Cavalierly Talking War with Iran Next
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2012/11/cavalierly-talking-war-with-iran.html
You must watch this video where Washington journalists and talking heads are preparing the American people for Israel’s next target Iran…..
PETITION: http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180&track=VFP
My name is Brian Terrell. I’m co-coordinator of a group called Voices for Creative Nonviolence. We support the petition to ban drones organized by RootsAction. On November 30th I report for six months in a federal prison in Yankton, S.D., as a result of protesting drones.
The appearance of war being made easy by drones is resulting in more war. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and in places we don’t know about, in places where we are not at war, we’re sending these unmanned pilotless airplanes into foreign air space to hunt down people who’ve been accused of crimes only in the private court of the administration. They’re hunted down and killed along with anybody who might be in the immediate vicinity.
Drones are creating new wars rather than scaling down old ones. Drone pilots in Afghanistan have been targeted and killed. Drone pilots in the United States suffer PTSD at higher rates than real pilots.
Drone victims are 98% innocent civilians according to the recent Stanford/NYU study. The other 2% are targeted victims of murder without charge, trial, due process, or in many cases even knowing the target’s name.
Drones buzzing over houses traumatize children before they kill them. That those children are (in most cases) not American hardly diminishes the immorality.
Drones are rapidly being developed and deployed by other nations. Would you support the equal right of other nations to kill with drones in this country? And if not, why not? And how can that thinking not apply to U.S. policy as well?
As I head to prison I urge you to add your name to the petition to ban drones and to ask others to do so.
Back on April 15th, about 40 people, mostly from the Kansas City area, went to Whiteman Air Force Base and held a short rally outside the gates on a public right of way. We had a petition — an indictment we called it — that listed the laws that drones are violating and the damage they are doing. We took that to the gate and were stopped. Three of us asked directions to deliver the petition and were immediately put in handcuffs. About 40 military police in full riot gear appeared (video) and did a choreographed dance including high kicks and grunts and beating their shields, two steps forward and one step back, to get rid of the rest of the U.S. citizens, who were acting legally under the First Amendment.
At my sentencing I told the judge:
“Each of the government’s witnesses, all of them Air Force police personnel, testified that participants in this protest were nonviolent, respectful and peaceable in assembling at Whiteman Air Force Base, a government installation, to petition that government for redress of a grievance, demanding that the remote control killing carried out daily from Whiteman cease. They testified that at no time, before or during our protest, did they perceive us as a threat.
“Our expert witnesses testified that our behavior was consistent with the activities that the drafters of the First Amendment intended to be protected, not persecuted, by the government. The order and security of the base would not have been compromised had the security police allowed us to proceed to the headquarters to deliver our petition. No testimony to the contrary was offered this court.
“Instead of planning to accommodate a constitutionally protected peaceable assembly, however, the Air Force chose intimidation and conspired to deprive us of the rights they are sworn to protect. We learned from government witnesses that the phalanx of goose-stepping riot police is a ‘Confrontation Management Team,’ deployed only in the case of preannounced events. Whiteman security did not call out the Team to defend the base but to intimidate citizens engaged in lawful activities.”
Sign the petition to ban militarized drones now, before it is delivered to government officials.
Please forward this email widely to like-minded friends.
–Brian Terrell for RootsAction.org
Background:
Talk Nation Radio: Brian Terrell Is Headed to Prison for Protesting Drones
Nonviolent Protester of Drone Wars Sentenced to Federal Prison
Organizations Supporting This Petition (partial and growing list):
Antiwar.com
Arlington Green Party
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Code Pink
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace
Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
KnowDrones.com
LA Laborfest
The Northampton Committee to Stop War
RootsAction.org
Sitkans for Peace and Justice
Veterans For Peace
Veterans For Peace Chapter 27
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
WarIsACrime.org
Women Standing
Manning needed to accept responsibility, so that he could move forward with his defense as a whistle-blower, ahead of the scheduled, February 4, 2013, start of his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland.
READ ARTICLE: http://www.couragetoresist.org/bradley-manning/974-bradley-manning-accepts-responsibility.html
Everyone,
I have recently been in touch with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. They are working on a film about drones, and are trying to find a drone pilot who would be willing to talk to them about their experiences. The pilot could remain anonymous, and every effort would be made to protect his/her identity.
I know that it will not be easy to find such a person (although they have found a UK done pilot), but VFP has been asked to help in the search.
If you know of anyone, or have any leads to someone who knows a drone pilot, please let me know, and I will pass the information along.
Leah Bolger
President, Veterans For Peace
541-207-7761
THOUSANDS GATHERED AT THE GATES OF U.S. MILITARY BASE IN GEORGIA TO CLOSE THE SOA/WHINSEC
3-DAY MOBILIZATION CULMINATES WITH MASS DIE-IN AND FUNERAL PROCESSION TO COMMEMORATE THE VICTIMS OF SOA/ WHINSEC VIOLENCE AND U.S. MILITARIZATION
NASHUA CHANTAL, 60 OF AMERICUS, GEORGIA CROSSES OVER THE FENCE TO CARRY THE PROTEST ONTO THE MILITARY BASE, FACES SIX MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON
Columbus, Georgia – The largest annual anti-militarization gathering in North America took place in Columbus, Georgia, from November 16-18, 2012.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Veterans For Peace,
It has been a while since I have written, and a lot has happened! We have enacted the voting procedures by-laws amendment so that for the first time all of our eligible members were able to vote on by-laws amendments, resolutions and board candidates. The national office mailed out over 2453 ballots, and while only 532 total ballots were returned, that is a much higher number participating than if only the convention attendees had been voting. I believe it will be much higher next year, but in any case, all eligible members had the opportunity to vote, and that is the critical point.
I am writing this memo on a train riding from NYC to Chicago. I spent the weekend in a strategy planning session of the New Priorities Network (www.newprioritiesnetwork.org). The NPN was created two years ago, and is a network of mostly anti-war organizations that strive to find ways to fund human needs programs by taking money out of the Pentagon budget. At this strategy session, NPN worked in collaboration with some groups that are not necessarily anti-war groups, but see the need to reduce the Pentagon budget in order to fund their priorities, in particular: JOBS. At this strategy session were representatives from Jobs With Justice, UE (electrical workers union), Nuns on the Bus, Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), New Priorities Project, and many more. Please watch your in-box for upcoming e-blasts as well as future messages, about ways VFP can work with these other groups on the issue of the federal budget.
As I mentioned, I am en route to Chicago, where I will be delivering a presentation about drones and my experience as a member of the Code Pink delegation to Pakistan. When I get home, I will schedule a time that I can give this same presentation via webinar to all of you. It was a remarkable trip, and it had a profound effect on me. I am so pleased that many of our members have been working on this issue for quite some time; holding protests at Hancock, Beale, and Whiteman Air Bases, General Atomics and Raytheon offices and the CIA, among many other actions. VFP has a working group on drones, and I have been talking to many other organizations that are also dedicated to this issue. We are forming an umbrella group called Drones Watch (www.droneswatch.org) which will be a central location for all kinds of information about drones, drone protests, ways to support drone activists, and will be a vehicle for strategizing about the best ways we can all work together to effectively oppose the illegal and immoral use of combat drones. Polls show that 87% of the American people (and I think Congress is even higher) support the use of drones, so we definitely have our work cut out for us.
I will leave Chicago on Friday and then head down to Fort Benning to participate in the School of the Americas Watch protests for my first time. I have long been an admirer of Father Roy and the work he has done—I look forward to seeing him and so many of my other VFP brothers and sisters who I know make the vigil every year.
My last “Keeping in Touch” memo was written just before the dinner with Iranian President Ahmahdinejad. I felt privileged to be one of a select group of speakers. My remarks were published on the VFP website and you can go into the archives if you missed them, but one thing that I spoke about in the pre-meeting at the Iranian mission, in my remarks at the dinner, and again directly with the President, was that VFP is interested in sending a delegation to visit Iran. The purpose of this delegation would be to find out first hand how the economic sanctions are affecting the people of Iran with the idea of perhaps sending a larger delegation with needed supplies some time in the future; to build people-to-people relationships (particularly with veterans); and to demonstrate that VFP is opposed to military action on the part of Israel and/or the U.S. The procedures to travel to Iran are fairly tricky and though we were hoping for a delegation to travel in mid-December, that is not going to happen, and it looks like mid-January may be the earliest we can make this work. The leader of the Iran Working Group, Faraz Azad is helping to make the necessary in-country connections and arrange the itinerary.
If you are interested in getting more involved in a specific issue, I encourage you to join one of our many Working Groups. The Drones WG and the Iran WG are particularly active right now and are doing some great work. You can sign up to join a WG via the VFP website under “Take Action.”
If you are not on my “From the Prez” mailing list and would like to be, just drop me a line at leahbolger@comcast.net, and it will be done. Those on the “From the Prez” list will receive communications (like the “Keeping in Touch” memos) directly from me right to your inbox. I generally don’t send out more than 2 messages per month, so you won’t be overwhelmed!
In peace and solidarity,
Leah Bolger
President, Veterans For Peace
Police and Homeland Security have been spying on activists for years, including Veterans For Peace.
Veterans For Peace and other allies in our coalition to ban weaponized drones are headed to Pakistan in a delegation organized by Code Pink. Please add your name to the petition now, and forward this to everyone you know, so that we can make clear to Pakistanis how many of us oppose the endless killing imposed on their country by our unmanned planes.
Veterans For Peace will deliver the petition to elected officials, tribal leaders, and victims’ family members.
Petition: http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180&track=VFP
