                   Y

Franken, Al (D-MN) $-1,064                                   not in Senate

Kander, Jason (D-MO)         $-1,598                       not in Senate

Edwards, Donna (D-MD)     $-2,700                       not in Senate

Obviously one must look at numerous votes and other actions, and at bribes from previous years, and at the relative cost of running in each state, etc., but we do see here 51 of the 55 yes votes receiving weapons profits, and most of them near the top or middle of this list. And we see 42 of 44 no votes receiving weapons profits, and most of them near the middle or bottom of this list. Of the top 70 recipients, 43 voted yes. Of the bottom 20 recipients, 14 voted no.

A bigger factor would seem to be political party, since 45 of the 55 yes votes were Republican (plus 10 Democrats), and 37 of the 44 no votes were Democratic (plus 2 Independents and 5 Republicans). But this can hardly be separated from funding, as the amounts above are dwarfed by the money brought in and distributed to candidates by parties, with the “defense” profiteers giving the Republican party $1.2 million, and the Democratic Party $0.82 million. One can be very confident that neither party’s “leadership” privately asked its members to vote to end the war on Yemen. Publicly, the Republican party leadership urged a vote for continued genocide. If we look at party and money combined, we see that all of the Republicans who voted no are pretty low in the list, while the relevance of bribes is less clear with Democrats who voted yes. But a no vote as part of a majority — had such a thing happened — would have been unlikely to have pleased either party.

Then there’s the media problem. The Democratic Party-promoting MSNBC was silent, while NPR told its listeners that poor innocent Saudi Arabia was surrounded and under attack by the demonic Iran. The New York Timeseditorial board did better than its reporters. But if any coverage of the U.S. role in Yemen had made it onto television, then I would be able to find people when I travel around the United States who are aware that there is a war in Yemen. As it is, I can find few who can name any current U.S. wars. If Senator Sanders had opposed this war when he was running for president, instead of urging Saudi Arabia to spend more and get its blood-soaked hands dirty, progressives would have heard that — and I would have backed Sanders for president.

Or what if Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, ACLU and other groups claiming to support human rights had helped oppose the war on Yemen? Or what if pundits stopped referring to such groups as human rights groups and called them, instead, Pro-U.S.-War/Human Rights groups? Would that have made a difference?

What about the rest of us? I work for two groups that tried: RootsAction.org and World Beyond War. So did many others. Many formed big coalitions to try to have a bigger impact. Could we have done more? Of course. What about people who didn’t sign anything, go to anything, phone or email any Senators? It’s hard to say that any of us have clean hands.

I happened to read a column on Wednesday that proposed that everyone cease honoring any former U.S. president who owned people as slaves. I’m all for it. But the same column proposed as a noble and honorable factor being a decorated and “successful” (German) soldier. This gives me pause in denouncing slave-owners as “monsters.” Of course slavery is monstrous and those who do it are responsible for it. Their statues should all come down and be replaced by worthy ones, including ones of slavery-abolitionists and civil-rights activists, ideally memorials for movements rather than individuals.

But what if we come someday to understand that war is monstrous? Then what should we make of war supporters, including columnists? And what am I to make of things I myself thought a decade or three ago and now no longer think? Isn’t there something a shade monstrous about praising war on the anniversary of the 2003 attack on Iraq and at the same moment that the U.S. Senate is voting to kill the (non-“white”) people of Yemen? And yet, isn’t such behavior found in a column opposing racism, written by an anti-racism activist the work of something other than a monster? Perhaps senators aren’t monsters either. Perhaps we can bring them around yet. We have to try.

—

Posted on

Greg Gerrit On The Military

Hello, I am Greg Gerritt, a Green Party member since 1984 and a resident of Rhode Island. The State of the Union is fragile, threatened by three interconnected issues, the expansion of the war machine, growing inequality, and climate change. When the President and the Congress borrow money to give tax breaks to billionaires and prop up the fossil fuel industries and the war machine, while more kids go hungry, we deport dreamers, and the storms get fiercer, you know we are going in the wrong direction.

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Green Party National Women’s Caucus demands passage of House bill upholding human rights for Palestinian minors and international law

Women’s Caucus condemns the brutal treatment of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi by Israeli military

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Women’s Caucus of the Green Party calls on Congress to pass HR 4391, “Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act.”

The bill, submitted by Congresswoman Betty McCollum (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party-Minn.), would prevent the use of U.S. tax dollars for the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and mistreatment of Palestinian children.

IMG_1719-edit.jpgRecent news of Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian teenager who was interrogated and charged with assault by Israeli military forces for slapping an Israeli soldier in December and threatened with rape by an Israeli journalist, highlights the need to recognize that massive detentions and violent interrogations of minors are horrific violations of human rights and international law and need to end. Continue reading “Green Party National Women’s Caucus demands passage of House bill upholding human rights for Palestinian minors and international law”