Why not an “October Morning”

CONFLICT, CONSEQUENCES, ALTERNATIVES

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD

Casualty sites reporting June 12, 2011

(Accurate totals unknown)

Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20,

2009: 232] Information out of date

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Wounded 33,051-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: June 9, 2011

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

•

Iraq Body Count

The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation

Documented civilian deaths from violence

101,366 – 110,719

Full analysis of the WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs may add 15,000 civilian deaths.  http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

•

ICasualties figures:

AFGHANISTAN:

1,615 United States

2,520 Coalition

IRAQ:

4,460 United States

4,778 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/

YEMEN

In Yemen, political violence has displaced thousands. There are shortages of food, water and fuel. The UN Refugee Agency (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) reports an estimated 4,000 residents sought protection in late May as a result of fighting between security forces loyal to President Ali Saleh and armed opposition forces in the northern Al-Hasaba district of the capital city, Sana’a.

The Joint International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Yemen Red Crescent teams working in and around Sana’a retrieved some 20 dead bodies since June 4. They discovered seven bodies on June 7. As many as 35,000-40,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons) are in need in the coastal city of Aden and the southern governorate of Abyan. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Nearly 10,000 IDPs from Abyan are living in relocation centers in public schools in and around [Yemen’s second city] Aden.”  A further 4,700 IDPs have been registered in Lahj.

AFGHANISTAN

An estimated 433,066 persons remain internally displaced in Afghanistan, according to a UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Bank study. Of this number, 226,682 people were displaced by conflict between June 2009 and April 2011.

Displacement caused by military operations and localized fighting continues to affect communities in many parts of Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross reports. More than 51,000 IDPs — up 40 percent over the January-April period last year — received ICRC assistance.

The Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) has warned that conflict between government forces and Taliban have displaced at least 12,000 people in Afghanistan’s remote northwestern province of Faryab. People are in desperate need of water, sanitation and other essentials. These internally displaced people reportedly have “sought refuge either with families and friends or they have camped in the open, in miserable situations (some secure), in remote villages with very limited or no access to safe drinking water, sanitation and other basic living facilities.”

Diarrheal diseases linked to poor hand washing, hygiene practices and inadequate sanitation are significant causes of death among children under five in Afghanistan. The health ministry reports an estimated 50,000 children under five die every year due to pneumonia and diarrheal diseases. People “‘are facing too many problems.’”

PAKISTAN

Shoot to kill

The video appears to show five members of the security forces in Karachi shooting an unarmed man. The dead man was 18-year-old Afsa Shah. The incident now under investigation by the rangers reportedly appeared on local television stations and the internet website YouTube. The teenager had allegedly attempted on Wednesday to steal from a police officer’s family in Clifton, Karachi’s most exclusive neighborhood.

Security forces in May “shot dead five unarmed Chechens at a checkpoint near the southwestern city of Quetta.” One of dead was a pregnant woman. Officials initially claimed the five people had been “suicide bombers but footage showed them to be unarmed and dispelled the government’s claim.” A representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told Al Jazeera, Pakistan has “descended into a ‘trigger-happy society where shoot-to-kill has become routine practice for the law enforcement agencies.’”

Pakistan/Afghan border

Eight soldiers died Thursday and 12 suffered wounds when 150 heavily armed fighters attacked a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s Waziristan region on the border with Afghanistan. Security forces returned fire and reportedly killed 12 more people.

After this incident, a bomb exploded in a market near the northwestern city of Peshawar. Four people died and three suffered wounds.

“Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani at a meeting of top military commanders called on the people of North Waziristan ‘to evict all foreigners from their soil and take charge of their land and destiny once again.’”

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Gaza/West Bank, Israel continues to block aid

Approximately 40,000 Palestinians live in Area C of the West Bank. International nongovernmental organizations say restrictions on their movement reduce the effective delivery of aid to some of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities — mainly people in Gaza and in Area C of the West Bank.

Delivery of humanitarian aid to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has been hampered by severe restrictions on staff movements thus hurting the quality, scope, and sustainability of operations. “The biggest problem for us,” Oxfam reports, “is getting permits for national staff to leave Gaza and travel to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.” Under the Oslo regulations, Area C, which includes East Jerusalem, is administered and controlled by the Israeli government and military.

Syria

On the run

Most of them are women and children crossing borders “without any belongings.” They descend on relatives or host families. A small number reside temporarily in a school in Tall Bire.

Ongoing protests beginning in Syria in mid-March face regular crackdowns by government forces. At least 1,100 people have died. Among the dead are more than 50 protesters estimated to have died in demonstrations that followed Friday prayers on June 3. Authorities have reportedly arrested more than 10,000 people.

Six thousand people fled into Lebanon “using illegal border crossings to escape the violence unleashed on protesters by security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.” An estimated 6,814 people received some assistance from the Lebanese Higher Relief Council.

LIBYA

Blood flows, people flee, are blocked toward Tunisia

Misurata — Al Jazeera’s correspondent Tony Birtley called today a “bloody day in terms of casualties.”  Qaddafi shelled Misurata in Libya’s west. Thirty-one people died yesterday in the conflict.

Zawiyah — NATO air strikes hit Zawiyah, a major oil port 50km west of Tripoli. Qaddafi forces shut down a vital coastal highway that leads into neighboring Tunisia.

Zintan — Pro- and anti-government forces fought today near the western town of Zintan attempting to “to seize a town that lay in between the towns of Zintan and Yafran.” Senior aide to Libyan president Qaddafi, El-Khouwildy el-Ahmeildy, was reportedly wounded during a NATO air strike on a city near Tripoli.

IRAQ

Mosul

Two bombs and eight shooters who attacked the home of a schoolteacher in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul left 10 people dead and approximately 52 injured.

People reported seeing women and children bleeding and hearing them screaming and crying. Mosul is Iraq’s third largest city, 360km northwest of Baghdad.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

PROGRESSIVISTS’ ALTERNATIVES

Nonviolence is better

The director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies  asked late last week, “What would a transformed U.S. policy look like?”

This is some of Phyllis Bennis’s answer to the question she posed: “It would entail ending all U.S. military ties to any regime suppressing the Arab Spring protests in its own or other countries (that means Saudi Arabia as well as Bahrain and Yemen), and pulling all troops and mercenaries out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It would mean supporting the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone throughout the Middle East.

“Such a policy would suspend all economic aid until it can be redirected away from militaries, even in democratizing countries, and into the hands of governments who are held accountable .…

“It would also end the military aid and diplomatic protection that enable Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies towards the Palestinians.

“It would replace Washington’s failed ‘peace process’ with support for regional and globally-led diplomacy based on international law and human rights.”

Nonviolence heads toward October morning

A gathering planned for October 6 in Washington, D.C., is billed “a gathering of people who support peace and social, economic and environmental justice [intending] to stay in Washington, D.C. as a unified presence.”

The group October 2011 dot org says, “We will use ongoing actions of nonviolent resistance to disrupt the forces that corrupt our political process and undermine our rights and human needs. We will demand changes that shift power away from concentrated corporate capital and free us to create solutions that lead to a just and sustainable future.”

Purposes of action —

To

• “Create solidarity among the people and groups who support peace and economic, environmental, and social justice
• “Demonstrate the power of nonviolence
• “Model a society that functions with inclusivity, tolerance, and a process of decisions by consensus of the people
• “Have a great enough effect that the government will take concrete steps to meet our demands
• “Create a lasting force that will continue to move our society towards a peaceful, just and sustainable future.”

October morning begins —

Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. (13th Street at Pennsylvania Avenue NW), Thursday morning, October 6, 2011

Sources and notes

YEMEN

“YEMEN: The human cost of the conflict,” June 9, 2011, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92944

IRIN

Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya with regional desks in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Dubai and Bangkok, IRIN covers 70 countries. Networks of local correspondents support IRIN’s bureaus. The service delivers in English, French, and Arabic through a free email subscription service and social media syndication. IRIN is an editorially independent non-profit project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA. Integrated Regional Information Networks launched in 1995 in response to the gap in humanitarian reporting exposed by the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath.

Between the lines “As Afghan War Approaches Second Decade, Activists Organize October Anti-War Protest” (BTL Scott Harris interview with David Swanson, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org), posted June 8, 2011: “The U.S. peace movement has waned. There have been in recent years fewer anti-war protests and less participation in vigils, teach-ins and lobbying of Congress. Now, as the U.S. military combat role in Afghanistan enters its second decade, a major protest is being organized for October 6, 2011, with the goal of placing new attention on the war in Afghanistan and demanding an end to the conflict,” http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110617af-btl-swanson.html

AFGHANISTAN

“AFGHANISTAN: Clashes displace 12,000 in Faryab Province,” June 6, 2011, KABUL, IRIN, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=92909

PAKISTAN

“Pakistan rangers ‘gun down unarmed man’ Investigation under way after footage surfaces of alleged killing of unarmed man by five Karachi security forces,” June 10, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia/2011/06/201169185514224350.html

“Fighters kill several soldiers in Pakistan  — Local intelligence officials say raid targeted military checkpoint on the border between North and South Waziristan,” June 9, 2011,   http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/06/20116934727791167.html

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

“Israel hindering delivery of aid” (The Electronic Intifada Ramallah, RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank, IRIN), May 12, 2011, http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-hindering-delivery-aid/9943

Originally at IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, not necessarily reflecting views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“SYRIA-LEBANON: Displaced Syrians head back home,” June 6, 2011, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92901

LIBYA

“Fierce fighting erupts in western Libya — Rebels battle troops loyal to Muammar [Qaddafi] as they attempt to seize town between Zintan and Yafran,” June 12, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/20116124372194590.html

IRAQ

“Deaths in Iraq attacks  — Two car bombs strike Mosul and gunmen attack school teacher in a village outside of Tikrit,”   June 11, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/2011611133422731363.html

PROGRESSIVISTS’ alternatives

“Obama’s changes don’t match changes of the Arab Spring — there is still a long way to go before the U.S. response to the Arab uprising can be taken seriously by the people of the Middle East and North Africa,” (Phyllis Bennis), June 2011,  http://www.tni.org/article/obamas-changes-dont-match-changes-arab-spring

Phyllis Bennis

Phyllis Bennis, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, is a fellow of both TNI and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. where she directs IPS’s New Internationalism Project. She specializes in U.S. foreign policy issues, particularly involving the United Nations and the Middle East. For 10 years, Bennis was a journalist at the UN and currently serves as a special adviser to several top-level UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues. She is the author of numerous articles and books, particularly on Palestine, Iraq, the UN, and U.S. foreign policy. 

What is nonviolent resistance October 2011 dot org asks and answers — A pledge outlining rules to follow at the October 6 action

1.      We will use our anger at injustice as a positive, nonviolent force for change.

2.      We will not carry weapons of any kind.

3.      We will not vandalize or destroy property.

4.      We will not use or carry alcohol or illegal drugs.

5.      We will not run or make threatening motions.

6.      We will not insult, swear or attack others.

7.      We will protect those who oppose or disagree with us from insult or attack.

8.      We will not assault, verbally or physically, those who oppose or disagree with us, even if they assault us.

9.      Our attitude, as conveyed through our words, symbols and actions, will be one of openness, friendliness, and respect toward all people we encounter including police officers, military personnel, members of the community at large, and all marchers.

10.  As members of a nonviolent action, we will follow the directions of the designated coordinators.

11.  In the event of a serious disagreement, we will withdraw from the action.

[PLEDGE OF NONVIOLENCE from Veterans for Peace, FAQ, http://october2011.org/node/168]

Media and Blogs Covering October 2011 dot org Campaign:

Between the Lines with Scott Harris • Community Alliance • FireDogLake • Forward Blitz • The Indypendent • Liberty News TV • LUV News • Make It Plain with Matsimela Mapfumo on Sirius XM • OpEd News • Peter B. Collins • Speaking Truth to Empire • The Black Commentator • The Nicole Sandler Show • Office of the Americas • War is a Crime • Woodstock International

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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U.S. terrors in search of rethink

Leaving domestic or international policy solely to the discretion of politicians, their masters, comrades, and subordinates is a hazard  unaffordable by any citizen 
Excerpting, minor editing by Carolyn Bennett

Notes from Napoleoni’s Terrorism and the Economy: How the war on terror is bankrupting the world

“Master of credit society” destroys economies

“The seeds of the credit crunch were sown twenty years ago when the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the beginning of the politics of cheap and easy credit denoted by a steady fall in interest rates,” Loretta Napoleoni writes. “Alan Greenspan, at the helm of the Federal Reserve, became the master of the new credit society… [He] controlled the functioning of the world economy and orchestrated its seemingly unstoppable growth. Each time an economic crisis tested the new system—from the collapse of the ruble to the U.S. mini-recession of 2000—Greenspan lowered interest rates and postponed the crisis. …

“…The euphoria of the [Clinton and Bush I and II] decades distracted taxpayers from the erosion of one of the cornerstones of the social contract: the state must justify to its citizens how it spends their money. The state became less fiscally transparent. The public became less vigilant.”

After September 11, 2001, an aggressive policy of low interest rates, which eventually led to the credit crunch — became imperative to bankroll two wars. The deflationary policy that first financed the illusory growth of globalization subsequently funded the war on terror.

Commanders in Chief rupture foreign relations, Citizens shrug 

“From the fall of the Berlin Wall until 9/11,” Napoleoni continues, “indifference to the outside world characterized the U.S. establishment.…

“After 9/11, Washington had to confront the changes underway in the world but attempted to do so without fully reckoning with their magnitude. The world had evolved because of the demise of communism and the advent of globalization…

“Ultimately, a decade of diplomatic disinterest morphed into the bellicose foreign policy of the Bush administration [and] it was apparent as early as mid-2003 that this aggressively reactionary policy was backfiring. In Afghanistan and Iraq, civil wars were raging—not at all the expected blitz-war actions, these had turned into difficult and costly conflicts with no end in sight. Terrorist activities in the world proliferated. Public debt is the U.S. steadily increased. Far from being won, the war on terror continued to weigh heavily on the nation’s finances and bin Laden still roamed free.”

“…Washington changed its tune and presented a new scenario. The enemy ceased to be a handful of crazy religious fanatics… In the summer of 2003, the enemy became a sophisticated international network of banks, charitable organizations, Islamic fundamentalist organizations, and entrepreneurs. The administration had changed their propaganda tune and the media followed suit. Al-Qaeda became an active agent of ‘the clash of civilizations.’…The world wanted to believe that the American crusade was going to save [the world] from an imaginary enemy. … But Bush misread the situation.

“Islamic terrorism had nothing to do with the clash between two cultures. Rather, it resembled a collision of titanic proportions between two economic systems, one hegemonic and the other insurrectional.

War on terror worsens domestic, foreign affairs

“Bush’s legacy is an open-ended, asymmetrical war to manage a potentially unsolvable conflict that sucks money and lives from the state and the taxpayer without contributing anything to peace and to the economy,” Napoleoni writes.

“Far from having brought peace to the world, the war on terror hatched an asymmetric conflict.

“While $200 million has been more than enough to sustain the Iraqi insurgents, Washington’s war costs have run in the trillions. The monthly Pentagon budget for Iraq amounts to $8 billion, $12 billion if we add Afghanistan.

“In response to the rising costs of the war, Washington cut interest rates and sold off treasury bonds internationally. The credit crunch and the economic quagmire inherited by [the Obama administration] prove the folly of this strategy. The financing of the war now competes directly with the plans to rescue the [U.S.] economy.…

“In a recession as serious as the present one, the maintenance of [the war on terror] against enemies of our own creation diverts resources desperately needed to sustain America’s and the world’s economies.

“[U.S. President] Obama’s … rhetoric is insufficient to solve these problems. What is badly needed is a radical plan of action, both for foreign policy and for the economy, the two main components of the recession.

“… [T]he president represents only the tip of the iceberg, one that breaks off at least every two terms…” The Congress of the United States “holds the reins of the nation and designs the greater picture of domestic and foreign politics. Congress represents the people, a nation that still does not have a clear picture of what went wrong.”


Source and notes


Terrorism and the Economy: How the war on terror is bankrupting the world, Loretta Napoleoni (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2010), pp. 3-5, 39-40, 70-71


Loretta Napoleoni has been a London correspondent and columnist for La Stampa, La Repubblica, El Pais and Le Monde. In addition to Terrorism and the Economy, she is author of Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s new reality and Terror incorporated: Tracing the dollars behind the terror networks. Napoleoni is one of the world’s leading experts on money laundering and terror financing.

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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Peace, policy progress in alternatives

Disastrous U.S. foreign and domestic policies and priorities await powerful progressive, global alternatives.
Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

In Bonn, Germany, for the thirtieth anniversary of the Right Livelihood Awards, Pacifica program Democracy Now today interviewed peace and conflict studies founder Johan Galtung. Galtung observed a disgraceful dissembling — start to midterm.

“Practically speaking,” he said, [U.S. President Barack Obama has gone back on] everything he promised [or appeared to promise] —

Guantánamo is still there.
Rendition is still there.
There is the saying that says ‘no torture should take place’  —
I ‘haven't seen the mechanism ensuring that’s the case.’ 
Withdrawal from Iraq retains 50,000 forces
Stepping up, war escalates in Afghanistan. …
[W]hatever withdraws from Iraq goes to Afghanistan.


A ‘nuclear-free’ world promise gets rid of old-fashioned weapons with the Russians, then argues for $180 billion to modernize the nuclear material: $100 billion for the weapons carriers, $80 billion for new warheads.

The Right Livelihood Foundation from which Democracy Now was broadcasting its 30-year anniversary this week awards an alternative to the Nobel Prize. The prize gives moral weight and financial support to those combating environmental damage, underdevelopment or human rights violations worldwide.

In contrast to Nobel’s favoring of the West, the Right Livelihood is awarded to people from Asia or Africa about 40 percent of the time. Many of the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award are completely unknown on the international stage until they receive the award. Unusual among award winners is Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathei who won the Right Livelihood Award in 1984 and the Nobel Prize in 2004. Maathei’s case though unique to the 30-year history of the Right Livelihood Award is a testament to the weight carried by the prize.

The Right Livelihood Award’s 137 winners so far have been spread over 58 countries. Not only do these award winners more frequently than Nobel hail from developing countries; they are also younger on average and more likely to be female.


Fruits of entrenched, disastrous foreign and domestic policies and priorities

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

September 16, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 191]

Wounded 31,934-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides [estimated] 18 a day

Latest update on this site September 16, 2010

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count figures

97,994 – 106,954

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,419 U.S., 4,737 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,278 U.S., 2,073 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

September 12 Pakistan — “Deaths in Pakistan ‘drone’ attack”
Four people [“fighters”] died in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border when a “suspected U.S. drone” attacked. The frequency of civilian deaths is highly disputed but statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities reveal, “more than 90 per cent of the more than 700 people killed in attacks targeting the tribal areas in 2009 were civilians.”

September 16 West Bank — “‘Our situation worsens every day’” Nora Barrows-Friedman reports Palestinians in the West Bank’s Dheisheh refugee camp “have little faith in [three-way peace] talks”

—“Jewish settlements deadlock remains”
— “Hamas has got to be involved before peace can be concluded”

“No indication of progress after second day of direct Netanyahu-Abbas talks” says U.S. peace envoy. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter among others has said “any future permanent Israeli-Palestinian agreement has to include Hamas”

September 15— “Israeli jets hit Gaza tunnels”
“Israeli missile kills one Palestinian after rocket and mortar fire from Gaza”

One Palestinian died and two others suffered wounds [medics’ estimates] “after Israeli fighter jets bombed three smuggling tunnels running between the Gaza Strip and Egypt … The violence follows clashes between Israel and Hamas, which began on September 1. Hamas won elections in Gaza in 2006 and then seized full control of the enclave the following year.” Hamas controls Gaza but is not a participant in the three-way Israeli-Palestinian-U.S. ‘peace’ talks.


U.S. homeland — providing for its common defense, promoting its general welfare

September 16 — “U.S. poverty rate ‘hits 15-year high’”

The rise in U.S. poverty is the highest since 1994. One in seven people of the United States live in “economic hardship.”

The U.S. Census Bureau report released today shows that “one in seven Americans lived in poverty last year, while the overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent (43.6 million people) from 13.2 percent (39.8 million people).

The government began its reports of poverty estimates in 1959 and this latest report’s findings show —cold comfort — that the poverty rate in 2009 was “8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959.”

Taken together, this amounts to deep regression, a demonstration of entrenched, disastrous foreign and domestic policies and priorities out of Washington awaiting powerful progressive, global alternatives.

Sources and notes
“Johan Galtung on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mideast Peace Talks, and Why Obama Is Losing His Base,” September 16, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/16/johan_galtung_on_the_wars_in


“‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ gains moral traction,” September 16, 2010,
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6003399,00.html


A Norwegian mathematician and sociologist and a principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies, Johan Galtung (born in Oslo, October 24, 1930) is Professor of Peace Studies, founder of TRANSCEND, A Peace and Development Network; founder of TRANSCEND Peace University, TRANSCEND Media Service, TRANSCEND University Press, TRANSCEND Peace Service, TRANSCEND Research Institute.


Since its founding in 1993, most of TRANSCEND’s work “has been on conflict mediation and violence conciliation, using Diagnosis-Prognosis-Therapy, on often very difficult and complex conflicts.” Peace journalism, peace education and peace business have played important roles in this process.


TRANSCEND is organized in a dozen regions around the world: Northern Europe, German-speaking Europe, Eastern Europe, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), Europa Latina, Africa, the Arab World, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, (North-)East Asia, North America, Latin America. Each region has a convener. The Board of Conveners is TRANSCEND’s highest authority [http://www.transcend.org/].


There are traditionally four traditional but unsatisfactory ways of handling conflicts between two parties. Johan Galtung tries to break with four unsatisfactory [A wins, B loses-B wins A loses-solution postponed because neither A nor B feels ready to end the conflict-confused compromise results in which neither A nor B is happy] ways of handling a conflict by finding a ‘fifth way.’ In the fifth way “both A and B feel that they win. The method insists on maintaining respect for basic human survival, physical well-being, liberty, and identity needs. Galtung views his role as that of helping the parties clarify their objectives and working to come up with solutions that meet the objectives of all parties. He has employed the ‘Transcend’ Method while serving as a negotiator in a number of international conflicts [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Galtung].


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/201091233614720302.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/09/2010914122645134498.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/201091520229665176.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/20109151393302881.html http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/2010916182855740657.html

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Bennett's books available at New York independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Present Tense books and gifts: presenttensebooks.com [Batavia, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]

Global homicide — U.S., corporate DRONES

Bombers ‘mistake’ children.
Landmines maim them.
Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Many U.S. citizens now focused on the anniversary of September 11 and the controversy over whether an Islamic Center should break ground near ‘ground zero’ [and the mass media’s affair with a mental incompetent in Florida] may be asleep at the wheel, Kathy Kelly writes in a September 9 opinion piece. Citizens may be oblivious to clear violations of international law, which we have obligations to prevent — at the very least, to discuss.

Corporate media fails substantively to aid ordinary people in understanding that drones hovering over potential targets every day — in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other places — “create small ‘ground zeroes.’” Kelly tells the story of children cut down in a criminal war.

Eleven-year-old Nur Said was in a hospital ward for young boys injured by various explosions, she reports. Some of the injured boys sat in an outside garden talking about their experiences.

Nur Said stayed indoors because he was “too miserable to talk. [He] would merely nod…. Weeks earlier, he had been part of a hardy band of youngsters that helped bolster their family incomes by searching for scrap metal and unearthing landmines on a mountainside in Afghanistan. Finding an unexploded land mine was ‘eureka’ for the children.” When opened, the mine offered valuable brass parts the children could sell.

“Nur Said had a landmine in hand that suddenly exploded, ripping four fingers off his right hand and blinding him in his left eye.

Another group of youngsters scavenging for scrap metal in the Kunar Province on August 26 fared far worse. “Following an alleged Taliban attack on a nearby police station, NATO forces flew overhead to ‘engage’ the militants.… In this case, the bombers mistook the children for militants and killed six six- to 12-year-old children. “Local police said there were no Taliban at the site during the attack, only children.”

U.S. DRONES
PAKISTAN— Peshawar

On Wednesday, the infamous American drones killed eighteen people and wounded many others in parts of North Waziristan agency; the majority of the dead and wounded were alleged militants and fugitives. Predator planes also struck the Danday Darpa Khel and Datta Khel areas.

In the early hours of Thursday, according to the Pakistan Observer, another drone attack in North Waziristan Agency “left at least five more people dead and many others wounded. This was the notorious American spy planes’ fourth missile hit within 24 hours, the eighth in a week. “U.S. drones continued their killing spree in the Pakistani northern tribal belt even in the holy month of Ramzan and launched around a dozen missile attacks in North Waziristan agency often before or after Iftari and Traveeh prayers killing large numbers of people mostly among the faithful.”

As a rule, the U.S. military does not confirm drone attacks but, the Yemen News Agency reports, the “[U. S.] Armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy pilotless drones in the region. More than 1,040 people have died in 122 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants.”

U.S. DRONES, Counterattack
AFPAK

Ten civilians (est.) died Thursday and four suffered wounds when a roadside bomb exploded in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border. In the renewed violence following the floods at least 150 people have died.

Fighters linked to al-Qaeda have recently stepped up bomb and suicide attacks in Pakistan after a brief lull amid the worst flooding in the country's history.

U.S. DRONES
AMERICAS

Inside USA
A U.S. military officer told the press on Thursday “an unmanned navy helicopter had flown out of control towards the U.S. capital last month before communications were restored.” This drone “headed right for the heart of the national capital region.…

“The episode came as the military presses civilian officials at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ease restrictions on the use of unmanned aircraft over the United States.”

On Texas./MEXICO border
Six drones had been operating along the U.S./Mexico border. This week, for the first time, the U.S. government launched an unmanned aircraft from a Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Air Station.

Sources and notes
Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org), a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. In 2009, Voices for Creative Nonviolence formed a small delegation to visit Pakistan, aiming to learn more about the effects of U.S. drone warfare on the civilian population and to understand better the consequences of U.S. foreign policy in Pakistan. Kelly’s most recent trip to the region, in 2010, included a visit to Afghanistan, focusing on surgical centers serving victims of war, http://vcnv.org/speaker-bio/kathy-kelly

“The Indefensible Drones: A Ground Zero Reflection” (Kathy Kelly, t r u t h o u t
Op-Ed), September 9, 2010,
http://www.truth-out.org/the-indefensible-drones-a-ground-zero-reflection63096
“U.S. weighed shooting down runaway robotic helicopter: admiral,” September 9, 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jpb2H3PrhxH4mjK1qXwEESB0IqJA
“Five more perish in drone attack” (Tariq Saeed), Pakistan Observer’s epaper, September 10, 2010,
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=51621
“U.S. Drone Strike Kills Six Militants in Pakistan,” Yemen News Agency (Saba), September 9, 2010, http://www.sabanews.net/en/news223801.htm
“U.S. drones kill 18 in latest missile strike on tribal area,” September 9, 2010, Morning Star, http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/95068
“Roadside bomb hits tribal region along Afghan border amid suspected U.S. drone attacks in North Waziristan,” September 9, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/20109964537209244.html
“Drones Patrol Our Border — U.S./MEXICO BORDER - A drone aircraft is finally on patrol along the Texas-Mexico border,” September 10, 2010, http://www.ktsm.com/news/drones-patrol-our-border

Women’s Day Intl’ spotlights WAMM USA

Women against Military Madness 1980 – NOW!
Re-reporting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

Until we move away from domestic and foreign policies of war, violence, aggression, plunder, exploitation, corruption in leadership and government ─ BREAKDOWN ─ progress toward the possible is impossible.

International Women’s Day USA from WAMM

Funds for education, housing, health care & human needs, not wars and occupations:

Out of Afghanistan & Iraq

Bring the Troops Home Now

No Escalation — Hands off Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Somalia. Aid for Haiti, not occupation!

Women against Military Madness is a nonviolent, feminist organization working in solidarity with others

To create a system of social equality, self-determination and justice through education, action and the empowerment of women. WAMM’s purpose is to dismantle systems of militarism, economic exploitation and global oppression.

Ten women in the fall of 1981 met in Loretta’s Tea Room in Minneapolis to figure out how most effectively to respond to the threat of nuclear war, the huge increases in military spending and the massive slashes in human services budgets. Inspired by polls showing that most women were against war but as a group were unorganized and inadequately empowered to challenge government priorities, WAMM founders believed that by confronting our fear, anger and denial together, women could become the leaders of a movement to turn our country from the brink of nuclear holocaust to a peaceful and just society.

One hundred assembled at a founding conference January 16, 1982, then marched with signs along University Avenue in Minneapolis. A tradition was born ─ Never a meeting without an action. WAMM published a monthly newsletter informing members and the community about peace and justice issues. WAMM in the 1980s opposed the nuclear arms race and the U.S intervention in Central America.

WAMM supported Native American spear fishing rights, Minnesota nurses and P9 meat packers strikes, the welfare rights group Up and Out of Poverty, the struggle to get Honeywell to stop producing land mines in coalition with the Honeywell Project, and joined coalitions for police accountability. WAMM members demonstrated against war toys by buying out one store’s supply before Christmas then returning them all after the holiday.

WAMM is well known for creative and consistent legal nonviolent activism. WAMM members engage in freeway ‘bannering,’ weekly downtown marches, empowerment groups, school visitations with ‘Tough Dove’ the puppet, and distribution of ‘Tools for Tough Times’ packets to activate members.

WAMM and coalition partners in the 1990s held the first protest in the U.S. against troop deployment leading up to the Gulf War and then fought the deadly sanctions and continuing bombing of Iraq. WAMM protested interventions and bloody conflicts in Panama, Yugoslavia, East Timor, Somalia, and Israel/Palestine. WAMM campaigned against the ‘Contract on America’ making the critical link between domestic cuts and military madness. On the local level WAMM worked against police brutality, and with coalition partners defeated attempts to mandate Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in Minneapolis public high schools.

WAMM has been focused since September 11, 2001, on opposing the ‘war on terrorism’ in all its forms ─ including attacks on the civil liberties of immigrants and activists. WAMM has formed a new committee to expose the danger of depleted uranium munitions.

WAMM continues to support direct action and coalition building and encourages women to act through committees, empowerment groups, and individual activism. WAMM spreads the word of peace and justice into schools and community organizations through WAMM Action!



Source
W A M M,310 East 38th Street, Suite 222, Minneapolis, MN 55409, USA,
wamm@mtn.org; www.worldwidewamm.org; http://www.worldwidewamm.org/home.html