Alternative to War – The Book

 

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A Global Security System: An Alternative to War — 2017 Edition Now Available

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#SpringAgainstWar marches this weekend

 

In organizing, we speak about the cycle of activism, which waxes and wanes throughout the seasons of the year. During the winter months, many turn inward to home and hearth. But with springtime upon us, it’s time to dust off our signs and banners and put on our marching shoes.

To kick-off the upswing of activism that comes with the spring, join World BEYOND War and our allies for a National Day of Anti-War Action!

Initiated by the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, the demands of the Spring Anti-War Action are:

• End U.S. wars, bombings, drones, and other forms of U.S. aggression
• Close all U.S. foreign bases
• Bring all U.S. troops home
• Dismantle nuclear weapons
• Use the funds of the massive U.S. military budget – $1 trillion/year – for human needs and environmental protection

Actions are being organized in mid-April in locations across the nation – from New York City to Minneapolis to the San Francisco Bay Area. Find an event near you.

We are witnessing a time of increasing cross-connections between movements, with the U.S. military-industrial complex at the root of many systemic issues. The Spring Day of Anti-War Action highlights both the foreign and domestic impact of U.S. warmongering. Our nation’s perpetual state of war fuels the militarization of the police at home, contributes to an increasing surveillance state that infringes on our civil liberties, and abuses our tax dollars, leaving little to nothing for education, healthcare, infrastructure, and environmental protection.

Can you join this April for #SpringAgainstWar?

U.S. Humiliates South Korea, Threatens North Korea

 

By David William Pear

Fearing that peace might break out with the two Koreas talking to each other, Washington instructed South Korean President Moon Jae-in to keep the message about anything but peace. It is not just Trump. A former top official for the Obama administration warned Moon that South Korea was not going to get anywhere with the North Koreans unless they have the “US behind them”. Humiliating, that is like saying that Moon’s “button” is not as big as Kim’s. The metaphor is exactly how the Washington elite see South Korea: as Washington’s obedient eunuch. The official went on to say, “If South Koreans are viewed as running off the leash, it will exacerbate tension within the alliance”. Running off the leash! Now more humiliation, is South Korea a US poodle? Instead President Moon Jae-in is showing that he has teeth, and that South Koreans want their country back from US humiliating domination.

During the talks it was agreed for North Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics in February. The two countries will even march together under a common flag, and future talks between the two are planned to reduce tension. Trump continues to bluster, while the two Koreas have “engaged in the most substantive direct talks in years”. Neocons such as John Bolton are outraged that North Korea has proven once again that it is willing to come to the negotiation table. Bolton says it is a dirty trick and that North Korea is “taking advantage of a weak South Korean government”, adding more insulting humiliation. To Washington, South Korea talking peace is weak, running off the leash and going it alone without its US master. The North using the peace option is seen as a provocation and propaganda that Washington will not tolerate. In retaliation the US sent more nukes to Guam, and put the state of Hawaii on a full alert that a “ballistic missile was inbound“. The nukes outbound to Guam are real; the ones inbound to Hawaii were fake, just like the ability of the billion dollar THAADS to shoot them down. Too conveniently the Hawaii false alarm comes just as the US and its vassals are readying for what the US plots to be a show of solidarity and unity on killer sanctions against North Korea. The US wants its chorus to perform the tragedy of telling North Korea to obey or watch 500,000 of their children die. As Madeleine Albright said about Iraq’s 500,000 dead children from US sanctions, “the price is worth it“. The US does not think the price of diplomacy is worth it though.

The US continues to block efforts at diplomacy, and express its contempt for South Korea’s elected President Moon Jae-in. He was elected on a peace platform by the South Korean people. Moon’s predecessor Park Geun-hye sang from the US hymnbook until she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. In 2017 the South Korean people went to the street and demanded the granddaughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee be impeached, and now she is in prison. Peace is not anything that Washington’s plutocrats want to hear, although the South Korean people like the sound of it, and elected Moon their president by a wide margin. The self-interests in Washington preferred the corrupt warmonger Park. She carried the US’s tune with perfect pitch, even (allegedly) conspired to assassinate the North’s Kim Jong-Un. The message of the humiliation from US apparatchiks is that if Moon does not change his tune the US will try to undermine South Korea’s democracy with a regime change project might be in his future. The US habitually meddles in other’s elections, and wants to keep tensions high on the Korean peninsula, keep the South Koreans in line, make North Korea a boogeyman, frighten the American people, station 30,000 US troops in South Korea with wartime operational control, buy more multi-billion dollar THAADS from Lockheed Martin, and divide the Korean people. Even at the risks of a nuclear war, which the US proposes making easier.

The establishment nearly went to war with North Korea in 1994 until Bill Clinton negotiated peace. The neocons in Washington and the mainstream media keep saying that North Korea refused to come to the negotiating table. Clinton’s decision to use diplomacy instead of threats proved the warmongers wrong again. It was the US all along that refused to talk, preferring belligerence and threats just as it does now. Once Clinton showed a willingness to bargain, then a nuclear deal was struck. The deal was called the Agreed Framework. What North Korea wanted then for it to suspend its nuclear program was for the US to halt the massive military exercises on North Korea’s border, a non-aggression guarantee, compensation for abandoning its needed electric producing nuclear reactors, and relations with the US. Now the situation with North Korea is back to where it was in 1994. George W. Bush reversed the path of peace when he came into the White House. In 2001 he tore up the Agreed Framework, put North Korea on the Axis of Evil list in 2002, invaded Iraq in 2003, and hanged Saddam Hussein in 2006. Very predictably North Korea resumed its nuclear program for self-defense against a paranoid and unpredictable USA that sees enemies to attack under every bed.

Don’t Thank Me for My Service

 

Desmond Tutu #nowar

 

http://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2017

Syria Post Mortem

Did Trump Really End the CIA’s Secret War in Syria?

Is Wonder Woman War Propaganda?

Contains Spoilers:

Wonder Woman, who throughout the film racks up quite a body count of conscripted German youths, is not so much a princess of peace as she is a valkyrie for “humanitarian” war: a Samantha Power with super-powers and a magic sword.

…In actual history, there was no negotiated peace in World War I, but a policy of unconditional surrender and total war pursued to the bitter end. It was this warmongering, not peacemongering, that led to the immiseration and humiliation of Germany, the rise of Nazism, and an even deadlier World War…