Rev. Martin Luther King: Press release from Gush Shalom, April 13, 2008 |
| "It would have been best for all of us, Mr. President, had you gone to Damascus with a full mandate from the Government of Israel and from your successor in the White House. To promote to the best of your ability the solution to the conflict and the end to both peoples' suffering. But even in the absence of an official government mandate, you are going to Damascus with the warm regards and full support of the peace seekers in Israel" ends Avnery’s letter to former president Carter. |
Former Knesset Member Uri Avnery, activist of Gush Shalom (The Israeli Peace Bloc), congratulates Jimmy Carter for his wise and courageous decision to meet in Damascus with Haled Mash’al and other Hamas leaders and talk with them on the ways to promote peace in our region.
Simultaneously, Avnery sent letters to PM Olmert as well as to Foreign Minister Livny and Defence Minister Barak – calling upon them to terminate the orchestrated campaign against Carter and make use of the former US President's position and prestige in order to end the suffering and bloodshed among both peoples, as well as achieve at last an exchange of prisoners which would restore to their homes and families the captured Israeli soldier Gil’ead Shalit as well as a significant number of Palestinian prisoners.
The policy of boycotting Hamas, starting on the day that the movement won the democratic elections held among the Palestinians, has failed utterly and caused terrible suffering and bloodshed among both peoples. The Government of Israel, with the support of the US Government, has undertaken large and small military operations; constantly sought to foment civil war among Palestinians; and imposed an inhuman economic boycott of the Gaza Strip, which exactly today reaches a cruel new peak with the denial of fuel to a million and half people. Not only did all these acts fail to break Hama’s power; on the contrary, they resulted in increasing its popular support and severely weakening Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) who is increasingly perceived as a collaborator, unable to bring his people any real achievement.
The time has come to turn a new page, based on recognition of reality: Hamas is a significant force among Palestinians, and will continue to be such, for better or worse, in the foreseeable future. It is impossible to reach an Israeli-Palestinian Agreement - and actually implement it - without Hamas being a party to that agreement. The visit of former US President Jimmy carter can impart an enormous momentum to a move including a full ceasefire, between all Israelis and all Palestinians, which will end the suffering at Sderot and Gaza alike; removal of the shameful economic siege, which is a terrible collective punishment for Gaza inhabitants of Gaza; and above all – encouraging the creation of a Palestinian National Unity Government, representing all significant factions and able to negotiate on behalf of the entire Palestinian people, instead of the complete veto which the governments of Israel and the US at present impose over the creation of such a government.
"It would have been best for all of us, Mr. President, had you gone to Damascus with a full mandate from the Government of Israel and from you successor in the White House. To promote to the best of your ability the solution to the conflict and the end to both peoples' suffering. But even in the absence of an official government mandate, you are going to Damascus with the warm regards and full support of the peace seekers in Israel" ends Avnery’s letter to former president Carter.”
Contact: Adam Keller adam@gush-shalom.org
HHow World Bank policies led to famine in Haitiow World Bank policies led to famine in Haiti
Pressure mounts for talks with Hamas
Death toll mounts in clashes across IraqIn the final analysis, this episode in the “global war on terrorism,” which has brought three South American nations to the brink of armed conflict, is the product of a filthy political murder carried out to defend the strategic and profit interests of US capitalism.
It is a reminder that “Murder, Inc.”—as the CIA became known during the 1960s and 1970s, when it organized numerous assassinations and assassination attempts, along with right-wing coups and dirty wars—is still very much in business in Latin America.
Full story:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19475.htm
The current man in the Oval Office, George Bush, simply can’t help himself: an outlaw invasion by a right-wing death-squad promoter is just fine with him.
But guess who couldn’t wait to parrot the Bush line? Hillary Clinton, still explaining that her vote to invade Iraq was not a vote to invade Iraq, issued a statement nearly identical to Bush’s, blessing the invasion of Ecuador as Colombia’s “right to defend itself.” And she added, “Hugo Chávez must stop these provoking actions.” Huh?
I assumed that Barack Obama wouldn’t jump on this landmine – especially after he was blasted as a foreign policy amateur for suggesting he would invade across Pakistan’s border to hunt terrorists.
It’s embarrassing that Barack repeated Hillary’s line nearly verbatim, announcing, “the Colombian government has every right to defend itself.” . . .
. . . John McCain weighed in with his own idiocies, announcing that, “Hugo Chavez is establish[ing] a dictatorship,” presumably because, unlike George Bush, Chavez counts all the votes in Venezuelan elections.
But now our story gets tricky and icky.
The wise media critic Jeff Cohen told me to watch for the press naming McCain as a foreign policy expert and labeling the Democrats as amateurs. Sure enough, the New York Times, on the news pages Wednesday, called McCain, “a national security pro.”
McCain is the “pro” who said the war in Iraq would cost nearly nothing in lives or treasury dollars.
But, on the Colombian invasion of Ecuador, McCain said, “I hope that tensions will be relaxed, President Chavez will remove those troops from the borders - as well as the Ecuadorians - and relations continue to improve between the two.”
It’s not quite English, but it’s definitely not Bush. And weirdly, it’s definitely not Obama and Clinton cheerleading Colombia’s war on Ecuador.
Democrats, are you listening? The only thing worse than the media attacking Obama and Clinton as amateurs is the Democratic candidates’ frightening desire to prove them right.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
To send this to a friend, or to read more dispatches, go to tomdispatch.com
Scott Ritter
is a former UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq
Target Iran: The Truth Behind the White House's Plans for Regime Change (Nation Books, 2006).
To read the complete story:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19460.htm
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Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map? - Does He Deny The Holocaust?
‘We Were Soldiers’ purports to tell the story of the bloody battle in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in November 1965. (more…)
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The Hindu, 13 January
The world looks on at the US presidential primaries with a mix of hopes and fears, and not a little bemusement.
The road to the White House is serpentine, its course laid out by an amalgam of federal and state law, constitutional interpretation by the courts, party regulations, custom, and media imperatives. In the horse race that ensues, presentation and positioning easily trump policy.
As a dramatic spectacle, the primaries can provide rich entertainment; but as a coherent democratic process, they are wanting. (more…)
The Ominous Lesson of Tet
The Vietnamese death toll after America's defeat 40 years ago is a terrifying pointer for the Iraq retreat
By Mike Marqusee
The insurgents struck simultaneously across the country, targeting more than 100 cities and towns in what the historian Stanley Karnow describes as an offensive "of extraordinary intensity and astonishing scope ... audaciously shifting the war for the first time from its rural setting to a new arena - South Vietnam's supposedly impregnable urban areas". Military installations, police stations, prisons, government offices and radio stations came under attack. Most spectacularly, a group of 19 commandos fought their way into the US embassy compound in Saigon, where they held out for six-and-a-half hours - long enough for the images of defiance to be broadcast around the world.
Hue, the ancient capital and the south's third-largest city, was only recaptured by the US after 25 days of house-to-house fighting. Atrocities against the civilian population were committed by both sides, and by the battle's end 116,000 of the city's population of 140,000 were homeless.
NLF and North Vietnamese casualties reached terrifying proportions. Perhaps a half - 45,000 - of the soldiers engaged in the initial offensive were killed. What is more, they were unable to hold any of the ground they had seized. The aim had been to spark a popular uprising in the South. When that did not materialise, partly because the communist party was weak among urban workers, the US's superior armaments prevailed.
The US counter-offensive was ferocious and indiscriminate. Urban areas held by the NLF were pulverised. Within two weeks, 630,000 civilians had been made refugees. On February 7, when the US recaptured the charred wasteland of what had been the town of Ben Tre, a US major told the press: "It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it." Soon after, in the course of flushing out alleged collaborators in Saigon, the chief of South Vietnam's national police was filmed calmly shooting a bound prisoner in the head. This image also went round the world, further eroding US claims to moral purpose.
Years later, General Tran Do, one of the architects of the offensive, commented: "In all honesty, we didn't achieve our main objective, which was to spur uprisings throughout the South. Still, we inflicted heavy casualties on the Americans and their puppets, and this was a big gain for us. As for making an impact in the United States, it had not been our intention - but it turned out to be a fortunate result."
For an American public reared on a belief in US supremacy, Tet was a shock. For three years they had been assured that the war in Vietnam was being won. Now the disparity between US government claims and the reality on the ground became untenable. The antiwar movement was vindicated. In the New Hampshire primary, held on March 12, President Lyndon Johnson was embarrassed by the strong showing of antiwar candidate Eugene "Gene" McCarthy. On March 31, two months after Tet, he announced that he would not seek re-election and offered to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese, who accepted on April 3.
Tet caused fear and trembling in the corridors of power, but in the wider world the spectacle of the greatest power on earth defeated by an army of poor people inspired millions. The student revolts for which 1968 is famous took off in the wake of Tet, first in Germany and Italy, spreading subsequently to the US, France, Mexico and Pakistan.
However, the US war in Vietnam was to continue in its destructive fury for another four years. US policy did change after Tet - towards "Vietnamisation", in which reliance on air power increased. US casualties fell, from 16,000 killed in 1968 to 600 in 1972. On the other side the toll rose. Perhaps half the 5 million killed in the war, according to Vietnam government figures, perished during these post-Tet years.
Here is the ominous lesson for Iraq. There are few things as dangerous as an imperial power in retreat. Yes, the war is discredited and the major presidential candidates promise to reduce US troop numbers. None, however, seems prepared to abandon the mission in Iraq, which is also propped up by an array of corporate interests. As Vietnam showed, the alternative to a prompt and complete withdrawal is not a happy compromise, but prolonged devastation.
· Mike Marqusee is the author of "Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties" - mikemarqusee.com
January 26, 1784 -
