Month: April 2010

Peace Action Fund of New York State and The Nation Institute present

A World Without Nuclear Weapons: Obama’s Vision, Our Mission

with

• Daniel Ellsberg, whistle-blower, nuclear expert and star of the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America
• Jonathan Schell, bestselling author of The Fate of the Earth and The Unconquerable World, and Nuclear Weapons Doris Shaffer Fellow at The Nation Institute
• Kennette Benedict, Publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
• Moderated by Phil Donahue

Join our panel of leading experts in a wide-ranging and incisive conversation on the ongoing international struggle for the containment and eventual reduction of the nuclear threat, and how President Obama and the U.S. Senate can be pushed to fulfill the promise of a world without nuclear weapons. This important public conversation is occurring in the run-up to the UN’s regular review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that will take place on May 1, 2010.

FREE OF CHARGE. Audience questions will be taken.

DATE: April 8, 2010
LOCATION: New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street, New York City
TIME: 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

This event is part of The Doris Shaffer Memorial Lecture Series.
Co-sponsored by The New York Society for Ethical Culture, Public Concern Foundation, The Nation, Democrats.com, Haymarket Books, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY, Peace Action Education Fund, Brooklyn For Peace and United for Peace and Justice (NYC).

For media enquiries please contact Ruth Baldwin: (212) 822-0266 / ruth@nationinstitute.org

The disturbing footage of the US military in action will be excused by many conservative warmongers in one of two ways (or perhaps both). One, although the incident is unfortunate, collateral damage is inevitable, and this incident should not discredit the greater good that is the war on terror in Iraq. And two, the people killed must have been terrorists, harbored terrorists, or supported terrorists. And if none of these three, then they must know terrorists, have done business with terrorists, or might possibly know or do business with terrorists in the future. Heck, if they live in Iraq they are Muslims and therefore potential terrorists so we might as well fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.

Update: Something just as disturbing is the comment section about this on military.com.

From today’s Washington Post website –
“FBI warns extremist letters may encourage violence”

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press
Friday, April 2, 2010; 9:34 AM
….
The article ominously notes: ” In the past year, federal agents have seen an increase in “chatter” from an array of domestic extremist groups, which can include radical self-styled militias, white separatists or extreme civil libertarians and sovereign citizens.”
++
Yo AP! How ’bout that court decision that said the Bush adminsitration massively violated the Constitution with its warrantless wiretaps?

Oh…. Maybe mentioning that would be “extremist.”

I don’t want this blog to get obsessed with any one individual, and I fear that we’re moving in that direction with Tom Friedman, the main foreign-policy columnist at the New York Times and named by an insiders’ poll at the National Journal last year as Washington’s most influential media personality.

It’s just that, for someone who exercises such influence, he so often seems to be so completely at sea — no rudder, no anchor, no compass even — just kind of drifting from wave to wave (or, in the case of globalization, from CEO to CEO). Apart from a generally liberal (with some important exceptions) and interventionist orientation, Friedman is erratic, to say the least, and often incoherent, as many more diligent critics, notably Matt Taibi, have long observed.

But the erratic and incoherent nature of his thinking struck me hard this week while reading his column, “Hobby or Necessity?” published in the Sunday Times, Mar 28. His basic argument is that Palestinian-Israeli peace was a mere “post-cold-war hobby” for the U.S. while it was a “necessity” for Israel in the 1990’s, but that recent events, especially since U.S. troops began fighting wars in the region after 9/11, have resulted in a 180-degree shift for both countries. While Israel now sees peace as a hobby, it has become a “necessity” for Washington. Citing Biden’s and Gen. Petraeus’ recent statements about the link between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Washington’s own security issues throughout the Arab world and beyond — a link that, of course, is anathema to Netanyahu, AIPAC, Abe Foxman, etc. — Friedman writes:

“Now, in the same time period, America went from having only a small symbolic number of soldiers in the Middle East to running two wars there — in Iraq and Afghanistan — as well as a global struggle against violent Muslim extremists. With U.S. soldiers literally walking the Arab street — and, therefore, more in need than ever of Muslim good will to protect themselves and defeat Muslim extremists — Israeli-Palestinian peace has gone from being a post-cold-war hobby of U.S. diplomats to being a necessity.

He goes on:

“At a time when the U.S. is trying to galvanize a global coalition to confront Iran, at a time when Iran uses the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict to embarrass pro-U.S. Arabs and extend its influence across the Muslim world, peace would be a strategic asset for America and Israel.”

Now, as readers of this blog know, I don’t disagree with any of this and think it’s highly useful that a columnist as influential as Tom Friedman is putting this message out to his readers. Rather, my problem is simply this: if Israeli-Palestinian peace is a “necessity” for Washington now, why didn’t he consider it a “necessity” back last November when he was arguing for essentially abandoning mediation efforts and “Tak[ing] down our ‘Peace-Processing-Is-Us’ sign and just go home.” What precisely has changed about the fundamental situation in the last six months?

This is what Friedman wrote Nov 8 in a column entitled “Call White House, Ask for Barack”:

“Let’s just get out of the picture. Let all these leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth: ‘My fellow citizens: Nothing is happening; nothing is going to happen. It’s just you and me and the problem we own.’

“Indeed, it’s time for us to dust off James Baker’s line: ‘When you’re serious, give us a call: 202-456-1414. Ask for Barack. Otherwise, stay out of our lives. We have our own country to fix.’”

Again, the question arises: what has changed between the publication of that column when Friedman clearly did not think an Israeli-Palestinian peace a “necessity” and today? And if the underlying situation — wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “a global struggle against violent Muslim extremists,” “more in need than ever of Muslim good will to protect ourselves” — is the same as six months ago, why wasn’t Friedman calling for a more aggressive U.S. stance back then?

As I said, it’s like he drifts from wave to wave.