How much contaminated meat can you buy for the price of one soldier?

Today's New York Times reports on E. Coli and Salmonella bacteria found in hamburger meat treated with ammonia (yes, ammonia) that is used by all the fast food chains and is distributed to school lunch programs all over the country.

Beef Products, the company doing the treatment, claims that the ammonia treatment kills Salmonella and E. Coli bacteria, a claim that the Department of Agriculture has accepted, to the point of exempting Beef Products ammoniated hamburger from the the standard testing required of all hamburger.

But it turns out (imagine this) that the company's claims of increased food safety were false:

[G]overnment and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the [ammonia] treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

In fact, testing done for the school lunch program found that the ammoniated hamburger was less safe than untreated meat:

in some years Beef Products testing results were worse than many of the program’s two dozen other suppliers, which use traditional meat processing methods. From 2005 to 2009, Beef Products had a rate of 36 positive results for salmonella per 1,000 tests, compared to a rate of nine positive results per 1,000 tests for the other suppliers, according to statistics from the program.

But here's the part that really caught my attention:

Despite some misgivings, school lunch officials say they use Beef Products because its price is substantially lower than ordinary meat trimmings, saving about $1 million a year.

$1 million a year, just coincidentally, is also the cost of sending one soldier to Afghanistan for one year, according to an estimate by the Congressional Research service.

So there, placed placed on a bun and served up on a tray at a school cafeteria near you, is the perfect illustration of the priorities of our government: Yes, we could feed our children hamburger meat that wasn't treated with ammonia and infected with Salmonella, but that would be too expensive. We've got more important things to spend the money on, you know.

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

Getting tough on crime: Go to jail, lose your reading privileges

Time was when politicians who wanted to show their anti-crime bona fides would rail about how prisoners were watching color television -- or any television at all.

In Wisconsin these days they don't even want prisoners to read books.

At the state level, the Dept. of Corrections has made it as difficult as possible for a well-intentioned Wisconsin Books to Prisoners project to function, banning any used books. Since the project relies largely on donations of used books, that has crippled its ability to fulfill the many requests it gets from Wisconsin prisoners. It sends books to prisoners in other states, almost all of which allow that. That struggle continues.

Now, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke closed the county jail library on Nov. 1 and will do the same at the House of Corrections on Dec. 31. Clarke offered no reason and caught the Benedict Center and librarians who operate the program by surprise. Kit McNally of the Benedict Center, a WNPJ member group, explains:

The Benedict Center created the jail library in 1992 when the jail opened, after pushing a book cart through the old jail in the Safety Building for years. The Center then worked with administrators at the House of Correction to create a bright and spacious library at the House in former administrative office space.

Ellen Pellegrin established and ran the jail library for the Benedict Center until her retirement seven years ago when Eric Beaumont joined the Benedict Center staff to manage the library. At the South facility Sue Harrington started the library for the Benedict Center, ultimately contracting on her own to manage the library and oversee inmate workers delighted to be working in the library and helping residents of every dorm select books biweekly.

The former library spaces at both facilities have been emptied of purchased and donated collections exceeding 18,000 titles, with books shifted to locked rooms on jail housing pods and new shelving in the dorms at the south facility. Inmates will have to make do with whatever their housing collection holds and access will depend on the corrections officer’s will at the jail.

Although there is no more library at the jail, Benedict Center volunteer Elizabeth Vogt continues to keep inmates reading through the Jail Book Club (JBC), which she initiated in 2008.

Reading, discussing and writing about literature create the basis for shared ideas and multiple perspectives. Covering authors as diverse as Nelson Mandela, George Orwell, and Khaled Hosseini, the ever-evolving groups delve into historical works, fiction, and satire.

"Discussions at the JBC, frankly, easily rival those in my ladies' book club on the outside," Vogt says. "We debate the conflicts of individual and collective interests, the overwhelming nature of many challenges in life, and how similar human issues are around the world. We talk about the strange and dramatic turns that the paths of life can take -- leading to delight as well as disaster. These JBC discussions can be profound or profane, sometimes humorous--but are always interesting!"

Vogt is considering creating a network, via newsletter or Internet, to keep the conversation going after inmates leave the jail. Additional volunteers are now leading groups as the JBC stretches to reach Vogt’s goal of a club on every housing pod. Benedict Center volunteer Janet Martin offers non-threatening one to one small group discussion in another version of the JBC.

For more information or to volunteer for the Jail Book Club, contact Mary Pat Utech at 414-347-1774 x 205 or mputech@benedictcenter.org.

Does any of this seem a little counter-productive while we continue to talk about finding ways to get offenders back on the right track, back into society, and back to leading productive lives?

Of course, a little learning can be a dangerous thing.

After visiting his son, editor wants 'victory' in Afghanistan

I've refrained from writing anything for several days while reading the series of articles by George Stanley, Journal Sentinel managing editor, about his visit to Afghanistan, where his son serves in the Army.

It has been clear that Stanley decided long ago that the war in Afghanistan is a just war, and that the US is justified in sending its troops and spilling blood there for the past eight years. Many of us would differ and question the underlying premise that the Taliban were responsible for the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, but he is entitled to his opinion. He also seems convinced that our troops being in Afghanistan is the reason we haven't had another terrorist attack in the US -- another dubious and debatable assumption.

Stanley is understandably proud of his son and his decision to serve. As someone who served myself in an unwinnable war long ago, I respect both those who are serving and who have served. I don't think that troops fighting in a combat zone are the best people to decide our foreign policy, however, no matter how gung-ho they might be.

When someone's family is directly involved, as Stanley's is, I am more hesitant to speak up. But today's final installment of the series, played on page one of the news section Stanley oversees, should not pass without comment.

First of all, by no stretch of imagination is his piece "news." It is a full-throated, flag-waving call for victory in Afghanistan, whatever "winning" there would be.

Our troops, Stanley says, are fierce and determined:

And finally, for the first time since this war started more than eight years ago, they have commanders who feel an urgency to finish this thing.

Yet, a few paragraphs later, Stanley seems to say there is no finish in sight, even on the distant horizon:

Gen. Jack Stultz, three-star commander of the Army Reserve, came to Afghanistan while I was here and told reservists they should plan on being deployed to war for one year of every four or five, with no end yet in sight.

Our reservists and National Guard members, of course, are spending much less time than that at home and much more in combat zones, despite findings that it takes three years for a returning service member to return to something approaching "normal." Many, of course, never do, and are permanently scarred, physically, emotionally or psychologically.

The Taliban, Stanley says, cannot win in Afghanistan -- "unless we lose our resolve."

American troops are committed, he says:

Most important, they have stiffened the resolve of our fighting men and women, who made it abundantly clear to me that they will do anything in their power to ensure that their fallen comrades did not die in vain.

Even if that means coming back for more war when this deployment is through.

So, as long as our nation is willing to continue sending its troops and its treasure to Afghanistan, the Taliban can't win. Can we "win?" What would that mean?

When Stanley drags out the ultimate cliche to justify more war -- that our troops shall not have "died in vain" -- what does that mean?

Does that mean that the only way we can justify the deaths or those who have already lost their lives -- or been maimed, brain-damaged, or otherwise had their lives destroyed -- is to send more troops to lose their lives? Then how do we make certain the second wave didn't "die in vain" -- send more? That's how we ended up with 58,000 American lives lost in Vietnam. And for what?

Stanley concludes that we are fighting a foe in Afghanistan that is virtually an army of devils who attacked us on Sept.11, 2001:

On that bright, sunny morning the bodies, hopes and dreams of 2,976 innocent men, women and children were burned alive by a backward band of bullies fueled by hatred. They hate Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'i, agnostics, atheists, Shia Muslims and other Sunni Muslims who don't share in their bitter worship of punishment, cruelty and murder.

They hate women who yearn to learn or uncover their mouths to express an independent thought.

They hate Americans, Europeans, democracy, reason, science, tolerance, liberty, mercy and the rule of law outside the Qur'an as they twist it.

They hate Nick, Ryan, Max, Katie, Bill, Naomi, Jamison, Brian, Gibran, Alfred, Casey and all the fine men and women I've met here who want to bring the rule of law to people of goodwill in Afghanistan.

Who are these sick, twisted people who hate us so much, and who attacked the United States? Are they even in Afghanistan? Intelligence agencies say perhaps 100 operatives of Al Qaeda are in the country. Others are across the border in Pakistan or elsewhere.

Why do they fight us?

Steve Burns, program director of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, asks the question:

How would we respond if we were subjected to the presence of tens of thousands of foreign troops, occupying our country, killing our countrymen and imprisoning our family members without trial? He writes, with some pride, of his son's decision to enlist after 9/11 and to volunteer for the most dangerous duty in Iraq, but how does Mr. Stanley think his son would have responded to the humiliating experience of living under a foreign military occupation? Can he imagine that there might be Afghan fathers who look at their own son's decision to fight a vastly better-armed occupying army, against enormous odds, with similar pride?

Note that the presence of our troops has resulted in the deaths of many times the 2,976 civilians who died on 9/11. In iraq and Afghanistan, the total is in the hundreds of thousands; the US doesn't care enough to even keep accurate count. Millions have been displaced and become refugees.

Stanley ends with a heartful peaen to the troops, including this:

Our citizens will demand that problems get fixed, that our leaders learn, that our troops get the support they deserve.

They deserve a just end for their sacrifices.

What would "a just end for their sacrifices" be? When we begin to mix admiration for our troops as people with what sounds like to need to pursue and "win" what may well be an endless unwinnable war, it is time to take a step back from the emotion and pride in meeting Nick, Ryan, Max. Katie and the rest and ask the hard questions. That's where Stanley's trip and subsequent series of articles fall far short.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War has a slogan that I would recommend to Stanley and others who mistake our well-intentioned troops for a well-formulated foreign policy: "Honor the warrior, not the war."

Earlier Stanley articles: Part 1: Gone, our peaceful world. Part 2: Defining Victory. Part 3: An urgent message for Afghanistan.

Steve Burns: Searching for - and finding - antiwar Republicans

Combing through the smoldering wreckage of Wednesday's 395 to 34 House vote for war funding - which provided about $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - a few glimmers of hope emerge, in the form of antiwar Republicans who have not yet received the attention - and thanks - they deserve from the peace movement.

Republicans supplied 12 of the 34 "no" votes on the war funding bill, and most of the twelve were in the mold of Wyoming's Cynthia Lummis, who had this to say about her "no" vote:

“The terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay are there for a reason. They are enemy combatants apprehended on the battlefield while fighting American soldiers. It defies logic that Democrats are using the same bill to fund our troops to bring the very terrorists they are fighting onto sacred American soil."

Not a vote for peace there, I think.

Among the genuinely antiwar Republican voices was Ron Paul of Texas, of course, long a principled voice of small-government conservatism who is willing to apply his small-government principles to our big-government empire. But there were also some new faces (or at least new to me), like Tennessee Representative John Duncan (above, left), whose 1-minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, "War is Not Conservative", would make the perfect holiday gift for that Republican brother-in-law on your list. Here's a quote:

"There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan...Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it just because it's being done by our biggest bureaucracy, the Defense Department. We have now spent a trillion and half dollars we did not have, that we had to borrow, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years is long enough, in fact it's too long, let's bring our troops home and start putting Americans first, once again."

Another interesting case is Republican "no" voter Jason Chaffetz of Utah. While Chaffetz does not have a statement on his website regarding his vote against the war-funding bill, he does have a statement directed at the President with his recommendations for Afghanistan, which ends with this:

Mr. President, it is time to bring our troops home. If our mission in Afghanistan is simply to protect the populace and build the nation, then I believe the time has come to bring our troops home.

Chaffetz is no peacenik. His advice to the President also includes:

Mr. President, go big or go home. Our Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines are trained to fight and WIN wars. They are the best trained and equipped fighting force in the world. But we’ve tied their hands. The American people want us to give our troops everything they need to win so they can come home. In short, give them everything they need or bring the troops home.

Given that our drone strikes on Pakistan have an estimated 98% civilian casualty rate (that's 50 civilians killed for every suspected terrorist killed), it's hard to imagine what the U.S. military could do with its hands untied. Nevertheless, on the basis of his statement, let's give Rep. Chaffetz' credit for half a vote against the Afghanistan war on the grounds that it's too humanitarian.

And let's also give some thanks to Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, another "no" voter. Flake's vote was most likely motivated by the inclusion of hundreds of earmarks inserted into the bill at the behest of the politically well-connected lobbying firm PMA group, which is now under investigation by the FBI for violations of campaign finance laws: “It defies logic that the House would move ahead with no-bid contracts to former clients of the PMA Group at the same time the Ethics Committee is investigating the PMA scandal,” said Flake. Good for you, Congressman. It's nice to see the corruption of the military-industrial complex getting some attention from your side of the aisle.

And finally, let's not forget "no" voter Tim Johnson, from the bedrock-Republican 15th district in central Illinois. After President Obama spoke at West Point, announcing his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan, Johnson said that the President's choice was “exactly the reverse” of what the U.S. government should be doing, saying we need a "responsible troop withdrawal" from that country. Johnson is also a co-sponsor of Rep. James McGovern's "Afghanistan exit strategy" bill, and Johnson was one of 57 legislators who wrote the President in September urging him to reject a troop increase. But, unlike too many of his colleagues who merely claim to be antiwar, Johnson was willing to go beyond stern letters and scolding press releases and actually vote against the funding that allows the war to continue. That's a model that many Democrats could learn from.

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Who's Safeguarding the Guard? PA Governor says Guard "wasted" by repeated tours

This is from a devastating article by retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore about the wearing-down and hollowing-out of the US military:

Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania noted last month on Meet the Press that "our troops are tired and worn out. [With respect to the] Pennsylvania National Guard, most of our guardsmen have been to either Iraq [or] Afghanistan, over 85 percent, and many of them have gone three or four times and they're wasted."

What does "wasted" mean? It means this:

Suicides have hit record highs in the Army. Cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, having reached an alarming 300,000 in 2008, according to Invisible Wounds of War, a RAND study, continue to escalate, constituting a mental health crisis for the Army. Traumatic brain injuries from IEDs and other explosive shocks in our war zones, difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to treat, may already exceed 300,000, another health crisis exacerbated by a lack of treatment available to veterans. Divorce rates among active duty troops continue to climb. An epidemic of domestic violence and crime has been linked to returning veterans and to the difficulty of readjusting to "normal" life after months, or years, in combat zones.

Who's standing up for these war-weary soldiers? Not the President, who's sending another 30,000 off to Afghanistan. Not the Congress, which just voted another $636 billion to keep the wars going.

Who's standing up for the people who are taken from our communities to be fed into the war machine, again and again and again, until they are finally used up?

Here, once again, is evidence of the urgent need for resistance, at the state level, to the misuse and over-use of our National Guard troops. The people who enlist in the Guard make a solemn commitment to serve the people of our state - what commitment do we owe them in return? Can we - at the very least - commit that they will never again be used in an illegal war?

Wisconsin's "Bring the Guard Home - It's the law!" campaign is working to enact legal protections that would safeguard the people who guard us, by requiring the Governor to review any Federal call-up for our state's Guard troops, and to refuse any deployment determined to be unlawful. The bill that would enact these legal safeguards, AB 203, is scheduled for a hearing before the State Assembly's Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on February 9. Organizers are in the process of lining up a roster of veterans and people who work with veterans to testify about the toll that repeated deployments have taken on Guard members and their families.

Nominate a speaker:
The "Bring the Guard Home - It's the Law!" campaign is seeking nominations for speakers for the Feb. 9 Veterans Affairs hearing on Assembly Bill 203.
Some key voices that we seek to include:
-- Members of the Guard and their families
-- Social-service workers who have worked with Guard members and Guard families, to speak about the stresses caused by repeated deployments.
-- Employers who have had to deal with the disruption of losing key employees to Guard deployments.

Stand up for Wisconsin's Guard on Feb. 9:
Please join us in Madison to fill the hearing room and remind the members of the Assembly's Veterans and Military Affairs Committee that we have not forgotten the sacrifices that our Guard troops are making.

Please contact WNPJ Program Director Steve Burns, 608-250-9240, outreach@wnpj.org if you plan to attend the hearing or want to nominate a person to testify at the hearing. Transportation and lodging willl be arranged for those requesting assistance.

Steve Burns: Climate bill: Is this the wrong year?

The debate forming around legislation to deal with the threat of global climate change seems simple enough: environmentalists want climate-protecting legislation and corporations, especially Big Oil and Big Coal, are opposed to it. But a recent New York Times article explains that major polluters have good reasons to push for quick enactment of climate legislation this year, raising serious questions about the type of legislation we may get, and even whether it's a smart strategy for the environmental movement to work for a climate bill now. The article reports:

Many businesses concluded years ago that... limits [on greenhouse-gas emissions] were inevitable, and they have been calling on Congress to define the exact rules they will need to follow.

Businesses, it seems, want action now to lock in climate regulations and forestall more draconian limits on emissions that might come later, as public pressure builds to take action to protect the world's climate.

One of the big supporters of climate legislation is James E. Rogers, the chief executive of Duke Energy, a power company described in the Times report as "a major emitter of carbon dioxide."

[Rogers] says that clear rules are needed to ensure that companies relying on coal-fired power plants can finance their transition to lower-carbon fuels, like natural gas or nuclear power... “A well-designed cap will provide a smooth transition to clean electricity."

Why should this concern us? Shouldn't we celebrate the fact that even Duke Energy, a coal-heavy power company, is now conceding the need for climate action? Perhaps, but we should also ask this question: Which problem is Congress actually solving with this legislation? Will we end up with legislation that does more to address corporate needs for a "predictable regulatory environment" than it does the planet's needs for real reductions in global emissions?

Consider, for example, the centerpiece of both the House and Senate climate bills: a "cap and trade" system which requires large emitters of greenhouse gases to secure a government permit for those emissions, while allowing those who are able to reduce their emissions below their permitted amount to sell the "surplus" on a carbon-trading market. Over time, the permitted amounts would be reduced, and the market (at least in theory) would reallocate these lower levels in the most "efficient" manner possible, limiting emissions without stifling the economy.

The effectiveness of any "cap and trade" system in actually reducing emissions depends on two factors: 1) The stringency of the emissions caps (Europe's first try at cap and trade set limits that were much too lenient, allowing polluters to reap huge profits while making few reductions in emissions) and 2) whether the permits are sold to generate income to fund clean energy initiatives or simply given to polluters. The current House legislation includes emissions caps that would require only a 4% reduction below 1990 levels by 2020 (.pdf), as compared to the European Union commitment of 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and proposes to give 85% of the permits to large greenhouse-gas-emitters, free of charge, based on their current emissions levels, perversely rewarding those industries that have cut their emissions the least.

And that's the danger with legislation that is primarily the result of deal-making between political and economic elites rather than the result of a genuine grassroots movement. Yes, millions of Americans have mobilized to call attention to the problem of climate change, many of those people have changed their personal consumption habits to limit their climate impact, and environmental groups have generated thousands of calls and emails to Congress and the White House to demand climate action now. But it would be a mistake to think that the American public is as yet fully engaged in the climate issue. The public is facing many issues of more immediate and personal concern, such as a real unemployment/underemployment rate approaching 20%, a home foreclosure crisis, and tens of millions of people lacking access to health care. This is why corporate polluters may see now as such an opportune moment to push through a climate bill that grants them, at no cost, the right to pollute while preempting stronger action later (Remember, that 17% cut in emissions you get today is also an 83% guarantee of future emissions.)

As much as we'd like to believe otherwise, the truth is that the public is a long way from demanding strong action on climate change. A December 3 CNN poll (.pdf) found, for example, that 45% of those polled believed the earth was warming and that this was "mostly" caused by human activities, while 23% agreed that the earth was warming but thought it was primarily due to natural effects, and another 31% believed that climate change was an "unproven theory." This prompts the question: If 59% support of a "public option" for health care doesn't get us the public option, and 62% opposition to the war in Iraq doesn't end the war in Iraq, why should 45% support for at least the scientific theory of climate change get us legislation to prevent climate change? Could it be that climate legislation is moving through Congress mainly at the behest of corporate interests?

A smarter course for the environmental movement would be to oppose any climate bill this year that enacts limits on greenhouse gas emissions (or demand deep cuts and refuse to accept less, which would have the same effect) and instead promote those measures which, if enacted now, would not foreclose stronger action later. Legislation to promote "green jobs", for example, enjoys strong public support and could be enacted now, buying time for the environmental movement to build public support for stronger caps on emissions. It's a risky strategy, to be sure, but the polluters are supporting climate legislation today because they're sure they'll get a worse deal in the future. We should consider the possibility that they're right about that, and be willing to call their bluff.

Steve Burns: Obama vs. Reality: How did his Nobel speech stack up?

After posting a report on our website about the 40 national peace groups that have signed on to a letter to the Nobel committee questioning President Obama's Peace Prize, I got a call from a Wisconsin Public Radio producer: Would I come on the air and discuss the prize and address Obama's arguments that Afghanistan is a "just war"? (audio here...)

Naturally, I said yes, and took a transcript of the speech with me as I boarded a Madison Metro bus for the five mile trip home. An hour and a half later, when I finally stepped off that bus, I'd say I was reasonably familiar with what Obama had said in accepting his Nobel. My snowbound, traffic-jammed bus trip may have given me more time with the President's thoughts than the President himself had on his flight to Oslo.

President Obama is a great speechifier, no doubt. But if we're not going to allow ourselves to be bowled over by rhetoric, we have to measure his speech by the only standard that really matters: How do his words stand up against reality?

Below is a reality check on the President's Nobel acceptance speech, drawn from my dog-eared bus copy in no particular order:

President Obama:

All nations -- strong and weak alike -- must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct.

Reality:
Two weeks ago, an international meeting of the representatives of more than a hundred nations took place in Cartagena, Colombia, to discuss an international treaty to ban land mines - weapons that continue to maim and kill children and other innocents long after a conflict has ended. Although 158 nations have signed the treaty, the United States has long been a holdout, insisting that it needed to retain the landmine option for the sake of its national security. The Cartagena meeting was the first meeting of treaty signatories since Obama has become President, and hopes were high that he would reverse the position of previous administrations and agree to sign the treaty. Just days before the meeting, word came down from the U.S. State Department: No. The U.S. would not sign.

President Obama:

In dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior -- for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable.

Reality:
Of course, we Americans are familiar with "regimes that break the rules", having lived for the past eight years under one that practiced illegal wiretaps and torture. The President's response to this rule-breaking has been to say the America must "look forward, and not back," as he uses the powers of his office to thwart investigations of past crimes.
But perhaps President Obama is at least willing to hold other criminal regimes to account? Earlier this year, after the the Israeli invasion of Gaza had ended, the U.N. Human rights commission, under the leadership of respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone, began an investigation into charges that war crimes had been committed by Hamas, in its indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians with rocket fire, and by the Israelis, in targeting a civilian population with attacks that resulted in the deaths of more than 1200 Palestinians. The Obama administration's response to the Goldstone report? First, pressure the Palestinian Authority to reject the report, and then, when that tactic backfired, pressure the U.N. to quash any further investigation.

President Obama:

The concept of a "just war" [has] emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Reality:
A recent New York Times Op-Ed by two former military officers, one a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, notes that drone attacks in the frontier provinces of Pakistan, which have greatly escalated under President Obama, have resulted in the deaths of 14 "terrorist leaders", and roughly 700 Pakistani civilians. In other words, 50 civilians for every "militant" killed. This is sparing civilians, whenever possible, from violence?

President Obama:

The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

Reality:
Let's set aside the claim that U.S. wars in Iraq and Vietnam, for example, were about "underwriting global security." President Obama didn't start those wars, and opposed one - probably both - of them. Instead, let's measure President Obama's words against the war that is quickly becoming known as "Obama's war" - the war in Afghanistan. By next year, we will have one hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan - more than triple the number when President Obama took office - and those troops will be serving to prop up one of the most corrupt governments in the world, a government whose President was elected through massive vote fraud. Do we support the corrupt Karzai regime so that "others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity"? Of course not. We support President Karzai because President Karzai does exactly what we want and permits a hundred thousand foreign soldiers to roam throughout his country, killing and imprisoning its citizens. The U.S. has its own goals in Afghanistan, and when they conflict with the needs of the Afghan people, whose interest wins out every time? To ask that question is to answer it. For the U.S., Afghanistan is a place to have a war, and not much else. It's as if we went to the Afghan people after 9/11 and said: "We're planning to have a war with Al Qaeda - mind if we borrow your country?" Eight years later, we still haven't given it back.

President Obama:

Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms.

Reality:
A familiar rhetorical device, used by our previous President many times. Choose the most extreme elements, argue that you can't negotiate with them, and then claim there is no alternative to war. Leaders need followers, and Al Qaeda is no different in this respect. The U.S. occupation of two Muslim countries is a gift to Al Qaeda that keeps on giving. Furthermore, a recent RAND corporation study of hundreds of cases of terrorist and insurgent groups over the past forty years has found that military force is actually the least effective means of addressing terrorism. In only seven percent of the cases studied was military force effective in ending terrorist activity. Much more effective were traditional police methods - treating terrorism as a crime rather than an act of war, effective 40% of the time - and political reconciliation, effective 43% of the time, especially in the case of terrorist groups that had nationalist motives. There are millions of people in Afghanistan who have no interest in supporting Al Qaeda, but simply oppose the presence of a foreign army on their soil. A negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan could cut the legs out from under support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups, by removing their sole source of legitimacy among the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Obama:

There are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

Reality:
Finally, I find myself in total agreement with our President. In fact, I'd like to nominate, as a far more appropriate Peace Prize recipient, Malalai Joya, a young Afghan woman first elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 and later expelled from parliament for criticizing the corrupt Karzai regime and the U.S.-sponsored warlords who prop it up, "brothers in creed to the Taliban", Ms. Joya writes. Although she has received death threats for her tireless work for women's rights under the most difficult conditions, Ms. Joya is hopeful about the prospects for peace after a U.S. withdrawal from her country:

"It will not be easy, but if we have a little bit of peace we will be better able to fight our own internal enemies – Afghans know what to do with our destiny. We are not a backward people, and we are capable of fighting for democracy, human and women's rights in Afghanistan. In fact the only way these values will be achieved is if we struggle for them and win them ourselves."

Sounds like the beginning of a great speech to the Nobel Committee.

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

Paper bemoans lack of qualified cannon fodder

As the debate rages over how to fix what's wrong with Milwaukee public schools, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has found a new cause for alarm: Our schools leave our kids so ill-prepared that they can't even make the grade as cannon fodder any more.

WNPJ board member Bill Christofferson has more.

President Obama: Count. Me. Out.

I listened to President Obama Tuesday night.

I heard: This is not another Vietnam. These are different circumstances, and there will be a different outcome.

I'd like to believe that, but I don’t.

It looks too much like Vietnam, when another liberal Democratic president got talked into a war we couldn’t win.

I heard: this is going to be the shortest surge in history. In 18 months, the troops will start coming home.

I'd like to believe that, but I don’t.

I don't think Obama's lying to us. He's lying to himself. It's wishful thinking, based on what he’s heard from the same old “experts” -- Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and more -- that George Bush was listening to a year ago.

Obama has Joe Biden, not Dick Cheney, and Biden's pressed for a different course in Afghanistan. But Bush listened to Cheney.

Congress does still have a voice in this, however irrelevant that may seem. Russ Feingold has spoken out strongly. So has Tammy Baldwin. Dave Obey says we can’t afford this war.

But my Congresswoman Gwen Moore, who's been great on Iraq, and speaks at our peace rallies, is not yet with us on Afghanistan. She is worried, understandably, about what will happen to Afghan women if the Taliban end up in control.

I worry about that, too. But I also wonder how many Afghan civilians – men, women and children – will suffer and die if we send 30,000 more troops into their country. We can’t impose our values and enforce human rights at gunpoint – and we shouldn’t even if we could. Obama, by the way, didn't even mention the women's issue in his speech.

I also heard: This should have a time of national unity, like after 9/11 when everyone was waving flags and couldn’t wait to invade someplace.

To that, all I can say to President Obama is: Count. me. Out.

We need another kind of national unity, for people to come together to say enough is enough. Let’s not wait 18 months, let’s start bringing them home next year – and not send any more.

We got movement on Iraq, even from Bush, when 70% agreed it was time to end that war. That’s what we need to do again, to build that kind of consensus on Afghanistan.

Ready to get started? I am.

--Bill Christofferson, WNPJ board member.

The best way to predict the future is to help create it - Edward Kuharski

Pres. Obama, I have just received your Thanksgiving day message to campaign supporters. We worked for your election because we acutely needed a President whose actions matched his words. I am deeply disappointed that we have not found that in you - as yet.

It is unacceptable for you to tolerate continued policy to make and use land mines, nuclear weapons and other WMD, or to continue the crimes of indefinite imprisonment & torture of those accused, but not convicted of, any crime. We need to be able to distinguish our policy from that of North Korea, Myanmar or Iran.

You cannot claim a commitment to Peace, Justice and the end of Earth abuse while proposing to escalate our most egregious, purely voluntary CO2 emissions and deep environmental destruction in a "war" with no distinct adversary and no defined or achievable goal in Afghanistan, Iraq and through our own terror networks spread across the globe.

You cannot limit your leadership in the vitally needed rapid re-engineering of our life support systems, and merely drop in to Copenhagen with a weak and tentative promise on the way to collect your unearned Nobel. An honest response at this point is to decline, based on the fact that since you were nominated you have chosen to stay on the path of War and have been just as willing, for instance, to approve cowardly killings by drone aircraft as your morally malformed predecessor. We are no better than the Germans with their V2's murdering Londoners.

You cannot come to my city and propose a competition to adequately fund only a select handful of public schools and then talk about providing benefits to all. (The school you visited here has a budget of $3 million/year, equal to sending 3 soldiers to Afghanistan.)

You cannot provide welfare to Wall Street and crumbs to Main Street. You cannot leave people like me who are out of work for months to beg for another year or more and claim you are serving the people. You work for me even if they buy off all of you in Washington.

All of these failures of policy are connected and their correction must be of a piece if we are to have any HOPE of leaving a planet that isn't a curse on our children and that they won't rightly curse us for creating. At your Inauguration you said we needed to push you. That is exactly what we will do. You are capable of far better than you have delivered so far. The time for courage and action is now. We are going ahead without you in creating real change and reclaiming power at the local & regional level. Please follow our lead.

Edward Kuharski, ekuharski@aol.com, 608-255-5816

Steve Burns: "Force you to buy insurance" bill passes house

With all the hoopla attending last week's passage in the House of Representatives of the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, surprisingly little attention was given to the issue of the "individual mandate", a provision forcing most of the 50 million uninsured to either purchase insurance (most likely from a for-profit insurance company) or pay a fine. A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that a family of three with an income of $45,000 could be facing anywhere from $2500 to $4300 in annual health insurance premium costs, depending on which version of the bill is finally enacted. The report estimates that health insurance premiums could eat up as much as half of the family's disposable income. Why has this provision attracted so little attention? And what can we do about it?

The individual mandate was the key demand of the insurance industry as the Obama administration and Congressional leaders began work on a health care reform bill, and an army of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions helped to make it a reality. Insurance companies argued that if they were prohibited from denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition (another provision in the health reform bill) then all uninsured Americans should required to purchase insurance, or people would simply wait until they had a serious illness before obtaining insurance. Quickly, a bipartisan consensus formed around the individual mandate, with support from key Senate Republicans and President Obama. At the same time, an employer mandate, requiring medium-sized and large businesses to insure their employees, was dropped from consideration because it was considered too burdensome.

But without a strong public option that could pay doctors and hospitals at Medicare's reimbursement rates, the cost of subsidies to those now being required to buy insurance skyrocketed. Much of the debate about the cost of health care reform has centered around the cost of subsidies to the uninsured to enable them to pay the high rates demanded by for-profit insurers. The average cost of family coverage in the US is now more than $12,000 a year, a number far out of reach of the millions of low-income service workers that make up the bulk of the uninsured. Given the concerns voiced by conservative Senate Democrats about the cost of the bill, it's likely that pressure to reduce these subsidies will mean that the final bill's cost to the uninsured to purchase insurance will tend toward the higher numbers in the Senate bill rather than the lower cost (to individuals) in the House bill.

In order to enforce the individual mandate, all of the bills under consideration include penalties for those who are uninsured and don't purchase insurance. The Senate Finance Committee bill, for example, levies a fine of $750 per adult in the household per year, exempting those families for whom the cost of insurance would exceed 8% of their annual income ($3,600 a year for a family with an income of $45,000 a year.) Because of the less-generous subsidies in the Senate Finance bill, families making between 220% of the Federal Poverty level (or $40,000 a year) and 400% of FPL (or $73,000 a year) can expect to pay more than 8% of their income for insurance and so be exempt from the penalty. Paradoxically, because the subsidies to those making less than 220% of FPL are just generous enough to bring their expected cost below the 8% threshold, these families, the poorest of the working poor, will be exposed to the penalty for non-participation. Thus, under the Senate Finance bill, a family of two adults and one child with an annual income of $36,000 could either pay $2500 in insurance premiums (money they likely don't have) or pay a $1500 fine - and be left without insurance. These families will be worse off than if Congress had done nothing at all to "help" the uninsured.

Recently, the insurance industry has begun to complain that the fines for non-participation are not high enough, and so these fines may very well be increased in the final bill.

Why has the individual mandate attracted so little media and public attention? Compare the results of a Google News search for "health care individual mandate" with a search for "Health care death panels" and you'll find that death panels which are not in any of the bills have garnered vastly more attention than fines for the uninsured which are in every version of the health care bill. This can largely be explained by the bipartisan support that individual mandates enjoy. The corporate media only sees issues through a "Republican vs. Democrat" lens, and so policies that aren't attracting criticism from one of the major parties aren't considered worth reporting on. Add in the fact that the reporters covering the story are not themselves uninsured, and the general tendency of the media to wait until all the details have been settled before informing the public of what has been decided for them, and you have a near blackout of media coverage on an issue that has the potential to cost millions of families thousands of dollars a year.

Taking a step back to look at the big picture, what we have, whatever version of health care "reform" passes, is legislation that guarantees the health insurance industry 50 million new paying customers by criminalizing the millions of Americans who simply cannot afford to buy insurance. It's reasonable to ask who the real beneficiaries of this legislation are - the uninsured, or the insurance industry? In fact, the purpose of this legislation becomes crystal-clear when we examine the predicament that the insurance industry has priced itself into. The costs for health insurance have long risen at rates far above the general rate of inflation, more than doubling over the past decade. As a result, many employers and individuals have been priced out of the insurance market, and the insurance industry now finds itself with a rapidly shrinking customer base. In any other industry, this would be cause for deep cuts in profits and costs, until the cost of the product could be brought into line with what the public was able to pay. But most industries aren't able to call on the coercive power of the Federal government to force people to buy their product. It's as if the prices of automobiles had risen at double-digit rates for years, until most Americans could no longer afford even a subcompact car, and in response, the auto industry proposed an "Affordable Automobiles for America Act" that required all Americans to buy a car. Problem solved!

What can we do about it? We are faced with a powerful corporate interest supported by a broad bipartisan consensus and abetted by a "news" media that either incapable of or uninterested in informing the public. At this point, it's hard to see how "call your Congressman" or even mass civil resistance can derail the plan for the individual mandate. Advocates for reform should be planning now for what happens after "health care reform" passes both houses of Congress and is signed by the President. At some point, millions of Americans will find out that they have a choice between sending four hundred dollars a month to Cigna, or paying $1500 to the federal government in return for no insurance at all. Some will find their need for insurance great enough and the subsidies generous enough that they will purchase insurance, and may even consider themselves lucky to be able to do so. But what of the millions of uninsured who can't afford to buy insurance at exorbitant for-profit rates? Those families and individuals can respond to their plight as individuals, and grumble privately while perhaps blaming themselves for their "failure" to earn enough to participate in the for-profit insurance market, or they could respond collectively, seeing their mass refusal to be milked by the insurance industry as a political act. Which approach the uninsured take will depend on the efforts that advocates of true reform take now to frame the issue and educate the public. Massive non-participation - not for ideological reasons, but due to a simple inability to pay - could form the core tactic of a powerful popular movement for the sort of free, universal care that people in every other industrialized country take for granted. First, large-scale non-participation will increase political pressure on Congress to revisit the issue of subsidies for the uninsured, and to make the subsidies more generous. Next, the massive costs of more generous subsidies will increase the pressure on Congress to create a genuine public option (which is not likely to be in any bill passed this year) in order to control costs. Finally, a government brought to bankruptcy by the staggering costs of premium subsidies even with a public option will be forced to turn to the only system that ever made any sense: single payer. As Winston Churchill once said of Americans, "You can always count on them to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Jeff Leys: Preparing to non-violently resist Afghanistan strategy

By Jeff Leys
Co-Coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence

This past Wednesday, Admiral Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced that the Pentagon will seek additional war funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2010. While he did not give a firm dollar amount, the New York Times reported that defense budget analysts are kicking around the number of $50 billion. The Times also reported that Jack Murtha, Chair of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, indicated on October 30 that he expects the supplemental spending bill for 2010 to be in the range of $40 billion. The final dollar amount won't be known until the White House submits its "emergency" supplemental spending request to Congress, most likely around February 2.

In the immortal words of Coach Vince Lombardi: "What the hell is going on out there?"

We should be so lucky if it were a simple matter of the Green Bay Packers screwing up the power sweep.

Instead, it's a matter of the Obama Administration now leading us down the path of the most expensive year in war funding since President Bush began the so-called "Global War on Terror" (now morphed into the "Overseas Contingency Operations" under President Obama).

You read that correctly. War spending in 2010 will exceed $190 billion if indeed the Pentagon seeks-and Congress approves--$50 billion in "emergency" funding. That's more than the $179 billion spent under President Bush in 2008, the previous high water mark for war spending. War spending in 2010 will also far exceed spending in 2009 (which is about $145 billion).

While Admiral Mullen did not announce a new war strategy for Afghanistan, it is difficult to conceive for what this additional $40 to $50 billion will be used if not used to expand the war in Afghanistan (and to perhaps continue the occupation of Iraq at near current troop levels without the substantive reductions promised earlier this year).

Let's compare the numbers from 2009 to 2010 for three key areas of spending: Personnel costs; Operation and Maintenance costs; and Procurement costs.

Funding levels in 2009 were: Personnel - $19.9 billion; Operation and Maintenance - $80.4 billion; and Procurement - $31.9 billion.

Current funding levels in 2010 are: Personnel - $14.1 billion; Operation and Maintenance - $80.3 billion; and Procurement - $22.2 billion. (With all the talk about building Afghanistan's army and police forces, it is worth noting that spending on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund increases from $5.6 billion in 2009 to $6.6 billion in 2010, so it's not likely that the "emergency" supplemental will include significantly more funds for this category).

Total funding levels in these three main areas are approximately $15.6 billion less in 2010 than in 2009. While Procurement funding declines in 2010 compared to 2009, this decline is most likely the result of returning to a more normative definition of what constitutes "emergency" war spending than the very expansive definition that was implemented under President Bush and that resulted in the explosion of Procurement spending to approximately $45 billion in both 2007 and 2008 (Procurement spending in 2005 was $18 billion and in 2006 it was $22.9 billion before this expansion).

The Congressional Research Service notes in a September 2009 report that the President's budget for 2010 includes both the increase in troop levels in Afghanistan to 69,000 ordered by President Obama earlier this year and the anticipated reduction in U.S. troop levels in Iraq through August 2010.

Which leads one to ask the question:

In announcing that the Pentagon intends to seek additional war funding for 2010, did Admiral Mullen tip the hat that President Obama intends to dramatically increase the level of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan--edging towards that 40,000 additional troops that General McChrystal seems to be requesting?

Or that the U.S. intends to otherwise dramatically increase the level of combat operations in Afghanistan and into Pakistan, which would carry the potential for significant increased costs in Operations and Maintenance as well as in Procurement funds?

Or that the U.S. intends to maintain troop levels in Iraq near current levels for the remainder of 2010?

Mullen's statement comes within the context of Obama's speech to service members in which he said that the U.S. would not send members of the military into harm's way without adequate resources. It comes within the context of Obama assuming personal responsibility for his decisions as commander-in-chief when he became the first U.S. President in decades to personally participate in the ceremonies at Dover upon the return of U.S. service members who died in war. The sequencing of events seems to be preparing the way for President Obama to issue the order to dramatically increase U.S. troop levels and combat operations in Afghanistan.

Somehow we must reinvigorate the antiwar movement that seems to have largely gone missing over these past several months.

One campaign under way to rise to the challenge is the Peaceable Assembly Campaign.

From January 19 through February 2, the PAC will maintain a two week vigil at the White House and engage in regular acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, starting on the day President Obama enters his second year in office, continuing through his anticipated State of the Union address to Congress, and concluding on the day he is to submit his budget for 2011 to Congress.

Then after February 2, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign will focus its work upon Congress. Similar to the Occupation Project effort of 2007, the PAC will organize lobbying--both legal and extralegal (i.e., civil disobedience)--in the home offices of Representatives and Senators who do not commit themselves publicly to oppose additional funding for the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the occupation
of the Palestinian territories.

You can become involved with the Peaceable Assembly Campaign here.

Now is not the time to equivocate in our opposition to the continuing and expanding wars. The die is being cast by the Obama Administration. It is our choice on how we respond. And rather than being directed at the Administration, perhaps we should direct Coach Lombardi's challenge to ourselves. After all…

What the hell IS going on out here?

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Jeff Leys is Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He can be reached via email at: jeffleys@vcnv.org.

Peace too 'political' for Vets Day parade

By Bill Christofferson

When is a veteran not a veteran?

When he or she is a Veteran for Peace, according to the committee which runs Milwaukee's Veterans Day parade.

According to the committee's logic, inviting non-veteran politicians to march in the Veterans Day parade is not political, but having the word "peace" in an organization's name is.

Members of Veterans for Peace have again been barred from participation in Milwaukee's Veterans Day Parade, although the parade website says the event is “Honoring all Americans who have served.”

The committee has refused to allow Veterans for Peace members – many of whom are combat veterans with Purple Hearts – from taking part in the observance on Saturday, Nov. 7, saying Veterans for Peace is “a politically motivated group,” and therefore not welcome.

So much for “honoring all Americans who have served.”

Chapter 102 members (I am one) did not ask to participate in the parade to make a political statement, but to take our rightful place in the annual event saluting all who served our country in uniform.

Yet the committee, which finds us “political,” invites non-veteran politicians -- Scott Walker, Gwen Moore, Tom Barrett -- to march in the parade, and welcomes veterans groups which are outspoken in support of military action and war.

The committee’s reply, from Chairman David Drent, said,

“There is no doubt that your organization is a politically motivated group. One visit to the organization’s website makes your views perfectly clear.

“We don’t make judgment on your purpose. End the war or escalate it carries the same weight with the board. A political statement is being made and there is no room in the parade for it.”

“We thank you for your service in our Armed Forces, but our goal has always been to have a day of honor that is 100% politically free.”

The committee’s decision was unanimous, he said.

Is the parade "100% politically free?" Hardly. The Veterans of Foreign Wars is welcome to march in the parade, even though its commander, Thomas Tradewell of Sussex, WI, recently called on President Obama to “heed the assessment and advice of his military leaders” and send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, suggesting that as commander-in-chief Obama’s job is to do what the generals recommend.

Apparently the parade committee doesn’t consider pro-escalation positions or even politicians to be “political." Veterans for Peace is in a class by itself.

In his letter to the committee, Chapter 102’s Mark Foreman wrote:

“We share your pride in having served this nation, whether during time of peace or war. We are a part of the Milwaukee community and of the veteran’s community.

Our major project is a Homeless Veterans Initiative, which has been operating for a year, to find and assess homeless and at-risk veterans and help them get the services they need to reach their highest possible level of independence. It is work we do on a daily basis with the estimated 3,900 to 5,200 veterans who are homeless in Milwaukee every year.

“We do not ask to participate in the parade to make a political statement, but to take our rightful place in the annual event saluting all who served our country in uniform. Veterans cover the political spectrum, as they represent the diversity of this country with a mix of race, gender, religion, economic status, and other characteristics.

“What we all have in common is our service, which is what Veterans Day celebrates. We respect other veterans and other veterans organizations. All we ask is that your committee pay us the same respect.

“We have been told in the past that the very name of our organization, Veterans for Peace, is “political” and therefore cannot be part of the parade.

But we believe all veterans who have experienced war share a desire for peace. As U.S. Senator John McCain, a decorated war veteran, has said, "Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war… "I hate war, and I know how terrible its costs are.” Senator McCain also said, “Veterans hate war more than anyone else.”

“Many Veterans for Peace chapters across the country are welcomed and march in Veterans Day parades in other cities. We hope Milwaukee will reconsider its previous position and welcome Veterans for Peace in its 2009 parade.”

Chapter 102 members will attend the parade to collect donations along the route for our Homeless Veterans Initiative, and distribute flyers explaining that VFP is not welcome in the parade itself.

VFP will continue to press the committee to do the right thing in the future. You can help, by expressing your views to the committee. Write: Veterans Day Parade, Box 684, Milwaukee WI 53201. Call 414- 414-453-8753. Or email: vetsparade@tds.net

Sponsors of the parade listed on the website are: Batteries Plus, Tropic Banana Co., Meyer and Wallis, Budweiser, Radio Station FM 106.1, Paul Conway Shields and Equipment, WISN Radio, and the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center.

Drent, the parade committee chair, is also executive director of the War Memorial Center, which receives $1.5-million a year in support from county taxpayers. So a taxpayerf-supported organization is keeping veterans out of the veterans parade. See anything wrong with that?

I think it's time to take our case to the sponsors and elected county officials, to let them know the self-appointed committee,including a tax-supported sponsor, is excluding military veterans from what should be a community-wide observance honoring those who have served, as the parade website claims.

Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War will sponsor a Veterans Day celebration on the day itself, Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. in the rotunda of Milwaukee City Hall, 200 E. Wells. The public is invited -- even war hawks.

Bill Christofferson: Dont worry, be active! Activists enjoy life more, study says

Why do we do what we do, and keep on keeping on, even when it seems like no one is listening, and our protests appear to be falling on deaf ears, or no ears?

This certainly isn't the last word on the subject, but here's one suggestion: Activism is it's own reward. Whether you succeed in achieving your goals or not, you'll enjoy life more because you tried.

Skeptical? Here's what the Boston Post reports:

Activists are dissatisfied with the drift of the times and outraged at the misdeeds of their ideological enemies.

But they are also, it turns out, enjoying their lives more than the rest of us. At least if recent research is to be believed, political activism, no matter the cause, seems to make people happy - even if they don’t win an election or triumph in a ballot initiative. Psychologists curious about what fuels human happiness have looked at political engagement and political activism, and they’ve found that it provides people with a sense of empowerment, of community, of freedom, and of transcendence. Political activists, in other words, are all happy warriors.

The paper suggests that's true whether you're a liberal or conservative, whether you're screaming at a tea party protest or marching to end the wars.

On its face, that seems dubious. Maybe it's just how it looks on television, but I'd say a lot of tea party types are hyperventilating and raising their blood pressure. But who's to say what makes people enjoy life?

Read the article here.

Steve Burns: Congress passes Iraq withdrawal timeline, nobody notices

Last Wednesday, President Obama signed into law the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, providing $550 billion for the Department of Defense and the national security programs of the Department of Energy and $130 billion to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since there is no disagreement between Republicans and Democrats about the need for the US to spend more on its military than the rest of the world combined, military spending bills like this one generally attract no media attention, and this one would have been completely unremarked-on by the corporate media if not for the inclusion of Federal hate crimes legislation in the bill.

Another provision seems to have gone completely unnoticed, a measure reaffirming the December 2011 date for a complete withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq that is part of the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush administration and ratified by the Iraqi parliament in November 2008. The new provision also requires the Pentagon to report to Congress every three months on progress to withdraw all U.S. troops, withdraw or transfer to Iraqi authorities all military equipment, close down or transfer to Iraqi authorities military bases, and release or transfer to Iraqi authorities all Iraqi detainees before the December 31, 2011 deadline.

Obama himself had no comments on the Iraq withdrawal language contained within the military-spending bill, and a Google News search shows that a Friends Committee on National Legislation press release on the topic was picked up on only by Reuters and the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Despite the lack of media interest, the provision may be significant as an example of Congressional push-back against efforts within the Defense Department to extend a US military presence in Iraq beyond December 2011. Back in July, for example, while on a surprise visit to Baghdad, Defense Secretary Gates speculated that the Iraqi government may "need" US troops to stay beyond the Dec. 2011 deadline. Gates added: "What happens beyond 2011 is a subject best left to the end of 2010 or 2011 itself," as if the matter had not already been settled by the Iraqi parliament's ratification of an agreement requiring a full US withdrawal by the end of 2011.

But this was not the first example of the US military treating the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement as a set of suggestions, rather than as binding law. The military also attempted to delay a June 30 withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi cities as required by the agreement, and finessed the requirement by redrawing the Baghdad city boundaries to exclude a US base within the city. A required July 30 national referendum on the agreement - with an immediate withdrawal of all US forces if the referendum fails - has been delayed, with the agreement of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, until Iraq's parliamentary elections in January of 2010. And those January elections may themselves be delayed, providing a pretext for military officials to argue for delaying further troop withdrawals.

Congress' insistence on a hard withdrawal deadline and regular reporting by the Pentagon on steps taken towards that goal is a natural follow-up to an earlier Congressional ban on permanent US military bases in Iraq. However much we may disagree with the Dec. 2011 timetable, we should still consider these examples of Congress asserting its authority over military matters as a welcome change from its all-too-common tendency to defer to the Generals.

There has long been a strongly-held belief among a large majority of the Iraqi public that the US plans to stay in Iraq forever, a feeling that US military officials help to fuel when they endlessly speculate about pushing back the deadline for our withdrawal. But, however much the Pentagon may want to treat the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement as a mere scrap of paper, the Iraqi public and parliament take the agreement quite seriously. As Aura Kanegis, Director of Public Policy for the American Friends Service Committee said, "The U.S.-Iraq bilateral agreement is so central to public discourse in Iraq, but too often forgotten in the U.S." And it's an agreement that not only the Pentagon tends to forget: Among the thousands of media outlets failing to take any notice of Congress' reaffirmation of the agreement's Dec. 2011 withdrawal timeline were the indefatigable Antiwar.com and the progressive news sites Common Dreams and Alternet. And, other than Friends Committee on National Legislation, you won't find mention of this nail in the coffin of a permanent US occupation of Iraq on the websites of any national peace organizations. Is the peace movement unwilling to acknowledge progress, however small, towards its goal of a complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq?

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, and can be reached at: outreach@wnpj.org

Dan Pearson & Kathy Kelly: The rotten fruits of war

By Dan Pearson and Kathy Kelly
October 22, 2009

Five months ago, shortly after the Pakistani government had begun a military offensive against suspected Taliban fighters in the northernmost area of the country, we arrived in Islamabad, the capital, as part of a small delegation organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

Our initial travel plans had focused on learning more about civilian suffering caused by U.S. drone attacks. But, over the course of our three-week visit, close to 3 million people had become uprooted by violence in the Swat Valley and neighboring districts. Visiting tent encampments and abandoned buildings to which people had fled, we spoke with people who identified themselves as poor people, with meager resources, who were anxious to return to their homes as soon as possible. They were also alarmed because they feared that their crops, animals, shops and stores were already destroyed.

Now that the military offensive in Swat has wound down, Pakistan’s government officials have labeled the operation a success. They claim to have cleared the area of Taliban fighters and have commenced a new military offensive in South Waziristan.

A closer look reveals a very different story.

Many families from Swat and surrounding districts returned to find that their homes, crops and other means of survival have been damaged or destroyed. Such circumstances force many to rely heavily on food aid. According to Amjad Jamal, a spokesperson for the World Food Program (WFP), “around 2.4 million displaced people received aid from the WFP food hubs last month.”

The WFP announced today that they are temporarily closing 20 food hubs in the North West Frontier Province citing concerns of worsening security.

Reporting from a Pakistani field hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the BBC met with scores of victims wounded by land mine explosions. The father of a 14 year old boy whose hands were blown off while he was playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance expressed anger over the government’s failure to remove the land mines before telling people it was safe to return. The father worked as a jeweler before the military offensive began, but after he and his family fled the fighting, his shop was looted; now he has no income, and his home was damaged in the shelling.

The BBC also reported that more than 200 corpses, believed to be bodies of suspected Taliban, have been found across the valley in recent weeks. Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission has called for an investigation into reports of numerous extra-judicial killings and reprisals carried out by security forces.

Dr. Aasim Sajjad, a professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, believes that the Taliban’s numbers will grow as a result of Pakistan’s military offensives. “The hundreds of thousands languishing in refugee camps talk of the mortar shells that have destroyed their homes and killed their relatives,” says Dr. Sajjad. “They seethe with anger and warn the government that most Taliban fighters hail from the local population. The longer the war continues -- and it has only just begun in this region -- the better the chances that the Taliban will be able to recruit from the refugees.” (Monthly Review “War, Islamists and the Left,” July 7, 2009)

Yesterday’s deadly suicide bombing at the Islamic University in Islamabad was the latest in a series of the Taliban’s recent reprisal attacks against the Pakistani government that have claimed the lives of over 150 people.

Military offensives that promise to smash or eradicate “the bad guys” may accomplish short-term “successes” by locking up or killing armed resisters and promising that the military will provide peace and security. But military establishments aren’t set up to address the long-term, desperate grievances that afflict impoverished people and give rise to support for militant groups of resisters.

According to conservative estimates, 75% of Pakistan's population of 170 million lives on less than $2 a day. The majority of Pakistanis yearn for food security, clean water, a livelihood that can sustain their families and education that will help their children break out of impoverishment. Young men who are jobless, shut out of education are resentful of social structures that favor wealthy landowners and other elites and they are drawn to
Taliban groups that promise a Robin Hood sort of redistribution. These Taliban groups have been dealt a temporary setback by the military offensive, but the fundamental problems of hunger, lack of clean water, illiteracy and joblessness haven’t been tackled.

Meanwhile, U.S. drone attacks continue, in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Using “eyes in the skies” by piloting Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, (UAVs or drones), the U.S. analysts can see and attack suspected Taliban or Al Qaida fighters, along with anyone else who might happen to be in the vicinity. But the UAVs won’t help us understand the acute need for humanitarian relief, diplomacy, negotiation and dialogue in a region already overwhelmed by attacks, counter-attacks, bloodshed and death.

Whether it is in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or even in the U.S., as we've seen in recent years, war takes its heaviest toll on the poorest. It is a profound mistake to believe that military force is a solid foundation for peace.

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Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) and Dan Pearson (dan@vcnv.org) are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. a WNPJ member group. With colleagues in Chicago, they are organizing the Peaceable Assembly Campaign to nonviolently resist U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as military support for the Israeli military.

Dan Kenney: Is a "Blackwater Wannabe" coming to a town near you?

Many “Blackwater wannabes” have been sprouting up around the country this past year. Proposed large private training centers have been brought to my attention from California, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and Florida. The one in Ohio was defeated by citizens. The ones in California and Virginia are still being fought.

The proposed 7,700 acre Eagle National Training Center that was under consideration near Venus Florida has for now been turned down on their attempt to secure zoning changes. The Highland County commissioners voted unanimously to not approve the requested zoning variances.

Opponents of the proposed private military and security training facility turned out in large numbers to speak out against the project. The citizens filled the meeting room and more waited outside. The meeting lasted for over 12 hours. It is unclear if the security center is a dead deal, the developer, Greg Eagle of the Ft. Meyers area isn’t saying. There is a good chance that it is and credit must go to the opponents who worked quickly and with determination to stop it.
The developers made many concessions to try and when over the local residents like giving up plans for a 6,000 foot runway and firing of large guns. But the citizens were not swayed. Many of the citizens voiced concern that Eagle was just purchasing the land but then would lease it to Blackwater (now known as Xe.)

But because Eagle lost this round it does not mean the fight is over. Eagle could come back in six months with a revised plan to try and fit into the present zoning requirements. Also De Soto County, one hour from Highlands, has let it be known that if Highlands didn’t want the training center they would take it. The promise of 1,000 jobs that Eagle has put out is very tempting in the present economic environment.

Also watch for another Eagle Training Center that may be coming to a neighborhood near you. According to a 10 year business plan that was submitted to the commissioners Eagle, following in Blackwater’s footsteps, plans to create twenty additional satellite training installations nationally. Their plan was to make the Florida location a headquarters. Their plan also included the training of foreign soldiers and police. It also mentioned the possibility of “flipping the property” to a larger private training company such as Blackwater.

It seems that many have seen the huge profits that companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, and others are making and have decided it is time to join them at the U.S. government privatization feeding trough.

Be on the watch for a private military security company near your home town.

Dan Kenney is a contact for WNPJ member group DeKalb Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice and frequently does public speaking on the subject of private military contractors for the group No Private Armies.

Steve Burns: The strategy behind "Bring the Guard Home - It's the Law!"

"Bring the Guard Home - It's the Law!" is a national campaign, now active in more than 20 states, that is raising a legal challenge to the Federal Government's use of our National Guard troops for deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Wisconsin, the campaign is promoting AB 203, a bill in the Wisconsin state assembly which would give the Governor the authority to examine the legality of any federal order for deployment of the Wisconsin National Guard and to challenge in court any orders determined to be unlawful. I'm excited about this campaign because I see it as the beginning of a much larger national movement that is asking the long-overdue question: "Who decides about war?" This was the title of a recent conference in Washington D.C. that brought together grassroots peace activists and legal and constitutional scholars to ask one of the most fundamental questions we can ask, as citizens of a nation that claims to be a democracy.

Just take a look at our current situation: The United States exists in a permanent state of war, can even be said to be addicted to war, and all decision-making about the question of war has now been placed in the hands of one man: the President. Whatever we think of the current occupant of that office, this is clearly a dangerous, unhealthy and undemocratic state of affairs.

And yet who is pushing back against the idea of one-man rule on questions of war and peace? Certainly not Congress. Here's Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, after a recent meeting of Congressional "leaders" with President Obama about Afghanistan:

"The one thing that I thought was interesting was that everyone, Democrats and Republicans, said whatever decision you make, we’ll support it basically," said Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader.

But that's really just a continuation of Congress' supine behavior over the past eight years. Congress no longer even bothers to declare war, even though it is the only body given authority by the constitution to do that. Instead, it passes "Authorizations for Use of Military Force" which are either based on blatant falsehoods, like the Iraqi Authorization, or are an unconstitutional abdication of Congressional war-making powers to the President, as with the Afghanistan Authorization, which says, in effect, "You go wherever you think you need to go, and for as long as you need to, Mr. President, in pursuit of the people who did 9/11, and we'll just sit here and sign the checks."

If Congress is worse than useless, what other centers of power in this country might be mobilized in opposition to the permanent-war state?

There is popular opposition, of course, and the peace movement has proved remarkably successful in building public opposition in the face of an almost complete blackout of pro-peace voices in the corporate media. When you read, for example, that 57% of Americans now oppose the Afghanistan war, remember that this shift in opinion happened even though Americans have never seen a single person on their televisions calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clearly, the American people are capable of making up their own minds even while they swim in a sea of government propaganda, and the peace movement can take a large share of credit for that.

There is also opposition within the uniformed military. Iraq Veterans Against the War has helped to amplify the voices of antiwar vets like Camilo Mejia, and, as Dahr Jamail reports in his new book, "The Will to Resist", even soldiers who do not go public with their opposition are engaging in lower-level resistance through "search and avoid" missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, choosing to park their vehicles and radio in reports of "patrols" while avoiding contact with the resistance.

And let's not forget the resistance by youth, parents and educators against military recruiters in schools and elsewhere. Although the recruiters are now reaping the benefits of an economic collapse and widespread joblessness and are currently meeting their quotas, counter-recruitment can, over the long term, help to choke off the supply of warm bodies needed to fuel the war machine.

But we, as a peace movement, would not be doing our jobs if we did not explore every center of power and its potential for anti-war resistance. And that takes us back to "Bring the Guard Home - It's the Law!" The military has become increasingly dependent on the National Guard, especially for the logistical tasks that make war-fighting possible, and authority for the National Guard is not granted exclusively to the Federal government. It is shared by the States and the Feds, in a complex arrangement that raises numerous legal questions - and opportunities. Can we, joining with activists in more than 20 states, turn our state legislatures into centers of opposition to the misuse of the Guard? I don't claim to know the answer to that question, but I think that a peace movement that doesn't explore this option is leaving one of the most important "pillars of war" untouched.

But can AB 203 pass the legislature? At our first legislative lobby day in support of AB 203, one legislative aide told us, "There are a thousand bills introduced in the legislature every session." That's a daunting statistic, to be sure, but it also clarifies our task: Through constituent phone calls and meetings, we must raise our one bill above the sea of a thousand bills, so that it first becomes one of the hundred bills that your legislator has actually heard of, and then one of the few dozen bills that your legislator will vote for. Still discouraged? Ask yourself: How many bills have citizens roaming the halls of the Capitol on their behalf? Ours does, and whether our bill succeeds on what we do, including how many of us make the trip to Madison for the October 20 lobby day in support of AB 203.

But will any Governor use the authority given by AB 203 to withhold the Guard? As with the question about whether AB 203 will pass the legislature, the answer depends on us. I can easily imagine, if AB 203 becomes law, a thousand pro-peace citizens (or thousands, even) surrounding the Capitol, demanding that the Governor do the right - and legally proper - thing and refuse the next deployment order to send more of Wisconsin's Guard to Iraq or Afghanistan. When that happens, it will be because those citizens have been provided with an opportunity to protest, closer to home and directed at a target that's more subject to pressure than Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or Barack Obama, and because the Governor has lost an excuse for inaction that he once enjoyed. This is why it's a mistake to see the campaign for AB 203 in opposition to other tactics, such as street protests. Done strategically, a legislative campaign can create opportunities for protest and raise the level of popular interest in street protest.

Clearly, peace movement activity is now at a low ebb. Some cite the "Obama effect", some note that other issues, such as health care, have drawn away the interest of politically active people. These explanations all contain a grain of truth, but the peace movement also needs to examine the types of activities it is promoting, and constantly assess our strategies and tactics and search for new strategies when the old ones clearly aren't working. "Bring the Guard Home - It's the Law!" is one of the new strategies we should be exploring. Whether it leads anywhere depends, at least in part, on us.