One Hundred Peace and Social Justice Groups Call Upon Members of Congress to Oppose War Funding

From United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink and the Progressive Democrats of America:

More than one hundred national and grassroots organization have signed on to a letter to the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) calling for a vote against the FY 2012 Defense Appropriations bill, slated to come before the House this week. The letter raises grave concerns that the bill not only allocates $648.7 billion for continued operations of the Pentagon, but $118 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Noting that the Obama Administration seems determined to continue the war in Afghanistan, the letter also urged CPC members to back an anticipated Lee/Woolsey/Nadler amendment to limit funding for Afghanistan to the rapid and safe withdrawal of all US troops from that country.

The letter states in part, “With an economy teetering at the edge, and an exorbitantly expensive, protracted military engagement in Afghanistan, Congress is again asked to appropriate more war funding.” It notes that a decade of military expenditures has accomplished little, while people in the U.S. have grown poorer and tired of hearing that there is not enough money for schools, jobs, health care or housing – but always enough for wars.

The letter notes that the US Conference of Mayors overwhelmingly passed a resolution to end the wars and bring the money home, amplifying the voices of their constituents. It asks the CPC to send a strong signal that they are unwilling to accept the continuation of a failed policy, and are determined to move the country towards a peaceful solution in Afghanistan.

It further calls on Congress “to exercise its Constitutional role of overseeing expenditures on behalf of its constituents,” and promises to support the CPC in efforts to redirect national spending priorities away from militarism and towards domestic needs.

The organizations backing this letter are calling upon their members to contact all members of Congress now, urging them to oppose continued funding for the Afghanistan War and to vote against the 2012 Defense Appropriations bill totaling $648.7 billion.

Many of the national groups signing the letter are members of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest anti-war network in the US. This project was initiated under the auspices of United for Peace and Justice by Progressive Democrats of America and CODEPINK. Other national organizations include Military Families Speak Out, US Labor Against the War, American Friends Service Committee, USAction, Veterans for Peace, National Priorities Project, Pax Christi USA. Full text of letter with signatures here.

Call Script and the Latest on Amendments on the Defense Appropriations Bill

From Just Foreign Policy:

Call Script

1. Call your Representative at 1-888-231-9276.

2. Ask for your Representative by name. If you don’t know who your Representative is, you can find out here.

2. When you reach your Representative’s office, ask to speak to the staff person who handles foreign policy, or ask for the foreign policy staff person by name, if you know it. If this person is not available, leave your message with the person who answered the phone.

3. Tell them: “I urge you to support the Lee amendment to end the war in Afghanistan, the Kucinich-Amash amendment to end the war in Libya, and the Conyers amendment to ban ground troops in Libya.”

4. After you make your call, take a moment to tell us how your call went by leaving a comment on this blog post. You can also report back on Twitter by tweeting us @justfp.

We will be live tweeting during the House debate @justfp and posting updates here.

Americans from Across the Political Spectrum Call for End to U.S. Militarism

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 5th 2011

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Kevin B. Zeese
KBZeese at Gmail.com, 518-543-6920

Americans from Across the Political Spectrum Call for End to U.S. Militarism

Washington, DC: Putting aside political differences on other issues, Americans from across the political spectrum have sent a letter to the president and congress urging an end to U.S. militarism. The letter, spearheaded by Come Home America, cites a combination of events that present a “historic opportunity to redirect U.S. foreign policy down the pathways of peace, liberty, justice, respect for community, obedience to the rule of law and fiscal responsibility.” The full letter with all signers can be seen at www.ComeHomeAmerica.US.

The letter was signed by advisers to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton; by former presidential candidates of the Libertarian, Socialist and Green Parties as well as independent, Ralph Nader and by representatives of think tanks including the Institute for Policy Studies, The Independent Institute, The Future of Freedom Foundation, Hoover Institution, Ludwig von Mises Institute and Just Foreign Policy, and a wide range of publications including The American Conservative, Antiwar.com, Black Agenda Report, Black Commentator, FireDogLake.com, Liberty for All, Liberty for America, OpEdNews.com, The Progressive, Progressive Review, Raw Story, OpEdNews.com and Reason.

Among the signers are:

Doug Bandow, Former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan

Robert Dickson Crane, Richard Nixon’s principal foreign policy adviser, 1963-68, Deputy Director for Planning, National Security Council, 1969

Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower

Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary, National Council of Churches

Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine, Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives

Tom Maertens, Former Director, National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush

Daniel McCarthy, Editor, American Conservative

Coleen Rowley, Former FBI Agent and one of TIME’s 2002 Persons of the Year

Ann Wright, US Army Colonel (ret.) and former US diplomat

The letter emphasizes how U.S. militarism undermines the rule of law, weakens the economy, makes Americans less safe and brings widespread and pointless suffering around the world. The letter concludes, citing our founding president:

“George Washington urged Americans to ‘cultivate peace and harmony with all’ and to ‘avoid overgrown military establishments,” which are “hostile to republican liberty.’ It is time for Americans to reject fear and militarism and embrace the highest, noblest aspirations of our heritage. It is time to come home, America.”

If you would like to read the full text and sign the letter, click here.

Afghanistan “Pullout” Irrelevant, Unlikely

One faction of Obama’s national security team, the same that argued against a troop surge in 2009, is calling for a “steeper pullout” from Afghanistan. According to the NYTimes, two primary reasons are motivating said faction to push for this:

President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.”

For anyone that believes in the war in Afghanistan, these so-called new strategic considerations are entirely irrelevant. The death of Osama bin Laden might have been relevant back in 2001 before the stated U.S. mission had changed four times over. To them, the war at this point is about trying to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban (nope) and to assist the Afghan government and security forces in being functional and sustainable – and subservient to U.S. demands (nope again). The excessive costs of the war similarly speak nil towards some sort of strategic success in this mission, as defined by any single supporter of the war in the White House or in Congress. So the fact that major elements of the administration, and presumably party leaders in Congress, are pushing for a “steeper pullout” because of these supposed new considerations would tend to lead one to the cynical conclusion that we actually have no strategic or national security interests in Afghanistan: we remain there for symbolic and political reasons, not for any notion of national interest or protecting Americans. This is a heck of a lot of death, suffering, and waste for mere symbolic victories.

Anyways, it seems likely that the faction in Obama’s national security team arguing for an extended stay is the one likely to ultimately win. It includes Robert Gates & Co. which is the group that won last time when arguing for a surge. Not to mention the fact that, on the ground, there are “no signs of the war winding down, or of Americans getting ready to leave following last year’s successful surge.”

But it’s also important to understand what exactly this debate is about. It’s interesting how the word “pullout” is used in the media when considering troop levels in any given war front. Contrary to what reasonable people might assume, it doesn’t mean a military exit from the country. It means a minor drawdown of the occupation to levels comparable to publicly accepted troop levels in Kuwait, or Bahrain, or South Korea, or Germany, or any of the other 130 or so countries on that list. This new argument for steeper pullout is actually “about setting a final date by which all of the 30,000 surge troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan,” not about an actual departure of all or even most of our military.

Rethinking Afghanistan with Your Wallet

Rethinking Afghanistan asks, “How Much Did You Pay for the War this Year?” One can find the answer here.

On Thursday April 14th, a bipartisan coalition of members of Congress including Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and James McGovern (D-Mass) will join with several activists and scholars to introduce the calculator which “lets users see the impact of the Afghanistan War and other out-of-control military spending on their pocketbooks. Users can enter the amount of income they earned this year and receive an ‘I.O.U.’ for the amount of their income taxes that get spent on war. The tool lets them forward their I.O.U. to Congress, urging representatives to rethink the excessive levels of war spending on the Afghanistan conflict and other ventures that are wrecking our federal budget.”

The press conference will be held at 2:30ET at the 441 Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. For more information, go to www.bravenewfoundation.org or contact Jake Diliberto at 630-338-6579

U.S ‘Allows’ Bravest Woman in Afghanistan to Visit

Under pressure from everyone, the State Department reversed an earlier decision to deny prominent Afghan activist Malalai Joya a visa for a three-week speaking tour for her new book, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice.” Joya told reporters last week that she was denied because  — get this — she is “unemployed” and “lives underground.” Seeing that she is an accomplished author who has dodged fists and assassins, called a prostitute and communist and needs to live underground else she might die, this seemed weirdly obtuse if not petty.

That is if you weren’t familiar with Joya in the first place. She is one bad-ass woman, to put it plainly. And everyone has loved her for her brave and brutal verbal attacks on the corruption in the Afghan government and on the continued neglect of women’s rights. But “the bravest woman in Afghanistan” has also been a relentless critic of the continuing U.S military occupation in Afghanistan, and for that she had seemingly fallen from grace and into the status of a “problem,” one that cannot be allowed to infect our domestic audience with her authentic reaction to American policy in Afghanistan.

Joya’s supporters — of which there are many, obviously — rallied her cause in part by bombarding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office with phone calls and emails. The decision to grant her a visa was made today, just before her scheduled speech at Harvard tomorrow. So the message managers engaging in their usual game of “preferred speakers” were not able to get away with it this time. It seems to me all too conspicuous that they would try to shut her out, after giving her visas for numerous previous trips to the U.S, just about the same time Gen. David Petraeus and Company were running around Washington trying to drum up positive reasons why we need to stay in Afghanistan.

Now let’s see if the corporate mainstream media gives her any coverage.