[Peace-discuss] [ufpj-activist] Fwd: We should all be screaming in outrage......

Fri Apr 14 17:41:21 UTC 2017

We should include no war in Korea in our messaging as that threat is
heating up.

KZ

On Friday, April 14, 2017, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Deb
>
> As you represent the Progressive Democrats and Code Pink, in Champaign,
> Illinois perhaps you may wish to call for a demonstration uniting Democrats
> with other groups in an anti-war demonstration as Medea suggests. “MOAB
> Mother Of All Bombs,” should be protests against war as “Mother Of All
> Babies.” Please see her recent article in the Guardian below.
>
> We can attempt to unite all groups opposing war and abuse both here and
> abroad, with all political groups joining as a joint effort to stop the
> bombing and killing by the USG.
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From: *Medea Benjamin <medea.benjamin at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','medea.benjamin at gmail.com');>>
> *Subject: **Re: [ufpj-activist] Fwd: [Peace-discuss] We should all be
> screaming in outrage......*
> *Date: *April 14, 2017 at 08:10:37 PDT
> *To: *Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','karenaram at hotmail.com');>>
> *Cc: *ufpj-activist <ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org');>>,
> Peace-discuss AWARE <peace-discuss at anti-war.net
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','peace-discuss at anti-war.net');>>, peace <
> peace at lists.chambana.net
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','peace at lists.chambana.net');>>
>
> my piece in the Guardian today re MOAB. Medea
>
> *https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/14/the-mother-of-all-bombs-big-deadly-ineffective
> <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/14/the-mother-of-all-bombs-big-deadly-ineffective>*
>
> On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 10:01 AM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','karenaram at hotmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>>
>> I guess we should be calling on the local Democrat Party to organize a
>> protest against Trump, and the bombing. Knowing that the bombing takes a
>> back seat to Party Politics. At least it will get the people out into the
>> streets, making their voices heard, better than nothing.
>> We had 3,000 marchers with “pink pussy hats” in January this year in our
>> town. Now the best those of us who are anti-war, can accumulate is
>> approximately thirteen.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>    - Print
>>    <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/14/pers-a14.html?view=print>
>>    - Leaflet
>>    <http://intsse.com/wswspdf/en/articles/2017/04/14/pers-a14.pdf>
>>    - Feedback
>>    <http://www.wsws.org/en/special/contact.html?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2017%2F04%2F14%2Fpers-a14.html&t=US%20drops%20largest%20non-nuclear%20weapon%20on%20Afghanistan%3A%20A%20crime%20against%20humanity>
>>    - Share » <http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/14/pers-a14.html#>
>>
>> US drops largest non-nuclear weapon on Afghanistan: A crime against
>> humanity 14 April 2017
>>
>> The US military’s dropping of the largest non-nuclear weapon in its
>> arsenal on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border Thursday is a crime against
>> humanity. Even as the US government and the mass media were engaged in a
>> lying propaganda campaign denouncing Syria and Russia for the use of poison
>> gas, the American military was positioning the monstrous weapon—the Massive
>> Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB)—for use in Afghanistan.
>>
>> While the Pentagon has released few details about the impact of the
>> bombing, one can be certain that the total number of deaths resulting from
>> the dropping of the MOAB is a massive multiple of the number killed in the
>> alleged Syrian gas attack, assuming—and this is by no means certain—that
>> the gas attack even took place.
>>
>> Seventy-two years after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
>> American imperialism has proven once again that it is the most ruthless and
>> criminal force on the planet.
>>
>> The use of the MOAB has implications that extend beyond Afghanistan. It
>> demonstrates—and this is, in fact, the principal aim of the attack—that
>> there are no restraints on what the US military is prepared to do in
>> pursuit of the interests of American imperialism.
>>
>> In the context of mounting military tensions from the Korean peninsula to
>> Syria to eastern Europe, the detonation of the massive bomb over
>> Afghanistan represents a warning to Russia, Iran, North Korea and any
>> country that dares to challenge Washington’s interests that there is no
>> limit to the level of violence that US imperialism will unleash against
>> them.
>>
>> The weapon, officially known as the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast,
>> designated by the Pentagon as MOAB, or “mother of all bombs,” detonates
>> nearly 20,000 pounds of explosives in mid-air, igniting the atmosphere and
>> creating a massive concussion that obliterates everything within a radius
>> of 1,000 yards. Its shock waves are capable of killing people within a
>> radius of up to 1.7 miles. The impact of the explosion is the equivalent of
>> a nuclear weapon for those caught in the target zone.
>>
>> Designed for use in the “shock and awe” campaign unleashed with the 2003
>> US invasion of Iraq, it was never utilized in combat over the course of 14
>> years. Even as the Pentagon carried out a war and occupation that claimed
>> some one million Iraqi lives, the weapon was seen as too destructive to
>> serve US strategic purposes.
>>
>> Planning for the use of this horrific weapon in Afghanistan began under
>> the Obama administration.
>>
>> According to the Pentagon command, this genuine “weapon of mass
>> destruction” was dropped for the first time on a remote district of
>> Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province in order to obliterate alleged
>> caves and tunnels used by elements of the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic
>> State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
>>
>> There is no immediate tactical, much less strategic, justification for
>> the dropping of such a massive weapon on a small, poorly armed band of
>> Islamist guerrillas—a Pakistan-based group that merely adopted the ISIS
>> logo. Instead, the attack has all the earmarks of a calculated
>> demonstration of American military might, the most terrifying one that
>> could be staged short of a nuclear attack.
>>
>> The bombing comes just one week after Washington carried out a naked act
>> of military aggression against Syria, firing 59 cruise missiles into a
>> government airbase and killing at least 15 Syrians, the majority of them
>> civilians.
>>
>> That attack was justified in the name of retaliation for an alleged
>> chemical weapons attack blamed on the Syrian government. Damascus denied
>> using any such weapon and, the endless lies of the Western media
>> notwithstanding, all objective evidence points to a provocation staged by
>> the CIA and the Al Qaeda-linked fighters that it supports in Syria.
>>
>> Even as the US government and media churned out war propaganda over the
>> fabricated “chemical weapons” attack in Syria, Washington was preparing to
>> drop its largest non-nuclear weapon on Afghanistan.
>>
>> The Pentagon has claimed that it “took every precaution to avoid civilian
>> casualties with this strike.” Such promises, made repeatedly as the US
>> military has killed millions across the Middle East, are utterly worthless.
>> According to initial reports, there are several villages near the target
>> area and, in all likelihood, civilian deaths and injuries will be massive.
>>
>> At this point, no one knows what the real toll from this attack is, and,
>> if left to the US media, no one will ever be told. The same editorialists
>> for CIA house organs like the *New York Times,* and television news
>> talking heads who have parroted the government’s denunciations of the Assad
>> regime over the chemical weapons provocation in Syria, are completely
>> indifferent to the loss of life caused by the massive US bomb dropped on
>> Afghanistan.
>>
>> Similarly, the media largely ignores the ongoing carnage inflicted by US
>> bombs and missiles upon the people of Iraq and Syria. On Wednesday, a US
>> airstrike in western Mosul killed 13 civilians while injuring another 17,
>> most of them seriously. On the same day, a UN agency described the
>> devastation wrought by the US siege of the Iraqi city, where hundreds, if
>> not thousands, of men, women and children have died: “Homes are being
>> destroyed. Schools and health centers are damaged and crucial public
>> infrastructure including electricity and water stations are in ruins,”
>> according to the report, with the destruction turning over 300,000 people
>> into homeless refugees.
>>
>> Meanwhile, in northern Syria, US warplanes carried out a “friendly fire”
>> airstrike that killed 18 Kurdish fighters, while the Syrian government
>> reported that a US bomb hit an Al Qaeda weapons depot, spreading chemical
>> agents that may have killed hundreds of civilians. None of these incidents
>> are given any significant coverage; much less do they provoke the moral
>> outrage of those crying crocodile tears over the victims of the alleged
>> chemical attack for which the Syrian government has been framed.
>>
>> Who are these people to lecture anyone on “human rights,” much less to
>> posture as opponents of “terrorism?” Once again, US imperialism has
>> demonstrated to the world that it is bound by absolutely no constraints of
>> international law, much less morality. Its violent and predatory actions on
>> the world stage are a direct expression of the criminal and parasitic
>> character of the American capitalist ruling class, personified in the
>> loathsome figure of Donald Trump.
>>
>> This latest atrocity comes fifteen and a half years after the US invaded
>> Afghanistan, toppling the Taliban government, installing its own puppet
>> regime and carrying out a bloody war and occupation ever since.
>> Conservative estimates put the Afghan death toll since 2001 at some
>> 200,000, with hundreds of thousands more wounded and millions turned into
>> refugees. From the outset, the purpose of this intervention was to
>> subjugate the Afghan people to semi-colonial American domination and to
>> further US imperialism’s drive to assert its hegemony over the energy-rich
>> region of Central Asia.
>>
>> The timing of the bombing was significant. It came on the very eve of
>> talks called for April 14 in Moscow on a peace settlement in Afghanistan.
>> Russia has called the meeting together with China and Pakistan, with the
>> participation of nine other countries, including India and Iran. The
>> Taliban has indicated that it may join the talks. While invited, Washington
>> failed to confirm whether it will attend, and US military commanders have
>> made repeated baseless allegations of Russian support for the Taliban.
>>
>> Whether an armed confrontation takes place between US and Russian
>> warplanes in the skies over Syria, in a military strike against North Korea
>> or in a provocation on Russia’s western borders, the next step from the
>> weapon dropped on Afghanistan is the launching of nuclear missiles.
>>
>> Workers and young people in the US and internationally must respond to
>> these ominous events with utmost seriousness and a determination to stop US
>> and global capitalism from engulfing the planet in a third, nuclear world
>> war.
>>
>> Protests must be organized across the United States and around the world
>> against the latest US atrocities in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq as part of
>> the struggle to build a mass antiwar movement based upon the working class
>> and the program of socialist internationalism. At the very center of this
>> struggle lies the need to build the Socialist Equality Party and the
>> International Committee of the Fourth International—the only consistent
>> political opponents of world imperialism—as the revolutionary leadership of
>> the working class.
>>
>> Bill Van Auken and David North of the WSWS.ORG <http://wsws.org/>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
>
>
> *Medea Benjamin *
>
> *CODEPINK <http://codepink.org/> Co-founder *
> *(415) 235-6517 *
>
>
>

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