[Peace-discuss] Help Prog. Caucus move DC on war vote

Mon Oct 13 22:00:33 EDT 2014

I dunno, man...  I'm really pretty confused too...

I thought Kurd Kobane was that dude on MTV...

...but then I realized it was MoveOn  singing "Rape Me" and
the people were just lip-syncing...but MoveOn was one of
those .mp3 players in a puppet...

On 10/14/2014 8:09 AM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote:
> " We should be opposing Obama's war-making, not trying to find ways to 
> support it. "
>
> Very well said Carl !
>
> This just shows how deluded and morally bankrupt liberal democrats 
> have become.
>
> David Johnson
>
>
>
> On 10/13/2014 4:44 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote:
>> Bob--
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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%.
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> We should be opposing Obama's war-making, not trying to find ways to 
>> support it.
>>
>> --CGE
>>
>>
>> On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:04 PM, Robert Naiman 
>> <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi, Carl.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> These points are explained in the text and background of our MoveOn 
>>> petition in support of the Progressive Caucus resolution:
>>>
>>> Help the Progressive Caucus Limit the Iraq-Syria war
>>> http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/help-the-progressive?source=c.em&r_by=1135580
>>>
>>> All best,
>>>
>>> RN
>>>
>>> ===
>>>
>>> Robert Naiman
>>> Policy Director
>>> Just Foreign Policy
>>> www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
>>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
>>> (202) 448-2898 x1
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Carl G. Estabrook 
>>> <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Bob--
>>>
>>>     /'...mere slogans of “no war” and “stop the bombing” aren’t
>>>     morally, politically, or strategically sufficient right now...'/
>>>
>>>     That's a curiously periphrastic way to call for support for the
>>>     Obama administration's war in the Mideast.
>>>
>>>     It suggests that you do recognize that you're reversing what you
>>>     seemed formerly to be saying about a 'just foreign policy.'
>>>
>>>     Kobane seems to be playing something like the role that Benghazi
>>>     did in the preparation for the US/NATO attack on Libya.
>>>
>>>     '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.
>>>
>>>     '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.
>>>
>>>     '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]
>>>
>>>     --CGE
>>>
>>>     On Oct 13, 2014, at 11:06 AM, Robert Naiman
>>>     <noreply at list.moveon.org <mailto:noreply at list.moveon.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>     Dear C G ESTABROOK,
>>>>
>>>>     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:
>>>>
>>>>     Obama: Press Turkey to Stop Massacre of Syrian Kurds
>>>>     http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/save-kobane
>>>>
>>>>     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.
>>>>
>>>>     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.
>>>>
>>>>     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.
>>>>
>>>>     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.
>>>>
>>>>     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.
>>>>
>>>>     Thanks for all you do for justice,
>>>>     Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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