There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin
Okla VFW commander says "Bring the troops home" | TPF counter-recruitment digest/update for Oct 2011
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2011
(scroll down for details about any story)
Lead stories since the last edition of TPF's Truth in Recruiting:
file under: worth repeating
Okla VFW commander says "Bring the troops home"
--The list of Oklahomans killed overseas continues to get longer. Emmitt Humphrey, the state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, says enough is enough.
related:
Veterans for Peace passes Resolution in favor of Impeachment of Obama for Unauthorized Use of Force
page 1
featured book review:
We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren
Review author: Realist — Published: Sep 15, 2011
quote:file under: modern warfare and the end of heroism
"If Joseph Heller's war began in 2004 instead of 1944, this would be the book entitled Catch-22. Once I picked up We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (available September 27), I could not put the book down. I could not believe so much that appears to be fictional satire could instead relate actual events. Author Peter Van Buren, a career State Department Foreign Service Officer (FSO), could have been Heller's Yossarian, a traveler adrift in a sea of official insanity, whose survival depends on pretending it is all as it should be until he can escape."
Pentagon: IED Use Soaring Worldwide
IED Defeat chief says no way to defeat IEDs
related:file under: the militarization of civilian life
Zillion Dollar War Against IEDs: Fail
Unless you are a war investor, says Andrew Cockburn
5 Household Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars
Learn which so-called "civilian" companies are making big bucks on today's wars.
facts & figures:
Chances are, if you’ve ever sent a package overnight, bought a PC or a can of soda, you’ve paid your hard-earned money to a major Pentagon contractor.
Super Committee Senator Rules Out Military Spending Cuts
Sec'y Panetta seeks to reassure arms makers that, despite civilian budget crunch, the U.S. is still the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today
facts & figures:related story:
According to the terms of the deal struck between Republicans and Democrats this summer, defense-related cuts of up to $600 billon are to kick in if Congress fails by the end of the year to find at least $1.2 trillion more in deficit reduction over the same period. The 12 congressional Democrats and Republicans serving on the super committee have until November 23 to forge a deficit-reduction deal that a majority can support.
If they fail, about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, divided equally between domestic and defense programs, would automatically begin in 2013.
Proponents of lower spending on the U.S. military --already 10 times greater than any other industrialized nation in the world-- are now in the position of hoping the Super Committee fails to do its job, so that the defense cuts actually happen as they should.
Senators want commission to consider overseas base closings
--call for the closing of dozens of overseas military bases, could save billions in wasteful spending
related Letter to the Editor
Bruce Fein on Defense Spending
quote:page 2
"If the nation embraced the founding fathers’ creed of 'Millions for defense, but not one cent for empire,' the national security budget could be slashed by 75% to $300 billion annually without impairing the safety of the United States from foreign attack. It would still leave America with the largest defense budget in the world while diminishing its foreign enemies — precisely because the vast majority of our enemies become such because they resent the U.S. for doing things like propping up foreign despots and using predator drones to indiscriminately kill people."
~Bruce Fein, noted conservative and constitutional expert
featured op/ed from North Texas:
False patriotism: Why Americans should boycott military service
-- Libertarians reject coercion, intimidation and fraud. There is no patriotism in wars of aggression.
quote:
"There is no patriotism in being used as a pawn in a politician's game of self-important strutting on a world stage."
featured radio program: Talk of the Nation
Soldiers Say It's Hard To Return To Civilian Life
Veterans’ unemployment outpaces civilian rate
--Since leaving the Army in 2008, Joseph has found that the rigorous training he gained during 18 years of military service means little to civilian employers.
Dozens of US parachutists injured in German exercise
--Forty-seven US soldiers were injured during a parachuting exercise at a US military base in southern Germany.
file under: SNAFU
Jet with Uranium Ammunition On Board Crashes in Germany
file under: SNAFU 2
Helicopter Crashes in Hawaii , Kills 1 marine and Released Radioactive Material
backpage
US Spy Plane Downed by North Korean ‘Jamming’
South Korea Report Says Plane Had to Make Emergency Landing
Red Crescent workers shot in Syria: three volunteers wounded
Motives for the shootings were unclear
UN Secretary General: Palestinian statehood is 'long overdue'
Ban Ki-moon says supports two-state solution for Middle East peace, adding that it was up to UN members whether or not to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
file under: Israel's crimes on the Mediterranean high seas
Turkish premier slams Obama for silence on Israel's Gaza flotilla raid
--Erdogan reiterates Ankara's intent to refer legality of Israel's blockade on Gaza (part of Palestine) to The Hague, saying the world will see 'who is standing alongside the victims'.
related:
Turkish Paper Lists Israelis It Says Were in Flotilla Raid
— A Turkish newspaper published the names and photographs of more than 140 Israeli soldiers who the paper said took part in the raid on a Turkish flotilla to Gaza last year that ended with the death of nine passengers, including one Turkish-American
facts & figures:
Turkey, which holds the Israeli government responsible for the nine deaths, has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and expelled the Israeli ambassador in Ankara, the Turkish capital. It says it is prepared to seek legal action against the Gaza blockade in the International Court of Justice.
related event:
Tulsa Peace Fellowship
monthly peace vigil, occupying the corner of 41st & Yale
U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!
Saturday, NOVEMBER 5th, 2011
Remember, remember, the 5th of November!
12:00 noon to 2:00 pm
bring your own protest sign, or brandish one of ours
Passers-by are encouraged to 'honk for peace', or flash us a peace sign.
epitaph for this edition of "Truth in Recruiting"
War is the most comprehensive social experiment people are capable of engaging in, when the circumstances to which they must conform change. It doesn't even take an order or the special command structure of an army for people to be able to shoot at anything that moves. All it takes is for the benchmarks of what is considered appropriate and correct to change.
Not everything can be blamed on the circumstances. Even under conditions of extreme violence, there are always individuals who defy the prevailing morality of the group. In most cases, and for good reason, it is outsiders who display the kind of behavior one would expect from people with a normal upbringing.
In one of the best-documented cases of a war crime, the massacre in the Vietnamese village of My Lai by American GIs in March 1968, it was a helicopter pilot who kept his fellow soldiers from committing even more murders. It was only when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson threatened to have his men shoot at their fellow GIs that they stopped their killing spree.
~Jan Fleischhauer, on rape, murder and genocide in times of war
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,755385-6,00.html
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2011
lead story
State VFW commander calls for our troops to come home
Aug. 17, 2011
Emmitt Humphrey, the state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, says enough is enough. Humphrey talked to KRMG just before Monday’s funeral for Staff Sgt. Kirk Owen in Sapulpa. He told us it is time to bring our boys home.
“This has gone on for ten years and we’ve lost way too many individuals. I may be criticized for saying that, but I don’t really care.”
Humphrey is no stranger to war. He served in Vietnam in 1969.
“We spent way too many years over there but not ten like our young men and women have been today. It’s gone on for too long.”
http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/state-vfw-commander-calls-our-t...
select comments, from facebook users:
Randy Smith : The VFW said that? Wow, that's really big.Rodney Boegel : Its PAST TIME to bring them home. Bravo for the VFW!
Veterans for Peace passes Resolution for the Impeachment of President Barack H. Obama For War Crimes
Resolution passed at their August plenary meeting:
Whereas, President Obama, on 19 March 2011, committed a criminal act by ordering the U.S. military to war in Libya without first obtaining the consent of the U.S. Congress in a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, and
Whereas, the illegal U.S. invasion, bombing and occupation of Iraq initiated by the Bush administration continues under the Obama administration; and
Whereas, the U.S. government is currently engaged in illegal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and President Obama pledged to increase the number of military personnel and tax dollars spent on the these wars, and
Whereas, the U.S. military used and continues to use depleted uranium munitions, cluster bombs and white phosphorous in densely populated areas in violation of U.S. laws and international laws and treaties prohibiting the indiscriminate killing of civilians; and,
Whereas, the Geneva Conventions specifically prohibit the use of especially injurious weapons and materials causing unnecessary harm that remain active and lethal after battle, and over large areas of land, and
Whereas, large numbers of babies born in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer life-long illness and deformity like severe disfigurements and brain damage, Down’s syndrome, and weak hearts doctors state are caused by the U.S. military’s massive and widespread use of toxic and radioactive materials, and
Whereas, millions upon millions of Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Somali, and Libyan civilians have been maimed, poisoned, displaced from their homes, and killed in a direct result of ongoing, illegal acts of war by the United States, and
Whereas, illegal, immoral and counterproductive detainee torture and brutalization at the hands of the U.S. military’s Immediate Reaction Force continue at Guantanamo under the Obama administration and in particular, the torture of Pfc. Bradley Manning at Quantico, Virginia, and
Whereas, President Obama is an accessory after the fact in obstructing justice by failing to order the Department of Justice to initiate investigations into numerous and blatant U.S. war crimes committed by the Bush administration, [etcetera]
http://veteransforpeace.org/convention_resolutions_2011a.vp.html
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2011
page 1
Book Review: We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren
Author: Realist — Published: Sep 15, 2011
If Joseph Heller's war began in 2004 instead of 1944, this would be the book entitled Catch-22. Once I picked up We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (available September 27), I could not put the book down. I could not believe so much that appears to be fictional satire could instead relate actual events.
Author Peter Van Buren, a career State Department Foreign Service Officer (FSO), could have been Heller's Yossarian, a traveler adrift in a sea of official insanity, whose survival depends on pretending it is all as it should be until he can escape. He relates tales of incredible hubris, inedible military rations, of status-seeking superiors and shady local grifters, corrupt "businessmen" both native and contracted, of brass-polishing officers and resigned enlisted personnel. All of these people are assigned to distribute massive mounds of Your Money in a poorly-researched and badly-managed effort to convert Iraq from an ancient tribal culture into a clone of suburban America while mired in a war with cultural and religious overtones. Yet the most basic needs of the local people are completely ignored in the incompetent planning of some incredibly expensive community development projects intended to nation-build Iraq.
Read full review online: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-we-meant-well-how/
Pentagon: IED Use Soaring Worldwide
IED Defeat chief says no way to defeat IEDs
by Jason Ditz, October 19, 2011
In comments which likely don’t augur well for his organization’s future, Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, the head of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, suggested there was no real way to defeat improvised explosive devices.
“If we think its going away after Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re dreaming,” Barbero said, noting that Pentagon stats show the weapons’ use soaring across the world, more than doubling in the past three years.
“It’s going to confront us operationally for decades,” Barbero added, terming the use of IEDs an “enduring threat.” The cheap, virtually impossible to detect explosives have become a major thorn in the side of the US military.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/10/19/pentagon-ied-use-soaring-worldwide/
related story:
Zillion Dollar War Against IEDs: Fail
Unless you are a war investor, says Andrew Cockburn
October 19, 2011
Interview available on demand as MP3 file
MP3 here. (19:31)
http://antiwar.com/radio/2011/10/19/andrew-cockburn-3/
FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors?
5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars
Learn which "civilian" companies are making big bucks on today's wars.
September 3, 2011
By Nick Turse
Chances are, if you’ve ever sent a package overnight, bought a PC or a can of soda, you’ve paid your hard-earned money to a major Pentagon contractor.
Tens of thousands of “civilian” companies, from multi-national corporations hawking toothpaste and shampoo to big oil behemoths and even local restaurants scattered across the United States, all supply the Pentagon with the necessities used to carry on day-to-day operations and wage America’s wars. And they’ve made a killing doing it since 9/11.
Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project, writing recently at TomDispatch.com, noted that since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has spent about $8 trillion on national security. Even accounting for all the funds paid out for troop salaries, overseas base construction and the training and equipping indigenous allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, among many other costs, it’s clear that vast sums of Pentagon money are flowing somewhere other than to the top weapons-makers. Unknown to most U.S. taxpayers and even many Pentagon-watchers, some of the largest and most recognizable corporations in the world have also been getting rich on America’s wars. Below are five examples of “civilian” companies that have reaped major rewards from the Pentagon during its last decade at war:
1. BP: The oil giant, perhaps most famous for dumping 206 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico last year, is also a perennial power when it comes to Pentagon contracts. Back in 2001, BP nabbed a cool $357 million in contracts from the Department of Defense. Last year, the number hit $1 billion and it’s no secret why. As defense-tech writer Noah Shachtman noted at Foreign Policy last year, the U.S. military burns “22 gallons of diesel [fuel] per soldier per day in Afghanistan, at a cost of more than $100,000 a person annually.”
2. FedEx: The overnight shipping giant is a long-time defense-contracting powerhouse that has also seen an exponential increase in contract dollars since September 10, 2001, when its stock was trading at just under $40 per share. By the end of that year, FedEx had been awarded about $211 million in contracts from the Pentagon. In 2010, the company received $1.4 billion from the Department of Defense and this year, with its stock closing in on $80 per share, has already passed the $1 billion mark, again. This includes a $182 million deal, inked in August, to pack and ship fresh fruit and vegetables to U.S. military bases overseas and a joint agreement, which also includes United Parcel Service (UPS) and Polar Air Cargo, which could last up to five years and potentially net the companies a combined $853 million.
3. Dell: If you’re in the military and you want to pilot a drone, transfer supplies or write a memo, you need a computer. That’s just what Dell provides. The desktop- and laptop-maker has been plying the Pentagon with computers for many years and, just like Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, has done especially well by the Department of Defense since 2001. That year, Dell was awarded $65 million in Pentagon contracts. By 2009, that number had jumped to $731 million and, over the course of the decade, has added up to a total of $4.3 billion in contracts for the PC manufacturer.
4. Kraft – From A-1 steak sauce, their signature mayonnaise and Oreo cookies to Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Planters peanuts and Wheat Thins crackers, this company ranks as one of the largest and best known food concerns in the world. Not surprisingly, it also does a brisk business with the Pentagon which has grown ever larger during the last decade. Back in 2001, Kraft inked $148 million in deals with the Department of Defense, by 2010, its yearly take had risen to $373 million.
5. Pepsi – Once upon a time it was the “choice of a new generation.” These days, it’s the choice of the Pentagon. In 2010, PepsiCo washed down $217 million in Defense Department contract dollars, compared to the mere $61 million in deals it inked back in 2001. Earlier this year, the company continued the trend by signing a multi-million dollar deal to provide the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps with “bag-in-box beverages.” (That very same day, Coca-Cola also received a slightly larger contract to provide drinks for the military.)
http://www.alternet.org/story/152295/fedex_and_pepsi_are_top_defens...
Super Committee Senator Rules Out Military Spending Cuts
Panetta Seeks to Reassure Arms Makers of Budget
by Jason Ditz, September 09, 2011
Various arms makers meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, have been reassured that he is firmly against the cuts, which he termed a “doomsday mechanism.” (sic)
The US military’s budget, as it stands, is the largest in the history of mankind. That each year going forward will be an even bigger budget is taken as a matter of course by the committee, and Sen. Kyl’s anger stems primarily from concerns that those future record budgets won’t be big enough increases over the previous year.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/09/09/super-committee-senator-rules-ou...
TPF: Of course U.S. senators in heavily militarized districts are going to stomp and scream if military budgets are cut; they are in office only because of defense industry campaign funders. This is what Eisenhower warned us about: the military-industrial-congressional complex.
more facts & figures:related story:
President Obama’s 2012 official budget request:
The baseline request for the Department of Defense (DOD) is $558 billion. The supplemental request to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is $118 billion. The request for the Department of Energy’s development and housing of nuclear weapons is $19.3 billion. DOD has $7.8 billion requested for “Miscellaneous.” The State Department requests $8.7 billion for counterterrorism programs. An additional $71.6 billion is requested for homeland security counterterrorism, including $18.1 billion for DOD and $53.5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services. National Intelligence Programs are budgeted for $53.1 billion. The Department of Veterans Affairs requests $129.3 billion to treat wounded veterans, a figure that is climbing exponentially as soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental and emotional traumas.
The foreign affairs budget, including both its military and counterterrorism components, is $18 billion. Payments to military and DOD civilian retirees are budgeted at $68.5 billion. Interest on the national debt attributed to past borrowing to fund the Pentagon is $185 billion.
This brings the national security budget of the United States for FY 2012 to a staggering total exceeding $1.2 trillion, or approximately one-third of the entire budget and almost 100 percent of the projected budget deficit.
Senators want commission to consider overseas base closings
by Leo Shane III, for Stars and Stripes
October 19, 2011
WASHINGTON — A pair of U.S. senators are calling for full review of the costs of overseas military bases, saying that closing dozens of the foreign facilities could save billions in wasteful spending.
Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, on Wednesday introduced legislation to create a new commission to “scrutinize the necessity of the United States’ current overseas basing structure” and do a cost-benefit analysis of closing multiple overseas bases.
Earlier in the week, the pair sent a letter to the congressional supercommittee charged with trimming $1.2 trillion in government spending, urging them to make significant cuts in future overseas military construction projects.
In particular, the letter called into question U.S. military projects in Europe and on Guam, saying the Defense Department has not justified the need for billions more in base spending there.
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform earlier this year estimated that “responsible” overseas base closings could save taxpayers $8.5 billion in the next four years. The president’s own Commission on Debt Reduction put that figure closer to $9 billion.
http://www.stripes.com/news/senators-want-commission-to-consider-ov...
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2011
page 2
featured op/ed from North Texas:
False patriotism: Why Americans should boycott military service
Garry Reed, Libertarian News Examiner
October 16, 2011
Libertarians reject coercion, intimidation and fraud, whether from government or individuals. Government, after all, is ultimately just a collection of individuals.
America's politicians - those individuals of government - fight wars of aggression, wars of empire, wars of personal ego, and give us fraudulent reasons for doing so.
There is no longer any shred of justification for the traditional mindless authority-idolizing government-worshipping knee-jerk patriotism paraded by the political right and opportunistically mimicked by the political left.
Soldiers today are not serving their country; they are simply serving their corrupt politicians.
The American military is supposed to be our protection against invasion from foreign aggressors. Instead, it has become nothing more than a plaything of the political classes.
While you're taking shrapnel in foreign lands your politician is eating caviar in the backseat of his limo on his way to his vacation condo that your stolen tax dollars bought for him.
While you're learning to walk on a prosthetic leg your politician is sending his son to Harvard with the tax money he stole from your parents.
While you're burying your buddies with flags and bugles and 21-gun salutes the politician who sent them to their deaths is having afternoon sex with his mistress.
And while your dead young body is rotting in its grave your politician is writing his self-serving ego-preening memoirs.
The only true patriotism a soldier can claim is fighting against foreign invaders who would enslave or kill his family and friends.
There is no patriotism in wars of aggression.
There is no patriotism in being used as a pawn in a politician's game of self-important strutting on a world stage.
The only way to make the politicians stop using military personnel as their own private battlefield fodder is for young people to boycott the military until the politicians have no choice but to stop their empire building and return to defending America.
This is why truly patriotic Americans who believe in freedom and decency and justice are saying, "The World Can't Wait," "We Are Not Your Soldiers!" and "Do Not Join The Military."
http://www.examiner.com/libertarian-news-in-national/false-patrioti...
Soldiers Say It's Hard To Return To Civilian Life
It's a rare time in U.S. military history: During the longest period of sustained warfare, members of the military make up just one-half of 1 percent of the U.S. population. With fewer people sharing the burden, many veterans are having a difficult time adjusting to civilian life.
Spc. Nick Colgin, out-of-work veteran
Paul Taylor, executive vice president, Pew Research Center
Gen. Mike Davidson, retired Army major general
http://www.wbur.org/npr/141213271/soldiers-say-its-hard-to-return-t...
Veterans’ unemployment outpaces civilian rate
by Michael A. Fletcher
CLEVELAND — Despite the marketing pitch from the armed forces, which promises to prepare soldiers for the working world, recent veterans are more likely to be unemployed than their civilian counterparts.
Veterans who left military service in the past decade have an unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, well above the overall jobless rate of 9.1 percent, according to fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The elevated unemployment rate for new veterans has persisted despite repeated efforts to reduce it.
A Pew Research Center survey released this month found that 44 percent of veterans who served in the past decade called the transition back to civilian life difficult — nearly double the rate of veterans who served before them.
Veterans receive preference when applying for federal and a wide range of other government jobs. They qualify for government-funded education and job training. Industry groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce host job fairs aimed at veterans. And a host of firms target veterans for jobs they consider hard to fill.
But such programs have not significantly reduced the jobless rate among veterans.
“There are not that many people who have a military background, and they need to go about the process of learning how military skills relate to other jobs,” said Bill Scott, a vice president at Bradley-Morris, a career placement firm that focuses on veterans.
Trenton Marshall, 25, shipped out for the Navy in 2005. He was in Jacksonville, Fla., for most of that time, training and working as an aviation machinist’s mate. Now he is out of work, waiting to start school at Cleveland State University, where he plans to use his veteran’s benefits to train as a physician’s assistant.
“I hit the revolving door,” he said. “In interviews, people are all smiles. ‘Thank you for your service. You did a great deed.’ All of that. But then you’d get a letter saying you are unqualified, and you sit there like ‘say what?’ ”
© The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/veterans-unemploymen...
Oct 6, 2011, Deutsche Press-Agentur
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1667229....
Jet with Uranium Ammunition on board crashed, in Germany
A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes near Spangdahlem Air Base
By Kevin Dougherty and Marcus Klöckner
for Stars and Stripes
April 1, 2011
http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/germany/a-10-thunderbolt-ii-cras...
file under: SNAFU 2
Helicopter Crashes in Hawaii , Kills 1 marine and Released Radioactive Material
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php
More coverage:
Kaneohe sandbar deemed safe after radiological testing
Reported by: Andrew Pereira
Published: 2nd Sept 2011
http://www.khon2.com/news/local/story/Kaneohe-sandbar-deemed-safe-a...
more coverage still:
http://www.disappearednews.com/2011/09/kaneohe-sandbar-helicopter-c...
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2011
backpage
US Spy Plane Downed by North Korean ‘Jamming’ During March Drill
South Korea Report Says Plane Had to Make Emergency Landing
by Jason Ditz, September 09, 2011
According to officials, the plane’s GPS system failed because of jamming signals broadcast in North Korea’s cities of Haeju and Kaesong. It was forced to land just 45 minutes after it took off.
Tensions between North and South Korea had been rising during the period, and South Korean officials repeatedly announced new military drills along the tense naval border for several months leading up to the incident.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/09/09/us-spy-plane-downed-by-north-kor...
Red Crescent workers shot in Syria
Published: Sept. 9, 2011
HOMS, Syria, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Three volunteers with the Syrian Red Crescent Society were wounded when their ambulance was fired upon in Homs, the Red Cross said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said three volunteers with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were wounded, one seriously, when their ambulance was fired upon after it ran over downed power lines.
"The Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies join in calling on all those involved in the violence to do their utmost to facilitate Red Crescent efforts to come to the aid, in a fully impartial manner, of those in need," the ICRC said in a statement.
The ICRC said circumstances surrounding the shootings were unclear.
Damascus has faced increasing international isolation for its violent crackdown on anti-regime demonstrators. More than 2,000 people have been killed, allegedly by Syrian forces, since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began early this year.
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger met with Assad this week following a visit to the central prison in Damascus.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/09/09/Red-Crescent-workers...
UN Secretary General: Palestinian statehood is 'long overdue'
Ban Ki-moon says supports two-state solution for Middle East peace, adding that it was up to UN members whether or not to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
By Haaretz
Sept 9th, 2011
The Palestinian people are "long overdue" in their quest for an independent state, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday, ahead of a Palestinian push for statehood in the UN planned for later this month.
Ban's comments came a day after Palestinian activists launched a campaign for the recognition of a Palestinian state in the United Nations.
In a letter addressed to Ban's Ramallah office, Palestinian activists urged the leader of the international community to "exert all possible efforts toward the achievement of the Palestinian people's just demands."
Speaking on Friday, the UN chief was quoted by the French news agency AFP as saying he fully supported Palestinian statehood: "The two state vision where Israel and Palestinians can live... side by side in peace and security -- that is a still a valid vision and I fully support it."
"And I support also the statehood of Palestinians; an independent, sovereign state of Palestine. It has been long overdue," Ban told reporters in Canberra, adding that a "recognition of a state is something to be determined by the member states."
Ban stressed the point further, saying, according to AFP, that it was not a decision to be made "by the Secretary General so I leave it to the member states to decide to recognize or not to recognize."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian request for recognition of statehood within the 1967 borders had reached a point of no return and he could not retract it.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/un-secretary-general-...
Erdogan slams Obama for silence on Israel's Gaza flotilla raid
Turkish premier reiterates Ankara's intent to refer legality of Israel's blockade on Gaza to The Hague, saying the world will see 'who is standing alongside the victims'.
By DPA and Haaretz
10th Sept 2011
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated on Saturday his country's intent to refer the legality of Israel's Gaza blockade to The Hague, adding a criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama's position regarding Israel's 2010 of a Turkish Gaza-bound flotilla.
Speaking a convention of businessmen in the central Turkish city of Kayseri broadcast live on Turkey's state news channel TRT Erdogan vowed to continue the legal struggle for justice for the nine people killed in the raid [including one American killed].
Erdogan was also deeply critical of the United States position on the Mavi Marmara incident, pointing out that he had to point out to Obama how the attack had left nine Turks dead from wounds inflicted by 35 bullets mostly fired from close range, one of them an American passport holder.
"I asked President Obama whether the reason he showed no interest in one of his nationals being killed was because [the victim] was [ethnically] Turkish - he didn't reply," said Erdogan.
Edogan's comments came a week Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu first indicated that Turkey was to appeal the International Court of Justice in The Hague as soon as next week in order to probe the legality of Israel's naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, saying that Turkey could not "accept the blockade on Gaza."
"We cannot say that the blockade aligns with international law," he said, adding that the stance taken by the Palmer Commission Report was the author's "personal opinion, one which does not correspond with Turkey's position."
He added: "We are bound by the International Court of Justice. We say that the ICJ decides."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erdogan-slams-obama-f...
Turkish Paper Lists Israeli Soldiers It Says Were in Flotilla Raid
--Israeli Soldiers Complicit in Crime on High Seas
By Sebnem Arsu
September 26, 2011
New York Times
ISTANBUL — A Turkish newspaper published the names and photographs on Monday of more than 140 Israeli soldiers who the paper said took part in the raid on a Turkish flotilla to Gaza last year that ended with the death of nine passengers and created a diplomatic standoff between Turkey and Israel.
The newspaper, Sabah, said the Turkish government began searching for the soldiers’ identities after the Israeli authorities failed to cooperate in an investigation that prosecutors in Turkey said could lead to legal action.
The newspaper report received scant attention in Israel, where officials declined to comment. Others there described it as a recycled conglomeration of similar lists that have been circulating on the Internet.
Television analysts in Israel noted that the list included some well-known Israeli figures who had long since left the military, which they said gave some indication of its accuracy. There is, however, real concern in Israel about Turkey’s threats of legal action over the raid.
The newspaper, a pro-government daily, reported that a senior Turkish prosecutor had authorized the investigation, which filtered all available film and other visuals from the flotilla raid for facial images that could be matched to photographs on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Some of the names, Sabah said, were provided by flotilla passengers who were interrogated by the Israelis after the lead ship was towed in May 2010 to the port of Ashdod, in Israel. Others were gleaned from public postings and the Web links they contained.
Sabah said the list would be forwarded to the Israeli military for confirmation before any legal action was taken in Turkey or abroad.
The Turkish government holds Israel responsible for the deaths of the nine passengers. The Israeli government has refused to officially apologize for the raid on the flotilla, which was trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Turkey has said an apology is a condition for the normalization of relations, and it is demanding that Israel provide compensation for relatives of the dead and that it lift the Gaza embargo.
Turkey, which has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and expelled the Israeli ambassador in Ankara, the capital, says it is prepared to seek legal action against the Gaza blockade in the International Court of Justice.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/world/europe/turkish-paper-names-...
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Oct 2011
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who we are:
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma, building the left-right antiwar alliance. TPF offers citizens and community groups tools and resources to participate personally in our democracy, to help shape federal budget and policy priorities, and to promote peace, social and economic justice, and human rights. TPF is a registered non-profit organization and a non-partisan civic-sector organization, loosely affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration, north side of Tulsa.
"Waging Peace One Person at a Time".
Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a member of the National Network in Opposition to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) representing some 188 counter-recruitment groups in cities and towns across the country. On the web: http://www.nnomy.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=v...
Tulsa Peace Fellowship is open to members of third parties, independents, progressives, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Green Party members, etc. If you have not already done so, please join the new social networking tool for TPF on Ning, in lieu of TPFtalks on yahoogroups, which has fallen into disuse Thank you! You can check out our new tool here: https://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/ (new for 2011) Also still going strong: our announcement list on yahoo! tulsapeace@yahoogroups.com (since 2002) Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for "tulsapeace"If you enjoyed this news digest and/or found this update useful, please consider making a donation of time, money, or effort to the Tulsa Peace Fellowship.
TPF needs your support.
You can donate online via PINC (pull down menu for US$ donations)
http://www.pincgiving.com/donate/organization/1202854
Or, please mail a check or money order made out to the"Tulsa Peace Fellowship" to :
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship
c/o UU Church of the Restoration,
1314 N. Greenwood Ave, Tulsa Oklahoma. 74106-4854
Find on a map: Google Maps link
Contributions to TPF are not tax deductible at the present time. Details on tax status available.
The next monthly anti-war demo in Tulsa is
Saturday Nov 5th, 2011, 12noon to 2pm, with the theme: "U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now!"
The next regularly scheduled business meeting of the Fellowship will be held 5 days later
on Thursday, Nov 10th 2011, 6:15 PM – 7:30 PM @ the UU Church of the Restoration, in Tulsa, just north of downtown
--including members from other local non-partisan groups such as Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi, and the Quakers
Come join us! Especially parents, guardians, and students in the Tulsa Public Schools system who are interested in countering the presence of military recruiters on school grounds.
An archive of TPF counter-recruitment updates and other related TPF material is available to members online:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tulsapeace/
You must sign in to yahoo! groups to see the archived "message history"
TPF messages have been archived online since 2002
TPF was founded some 30 years ago.
Current membership online: 692 subscribers
The information provided in this digest/update herein is for non-profit use only, according to "fair use" doctrine. Copyright and all commercial exploitation rights remain with the various authors/publishers cited above. The Tulsa Peace Fellowship does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the articles appearing herein.
further information
IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. Tulsa Peace Fellowship HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THESE ARTICLES NOR IS Tulsa Peace Fellowship ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATORS.
SOURCE ARTICLE LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE SOURCE ARTICLE LINKS, OR INDEED, THE WEBPAGES MAY NO LONGER EVEN EXIST.
Strength Through Peace: Out of Iraq & Afghanistan
Accountability: Indict & Imprison Bush & Cheney for War Crimes
JROTC: Out of Our Schools
Schools as Military-Free Zones
Alternatives to War: Department of Peace & cabinet-level Secretary of Peace
THE 10 REASONS
Ten excellent reasons not to join the military:
a.. You Oct Be Killed, Even By Mistake
b.. You Oct Kill Others Who Do Not Deserve to Die
c.. You Oct Be Injured
d.. You Oct Not Receive Proper Medical Care
e.. You Oct Suffer Long-term Health Problems
f.. You Oct Be Lied To
g.. You Oct Face Discrimination
h.. You Oct Be Asked to Do Things Against Your Beliefs
i.. You Oct Find It Difficult to Leave the Military
j.. You Have Other Choices, including the Choice to Learn a Marketable Skill
for more info:
http://www.10reasonsbook.com/medcare.htm
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