<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Just Foreign Policy</strong> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:info@justforeignpolicy.org" target="_blank">info@justforeignpolicy.org</a>></span><br>Date: Sat, May 4, 2019 at 1:51 PM<br>Subject: WaPo attacks Bernie for opposing U.S. war crimes – in 1988<br>To: <<a href="mailto:naiman@justforeignpolicy.org" target="_blank">naiman@justforeignpolicy.org</a>><br></div><br><br>
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<div class="m_5766677750934252093m_-8545194534036971770m_3378653421627111013header"><a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=smX98eG0JhRqDIiGhJbe3ludjAizr9R1" target="_blank"><img alt="Just Foreign Policy" src="https://org.salsalabs.com/o/1439/images/JFPlogo-long.png"></a></div>
<div class="m_5766677750934252093m_-8545194534036971770m_3378653421627111013content" align="left"><div style="width:190px;float:right;border:1px solid black;margin:0em 1em 1em;padding:1em;text-align:center" class="m_5766677750934252093m_-8545194534036971770m_3378653421627111013action-box"><b>No matter who is President, we need to re-establish the primacy of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution over war and peace.<br>
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<a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=A8x6Om5i%2Bco3S8ZcC1Z2OS0NJhcyH6BP" target="_blank"> Urge Congress to pass a concurrent resolution to end the U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen.</a> <br>
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<p>Dear Robert,</p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">On Friday, the <i>Washington Post</i> – which enthusiastically supported the Iraq war, among many other crimes – ran an <a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=bUrd2x6DILdGwaulZbFfyC0NJhcyH6BP" target="_blank">article</a> purporting to “expose” a trip that Bernie Sanders and his wife took to the Soviet Union in 1988, when he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont. </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">You’ll never guess what the big scandal supposedly was. Reportedly, <b>Bernie criticized U.S. foreign policy – </b><i><b>while “standing on foreign soil”</b></i>: </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">[...]<br>
Then, at a banquet attended by about 100 people, <i><b>Sanders blasted the way the United States had intervened in other countries, stunning one of those who had accompanied him.</b></i> “I got really upset and walked out,” said David F. Kelley, who had helped arrange the trip and was the only Republican in Sanders’s entourage. “When you are a critic of your country, you can say anything you want <i><b>on home soil</b></i>.” [my emphasis]<br>
[…]</p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">Actually, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, <i><b>Americans can criticize U.S. foreign policy wherever we want, wherever we happen to be standing at the time</b></i>. </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">In the 1980s, my friends and I worked to end Reagan’s illegal wars in Central America, with mixed results. We worked to end Reagan’s support for the apartheid regime in South Africa, which we did. And we worked to end U.S. support for Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, which we failed to do. In 1986-7, I was a student at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, near Ramallah. It’s a safe bet that I criticized U.S. foreign policy while I was living among Palestinian civilians enduring the daily humiliations of the Israeli military occupation enabled by the U.S. government.</p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">Attempts to isolate and marginalize Americans who want to stop U.S. war crimes, to effectively take away our free speech rights, affect every American who wants to end these crimes, whatever we think about Bernie or the presidential race. For decades, people who insist that the U.S. must bomb, invade and occupy other people’s countries and starve their civilians have worked assiduously to isolate and marginalize Americans who want to stop these crimes, to silence us, to prevent us from having any influence in U.S. politics, to prevent us from stopping the crimes. </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">In particular, they’ve had a two-prong strategy for starting and perpetuating U.S. wars, and for keeping war policies beyond the reach of the American people. The first prong is to undermine the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, so Congress doesn’t vote before the war, so the American people don’t have an opportunity to weigh in, and to concentrate the war power in the hands of the President, in violation of the Constitution. The second prong is to marginalize war critics from presidential politics, so nobody who opposes these policies can be President or have any influence on the President. </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">It’s natural that people who want to end unconstitutional wars are starting to pay more attention to the second prong. But we also need to maintain focus on the first prong. <b>No matter who the President is, we need to re-establish the supremacy of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution over the President on war and peace.</b> </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">That’s a key reason – <b>in addition to the ten million lives in Yemen hanging in the balance</b> – that we need to maintain focus on restoring Congressional control over Yemen war powers. </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px"><b><a href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VUxEWKW18QrLlsYN0i96qS0NJhcyH6BP" target="_blank">Please help us maintain public focus on the <i>Congressional role</i> in ending unconstitutional war by signing and sharing our petition to Congress, urging Congress to invoke the War Powers Resolution to pass a <i>concurrent</i> resolution – <i>not subject to presidential veto</i> – to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen.</a></b> </p>
<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 10px">Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just, </p>
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<p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:1.5em 0px 0px"><font color="#363135"><span>Robert Reuel Naiman<br>
Just Foreign Policy</span></font></p>
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