Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib and the Rise of Extremism in Iraq

October 28, 2019

Yesterday morning, President Trump announced the death of Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi and three of his children.

President Trump said Al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS, was fleeing U.S. military forces, in a tunnel, and then killed himself by detonating a suicide vest he wore.

In 2004, Al-Baghdadi had been captured by U.S. forces and, for ten months, imprisoned in both Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.

I visited Camp Bucca in January, 2004 when, still under construction, the Camp was a network read more

Tomgram: James Carroll, November Hopes Mislaid

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

You know, it’s strange. There are certain moments that you and everyone in your generation never forget. For instance, I can tell you exactly where I was — eating a 25-cent hamburger in a diner that might have been called the Yankee Doodle in New Haven, Connecticut — when a man stuck his head in the front door and said, “The president’s been shot.” That, of course, was John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and I have little doubt that, if you asked just about anyone else my age, they’d have a remarkably specific memory of that moment, too.

But here’s the strange thing that TomDispatch regular and former Boston Globe columnist James Carroll brought to my mind with today’s piece on what may qualify as the single most important historical event of my life: the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. I have no idea what I was doing or where I was that November 9th in 1989 when I first heard that the forever structure dividing East from West that symbolized the two-superpower world of the Cold War was coming down. I have just vague memories of TV images of crowds surging and the wall being whacked at by people with sledgehammers.

And that should qualify as odd indeed. After all, my life was, in a sense, an artifact of the Cold War. I still remember photos of grim-faced Korean War G.I.s in Life magazine when I was only six or seven. I remember the duck-and-cover moments under my desk in school, preparation for the potential nuclear obliteration of my city, when I was just a few years older. I remember sitting in a car on the evening of October 22, 1962, with the radio on, and hearing the still-living John F. Kennedy alert the nation that the Cuban Missile crisis was underway and say that “we will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth; but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.” I think I tasted those very ashes then and felt I was a goner, that my specific world might blow sky-high. I remember being out in the streets amid masses of antiwar protestors in the Vietnam War years and wondering how all this would ever end. And so it went until that day in 1989 when, suddenly, to the utter shock of every last pundit, wise man, official, and politician in Washington, that wall began to be torn down and the Soviet Union’s end came into sight.

What a moment, as Carroll makes so clear today — and how strange that it and the hopes that went with it disappeared into the maw of the American national security state and its endless wars. Tom
What the Dismantling of the Berlin Wall Means 30 Years Later
And the Return of War-as-the-Answer
By James Carroll

Some anniversaries are less about the past than the future. So it should be with November 9, 1989. In case you’ve long forgotten, that was the day when East and West Germans began nonviolently dismantling the Berlin Wall, an entirely unpredicted, almost unimaginable ending to the long-entrenched Cold War. Think of it as the triumph of idealistic hope over everything that then passed for hard-nosed “realism.” After all, Western intelligence services, academic Kremlinologists, and the American national security establishment had always blithely assumed that the Cold War would essentially go on forever — unless the absolute malevolence of Soviet Communism led to the ultimate mayhem of nuclear Armageddon. For almost half a century, only readily dismissed peaceniks insisted that, in the nuclear age, war and endless preparations for more of it were not the answer. When the Berlin Wall came down, such idealists were proven right, even if their triumph was still ignored.

Yet war-as-the-answer reasserted itself with remarkable rapidity. Within weeks of the Wall being breached by hope — in an era that saw savage conflicts in Central America, the Philippines, and South Africa transformed by a global wave of nonviolent resolution — the United States launched Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama by a combat force of more than 27,000 troops. The stated purpose of that act of war was the arrest of Panama’s tinhorn dictator Manuel Noriega, who had initially come to power as a CIA asset. That invasion’s only real importance was as a demonstration that, even with global peace being hailed, the world’s last remaining superpower remained as committed as ever to the hegemony of violent force.

Who Ended the Cold War?

While President George H.W. Bush rushed to claim credit for ending the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev was the lynchpin of that historic conclusion. It was he who, in the dramatic autumn of 1989, repeatedly ordered Communist forces to remain in their barracks while throngs of freedom-chanters poured into the streets of multiple cities behind the Iron Curtain. Instead of blindly striking out (as the leaders of crumbling empires often had), Gorbachev allowed democratic demands to echo through the Soviet empire — ultimately even in Russia itself.

Yet the American imagination was soon overtaken by the smug fantasy that the U.S. had “won” the Cold War and that it was now a power beyond all imagining. Never mind that, in 1987, when President Ronald Reagan issued his famed demand in then still-divided Berlin, “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” the Soviet leader was already starting to do precisely that.

As the wall came down, the red-scare horrors that had disturbed American dreams for three generations seemed to dissolve overnight, leaving official Washington basking in triumphalism. The U.S. then wrapped itself in a self-aggrandizing mantle of virtue and power that effectively blinded this country’s political leadership to the ways the Cold War’s end had left them mired in an outmoded, ever more dangerous version of militarism.

After Panama, the self-styled “indispensable nation” would show itself to be hell-bent on unbridled — and profoundly self-destructive — belligerence. Deprived of an existential enemy, Pentagon budgets would decline oh-so-modestly (though without a “peace dividend” in sight) but soon return to Cold War levels. A bristling nuclear arsenal would be maintained as a “hedge” against the comeback of Soviet-style communism. Such thinking would, in the end, only empower Moscow’s hawks, smoothing the way for the future rise of an ex-KGB agent named Vladimir Putin. Such hyper-defensive anticipation would prove to be, as one wag put it, the insurance policy that started the fire.

Even as the disintegration of the once-demonized USSR was firmly underway, culminating in the final lowering of the hammer-and-sickle flag from the Kremlin on Christmas Day 1991, the United States was launching what would prove to be a never-ending and disastrous sequence of unnecessary Middle Eastern wars. They began with Operation Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush’s assault on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990. In American memory, that campaign, which crushed the Iraqi autocrat’s army and forced it out of Kuwait, would be a techno-war made in heaven with fewer than 200 U.S. combat deaths.

That memory, however, fits poorly with what was actually happening that year. An internationally mounted sanctions regime had already been on the verge of thwarting Hussein without the U.S.-led invasion — and, of course, what Bush the father began, Bush the son would, with his 2003 shock-and-awe recapitulation, turn into the permanent bedrock of American politics. 

As the 30th anniversary of the end of the Cold War approaches, it should be obvious that there’s been a refusal in the United States to reckon with a decades-long set of conflagrations in the Greater Middle East as the inevitable consequence of that first American invasion in 1990. Above all, Desert Storm, with its monumental victory parade in Washington D.C., brought the Pentagon’s Cold War raison d’être back from the brink of obsolescence. That campaign and what followed in its wake guaranteed that violence would continue to occupy the heartlands of the U.S. economy, its politics, and its culture. In the process, the world-historic aspirations kindled by the miracle of the Berlin Wall’s dismantling would be thoroughly dashed. No wonder, so many years later, we hardly remember that November of hope — or the anniversary that goes with it.

Out of the Memory Hole

By revisiting its astonishing promise as the anniversary approaches, however, and by seeing it more fully in light of what made it so surprising, perhaps something of that vanished positive energy can still be retrieved. So let me call to mind the events of various earlier Novembers that make the point. What follows is a decade-by-decade retracing of the way the war machine trundled through recent history — and through the American psyche — until it was finally halted in a battle-scarred, divided city in the middle of Europe, stopped by an urge for peace that refused to be denied.

Let’s start with November 1939, only weeks after the German invasion of Poland that began what would become World War II. A global struggle between good and evil was just then kicking into gear. Unlike the previous Great War of 1914-1918, which was fought for mere empire, Hitler’s war was understood in distinctly Manichaean terms as both apocalyptic and transcendent. After all, the moral depravity of the Nazi project had already been laid bare when Jewish synagogues, businesses, and homes everywhere in Germany were subject to the savagery of Kristallnacht, or “the night of broken glass.” That ignition of what became an anti-Jewish genocide took place, as it happened, on November 9, 1938.

The good-versus-evil absolutism of World War II stamped the American imagination so profoundly that a self-righteous moral dualism survived not only into the Cold War but into Washington’s twenty-first-century war on terror. In such contests against enemies defined as devils, Americans could adopt the kinds of ends-justify-the-means strategies called for by “realism.” When you are fighting along what might be thought of as an axis of evil, anything goes — from deceit and torture to the routine sacrifice of civilians, whose deaths in America’s post-9/11 wars have approached a total of half a million. Through it all, we were assured of one certain thing: that God was on our side. (“God is not neutral,” as George W. Bush put it just days after the 9/11 attacks.)

From Genocide to Omnicide

But what if God could not protect us? That was the out-of-the-blue question posed near the start of all this — not in August 1945 when the U.S. dropped its “victory weapon” on two cities in Japan, but in August 1949 when the Soviet Union acquired an atomic bomb, too. By that November, the American people were already in the grip of an unprecedented nuclear paranoia, which prompted President Harry Truman to override leading atomic scientists and order the development of what one called a “genocidal weapon,” the even more powerful hydrogen bomb. Then came the manic build-up of the U.S. nuclear arsenal to proportions suitable less for genocide than for “omnicide.” Such weapons mushroomed (if you’ll excuse the word in a potentially mushroom-clouded world) from fewer than 200 in 1950 to nearly 20,000 a decade later. Of course, that escalation, in turn, drove Moscow forward in a desperate effort to keep up, leading to an unhinged arms race that turned the suicide of the human species into a present danger, one measured by the Doomsday Clock, of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was set at two minutes to midnight in 1953 — and then again in 2019, all these Novembers later.

Now, let’s flash forward another decade to November 1959 when the mortal danger of human self-extinction finally became openly understood, as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev began issuing blatant threats of nuclear war over — you guessed it — Berlin. Because part of that city, far inside Communist East Germany, was still occupied by American, French, and British forces, it amounted to a tear in what was then called the Iron Curtain, separating the Soviet empire from Western Europe. With thousands fleeing through that tear to the so-called Free World, the Soviets became increasingly intent on shutting the escape hatch, threatening to use the Red Army to drive the Allies out of Berlin. That brought the possibility of a nuclear conflict to the fore.

Ultimately, the Communists would adopt a quite different strategy when, in 1961, they built that infamous wall, a concrete curtain across the city. At the time, Berliners sometimes referred to it, with a certain irony, as the “Peace Wall” because, by blocking escape from the East, it made the dreaded war between the two Cold War superpowers unnecessary. Yet within a year the unleashed prospect of such a potentially civilization-ending conflict had hopscotched the globe to Communist Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 caused the world to shudder as incipient nuclear war between Washington and Moscow suddenly loomed. That moment, just before Khrushchev and American President John F. Kennedy stepped back from doomsday, might have changed something; a relieved world’s shock of recognition, that is, might have thrown the classic wooden shoe of sabotage into the purring engine of “realism.” No such luck, however, as the malevolent power of the war state simply motored on — in the case of the United States directly into Vietnam.

By November 1969, President Richard Nixon’s cynical continuation of the Vietnam War for his own political purposes had already driven the liberal-conservative divide over that misbegotten conflict into the permanent structure of American politics. The ubiquitous “POW/MIA: You Are Not Forgotten” flag survives today as an icon of Nixon’s manipulations. Still waving over ball parks, post offices, town halls, and VFW posts across the nation, that sad black banner now flies as a symbol of red state/blue state antagonism — and as a lasting reminder of how we Americans can make prisoners of ourselves.

By 1979, with the Vietnam War in the past, President Jimmy Carter showed how irresistible November’s tide — the inexorable surge toward war — truly was. It was in November of that year that militant Iranian students overran the American embassy in Tehran, taking sixty-six Americans hostage — the event that was credited with stymying the formerly peace-minded president. In reality, though, Carter had already initiated the historic anti-Soviet arms build-up for which President Ronald Reagan would later be credited.

Then, of course, Carter would ominously foreshadow America’s future reversals in the deserts of the Levant with a failed rescue of those hostages. Most momentously, however, he would essentially license future Middle East defeats with what came to be known as the Carter Doctrine — the formally declared principle that the Persian Gulf (and its oil) were “vital interests” of this country, worthy of defense “by any means necessary, including military force.” (And of course, his CIA would lead us into America’s first Afghan War, still in a sense going on some 40 years later.)

Retrieving Hope?

Decade by decade, the evidence of an unstoppable martial dynamic only seemed to accumulate. In that milestone month of November 1989, Washington’s national security “realists” were still stuck in the groove of such worst-case thinking. That they were wrong, that they would be stunned by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent implosion of the Soviet Union, should mandate thoughtful observance of this coming 30th anniversary.

During the late 1980s, a complex set of antiwar and antinuclear countercurrents seemed to come out of nowhere. Each of them should have been impossible. The ruthlessly totalitarian Soviet system should not have produced in Mikhail Gorbachev a humane statesman who sacrificed empire and his own career for the sake of peace. The most hawkish American president in history, Ronald Reagan, should not have responded to Gorbachev by working to end the arms race with him — but he did.

Pressuring those two leaders to pursue that course — indeed, forcing them to — was an international grassroots movement demanding an end to apocalyptic terror. People wanted peace so much, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower had predicted in 1959, that, miracle of all miracles, governments got out of their way and let them have it. With the breaching of the Berlin Wall that November 9th — a transformation accomplished by ordinary citizens, not soldiers — the political realm of the possible was substantially broadened, not only to include prospective future detente among warring nations, but an eventual elimination of nuclear weapons themselves.

Yet, in November 2019, all of that seems lost. A 

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The Widening Gap Between the Super-Rich and Other Americans

Despite the upbeat words from America’s billionaire president about the “economic miracle” he has produced, economic inequality in the United States is on the rise.

In August 2019, the Economic Policy Institute reported that, in 2018, the average pay of CEOs at America’s 350 top firms hit $17.2 million―an increase, when adjusted for inflation, of 1,007.5 percent since 1978.  By contrast, the typical worker’s wage, adjusted for inflation, grew by only 11.9 percent over this 40-year period.  In 1965, the ratio of CEO-to-worker’s pay stood at 20-to-1; by 2018 (when CEOs received another hefty pay raise and workers received a 0.2 percent pay cut), it had reached 278-to-1.

An AFL-CIO study, released in June 2019, had similar findings.  Examining compensation at Standard & Poors 500 companies, the labor federation reported that average CEO pay in 2018 had increased by $5.2 million over the preceding 10 years.  This resulted in an average CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 287-to-1.

These figures, of course, are only averages, and at numerous major corporations, the economic gap between boss and worker is much greater.  According to the AFL-CIO, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio at Walmart (America’s largest private employer) is 1,076 to 1, at Walt Disney Company 1,424-to-1, at McDonald’s 2,124-to-1, and at Gap 3,566-to-1.  At 49 S&P 500 firms, noted an Institute for Policy Studies report, half the work force―that is, 3.7 million employees―received wages below the official U.S. poverty line for a family of four.

Thus, despite the soaring incomes of top corporate executives and other wealthy Americans, the median household income in the United States grew by only 0.2 percent during 2018―a decline from the three previous years.  Commenting on U.S. wage stagnation, Sam Pizzigati, co-editor of inequality.org, observed that “average Americans have spent this entire century on a treadmill getting nowhere fast.  The nation’s median―most typical―households pocketed 2.3 percent fewer real dollars in 2018 than they earned in 2000.”

Although President Donald Trump has claimed that “inequality is down,” federal data released this year show that, in 2018, the nation’s income inequality reached the highest level since the U.S. Census Bureau began measuring it five decades before.

U.S. economic inequality is even greater in terms of wealth.  During the Democratic presidential debate in late June 2019, Senator Bernie Sanders reminded Americans that just three U.S. billionaires (Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett) possessed as much wealth as half the people in the United States combined.  And the three richest U.S. families―the Waltons (owners of Walmart), the Mars candy family, and the Koch family (owners of a vast fossil fuel conglomerate)―possessed a combined fortune ($348.7 billion), which is 4 million times the wealth of the median U.S. family.

Although the median net worth of U.S. households has declined (after adjusting for inflation) since the late 1990s, the fortunes of the wealthy have skyrocketed.  The American billionaires sharing their ostensible wisdom at the World Economic Forum in Davos at the beginning of 2019 made enormous gains in wealth over the previous decade.  They included Jamie Dimon (275 percent), Rupert Murdoch (472 percent), Stephen Schwarzman (486 percent), Marc Benioff (823 percent), and Mark Zuckerberg (1,853 percent).

According to computations made by Forbes in October 2019, the ten wealthiest Americans (with riches ranging from $53 billion to $107.5 billion each) had combined wealth of $697 billion―or an average of $69.7 billion each.  Assuming that, henceforth, they had no further income and had limitless longevity, they could each spend a million dollars a day for approximately 191 years.

Most other Americans possess far fewer economic resources.  In 2018, 38.1 million Americans lived below the U.S. government’s official poverty threshold, including many people working at multiple jobs.  Furthermore, another 93.6 million Americans lived close to poverty, bringing the total of impoverished and near-impoverished people to nearly 42 percent of the U.S. population.

Naturally, economic deprivation has serious consequences.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 14.3 million households in America have difficulty providing enough food for their families.  Low income families are also plagued by inadequate education, alcohol and substance abuse, and poor housing, health, and life expectancy.  The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in September 2019 that poor Americans die at an earlier age than rich ones.  Indeed, in 2019, for the first time in a century, life expectancy in the United States declined for three consecutive years.  Suicide rates, which closely correlate with poverty, increased by 33 percent since 1999.  Even what is left of the dwindling middle class faces the crippling costs of health care, college education, and debt payments.

This situation bears no resemblance to that of America’s ultra-wealthy, who, in addition to pouring money into the campaign coffers of politicians that safeguard and expand their fortunes, continue purchases like one multi-billionaire’s acquisition of a $238 million Manhattan penthouse―a supplement to his two floors at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Chicago ($30 million), Miami Beach penthouse ($60 million), Chicago penthouse ($59 million), and additional apartment in Manhattan ($40 million).  Other recent purchases by the ultra-rich include a $100 million, 305-foot “super-yacht” (complete with helipad and IMAX theater), private jet planes ($65 million), and (of course) gold toilet paper.

The latest attraction for America’s ultra-affluent is Manhattan’s 131-floor Central Park Tower building which, when completed, will become the tallest, most expensive residential dwelling in the United States.  It will feature 179 luxury condos ranging in price from $6.9 million to $95 million and a seven-story Nordstrom flagship store with six restaurants, plus three floors of “amenity space” (dubbed the Central Park Club) spanning 50,000 square feet, with an outdoor terrace, pools, a wellness center, and a massive ballroom.  The immense height of the structure will underscore the vast power of the super-rich, as well as enable them to avoid noticing the many “losers” left behind on the teeming streets below.

Lawrence Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).

Drones and the weapons of the future must be regulated: Donald Trump and the New, New World Order

By John Grant

“When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.” 

                           — Hunter Thompson

For weeks, I’ve been reading New York Times stories that, as a military veteran of the anti-war movement for the past 35 years, really blow my mind. For one thing, President Trump is in a domestic, political war with what he and his allies call “the deep state” — a conspiratorial construction that comes out of the far left. To really understand the true weirdness of the moment, one has to appreciate what it means to feel like a Cassandra in the anti-war movement. Cassandra was a mythic Greek character who spurned the sexual advances of Apollo, who in this case was the Harvey Weinstein of Greek mythology. Cassandra was a serious person with serious things to say. The ego-bruised Apollo proceeded to get revenge by pulling strings as a god so that, in the future, Cassandra would have the power of truthful prophecy but — and this is the kicker — no one would pay any attention to her. Today we’d say her voice was marginalized, the condition the antiwar left has been relegated to in the United States since the Vietnam War.

Over the past few months President Donald Trump has unilaterally by Tweet and telephone begun to dismantle US military involvement in the Middle East. The irony is amazing, because in a general, overarching narrative sense, this is what the marginalized antiwar movement has been trying to do for decades. Of course, it’s an act of violence to do this by unannounced fiat after a debacle has been running full speed on empty for decades; sitting on his bed at dawn dictating to “his generals” with the grace and intelligence of the proverbial bull in a china shop is not prudent or compassionate foreign policy reform.

Peace and Justice is what drives the anti-war movement in its advocacy of alternatives to war and violence in places like the Middle East and SW Asia; the point is, in the long run, diplomacy is better than shock & awe bombing campaigns. On the other hand, Mr. Trump is driven by Power and Greed, often on a personal basis. If the anti-war left had had more say in US foreign policy, there would have been no invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq; the Taliban and Saddam Hussein would have had to survive — or perish — on their own. Despite what the war-mongers might say, no one can know how things would have turned out if a more thoughtful policy had been applied. Certainly, something should have been done to address the downing of the World Trade Towers. But such long-term-stupid debacles? There had to be a better, more constructive way.

Trump’s Middle East/SW Asia withdrawal is still a work in process. Who can really know what goes on under that wispy head of orange hair? Consistency is not the man’s strength…

 

For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT in ThisCantBeHappening!, the uncompromised, collectively run, six-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site, please go to: https://thiscantbehappening.net/donald-trump-and-the-new-new-world-order/

 

The World Must Compel the U.S. to Allow Korea to Have Peace

KOREAN BELOW THE ENGLISH

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 26, 2019

I’ve never heard of or even seen fantasized a society or a government that wasn’t deeply flawed. I know neither North nor South Korea is an exception. But the primary impediment to peace in Korea appears to be the United States: its government, its media, its billionaires, its people, and even the arm of the U.S. called the United Nations.

The U.S. public has, and chooses to have, very little control over its government, and is easily manipulated by the corporate media. But public opinion still matters. In U.S. national mythology, the wars most easily twisted into glorious undertakings loom largest. The U.S. war for independence is glorious because, obviously, as everyone knows, Canada, India, and the rest of the British Empire remain brutally enslaved by the English monarch. The U.S. Civil War is glorious because it was against slavery, while much of the world ending slavery and serfdom without similar slaughters is a freak occurrence one can draw no lessons from. And, above all, World War II is glorious because it was to save the Jews from the Nazis, even though it wasn’t that until after it was over.

These wars all involved something else that living members of the U.S. military know only from distant legends. They involved surrenders by defeated enemies. The surrenders may have been primarily to the French in one case and to the Russians in another, but they happened, and it’s not hard to pretend they were surrenders of evil to goodness. In fact it’s heresy to even hint at anything subtler than that.

Nobody — not even Barack Obama, who tried — has figured out how to effectively sell what they call the Korean War as a glorious victory. And so one hears very little about it. Most things that happened in the United States at the time of the Korean War are simply described as happening “after World War II.” The transformation of the peace holiday Armistice Day into the war holiday Veterans Day, for example. Or the development of the permanent military industrial complex, and permanent wars, and CIA wars with nothing off limits, and nuclear threats, and deadly sanctions.

Nobody gives the Korean War era credit for all the wonderful and lasting things the United States did to itself in that period. Without the accomplishments of those days it’s even possible that something could go wrong in the United States today and not be blamed on Russia. Imagine having to live in such a world.

When the Korean War is mentioned it is often mentioned purely as an occasion when the sainted Troops obeyed orders and served. Never mind served what. One must oneself be a good troop and not ask that question. Or it is depicted as a defensive war that rescued freedom from aggression. I have no doubt that more people in the United States could tell you that North Korea started the war than could tell you where Korea is on a map, what language is spoken there, or whether the United States has any troops there.

So, I think it’s important that we remember a few things. The United States government divided Korea in half. The United States government imposed a brutal dictatorship on South Korea with a U.S.-educated dictator. That dictator, with U.S. complicity, massacred South Koreans. He also sought out war with North Korea and launched raids across the border prior to the official start of the war. The U.S. military dropped 30,000 tons of explosives on North Korea, much of it after pilots began complaining about the “scarcity of strategic targets” left standing. The U.S., in addition, dropped 32,000 tons of napalm on the Korean Peninsula, principally targeting civilian human beings where they lived. Still not satisfied, the United States dropped insects and feathers containing bubonic plague and other diseases in hopes of starting epidemics. A side benefit of those efforts is very probably the spread of Lyme disease, very likely spread from Plum Island off the tip of Long Island, New York. The U.S.-led war on North Korea may have killed some 20 to 30 percent of the population of the North, not to mention those in the South killed by both sides. Few Koreans in the North do not have relatives who were killed or wounded or made homeless. U.S. politics is still twisted by the U.S. Civil War of over 150 years ago, but few in the United States imagine that the Korean War of less than 70 years ago has anything to do with current North Korean behavior.

The United States has prevented the war from officially ending or the two Koreas from reuniting. It has imposed deadly sanctions on the people of the North, which have been failing spectacularly to accomplish their stated purpose for several decades. It has threatened North Korea and militarized South Korea over whose military it has maintained war-time control. North Korea negotiated a disarmament agreement with the United States in the 1990s and for the most part abided by it, but the United States did not. The United States called North Korea part of an axis of evil, destroyed one of that axis’s other two members, and has threatened to destroy the third member ever since. And ever since, North Korea has said that it would re-negotiate but has built the weapons it thinks will protect it. It has said it would renegotiate if the United States will commit to not attacking it again, will stop putting missiles in South Korea, will stop flying practice nuking missions near North Korea.

That we have seen steps toward peace and reunification is remarkable, and greatly to the credit of nonviolent activists from the South and the North, with some small assistance from others around the world. Success would present a model to the world, not only of how to end a long-standing war. We’ve just seen a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia for that feat. Success would present the world with a model of how to end a long-standing war that the U.S. government does not want ended. The whole world has a stake in what happens in Korea, not only because we are all brothers and sisters, and not only because the notion of a contained nuclear war is a product of dangerous ignorance, but also because the world needs examples of how to keep the peace against the will of the world’s self-appointed policeman.

Because people in the United States hear almost nothing about the Korean War, they can be told that North Korea is simply evil and irrational. Because they have no idea how many people live in North Korea, they can be told that North Koreans are going to take over the United States and remove their freedoms. Because dozens of U.S. wars have been marketed as bringing human rights to people by bombing them, the U.S. public can be told that North Korea is being threatened for human rights. And because they have identified with one or the other of the two big U.S. political parties, members of the U.S. public can be outraged if Donald Trump talks peace with North Korea, far beyond their outrage when he threatens nuclear war in violation of the UN Charter and all human decency. The United States sells weapons to 73 percent of the governments that the United States calls dictatorships, and trains most of them in the use of those weapons. Surely merely speaking with a dictator is preferable to the typical U.S. relationship with dictators.

When somebody compliments Trump on his hair or whatever it is, and he swings from threatening apocalypse to proposing peace, the appropriate response is not partisan outrage, not a declaration that U.S. troops must never leave Korea, but rather relief and encouragement. And if the President of South Korea believes that giving Trump a Nobel Peace Prize would cause him to allow peace in Korea, then I’m all for it. The prize has been given out before to people who never earned it.

I think, however, that there are other means available to us to encourage peace. I think we need to shame and reform and take over and replace U.S. media outlets that cheer for war and condemn peace talks. I think we need to shame those who profit when weapons stocks soar on Wall Street because Trump threatens Armageddon, and who lose fortunes when the danger rises of peace breaking out. We need our local governments and universities and investment funds to take our money out of weapons of mass destruction.

The world, through the United Nations and otherwise, needs to demand a permanent and complete end to war rehearsals in and near South Korea. The U.S. Congress needs to restore the Iran nuclear agreement, making it a treaty, and uphold the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and comply with the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, so that the government of North Korea begins to have some basis for believing anything the U.S. government says.

The United Nations needs to cease providing cover for U.S. wars. The U.N. instructed the United States in 1975 to dissolve the so-called United Nations Command in South Korea, to take the U.N. name off a U.S. imperial enterprise. The U.S. is in violation of that resolution. The U.S. builds, tests, and threatens to use nuclear weapons far beyond what North Korea does, yet the U.N. sees fit to sanction North Korea, and not to sanction the U.S. government.

It is long since time for the world to hold the United States to the rule of law on an equal basis with every other government. It is long since time for the world to follow through on banning all nuclear weapons. I know seven people in the United States called the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 who are at risk of 25 years in prison for protesting nuclear weapons. There was a man not long ago in South Korea who burned himself to death in protest of U.S. weapons in his country. If these people can do so much, surely the rest of us can do more than we have.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill not yet agreed to by the Senate which, among other things, would support ending the Korean War, and would require that the Pentagon justify every foreign military base as somehow making the United States safer. Those two steps would allow a peace agreement in Korea and, if truly followed through on, require the closure of every golf course and chain restaurant in every mini-United-States-fortress in South Korea and around the globe, since these bases do not make the United States safer, and in many cases generate hostilities. So, we need to keep those measures in the so-called National Defense Authorization Act.

Ultimately, we need public pressure from around the world and within the United States, and through global institutions, to compel the U.S. government to plan and begin a withdrawal from Korea. This need not be an abandonment of Korea. It could be a deeper friendship with a unified or unifying Korea. I certainly manage to be friends with people who don’t oversee armed occupations of my house. Such friendships may be rare and treasonous and isolationist, but I think they’re possible nonetheless.

But Korea is one corner of the world. We need with some urgency to similarly advance toward an ending of wars and war preparations everywhere. That’s the mission of a global organization I direct called World BEYOND War. I encourage you to go to worldbeyondwar.org and sign the declaration of peace there which has been signed in 175 countries. Together we can make war and the threat of war things of the past.

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세계는 ‘미국이 한반도의 평화를 허용하도록’ 압박해야..

데이빗 스완손(David Swanson) 연설문 , 전쟁없는세상(WorldBeyondWar) 설립자 겸 대표.

편집자 주)

오는 10월 26일 뉴욕 소재 월드처지 센터(World Church Center)에서 열리는 한국평화를 위한 국제회의에는 뉴욕에 거주하는 남북한 인사들과 교민들 그리고 미국의 반전 평화단체들과 한반도 관련 싱크탱크 연구원 등 광범한 인사들이 참여한다. 마침 세계적인 반전평화단체인 ‘전쟁없는 세상(WBW: WorldBeyondWar)’의 설립자이자 대표를 맡고 있고 2015년 이래 5년간 연속 미국시민단체가 추천한 노벨평화상 수상 후보이며, 2018년 미국평화재단이 명예의 전당에 올리는 평화시민상을 수상한 데이빗 스완손이 당일 특별찬조연설을 예정하고 있다. 아래의 내용은 스완손의 연설내용을 한국 내의 반전평화운동을 하는 모든 시민들과 함께 공유하고자 사전에 번역한 내용이다.

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아무 문제가 없는 사회나 정부를 들어본 적도, 그런 사회나 정부를 꿈꾸는 이들을 본적도 없다.

북한도 남한도 예외가 아니다. 그러나 한반도 평화의 가장 큰 걸림돌은 다름아닌 미국인 듯하다. 미국의 정부와 여론 매체, 거대 부자들, 보수적 지식인층, 심지어 사실상 미국의 들러리 격인 유엔(안보리)까지도 한반도 평화의 장애가 되고 있다.

미국의 시민들은 행정부에 대해 매우 약한 견제력을 지니고 있는데, 이는 그들의 선택이었다. 거대 매스컴들은 시민들을 쉽게 조종할 수 있다. 그러나 여전히 여론은 중요한 문제다. 미국 내에서는 마치 신화(거짓말)처럼 과거의 전쟁들이 위대한 과업이었던 것으로 둔갑되어, 매우 중요한 사건으로 받아들여 지고 있다.

말하자면, 미국의 독립전쟁은 위대하다는 것이다. 모두 느끼겠지만 캐나다와 인도를 비롯한 대영제국의 나머지 영토가 여전히 영국 군주의 노예노릇을 하고 있으니 말이다. 노예제에 맞서 싸운 미국의 남북전쟁 역시 위대하다고? 전쟁이라는 살육과정 없이 노예제와 농노제를 끝낸 나라들이 대부분이지만, 예외적인 경우였을 뿐인 미국의 역사에서 딱히 배울 교훈은 없다.

무엇보다도 나치로부터 유대인을 구하기 위해 시작된 제2차 세계대전은 위대했다고 외쳐대지만, 이는 전쟁이 끝나기 전까지 실제의 목표가 전혀 다른 이야기였다는 점을 숨기고 있다. 이 전쟁에는 오늘날 미군이라면 과거의 전설로만 알고 있는 것 외에 다른 이야기들이 숨어있다. 전쟁에는 패배한 적군의 항복이 수반된다. 나치의 항복은 미국보다는 프랑스군을 향한 것이었을 수도, 때로는 러시아군을 향한 것이었을 수도 있지만, 어쨌든 적군은 항복했고 이를 마치 ‘선에 무릎을 꿇은 악’으로 포장하기란 어렵지 않다. 사실상 이런 류의 해석을 희석하려는 시도만으로도 이단으로 몰리기 쉽다.

그런데 누구도 미국인들에게 그들이 위대한 승리로 일컫는 ‘한국전쟁’을 효과적으로 납득시킬 방법을 찾지 못했다.

심지어 버락 오바마(Barack Obama)도 시도는 했지만 실패했다. 그러다 보니 미국인들은 ‘한국전쟁’에 대해서는 별로 듣는 바가 없다. 한국전쟁 당시 미국에서는 대부분의 사건이 그런 것처럼 단순히 “세계2차 대전이후”의 해프닝으로 묘사될 뿐이다. 예를 들면 평화를 기념하는 (1차대전) 휴전일이 전쟁을 기념하는 재향군인의 날로 바뀐 것, 또는 거대한 군산복합체의 탄생, 영구적인 전쟁의 등장, 아무런 제약이 없는CIA전쟁, 핵위협, 극단적인 제재 등에 무감한 것처럼 말이다. 한국전쟁 기간에 미국은 스스로를 위해 놀랍고 지속적인 행적들을 이루었지만, 누구도 그 시대 자체를 합당하게 평가하지 않는다. 당시에 성취한 일들이 없었다면 미국은 오늘 같은 모습이 아니었을 수도, 러시아를 비난할 처지가 아니었을지도 모른다. 한번 그런 세상에서 우리가 살고 있다고 상상해보라.

흔히 한국전쟁은 신성한 군대가 명령에 따라서 충성한 사례 정도로 언급되는 경우가 많다. 그들이 섬긴 명령이 무엇인가는 중요하지 않다. 우리는 훌륭한 군인이 되어야 하며, 훌륭한 군인은 결코 명령에 질문하지 않는다. 또는 한국전쟁은 자유를 수호한 방어전으로 묘사된다. 확신컨대 미국에는 한국이 지도상 어디 있는지, 어떤 언어를 쓰는지, 미군이 주둔하고 있는지 여부를 아는 사람보다 한국전쟁은 북한이 먼저 시작했다고 알고 있는 사람이 훨씬 많을 것이다.

나는 다음의 사실을 기억하는 것이 중요하다고 생각한다. 한반도를 절반으로 나눈 것은 미국정부였다. 미국정부는 미국 유학파였던 한국의 독재자(이승만)와 함께 한반도 남쪽에 악랄한 독재를 불러왔다. 그리고 그 독재자는 미국과 공모하여 수많은 양민들을 학살했다. 북한과의 전쟁을 원한 것도, 한국전쟁이 공식 발발하기 전 남과 북의 국경에서 군사공격을 자행한 것도 그였다. 미군은 북한에 3만 톤에 달하는 폭발물을 투하했는데, 명령받은 조종사들이 더 이상 북한에 남아있는 “전략적 목표물이 없다”고 불평한 이후에 지속된 공격이었다. 게다가 미국은 한반도에 3만2천 톤의 네이팜(napalm)탄을 투하했다. 주로 민간인 주거지역을 목표로 한 것이었다. 그러고도 성에 차지 않았는지, 유행병을 퍼뜨릴 요량으로 흑사병(bubonic plague)과 여러 질병균을 함유한 곤충과 조류들을 퍼트렸다. 그러한 작전의 결과로 라임(Lyme)병이 한국에 퍼지게 되었을 가능성이 높다. 라임병은 뉴욕 롱아일랜드의 끄트머리에 있는 플럼 아일랜드(Plum Island)에서 시작된 질병이다.

미국이 북한을 타도하기 위해 주도한 이 전쟁으로 남한인구의 희생은 말할 것도 없고, 북한인구의 약20~30 퍼센트가 희생되었다. 북한에서는 죽거나, 다치거나, 주거지를 잃은 친척이 없는 가족이 거의 없었다고 한다. 미국의 정치인들은150년 전에 일어난 남북전쟁의 의미를 확대하기 바쁘지만, 그들 대다수는 오늘날 북한의 미국에 대한 적대심이 고작 70년도 되지 않은 한국전쟁과 연관되어 있을 것이라는 점은 상상조차 하지 못한다.

미국은 한국전쟁의 공식적인 종결과 남북한의 재결합을 막아왔다. 대신에 북한주민에게 극단적인 제재조치를 시행하고 있으나, 수십 년째 미국이 명시하고 있는 목표의 달성(정권의 붕괴)은 요원하기만 하다. 그 동안 미국은 북한을 위협하는 한편, 전시작전권을 손에 쥐고 한국을 무장시켜 왔다. 북한은1990년대에 미국과 군축협약을 논의했고, 실제 협의된 대부분의 내용을 준수하였지만, 미국은 약속을 지키지 않았다. 오히려 북한을 ‘악의축’ 중 하나로 지목하면서, ‘악의축’으로 지목된 다른 두 국가(리비아, 이라크)를 파괴했고, 이후로는 줄곧 마지막 ‘악의축’(이란)을 파괴하겠다며 위협해 왔다. 그 후에도 북한은 재협상의지를 밝혔으나, 스스로를 보호하기 위해 필요하다고 생각한 무기를 만들게 되었다. 이제라도 북한은 미국이 다시는 공격하지 않겠다고 확언하고, 한국에 미사일 배치를 중단하고, 북한 영공근처에서 핵무기 연습훈련을 멈추면, 재협상에 나서겠다는 것이다.

우리는 한반도의 평화와 통일을 향한 발걸음을 보았고, 이는 눈부신 성과이다. 특히 남북한의 비폭력 운동가들의 공이 크다. 이들에게 크고 작은 손길을 보탠 전세계의 도움도 빼놓을 수 없다. 이들의 성공은 세계에 오랜 전쟁을 끝내는 방법을 보여줄 뿐 아니라, 하나의 본보기가 되어줄 것이다.

실제로 얼마 전에는 에티오피아의 총리가 그러한 위업을 통해 노벨평화상을 수상했다. 한반도의 성공은 거기서 한발 나아가, 미국정부가 결코 끝내고 싶지 않은 ‘오랜전쟁’을 끝내는 본보기가 되어줄 것이다. 이제는 전세계 모두가 한반도에서 벌어지는 일의 당사자이다. 우리 모두는 형제자매이기 때문이고, 핵으로 전쟁을 억제할 수 있다는 생각은 위험한 무지의 산물이기 때문이며, 무엇보다 세계는 자칭 세계경찰이라고 나선 미국의 뜻에 맞서 평화를 지키는 본보기가 필요하기 때문이다.

미국인들은 한국전쟁에 대해 아는 바가 전무하기 때문에 북한은 그저 악랄하고 비이성적이라는 말을 그대로 믿는다. 북한에 얼마나 많은 사람이 살고 있는지 모르기 때문에 그저 북한이 미국을 공격하고 자유를 앗아갈 것이라는 말을 사실로 생각한다. 십여 건의 미국전쟁은 적국에 폭탄을 투하해 해당국 시민들에게 인권을 찾아준 전쟁으로 홍보되고 있기 때문에 미국인들은 북한의 인민들이 인권을 위협받고 있다는 말을 신뢰하는 것이다. 오직 두 개의 거대정당만이 미국인들을 대변하고 있기 때문에 도널드 트럼프(Donald Trump)가 북한과의 평화를 이야기할 때 미국인들은 이에 격노하게 된다. 미국인들은 유엔헌장은 물론 인간의 품격을 무시하는 핵전쟁카드를 쓸 때보다도 북한과의 평화에 대해 훨씬 더 분노한다.

실상은 미국이 자신이 독재국가라고 부르는 국가들 중 73%에 무기를 판매하고 있으며, 그 중 대부분에는 무기사용 훈련을 제공하고 있다. 다만 독재자와 미국특유의 적대관계를 맺는 것보다는 독재자와 이야기를 하는 게 나은 것은 확실하다.

누군가 트럼프를(헤어스타일이든 뭐든) 칭찬하면, 트럼프는 파멸을 경고하다가 돌연 평화를 약속한다. 이럴 때 적절한 대응은 당파적인 분노도, 주한미군은 한국에서 절대 물러나지 않는다는 선언도 아닌, 안도와 격려가 되어야 한다.

그리고 한국의 대통령이 트럼프에게 노벨평화상을 수여하는 것이 한반도에 평화를 불러온다고 믿는다면, 나는 그에 전적으로 찬성한다. 과거에도 노벨평화상은 그럴만한 업적을 남기지 않은 사람들에게 수여된 적이 있다. .

그러나 그 외에도 평화를 독려하기 위해 강구할 수 있는 다른 수단이 있다고 생각한다. 우리는 전쟁은 응원하면서 평화회담은 규탄하는 미국언론을 수치로 여겨야 하고, 이들을 개혁하고 인수하여 대체해야 한다. 우리는 트럼프의 거대전쟁 예고와 함께 무기업체의 주가가 솟구칠 때는 돈을 벌고, 평화가 등장할 때는 돈을 잃는 월스트리트 자본을 부끄럽게 여겨야 한다. 미국 내의 여러 정부부처와 대학, 투자펀드가 더 이상 대량살상무기에 우리의 돈을 투자하지 않도록 해야 한다.

세계는 유엔 및 여러 기구들을 통해 한국과 주변에서 영구적이고 완전하게 전쟁예행연습을 끝낼 것을 요구해야 한다. 미국의회는 이란핵합의를 조약으로 만들어 복원하고, 중거리핵전략조약(Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty)을 수호하며, 핵확산방지조약을 준수함으로써 북한이 미국정부가 하는 말을 신뢰할 수 있는 근거를 마련해 주어야 한다.

유엔은 미국의 전쟁에 구실을 제공하는 역할을 멈춰야 한다. 유엔은 지난1975년 미국에게 한국 내 소위 유엔사령부를 해산하고, 미국의 제국주의적 행위에 유엔의 이름을 붙이지 말 것을 지시한 바 있다. 미국은 해당결의안을 위반하고 있다. 미국은 북한이 핵무기를 다루는 수준을 훨씬 넘어 핵무기를 개발하고, 실험하고, 실제 사용할 것처럼 위협하고 있다. 그럼에도 유엔(안보리)은 북한을 제재해야 할 국가로, 미국은 제재가 필요하지 않은 국가로 보고 있다.

세계는 이미 오래 전에 미국도 다른 모든 국가와 동등하게 법치주의를 따르도록 했어야 한다. 동시에 모든 핵무기의 금지를 완수했어야 한다. 미국에는 핵무기에 반대하다가25년의 징역을 살 위험에 처한7인의 킹스베이 플로우쉐어즈 (Kings Bay Ploughshares 7)가 있다. 얼마 전 한국에서는 미국무기의 한국배치를 반대하며 자신에 몸에 불을 붙여 자살한 남성(고 조영삼)이 있었다. 이들이 이렇게 용감한 행동을 보였다면, 우리는 그보다 더 많은 일을 할 수 있을 것이다.

최근 미국하원은 법안 하나를 통과시켰다. 아직 상원의 합의를 얻은 것은 아니지만, 이 법안은1) 한국전쟁의 종전지지와 함께, 2)국방부(Pentagon)에 전세계 미군기지가 미국을 더욱 안전하게 만들기 위한 것이라는 근거의 제시를 요구할 것이다. 이러한 두 단계의 요구로 한반도의 평화협정이 가능하게 될 것이고, 완전히 준수된다면, 한국을 비롯한 전세계에 흩어져 있는 미국의 미니요새, 즉 미군기지 내의 골프코스와 레스토랑 체인은 문을 닫게 될 것이다. 이들 기지는 들은 미국의 안전을 도모하기 보다는, 많은 경우 적대행위를 만들어내기 때문이다. 그러므로 우리는 이러한 조치들을 이른바 국방수권법 (National Defense Authorization Act)에 담아야 할 것이다.

궁극적으로는 미국정부가 한반도에서 손을 뗄 계획을 세우고 실천하도록 강제할 전세계시민과 미국 내 시민사회, 국제기구의 압력이 필요할 것이다. 이것이 한반도를 포기한다는 것을 의미하는 것은 결코 아니다. 오히려 통일된 또는 통일을 향해가는 한국과 더욱 깊은 우정을 나눌 수 있다. 분명히 말하지만 나는 (미군이) 자신의 집을 무력으로 점거하는 것을 거부하는 사람들과 우정을 맺을 수 있다. 국가라는 관점에서는 그러한 우정은 흔치 않고 반역적으로 들릴 수도 있으며, 고립주의적인 것으로 들리겠지만, 그럼에도 불구하고 나는 그러한 우정이 가능하다고 생각한다.

한반도는 전세계의 일부일 뿐이다. 한반도와 마찬가지로 세계 모든 곳에서 전쟁과 전쟁준비를 끝내기 위해 절박함을 가지고 나아가야 한다. 이것이 바로 내가 이끄는 글로벌 단체인WBW(WorldBeyondWar)의 목적이기도 하다. 지금이라도 worldbeyondwar.org의 홈페이지를 방문하여 175개국에서 서명작업이 진행되는 평화선언에 동참해줄 것을 요청한다.

우리가 함께 힘을 모으면 전쟁과 전쟁위협을 과거의 기록으로 돌릴 수 있다. 정혜라 번역.

Trident is the Crime – Kathy Kelly

October 25, 2019

On October 24, following a three-day trial in Brunswick, GA, seven Catholic Workers who acted to disarm a nuclear submarine base were convicted on three felony counts and one misdemeanor. The defendants face 20 years in prison, yet they emerged from their trial seeming quite ready for next steps in their ongoing witness. Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest who has already spent ten years in prison for protesting nuclear weapons, returned, in shackles, to the local jail. Because of an outstanding warrant, Steve has been locked up for over eighteen months, since the day of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action.

On that day, April 4, 2018, the group had entered a U.S. Navy Submarine base which is a home port for the Trident nuclear missile fleet. Just one of those nuclear missiles, if launched, would cause 1,825 times more damage than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Plowshares activists aimed to expose illegal and immoral weapons that threaten all life on earth.

They had spent two years in prayerful preparation for their action. Two of them, Mark Colville and Liz McAlister, spent most of the months before their trial began in the Glynn County jail. Three others, Martha Hennessy, Carmen Trotta and Clare Grady wore “ankle monitors” and were subject to strict curfews for many months while they engaged in outreach and prepared for trial. Because federal law requires 60 – 90 days before sentencing, to allow for background checks, the seven probably won’t be sentenced before late December.

My colleague Brian Terrell, who attended all of the trial, described the chief prosecutor as a bully. In a series of accusations, this prosecutor claimed that Clare Grady and her co-defendants believed themselves to be “a law unto themselves.” Clare calmly pointed out that “the egregious use of weapons is bullying, not the painted peace messages.”

Emerging from the courthouse, the defendants and their lawyers earnestly thanked  the numerous supporters who had filled the courtroom, the overflow court room and the sidewalks outside the court. Bill Quigley, the main lawyer for the defense, thanked the defendants for their efforts to save “all of our lives,” noting the jury was not allowed to hear about weapons with enough power to destroy life on earth as we know it. Liz Mc Alister, who with Phil Berrigan had helped found the Plowshares movement, turned 79 years old while in jail. She thanked supporters but also urged people to be active in opposing nuclear weapons and the abuses of the U.S. prison system.

When I learned of the jury’s verdict, I had just signed a post card to Steve Kelly. The Glynn County jail only allows correspondence crammed into one side of a pre-stamped 3 x 5 post card. In tiny cursive, I told him about events in Kashmir where the Muslim majority has engaged in 80 days of civil resistance to the Indian government’s abrogation of  two articles of the Indian constitution which allowed Kashmiris a measure of autonomy. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed states, have twice gone to war over control of Kashmir. It’s a deeply disconcerting flashpoint representing the possibility of nuclear armed states triggering an exchange of bombs which could cause a nuclear winter, mass starvation and widespread, long-lasting environmental destruction.

Some years ago, Steve and I had participated in a delegation to visit human rights advocates in Pakistan, and I recall marveling at Steve’s grasp of the nuclear threat manifested in conflict between India and Pakistan. Yet he and his companions have clearly asserted that U.S. possession of nuclear weapons already robs the poorest people on the planet of resources needed for food, shelter and housing.

After learning the verdict I wrote a second card, telling Steve that we who love him long for his release, but know we must also be guided by his choice to remain silent in the court. Steve believes the U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal should be tried in the court of public opinion. He says the U.S. legal system protects those who maintain and build the criminal, deadly arsenal of nuclear weapons. Inside the court, people didn’t hear Steve’s strong, clear voice. His friends can’t help but imagine the sound of shackles hitting the floor of the Glynn County jail, followed by heavy doors clanging as Steve and other prisoners are ordered into their cells

In 1897, from England’s Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde wrote a letter, entitled “De Profundis.” He was serving the final four months of a two-year sentence to hard labor. One of his main jailers was certain he would never survive the harsh conditions. Wilde found himself transformed during the prison time, and he developed a profound understanding of human suffering. “Where there is sorrow,” Wilde wrote, “there is holy ground.”

The U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal creates anguish, fear and futility worldwide. Yet “holy ground” exists as activists work toward abolition of nuclear weapons.

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org)

Peace in Afghanistan

There were whispers in the village, high up in the mountains of Afghanistan. There was a Stranger here. He had made a friend and been invited to live in a home despite not being family, despite probably not even being of the ethnicity or religion of every person who could be trusted.

The Stranger had obtained for a family a small interest-free loan and helped them create a store. He’d hired kids off the street. Now the kids were inviting other kids to come and talk with the Stranger about working for peace. And they were coming out of friendship, despite not knowing what “working for peace” meant.

Soon they would have some idea. Some of them, who had perhaps not even spoken with someone of a different ethnicity before, formed a live-in multi-ethnic community. They began projects such as a walk for peace with international observers, and the creation of a peace park.

The community would end up moving to the capital city of Kabul. There they would create a community center, provide food, create jobs manufacturing and giving away duvets, help kids obtain an education, help women obtain a little independence. They would demonstrate the viability of a multi-ethnic community. They would persuade the government to allow the creation of a peace park. They would create and send gifts from young people of one ethnic group to distant members of a feared and hated group in another part of Afghanistan, with dramatic results for all involved.

This group of young people would study peace and nonviolence. They would communicate with authors and academics, peace activists and students all over the world, often via video conference calls, also by inviting visitors to their country. They would become part of a global peace movement. They would work in many ways to move Afghan society away from war, violence, environmental destruction, and exploitation.

This is a true story recounted in Mark Isaac’s new book, The Kabul Peace House.

When U.S. President Barack Obama escalated the war on Afghanistan and was immediately awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, young peace activists in Kabul were confused and upset. They announced and began a sit-in outdoors with tents, to last until Obama answered a message from them asking for an explanation. As a result, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan came and met with them and lied that he would deliver their message to Obama. That outcome is a million miles from a complete success, yet — let’s face it — more than most U.S. peace groups usually get out of the U.S. government.

That a group of young people in Afghanistan, traumatized by war, in the face of death threats, arson, and poverty, can create a model of non-violent community-building and peace-education, can begin creating acceptance of nonviolent activism, can aid the poor, forgive the rich, and play a role in building a global culture of human unity and peace, ought to challenge the rest of us to do more.

In recent years we have begun to see big marches in Afghanistan against war. But we’ve stopped seeing them in the United States. What we need is, of course, to see them in both places, simultaneously, in solidarity, and at a greater scale than people are used to.

The peace activists in Afghanistan need that from us. They do not need our money. In fact, all the names, even of the group involved are pseudonyms in The Kabul Peace House. There are concerns for the safety of those who have allowed their personal stories to appear in print. But I can assure you from my own direct knowledge of some of them that these stories are true.

We have seen books of fraudulent tales from Afghanistan, such as Three Cups of Tea. The U.S. corporate media loved those stories, for their loyalty to the U.S. military and the claims of Western heroism. But what if the reading public were to be told about far better stories that involve young Afghans themselves demonstrating, in deeply flawed and imperfect ways, incredible drive and potential as peacemakers?

That’s what they need from us. They need us to share books like The Kabul Peace House. They need respectful solidarity.

Afghanistan needs aid, not in the form of weapons, but actual aid that actually aids people. The people of Afghanistan need the U.S. military and NATO to depart, to apologize, and to submit written confessions to the International Criminal Court. They need reparations. They need democracy in all of its aspects shared by actual example back in the lands from which their occupiers come, not launched at them from drones, not deposited in the form of corrupt NGOs.

They need the rest of us to be open to learning from their example, an openness that would work wonders toward ending U.S. cruelty toward Afghanistan.

Tomgram: William Astore, The Militarization of Everything

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

We’re in an age in which the president who miraculously “captured” ISIS in “a month,” or so he recently claimed, and has tweeted his fervent desire to end America’s “endless wars” and “bring the troops home” can only imagine increasing an already astronomical military budget.  (Since May, by the way, at least 14,000 more American troops have actually been deployed to the Middle East.) And oh yes, he’s hot to create a whole new service to add to the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard, a Space Force guaranteed to ensure yet more conflicts in new places in the decades to come. Meanwhile, using his “great and unmatched wisdom,” he’s dealt with the almost 18-year-old Afghan War by cancelling peace talks with the Taliban at the last moment, even as he’s praised the U.S. military for its increasing destructiveness in that country. (The Taliban, he swore, had “never been hit harder.”) He’s also ratcheted up the possibility of war with Iran, while drone strikes across the Middle East have soared far above the Obama-era level. Of course, he did end the U.S. role in Syria in a fount of bloodshed and horror by withdrawing all 1,000 U.S. Special Operations forces from that country and bringing them home. (Oh wait, perhaps 150 of them are actually going to stay at Al-Tanf, a base in southern Syria, and most of the rest will evidently just be moved to Iraq.) Meanwhile, in a thoroughly peaceable manner, he’s ordered almost 3,000 more American troops, two squadrons of jet fighters, and two Patriot missile batteries to Saudi Arabia, another obvious move to end this country’s wars. (And what’s more, the Saudis will pay!)

That’s the antiwar president of the United States. Now, add in the rest of the official Washington crew, all belonging to “the indispensable nation,” and whatever you do, don’t forget various increasingly assertive retired generals and admirals. For instance, consider the general Donald Trump once loved to death for his moniker “Mad Dog,” former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The president recently called him “the world’s most overrated general.” Mattis responded, “I earned my spurs on the battlefield… Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor this way: bone spurs.”

By the way, in the midst of such chaos, you can check out Democratic presidential debates (or Republican commentaries) until hell freezes over and, as innocents continue to die from Syria to Afghanistan and beyond, here’s a topic you won’t find discussed anywhere: a growing American militarism at home in this era of never-ending wars and soaring national security state budgets. That’s why we’re lucky to have historian and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Astore, a TomDispatch regular, offer a rare assessment of the damage our wars are doing not in distant parts of the Earth, but right here in this country, however unnoticed. Tom
Killing Me Softly with Militarism The Decay of Democracy in America
By William J. Astore

When Americans think of militarism, they may imagine jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through the streets as flag-waving crowds exult; or, like our president, they may think of enormous parades featuring troops and missiles and tanks, with warplanes soaring overhead. Or nationalist dictators wearing military uniforms encrusted with medals, ribbons, and badges like so many barnacles on a sinking ship of state. (Was Donald Trump only joking recently when he said he’d like to award himself a Medal of Honor?) And what they may also think is: that’s not us. That’s not America. After all, Lady Liberty used to welcome newcomers with a torch, not an AR-15. We don’t wall ourselves in while bombing others in distant parts of the world, right?

But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the “hard” ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. Even in the heartland of Trump’s famed base, most Americans continue to reject nakedly bellicose displays like phalanxes of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue.

But who can object to celebrating “hometown heroes” in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway, timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America’s 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs?

What do I mean by softer forms of militarism? I’m a football fan, so one recent Sunday afternoon found me watching an NFL game on CBS. People deplore violence in such games, and rightly so, given the number of injuries among the players, notably concussions that debilitate lives. But what about violent commercials during the game? In that one afternoon, I noted repetitive commercials for SEAL TeamSWAT, and FBI, all CBS shows from this quietly militarized American moment of ours. In other words, I was exposed to lots of guns, explosions, fisticuffs, and the like, but more than anything I was given glimpses of hard men (and a woman or two) in uniform who have the very answers we need and, like the Pentagon-supplied police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, are armed to the teeth. (“Models with guns,” my wife calls them.)

Got a situation in Nowhere-stan? Send in the Navy SEALs. Got a murderer on the loose? Send in the SWAT team. With their superior weaponry and can-do spirit, Special Forces of every sort are sure to win the day (except, of course, when they don’t, as in America’s current series of never-ending wars in distant lands).

And it hardly ends with those three shows. Consider, for example, this century’s update of Magnum P.I., a CBS show featuring a kickass private investigator. In the original 

read more

Tomgram: Arnold Isaacs, Trump’s Ugly New Anti-Immigrant Wave

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Here’s your last chance to get a signed, personalized copy of historian Steve Fraser’s Mongrel Firebugs and Men of Property: Capitalism and Class Conflict in American History for a donation of $100 ($125 if you live outside the U.S.). As Frances Fox Piven, author of Poor People’s Movements, says of his new book: “Fraser is an analyst of the culture of late capitalism and, among other things, he demonstrates with impressive clarity the connections between the economic changes we call neoliberalism and the psycho-cultural dramas generated by the siren song of faux populism.” Take a look at Fraser’s recent TomDispatch piece on the two New Deals (of the 1930s and the Green New Deal of today) and then go to our donation page and check out the details — and while you’re at it, help keep this site afloat. Tom]

In 2018, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, the registered Afghan refugee population — at almost 2.5 million — was the largest in Asia and second only to Syria on the planet. According to Amnesty International, that figure has now topped 2.6 million, or one of every 10 refugees globally, with no end in sight. And small wonder in a country whose people have found themselves at war ever since, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush and crew sent the U.S. military not just to get Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda followers but to take out the Taliban, then ruling most of Afghanistan. In the almost 18 years since then, America’s wars (and the terror groups that grew with them) have spread across the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa, a process that has yet to result in a single victory but has singularly set off events that have uprooted or displaced staggering numbers of people, most recently, of course, in Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria.

So, in our grim world, consider it an irony that the American people elected a man to the presidency who, from the first moments of his campaign, has been focused not on our invasions of other countries or those we displaced but on global migrants invading us. Call it an irony of the grimmest sort that the most disruptive power of this century has spent these last years dreaming about walling itself in and walling the suffering and displaced out, whether via Donald Trump’s “great wall” or Muslim bans and other grotesque means.

As TomDispatch regular Arnold Isaacs makes clear today, the Trumpian and right-wing obsession with immigrants only worsens by the month. In response, Isaacs offers his own Trumpian-style logo for what’s been happening. Hold the red hats! Tom
MACA or Making America Crueler Again
The White House Targets Refugees, Green Card Applicants, and Poor Immigrants 
By Arnold R. Isaacs

On September 26th, President Donald Trump’s White House announced that, in 2020, refugee admissions to the United States will be limited to 18,000, drastically lower than any yearly ceiling over the past 40 years. Along with that announcement, the White House released a separate executive order intended to upend many years of precedent by giving state and local authorities the power to deny refugees resettlement in their jurisdictions.

Nine days later, Trump issued another directive ordering that new immigrant visas be restricted to those who can afford unsubsidized health insurance coverage or are affluent enough to pay for their own health-care costs. Meanwhile, his administration was heading into the final days of a planned timetable to implement new restrictions that would make it harder for needy immigrants to get a green card and work legally to support themselves and their families. That plan has been thwarted, at least temporarily, by orders from judges in three different federal courts.

Those separate but related actions are the latest pages in another dark chapter in the Trump administration’s anti-immigration binge. Together, they steer the U.S. government onto an even more heartless course, setting policies that will not just harm people directly covered by the new provisions but will cause significant collateral damage.

The local option to prevent resettlement will stir up anti-immigrant groups and inflame the national immigration debate, making that issue and the country’s racial divides even more toxic than they already are. In addition to keeping many more desperate people out of this country, the refugee cutback will harm organizations that help refugees already here and destroy Washington’s ability to persuade other countries to deal with the worldwide tidal wave of refugees displaced by wars and other catastrophes.

The new green card rules, if they overcome court challenges and go into effect, will greatly expand the grounds for finding that an applicant might become a “public charge.” That will deny legal employment to many of the most vulnerable immigrants and lead others to forgo badly needed benefits to which they are legally entitled — a trend already evident before those rules even take effect. Similarly, the new requirement that immigrants be capable of paying for health insurance will not just penalize foreign nationals applying for visas, but in many cases keep family members already in the U.S., including children and spouses, from reuniting with loved ones seeking to join them.

These policies have one more thing in common: none of them has anything to do with illegal immigration.

Refugees hoping for resettlement in the United States are not only seeking to enter the country legally but doing so through the most rigorous and time-consuming of all procedures for getting a visa. Those already here who could be excluded from a state or locality under the new regulations are lawfully in the country, not part of an “invasion” (as Trump calls it) of undocumented immigrants who have crossed the border illegally. Immigrants applying for green cards or visa applicants subject to the health insurance requirement are within the law by definition.

The New Refugee Ban, Town By Town

The “local option” giving state and local governments the right to block the resettlement of newly admitted refugees in their territory has been the least noticed of these new initiatives so far. It has, however, the potential for far-reaching, troubling, even dangerous effects. If the plan survives the expected court challenges and resettlement organizations have to get written approval from state and local authorities before placing new arrivals in specific locations, that could mobilize anti-immigrant activists across the country to put pressure on local officials, intensifying the politicization of refugee issues and galvanizing ugly forces in this society.

The heads of two of the nine national organizations that administer the resettlement program for the State Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement have been blunt in their criticism of the local option policy. It “shocks the conscience,” the Reverend John McCullough, CEO and president of Church World Service, declared in a statement. “This proposal would embolden racist officials to deprive refugees of their rights under U.S. law. This proposal is a slippery slope that takes our country backward. The ugly history of institutionalized segregation comes to mind.”

In a similar vein, Mark Hetfield, president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), described the order as “in effect, a state-by-state, city-by-city refugee ban, and it’s un-American and wrong. Is this the kind of America we want to live in? Where local towns can put up signs that say ‘No Refugees Allowed’ and the federal government will back that?”

Details are still vague on how the local option program would work. Trump’s order calls for the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to develop the lineaments of such a process within 90 days, so details may be forthcoming. On the essential points, though, its wording makes the order’s intent unequivocally clear.

A key passage states that resettlement agencies will have to get written permission from state and local authorities before placing any refugees in their jurisdiction; the burden, that is, will be on the agencies to get approval, not on local or state leaders to initiate an objection. In a curious provision, the document adds that the secretary of state “shall publicly release any written consents of States and localities to resettlement of refugees.” A decision to exclude refugees, however, can remain undisclosed.

Only President Trump and his advisers know whether the primary motive for such requirements was to make resettling refugees more politically fraught and potentially a more visible issue in the coming election season. But that is sure to be the result.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), is troubled by the prospect that the decisions of local authorities will only be publicized if they accept refugees, not if they refuse them — a twist that may tend to “stoke xenophobia,” she pointed out in an interview, and make it harder for communities to welcome refugees.

Matthew Soerens, who directs World Relief’s efforts to mobilize evangelical churches on refugee and immigration issues, voiced a similar concern. Mandating a public announcement when a jurisdiction decides to accept refugees will draw the attention of “people who maybe don’t want their state or local government receiving them,” Soerens said in an interview. Even if 70% of the people in a community support resettlement and only 30% object, “they can make an ugly political issue,” he added, possibly increasing the difficulty of bringing refugees into a community even when the authorities are in favor of resettling them. “We don’t want refugees to come into a situation where there’s been a big political circus about their arrival,” he added. Most residents may be welcoming, but “it only takes a few to make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe.”

Church World Service, HIAS, LIRS, and World Relief are four of nine national resettlement agencies. Six of them are faith-based. All nine have strongly criticized the new refugee ceiling as cruel, contrary to religious teachings of love and compassion, and against American values. (“Trump Puts Out Lady Liberty’s Torch” was the headline over the Church World Service’s statement.)

Worldwide Refugees at a Record High, U.S. Relief at an Unprecedented Low

The unanimous criticism from those resettlement agencies reflects how deeply Trump’s latest decision will cut into future refugee relief efforts. The new ceiling of 18,000 represents less than one-fifth of the 95,000 yearly cap presidents have set, on average, since the present refugee law was enacted in 1980. Actual admissions, normally somewhat lower than the maximum allowed, are now guaranteed to fall far below the average annual rate over an even longer period dating back to the 1940s.

The number of Muslim refugees, in particular, has dropped in a stunning fashion since Donald Trump entered the White House, even though, as a recent 

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What Does the U.S. Public Think of Its Government Arming and Bombing the World?

Data for Progress for quite a while appeared to be yet another U.S. PEP group (Progressive Except for Peace). They were producing useful polling reports on all sorts of topics as if 96% of humanity didn’t exist. Foreign policy just couldn’t be found. They told me they were just getting around to it. You still can’t find it from the homepage of their website (or at least it’s beyond my navigational skills), but Data for Progress has now published a report called “Voters Want to See a Progressive Overhaul of American Foreign Policy.”

They used “1,009 interviews of self-identified registered voters, conducted by YouGov on the internet. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, US Census region, and 2016 presidential vote choice. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s panel to be representative of registered voters.” This was a question:

“According to the Congressional Budget Office, the United States is expected to spend $738 billion on its military in 2020. That’s more than the next seven countries combined and more than the U.S. budget for education, federal courts, affordable housing, local economic development, and the State Department combined. Some say that maintaining a dominant global military footprint is necessary to keep us safe, and is worth the cost. Others say that money could be better spent on domestic needs like health care, education, or protecting the environment. Based on what you’ve just read, would you support or oppose reallocating money from the Pentagon budget to other priorities?”

A majority of 52% supported or “strongly supported” that idea (29% strongly supported it), while 32% opposed (20% strongly). If the sentence beginning “That’s more than . . . ” was left out, 51% supported the idea (30% strongly), while 36% opposed (19% strongly).

Of course there’s a major problem with the common pretense that the Pentagon budget is the military budget, namely the hundreds of billions of dollars going to “Homeland Security,” and the nukes in the “energy” department, and all the secretive spy-and-war agencies, and the military spending by the State Department, and the Veterans Administration, and so forth adding up to $1.25 trillion per year, not $738 billion. There’s a problem with opposing the State Department’s budget to the military budget when much of what the State Department does is in the service of militarism. There’s a problem with suggesting that money be moved to healthcare, namely that people in the United States already spend twice what they need to on healthcare; it’s just spent wastefully on sickness profiteers. There’s a problem with the choice being militarism or domestic spending. Why not militarism or peaceful spending? Both imperialists and humanists believe that the United States should share its wealth with the world in some ways other than militarism. “Protecting the environment” is hardly a “domestic need” — it’s a global project. The idea of militarism keeping people safe is best opposed not only to other priorities but also to the awareness that it actually makes people less safe. Etc.

Nonetheless, this is finally some U.S. polling data that is helpful in the project of ending war. That it accurately uses the term “military” rather than “defense” and that it asks about moving the money to useful things is a cut above the usual corporate polling, rare as even that is, on whether so-called defense spending should go up or down.

That the one sentence that was aimed at informing people of the extent of the trade-offs had limited impact is probably not because it was a bad idea but because it was only one sentence. As I noted eight years ago, we have polls showing that only 25% in the U.S. think their government should spend three times as much on militarism as the next most militarized nation, but only 32% (not 75%) think it currently spends too much. U.S. military spending across multiple governmental departments far exceeds three times Chinese military spending. A bill in Congress to restrict US military spending to three times the next most militarized nation might carry big popular support, but Congress would never pass it in the absence of intense public pressure, because it would require major cuts to the U.S. military that could trigger a reverse arms race.

When the University of Maryland, years ago, sat people down and showed them the federal budget in a pie chart (a more significant education than a single sentence) the results were dramatic, with a strong majority wanting to move serious money out of militarism and into human and environmental needs. Among other details revealed, the U.S. public would cut foreign aid to dictatorships but increase humanitarian assistance abroad.

Data for Progress also asked this question: “The United States currently spends more than half of its discretionary budget on military spending, which is considerably more than it spends on other foreign policy tools such as diplomacy and economic development programs. Some argue that maintaining U.S. military superiority should be the top foreign policy goal, and we should continue spending levels as they are. Others argue that rather than pouring money into war we should invest in preventing wars before they happen. Do you support or oppose a proposal to spend at least ten cents on non-military war prevention tools for every dollar we spend on the Pentagon?”

This question gets the percentage of the discretionary budget right and offers a progressive alternative. And the finding is that the U.S. public strongly prefers the progressive alternative: “A clear majority of voters support the ‘dime for a dollar’ policy, with 57 percent somewhat or strongly supporting and just 21 percent opposing the policy. This includes a plurality of Republican voters, 49 percent of whom support and just 30 percent of whom oppose the policy. The dime for a dollar policy is overwhelmingly popular among Independents and Democrats. A net +28 percent of Independents and a net +57 percent of Democrats support the dime for a dollar policy.”

I wish Data for Progress had asked about foreign military bases. I think a majority would be in favor of shutting some of them down, and that bits of education would raise that number. But they did ask about some important topics. For example, a plurality (and a strong majority among Democrats) want to withhold free weapons from Israel to curb its human rights abuses against Palestinians. A strong majority wants a no-first-use nuclear policy. A strong majority wants more humanitarian aid to Latin America. A strong majority wants to ban all use of torture. (We should properly say “re-ban” given how many times torture has been banned and re-banned.) Notably, the U.S. public, by a significant majority, wants a peace agreement with North Korea, but the group that wants it the most is Republicans. Obviously, that last fact tells us more about partisanship and presidential powers than about views on war and peace. But the collection of views listed here tells us that the U.S. public is far better on foreign policy than the U.S. corporate media will tell it, or than the U.S. government ever acts on.

Data for Progress also found that huge majorities want to end the endless U.S. wars in Afghanistan and across the Middle East. Those who support continuing these wars are a tiny fringe group, plus the U.S. corporate media, plus the U.S. Congress, President, and military. Overall we’re talking about 16% of the U.S. public. Among Democrats it’s 7%. Look at the deference that 7% receives from the numerous presidential candidates who have not declared that they will immediately end all of those wars. I’m not aware of any candidate for U.S. president in the history of the United States producing a basic pie-chart or outline of even the roughest sketch of a desirable discretionary budget. Try listing the current candidates for U.S. president in order by what they think military spending should be. How could anyone do it? How could anyone even get anyone to even ask one of them that question? Maybe this data will help.

Bernie hinted at it on Saturday in Queens, and the crowd started yelling “End the wars!” Perhaps the more some of the candidates begin hinting at it, the more they will recognize how strong the secret public opinion is on these matters.

Data for Progress also found a strong majority against allowing U.S. weapons sales to governments that abuse human rights. Public opinion is crystal clear. Total U.S. government refusal to act is as well. Much less clear is the concept of a government that buys deadly weapons and uses them for something other than abusing human rights — nobody ever explains what that can possibly mean.

Data for Progress reports on three other questions they asked. One opposed isolationism to engagement, but they don’t tell us the words they used. They just describe what sort of question it was. I’m not sure why any pollster, knowing how much depends on the words, would report something that way, especially when the result was a near-even split.

Another was a question about U.S. exceptionalism, which — again — they don’t give us the wording of. We just know that 53% agreed with “a statement recognizing that the US has strengths and weaknesses like any other country and has in fact caused harm in the world” as opposed to an exceptionalist statement. We also know that the 53% dropped to 23% among Republicans.

Finally, Data for Progress found that a plurality in the U.S. said that the United States faces primarily non-military threats. Some things are of course so painfully obvious that it’s painful to realize that they really do need to be polled on in hopes of getting them reported on. Now, how many would say that militarism is itself a threat and the primary generator of military threats and of the risk of nuclear apocalypse? And where does nuclear apocalypse rank in the list of threats? There is polling yet to be done.