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<font size="+3">" We should be opposing Obama's war-making, not
trying to find ways to support it. "<br>
<br>
Very well said Carl !<br>
<br>
This just shows how deluded and morally bankrupt liberal democrats
have become.<br>
<br>
David Johnson<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/13/2014 4:44 PM, Carl G.
Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:21EBC9AF-5615-49CB-948E-8C4D312E2B39@illinois.edu"
type="cite">
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Bob--
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Obama became president by co-opting the anti-war movement and
pretending that he opposed his predecessors' war-making. He was
lying, and his war policy is thoroughly consistent with Bush's -
indeed with that of all US presidents who have killed, wounded,
and made homeless well over 20 million human beings in the last
50 years, mostly civilians. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>He has not been the lesser evil but, as Glen Ford says, the
more effective evil - effective in carrying out the policy of
control of the world's greatest energy producing region, as a
means for the control of the Eurasian economy for the benefit of
the US 1%.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Obama's had to kill a lot of people to achieve this goal, and
few have been more helpful than those liberals who contend that
they can "have little long-term positive impact, so [they] are
not campaigning for a no vote"! With opponents like that, who
needs allies?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It's duplicitous to twist a call for Turkey "to open a
humanitarian aid corridor in its own territory to transmit the
humanitarian and military aid from the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional
Government" to Kobane into support for more US and Turkish
military action in the region, even if done with feigned
reluctance.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We should be opposing Obama's war-making, not trying to find
ways to support it. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--CGE</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<div>On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:04 PM, Robert Naiman <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org">naiman@justforeignpolicy.org</a>>
wrote:</div>
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charset=UTF-8">
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<div>Hi, Carl. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
1. I disagree that Kobane now equals Benghazi then, for
many reasons that I won't go into right now because I'm up
against a writing deadline, but am happy to come back to
later on this thread or elsewhere. For example, as you
yourself noted, Chomsky has joined others in calling for a
Turkey to allow a "humanitarian corridor" to protect
Kobane.
<div>2. We are not calling for people to support the U.S.
war against ISIS. We think it's a foregone conclusion
that Congress will overwhelmingly vote yes on any AUMF
that reaches the floor. We think that whether there a
few or fewer no votes will have little long-term
positive impact, so we are not campaigning for a no
vote. Instead, we are campaigning for any AUMF to
prohibit the use of ground combat forces and to be
narrow and limited, as the Progressive Caucus has called
for. We think that these are winnable fights that if won
will have a significant, positive long-term impact.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In particular, we are campaigning for any AUMF to
have a time limit, a "sunset," as I wrote in my Nation
piece in August. And we want the sunset to be as short
as possible. So far, Kaine's is the best: one year. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also, we want the targets of any AUMF to be named and
limited, e.g. limited to ISIS, Nusra, and other Al Qaeda
type groups, as in Kaine's AUMF.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Finally, we want Congress to impose public reporting
requirements on civilian casualties from U.S.
airstrikes, so we won't continue the "he said/she said"
unaccountability soap opera on civilian casualties of
the drone strike policy, which has, as I predicted,
already started with respect to U.S. airstrikes in
Syria. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>These points are explained in the text and background
of our MoveOn petition in support of the Progressive
Caucus resolution:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Help the Progressive Caucus Limit the Iraq-Syria war<br>
</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/help-the-progressive?source=c.em&r_by=1135580">http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/help-the-progressive?source=c.em&r_by=1135580</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra">All best,</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
RN<br clear="all">
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
===</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
Robert Naiman<br>
Policy Director<br>
Just Foreign Policy<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/"
target="_blank">www.justforeignpolicy.org</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org"
target="_blank">naiman@justforeignpolicy.org</a><br>
<div><span style="text-align:left">(202) 448-2898 x1</span><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:59
AM, Carl G. Estabrook <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu"
target="_blank">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">Bob--
<div><br>
</div>
<div><i>'...mere slogans of “no war” and “stop the
bombing” aren’t morally, politically, or
strategically sufficient right now...'</i></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>That's a curiously periphrastic way to call
for support for the Obama administration's war
in the Mideast. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It suggests that you do recognize that you're
reversing what you seemed formerly to be saying
about a 'just foreign policy.' </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Kobane seems to be playing something like the
role that Benghazi did in the preparation for
the US/NATO attack on Libya.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>'When a non-violent uprising began, Qaddafi
crushed it violently, and a rebellion broke out
that liberated Benghazi, Libya's second
largest city, and seemed about to move on to
Qaddafi's stronghold in the West. His forces,
however, reversed the course of the conflict and
were at the gates of Benghazi. A slaughter in
Benghazi was likely, and as Obama's Middle East
adviser Dennis Ross pointed out, "everyone would
blame us for it." That would be unacceptable, as
would a Qaddafi military victory enhancing his
power and independence. The US then joined in UN
Security Council resolution 1973 calling for a
no-fly zone, to be implemented by France, the
UK, and the US, with the US supposed to move to
a supporting role.</div>
<br>
'There was no effort to institute a no-fly zone.
The triumvirate at once interpreted the resolution
as authorizing direct participation on the side of
the rebels. A ceasefire was imposed by force on
Qaddafi's forces, but not on the rebels. On the
contrary, they were given military support as they
advanced to the West, soon securing the
major sources of Libya's oil production, and
poised to move on.<br>
<br>
'The blatant disregard of UN 1973, from the start
began to cause some difficulties for the press as
it became too glaring to ignore. In the New York
Times, for example, Karim Fahim and David
Kirkpatrick (March 29) wondered "how the allies
could justify airstrikes on Colonel Qaddafi's
forces around [his tribal center] Surt if, as
seems to be the case, they enjoy widespread
support in the city and pose no threat
to civilians." Another technical difficulty is
that UNSC 1973 "called for an arms embargo
that applies to the entire territory of Libya,
which means that any outside supply of arms to the
opposition would have to be covert" (but otherwise
unproblematic).' [Noam Chomsky]
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--CGE<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>On Oct 13, 2014, at 11:06 AM, Robert
Naiman <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:noreply@list.moveon.org"
target="_blank">noreply@list.moveon.org</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Dear C G ESTABROOK,<br>
<br>
Yesterday I wrote to you, urging you to
sign and share our MoveOn petition urging
the Obama Administration to do all it can
to pressure Turkey to allow Kurds to save
Kurds resisting the ISIS siege of Kobane:<br>
<br>
Obama: Press Turkey to Stop Massacre of
Syrian Kurds <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/save-kobane"
target="_blank">http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/save-kobane</a><br>
<br>
Press reports since Friday have made me
cautiously optimistic that Kobane can
still be saved. Kurdish defenders are
fighting bravely and creatively, and
having some success in holding ISIS back.
Tens of thousands of Kurds demonstrated in
Germany on Saturday, showing that world
Kurdish public opinion has not given up on
saving Kobane. And while I don’t think
that the Obama Administration is yet doing
all that it could be doing in terms of
putting pressure on Turkey, the Obama
Administration is clearly doing some
things that are helping Kurdish defenders
save Kobane – so say Kurdish officials in
Kobane.<br>
<br>
To me, the situation in Kobane shows that
– contrary to what some people on the left
have been saying – mere slogans of “no
war” and “stop the bombing” aren’t
morally, politically, or strategically
sufficient right now for Americans who are
rightly concerned about endless war to
engage Washington and U.S. public opinion
about the war against ISIS in Iraq and
Syria. In my view, Americans are right to
be concerned about civilians threatened by
ISIS, and right to have sympathy for
civilians threatened by ISIS who support
some degree of U.S. military intervention
against ISIS.<br>
<br>
This is a key reason why – again, contrary
to what some people on the left have been
saying – I think that the Congressional
Progressive Caucus was very wise to stake
out a more nuanced position than simply
“supporting” or “opposing” the war. And
this is a key reason why Just Foreign
Policy is supporting the CPC resolution,
which neither supports nor opposes the war
per se, but says that Congress should
debate and vote on the war, just like the
U.S. Constitution and the majority of
Americans say, that no U.S. ground combat
troops should be used, just like President
Obama and the majority of Americans say,
and that any Congressional authorization
of force should be narrow and limited,
just as the Obama Administration has said.<br>
<br>
On Wednesday, we are doing petition
delivery events at local Congressional
offices in support of the CPC resolution
together with Progressives for Democratic
Action. I’m sorry for the late notice if
you are seeing this information for the
first time; I originally planned to write
you about this over the weekend, but we
diverted ourselves to address the Kobane
emergency.<br>
<br>
Here is the alert that we sent to the Just
Foreign Policy list on Friday evening. At
this writing, we have almost ten thousand
signatures on our petition in support of
the CPC resolution.<br>
<br>
Thanks for all you do for justice,<br>
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy<br>
<br>
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