[Peace] JFP alert: WaPo attacks Bernie for opposing U.S. war crimes – in 1988

[Robert Naiman]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Just Foreign Policy <info at justforeignpolicy.org>
Date: Sat, May 4, 2019 at 1:51 PM
Subject: WaPo attacks Bernie for opposing U.S. war crimes – in 1988
To: <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>


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*No matter who is President, we need to re-establish the primacy of the
Constitution and the War Powers Resolution over war and peace. Urge
Congress to pass a concurrent resolution to end the U.S.-Saudi war in
Yemen.
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=A8x6Om5i%2Bco3S8ZcC1Z2OS0NJhcyH6BP>
*

Dear Robert,

On Friday, the *Washington Post* – which enthusiastically supported the
Iraq war, among many other crimes – ran an article
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=bUrd2x6DILdGwaulZbFfyC0NJhcyH6BP>
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.

You’ll never guess what the big scandal supposedly was. Reportedly, *Bernie
criticized U.S. foreign policy – **while “standing on foreign soil”*:

[...]
Then, at a banquet attended by about 100 people, *Sanders blasted the way
the United States had intervened in other countries, stunning one of those
who had accompanied him.* “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 *on home soil*.” [my emphasis]
[…]

Actually, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, *Americans
can criticize U.S. foreign policy wherever we want, wherever we happen to
be standing at the time*.

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.

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.

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.

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. *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.*

That’s a key reason – *in addition to the ten million lives in Yemen
hanging in the balance* – that we need to maintain focus on restoring
Congressional control over Yemen war powers.

*Please help us maintain public focus on the Congressional role in ending
unconstitutional war by signing and sharing our petition to Congress,
urging Congress to invoke the War Powers Resolution to pass a concurrent
resolution – not subject to presidential veto – to end unconstitutional
U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen.
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VUxEWKW18QrLlsYN0i96qS0NJhcyH6BP>*


Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Robert Reuel Naiman
Just Foreign Policy

*If you think our work is important, please make a donation to support it.*
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