Author: Eric Garris

An Antiwar Forum was canceled at the last minute by the University of Wisconsin (Madison) over unspecified “security concerns.”

The event was expected to draw a large audience to hear Cindy Sheehan, Antiwar.com’s Angela Keaton, Ben Manski of the Liberty Tree Foundation, Christina Tobin of the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, and local activist and elected official Sean Scallon.

The practice of canceling or prohibiting events based on “security concerns” is not new, but hasn’t been used much recently. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear, in its Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (505 U.S. 123, 1992) decision, that “Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob.”

Organizers of the event plan to hold it in an area outside the student union.

Following is the press release of the UW Campus Antiwar Network:

UW Campus Antiwar Network: Antiwar panel scheduled for Monday at 7:00 at Memorial Union featuring activist Cindy Sheehan cancelled by union staff due to “security concerns”

4/25/2010

CONTACT: Steve Horn — (262)-705-5856, sahorn@wisc.edu

To Members of the Press:

An antiwar panel sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Havens Center, Campus Antiwar Network, Middle East Interest Group, and the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Society and Politics Committee and scheduled for Monday, April 26 at 7:00 PM in Memorial Union has been cancelled by the Union Building/Event Management Director, Roger Vogts, due to a last-minute expression of “security concerns” that would accompany antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan’s visit. Vogts said that he could not contact security over the weekend because, apparently, phones don’t work over the weekend.

On top of that, those organizing the event would have to foot the bill for the security, even though Sheehan never requested security to begin with, and even though no organizations involved with this event had enough money to foot the expensive bill this late in the game, either.

The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear, in its Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (505 U.S. 123, 1992) decision, that “Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob” (emphasis mine). Since the Union’s Central Reservations presides over a viewpoint-neutral limited public forum at the Union and other facilities, the Union is necessarily bound by the same constitutional demands as the local government in Forsyth County. In other words, it is unconstitutional for any viewpoint-neutral limited public forum to deny any organization their free speech rights on the grounds that they are unable to provide for extra security costs related to the exercise of that free speech.

Interestingly, these same concerns were not expressed when Norman Finkelstein came to Madison on April 13 and spoke at UW, a man well-known for being a strong critic of Israel’s and a man barred from visiting Israel until 2018 because the country considers him a “security threat.” Not a peep was uttered about him being such a thing at UW.

The panel features across-the-political-spectrum activists who believe it will take massive electoral reform to engender a sustainable long-term antiwar movement in the United States:

* Christina Tobin: chair of the Free and Equal Elections Foundation (www.freeandequal.org), a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public policy and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the rights of the politically marginalized and disenfranchised, particularly third party and independent voters and candidates. She is also the Libertarian candidate for California Sec. of State.
* Teresa Amato: served as national campaign manager and in-house counsel for Ralph Nader in his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. She’s the author of Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny.
* Angela Keaton: development director for Antiwar.com, the Web’s leading source of antiwar news, views, and activities, and the producer of the Scott Horton Show for Antiwar Radio.
* Ben Manski: attorney and pro-democracy advocate, he serves as Executive Director for the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, a think-tank and organizing center he founded in 2004. He’s also a principal attorney at Manski Law and Communications, LLC, and an associate follow with the Institute for Policy Studies. In 2001-2002, he was active on the steering committee that formed the major U.S. peace organization, United for Peace and Justice.
* Sean Scallon: author, journalist, blogger, and elected official in Pepin, WI. He’s the author of Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and the Parties of the Upper Midwest.

Despite this cancellation, the organizing committee of this event and the panel has decided that the event will still take place at the Union, only, it will not be held in a reserved room, but instead, in one of three places: a.) the front steps, b.) the Union Lobby, c,) Lakefront on Langdon in the Union.

Event attendees are set to meet at the front steps of the Union at 6:45 PM, and from there, the panel will either be held there, in the Union lobby, or in Lakefront on Langdon in the Union. At the time this press release was written, event organizers were still undecided as to whether they would bring a lawsuit on the grounds of a violation of the First Amendment against the Union.

For more information about the event, please visit the Facebook Event Page.

WikiLeaks and their defenders have been under fire for “not supporting the troops,” by releasing the video now titled “Collateral Murder.”

The video shows American snipers killing Iraqis on the ground, including children and journalists. The Pentagon and others have charged the the video is “out of context.”

How about this for context:

Two soldiers from Bravo Company 2-16, the company depicted in the video, have written an open letter of apology to the Iraqis who were injured or lost loved ones during the attack (they say that this sort of thing is a regular occurrence in this war).

Here is the text of the letter:

AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE

From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military

Peace be with you.

To all of those who were injured or lost loved ones during the July 2007 Baghdad shootings depicted in the “Collateral Murder” Wikileaks video:

We write to you, your family, and your community with awareness that our words and actions can never restore your losses.

We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions.

There is no bringing back all that was lost. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize what have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.

We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.

We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and carried out in the name of “god and country”. The soldier in video said that your husband shouldn’t have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.

More and more Americans are taking responsibility for what was done in our name. Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny.

Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation’s leaders no longer represent us. Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won’t lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation’s importance pales in comparison to our common humanity.

With such pain, friendship might be too much to ask. Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out. We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones. Our hearts are open to hearing how we can take any steps to support you through the pain that we have caused.

Solemnly and Sincerely,
Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army
Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army

The soldiers are asking Americans to co-sign the letter on this website.

With all the talk, pro and con, about the WikiLeaks video “Collateral Murder,” not much attention has come to the company without which the whole operation would be impossible: Boeing.

This excellent video combines Pentagon collateral damage videos with Boeing’s well-known commercial. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Check out some of the dialog:

“We have a black Bongo truck picking up the bodies, request permission to engage…”
“This is bushmaster 7, roger to engage.”

“I got a wounded girl we need to take to Rustamyah.”

“Well it’s their fault for bringing their kids into battle.”

“That’s right.”

This sort of warfare enables the soldiers to operate like they are in a video game, and they talk like that’s what they are doing.

In 2008 alone, Boeing earned over $31 billion from military contracts.

Peace Action Fund of New York State and The Nation Institute present

A World Without Nuclear Weapons: Obama’s Vision, Our Mission

with

• Daniel Ellsberg, whistle-blower, nuclear expert and star of the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America
• Jonathan Schell, bestselling author of The Fate of the Earth and The Unconquerable World, and Nuclear Weapons Doris Shaffer Fellow at The Nation Institute
• Kennette Benedict, Publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
• Moderated by Phil Donahue

Join our panel of leading experts in a wide-ranging and incisive conversation on the ongoing international struggle for the containment and eventual reduction of the nuclear threat, and how President Obama and the U.S. Senate can be pushed to fulfill the promise of a world without nuclear weapons. This important public conversation is occurring in the run-up to the UN’s regular review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that will take place on May 1, 2010.

FREE OF CHARGE. Audience questions will be taken.

DATE: April 8, 2010
LOCATION: New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street, New York City
TIME: 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

This event is part of The Doris Shaffer Memorial Lecture Series.
Co-sponsored by The New York Society for Ethical Culture, Public Concern Foundation, The Nation, Democrats.com, Haymarket Books, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY, Peace Action Education Fund, Brooklyn For Peace and United for Peace and Justice (NYC).

For media enquiries please contact Ruth Baldwin: (212) 822-0266 / ruth@nationinstitute.org

On Thursday, March 18, from 9am to 1pm (EST), the Cato Institute will feature a mini-conference:

Escalate or Withdraw? Conservatives and the War in Afghanistan
Will conservatives return to their traditional roots and ultimately oppose the war in Afghanistan? Can “nation building” succeed in the midst of that country’s bloody insurgency? What constitutes “success,” and what price should we be willing to pay for it? Please join us for a lively discussion.

It will be interesting to see who says what, since it will present an interesting mix:

• Christopher Preble and Malou Innocent, solidly antiwar analysts at Cato
• Tony Blankley, Washington Times editor who recently came out for US withdrawal from Afghanistan
• Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), who recently came out against the surge in Afghanistan
• Freshman Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) who has been an ally to libertarian causes but an unknown quantity on foreign policy
• MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (who knows what he’ll say)
• Conservative leaders Grover Norquist and Don Devine, increasingly skeptical of US foreign adventures

The event is free-of-charge and open to the public, but requires reservations. To register for this event, please fill out the form at the bottom of this page and click submit or email events@cato.org, fax (202) 371-0841, or call (202) 789-5229 by noon, Wednesday, March 17. Please arrive early. Seating is limited and not guaranteed.

The event will also be broadcast live on the web. Check here on Thursday, March 18 from 9am to 1pm (EST).

Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) speaks on the House floor about assassinations of Americans by their own government.