War Is A Crime

1. What would you like the U.S. discretionary budget to look like? With 60% now going to militarism, what percentage would you like that to be? 2. What program of economic conversion to peaceful enterprises would you support? 3. Would you end, continue, or escalate U.S. war making in: Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Yemen? Pakistan? Libya? Somalia? 4. Would you end the exemption for militarism in Kyoto, Paris, and other climate agreements? 5. Would you sign / ratify any of these treaties: Paris Climate Agreement? Convention on the Rights of the Child? International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights? International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights optional protocols? Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women? Convention Against Torure optional protocol? International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families? International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance? The Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities? International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries? Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court? Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? Principles of International Cooperation in the Detection, Arrest, Extradition, and Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? Convention on Cluster Munitions? Land Mines Convention? Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? Proposed treaties banning the weaponization of space and banning cyber crimes? 6. Would you halt or continue expenditures on the production and so-called modernization of nuclear weapons? 7. Would you end weapons sales and the provision of military training to any governments? Which? 8. Would you close any foreign bases? Which? 9. Would you halt or continue the practice of murder by missiles from drones? 10. Do you recognize the ban on war, with exceptions, contained in the United Nations Charter? And the ban on threatening war? 11. Do you recognize the ban on war, without exceptions, contained in the Kellogg-Briand Pact? 12. Will you end discriminatory bans on immigrants? 13. Should actual, non-military, no-strings-attached foreign aid be eliminated, reduced, maintained, or increased? How much? 14. 84% of South Koreans want the war ended immediately. Should the United States block that? 15. Should NATO be maintained or abolished? 16. Should the CIA be maintained or abolished? 17. Should the ROTC be maintained or abolished? 18. Should domestic police forces be trained by, collaborate with, and be armed by militaries? 19. Should the U.S. military pay sports leagues, secretly or openly, to celebrate militarism? 20. How large should the U.S. military’s advertising budget be, and how much should the U.S. government spend promoting the concepts of nonviolent dispute resolution and the abolition of war?

Peter Kuznick is Professor of History at American University, and author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists As Political Activists in 1930s America, co-author with Akira Kimura of Rethinking the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Japanese and American Perspectives, co-author with Yuki Tanaka of Nuclear Power and Hiroshima: The Truth Behind the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Power, and co-editor with James Gilbert of Rethinking Cold War Culture. In 1995, he read more

Here’s a story that’s never left my mind. Back in 2011, Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis was the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the war on terror across the Greater Middle East, and he was obsessed with Iran. He cooked up read more

The recent announcement by the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, that his company would give substantial raises to its lowest-paid employees should not blind us to the fact that most American workers are not receiving big wage increases.  In fact, the real wages (that is, wages adjusted for inflation) of average American workers are declining.

When justifying the Republicans’ December 2017 $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan read more

Nancy Pelosi has consistently and adamantly opposed impeaching Bush, Cheney, Trump, or Kavanaugh.

This has been her position every day of the year, in the minority, in the majority, before elections, after elections.

Let’s find out if there is anything she would impeach anyone for, and if so, what it is.

Ask Nancy Pelosi: http://bit.ly/asknancy

Irresponsibility: A One-Act Drama:

Stage set: a dining room at left, an office at right

A woman enters the office where the phone is ringing. She answers read more

By Dave Lindorff

It looks like Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh will soon be the ninth member of the Supreme Court.

The FBI has turned in a submissive fig leaf of a report on its cursory, rushed and presidentially circumscribed “investigation” into the claims of sexual abuse leveled against him by several women who assert that he attacked them when they were in high school or college, and now the three Republican senators who pretended to be concerned about his behavior and his veracity in read more

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

If you were sleeping in 2010 when the Supreme Court — you know, the perfectly reasonable one that didn’t yet have Brett Kavanaugh on it — made political spending a form of free speech with its Citizens United case, you may not yet know that American politics is increasingly a possession read more

I’m very, very strange. I think democracy would actually be a good thing, not just grounds for bombing other countries. As long as we’re stuck with electing supposed representatives, I want to make that system approximate as closely as possible actual democracy. This attitude results in some bizarre positions. For example, I want candidates to lay out a detailed policy platform with hard commitments to particular actions. Even weirder, I don’t really care what a candidate looks like or what read more

#NoWar #Afghanistan #WorldBEYONDWar