De Amerikaanse Vredesbeweging

Een voorbeeld van de talloze initiatieven van de Amerikaanse Vredesbeweging: 'Join Peacemakers around the World in Building a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence! ON NOVEMBER 10, 1998, the United Nations Responded to an appeal from every living Nobel Peace Prize Laureate by proclaiming the year 2000 to be "the Year for the Culture of Peace" and the years 2001-2010 to be the "International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World." We live in a culture of violence. From the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado to the US bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq to the fact that one out of every five US children lives in poverty while we spend billions upgrading our nuclear arsenal - violence surrounds us. It is time to stop the violence and start building a culture of nonviolence. A culture of nonviolence values love, compassion, and justice. It rejects violence as a means of solving problems. Instead, it embraces communication, cooperative decision-making, and nonviolent conflict resolution. It ensures freedom, security, and equitable relationships. It promotes inner peace, personal transformation, and disarmament. FOR plans to kick off the Decade for a Culture of peace and Nonviolence in the Summer of 2000 in Washington, DC. Please see the page on The People's Campaign for Nonviolence for details. The text of the UN Declaration and additional information about the declaration can be found here. More information on the Web about the Nobel Laureate Appeal and the Decade of Nonviolence can be found at NobelWeb.' Zie: http://www.forusa.org/programs/decade.html Of:
http://www.forusa.org/iraqphoto/index.htm

Iran 41

Truthout bericht: 'Bush Meets Privately With Think Tank Promoting Military Strike On Iran. This tidbit about President Bush's schedule was buried in today's Washington Post:
Bush traveled Friday night to Stanford University, where he met privately with members of the libertarian Hoover Institution to discuss the war. He concluded the day with a private dinner held by George P. Shultz, a Hoover fellow and former secretary of state. Why is this significant? The Hoover Institution is a think tank that has been aggressively promoting the viability of a preemptive military strike in Iran. Here's just a couple of recent examples -
Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at Hoover:
[Europe] will be able to think of all sorts of nicer alternatives to taking out Iran's nuclear development sites. They will be able to come up with all sorts of abstract arguments and moral equivalence, such as: Other countries have nuclear weapons. Why not Iran? Debating abstract questions is much easier than confronting concrete and often brutal alternatives. The big question is whether we are serious or suicidal. [Creators Syndicate, 1/3/06]
Tod Lindberg, a research fellow at Hoover:
Whatever it is that Saddam was going to perpetrate in his remaining years in power, whatever he intended to bequeath to his sons and whatever in turn they would do to follow up on his legacy, this we have prevented... Which takes us back to Iran...I don't think it would be a good idea to wait around in the hope that we never arrive at the moment when we realize we should have done something. [Washington Times, 4/18/06]
George P. Schultz, who hosted the event, was an "early defender of the use of pre-emptive force to deal with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq."' Lees verder:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/22/bush-hoover-iran/ Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042306Z.shtml

Osama bin Laden 2

Er doet zich iets opmerkelijks voor. Ondanks de herhaalde waarschuwingen van Osama bin Laden, reageren wij alsof er niets aan de hand is. De oud CIA-functionaris Michael Scheuer, voormalig 'Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center' van deze inlichtingendienst, schrijft in 'Imperial Hubris' het volgende: 'Toward the goal of preparing Muslims, bin Laden has repeatedly warned Americans that another al Qaeda attack on the United States is in the offing and that it will be worse than that of 11 September... bin Laden has appealed directly to the American people to use their democratic system of government to force U.S. leaders to abrogate policies that are harming the Muslim world... "We are defending ourselves against the United States," bin Laden said on behalf of the Islamic world in November 2001. "This is why I used to say that if [the Muslims] do not have security, the Americans also will not have it. This is a very simple formula... This is the formula of live and let live." Declared at the start of the U.S.- Afghan war, bin Laden's warning to the United States has been on his lips ever since. A year after the statement, for example, bin Laden reminded Americans that "the road to safety begins by lifting oppression," and that their government and its allies had yet to heed this advice. "This is an unfair division. The time has come for us to be equal,'' bin Laden warned. "Just as you kill, you are killed. Just as you bombard, you are bombarded.''' Het is een logica die door het Westen niet geaccepteerd wordt. Daar zullen we een hoge prijs voor moeten betalen. In deze postmoderne tijd zal onze terreur met tegenterreur worden beantwoord. Zelfs massavernietigingswapens zijn niet langer meer uitgesloten. 'Al-Qaeda has long sought nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to inflict extensive casualties. Although bombs and other conventional weapons attacks are more likely, especially by al-Qaeda affiliate groups and terrorists inspired by bin Laden, AQC has demonstrated a long-time interest in obtaining and using WMD as a terrorist tactic. Bin Laden declared that acquiring weapons of mass destruction was a "religious duty" in a December 1998 interview with Time Magazine. Bin Laden asked for and received a May 2003 fatwa (religious edict) from Shaykh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd entitled "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels" that condoned the use of WMD.' De Saoedische geestelijke concludeert in zijn studie; 'If a bomb that killed 10 million of them and burned as much of their land as they have burned Mislims' land were dropped on them, it would be permissable.' Deze uitspraak maakt de weg vrij voor al Qaida om massavernietigingswapens in te zetten.

Osama bin Laden

Al Jazeera bericht: 'Bin Laden: West waging a crusade. Al Jazeera has received an audiotape "The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist crusaders war on Islam," he said. The tape has not been independently verified, although the voice sounds similar to that on previous tapes from the al-Qaeda leader.During the recording bin Laden also said the Western public shared responsibility for the actions of their governments, particularly for what he called their attacks on Islam. "The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments," he said. "The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters.""They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed." The comments appeared to be an effort to justify attacks on cvilians in the West. 'Long war.' At other points in the message, Bin Laden also spoke about the conflict in Iraq and, for the first time, the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. He urged Muslim supporters to go to Sudan to foil what he called Western, especially American, efforts to divide the country."I call on mujahidin [fighters] and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war against the crusader plunderers in Western Sudan."Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people," he added.' Lees verder:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FEE6E1E5-DCC0-4E8A-80CF-FFCCA2BC4C2A.htm

De Rijken

De World Socialist Web Site bericht: 'The very rich in America: “The kind of money you cannot comprehend.”
“Let me tell you about the very rich,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote in a 1926 story, “They are different from you and me.” But even Fitzgerald could not have imagined how different “from you and me” the very rich would become in America eight decades later. The sums that the very wealthy have at their disposal in the US are almost unimaginable: Oil executive Lee Raymond receiving some $400 million in a retirement package; the 2005 compensation of bank chairman Richard Fairbank totaling some $280 million; Omid Korestani, head of Google’s global sales, exercising stock options providing him with $288 million last year. The accumulation is brazen. What once would have been considered a somewhat discreditable fact of social life, the proliferation of billionaires, is now hailed as a sign of America’s success. The demise of the Soviet Union and the supposed absence of any alternative to capitalism, the putrefaction of the AFL-CIO trade unions, the ignominious collapse of American liberalism and the lack to this point of broad-based, organized political opposition to the ruling elite and its two parties have rendered the American financial aristocracy “dizzy with success.” These people have lost their heads.
In the face of public outrage over oil company profits and soaring gasoline prices, Exxon arrogantly defended Raymond’s hundreds of millions, arguing that they were rewarding the executive’s “outstanding leadership of the business, continued strengthening of our worldwide competitive position, and continuing progress toward achieving long-range strategic goals.” The company added that it considered Raymond’s compensation package “appropriately positioned.”
In a study published in October 2005, three accounting professors reported that negative, even occasionally scathing press coverage, “does not substantively change corporate behaviour with regard to pay packages.” The American establishment is all but impervious to the sentiments of the broad masses of the population. In response to a recent report detailing the immense and growing social gap, a spokesman for New York state’s Business Council told a reporter that the incomes earned by his state’s rich were “something that everybody who cares about New York should be pleased about.” An insulated world of immense wealth exists as never before, at least in modern US history. The number of Americans with assets of $1 million or more reached 7.5 million in 2004, according to a survey conducted by the Spectrem Group. Beyond that, however, are those who possess “Ultra High Net Worth” (a mellifluous term invented by Merrill Lynch circa 2001): individuals in households with $5 million or more in net worth. In a country of 300 million people, the UHNW form a very small percentage of the population, but a not insignificant number in absolute terms. Economic, political and cultural life in America is to an enormous extent organized for their benefit.' Lees verder:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/rich-a19.shtml

Iran 40

Chris Floyd is an American journalist who writes these weekly "Global Eye" pieces for The Moscow Times and St. Petersburg Times. His blog of political news and commentary can be found atEmpire Burlesque Blog and Empire Burlesque. Hij schrijft: 'U.S. Planes Are Already Making Practice Bombing Runs Along Iran's Borders. Twelve hours. One circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world.Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to gear up and launch an unprovoked sneak attack -- a Pearl Harbor in reverse -- against Iran, The Washington Post reports. The plan for this "global strike," which includes a very viable "nuclear option," was approved months ago and is now in operation. The planes are already on continuous alert, making "nuclear delivery" practice runs along the Iranian border, The New Yorker reports, and waiting only for the signal from President George W. Bush to drop their payloads of conventional and nuclear weapons on some 400 targets throughout the condemned land.And when this attack comes -- either as a stand-alone "knock-out blow" or as the precursor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion, like the earlier aggression in Iraq -- there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no congressional hearings, no public debate. The already-issued orders governing the operation put the decision solely in the hands of the president. He picks up the phone, he says, "Go," and in 12 hours' time, up to 1 million Iranians will be dead.This potential death toll is not pacifist hyperbole; it comes from a National Academy of Sciences study sponsored by the Pentagon itself, as The Progressive reports. The NAS study calculated the kill rate from "bunker-busting" tactical nukes used to take out underground facilities -- such as those housing much of Iran's nuclear power program. Another simulation using Pentagon software was even more specific, measuring the aftermath from a "limited" nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan. The result? Three million people killed by radiation in just two weeks. Bush now has about 50 nuclear "earth-penetrating weapons" at his disposal.' Lees verder: http://www.bushwatch.net/floyd.htm

Amerikaanse Oorlogsmisdaden 2

David Model is a professor of Political Science and Economics at Seneca College in Toronto. His third book Lying for Empire : How to Commit War Crimes With a Straight Faceis published by Common Courage Press. Visit his blog at: http://www.lyingforempire.blogspot.com/. In Alternative Press Review schrijft hij: 'KILLING FIELDS: GENOCIDE IN IRAQ. Pol Pot imposed a revolutionary ideology on Cambodia so radical and rigid that if the countenance of a terrorized Cambodian, indoctrinated through coercion, betrayed even a hint of skepticism, that person would be summarily executed. President George W. Bush seems to have virtually achieved this kind of control in America without the threat of force as evidenced by the meekness of the media, the Democratic pseudo-opposition and the hesitant moderates within the Republican Party. Not only is Congress unwilling to investigate possible impeachment charges, they refuse to even censure him despite all the lies, cover-ups and illegal activities, not to mention war crimes. The accusation that Bush has violated the UN Charter, Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Use of Some Conventional Weapons and the Convention on Torture is paradoxically inadequate to describe the severity of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by this president. By adding to the war crimes committed by his father, the former President George H. Bush, and President Clinton, President George W. Bush has reached the apogee of war crimes, namely genocide. Proving genocide is problematic due to the ambiguous wording of the convention, the necessity to prove intent, clarification of the phrase “in whole or in part” and the number of precedents to guide the adjudication in any particular case. Since the enactment of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, prosecutions have occurred in the national courts of the territory where genocide was committed, international tribunals created by the Security Council, and the International Criminal Court. For example, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Colombia have prosecuted perpetrators of genocide nationally, Rwanda and Serbia have prosecuted perpetrators of genocide in courts created by the Security Council and Serbian leaders have also been prosecuted at the International Criminal Court. Salient cases of genocide that have escaped prosecution to date are the Indonesian leaders responsible for the massacres in East Timor, the Khmer Rouge leaders responsible for the mass murders in Cambodia, the destruction of the Tibetan culture by the Chinese and President G. W. Bush for crimes against humanity in Iraq.' Lees verder: http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=636&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0