YouTube - Shalom Rav - Hebrew Prayer for Peace
A music video full of symbols of peace. VFP is in there!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Biggest Document Leak in History Exposes Real War and confirms the reports from Winter Soldier II
t r u t h o u t | Biggest Document Leak in History Exposes Real War: "The data reveals how hundreds of civilians were killed by coalition forces in unreported events.
There are numerous claims of prison abuse by coalition forces even after the Abu Ghraib scandal. The files also paint a disturbing portrait of widespread torture in Iraqi detention facilities.
As the war progresses the documents record a descent into chaos and horror as the occupation sparked civil war. In case after case, the logs record thousands of bodies, many brutally tortured, dumped on the streets of Iraq.
Through these reports we see, in military snapshots, the full impact the war had on Iraqis – men, women and children. The sheer scale of the deaths, detentions and violence is laid bare for the first time."
There are numerous claims of prison abuse by coalition forces even after the Abu Ghraib scandal. The files also paint a disturbing portrait of widespread torture in Iraqi detention facilities.
As the war progresses the documents record a descent into chaos and horror as the occupation sparked civil war. In case after case, the logs record thousands of bodies, many brutally tortured, dumped on the streets of Iraq.
Through these reports we see, in military snapshots, the full impact the war had on Iraqis – men, women and children. The sheer scale of the deaths, detentions and violence is laid bare for the first time."
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Justice Through The Looking Glass - Blow back from Torture at Gitmo
Justice Through The Looking Glass - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
"The system determining the guilt or innocence of many prisoners still detained at Gitmo has long been haphazard. One prosecution recently collapsed because the judge was honest enough not to admit testimony procured through torture"
However the US Government has fought back and perhpas the fight has not always been fair or even legal:
"It involves one Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, whose release from custody was ordered earlier this year by Judge Henry Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy effectively demolished the credibility of many government witnesses and pointed out big discrepancies in its case. The ruling was published, then suddenly withdrawn, then re-published with vast amounts of the ruling stricken from public view. The redactions were not solely to prevent release of classified information, but to omit the key findings of the case against the government. "
read the link above for more details on how the "Facts" were changed when the Judge was forced to rewrite his opinion.
"The system determining the guilt or innocence of many prisoners still detained at Gitmo has long been haphazard. One prosecution recently collapsed because the judge was honest enough not to admit testimony procured through torture"
However the US Government has fought back and perhpas the fight has not always been fair or even legal:
"It involves one Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, whose release from custody was ordered earlier this year by Judge Henry Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy effectively demolished the credibility of many government witnesses and pointed out big discrepancies in its case. The ruling was published, then suddenly withdrawn, then re-published with vast amounts of the ruling stricken from public view. The redactions were not solely to prevent release of classified information, but to omit the key findings of the case against the government. "
read the link above for more details on how the "Facts" were changed when the Judge was forced to rewrite his opinion.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Ron Paul Was Right - About Imperialism!
Ron Paul Was Right - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, will present findings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that argue that the majority of suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.
Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, will present findings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that argue that the majority of suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sign the Petition | Committee to Stop FBI Repression
VFP IS APPALLED BY THE RECENT ACTIONS OF THE FBI
Like other peace advocates, Veterans For Peace is appalled by the heavy-handed actions of the FBI in raiding the homes of anti-war activists. We would also be astonished by those actions were it not for the FBI’s long history of harassing peaceful dissent. From the disgraced leadership of J. Edgar Hoover down to these 2010 raids in Minneapolis and Chicago, the Bureau has allowed itself to become the dark agent of stifling democratic opposition to America’s embarrassing military adventures abroad and its resistance to equality at home.
The idea that the victims of these home invasions are providing “material support of terrorism” by opposing brutal U.S. foreign occupations is ludicrous. It strikes at the very heart of the freedoms that VFP members thought they were donning the uniform to defend. For those of us who sought to protect democracy from alien forces it is particularly disheartening to watch that democracy now being eroded from within by our own government. Are we truly to believe that the FBI is all that stands between us and the terrorism of the Quakers, the Catholic Worker, Greenpeace, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals?
It is further more than a little ironic that these raids of harassment should occur only a week after the Justice Department Inspector General himself concluded that the FBI does indeed have a long sorry history of baseless intimidation of dissenters to American policy. Veterans For Peace members themselves were victims of these actions surrounding the infamous police violation of dissenter rights at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Republican Convention in 2008.
As veterans and as seekers of peace we stand in solidarity with our comrades in sister organizations who are victims of this sinister FBI action. Who knows who its next targets will be? Pressing our government to withdraw from aggressive and mindless wars should be viewed as heroic activity, not a hostile act subject to persecution.
PETITION LINK Sign the Petition | Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Cost of War: More Than Half The World's Defense Spending - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
More Than Half The World's Defense Spending - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Yesterday Arthur Brooks of AEI, Ed Feulner of Heritage, and Bill Kristol banded together to defend our bloated defense budget.
Some responses:
Gordon Adams responds
"Brooks-Feulner-Kristol fail to point out that it is economically impossible to get the deficit and debt under control unless all spending (and revenues) are on the table. Picking on the other parts of the problem, alone would mean gutting all domestic spending, eliminating much of Medicare and Social Security, or raising taxes into the 80% brackets. And, of course, what they (and, sadly, Secretary Gates) want to do – keep defense off the table – is political death to deficit reduction and debt control – everything will be on the table."
And Paul Waldman puts the debate in context:
"[T]oday, with the Soviet Union gone, we account for most of the world's defense spending -- 54 percent in 2009, according to a recent report. That's right: There are 195 countries on planet Earth, and if you added up the military spending of the 194 of them that aren't the United States, you'd still have less than what we are spending."
Yesterday Arthur Brooks of AEI, Ed Feulner of Heritage, and Bill Kristol banded together to defend our bloated defense budget.
Some responses:
Gordon Adams responds
"Brooks-Feulner-Kristol fail to point out that it is economically impossible to get the deficit and debt under control unless all spending (and revenues) are on the table. Picking on the other parts of the problem, alone would mean gutting all domestic spending, eliminating much of Medicare and Social Security, or raising taxes into the 80% brackets. And, of course, what they (and, sadly, Secretary Gates) want to do – keep defense off the table – is political death to deficit reduction and debt control – everything will be on the table."
And Paul Waldman puts the debate in context:
"[T]oday, with the Soviet Union gone, we account for most of the world's defense spending -- 54 percent in 2009, according to a recent report. That's right: There are 195 countries on planet Earth, and if you added up the military spending of the 194 of them that aren't the United States, you'd still have less than what we are spending."
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Veterans for Peace in Washington this weekend: War is the Obscenity | CommonDreams.org
Veterans for Peace: War is the Obscenity | CommonDreams.org
National President of VFP Mike Ferner, 59, who served as a navy corpsman during Vietnam said:
"The American public should be shocked that we are still killing and crippling thousands of innocent people in these countries as well as our own soldiers -- that's what's truly obscene. Blowing people's arms and legs off, burning, paralyzing them, causing sewage to run through their streets, polluting the water that kills and sickens children, terrorizing and bombing people and their livestock with flying robots-- that defines obscenity. If this banner shocks and offends a single person who hasn't been shocked and offended by what's being done in our name, we've accomplished our mission."
Cost of War - Their Moon Shot and Ours - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Their Moon Shot and Ours - NYTimes.com
"China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. China has at least four going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience, where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers — from America — giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell/genetic engineering industry; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars.
Not to worry. America today also has its own multi-billion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan."
Read the rest on how electric cars can restore American middle class or destroy it and how if we do we succeed we must work with China not against them for a win -win.
"China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. China has at least four going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience, where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers — from America — giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell/genetic engineering industry; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars.
Not to worry. America today also has its own multi-billion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan."
Read the rest on how electric cars can restore American middle class or destroy it and how if we do we succeed we must work with China not against them for a win -win.
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