[Peace-discuss] David Swanson - "What to Do About ISIS"

Thu Aug 28 13:51:10 EDT 2014

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[ufpj-activist] Fwd: What to Do About ISIS
Date: 	Thu, 28 Aug 2014 09:38:50 -0400
From: 	David Swanson <davidcnswanson at gmail.com>
To: 	ufpj-activist <ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org>

*What to Do About ISIS*
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/content/what-do-about-isis

Start by recognizing where ISIS came from. The U.S. and its junior 
partners destroyed Iraq, left a sectarian division, poverty, 
desperation, and an illegitimate government in Baghdad that did not 
represent Sunnis or other groups. Then the U.S. armed and trained ISIS 
and allied groups in Syria, while continuing to prop up the Baghdad 
government, providing Hellfire missiles with which to attack Iraqis in 
Fallujah and elsewhere.

ISIS has religious adherents but also opportunistic supporters who see 
it as the force resisting an unwanted rule from Baghdad and who 
increasingly see it as resisting the United States. It is in possession 
of U.S. weaponry provided directly to it in Syria and siezed from the 
Iraqi government. At last count by the U.S. government, 79% of weapons 
transfered to Middle Eastern governments come from the United States, 
not counting transfers to groups like ISIS, and not counting weapons in 
the possession of the United States.

So, the first thing to do differently going forward: stop bombing 
nations into ruins, and stop shipping weapons into the area you've left 
in chaos.  Libya is of course another example of the disasters that U.S. 
wars leave behind them -- a war, by the way, with U.S. weapons used on 
boith sides, and a war launched on the pretext of a claim well 
documented to have been false that Gadaffi was threatening to massacre 
civilians.

So, here's the next thing to do: be very sceptical of humanitarian 
claims.  The U.S. bombing around Erbil to protect Kurdish and U.S. oil 
interests was initially justified as bombing to protect people on a 
mountain.  But most of those people on the mountain were in no need of 
rescue, and that justification has now been set aside, just as Benghazi 
was.  Recall also that Obama was forced to withdraw U.S. troops from 
Iraq when he couldn't get the Iraqi government to give them immunity for 
crimes they commit.  He has now obtained that immunity and back in they 
go, the crimes preceding them in the form of 500 pound bombs.

While trying to rescue hostages and discovering an empty house, and 
racing to a mountain to save 30,000 people but finding 3,000 and most of 
those not wanting to leave, the U.S. claims to know exactly whom the 
500-pound bombs are killing.  But whoever they are killing, they are 
generating more enemies, and they are building support for ISIS, not 
diminishing it.  So, now the U.S. finds itself on the opposite side of 
the war in Syria, so what does it do? Flip sides!  Now the great moral 
imperative is not to bomb Assad but to bomb in defense of Assad, the 
only consistent point being that "something must be done" and the only 
conceivable something is to pick some party and bomb it.

But why is that the only conceivable thing to be done? I can think of 
some others:

1. Apologize for brutalizing the leader of ISIS in Abu Ghraib and to 
every other prisoner victimized under U.S. occupation.

2. Apologize for destroying the nation of Iraq and to every family there.

3. Begin making restitution by delivering aid (not "military aid" but 
actual aid, food, medicine) to the entire nation of Iraq.

4. Apologize for role in war in Syria.

5. Begin making restitution by delivering actual aid to Syria.

6. Announce a commitment not to provide weapons to Iraq or Syria or 
Israel or Jordan or Egypt or Bahrain or any other nation anywhere on 
earth and to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from foreign territories and 
seas, including Afghanistan. (The U.S. Coast Guard in the Persian Gulf 
has clearly forgotten where the coast of the U.S. is!)

7. Announce a commitment to invest heavily in solar, wind, and other 
green energy and to provide the same to democratic representative 
governments.

8. Begin providing Iran with free wind and solar technologies -- at much 
lower cost of course than what it is costing the U.S. and Israel to 
threaten Iran over a nonexistent nuclear weapons program.

9. End economic sanctions.

10. Send diplomats to Baghdad and Damascus to negotiate aid and to 
encourage serious reforms.

11. Send journalists, aid workers, peaceworkers, human shields, and 
negotiators into crisis zones, understanding that this means risking 
lives, but fewer lives than further militarization risks.

12. Empower people with agricultural assistance, education, cameras, and 
internet access.

13. Launch a communications campaign in the United States to replace 
military recruitment campaigns, focused on building sympathy and desire 
to serve as critical aid workers, persuading doctors and engineers to 
volunteer their time to travel to and visit these areas of crisis.

14. Work through the United Nations on all of this.

15. Sign the United States on to the International Criminal Court and 
voluntarily propose the prosecution of top U.S. officials of this and 
the preceding regimes for their crimes.

-- 

David Swanson wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org 
His new book is /War No More: The Case for Abolition/ 
<http://davidswanson.org/warnomore>. He blogs at http://davidswanson.org 
<http://davidswanson.org/> and http://warisacrime.org 
<http://warisacrime.org/> and works for http://rootsaction.org 
<http://rootsaction.org/>. He hosts Talk Nation Radio 
<http://davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/41>. Follow him on Twitter: 
@davidcnswanson <http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson> and FaceBook 
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319#>.

Sign up for occasional important activist alerts here 
http://davidswanson.org/signup

Sign up for articles or press releases here http://davidswanson.org/lists

This email may be unlawfully collected, held, and read by the NSA which 
violates our freedoms using the justification of immoral, illegal wars 
absurdly described as being somehow/for /freedom.

-- 

David Swanson wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org  
His new book is /War No More: The Case for Abolition/ 
<http://davidswanson.org/warnomore>. He blogs at http://davidswanson.org 
<http://davidswanson.org/> and http://warisacrime.org 
<http://warisacrime.org/> and works for http://rootsaction.org 
<http://rootsaction.org/>. He hosts Talk Nation Radio 
<http://davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/41>. Follow him on Twitter: 
@davidcnswanson <http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson> and FaceBook 
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319#>.

Sign up for occasional important activist alerts here 
http://davidswanson.org/signup

Sign up for articles or press releases here http://davidswanson.org/lists

This email may be unlawfully collected, held, and read by the NSA which 
violates our freedoms using the justification of immoral, illegal wars 
absurdly described as being somehow/for /freedom.

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