World Anti-militarism Newswire Archive

We the peace Strike are no longer prepared to stand by and let our brothers and sisters of any country to be victims of the mass global corporate greed that instigates unacceptable aggression towards innocent civilian populations.

The threat of being arrested for War Crimes has deterred the Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter from visiting the UK.

A report published by Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) has revealed that arms companies have paid for the fees and living expenses of seven students at the London School of Economics (LSE) to the tune of £83,706 since 2001. The report also reveals that between 1998 and 2004, the School received funding totalling at least £861,653 from several arms companies for research projects that it has carried out during the period.

or those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued, and its "Key Judgments" were made public.

Under the current administration, it is increasingly difficult to know who the enemy is, but what is certain is that the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is a brilliantly executed psychological warfare by way of misinformation. This dastardly plan is so devious that even the anti-war groups are jubilant at its release, and they are naively sharing its contents. Perhaps non are as enthusiastic about the report as the most powerful lobby group in America hostile to Iran.

Many have been quick to characterize yesterday’s National Intelligence Estimate report [1] on Iran’s nuclear program as a long overdue “Honest Intel” [2] that will suck the air out of warmongers’ sails because it clearly states “with high confidence that in fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”.

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Notice their rejection of the facts, and their desperate spinning & squirming.

Over the past year, peace activists have voted, lobbied, marched, and taken direct action to end the war in Iraq. Courageous soldiers have refused to fight the war. But Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to continue the war and appears ready to authorize a future military attack on Iran. It’s time for taxpayers who oppose this war to join together in nonviolent civil disobedience and show Congress how to cut off the funds for this war and redirect resources to the pressing needs of people.

The star-studded hue and cry to "Save Darfur" and "stop the genocide" has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a "genocide" and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation's Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide, and appeals for "humanitarian intervention" to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent.

The Dollar has been the pillar of the USA´s financial Imperial age, and has enabled them to build the most powerful military force in history. This hugely powerful military machine has been steadily spread around the world promoting US financial domination for more than half a century. However, the Democratic Republic Of Venezuela has already had a significant impact on reversing the malign effects of the foreign policy of it and its allies, by promoting liberation from financial oppression.

Some notes and 20 photos from the World against War conference in London on Saturday 1st December 2007.

Short piece with 4 photos of Brian's continuing demonstration.

The United States remains, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," through its own wars of aggression and by fomenting and manipulating conflicts that kill millions. It is also the most cynical power on the planet, crying crocodile tears over the carnage in Darfur (in which the U.S. is complicit) while simultaneously unleashing wholesale death in Somalia. Half a million Africans face starvation and disease as a direct result of U.S. instigation of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia - an extension of Bush's "war on terror" and the underlying quest for Africa's wealth. United Nations officials now describe Somalia as the worst humanitarian crisis on the continent - more dire than Darfur.

ALERT: Annapolis a Charade: Olmert Plotting Massive Aggression

In Germany, according to historian Richard Evans, in 1931-1932, if enough Germans of conscience had begun to say No -- history would have had an entirely diferent outcome.

If we go any further down this road the tears will be those of conservatives as well as progressives. They will be (Israeli) tears.

The time for weeping has to stop; the time for confronting must begin.

Adapted from "American Tears"
www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/american-tears_b_68141.html

The timing is interesting, given the "Annapolis Conference", which serves to be about PR alone, as Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations or Compromise in the name of peace.

If you follow the events surrounding Israel's "Disengagement" from Gaza, you will quickly understand that this was the plan all along. While Israel was making a public spectacle of "forcing Jews to leave their homes", it was quietly surrounding the Strip with artillery emplacements, in an operation ominously named "First Rain".

Under this operation, Gaza basically became a "Free-Fire Zone", and several artillery and gunship strikes killed a high number of civilians. Finally, when one of these batteries fired upon and murdered a Palestinian family - picnicking on a beach that had been Segregated "Jews Only" only weeks before, Hamas finally decided to call an end to its unilateral, two-year cease-fire.

(In essence, they took Israel's bait. After all, you can't excuse your Aggression and label it "defense" if you're not being intermittently attacked. Never mind the hypocrisy underlying the entire media's framing of that whole debate ...)

When the Palestinians responded by electing Hamas to power (yes, elected), Israeli Extremists and their Ideological, bought foreign co-conspirators imposed unilateral sanctions on Gaza, a bit of Collective Punishment which increased the hardship of those stuck in the world's largest Concentration Camp.

When they felt Gaza had been substantially weakened, the US and Israel undertook a Coup attempt, using corrupt elements within the Fatah Party, provoking a violent response by Hamas, which expelled the group. Most of the world's media ignored the events leading to this "crisis", and instead only repeated the Propaganda emanating from the US and Israel, which used this to further increase sanctions against Gaza.

Most recently, Israel stepped up its Collective Punishment, except that human rights groups and legal advisors to the Government halted some of its approved measures, because they run contrary to International Humanitarian Law.

This was sold as another "response to rocket attacks" (again highlighting the hypocrisy of the debate's Framing - are the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves from strikes which actually KILL people ... ?), even though high-ranking officials said that this was NOT, in fact, a response to these attacks, but a way to "distance Israel from Gaza's infrastructure".

The real reason for this whole episode, of course, has been to "soften up" the Gaza Strip for a long-planned military attack, a way to undermine the resolve, and hopefully rid this territory of Palestinians altogether.

Olmert signalled long ago that he would not entertain any serious discussions at this summit, essentially selling out the Israeli public's desire for peace.

Now, Israel appears to be preparing to issue the usual 'justifications' for an Act of Aggression they planned long ago, by calling it a response to violence their own behaviour has provoked. The media's silence on these issues in past months signals their readiness to help in this regard.

Seeing the pattern yet?

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386082.html

For Indymedia readers, friends and comrades in struggle worldwide against war, militarism, colonialism and nuclear industry: a brief review about “Depleted” Uranium, nuclear war and radioactive genocide-ecocide

Prior to the Iraq war, “Perle used his Pentagon position to lobby both for war and for turning postwar power in Iraq over to Ahmad Chalabi, the long-time Iraqi exile.”

Now he’s at it again, lending his political assistance to exiled regime change advocates from Syria and Iran.

The United States is on its way to losing the war in Afghanistan. The eventual defeat will be political not military. Public sentiment is shifting in Europe. The people have had enough. They want to get out. When European troops withdrawal from Afghanistan; NATO will gradually unravel and the Transatlantic Alliance will collapse. That will be a disaster for America. The US will again be isolated by two great oceans. But not by choice. America's days as an empire will be over.

In their frantic drive to pave the way for a military strike against Iran, leading figures in the neoconservative pro-Israel lobby have embarked on a vicious campaign of demonizing that country by comparing it with the early years of Nazi Germany and its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with Hitler.

ALERT: Annapolis a Charade: Olmert Plotting Massive Aggression

In Germany, according to historian Richard Evans, in 1931-1932, if enough Germans of conscience had begun to say No -- history would have had an entirely diferent outcome.

If we go any further down this road the tears will be those of conservatives as well as progressives. They will be (Israeli) tears.

The time for weeping has to stop; the time for confronting must begin.

Adapted from "American Tears"
www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/american-tears_b_68141.html

The timing is interesting, given the upcoming "Annapolis Conference", which serves to be about PR alone, as Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations or Compromise in the name of peace.

If you follow the events surrounding Israel's "Disengagement" from Gaza, you will quickly understand that this was the plan all along. While Israel was making a public spectacle of "forcing Jews to leave their homes", it was quietly surrounding the Strip with artillery emplacements, in an operation ominously named "First Rain".

Under this operation, Gaza basically became a "Free-Fire Zone", and several artillery and gunship strikes killed a high number of civilians. Finally, when one of these batteries fired upon and murdered a Palestinian family - picnicking on a beach that had been Segregated "Jews Only" only weeks before, Hamas finally decided to call an end to its unilateral, two-year cease-fire.

(In essence, they took Israel's bait. After all, you can't excuse your Aggression and label it "defense" if you're not being intermittently attacked. Never mind the hypocrisy underlying the entire media's framing of that whole debate ...)

When the Palestinians responded by electing Hamas to power (yes, elected), Israeli Extremists and their Ideological, bought foreign co-conspirators imposed unilateral sanctions on Gaza, a bit of Collective Punishment which increased the hardship of those stuck in the world's largest Concentration Camp.

When they felt Gaza had been substantially weakened, the US and Israel undertook a Coup attempt, using corrupt elements within the Fatah Party, provoking a violent response by Hamas, which expelled the group. Most of the world's media ignored the events leading to this "crisis", and instead only repeated the Propaganda emanating from the US and Israel, which used this to further increase sanctions against Gaza.

Most recently, Israel stepped up its Collective Punishment, except that human rights groups and legal advisors to the Government halted some of its approved measures, because they run contrary to International Humanitarian Law.

This was sold as another "response to rocket attacks" (again highlighting the hypocrisy of the debate's Framing - are the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves from strikes which actually KILL people ... ?), even though high-ranking officials said that this was NOT, in fact, a response to these attacks, but a way to "distance Israel from Gaza's infrastructure".

The real reason for this whole episode, of course, has been to "soften up" the Gaza Strip for a long-planned military attack, a way to undermine the resolve, and hopefully rid this territory of Palestinians altogether.
Olmert signalled long ago that he would not entertain any serious discussions at this summit, essentially selling out the Israeli public's desire for peace.

 http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?8076S