Determined to Save Succeeding Generations from the Scourge of War
DPI/NGO Relations with the kind sponsorship of the
Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations
invite you to the Briefing
“Determined to Save Succeeding Generations from the Scourge of War”
Date: Thursday, 6 June 2013
Time: 10:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Location: ECOSOC Chamber, Conference Building, United Nations Headquarters
OPENING REMARKS
H.E. Mr. Paul Seger, Ambassador of Switzerland to the United Nations
PANEL
Ms. Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chair, Nobel Women’s Initiative
Mr. Ralph Zacklin, Former United Nations Assistant-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, 1998-2005
Ms. Nounou Booto Meeti, Programme Manager, Centre for Peace, Security and Armed Violence Prevention
Background Information
The Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations begins with the words “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.” These opening words continue to serve as a reminder that the UN itself was created to help prevent war, and of the ruin that war can bring upon the world.
Since the UN’s creation, the international community has not seen a conflict with the same level of globally widespread catastrophe as the Second World War, which motivated governments toward its creation. Unfortunately, the “scourge of war” has not disappeared. Now, nearly 70 years after the Charter’s signing, ongoing violent conflicts continue to inflict unimaginable suffering around the world. Some, like the current crisis in Syria, resulting in over 70,000 deaths so far, have no end in sight.
Although not every part of the world directly experiences widespread violent conflict, the implications of militarization touch every corner of the global village. Over $1.7 trillion is spent globally on armaments, making up about 2.5 percent of the world’s GDP. Figures like these have prompted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to stress several times that “the world is over-armed and peace is underfunded.”
This Briefing will bring together a diverse and high-level panel to discuss the role of war in recent human history and how far humanity has advanced in limiting the scourge of war, particularly since the signing of the UN Charter. The Briefing will highlight various aspects of this topic, including the idea that peace comes through strength, the questioning of increasing militarism in society, and the view that the institution of war should be abolished, just as institutions of slavery, colonialism; apartheid and the prohibition of women from voting have been eliminated.
by 10:00 a.m. sharp.
United Nations-produced videos relevant to the theme of the Briefing are sometimes screened during the session. For Briefing information please call the DPI/NGO Resource Centre at +1-212-963-7232 / 7233 / 7234 or e-mail dpingo.briefings@un.org. To receive the Briefing information electronically, please email dpingo.briefings@un.org. You may also visit the DPI/NGO Relations Cluster website at www.un.org/dpi/ngosection, where archived web casts and audio (both, when available) of the Briefing may also be accessed.
Requests for NGO guest passes should be faxed on organization letterhead to the DPI/NGO Resource Centre at +1 212-963-2819 or e-mailed to dpingo.briefings@un.org AT LEAST TWO BUSINESS DAYS PRIOR to the Briefing. [Please note that pass requests received at any other email address will not be processed.] All guest passes should be picked up at the DPI/NGO Resource Centre, Room GA-37, on the morning of the Briefing. NGOs are reminded that this Briefing starts promptly at 10:15 a.m. Guests in need of an NGO sponsor for a UN guest pass are asked to contact Mr. Charles Hitchcock at hitchcockc@ngodpiexecom.org no later than 1 June 2013.
NOTE: This Briefing will be webcast live at webtv.un.org. You can post questions and comments during the session on our Facebook (facebook.com/
United Nations, DPI/NGO Relations Section, Room DC-1 550
Tel: (917) 367-9380 / (212) 963-7709 Fax: (212) 963-2819 E-mail: section1d@un.org
Legacy of European Colonialism Liberating Women With Bombs and Bags of Cash
By John Grant
It was the summer of 1981. I was working on an ambulance in Philadelphia, transporting a cancer patient to a hospital for radiation treatments. The man was in his sixties, and I felt he knew his days were numbered.
In my conversations with the man, it came up that I was a Vietnam veteran. He told me he was in the CIA in Saigon in the early 1970s.
“What did you do?” I asked.
Jury finds 3 guilty of weapons plant break-in
It took a jury about 2 ½ hours to find the three protesters guilty of a charge of sabotaging the plant and second charge of damaging federal property in July the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge in July.
Defense attorneys said in closing arguments that federal prosecutors had overreached in the charges because of the embarrassment caused by the break-in.
Obama in Plunderland: Down the Corporate Rabbit Hole
By Norman Solomon
The president’s new choices for Commerce secretary and FCC chair underscore how far down the rabbit hole his populist conceits have tumbled. Yet the Obama rhetoric about standing up for working people against “special interests” is as profuse as ever. Would you care for a spot of Kool-Aid at the Mad Hatter’s tea party?
Of course the Republican economic program is worse, and President Romney’s policies would have been even more corporate-driven. That doesn't in the slightest make acceptable what Obama is doing. His latest high-level appointments -- boosting corporate power and shafting the public -- are despicable.
Pakistan’s court declares US drone strikes as illegal
Islamabad: A Pakistani court on Thursday declared that US drone strikes in the country's lawless tribal belt were illegal and directed the Foreign Ministry to move a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations.
The Peshawar High Court issued the verdict against the strikes by CIA-operated spy planes in response to four petitions that contended the attacks killed civilians and caused collateral damage.
Willie Manning: Unjustly Sentenced to Death
Willie Manning: Unjustly Sentenced to Death
by Stephen Lendman
Capital punishment is barbaric, unjust and unconscionable. It's the ultimate denial of human rights. Nothing justifies state-sponsored murder. Wrongfully executing innocent victims alone explains why.
Kerry in Moscow
Kerry in Moscow
by Stephen Lendman
Russian condemnation of Israeli air strikes preceded Kerry's arrival. Moscow's Foreign Ministry called them "a threat to regional stability."
Syria News May 9
VIDEO: Carney: Assad Does Not Represent Syrian People - Yahoo! Finance Canada
US unveiling extra $100 million humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees - AFP
Pentagon Plans for the Worst in Syria - WSJ.com
EU "very satisfied" with US-Russia Syria accord - AFP
Brahimi Calls Russia-US Deal on Syria ‘Significant Step’ - RIA Novosti
Jordan, Iran Agree on Need For Political Solution in Syria - Al-Monitor
Canada urges political solution in Syria - AFP
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Syrian troops push into strategic town along highway to Jordan - Reuters
US Intelligence Asked Moderate Syrian Rebels to Fight Al-Nusra - thenational.ae
Watchdog: Jihadist al-Nusra chief wounded near Damascus - Alarabiya.net
Syrian rebels release video of captive peacekeepers (VIDEO) - The Times of Israel
UN pulls back Golan peacekeepers after abduction- AFP
Al-Assad tries to open safe corridor for Alawites, says Turkish FM - hurriyetdailynews.com
Israeli- and Hizballah-controlled enclaves take shape inside Syria - DEBKAfile
Hezbollah seeking more arms after Israeli raid on Syria - NOW
Fatah: Resistance doesn't take orders from Syria - JPost
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VIDEO: Investigating Syrian rebels’ chemical weapons claims - Today Show
VIDEO: FSA Leader Says Syrian Govt Used Chemical Weapons 4 Times - Today Show
Growing signs Syria uses chemical weapons: Britain's Cameron - Yahoo! News
Britain launches new drive to lift EU arms ban on Syria - Reuters
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Kurdish Group Gaining Autonomy In Northern Syria - Al-Monitor
Divisions Plague Kurdish Opposition Groups in Syria - Rudaw
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
Stop the Torture! Close Guantánamo! End the War Crimes & Violations of Fundamental Rights!
by Debra Sweet We’ve been pondering hard on what more we can do to create a political situation where Obama has to back down, release at least a few of the men at Guantanamo, and be forced into closing the prison. All of our frequent protests, petitions, call-ins, editorials and op-eds are part of what's needed.
Threatened with Censorship and Ouster by PEN’s Henchmen
In the vast and ever expanding firmament of Western Human Rights NGO’s, PEN, America Center, the writers’ organization, is far from the most luminous and ordinarily barely visible. But a dark side of PEN came clearly into view with the hiring of Suzanne Nossel as its executive director. And the same dark side is becoming all too apparent in organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, both of which have also employed Nossel in the past.
Rep Walter Jones: Get Out of Afghanistan
OUT OF AFGHANISTAN
a speech in Congress by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), on May 7, 2013
Full Text Below, adapted from the Congressional Record.
Mr. Speaker, like most Members of Congress, I was home last week and did two or three different civic clubs. Everywhere I went, when I said it's time to get our troops out of Afghanistan, save lives of our American soldiers, and save money, I would get applause.
Also, in the last couple of weeks, my office has sent out a survey, and 17,000 people of the Third District responded, and 70 percent of the 17,000 said the same thing: Why are we still in Afghanistan spending money we do not have and having our young men and women to give their life for a failed policy known as Afghanistan? ....
.... Mr. Speaker, I'm on the Armed Services Committee, and I have written a letter to the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee and asked her to hold hearings and bring in the inspectors general who've been looking into how the waste, fraud, and abuse abounds in Afghanistan. They can't even account for half the money we've spent over in Afghanistan. We've already spent over $700 billion in Afghanistan, and half of it we can't even account for ....
.... But when you hear about the CIA sending cash money for 10 years, millions and millions and millions of dollars to Karzai so that he can take care of the warlords over in Afghanistan and give a little bit of money to the Taliban so they can buy weapons to kill Americans, then I don't know and I sometimes just am frustrated. Where is the outrage in Congress? ....
.... We're not going to change one thing. They've already acknowledged, Mr. Speaker, that we are fighting the Taliban, and most of the Taliban are Pashtuns, the largest tribe in Afghanistan. They will eventually be the leaders, and Mr. Karzai will not even be in Afghanistan. He'll probably be in Switzerland counting his money that Uncle Sam has sent to him. ....
Talk Nation Radio: Highway Boondoggles Bypass Budget Crunch
Randy "Salz" Salzman is a transportation writer and researcher and the author of Fatal Attraction: Curbing Our Love Affair With the Automobile Before it Kills Us. He discusses how highway construction boondoggles that are bad for health, heritage, the environment, and even the flow of traffic, have survived in these times of cramped public budgets. In particular, Salzman looks at the example of a proposed highway in Charlottesville, Va., opposed by the public but rolling ahead toward unsafe, destructive, and ridiculously expensive construction.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download or get embed code from Archive or AudioPort or LetsTryDemocracy.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://davidswanson.org/talknationradio
Death Penalty Dying Out
Most of the world's governments no longer use the death penalty. Among wealthy nations there is one exception remaining. The United States is among the top five killers in the world. Also in the top five: the recently "liberated" Iraq.
But most of the United States' 50 states no longer use the death penalty. There are 18 states that have abolished it, including 6 in this new millennium, including Maryland this week. Thirty-one states haven't used the death penalty in the past 5 years, 26 in the past 10 years, 17 in the past 40 years or more. A handful of Southern states -- with Texas in the lead -- do most of the killing.
The progress is slow and painful. Mississippi is right now having trouble deciding whether to spare a man just because he might be innocent. Maryland has perversely left five people waiting to be killed while banning the death penalty for any future cases. Next-door in Virginia we hold second place behind Texas and continue to kill.
Virginia electrocuted a man named Robert Gleason in January. Since then, Texas has killed four men, Ohio two, and Florida, Oklahoma, and Georgia one each -- all by lethal injection. Since 1973, there have been 141 exonerations from death row nationwide, including an innocent Virginian who came within days of being killed.
If you're convicted of killing a white person in Virginia, you're over three times as likely to receive the death penalty as you would be if the victim had been black. The injustice and backwardness is staggering, but so is the lack of democracy. Only a third of Virginians tell pollsters they favor the death penalty.
The evil of the death penalty is not limited to the instances in which it is used -- or to the corrosive influence it has on our culture. The death penalty primarily serves as a valuable chip in plea bargaining. Want someone to plead guilty, whether or not they actually are guilty? Threaten them with the death penalty. Who needs trials by jury (now used in under 2% of cases) when you have that kind of tool? And who has time for them when you've overloaded the system by treating drug use as a crime?
Remarkably, a former commonwealth's attorney here in Charlottesville, Va., named Steve Deaton is campaigning for his old job with a commitment to never use or threaten to use the death penalty.
"I believe the death penalty is barbaric and has no place in modern Charlottesville courts," Deaton says, reversing the electoral wisdom of many decades, which firmly holds that candidates must pretend to believe the death penalty is just and righteous and a deterrent to crime, even if the public thinks that's nonsense.
"I am calling for a moratorium on death penalty prosecutions," says Deaton. "During the past 20 years -- that is, the term of the incumbent Commonwealth's Attorney -- a number of capital murder charges have been brought against some people, almost all of them poor. Then the charge is often used as a bargaining chip to get the defendant to plead guilty to murder and accept a life sentence. This practice of using the threat of death to plea bargain is legal, and under current ethical standards, considered ethical. However, I find such a practice appalling. By engaging in this practice the prosecutor is tempting fate: what if their threat doesn't work and the case goes to a jury?"
Many in Charlottesville oppose the death penalty. Deaton explains the very real possibility that it will nonetheless be employed here: "The notion that no Charlottesville jury will return a death sentence is misleading. In a capital murder case the jury has to be 'death qualified,' meaning that the jurors must believe in the death penalty. Such a jury is not representative of the community! Studies have shown that a 'death qualified jury' is also much more likely to convict."
Deaton points out that prosecutors have a great deal of discretion: "A prosecutor does not have to bring a capital murder charge. They have the option of bringing a regular murder charge instead."
If elected, Deaton intends to use the enormous discretion given to prosecutors to try to make punishments more reasonably fit crimes, including so-called drug crimes. While Charlottesville City Council failed by a vote of 3-2 in February to end jail time for possession of marijuana, Deaton intends to charge those possessing marijuana with a different charge: disorderly conduct. It's technically a higher level charge -- a Class 1 misdemeanor -- but it does not carry the draconian punishments of loss of driver's license, subjection to drug testing, ruined college acceptance and student loan prospects, immigration status, etc. "If a person makes a mistake, they should be punished. They shouldn't have their lives ruined," Deaton says.
Deaton aims to counter mass-incarceration, not add to it. "The state has built a new $100 million prison in Grayson County and there is talk of expanding our local jail," he says. "All of this in spite of declining crime rates. It is time to stop feeding the prison-industrial complex. I believe the goal of the justice system should be to empty out spaces in the jails and prisons -- not to fill every available space!"
Of course, the system of mass incarceration creates a caste system by stamping the scarlet F of "Felon" on those released, no matter how many years of their lives are wasted in cages. Deaton favors restoring rights, including voting rights, for people convicted of nonviolent felonies.
Charlottesville has a chance to give the death penalty in Virginia a big push toward the door, which would help the United States and the world along that path. As Charlottesville only elects Democrats (and packs the full range of great to awful candidates into that one party) the election for Deaton is effectively the June 11th primary. Anyone in Charlottesville can vote in that primary, without swearing any loyalty to any party. And anyone else can help to spread the word or donate to the campaign.
UN Human Rights Council Duplicity
UN Human Rights Council Duplicity
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article said the following:
On May 5, Reuters headlined "UN has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator."
Fannie and Freddie in Good Hands with Mel Watt
Fannie and Freddie in Good Hands with Mel Watt
by Stephen Lendman
On May 1, Obama nominated Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).
It replaced the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB), the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD).
Congressional Briefing on Guantanamo This Friday
On Friday, May 10, at 10:00 AM, experts on the situation at Guantanamo will brief Congress about current conditions at the prison and discuss possibilities for change. You can help by being there or by asking your Congress Member and Senators to send staffers or show up.
At least a hundred men are on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, some nearing the hundredth-day mark.
The men are on hunger strike because their detention appears to be indefinite, a situation that violates international law and is considered by medical experts to be a form of psychological torture.
Although review boards have cleared for release most of the 166 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, US taxpayers are funding their continued detention at a cost of approximately $800,000 per detainee each year.
A congressional briefing on Guantanamo, sponsored by Representative Jim Moran, will be held on Friday, May 10 at 10:00 AM.
Numbers are available from the Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
To locate your member of Congress online: www.house.gov
Co-sponsored by The National Religious Campaign Against Torture, New America Foundation, and The Constitution Project (author of a recent, bi-partisan report on US detention policy and practice).
When: Friday, May 10th at 10:00 am
Where: B-354, Rayburn House Office Building
Syria News May 8
VIDEO: Joint Lavrov and Kerry conference in Moscow - YouTube
VIDEO: Obama on Syria: I don't make decisions based on perceived evidence - NBCNews.com
Syrian Opposition to Discuss Replacing Hitto as Interim PM–Source - Asharq Alawsat English Mobile
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Syria Civil War: Rebel Group Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade Abducts Four UN Peacekeepers - IBTimes UK
VIDEO: More Filipino UN peacekeepers ‘held by Syrian rebels’ - euronews
Iran Warns Syrian Rebels After Report of Shrine Desecration - NYTimes.com
Chatting About 'Game of Thrones' with Syria's Most Feared Islamic Militants - VICE United States
Danish jihadist killed while fighting for Muhajireen Brigade in Syria - The Long War Journal
FSA brigade pledges to fight Hezbollah’s Qusayr advances - nosratashraf.com
VIDEO: Syrian army gains control of strategic Qusayr suburban areas - YouTube
Turkey’s Kurdish solution process paves the way for PYD in Syria- report - World Bulletin
Syria Internet Goes Down, Traffic Monitoring Sites Confirm
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Assad says Syria able to face Israel but stops short of threatening retaliation - CBC News
Palestinian group says Syria OKs attacks on Israel - usatoday.com
Iran FM meets Assad, says time to dissuade Israel - NOW
UN complains to Israel about violations of Lebanese airspace - Reuters
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
On Its 20th Birthday, Its Future is Challenged: Social Networking Poses Threat to World Wide Web
By Alfredo Lopez
This Summer, a team at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has undertaken a remarkable project: to recreate the first web site and the computer on which it was first seen.
Planning a War on Syria at the Ritz Carlton in DC This Thursday
Hagel, Livni and Free Syrian Army commanders reported to gather in D.C. at behest of Israel lobby
By Philip Weiss
May 07, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The U.S. is evidently closely coordinating its policy toward the Syrian civil war with Israel.
On May 9, for instance, the Israel lobby group WINEP will hold an annual symposium in Washington. Reports have it here and here that speakers include Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, two commanders of the Free Syrian Army, and Tzipi Livni, an architect of the 2008-09 assault on Gaza. (The WINEP description of its conference appears to have been scrubbed of the information.)
Understanding Obama and other People Who Kill
By Robert J. Burrowes
When Barack Obama orders the US military to attack people in another
country, whether in a war or by using an illegal drone strike, he knows
that people, including innocent men, women and children (called
'collateral damage'), will be killed. How can he do this? When Benjamin
Netanyahu orders Israeli military attacks on unarmed Palestinians, he
knows that innocent men, women and children will be killed. How can he do
this? When corporate executives, such as Hugh Grant (chief of Monsanto)
and Gregory R. Page (boss of Cargill), make decisions that deprive people
- including those in Africa, Asia and Central/South America - of the means
of economic survival, they know that people will be exploited and killed.
How can they do this?
It takes someone with a particular psychological profile to kill people.
Most of us cannot do it even when ordered to do so. Studies have shown
Asking Amnesty International to Oppose War
Some human rights groups, especially Amnesty International, seem to have forgotten an important human right: peace. A petition has been launched to remind them.
These organizations are not the warmongers. They do tremendously great work addressing some of the symptoms of warmaking, including imprisonment and torture. But, because they avoid taking any position on war, and because of an apparent bias in favor of U.S. military intervention, they sometimes find themselves effectively promoting war and all the horrors that come with it. At Nuremberg to initiate a war of aggression was called the supreme international crime "encompassing the evil of the whole." Yet human rights groups are often on the wrong side of the fundamental question of war.
Amnesty International (AI) promoted the babies-taken-from-incubators hoax that helped launch the 1991 war on Iraq. AI has upheld the pretense that the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan is about women's rights. And now Amnesty International is highlighting warmaking in Syria's civil war by one side only:
"Our team of researchers on the ground found evidence that government forces bombed entire neighborhoods and targeted residential areas with long-range surface-to-surface missiles," said an AI fundraising email on April 29th that made no mention of abuses committed by Syrian rebels supported by the U.S. and its allies.
This one-sided treatment by a group supposedly dedicated to all humans fuels the fires of a wider war from which the people of Syria can only suffer.
The email continued: "Amnesty has a strong track record of using our on-the-ground findings to pressure governments and the United Nations Security Council to hold those responsible for the slaughter of civilians accountable."
Does it? When the United States kills civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya, AI's silence has often been deafening. Shouldn't a human rights group press for an end to the killing of all humans by all parties?
While many good individuals who work for human rights groups like AI oppose wars, these organizations officially ignore President Eisenhower's warning and a half-century of evidence regarding the power of the military industrial complex -- and they ignore the criminality of war under the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter, the Kellogg-Briand Pact and other laws.
These groups accept the existence of war (when not encouraging it) and then focus on specific crimes and abuses within the larger war-making enterprise. They promote the idea that human rights are governed by two sets of laws, one in peace and another weaker set in war. Voices for the human right to peace are missing and badly needed, as "humanitarianism" and "the right to protect" are used as excuses for war and intervention.
Amnesty International opposes imprisonment without trial and other abuses unless they adhere to the "laws of war," which is why AI is not opposing the outrageous charges leveled against Bradley Manning. Killing is opposed unless it adheres to the "laws of war." Under this standard, we pretend not to know whether blowing families up with drones is legal or not as long as the memos purporting to legalize it are kept hidden.
Groups like Amnesty oppose particular weapons, including the development of fully autonomous weapons (drones that fly themselves). No one in their right mind would oppose that step. But surely the human right not to be blown up does not vanish if the button is pushed by a person instead of an autonomous robot. Other organizations are pushing to ban all weaponized drones from the world.
Human rights groups should join the peace movement in targeting war and militarism itself, rather than just some of its symptoms. Amnesty International and all groups favoring human rights should be asked to oppose a U.S. escalation of war on Syria.
Profile of Lawless Aggression
Profile of Lawless Aggression
by Stephen Lendman
Israel and America are longstanding imperial partners. They spurn international laws. They do so repeatedly. They ignore their own.
Yair Shamir: Profile of Israeli Extremism
Yair Shamir: Profile of Israeli Extremism
by Stephen Lendman
He's a former IDF officer. He's now an Israeli politician and businessman. He's former Prime Minister Yitzhak's son. He's named after Avraham "Yair" Stern.
In 1940, he founded the terrorist Lehi group. It's commonly called the Stern Gang. During WW II, it offered to help Nazi Germany and fascist Italy against Britain.
Syria News May 7
UN: No conclusive proof chemical weapons used in Syria - NOW
Moscow Sees No Hard Evidence of Chemical Weapons in Syria - RIA Novosti
Al Qaeda's track record with chemical weapons - CNN.com
Senate Dem introduces bill to arm Syria opposition - Fox News
Syrian Opposition Groups Deny Chemical Weapons Attack - US News and World Report
Will The UN Find Sarin In Syria? - Medical Daily
VIDEO: UN commissioner Carla Del Ponte on sarin use by Syrian rebels - YouTube
VIDEO: Sarin use strongly suspected in Syria - YouTube
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No early warning for US over Israeli strikes in Syria - todayszaman
Russia "especially concerned" by Israel's Syria air strikes - NOW
Putin, Israeli PM Discuss Syria by Phone - Naharnet
China criticizes Syria raid as Netanyahu, Abbas visit - NOW
EU warns of 'spillover' threat in Syria region following Israeli air strikes - straitstimes.com
Al-Maliki: Israeli Aggression on Sites in Syria Violates International Law- SANA, Syria
Jordan Lower House condemns Israeli attacks on Syria - Jordan News Agency (Petra)
Any arms Israel targeted in Syria not Iranian, general says - NOW
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Turkey launches military exercise near Syrian border - Yahoo! News
Turkish PM calls Syrian President Assad ‘a butcher’ - PanARMENIAN.Net
Erdogan Keeps Silent About Israeli Strikes on Syria - Al-Monitor
Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria - The Atlantic
Turkey rejects claims of joining regional cooperation against Iran - todayszaman
Top Iraqi official accuses Turkey of controlling Sunni protests - todayszaman
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Lebanon gets kidnappers' list, readies for Syria talks - THE DAILY STAR
Turkish intelligence to secure release of kidnapped Lebanese in Syria - todayszaman
Lebanese factions train Syrian refugees as militants: Lebanon interior minister - PressTV
Iraqi Shiites begin to hold public funerals for ‘martyrs’ killed in Syria - Middle East Online
Iraqi death hints of Iran's role in Syrian crisis - newsday.com
VIDEO: Funeral in Iraq for Shi'ite militant killed in Syria - Reuters.com
Iran: Funeral for IRGC officer killed in Syria - ncr-iran.org
Exclusive: Syrian aid in crisis as Gulf states renege on promises - The Independent
Syrian Opposition Seeks Control of Oil Resources - Al-Monitor
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The 'Onion' latest victim of Syrian Electronic Army's fat jokes - FP Passport
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
U.S. Corporate Media: Your Source for Lies About Syria
U.S. suggestions that the Syrian government could have used chemical weapons have been treated as fact by some media outlets, and are helping to fuel the case for greater U.S. military involvement. But subsequent reporting has called into question these early, credulous reports--and highlighted the continuing media failure to treat WMD claims with the skepticism they deserve.
Go to FAIR.
Stop Expanding Arlington National Cemetery and Stop Producing Corpses
An NPR story on Monday carried this headline: "Expansion Plans At Arlington National Cemetery Cause Environmental Concerns." Only environmental concerns? Are there any other concerns that anyone can think of? I mean if, for example, "All Things" were going to be "Considered," would there be any other things worth considering?
U.S. troop deaths were 0.3 percent of the deaths in the most recent attack on Iraq. Most of those U.S. dead (and all of the non-U.S. dead) do not end up in Arlington. Most end up in other cemeteries. Some are never recovered. Some are unceremoniously dumped in land fills. And yet the cemetery is running out of room even for cremated corpses.
Advocates of military spending often push for increases to keep pace with gross domestic product. Should Arlington be the same? Should we kill off our young in proportion to how much money our bankers have? Should we expand cemeteries to keep pace with weapons budgets, prisons, highways, and fracking subsidies? Or should we take this opportunity to consider altering our priorities?
President Kennedy, whose eternal flame burns atop the hill at Arlington, wrote that we would have wars until the conscientious objector was given the prestige and respect now given to soldiers. Why is there no cemetery to honor those who resist massive crimes based on the sort of lies told about Iraq 10 years ago and told about Syria today? Why do we have to educators or doctors or diplomats or firefighters or historians or poets honored with the ceremonial wasting of fertile soil? Why only those who participate in state-sanctioned murder?
As Eisenhower warned on his way out of office, we get the society we prepare for. Expanding Arlington Cemetery is preparing us for a horrible future, one that we and the rest of humanity may not survive. The environmental concerns raised by this vision should be much more encompassing that a particular creek and stand of trees. The destructive arrogance of our war economy will either be replaced by a sustainable peaceful system or destroy us.
Pass that along to National Pentagon Radio when you get a chance.
