LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Within a matter of months, the U.S. government seems likely to become the only nation in the world still rejecting the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Sometimes called “the most ratified human rights treaty in history,†the Convention has been ratified by 195 nations, leaving the United States and South Sudan as the only holdouts. South Sudan is expected to move forward with ratification later this year. But there is no indication that the United States will approve this children’s defense treaty.
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
Petraeus won’t serve a day in jail for his leaks. Edward Snowden shouldn’t either.
TREVOR TIMM – The sweetheart deal the Justice Department gave to former CIA director David Petraeus for leaking top secret information compared to the stiff jail sentences other low-level leakers have received under the Obama administration has led to renewed calls for leniency for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. And no one makes the case better than famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
Money Pipeline Flowing Between U.S. Congress and Big Oil
KATHERINE “KITTY” STAPP – With battle lines sharpening over the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, a new analysis details the intense industry lobbying of both houses of the U.S. Congress since 2013 – to the tune of 58.8 million dollars by five refinery companies alone.
It’s Time Oregon Put a Price on Carbon
CAMILLA THORNDIKE and DAN GOLDEN – Climate change hurts Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The region’s economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, viticulture and forestry — all of which are climate-dependent. Summers are hotter and drier with rains occurring as storms, rather than the typical drizzle. The snowpack is decreasing. Less water for irrigation, increasing incidence of pests and disease, and growing competition from weeds threatens local agriculture.
Growing Support for Moving Away from Nuclear Weapons
JAMSHED BARUAH – The 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) formally endorsed at its third annual summit in San José on January 28-29 the ‘Austrian Pledge’ delivered at the close of the Third International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons (HINW) last December in Vienna.
Reject Endless, Worldwide War
DAVID SWANSON – We strongly reject President Obama’s request for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) of the U.S.-led war on ISIS. We urge Congress to oppose the request for a war which is endless, not the last resort, illegal by national and international standards, geographically unlimited, and unwinnable. The resultant costs of endless wars are too high and will not lead to the expected outcome. We know that the use of military force in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen has been a failure and has increased violent extremism and recruited volunteers for Al Qaeda and ISIS. There is no reason to believe that further military action will have any different result.
This is the Real Significance of Obama’s Keystone XL Veto
CHRIS MOONEY – The Keystone fight is truly different. For environmentalists, it’s fundamentally about keeping fossil fuels in the ground, unburned, a stance that causes a more polarizing clash with industry.
CIA Evidence from Whistleblower Trial Could Tilt Iran Nuclear Talks
NORMAN SOLOMoN – A month after former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was convicted on nine felony counts with circumstantial metadata, the zealous prosecution is now having potentially major consequences — casting doubt on the credibility of claims by the U.S. government that Iran has developed a nuclear weapons program.
China-U.S. Strategic Nuclear Stability: The Chinese View
CHARLES D. FERGUSON – “To destroy the other, you have to destroy part of yourself. To deter the other, you have to deter yourself,†according to a Chinese nuclear strategy expert. During the week of February 9th, I had the privilege to travel to China where I heard this statement during the Ninth China-U.S. Dialogue on Strategic Nuclear Dynamics in Beijing. The Dialogue was jointly convened by the China Foundation for International Strategic Studies (CFISS) and the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). While the statements by participants were not-for-attribution, I can state that the person quoted is a senior official with extensive experience in China’s strategic nuclear planning.
Obama Plays Nuclear Hardball With Israel
MARK H. GAFFNEY – Finally. After many years of official hypocrisy, a US president appears to be playing hardball with Israel. The US government has declassified a1987 report documenting Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.
A Military Manual for Nonviolent War
TINA ROSENBERG – Several years ago, before their protest movement was co-opted by violence, a group of young Syrians looking for a way to topple President Bashar al-Assad traveled to an isolated beach resort outside Syria to take a weeklong class in revolution. The teachers were Srdja Popovic and Slobodan Djinovic — leaders of Otpor, a student movement in Serbia that had been instrumental in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. After then helping the successful democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, the two founded the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (Canvas), and have traveled the world, training democracy activists from 46 countries in Otpor’s methods. These two Serbs start with the concepts of the American academic Gene Sharp, the Clausewitz of the nonviolent movement. But they have refined and added to those ideas. In a new book, “Blueprint for Revolution,†Popovic recounts Canvas’s strategies and how people use them.
Why Tesla’s Battery for Your Home Should Terrify Utilities
JOSH DZIEZA – Earlier this week, during a disappointing Tesla earnings call, Elon Musk mentioned in passing that he’d be producing a stationary battery for powering the home in the next few months. It sounded like a throwaway side project from someone who’s never seen a side project he doesn’t like. But it’s a very smart move, and one that’s more central to Musk’s ambitions than it might seem.
Are the U.S. and Russian Governments Once Again on the Nuclear Warpath?
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – A quarter century after the end of the Cold War and decades after the signing of landmark nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, are the U.S. and Russian governments once more engaged in a potentially disastrous nuclear arms race with one another? It certainly looks like it.
Meet The 80 People Who Are As Rich As Half The World
MONA CHALABI – Eighty people hold the same amount of wealth as the world’s 3.6 billion poorest people, according to an analysis just released from Oxfam. The report from the global anti-poverty organization finds that since 2009, the wealth of those 80 richest has doubled in nominal terms — while the wealth of the poorest 50 percent of the world’s population has fallen.
How to Get Out of the Nuclear Swamp
XANTHE HALL – This week I read an email exchange that made me think. Actually, it worried me deeply. In one of the messages an old friend described the Nuclear Weapons Convention – an idea many of us fought for since the early nineties – as a “fairy tale.” A second mail called it a “distraction.” The authors of these mails are not government representatives from nuclear weapon states or their allies, although you might be forgiven for thinking so. Both those descriptions have been used by states that want to brush aside the idea of a convention summarily, as if only for the very stupid or naïve. No, these were colleagues. Since the strategy of pursuing a so-called Ban Treaty has been advocated by the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear weapons (ICAN), at least by its International Steering Group and staff, a fierce debate has been raging between two groups. These are principally the younger and the older generation.
Hypermasculinity With World-Ending Weapons is Bad for Everyone
WINSLOW MYERS – Escalating tensions in the Ukraine raise the concern that the “firebreak†between conventional and the tactical nuclear weapons potentially available to all parties in the conflict could be breached, with unforeseen consequences.
Obama Proposes to Boost Spending for Nuclear Armaments
DOUGLAS BIRCH – The Obama administration has proposed to boost spending on the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads at a higher rate than for many other military programs, according to White House budget documents published February 2. Arms control advocates call the ambitious program both bloated and wasteful, and based on an outdated view of the importance of nuclear weapons to U.S. security. Meanwhile, nonproliferation efforts have been downplayed.
Editor Of Major Newspaper Says He Planted Stories For CIA
RALPH LOPEZ – Becoming the first credentialed, well-known media insider to step forward and state publicly that he was secretly a “propagandist,†an editor of a major German daily has said that he personally planted stories for the CIA. Saying he believes a medical condition gives him only a few years to live, and that he is filled with remorse, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, the editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s largest newspapers, said in an interview that he accepted news stories written and given to him by the CIA and published them under his own name. Ulfkotte said the aim of much of the deception was to drive nations toward war. Dr. Ulfkotte says the corruption of journalists and major news outlets by the CIA is routine, accepted, and widespread in the western media, and that journalists who do not comply either cannot get jobs at any news organization, or find their careers cut short.
The Abusive Incarceration Of Sister Megan Rice
LINDA STASI – Sister Megan Rice and two other activists broke into the facility outside Knoxville, Tenn., in 2012 to bring attention to the dangers of unimpeded nuclear proliferation. They also exposed gaps in national security by showing how easy it was to get in. Now, Sister Megan lives in horrifying conditions in a single room with 111 other women in the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The Invisible Man: Jeffrey Sterling, CIA Whistleblower
NORMAN SOLOMON – The mass media have suddenly discovered Jeffrey Sterling — after his conviction Monday, January 26, as a CIA whistleblower. Sterling’s indictment four years ago received fleeting news coverage that recited the government’s charges. From the outset, the Justice Department portrayed him as bitter and vengeful — with the classic trash-the-whistleblower word “disgruntled†thrown in — all of which the mainline media dutifully recounted without any other perspective.
Militarism in the Air We Breathe
DAVID SWANSON – If there is a group of Americans to whom Iraqis struggling with the health effects of depleted uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, and all the various poisons of war can relate, it might be the mostly black and largely poor residents of Gibsland, in northern Louisiana.
Congress Seeks Netanyahu’s Direction
ROBERT PARRY – Showing who some in Congress believe is the real master of U.S. foreign policy, House Speaker John Boehner has invited Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session and offer a rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s comments on world affairs in his State of the Union speech. Boehner made clear that Netanyahu’s third speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress – scheduled for Feb. 11 – was meant to counter Obama’s assessments.
North Korea Offers U.S. Deal to Halt Nuclear Test
CHOE SANG-HUN – Jan. 10, Seoul, South Korea — North Korea said Saturday that it had told the United States that it would impose a temporary moratorium on nuclear tests if Washington canceled its joint annual military exercises with South Korea to help promote dialogue on the divided Korean Peninsula.
Inside the Uniform, Under the Hood, Longing for Change
KATHY KELLY – From January 4-12, 2015, Witness Against Torture (WAT) activists assembled in Washington D.C. for an annual time of fasting and public witness to end the United States’ use of torture and indefinite detention and to demand the closure, with immediate freedom for those long cleared for release, of the illegal U.S. prison at Guantanamo.
“We Are All Charlie” – But Is That Story So Simple?
JAN OBERG – Eleven points as a reflection on the terror in Paris and – not the least – the reactions to it:
Celebrate 2014’s Disarmament Success Stories
MINES ACTION CANADA – The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots had a pretty good 2014 but many people view 2014 as a terrible year full of death, war and disease around the world. Fortunately, things are not as bleak as the news makes them look. The humanitarian disarmament world has seen a lot of successes this year and each of these successes is a win for humanity. So let’s recap the good news stories of 2014 in the humanitarian disarmament world.
How Rich Are the 400 Richest Americans – and What Do They Do with Their Money?
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – In the supposedly classless society of the United States, the wealthiest Americans are doing remarkably well. According to Forbes, a leading business magazine, the combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans has now reached the staggering total of $2.3 trillion. This gives them an average net worth of $5.7 billion–an increase of 14 percent over the previous year.
The Revenge of the CIA: Scapegoating Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling
NORMAN SOLOMAN – This [past] week, in a federal courtroom, I’ve heard a series of government witnesses testify behind a screen while expounding on a central precept of the national security state: The CIA can do no wrong. Those CIA employees and consultants are more than mere loyalists for an agency that soaks up $15 billion a year and continues to loosen the bonds of accountability. The docket says “United States of America v. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling,†but a more discerning title would be “National Security State v. The Public’s Right to Know.â€
CIA on Trial in Virginia for Planting Nuke Evidence in Iran
DAVID SWANSON – Since Tuesday and continuing for the coming three weeks, an amazing trial is happening in U.S. District Court at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria, Va. The trial is open to the public, and among the upcoming witnesses is Condoleezza Rice, but — unlike the Chelsea Manning trial — most of the seats at this somewhat similar event are empty. The media is mostly MIA, and during lunch break the two tables at the cafe across the street are occupied, one by the defendant and his lawyers, the other by a small group of activists, including former CIA officer Ray McGovern, blogger Marcy Wheeler (follow her report of every detail at ExposeFacts.org), and Norman Solomon who has organized a petition at DropTheCharges.org — the name of which speaks for itself.
Taking a Meaningless Progressive Stand in Congress
DAVE LINDORFF – The Democrats are showing their true colors now that they have lost control of both houses of Congress. Suddenly, with the assurance that they don’t have to worry about being taken seriously, the “party of the people†has come forward with a proposal to levy a 0.1% tax on short-term stock trades, particularly on high speed trading.
Historian Poses Ten Questions for Conservatives
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Now that the Republican Party―the conservative voice in mainstream U.S. electoral politics―has attained the most thoroughgoing control of Congress that it has enjoyed since 1928, it’s an appropriate time to take a good look at modern conservatism.
Climate Politics at a Dead End – How to Build a New Road
PATRICK MAZZA – Climate politics is dead-ended. It may seem strange to make such a statement in the wake of the much-heralded U.S.-China climate deal announced November 12. So let me clarify.
Nuclear Harbinger: Vermont Yankee Plant Shuttered
JOHN LAFORGE – On December 29, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor was shut down for good, cancelled 18 years before its license expired. The shutdown comes after thousands of protest actions; widespread uncontrolled leaks of radioactive tritium; the shocking collapse of a cooling tower; operator mismanagement; lying and cover-ups; and the state legislature’s 2010 passage of a “shut-down by 2012†law, a statute later voided by a federal court. Entergy Corp.’s surrender announcement mentioned only “economic concerns.â€
Day 2 of the Fast for Justice to Close Guantanamo
CLIFF SLOAN – When I began as the State Department’s envoy for closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, many people advised me that progress was impossible. They were wrong.
In the U.S. 49.7 Million Are Now Poor, and 80% of the Total Population Is Near Poverty
SIMEON ARI – If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that you are now living in poverty or near poverty. Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.
The Threshold For Nuclear War Between Pakistan and India Keeps Dropping
RUSS WELLEN – Most people think that, since the end of the Cold War, chances that a nuclear war will break out are slim to none. Though some nervousness has surfaced since the Ukraine crisis, it’s true that, barring an accident, the United States and Russia are unlikely to attack each other with nuclear weapons. Southeast Asia is another matter.
Renaming Afghan War, Renaming Murder
DAVID SWANSON – The U.S.-led NATO war on Afghanistan has lasted so long they’ve decided to rename it, declare the old war over, and announce a brand new war they’re just sure you’re going to love.
The Christmas Truce: Pitting Sanity Against Insanity
WINSLOW MYERS – A hundred years after the “Christmas Truce” it seems we would prefer to sentimentalize the story of Christmas in the trenches rather than using it as a measure of our own mental health. In the way we think about war, most of us suffer equally from group schizophrenia, made infinitely more dangerous by the presence of nuclear weapons combined with antique delusions of victory.
It’s Time Oregon Put a Price on Carbon
CAMILA THORNDIKE and DAN GOLDEN – Climate change hurts Southern Oregon. It hurts local businesses that rely on skiers and snowboarders when Mount Ashland fails to open. It hurts ranchers and farmers with drought and unseasonable heat. It hurts our forests when the fire season starts sooner and ends later each year. But these hardships are tiny compared to the challenges our children and grandchildren face if we fail to act on climate change.
Resisting the Unspeakable in Afghanistan
PAT KENNELLY – 2014 marks the deadliest year in Afghanistan for civilians, fighters, and foreigners. The situation has reached a new low as the myth of the Afghan state continues. Thirteen years into America’s longest war, the international community argues that Afghanistan is growing stronger, despite nearly all indicators suggesting otherwise. Yet, there is another possibility, that the old way has not worked, and it is time for change; that nonviolence may resolve some of the challenges facing the country.
Take the Next Step After Vienna – Global Mobilization to Abolish Nuclear Weapons!
ABOLITION 2000 – Global coalition follows-up Vienna conference with mobilization to achieve a nuclear abolition agreement at the 2015 NPT Review Conference.
How About Another Christmas Truce?
ARNOLD OLIVER – On the evening of December 24th a century ago, peace broke out in the most unlikely of places. In the blasted, putrid trenches of Belgium and France, soldiers fighting on the Western Front put aside their arms in what became known as the Christmas Truce. Although World War I was then only a few months old, there had already been a million combat deaths. Many soldiers were weary of the futility and horrific costs of the war, and thousands of them spontaneously stopped trying to kill each other.
Why #BlackLivesMatter Should Transform the Climate Debate
NAOMI KLEIN – What does #BlackLivesMatter, and the unshakable moral principle that it represents, have to do with climate change? Everything.
Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question
ERIC LINDBERG – We have a situation, then, where one half of the population says it is not happening, and the other half says it is happening but fighting it doesn’t have to change our way of life. Like a dysfunctional and enabling married couple, the bickering and finger-pointing, and anger ensures that nothing has to change and that no one has to actually look deeply at themselves, even as the wheels are falling off the family-life they have co-created. And so do Democrats and Republicans stay together in this unhappy and unproductive place of emotional self-protection and planetary ruin. Here are some of the stories we tell ourselves, to allow us to continue this behavior. How to kick the habit? That’s a little tougher.
Three Members of Congress Just Reignited the Cold War While No One Was Looking
DENNIS KUCINICH – Late Thursday night [December 11], the House of Representatives unanimously passed a far-reaching Russia sanctions bill, a hydra-headed incubator of poisonous conflict. The second provocative anti-Russian legislation in a week, it further polarizes our relations with Russia, helping to cement a Russia-China alliance against Western hegemony, and undermines long-term America’s financial and physical security by handing the national treasury over to war profiteers.
Vienna Conference Could ‘Change the Calculus’ of US Nuclear Policy
JOE CIRINCIONE – While Iran negotiations get screaming headlines, recent conferences on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons have not gotten much attention. Maybe they should. They are generating a growing movement that could have a bigger impact on U.S. nuclear policy than many have assumed.
Catholic Church Revises Nuclear Weapons Stance
KEVIN CLARKE – The Catholic Church seemed to throw its support behind what is, in Europe at least, an accelerating movement demanding the abolition of nuclear weapons during the first day of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Dec. 8.
America is on a “Hot War Footing”: House Legislation Paves the Way for War with Russia?
MICHAL CHOSSUDOVSKY – America is on a war footing. While a World War Three Scenario has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than ten years, military action against Russia is now contemplated at an “operational level.†Similarly, both the Senate and the House have introduced enabling legislation which provides legitimacy to the conduct of a war against Russia. We are not dealing with a “Cold War.” None of the safeguards of the Cold War era prevail. There has been a breakdown in East-West diplomacy coupled with extensive war propaganda. In turn the United Nations has turned a blind eye to extensive war crimes committed by the Western military alliance.
Germany Does Something the U.S. Hasn’t for Peace
DAVID SWANSON – Imagine a letter co-signed by former presidents, former representatives from both sides of the aisle, House speakers, former governors, attorneys general, cabinet members, ambassadors, CEOs, movie stars and directors, writers, astronauts, religious leaders, mayors, academics, mainstream media correspondents, and more — all united in stating “Nobody wants war.†Imagine the New York Times publishing this letter. The equivalent happened in Germany just a few days ago.
U.S. ‘Group Think’ on Syria, Ukraine Endangers World Peace
ROBERT PARRY – Neocon ideology appears to have seized near total control over the editorial pages of America’s premier news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, contributing to an information crisis inside “the world’s superpower,†a development that should unnerve both Americans and the world community.