United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

Noting the "normalization of the monstrous, the transmutation of the radical and stunning reality of U.S. torture into a reasonable topic of 'debate' . . . without any mention of the law" in a "60 Minutes" segment broadcast by CBS on Apr. 29 featuring former head of CIA Clandestine Services Jose Rodriguez, Rob Crawford of UW Tacoma said Saturday in a piece posted on the Common Dreams website that there are "two possible explanations" for the CIA's pro-torture media offensive:  (1) the CIA may be seeking to preempt an upcoming report on CIA torture from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; (2) The Rodriguez-CIA initiative may seek to provide Mitt Romney with more support for his pro-torture position.[1]  --  Rodriguez's media interventions also riled Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, who issued a statement saying that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report "will show that enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA were not effective in helping find terror suspects," AFP reported on Apr. 30.[2]  --  A New York Times piece focused on the case of Osama bin Laden; like the AFP piece it made no mention of the fact that torture is clearly and unequivocally illegal under U.S. and international law.[3]  --  An opinion piece published May 2 by a member of the Bloomberg View editorial board denounced torture as "the wrong thing to do" and lamented that the question of torture has become "hopelessly partisan," but also neglected to mention that its illegality.[4] ...

In a detailed background piece, the BBC explained recently how, in Greece, "a combination of historical factors, the position of the E.U., and a demographic radicalization of young people [has] propelled [Syriza,] one of the furthest left parties in any European parliament[,] to within a few steps of forming a government[,] and provok[ed] a showdown with the E.U. that would doubtless see Greece's suspension or exit from the Euro."[1]  --  The charismatic 38-year-old leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, may be thrust into "the Morales role," Paul Mason mused.  --  "Of all the left party leaders he is the least encumbered by a rigid ideology, because Syriza remains highly diverse and internally democratic as a party.  And he is tangibly a generation younger than the other leaders."  --  Syriza has proved itself able to draw support from a wide variety of demographic groups:  "[a]narchist-minded youth, . . . [m]iddle-class and professional workers, including many public servants, . . .[p]rivate-sector trade unionists, . . . [m]igrants and the urban poor, [and s]mall businesspeople who . . . have been radicalized by the tax rises, tax clampdowns, and repeated heavy policing of demonstrations, and who are the most likely to be ruined by any long-term structural reform in Greece."  --  Polls show that about 27% of voters may support Syriza, and "[i]f, in the next election, Syriza scores 26% it would get about the same number of seats, under the vote redistribution rule, as N.D. got this time -- say just over 100.  If, on top of that the Dem Left vote holds up, with about 20 seats, and the Communists retain their 26 seats, that is very close to the 150 they would need for a majority." ...

Front de Gauche co-president Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who won 11.1% of the vote in the first round of France’s presidential election on Apr. 22, 2012, announced late Friday that he would take his challenge to the far-right Front National into Marine Le Pen’s electoral district and attempt to defeat her there.  --  The result promised to be an epic (Mélenchon says “Homeric”) battle between the emerging leader of the French gauche de la gauche and Marine Le Pen, the daughter and successor of the founder of France’s anti-immigrant Front National.  --  Without a doubt, this will be the highest-profile race of France’s crucial mid-June legislative election, and it is one in which the odds seem to be against Mélenchon.  --  A complete translation of Mélenchon’s press statement announcing his campaign is posted below.[1]  --  NOTE:  Mélenchon has been called the best French-language orator alive.  --  In this declaration, he adapts his rhetoric to the new campaign.  --Mark]

You're invited on Sun., May 20, at 3:00 p.m., to a memorable afternoon featuring the culinary wizardry of Rosalind Bell.  --  This event will be entertaining, educational, and delectable, and includes an assortment of wines.  --  This salon is a fund-raiser for United for Peace of Pierce County.  --  RSVP requested but not required.  --  More information below.[1] ...

On Thursday Wired's Danger Room blog revealed details of an anti-Islamic course called "Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism" was taught "[f]or the better part of the last decade" at the Defense Department's Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, VA, to "commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains, and colonels" who have now "moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military."[1]  --  Officers were taught that "there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam’” and that "[t]his barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated.  Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction,” Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman reported.  --  U.S. Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley went so far as to propose the destruction of Mecca and Medina, Islam's most holy cities, "the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki," and invited to his class "anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers."  --  The London Guardian reported Friday that while the Pentagon is moving to suppress these outrageous teachings, they are "merely the latest example in a proliferation of anti-Muslim teaching materials in law-enforcement agencies."[2]  --  The London Independent reported that "Offered five times a year for groups of 20 at a time, the course may have been taught to as many as 800 mid-level and senior US military officers before the Pentagon closed it down."[3] ...

The achievement of a deal with Kadima has enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel elections and become "the most powerful Prime Minister in Israeli history," Canada's Globe and Mail reported Tuesday.[1]  --  Now "Mr. Netanyahu can govern any way he wishes, including launching a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities or even shaping a peace with the Palestinians," Patrick Martin said.  --  "[T]he government will proceed quickly with abolishing the practice of giving military exemptions to tens of thousands of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men; with addressing the age-old issue of changing the electoral system to make it more difficult for tiny parties to be elected; and even with reopening the peace process with Palestinian leaders."  --  "[T]he recently elected Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich . . . denounced the accord.  'This is a pact of cowards and the most contemptible and preposterous zigzag in Israel’s political history,' she said.  'Nobody will ever forget this shady deal, and unfortunately, this will cause profound damage to public faith in politics.'” ...

Economist Paul Krugman, who only three weeks ago was denouncing Europe's apparent determination to commit "suicide by economic crisis," welcomed the victory of François Hollande in the final round of France's presidential contest on May 6:  " It was actually kind of funny to see the apostles of orthodoxy trying to portray the cautious, mild-mannered François Hollande as a figure of menace.  He is 'rather dangerous,' declared the Economist, which observed that he 'genuinely believes in the need to create a fairer society.'  Quelle horreur! . . . [T]he end of 'Merkozy' . . . would be a 'dangerous' development if that strategy were working, or even had a reasonable chance of working.  But it isn’t and doesn’t; it’s time to move on.  Europe’s voters, it turns out, are wiser than the Continent’s best and brightest. . . . The Germans . . . will no longer have unquestioning support from the Élysée Palace.  And that, believe it or not, means that both the euro and the European project now have a better chance of surviving than they did a few days ago."[1] ...

Americans look "not like people who have won," but like "scared, fearful losers" after ten years of post-9/11 war, said Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.  --  "We continue to turn down the visa applications of hundreds of thousands of tourists, businessmen, artists, and performers who simply want to visit America and spend money here, and become ambassadors of good will for this country," wrote the influential centrist middlebrow foreign-policy intellectual.  --  "We continue to treat even those visitors who arrive with visas as hostile aliens -- checking, searching, and deporting people at will.  We continue to place new procedures and rules to monitor everything that comes in and out of the country, making doing business in America less attractive and more burdensome than in most Western countries."[1]  --  "The rise of this national security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government's powers that now touch every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism." ...

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll's new book about ExxonMobil explores the closed, strict, quasi-military corporate culture of the world's largest company by revenue.  --  A brief interview with Coll was published Sunday by Reuters.[1] ...

At a "war-court compound called Camp Justice" located on Guantánamo Bay Navy Base on Saturday, "Pentagon-paid defense lawyers . . . pepper[ed] the proceedings with a long litany of procedural protests," the Miami Herald reported.[1]  --  At issue at the hearing was the appointment of defense counsel for Mustafa al Hawsawi, Ammar al Baluchi, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Walid Bin Attash, and Khalik Sheikh Mohammad, but when the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, asked the defendants whether they understood what was being said, none replied, Carol Rosenberg said.  --  "[S]o he noted over and over again for the record, 'accused refuses to answer.'  And, then one by one, the judge unilaterally appointed their Pentagon-paid attorneys to defend them."  --  The London Guardian reported that Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, "said the silence of the defendants at today's hearing was 'not surprising,' adding that 'nothing will happen for the next three years' in terms of the case ever coming to trial."[2]  --  On Friday, the Guardian's Chris McGeal reported that Morris Davis, the former colonel who was chief prosecutor when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was brought to Guantánamo in 2006, has denounced the current military trial, saying that "The truth is the reason the apologists want a second-rate military commission option is because of what we did to the detainees, not because of what the detainees did to us.  If you look beneath the layers on why there's even an argument for military commissions, it's really about our mistreatment of detainees . . . because of what most people would call torture, it makes it a greater challenge to prosecute the cases in our regular courts."[3]  --  The new legal régime devised under Obama has "new rules that do not allow a defendant's own confessions under torture to be used against him.  But the statements of others who were tortured can be used which permits the interrogations of the five accused to be used against each other," McGeal said.  --  "The military tribunal rules also forbid discussion of torture and other sensitive information that would be heard in a civilian court. The public and press are kept behind a glass screen at Guantanamo and the proceedings they hear are subject to a 40-second delay so censors can block testimony the government does not want made public."  --  "Human rights groups have also criticized the Guantanamo tribunals because the military gets to hand pick the judge and jury, which is made up of men and women serving in the forces fighting al-Qaida.  The prosecution has considerable control over defence lawyers' access to evidence and ability to subpoena witnesses.  Davis said the trials will be discredited in the eyes of much of the world." ...

The largest English-language newspaper in Pakistan, The News International, reported Friday that in the one year that has elapsed since a U.S. special forces team killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, almost as many people ("around 467") have been killed in U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan as have been killed by suicide bombers ("over 536").[1]  --  Even as this story was going to press, another suicide bomber in Pakistani killed 24 in the most lethal attack there since Feb. 17.[2]  --  Overland U.S. supply routes through Pakistan have been closed since Nov. 26, 2011, when a NATO air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and Reuters reported Friday that no agreement to reopen seems imminent; as a result, the military is spending "two-and-a-half times as much to ship some supplies through Central Asia."[3]  --  "In a report released this week, the Defense Department warned that a prolonged closure of the supply routes could 'significantly degrade' withdrawal operations as NATO nations try to establish a modicum of stability in Afghanistan before most of their troops are pulled out at the end of 2014," Missy Ryan said.  --  On Apr. 29 the U.S. resumed its drone war inside Pakistan, killing four with an attack in North Waziristan.[4]  --  "Some politicians said the drone strikes might set back already difficult negotiations over the reopening of vital NATO supply routes to Afghanistan that Pakistan blocked five months ago," the Washington Post reported last week.[5]  --  But the routes are important not only for supply, but to permit the withdrawal of U.S. equipment:  "The supply convoy routes from Pakistani seaports into land-locked Afghanistan . . . are crucial for the exit of U.S. troops and equipment in the combat-force withdrawal that is scheduled for completion by the end of 2014.  . . . [T]he military has concluded that the tens of thousands of heavy vehicles and other materiel amassed over a decade of warfare in Afghanistan cannot be carried over [Central Asian] routes without enormous expense and effort, or within existing agreements with countries to the north."  --  So the U.S. is using financial pressure to bend Pakistani will:  Richard Leiby and Karen DeYoung noted that "no U.S. payments [to Pakistan have been] made since mid-2010." ...

On Tues., May 15, a new work by composer Gregory Youtz will have its world premiere at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.  --  "Drum Taps: Nine Poems on Themes of War" is an orchestral and choral work that evokes the experience of war.  --  Taking its title from Walt Whitman, the 55-minute piece was inspired by nine poems from diverse cultures.  --  Tickets are $8.00 general, $3.00 PLU Alumni, and students under 18 are free.  --  See below for more information about the work, as well as a link to a videoclip in which Youtz discusses his new work.[1] ...

In his surprise prime-time address to Americans from a military base in Afghanistan Tuesday President Barack Obama proclaimed that "this time of war" -- what Lesley Clark and Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchy Newspapers called the "wars of 9/11" -- "will end in Afghanistan."[1]  --  But he didn't say when, and Landay and Clark noted that "just hours after Obama departed, as many as six suicide bombers early Wednesday attacked a sprawling, heavily guarded compound on the eastern edge of downtown Kabul where international contractors are housed."  --  Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC said that the pact signed by Obama and Karzai "commits a war-weary American public to at least another twelve years of involvement in some fashion."[2] ...

Barack Obama has sprung a dramatic politico-diplomatic surprise two weeks before the NATO summit in Chicago.  --  After a secret trip to Afghanistan, the American president went to the presidential palace in Kabul to sign an agreement with Hamid Karzai.  --  Then, in a live speech from Bagram Air Base timed to reach a prime-time audience in the U.S., he proclaimed on the first anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden that "this time of war" is coming to an end in Afghanistan.[1]  --  Promising that "by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country," he endeavored to strike a triumphalist note:  "As we emerge from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it is time to renew America . . . a united America of grit and resilience, where sunlight glistens off soaring new towers in downtown Manhattan, and we build our future as one people, as one nation."  --  The New York Times noted that "The pact . . . does not contain specific dollar commitments by the United States, which has led some critics to dismiss it as less a blueprint than a symbolic gesture."[2]  --  The Los Angeles Times noted that Obama timed his speech for American prime time and spoke standing in front of armored vehicles.[3] ...

In an incident that was the first of its kind, a member of Afghanistan's carefully vetted élite special forces opened fire on an American mentor and his translator, killing both at a U.S. military base in Kandahar province, Reuters reported Friday.[1]  --  "At least 18 foreign soldiers have died this year in 11 incidents of so-called green on blue shootings, which are an increasing worry for both NATO and Afghan commanders, eroding trust as Western combat troops look to leave the country in 2014," Isamel Sameem said.  --  The U.S. soldier killed was identified as Andrew Britton, 25, a Green Beret from Simi Valley, CA, the New York Times said.[2]  --  "[A] senior Afghan military officer said that although initial reports said the gunfire took place during a raid, the authorities later determined that it happened on a joint base in Kajore, a village in the district," according to Rod Nordland.  --  Last year a political and behavioral scientist working for the U.S. in Afghanistan, observed that the magnitude of green-on-blue killings "may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern history."  --  COMMENT:  It was incidents like this one that led UFPPC to call the war in Afghanistan "the most absurd war in American history." ...

At 7:30 p.m. on Wed., May 2, Tacomans have a rare opportunity to hear Abed Abusrour of Palestine, the charismatic internationally known founder and director of the Al Rowwad Cultural & Theater Society in Bethlehem, Palestine.  --  Dr. Abusrour will speak at the Fircrest United Methodist Church on his concept of "Beautiful Resistance."[1]  --  The Tacoma Weekly devoted an article to Dr. Abusrour's upcoming visit on Apr. 25.[2]  --  Last week Radio France Internationale quoted Dr. Abusrour's comments on Israel's interference with hundreds of tourists barred from entering the West Bank to participate in a cultural festival.[3]  --  BACKGROUND:  --  Abusrour uses activities like sports, the arts, and theater to give children forms of self-expression that are an alternative to violence.  --  He complements these programs by training parents and community members in non-violent resistance.  --  Abusrour has written:  "Arts are such amazing tools and ways that shows what beauty and humanity we have inside everyone of us, illuminating us in the darkness of injustice, ignorance, and intolerance. . . . Arts make people closer to each other. . . . They are like love, showing to us the beauty of those who we love and masking everything else."  --  Abed Abusrour was elected to an Ashoka Fellowship in 2006.  --  He has spoken before in Tacoma, in 2008....

In a rare interview, the chief of staff of the Israeli military told Haaretz that he does not believe that Iran will choose to develop nuclear weapons.[1]  --  Lt.Gen. Benny Gantz said:  "If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision must first be taken. . . . I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile.  I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people." ...

On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama went to the U.S. Holocaust Museum to announce the establishment of an Atrocity Prevention Board that will be chaired by Samantha Power, McClatchy Newspapers reported.[1]  --  (It will be recalled that Power, 41, was an early Obama supporter and now heads the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights as Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council.  She is the author of The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide [2003].  Power, it will be recalled, resigned from the Obama campaign after she was quoted as saying that Hillary Clinton was "a monster.")  --  Obama used the same occasion to announce new sanctions on Iran and Syria, issuing an executive order establishing "financial and U.S visa sanctions against those who perpetrate or assist in what the White House calls 'Grave Human Rights Abuses Via Information Technology' in Syria and Iran -- or GHRAVITY," Lesley Clark said (you don't think we could invent this stuff, do you?)  --  COMMENT:  The U.S. administration, determined to subvert diplomatic efforts to end violence in Syria and resolve the Iran-P5+1 nuclear stand-off, is apparently injecting new sanctions into a delicate diplomatic conjuncture in an effort to sabotage them.  --  Accentuating the irony of what Obama did on Monday is the fact that it comes just as whistleblower William Binney is reporting that the National Security Agency is engaged daily in massive violation of the constitutional rights of virtually every American citizen -- news that U.S. mainstream media are studiously ignoring.  --  As Digital Journal reported, "When [Amy] Goodman asked if the government currently has copies of all emails sent by U.S. citizens within the United States (at 46:05 in the video clip), Binney replied, 'I believe they have most of them, yes.'"  --  Talk about GHRAVITY!  --  Perhaps the White House should announce sanctions against itself....

Jean-Luc Mélenchon had set a goal of finishing ahead of the Front National's Marine Le Pen in the first round of France's presidential election.  --  He garnered only 11% to her 18%.  --  But after the results were announced Sunday evening, he was unbowed in remarks to supporters in the place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad (Paris 10e & 19e), which are translated in toto below.[1] ...

And why not?  --  "I think he didn’t use the word ‘capitalism’ because that would have implied that capitalism was one of a number of competing possible systems -- and Marx didn’t believe that.  He didn’t think it was possible to move past capitalism without a fundamental overturning of the existing social, political, and philosophical order.  He was right:  no alternative has developed," John Lanchester argued in a self-confessedly amateurish essay in the the Apr. 5 numbre of the London Review of Books.[1]  --  Though prescient in many things Marx failed to anticipate the following characteristics of the contemporary world:  (1) "no organized global proletariat"; (2) "the variety of different forms of capitalism which would evolve"; (3) the "diversity of our interests and roles in contemporary capitalism"; (4) "that nature’s resources are finite."  --  COMMENT:  To these one can add another phenomenon that Marx failed to foresee:  the opiate of quasi-religious nationalism....