Tag: NATO

Getting to peace and social justice

Posted on by kathiemm
Anti-nuclear arms protesters display a banner during the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) rally at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. April16,2011. Author: Brian Stansberry

By Anthony Marsella

Here  is a straightforward list of actions and policies to promote peace amidst the madness of pursuing destruction and war for the apparent rewards of empire, economic, and delight in immorality and illegality.

Productive Foreign Policy and Domestic Options, Choices, Alternatives: Paths to Peace and Social Justice

  • Acknowledge the national security of the USA is best secured by pursuing and modeling peace, not by engaging in constant accusations and enemification of nations, cultures, religions, and people;
  • Address and resolve domestic inequities and inequalities in wealth, power, and position. Create new policies for equity and opportunity;
  • Address and limit monopolies (e.g., Big Agro, Big Pharm, Big Health, Big Transportation, Big Education, etc.) because these monopolies concentrate power, and they become impossible to control – “Too big to fail.”
  • Address the reality of USA decline in reputation and image by stopping the pursuit of a global empire;
  • Adopt a “Never Again” policy and practices for all countries, by all countries. “Never again” must not be limited to a single group or nation;
  • Apologize and ask for forgiveness in a public forum. Express intention to no  longer pursue violence and war as national policy;
  • “Be the nation you want others to be;”
  • Build museums, monuments, holidays, and tributes to peace. Stop glorification of war;
  • Cease all vilification of Muslims and Muslim nations;
  • Condemn and prosecute apartheid;
  • Choose and support non-violent and non-killing protests and social changes;
  • Circulate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  (UDHR) to all schools and governments as an accepted guide;
  • Close Guantanamo, and other “war on terrorism”  prisons, camps, and rendition sites;
  • Destroy all weapons of mass destruction Nuclear, Toxic, Gas, etc);
  • Develop Department of Peace as an official standing cabinet office separate from State or Defense Departments;
  • Develop a metric to assess and prosecute USA international abuses and crimes;
  • Develop metrics to assess USA contributions to advancing humanity and the natural sectors. Assess metrics constantly;
  • Develop, implement, and empower UN conflict resolution office;
  • Develop ethic/ethos of global interdependency;
  • Diplomacy dialogue, rather than military force or violent interventions;
  • Educate women and children, and re-educate men;
  • Empower UN, and improve its functions and roles;
  • End corporate political election influence, control, and dominance;
  • End global surveillance and restore privacy and constitutional rights;
  • Increase governmental transparency and accountability;
  • International loan forgiveness;
  • Join and cooperate with international courts;
  • Limit “imperial” president powers as reflected in abuses of signing statements;
  • Limit lobbyist influence and control of public offices;
  • Limit Presidential terms of office to six years;
  • Limit Congressional terms of office to eight years. End seniority system of power;
  • Limit military-industrial-congressional- education complex powers;
  • Non-Contingent humanitarian aid and assistance, rather than contingent aid;
  • Practice humility, apology, and forgiveness;
  • Prosecute American war and military crimes to national and international laws;
  • Public apology for violent and destructive national and international policies and actions (e.g. NATO);
  • Reconsider political and economic treaties that isolate and marginalize nations (e.g., TPP) and seek hegemonic control (e.g., Russia, China);
  • Resist military solutions to conflicts and disagreements – choose diplomacy;
  • Restore balance of power across executive, congressional, and justice sectors. Dominance of the executive branch under the auspices of protecting national security has been abused, and has proven a failure and crime;
  • Restorative justice to victims;
  • Restrict central banking model of financial control over nations’ debt;
  • Review immediate and long-term consequences of DHS/NSA Abuses;
  • Stop “for profit” prisons, and their associated judicial corruption;
  • Speak truth, do not distort or exaggerate, practice transparency;,
  • Use “Justice” as an arbiter for decisions;

From: A.J.Marsella (2014).Two Paths in the Wood: “Choice” of Life or War. First published in Transcend, 27 October 2014. TRANSCEND MEMBER

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a  member of the TRANSCEND Network, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

 

 

Iceland: Unlikely haven for whistle-blower Snowden

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dr. Michael Corgan

National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance whistle-blower Edward Snowden is in limbo, unable to return to the U.S. Might Iceland offer asylum as payback for the way the U.S. treated Iceland in 2006?

Hong Kong protest in support of Snowden
Hong Kong protest in support of Snowden. Photo by Voice of America, in public domain.

The Bush administration in 2006 arbitrarily and unilaterally pulled all U.S. forces out of Iceland even while the State Department had a negotiator at the prime minister’s office supposedly talking about how many U.S. forces we would keep there.

Of course a good number of Icelanders never wanted the U.S. there in the first place and were opposed to NATO membership altogether. The majority, however, did favor a U.S. presence, and the sitting government was led by the rightist, pro-U.S., Independence Party. The prime minister (PM), David Oddson, had been in power for 13 years, longer than any other European PM. His response to the pullout: “We’ll be the only NATO capital without air defense.”

Thus the U.S. treated Iceland rather dismissively as the tiny state it was. Many politicians who had long careers supporting U.S. positions were at least embarrassed.

Would taking in Snowden be a chance for Iceland to show it is still a sovereign state and can make that status count on occasion? Most of my sources said no. Among other things, too much trouble.

Some outside journalists made comparisons to Iceland’s granting citizenship to chess champion Bobby Fischer against U.S. desires–but remember, Fischer put Iceland on the map in 1972.

Everyone spies on everyone else. But so far Snowden (and Julian Assange of Wikileaks) are mostly leaking American secrets. The U.S. government has been warning others to mute their outraged reactions since, I am sure, we could reveal what others have been up to.

Mr. Snowden is a hot potato and carries much more baggage with him than his inside information. Russian leader Vladimir Putin won’t give Snowden citizenship unless he stops spilling secrets. After all, who would be next? Nevertheless, word is out that Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua—all of which have their own reasonable gripes against the U.S. government–have extended invitations to him. Tensions run high.

Imperialism by any other name…still stinks

Posted on by kathiemm

First in a series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Imperialism is defined as the policy of extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.

Map of Sykes-Picot territorial divisions
Sykes-Picot territorial divisions. Used under Creative Commons license.

The British Empire’s reign expanded through the invasion of 90% of the countries on Planet Earth, including those of Western Asia (the “Middle East”). This region remains riddled with violent strife.

Duplicity by the Allies during the World War I era is the root of the injustice and accompanying conflict that continue between Western Asia and Western powers. Today, the imperialist drives of the United States and NATO are continuing the bloodshed in this region for the sake of economic exploitation.

By 1916, British forces battling the armies of the Ottoman Empire in Mesopotamia were suffering great losses. Facing defeat, the Crown dispatched British Army officer Thomas Edward (T.E.) Lawrence—also known as “Lawrence of Arabia”—to rally the Arab tribes against their Ottoman rulers. Lawrence promised the native peoples their independence in return for fighting alongside the British. Lured by these guarantees of self-rule, indigenous leaders agreed.

The Arab Revolt of 1916-1918 was instrumental in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. But the Allied Powers had their own desires to exploit the vast resources of the region. They never intended independence for the Arabs.

Beginning in 1915, representatives from France, England, and Russia conducted clandestine negotiations to divide up Ottoman territories—their anticipated spoils of war—among them. In May 1916, the final deal apportioning control of Arab lands to colonial powers was signed by British politician Sir Mark Sykes and French diplomat Francois Georges-Picot—just as T.E. Lawrence was promising Arabs their independence in exchange for their help.

The stealthy Sykes-Picot Agreement rendered the Crown’s guarantees of self-determination meaningless. (If only the Arabs could have consulted with the indigenous peoples of the Americas on what promises mean to European colonizers.)

(The next installment will discuss ongoing imperialism in the region today.)

Crimson soil: A forgotten struggle (Part 1)

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author, San’aa Sultan

Between the folds of two nuclear states lies a valley of forsaken people whose struggle is yet to be told beyond its borders. Kashmir. A place where the crimson soil is still screaming to be heard.

Barbed wire in Kashmir
Hazratbal Srinagar Kashmir. Photo by Abdul Basit, used by permission.

Although the land is shared amongst India, Pakistan, and China, regions of peace and war are easy to identify. The Indian occupied Kashmir comprising the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and Jammu, is home to the world’s highest concentration of troops. There are more Indian troops positioned here than NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

At the hands of this brutal presence, the people of Kashmir have suffered oppression for many decades, spreading far beyond the separation of India. In the name of national security and what may be described as India’s self-prescribed “War of Terror,” the worlds’ largest democracy has continued to perpetrate unimaginable human rights abuses in Kashmir.

The names of Aasiya and Neelofar, two ill-fated young Kashmiri women who were gang raped and murdered are known across the valley. The families of eight year old Sameer Ahmed Rah who was beaten to death by Indian forces and 17 year-old Tufail Matoo who was killed after being hit by a tear gas canister have not yet tasted justice. Mass graves are still being uncovered, but the glimmer of hope in the homes of the disappeared lives on despite its painful embrace.

Torturous memories are left lingering in the mind of every Kashmiri and there is no household which has not been subject to abuse. As tensions rise along the Line of Control and the world anticipates a nuclear war, I wish to narrate to you the story of Kashmir.