A personal note from Donna Mulhearn

Dear friends

It’s my birthday today (16th), and I would like to invite you to help me celebrate!

To be more specific there’s a gift I would love to receive above anything else: the chance to tell a story that urgently needs to be told, to give voice to those whose voices are rarely heard: the women and children of a dusty, war-torn Middle Eastern town struggling to survive a war that, for them, has never ended.

On the contrary, the war begins anew every day in the maternity ward of Fallujah City Hospital where gynaecologists say that on average three babies are born each day with severe deformities. That’s more than 1000 a year for what is now a relatively small town. Many babies are stillborn, others live a few hours, and the majority of those who survive will only live a few months such is the severity of their abnormalities. Fallujah cemetery is littered with tiny ‘baby’ graves. Others, who make it past their first birthday, will need intensive specialist care for the rest of their lives.

The medical recommendation of the gynaecologists to the women of Fallujah is simple: “just stop”. Stop having babies, stop falling pregnant because it is likely you will not give birth to a healthy baby.

These words carry a shocking implication: a whole generation of young women who will never be mothers, a whole generation of babies, little human beings, who will never see light, or laugh or feel love.

This is life now, in Fallujah - a once-thriving town the size of Newcastle or Wollongong. Once alive with growing families, bustling markets, ornate mosques, sporting fields, schools, industry and the famous ‘best falafel’ in all of Iraq.

Now the residents of this toxic, war-ravaged, virtual ghost-town are the ones who simply can’t afford to flee, or have nowhere else to go.

The dramatic rise in birth deformities in Fallujah began in 2005, a year after intense U.S military attacks on the city in April 2004 and again in November 2004. It is alleged that depleted uranium was used widely in the attacks as well as white phosphorous, and that the toxic nature of these substances and their subsequent contamination of the local eco-system, is the reason for the rise in birth abnormalities, as well as an increase in cancers and leukaemia amongst adults. This would seem a logical conclusion given the evidence we have on the impact of depleted uranium on human beings. But the U.S military has denied there is a problem, claiming there is no solid evidence of a link between its use of chemical weapons and the dramatic increase in birth deformities in Fallujah. It claims reports are anecdotal, that there are no accurate figures or research to respond to. So it refuses to respond - as does the World Health Organisation, despite pleading from Doctors, Iraqi and international human rights groups and medical NGOs around the world. At the same time, the military occupation makes it almost impossible for western researchers to go to Fallujah to do research. Despite this, one research team, led by UK scientist Prof Chris Busy, did get into the city and conducted a major survey, the results of which are confronting and demanding of a response by governments. The research, published this year in an international health journal, concluded that the birth defects and other health problems in Fallujah such as cancers and leukaemia are worse than in the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the use of atomic bombs there.

I repeat. The health problems in Fallujah are deemed worse than the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A copy of Prof Busby’s report can be found here:
www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf

News items and short docos on this issue can be found here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8549745.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFqyK8kB1Vk
You may have noticed this story has barely made it on to the radar of the Australian or U.S media. But I’m sure you agree it is a story that needs to be widely told and responded to with immediate action. The babies of Fallujah deserve justice and the women of Fallujah deserve hope.
That’s where you come into the picture. Dr Richard Hil, a semi-retired academic and author, and myself have decided to collaborate to tell the story of the babies of Fallujah from the point of view of the families themselves. We hope to produce a book, a documentary and resources to contribute to the world-wide campaign to ban depleted uranium weapons (DU) so that this can never happen again.

To do this we will need to go to Fallujah. The aim is to use the scientific data from Prof Busy and others, and humanise it through the stories of the children, the grief of the mothers, the struggle of the families and the views of the town elders. But, as you could imagine, getting into Fallujah will be a major logistical challenge, which is why we will need your help. The cost of the mission and the extra safety precautions we will need to take mean a very large budget that we cannot fund ourselves.

My first invitation to you is to help send Richard and I to Fallujah early next year to make this a reality. Together we can ensure this story is told. You are also invited to help with other needs for the campaign to ensure justice, accountability and an end to the use of DU weapons. We will need help with a website, lobbying of governments to achieve new U.N resolutions, distribution of information, graphic design, publicising the issues in your groups etc
More on that in due course, but first, for my birthday, you can give me the most useful present ever - please donate an amount that you can afford to an appeal that will support the logistics of this project: $20, $50 - if enough of you respond in a small way, it will be possible!
We believe this project can make an important contribution to the international campaign to ban depleted uranium. (We now have an international treaty banning cluster munitions; we can do the same for depleted uranium weapons). It can help ensure justice for Fallujah, and above all acknowledge the suffering of the people who are so often overlooked by our governments and corporate media. It will give us the chance, on behalf of all of you, to say “we are sorry, and we will work for change”.

For me this is personal. Many of you are aware of my intimate links with depleted uranium. My relationship with baby Noura, a DU baby I met in Baghdad in 2003 who was born with no arms and legs. She is just a torso and a head, but her smile and her energy has a profound effect on me. Then there was Arean: the girl from Basra I met in Baghdad Children’s hospital who was dying of leukaemia because of the use of depleted uranium in the 1991 Gulf War.
My interaction with her was powerful and sacred, something I will never forget. My book, Ordinary Courage, is dedicated to her memory because she helped me realise that all we have to do is what we can do. That will empower us when faced with shocking situations like this one.

I was present in Fallujah in April 2004 when the U.S attack was taking place and was an eye-witness to the massacre of civilians there.
And then there’s my exposure to depleted uranium during my time in Iraq which has affected my fertility options (explanation of this in the last section of my book).

The story of the Fallujah women is my story. Their babies are our babies.
Arean, a dying Iraqi girl, body riddled with leukaemia, gave me hope the day I met her because she taught me that although I could not save her, I should not cry for too long over what I cannot do. She encouraged me to think of what I can do....to think of who I am, and what I can actually do to contribute to change.

I am not a Doctor, but I have a notepad and camera. I am not a scientist but I can go to Fallujah, (I know the way), I can listen to the people there, I can help give them a voice. That’s what I can do.
And that’s just the start. With all of you, we’ll do much more than that.

Your pilgrim
Donna

PS: If you are able to contribute to my birthday wish, the bank account details are: Commonwealth Bank, a/c name: Donna Mulhearn – volunteer expenses, BSB: 062 181 a/c number: 1030 5704, or if you want to do the old fashioned cheque thing, reply to this email and I’ll send my address.

PPS: Dr Richard Hil is Honorary Associate in the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. Richard has taught previously at Southern Cross University, Queensland University of Technology, University of the Sunshine Coast, James Cook University, and the University of York. He has published widely in the fields of criminology, child and family welfare, youth studies, and peace and conflict studies. He’s also a great guy with a big heart!
PPPS: More news soon on how to pressure the Australian government to support U.N resolutions which challenge the use of depleted uranium. At the last vote, they abstained, while 131 nations supported the resolution. The United States voted against the resolution. Why did we abstain?

PSx4: If you want to grab a copy of my book, you can now purchase one from me, so you don’t have to pay bookshop price ($32.95) rather my ‘mate’s’ price ($25). Just email back and I’ll post you out a copy, see www.ordinarycourage.org


PSx5: “When I saw her suffering it made me so depressed. I hated the world. I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. She stopped sleeping recently and cries with anger.” Mother of Baby Tiba from Fallujah, born with two heads, who has now passed away.

Interfaith Dialogue and Rabbi Ron Kronish

Joshua Stanton
Co-editor, 'Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue'
Can Interfaith Dialogue Make a Difference in the Face of Middle East Setbacks?
For many, the end of the moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank feels devastating. Could it mean the end of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians? Could it lead to another round of violence?
But for one rabbi, it is just another day of work. He has been making peace longer than most diplomats -- and arguably with greater success.
Rabbi Ron Kronish, Executive Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), has been living in Israel for 31 years and carries himself with the assuredness of someone who has experienced a great deal and will find a way, somehow, to overcome new obstacles.
Having arrived in Israel in the euphoric wake of the '67 War, in which Israel assured its own survival and overnight found itself to be one of the region's strongest military powers, he has seen the hope for an enduring diplomatic peace evaporate time and time again between Israelis and Palestinians and many of the nationalistic ideals of both peoples undone by war.
As a "Post-Zionist Zionist" who acknowledges many of Israel's national myths but takes great pride in his adopted country nonetheless, Kronish's identity and vocation have been shaped by the idea that there are just two options in the current conflict: You can "be ensconced in despair and stop watching the news" or "avoid 100 years of war and don't let them [Israelis and Palestinians] be enemies" -- at least person-to-person.
It is of little surprise that Kronish has not cultivated a "can do" so much as a "must do" personality. The ICCI was founded in the midst of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and the two dozen founding members met in one of Jerusalem's seminaries with great gusto and gas masks in hand to formally launch it. Not even the threat of scud missiles from Saddam Hussein could dissuade them.
In many ways, that gathering has been symbolic of ICCI's work and Ron Kronish's outlook as its leader: Peace can only be made through hard-nosed efforts to make it happen on the ground. The time for fluffy dialogue had long passed. The time for a political solution may stretch on into the future. Now is the time for transformational gatherings that produce results for citizens, not just politicians.
One of the ICCI's flagship programs is the "Face to Face/Faith to Faith" initiative, run in partnership with Auburn Theological Seminary for high school students in and around Jerusalem. I had the chance to meet up with the some of its participants just after the 2009 Gaza War. The room, full of about a dozen cheerful Israeli and Palestinian high school students, contrasted with the grim political scene. The group's conversations that day centered on outreach to houses of worship in order to involve them in inter-religious work and volunteer efforts that would assist both Israeli and Palestinian communities.
The underlying determination of the group gradually became apparent as I grew to know its participants. Lighthearted conversations gave way to more serious discussions about how their group managed to stay together in spite of the Gaza War -- and in contrast to nearly every other interfaith group for Israeli and Palestinian youth. "If we were able to get through those times without hating each other, nothing can keep us from being friends," one student told me, with an intense smile on her face. She then went on to tell me how the group had grappled with the toughest, most personal issues of the war.
Several students dropped out of the program; many cried, raised their voices, or had to take a few moments to themselves. A number had friends or relatives in Gaza, while others had loved ones in the Israeli army or the south of Israel, which was impacted by ongoing rocket fire. But the program's organizers refused to ignore the issues and pushed the group to confront them head-on.
By engaging directly with the toughest topics of the time -- life and death, injustice, bad politics, theology, the media's spin -- students managed to dialogue their way through the war and emerge from it ready to lead their communities and work together. They spent the remainder of the year leading volunteer programs and demonstrating that even in the most infuriating moments of diplomacy and war, interfaith engagement and leadership development can endure. They must.
As I reflect on the recent, unsettling news about the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, I look to the example of Ron Kronish. Even when inspired to work for peace by the belief that "we are all part of God's creation," he has shown that it is the tough, up-front, determined dialogue among citizens that sustains the possibility of a lasting political accord. There is no choice but to continue on.

Kashmir’s Fruits of Discord By ARUNDHATI ROY

Search All NYTimes.com
Published: November 8, 2010
A WEEK before he was elected in 2008, President Obama said that solving the dispute over Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination — which has led to three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947 — would be among his “critical tasks.” His remarks were greeted with consternation in India, and he has said almost nothing about Kashmir since then.
But on Monday, during his visit here, he pleased his hosts immensely by saying the United States would not intervene in Kashmir and announcing his support for India’s seat on the United Nations Security Council. While he spoke eloquently about threats of terrorism, he kept quiet about human rights abuses in Kashmir.
Whether Mr. Obama decides to change his position on Kashmir again depends on several factors: how the war in Afghanistan is going, how much help the United States needs from Pakistan and whether the government of India goes aircraft shopping this winter. (An order for 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, worth $5.8 billion, among other huge business deals in the pipeline, may ensure the president’s silence.) But neither Mr. Obama’s silence nor his intervention is likely to make the people in Kashmir drop the stones in their hands.
I was in Kashmir 10 days ago, in that beautiful valley on the Pakistani border, home to three great civilizations — Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist. It’s a valley of myth and history. Some believe that Jesus died there; others that Moses went there to find the lost tribe. Millions worship at the Hazratbal shrine, where a few days a year a hair of the Prophet Muhammad is displayed to believers.
Now Kashmir, caught between the influence of militant Islam from Pakistan and Afghanistan, America’s interests in the region and Indian nationalism (which is becoming increasingly aggressive and “Hinduized”), is considered a nuclear flash point. It is patrolled by more than half a million soldiers and has become the most highly militarized zone in the world.
The atmosphere on the highway between Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, and my destination, the little apple town of Shopian in the south, was tense. Groups of soldiers were deployed along the highway, in the orchards, in the fields, on the rooftops and outside shops in the little market squares. Despite months of curfew, the “stone pelters” calling for “azadi” (freedom), inspired by the Palestinian intifada, were out again. Some stretches of the highway were covered with so many of these stones that you needed an S.U.V. to drive over them.
Fortunately the friends I was with knew alternative routes down the back lanes and village roads. The “longcut” gave me the time to listen to their stories of this year’s uprising. The youngest, still a boy, told us that when three of his friends were arrested for throwing stones, the police pulled out their fingernails — every nail, on both hands.
For three years in a row now, Kashmiris have been in the streets, protesting what they see as India’s violent occupation. But the militant uprising against the Indian government that began with the support of Pakistan 20 years ago is in retreat. The Indian Army estimates that there are fewer than 500 militants operating in the Kashmir Valley today. The war has left 70,000 dead and tens of thousands debilitated by torture. Many, many thousands have “disappeared.” More than 200,000 Kashmiri Hindus have fled the valley. Though the number of militants has come down, the number of Indian soldiers deployed remains undiminished.
But India’s military domination ought not to be confused with a political victory. Ordinary people armed with nothing but their fury have risen up against the Indian security forces. A whole generation of young people who have grown up in a grid of checkpoints, bunkers, army camps and interrogation centers, whose childhood was spent witnessing “catch and kill” operations, whose imaginations are imbued with spies, informers, “unidentified gunmen,” intelligence operatives and rigged elections, has lost its patience as well as its fear. With an almost mad courage, Kashmir’s young have faced down armed soldiers and taken back their streets.
Since April, when the army killed three civilians and then passed them off as “terrorists,” masked stone throwers, most of them students, have brought life in Kashmir to a grinding halt. The Indian government has retaliated with bullets, curfew and censorship. Just in the last few months, 111 people have been killed, most of them teenagers; more than 3,000 have been wounded and 1,000 arrested.
But still they come out, the young, and throw stones. They don’t seem to have leaders or belong to a political party. They represent themselves. And suddenly the second-largest standing army in the world doesn’t quite know what to do. The Indian government doesn’t know whom to negotiate with. And many Indians are slowly realizing they have been lied to for decades. The once solid consensus on Kashmir suddenly seems a little fragile.
I WAS in a bit of trouble the morning we drove to Shopian. A few days earlier, at a public meeting in Delhi, I said that Kashmir was disputed territory and, contrary to the Indian government’s claims, it couldn’t be called an “integral” part of India. Outraged politicians and news anchors demanded that I be arrested for sedition. The government, terrified of being seen as “soft,” issued threatening statements, and the situation escalated. Day after day, on prime-time news, I was being called a traitor, a white-collar terrorist and several other names reserved for insubordinate women. But sitting in that car on the road to Shopian, listening to my friends, I could not bring myself to regret what I had said in Delhi.
We were on our way to visit a man called Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar. The previous day he had come all the way to Srinagar, where I had been staying, to press me, with an urgency that was hard to ignore, to visit Shopian.
I first met Shakeel in June 2009, only a few weeks after the bodies of Nilofar, his 22-year-old wife, and Asiya, his 17-year-old sister, were found lying a thousand yards apart in a shallow stream in a high-security zone — a floodlit area between army and state police camps. The first postmortem report confirmed rape and murder. But then the system kicked in. New autopsy reports overturned the initial findings and, after the ugly business of exhuming the bodies, rape was ruled out. It was declared that in both cases the cause of death was drowning. Protests shut Shopian down for 47 days, and the valley was convulsed with anger for months. Eventually it looked as though the Indian government had managed to defuse the crisis. But the anger over the killings has magnified the intensity of this year’s uprising.
Shakeel wanted us to visit him in Shopian because he was being threatened by the police for speaking out, and hoped our visit would demonstrate that people even outside of Kashmir were looking out for him, that he was not alone.
It was apple season in Kashmir and as we approached Shopian we could see families in their orchards, busily packing apples into wooden crates in the slanting afternoon light. I worried that a couple of the little red-cheeked children who looked so much like apples themselves might be crated by mistake. The news of our visit had preceded us, and a small knot of people were waiting on the road.
Shakeel’s house is on the edge of the graveyard where his wife and sister are buried. It was dark by the time we arrived, and there was a power failure. We sat in a semicircle around a lantern and listened to him tell the story we all knew so well. Other people entered the room. Other terrible stories poured out, ones that are not in human rights reports, stories about what happens to women who live in remote villages where there are more soldiers than civilians. Shakeel’s young son tumbled around in the darkness, moving from lap to lap. “Soon he’ll be old enough to understand what happened to his mother,” Shakeel said more than once.
Just when we rose to leave, a messenger arrived to say that Shakeel’s father-in-law — Nilofar’s father — was expecting us at his home. We sent our regrets; it was late and if we stayed longer it would be unsafe for us to drive back.
Minutes after we said goodbye and crammed ourselves into the car, a friend’s phone rang. It was a journalist colleague of his with news for me: “The police are typing up the warrant. She’s going to be arrested tonight.” We drove in silence for a while, past truck after truck being loaded with apples. “It’s unlikely,” my friend said finally. “It’s just psy-ops.”
But then, as we picked up speed on the highway, we were overtaken by a car full of men waving us down. Two men on a motorcycle asked our driver to pull over. I steeled myself for what was coming. A man appeared at the car window. He had slanting emerald eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard that went halfway down his chest. He introduced himself as Abdul Hai, father of the murdered Nilofar.
“How could I let you go without your apples?” he said. The bikers started loading two crates of apples into the back of our car. Then Abdul Hai reached into the pockets of his worn brown cloak, and brought out an egg. He placed it in my palm and folded my fingers over it. And then he placed another in my other hand. The eggs were still warm. “God bless and keep you,” he said, and walked away into the dark. What greater reward could a writer want?
I wasn’t arrested that night. Instead, in what is becoming a common political strategy, officials outsourced their displeasure to the mob. A few days after I returned home, the women’s wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (the right-wing Hindu nationalist opposition) staged a demonstration outside my house, calling for my arrest. Television vans arrived in advance to broadcast the event live. The murderous Bajrang Dal, a militant Hindu group that, in 2002, spearheaded attacks against Muslims in Gujarat in which more than a thousand people were killed, have announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal, including by filing criminal charges against me in different courts across the country.
Indian nationalists and the government seem to believe that they can fortify their idea of a resurgent India with a combination of bullying and Boeing airplanes. But they don’t understand the subversive strength of warm, boiled eggs.
Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel “The God of Small Things” and, most recently, the essay collection “Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 9, 2010, on page A35 of the New York edition.

Pax Christi Youth Forum Encourages Your Support of Arms Down! for Shared Security. (03/09/2010)

The Global Youth Network of Religions for Peace is advancing a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that asks member states to cut military spending by 10% and redirect those funds toward the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The campaign has 4 million signatures and has a goal of 50 million before October 2010.

At the end of the campaign, the petition will be presented to the United Nations Secretary General and senior Head of States.

To support these efforts, Pax Christi International is disseminating the sign-on letter of the Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security.

Please consider adding your name to the below petition.

The link to the Petition is http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs022/1103498098783/archive/1103578429922.html

A muted 'victory' points to similar exit from Afghanistan

Editorial, The Age, August 30, 2010

THE US is on the eve of ending combat operations in Iraq. After 2721 days of war, in which 4734 coalition soldiers and 9961 Iraqis serving alongside them died, such a moment might in other circumstances be a cause of excitement and celebration. A year-long withdrawal of US troops and equipment leaves an ''advise and assist'' force of 50,000, less than a third of the ''surge'' peak of 2007. Yet when President Barack Obama stands in the Oval Office this week to declare the end of combat, the occasion will be haunted by memories of his predecessor's premature claim of victory back in May 2003.

In contrast to George Bush's declaration, there will be no fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier, no banner declaring ''Mission Accomplished'' after barely six weeks of war. There will probably be no repeat of the declaration that ''Iraq is free'', marking ''one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001''. Mr Obama will not draw the false link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks, which the Bush administration drew upon to justify going to war on the false pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Mr Obama has overseen a reassessment of the mission in order to fulfil an election promise to bring combat troops home from Iraq, as did the Rudd government in June 2008. If the job is done, it bears little resemblance to the original 2003 goals for ''Operation Iraqi Freedom''.

Far from being established as a regional beacon of democracy, Iraq and its people fear what lies ahead. Almost six months after national elections, a government has yet to be formed and the two main political parties have suspended talks. As the US troops left, co-ordinated bombings across the country killed scores of people and wounded hundreds. According to Iraqi officials, 535 people were killed in July, the bloodiest month since May 2008.

The attacks have been blamed on al-Qaeda terrorists who, although not active in Iraq under the Sunni-dominated dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, are now a dangerously destabilising influence in a Shiite-Sunni power struggle. While Iraqis' courageous support for elections may yet lead to a more stable, pluralistic democracy, which serves as a counterweight to theocratic Iran, the Shiite majority could just as likely align Baghdad with Tehran once the last US troops leave by an agreed December 2011 deadline.

With combat operations at an end in Iraq, the even longer war in Afghanistan is due for reassessment. ''Operation Enduring Freedom'' came under the same rhetorical banner as the Iraq war - although the architects of the September 11 atrocities were at least to be found in Afghanistan. Victory was similarly declared too soon as the US turned its attention to Iraq, at great cost to the mission in Afghanistan. Australian forces withdrew in late 2002, only to have to return in September 2005. Each year since 2003, the annual death toll of coalition soldiers has greatly increased. Of the 2030 killed, 462 have died this year. Twenty-one Australians have been killed - 10 in the past 11 weeks.

In the US and Australia, the loss of lives, including more than 100,000 civilians, and the costs, well over $US1 trillion, have turned the public against wars that were meant to last months, not years. Defence Minister John Faulkner has conceded that recent losses would ''cause some to question why we are in Afghanistan''. However, Labor and the Coalition speak as one in asserting that the mission is vital to Australia's security and that the Taliban must be defeated to ensure Afghanistan is not a base for terrorism. They have at last agreed, though, to a proper debate on a deployment that could continue for years. Mr Obama's timetable for withdrawal from next July has been challenged by his commander David Petraeus, who says the current troop surge must be given time to work. In that case, the mission will have to be better explained and justified to a war-weary public. What exactly does ''until the job is done'' mean?

The prospect of criminal charges against Defence Force commandos is a reminder that this is an ugly and unconventional war. Military force alone will not bring victory, nor is it the best way to deal with the shifting global threat of terrorism. Without a political breakthrough, which also depends on an increasingly unstable Pakistan, the war could last indefinitely. Reining in corruption, achieving basic competency in government and the military and creating enough stability to enable civil society to function would rate as a success.

It is naive to think that when troops withdraw they will leave behind a country that has been liberated from repression, the drug trade and feudal warlords. The coalition forces that invaded in October 2001 are still obliged to restore a level of order. The result is unlikely to live up to the original mission goals, nor compensate for the human and financial costs of the war. As in Iraq, we may get barely a whiff of victory. A realistic reappraisal of Afghanistan - in short, more honesty about our options - is needed to develop an exit strategy that does not amount to defeat. Time, money and public patience are running out.

Source: The Age

Let's debate Afghanistan, but give us the facts first

Tom Hyland
Sunday Age, August 29, 2010
Where there is no information, there is no hope of a meaningful discussion.

IT HAS taken nine years, the deaths of 21 Australian soldiers and a hung parliament, but now our politicians agree: they will have a debate on Afghanistan. The Greens have long called for one; so have former and serving soldiers. Now Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott reluctantly concur.

But now comes the hard part, because many of those agreeing to a debate want the discussion to reach the contradictory conclusions they cling to. The Greens want the troops out now. Gillard and Abbott say any debate will not divert them from their commitment to the war. The soldiers who want a debate appear to be the only ones with open minds, even though they have the most at stake.

If the debate is to go beyond the reiteration of entrenched views, it would help if the government gave us some unadorned facts about what our troops are doing, why they are doing it, and whether it has any chance of success. The last point is the crucial one.

While media commentators say a rising death toll is undermining popular support for Australia's commitment, the evidence is that it is the perception we are not winning - not that Australians are dying - that is the key factor in the war's unpopularity. This disenchantment, reflected in opinion polls, comes despite strenuous efforts by governments and defence officials to restrict the flow of information about our role in the conflict.

An American academic, in an analysis published by the US Army War College, of all places, has tracked the drop in public support for the war in Australia and five other countries with troops in Afghanistan. The academic, Charles Miller, traces declining Australian support back to 2007, when Australia had lost just four soldiers, when the conflict barely rated in public discussion and when it had bi-partisan political backing.

This is the issue governments fail to address. Instead, there is a constant refrain that we are making ''progress'' in our stated aim, which has settled on training Afghan troops so they can take charge of security and we can leave. We do not know what this confidence is based on, nor do we know how politicians decided to cap Australia's contribution at 1500 troops, a number the government says is ''about right''. The politicians dodge the question by saying they're acting on the advice of the generals. Generals, however, operate within politically imposed parameters.

Without facts free of spin, any debate will take place in an information vacuum. We don't know how the government settled on troop numbers, nor is there any detailed explanation of the work the soldiers are doing, the analysis that underpins it and how this will meet the stated aim.

If the promised debate raises questions for the government, it poses diabolical political and ethical issues for the Greens, soon to gain the balance of power in the Senate.

As they lose their political impotence, they will have to ditch their assumed purity.

The Greens' stated policy is for the immediate withdrawal of troops. Beyond that, there is wishful thinking. NSW Green Lee Rhiannon, for instance, reckons our military budget could be spent on aid programs for Afghan women and children. Yes, but who will deliver that aid when the Taliban think aid workers are legitimate targets, as are girls at schools built by foreign aid money?

There are other questions for those advocating unilateral withdrawal. It might not trouble the Greens, but where would it leave our relationship with Barack Obama, or our commitment to the 46 other countries with troops in Afghanistan?

And what about the Afghans who have worked with us? Do we abandon them?

Independent Andrew Wilkie has highlighted the dilemmas in staying, and going.

''It is clear,'' he says, ''that on one hand there needs to be foreign forces in Afghanistan to create the stability to allow the government to establish itself. But on the other hand, it's the very presence of those forces which is fuelling this ongoing war, mostly by nationalists, not by terrorists.

''Ultimately, we have to get out as quickly as we can and let Afghanistan find its own natural political level and a lot of people will die in the process.''

Our soldiers will not have a say in the debate, even if we know what some of them think. Writing on the Lowy Institute's blog in July, an anonymous soldier lamented the failure of politicians and defence chiefs to spell out a detailed, public policy underpinning the campaign.

''That Australians neither understand the war nor why its soldiers' sacrifice is needed in Afghanistan is shameful,'' he wrote.

''The government, ADF and media are all to blame for this ignorance. If we are to risk life and go to war, the policy must be properly articulated. As it stands, the state of Afghan discourse in Australia is emblematic of our commitment to the war effort and Afghan people: token.''

Tom Hyland is The Sunday Age's international editor.

Compassion needed for homelessness, says Social Justice Council

The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council has called on political parties to address homelessness in Australia with commitment and compassion, saying methods used to forcibly remove an Indigenous community last week raised questions about the current political resolve.

The Council's chairman, Bishop Christopher Saunders Bishop Saunders, said in a statement: "National Homeless Persons' Week provides an opportunity for the major parties to commit to making a real difference for the 105,000 Australians who are homeless on any given night.

"Support is particularly needed for communities throughout the nation where homelessness is reaching crisis proportions.

"Last week I witnessed the forced removal of Indigenous people from the sand dunes of Kennedy Hill in Broome. In the process, possessions such as tents, blankets and food and medication were taken away.

"To witness homeless people losing the only shelter they had makes me question Australia's resolve to address homelessness.

"When I think of how Indigenous Australians are already over-represented in every category of homelessness, the events of last week highlight the need for a more targeted approach to addressing homelessness for particular groups who are most affected.

"At the very least, a practical response to homelessness must bring a level of compassion that ensures the dignity of vulnerable people is respected at all times.

"The strategy of moving people on is no solution at all. An important challenge for Australian communities is to be mindful that those people who are moved on may be 'out of sight' but they remain in great need.
"In this National Homeless Persons' Week, it is time to remember that every citizen has the right to shelter offering security and providing the basis for participation in society," Bishop Saunders concluded.

Young Palestinians With Cameras Shooting Back

CounterPunch, August 3, 2010, DON DUNCAN

Every Friday, the slingshot-wielding boys, or shabab, of the West Bank village of Ni’lin protest at Israel’s separation wall, which has deprived the village of 750 acres of farmland. But among the shabab are other youngsters with a different weapon – video cameras.

For the past three years, Btselem, the Israeli human rights NGO, has provided cameras and training to young Palestinians as part of its camera distribution project, to collect video evidence of abuses and misconduct by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Israeli settlers in the West Bank. There are 150 such cameras all over the West Bank and Gaza, and most of the footage captured – 1,500 hours so far – ends on the floor-to-ceiling archive shelves of the Jerusalem office of Yoav Gross, who directs the NGO’s video project.

Footage captured by Btselem’s volunteers has been key evidence in Israeli court rulings in favor of Palestinian plaintiffs. The presence of cameras, now on both Palestinian and Israeli sides, has deterred violence and abuse. But three years after launching the project, Btselem has seen another, unintended consequence. ‘People started to take this tool, the video camera, and use it as a way to express themselves, to tell stories,’ said Gross. ‘We didn’t train them to do that. We trained them to document human rights violations. But pretty soon we got the sense that this can be a powerful tool for them to empower themselves.’

What has emerged is a generation of young Palestinian filmmakers, at ease with the camera and fluent in editing and the language of visual storytelling. Arafat Kanaan, 17, stood back at the Ni’lin protest one recent Friday afternoon. He had been detained by the IDF the previous week and decided to leave his camera at home and sit this one out, obscuring half of his face with a piece of cardboard. Though he has to worry about IDF cameras, he says: ‘The camera is like a weapon for us. It can show everyone in the world what the truth is.’

Arafat’s sister Salam, 19, was a volunteer who captured IDF misconduct – shooting a handcuffed Palestinian detainee in Ni’lin – that led to the successful prosecution of an Israeli soldier. Together with Salam and Rasheed Amira, 17, Arafat has set up Ni’lin Media Group, which produces weekly video packages of each protest and longer-form documentary videos on life under occupation. He posts them to the group’s YouTube channel and screens the films for the community on Ni’lin’s central square. ‘We collect ourselves into a group because it gives us the power to continue the work and to train others,’ said Arafat.

The evolution from documentation to storytelling is evident elsewhere. Diaa Hadad, 17, a Palestinian who lives in the Jewish-settled H2 sector of Hebron, wanted to show the effects of settlement and IDF sanctions on Palestinian movement, and did so through a one-minute film called H1H2. The film is a split screen. On the right is the bustling market street of Bab al-Zawiya, in the Palestinian-dominated H1 sector of the town. On the left is al-Shuhada street in H2, once also a busy market for Palestinians but now empty due to Israeli restrictions and settler violence. ‘I made this film to show the people outside what is happening here,’ Diaa said, outside HEB2, a community media centre for Palestinians. ‘We are living here and a lot of incidents occur here and nobody knows what is happening, even people from Bab al-Zawiya, two kilometres away, in H1.’

Behind him lay the landscape of occupation he tries to document: army CCTV cameras that silently monitor the contested territory, IDF watchtowers and the barbed wires of settlement demarcation. ‘We give the audience the full picture of what is happening here in the West Bank – violations, normal life, occupation, normal life – and what is the connection between the occupation and normal life. This is very important,’ said Issa Amro, 30, director of HEB2, which, using Hebron’s new video-adept youth, has launched a community television service live on www.heb2.tv.

‘If you keep showing settlers throwing stones at a certain family, then you don’t know how this family is living,’ said Amro. ‘If you show how this family is living, you become connected to them in another way and you care about them personally.’ This philosophy is driving grassroots filmmaking in Gaza, a territory with no Israeli army or settler presence but challenged by the siege that prevents information from leaving the territory.

‘The films we are making in Gaza are so important because the world media is not focused on the details on the ground, the real life here,’ said Mohammed al-Majdalawi, 22, by telephone from Gaza. He recently made a short documentary about the Gazan hip-hop scene.

‘There are no Israeli journalists allowed to go inside [the Strip],’ said Yoav Gross, ‘which basically leaves the Israeli public with a very shallow image of what goes on inside Gaza. This sense of a very human existence in Gaza has kind of disappeared from Israeli discourse.’ That’s starting to change. Al-Majdalawi’s work was one of five films from Gaza made available recently by Israel’s number one news site Ynet.com, used by a million Israelis every day. Other films on the site showed the child workers of Gaza’s supply tunnels, the video game craze that has gripped the strip, and a play camp for children.

Back at the wall in Ni’lin, the protest was as expected. Like every Friday, the shabab poised themselves behind the wall while the protestors made their way through an opening in it to yell and wave banners at the IDF stationed behind jeeps on the other side of a barbed wire fence. Then the shabab launched their barrage of rocks, whirring and whizzing over the seven-meter high wall.

During the first and second intifadas, the shabab became a dramatic manifestation of the Samson and Goliath proportions of the wider struggle. Today, the ‘video shabab’ compete for attention and status.

After a few minutes of orders in Hebrew, delivered from the other side of the wall, the IDF sent over round after round of tear gas, scattering the shabab and the activists gathered up the rocky hills. The video volunteers put on their gas masks and kept operating their cameras, despite the haze.

Don Duncan is a freelance journalist based in Beirut.

This article appears in the August edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com. This full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique. CounterPunch features one or two articles from LMD every month.

The human face of homelessness MATTHEW COX National Times, July 30, 2010

I first met K not long after I began working at the Red Cross. She was 18 and a participant at a crisis support service for young people living on the streets. K ran away from home in her early teens to escape the worst things that can happen to a child at the hands of their parents.

When you first hit the streets, young people tell me, you spend your first nights terrified. The terror and the sadness and the hurt over the things that drove you there in the first place never really go away. Everyone on the streets is hurting, that's what one young man tells me.

I find that people who live on the streets long for the same things I long for. Someone to love, something they can do well and take pride in, something that says they are unique and valued and have a place in the world. No matter how trampled they feel, no matter how desperate or brutal life on the streets can be, nothing seems able to extinguish those elemental human desires.

Today I received some good news. I hadn't heard of K for some time. Today I hear she has not only moved off the streets, but she has got a job and bought a house. I marvel at what she has already crammed into her life at just 22. She has guts and resilience I fear I will never have. Doing my sort of job you occasionally see the worst there is to see in life. But you also get to see the best. Today's news is the best. It keeps you going.

M's story is similar but different. A loving home, a quiet suburban childhood, but things went awry in her teenage years. Wild partying turned into drug dependence. Mental health problems set in and things unravelled. A few years on the streets and a few years climbing back see M with her own landscaping business. I'm talking to her about her newly acquired bobcat driving skills. More news in the "best" category.

J's story is perhaps most compelling of all. She wound up on the streets at 15 and spent three decades of her life there. Now, approaching 50, she wants something different. From somewhere deep she dredges up the motivation to give a different path a go. Somehow she finds enough strength to break from her peer group of long-term streeties and risks going it alone. After 30 years sleeping rough she has lost her family and knows no other life. She places her trust in a group of my colleagues and they help her get some money together and find her a small flat. It's a high wire act. One slip and she'll fall again. But against the odds she makes it work. She sticks at it. She's a reliable tenant and she starts to make plans for a better life. It is a heart-stopping triumph.

These stories are everywhere. But our community has the knowledge and the resources to end homelessness in this country. Collectively we know what to do. We know that access to secure accommodation – bundled with the right kinds of support and sustained for a reasonable period of time — gets results. People with even the most challenging life histories can be housed and develop a productive focus for their life.

We simply need to scale up our efforts to eliminate homelessness in Australia. We need to focus on the task and do the things we know work. With the right planning and persistence, children being born today will inherit a country free from homelessness.

Unrealistic? In the year of my grandmother's birth, 1908, it wasn't uncommon for men to die before they reached 60 and only a handful of children attended high school. High-schooling for girls was seen as a wild fantasy. Today we are closing in on universal completion of Year 12 and life spans have increased about a third to more than 80. These are the staggering achievements of the 20th century. These are the impossible dreams of my grandmother's generation.

They are dreams that didn't come cheap. They required a massive mobilisation of resources and the development of vast systems to support better education and health. But we saw the value and were happy to spend more than half of all state expenditure on those aims.

It costs far more to allow homelessness to persist than to end it. Homeless people are super-users of government services. The bill for their interactions with hospital emergency wards, psychiatric services, ambulance, police, courts, prison, child safety and the like has been calculated variously at between $60,000 and $260,000 a year. If there was a government frequent flyer program, they'd be double-platinum members.

It costs on average one-10th of those figures per head to provide the support to lift people out of homelessness for good. The national saving would be between $5 billion and $10 billion a year.

What to do next: build on the valuable work of the federal government's white paper on homelessness and map out a 20-year plan to end homelessness in Australia. Firm up the economic case for ending homelessness, so the value for money question is conclusively answered. Then roll out resourcing for the support services required in three-year cycles to build capacity steadily, learning from each success. Persist until the mission is accomplished.

We are perhaps the first generation of Australians to have the knowledge and the opportunity to end homelessness in our country. Let's shoulder that load and give the gift of a country free from homelessness to our children.

Matthew Cox is Red Cross Queensland community services group manager. National Homeless Person Week starts today.

Source: theage.com.au

Where Is Haiti’s Bailout? - Isabel MacDonald

CommonDreams.org July 13, 2010

After the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, Western leaders announced bold blueprints for building a ‘New Haiti.’ This reconstruction, they emphasized, would be ‘Haitian-led,’ based firmly on the principle of respect for ‘Haitian sovereignty’ and carried out through ‘full and continued participation‘ by Haitians, ‘consistent with the vision of the Haitian people and government.’ At the March 31 International Donors Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti at the UN headquarters in NYC, nearly 10 billion dollars were pledged for Haiti's recovery. Nicholas Sarkozy -- the first French president to visit Haiti since the latter won its independence from French colonial rule -- proclaimed during his historic February 2010 trip to Port-au-Prince, ‘International aid must be massive and be there for the long term.’


‘Now is the time to step up our investment in Haiti,’ Clinton reiterated in April at an Inter-American Development Bank meeting in Washington, D.C. Yet six months after the earthquake, the plan for a ‘New Future for Haiti’ (a ‘Haitian-led’ effort which is curiously being funded under World Bank oversight, through a commission whose 20 voting board members include only seven Haitians) seems remote indeed.

A partial index of the West's ‘humanitarian efforts’ in Haiti so far:

Amount pledged for Haiti's reconstruction over the following 18 months at the March 31 UN conference: $5,300,000,000
Percentage of this amount that has been paid: 1.9
Amount of pledged U.S. bilateral search and rescue assistance to Haiti that was delivered in the wake of the earthquake: $0
Value of the no-bid contract the U.S. government awarded the private prison group GEO in the month after the earthquake:$260,589
Ratio of U.S. pledges for Haiti's reconstruction to Venezuelan pledges: 1:2
Value of aid the French government has promised Haiti through pledged contributions to UN agencies, NGOS and the Red Cross: $180 million
Quantity of this aid that has been delivered: $0
Cost of the French secretary of state for overseas development's travel via private jet to a conference on aid for Haiti: $143,000
Estimated number of Haitians who remain homeless after the earthquake: 1,500,000
Amount that has been collected for Haiti relief by U.S. charities: $1,300,000,000
Number of Haitians without even tents or tarps for shelter: 232,130
Haiti's global ranking in terms of the number of NGOs operating in the nation, measured globally on a per-capita-basis: #1
Haiti's global NGO-per-capita ranking before the earthquake: #1
Ratio of Haitian-produced rice to U.S.-imported rice consumed in Haiti in 1985: 22:1
Ratio of Haitian to US-produced rice consumed in Haiti in 2000, 5 years after an IMF structural adjustment program went into effect reducing rice import tariffs: 1:2
Value of USAID's current contract with a subsidiary of the parent company of American Rice Inc., the corporation that is considered to have most benefited from the demise of Haitian rice production: $126,000,000
Value of total French humanitarian assistance to Haiti since the earthquake: $35,956,408
Estimated value today of the compensation Haiti paid France for lost French slave trade profits after Haiti, a former French slave colony, won independence: $40,000,000,000


Isabel MacDonald is a Montreal-based freelance journalist. She can be reached at isabelmacdonald1 at gmail.co. Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/isabelmacdo

Race card is a great, big attack on everything that makes us great Adele Horin,

Sydney Morning Herald, July 3, 2010

With Kevin Rudd dispatched and the ‘great, big tax on everything’ defanged as an election issue, Tony Abbott's firepower will be aimed squarely on the issue of refugees. It will be his last straw, and he will clutch it. Once again Australia faces the ugly prospect of an election that will plumb the depths of xenophobia, just as in 2001.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, with her repeated references to Australia as a ‘sanctuary’ (for those of us safely here) gives no early sign of taking a principled stand to change the rhetoric or assuage Australians' fears about the ‘boat people’.

The fears about refugees are irrational in light of the small numbers of asylum seekers who hope to call Australia home; and in light of Australia's proud record of multicultural harmony. There is a curious disjunction between the racism that lies latent, ready to be whipped up by opportunistic politicians, and the civility and everyday rubbing along of all the diverse people in our nation.

Australia is the most cosmopolitan country in the developed world, research by the UTS academic Jock Collins has shown. We have more immigrants per capita and from more diverse sources. In Sydney, 58 per cent of people are first or second generation migrants. People from all over the world live here, and most of the time - the Cronulla riot notwithstanding - they get along pretty well. You just have to lunch in the food hall at the Bankstown shopping centre, as I did this week, to see both the diversity and the harmony. From the wearers of turbans and burqas to those in blue jeans and crop tops everyone was united in the great Australian pastimes of shopping and eating ‘ethnic’ food.

This is the irony of Australia's response to the boat people. Many Australians, in their enclaves, never meet a refugee or recent migrant. But traditionally those who do are polite, accepting, or at least benign, and newcomers have, over time, felt welcome and fitted in. That is why almost 90 per cent of migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds told Monash University researchers last year that they felt they belonged here. They believed even more strongly than the rest of the population, that Australia is a ‘land of economic opportunity where in the end hard work brings a better life’.

My mother, now 82, has been teaching English to refugees in their homes for 10 years, and, being Jewish, was extremely nervous at the start about Muslims, having never met one. Now after having taught several people from Sudan, Syria and Somalia, she realises there are ones she likes and ones she doesn't, and a couple she has loved, including her current student, a mother of two from Sudan, who spent some of her small budget last week to buy my mother a dressing gown for her birthday. My mother won't hear a bad word about Muslims, or refugees, knowing you can't generalise.

Yet this success story, repeated over and over among ordinary people, is a dirty little secret instead of a proud boast. Political leaders shy away from accentuating the positive. They recoil from emphasising that Australians have done a pretty good job in accepting, helping, and accommodating waves of migrants and refugees, and the nation is economically and socially better for it. John Howard stoked the fires of anxiety about terrorism, disease and difference, and it is hard to put the evil genie back in the bottle.

Yet fears about asylum seekers are irrational because of the small numbers involved. Last year Australia received 6206 applications for asylum, according to 2009 Global Trends, a recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In comparison, South Africa received more than 220,000 asylum applications, the Republic of Congo received nearly 96,000, France 42,000, Malaysia 40,000 and Canada 34,000. Indeed 32 nations received more applications for asylum than did Australia; on a per capita basis we ranked 41st; and relative to national GDP we were 71st.

It is not that tens of thousands are clamouring to come here - about 3400 have arrived by boat this year - and compared to countries like Pakistan and Iran, with porous borders, and more than 2.7 million refugees in camps between them, our boat people problem is minor. Last year just 3441 asylum seekers were given refugee status in Australia, a number so small it amounts to about 1 per cent of the total immigration intake for that year. They would not be noticed.

The hysteria is utterly disproportionate. And though the numbers of boats are relatively few, it will not be so easy to stop them. Australia is part of the global community, and, like it or not, a world experiencing turmoil, war, and persecution will send millions across the globe looking for safety. A small number is bound to come our way.

The xenophobia the Howard government unleashed in 2001 to help it win an election has left its mark. Another race-based election campaign might be Australia's last straw, inflicting permanent harm on our social cohesion, and unpicking the work of generations.

The most cosmopolitan county in the world lacks a leader who will defend its honourable record as a welcoming multicultural country, rich enough to be generous rather than afraid.

No Nukes/No Empire: The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Requires the End of the U.S. Empire

by Robert Jensen

CommonDreams.org June 15, 2010
[A version of this essay was delivered to the ‘Think outside the Bomb’ event in Austin, TX, on June 14, 2010.]

If we are serious about the abolition of nuclear weapons, we have to place the abolition of the U.S. empire at the center of our politics.

That means working toward a world free of nuclear weapons demands we not only critique the reactionary wing of the U.S. power structure, the Bushes and Cheneys and Rumsfelds -- call them the reckless hawks. A serious commitment to a future free of nuclear weapons demands critique of moderate wing, the Obamas and Bidens and Clintons -- call them the reasonable hawks. The former group is psychotic, while the latter is merely cynical. After eight years of reckless reactionary psychotics, it's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by reasonable moderate cynics. But we should remember that a hawk is a hawk.

The next step is asking whose interests are advanced by the hawks. Even though in the post-World War II era the hawks have sometimes differed on strategy and tactics, they have defended the same economic system: a predatory corporate capitalism. Let's call those folks the vultures. Different groupings of hawks might be associated with different groupings of vultures, giving the appearance of serious political conflict within the elite, but what they have in common is much more important than their differences. The political empire of the contemporary United States serves the corporate empires that dominate not only the domestic but the global economy, and it all depends on U.S. military power, of which the nuclear arsenal is one component.

George W. Bush was the smirking frat-boy face of the U.S. empire. Barack Obama is the smiling smart-guy face of the U.S. empire. Whoever is at the helm, the U.S. political/economic/military empire remains in place, shaky at the moment, but still the single greatest threat to justice and peace on the planet. Any serious project to rid the world of the particular threat of nuclear weapons has to come to terms with the more general threat of the empire.

We shouldn't expect our leaders, Republican or Democrat, to agree with that assessment of course. And they don't. Here's a paragraph from the Obama administration's 2010 Nuclear Posture Review:

The conditions that would ultimately permit the United States and others to give up their nuclear weapons without risking greater international instability and insecurity are very demanding. Among those conditions are success in halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, much greater transparency into the programs and capabilities of key countries of concern, verification methods and technologies capable of detecting violations of disarmament obligations, enforcement measures strong and credible enough to deter such violations, and ultimately the resolution of regional disputes that can motivate rival states to acquire and maintain nuclear weapons. Clearly, such conditions do not exist today. http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20Nuclear%20Posture%20Review%20Report.pdf

Nowhere on the list is a recognition of a more crucial fact: nuclear abolition depends on the death of the American empire.

The reason that is not on the list is because nuclear weapons are a key component of U.S. empire-building. That is as true today as it was when Harry S Truman dropped the first nuclear weapon to end World War II and begin the Cold War. Although tonight we want to focus on the present, it's useful to return to that moment to remind ourselves of the harsh reality of empires.

Though the culture can't come to terms with this history, the consensus of historians is that the U.S. decision to drop atomic weapons on Japan had little to do with ending WWII and everything to do with sending a message to the Soviet Union. The barbaric act that ended the barbarism of WWII opened up a new chapter in the tragedy of empire, leading to more barbarism in the U.S. assault on the developing world over the past six decades.

Even though it was clear that after WWII the United States could have lived relatively secure in the world with its considerable wealth and extensive resources, the greed that drives empire demanded that U.S. policy-makers pursue a policy not of peace but of domination, as seen in this conclusion of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff in 1947: ‘To seek less than preponderant power would be to opt for defeat. Preponderant power must be the object of U.S. policy.’[1] Preponderant power means: We run the world. We dictate the terms of the global economy. Others find a place in that structure or they risk annihilation. No challenge from another system or another state is acceptable.

In service of this quest, elites created the mythology of the Cold War -- that we were defending ourselves against a Soviet empire bent on destroying us -- which was grafted easily onto the deeper U.S. mythology about a shining city upon the hill and Manifest Destiny, about the divine right of the United States to dominate. As a result, much of the U.S. public is easily convinced of the righteousness of the U.S. imperial project and persuaded to believe the lie that we maintain nuclear weapons only as a deterrent. The reality should blunt the self-congratulatory instinct: U.S. nuclear weapons were created to project power, not protect people.

In his book Empire and the Bomb, Joseph Gerson lists 39 incidences of ‘nuclear blackmail,’ of which 33 were made by U.S. officials.[2] That helps explain the subtitle of his book, ‘How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World.’

Not surprisingly, Obama has said he does not envision abolition in the foreseeable future. In his famous Prague speech in April 2009, he said:

So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly -- perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, ‘Yes, we can.’ http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/

Yes, the world can change --- if the dominant military power in the world, the United States, can change. If the United States could give up the quest to consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources and disavow its reliance on securing that unjust distribution of wealth through the largest and most destructive military in the history of the world, things could change.

That's why most U.S. elites are interested in non-proliferation, not abolition. The goal of abolition will remain safely out of reach, on the horizon, just beyond our ability to accomplish in the near future -- while the United States continues to imagine a future in which the rest of the world accepts U.S. domination. Since countries threatened by the empire won't accept non-proliferation unless there is a meaningful commitment to abolition and a scaling back of imperial designs, the U.S. policy will fail. That's because it's designed to fail. U.S. policy is designed to keep a hold on power and wealth, and the people running the country believe nuclear weapons are useful in that quest.

That's why the Nuclear Posture Review of the Obama administration is not all that different from the Bush administration's, as Zia Mian (an analyst at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security) pointed out at a gathering of activists preceding the May 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. That's why Obama's policy includes a commitment to nuclear weapons, conventional missile defense, and modernization of the nuclear complex. That's why Obama is increasing expenditures on nuclear weapons, now over $50 billion a year, for modernization.

Our task is to make sure we aren't conned by politicians, either those who push the fear button or pull on our hope strings. When we take up questions of military strategy and weapons, our task is to understand the underlying political and economic systems, name the pathologies of those systems, identify the key institutions in those systems, withhold our support from those institutions when possible, create alternative institutions when possible, and tell the truth. We may support cynical politicians and inadequate policy initiatives at times, but in offering such support we should continue to tell the truth.

This commitment to telling the truth about our leaders, Republican and Democrat alike, also means telling the truth about ourselves. I have argued that any call for the elimination of nuclear weapons that does not come with an equally vociferous call for the elimination of the U.S. empire is empty rhetoric, and that a call for the end of an empire also must come with a deep critique of our economic system.

I want to end by taking the argument one step further: Such critiques ring hollow if we don't engage in critical self-reflection about how many of us in the United States have grown comfortable in these systems. We decry injustice but spend little time talking about how our own material comfort is made possible by that injustice. A serious commitment to the end of nuclear weapons, the end of empire, the end of a predatory corporate capitalist system demands that we also commit to changing the way we live.

We cannot wake up tomorrow and extract ourselves from all these systems. There are no rituals of purification available to cleanse us. But we can look in the mirror, honestly, and start the hard work of reconfiguring the world.

1] Quoted in Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 18-19.

[2] Joseph Gerson, Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World (London: Pluto Press, 2007), pp. 37-38.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film ‘Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,’ which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist. Information about the film, distributed by the Media Education Foundation, and an extended interview Jensen conducted with Osheroff are online at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/osheroff.html.

Join the petition for an independent investigation into the raid, accountability for those responsible, and an immediate end to the blockade in Gaza

The Avaaz Team

___

Dear friends,

Israel's deadly raid on a flotilla of aid ships headed for Gaza has shocked the world.

Israel, like any other state, has the right to self-defence, but this was an outrageous use of lethal force to defend an outrageous and lethal policy -- Israel's blockade of Gaza, where two thirds of families don't know where they'll find their next meal.

The UN, EU, and nearly every other government and multilateral organization have called on Israel to lift the blockade and, now, launch a full investigation of the flotilla raid. But without massive pressure from their citizens, world leaders might limit their response to mere words -- as they have so many times before.

Let's make the world's outcry too loud to ignore. Join the petition for an independent investigation into the raid, accountability for those responsible, and an immediate end to the blockade in Gaza -- click to sign the petition, and then forward this message to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_flotilla_6/97.php?cl_tta_sign=b5535e1bee5f6bf1145e51f7806f95d5
The petition will be delivered to the UN and world leaders, as soon as it reaches 200,000 names -- and again at every opportunity as it grows and leaders choose their responses. A massive petition at a moment of crisis like this one can demonstrate to those in power that sound bites and press releases aren't enough -- that citizens are paying attention and demanding action.

As the EU decides whether to expand its special trade relationship with Israel, as Obama and the US Congress set next year's budget for Israeli military aid, and as neighbours like Turkey and Egypt decide their next diplomatic steps -- let's make the world's voice unignorable: it's time for truth and accountability on the flotilla raid, and it's time for Israel to comply with international law and end the siege of Gaza. Sign now and pass this message along:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_flotilla_6/97.php?cl_tta_sign=b5535e1bee5f6bf1145e51f7806f95d5
Most people everywhere still share the same dream: for two free and viable states, Israel and Palestine, to live side by side. But the blockade, and the violence used to defend it, poisons that dream. As a columnist wrote to his fellow Israelis today in the newspaper Ha'aretz, "We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel's Vietnam."

Thousands of pro-peace activists in Israel today protested the raid and the blockade in demonstrations from Haifa, to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem -- joining demonstrations around the world. Regardless of which side threw the first punch or fired the first shot (the Israeli military claims it did not initiate the violence), Israel's leaders sent helicopters of armed storm-troopers to raid a convoy of ships in international waters bringing medicine and supplies to Gaza, and some now lay dead.

Their lives cannot be brought back. But perhaps, together, we can make this dark moment a turning point -- if we arise with an unshakable call for justice, and an unbreakable dream of peace.

With hope, Ricken, Alice, Raluca, Paul, and the rest of the Avaaz team

SOURCES:

Live coverage from Al Jazeera:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2010/05/31/live-coverage-israels-flotilla-raid
Live coverage from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/may/31/israel-troops-gaza-ships

"The Second Gaza War: Israel lost at sea" - Bradley Burston, Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/a-special-place-in-hell-the-second-gaza-war-israel-lost-at-sea-1.293246

Analysis of violence from IDF's perspective from Debka, reporters with ties to Israeli intelligence:
http://debka.com/article/8824/
70% of Gazans suffer from food insecurity - 2008 ICRC report, cited by al Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/20105319333613851.html

Analysis of possible political consequences of the flotilla attack:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gtowfFjiFD4HYdHuYgxydKNwVRDwD9G2B3880

Israeli Butchery at Sea

Dissident Voice, May 31, 2010



As I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured. Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.

For days the Israeli government prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters. Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible

consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along. What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.

Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters. At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.

Today we will see demonstrations around the world, we will see many events mourning our dead. We may even see some of Israel’s friends ‘posturing’ against the slaughter. Clearly this is not enough.

The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its ‘power of deterrence’ expands with the more dead it leaves behind. The Israeli decision to use hundreds of commando soldiers against civilians was taken by the Israeli cabinet together with the Israeli top military commanders. What we saw yesterday wasn’t just a failure on the ground. It was actually an institutional failure of a morbid society that a long time ago lost touch with humanity.

It is no secret that Palestinians are living in a siege for years. But it is now down to the nations to move on and mount the ultimate pressure on Israel and its citizens. Since the massacre yesterday was committed by a popular army that followed instructions given by a ‘democratically elected’ government, from now on, every Israeli should be considered as a suspicious war criminal unless proved different.

Considering the fact that Israel stormed naval vessels sailing under Irish, Turkish and Greek flags. Both NATO members and EU countries must immediately cease their relationships with Israel and close their airspace to Israeli airplanes.

Considering yesterday’s news about Israeli nuclear submarines being stationed in the Gulf, the world must react quickly and severely. Israel is now officially mad and deadly. The Jewish State is not just careless about human life, as we have been following the Israeli press campaign leading to the slaughter, Israel actually seeks pleasure in inflicting pain and devastation on others.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.

Israeli Butchery at Sea

Dissident Voice, May 31, 2010



As I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured. Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.

For days the Israeli government prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters. Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible

consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along. What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.

Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters. At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.

Today we will see demonstrations around the world, we will see many events mourning our dead. We may even see some of Israel’s friends ‘posturing’ against the slaughter. Clearly this is not enough.

The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its ‘power of deterrence’ expands with the more dead it leaves behind. The Israeli decision to use hundreds of commando soldiers against civilians was taken by the Israeli cabinet together with the Israeli top military commanders. What we saw yesterday wasn’t just a failure on the ground. It was actually an institutional failure of a morbid society that a long time ago lost touch with humanity.

It is no secret that Palestinians are living in a siege for years. But it is now down to the nations to move on and mount the ultimate pressure on Israel and its citizens. Since the massacre yesterday was committed by a popular army that followed instructions given by a ‘democratically elected’ government, from now on, every Israeli should be considered as a suspicious war criminal unless proved different.

Considering the fact that Israel stormed naval vessels sailing under Irish, Turkish and Greek flags. Both NATO members and EU countries must immediately cease their relationships with Israel and close their airspace to Israeli airplanes.

Considering yesterday’s news about Israeli nuclear submarines being stationed in the Gulf, the world must react quickly and severely. Israel is now officially mad and deadly. The Jewish State is not just careless about human life, as we have been following the Israeli press campaign leading to the slaughter, Israel actually seeks pleasure in inflicting pain and devastation on others.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.

Daniel Berrigan at 89

John Dear SJ

On the Road to Peace
National Catholic Reporter, May. 04, 2010

I'm in New York City this week, attending some of the peace events around the opening of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference at the United Nations, and staying with Fr. Daniel Berrigan and the Jesuit Community. This past Good Friday, Dan was arrested at the U.S. Intrepid War Museum; he goes to court in June. May 9 is his 89th birthday.

To celebrate this friend and peacemaker, I offer this week excerpts from my long introduction to a great new anthology which I just published with Orbis Books, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings. In honor of Dan, let's keep going, following the nonviolent Jesus, working for justice and disarmament, and trusting the God of peace.

* * * * * *

Daniel Berrigan exemplifies a Christianity that works for peace, speaks for peace, and welcomes Christ's resurrection gift of peace, first of all to the poor and the enemy. Through word and deed, he has spent his life shedding new light on the Gospel of Jesus, pointing us toward a new world of nonviolence, a new future of peace if we but welcome the gift. His life work, he would say, is modest, but the cumulative effect of his writings and actions, I suggest, show us what the church might look like, what a Christian looks like in such times, indeed, what a human response looks like in an inhuman world.

Dan knows by heart that God does not bless war, justify war, or create war. He points to a nonviolent Jesus who blesses peacemakers, not warmakers; who calls us to love enemies, not kill them; who commands us to take up the cross of nonviolent resistance to empire -- not put others on the cross …

To my mind, Dan's writings are best understood as the fruit of his nonviolent actions and resistance, and as such, they stand within the tradition of resistance literature. But more, they join a legacy of spiritual writing that stretches from the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of St. Paul through the poetry of St. Francis to the sermons of Archbishop Romero and Dr. King. Dan's writings fit in both categories: as resistance literature and spiritual writing. The genius of Daniel Berrigan is that for him, they are one and the same. All spiritual writing is political for it resists the culture of war and injustice by its very nature. All political writing for peace and justice is therefore quintessentially spiritual, for it points us toward the reign of God. This, I suggest, is the mark of a true spiritual master.

* * * * * *

Dan's contemplative rhythm of listening and going public puts him in the tradition of the towering prophets -- Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel -- who notwithstanding the vast distance in time, have become Dan's mentors and models. Like them, he denounces war, weapons, arms races, corrupt regimes, miscarriages of justice, assaults on human rights, and threats to widows and orphans, the unborn and prisoners. What makes Dan's critique so unique, according to one of his biographers, Francine du Plessix Gray, is his ‘startling’ use of language. Even his opponents sit up and take note.

For Dan, the spiritual life demands our encounter with the world, and thus, nonviolent resistance to its violence, in the tradition of the peacemaking Jesus. His early poems were, in his words, ‘sacramental,’ but his later poems took on the world and its wars and suffering, he says, because he himself began to taste some of its suffering. And so, Dan teaches not a comfortable spirituality -- with its private relationship to God -- but an uncomfortable spirituality that finds God in the poor, in the marginalized, and in the enemy and evokes loving action on their behalf.

‘Some people today argue that equanimity achieved through inner spiritual work is a necessary condition for sustaining one's ethical and political commitments,’ Dan writes. ‘But to the prophets of the Bible, this would have been an absolutely foreign language and a foreign view of the human. The notion that one has to achieve peace of mind before stretching out one's hand to one's neighbor is a distortion of our human experience, and ultimately a dodge of our responsibility. Life is a rollercoaster and one had better buckle one's belt and take the trip. This focus on equanimity is actually a narrow-minded, selfish approach to reality dressed up within the language of spirituality.’

‘I know that the prophetic vision is not popular today in some spiritual circles,’ he continues. ‘But our task is not to be popular or to be seen as having an impact, but to speak the deepest truths that we know. We need to live our lives in accord with the deepest truths we know, even if doing so does not produce immediate results in the world.’

Dan finds the wherewithal to set his face against the tide of war in large part because of his daily Bible study. Indeed, like his brother Philip, Dan is a rare biblical person, one who wrestles with the Word of God day and night. ‘Open up the book of Jeremiah and you do not find a person looking for inner peace,’ Dan notes. Jeremiah cries out against injustice, then rejoices in the fulfillment of God's justice, he observes. ‘Jeremiah goes through mountains and valleys. That kind of richness I find very appealing, whereas the kind of spirituality that looks for a flat emotional landscape brought on by the endless search for inner peace and equanimity I find disturbing, a quest that goes nowhere.’

‘I draw from the prophets a very strong bias in favor of the victim and a very strong sense of judgment of evil structures and those who run them,’ Dan writes in his latest book, The Kings and Their Gods. The prophets and Christ, he writes, talk ‘about the God who stands at the bottom with the victims and with the ‘widows and orphans' and witnesses with them in the world, from that terrifying vantage point which is like the bottom of the dry well that Jeremiah was thrown in. That vantage point defines the crime and sin; that point of view of the victim indicts the unjust, the oppressor, the killer, the warmaker. And the message is very clear. It's a very clear indictment of every superpower from Babylon to Washington.’

Dan reaches such unlikely conclusions because he is thoroughly immersed in the text. He dares think that God can be taken at God‘s Word, most notably, in the Gospel message of Jesus. ‘I've been maintaining a new discipline,’ he told me casually a few years ago, at the height of Bush's war on Iraq. ‘First, I get as little of the bad news as possible. I only look at The New York Times once a week, if that, and occasionally the BBC. Second, I spend more time than ever with the good news, reading and meditating on the Gospel every morning, to be with Jesus.’

That, to my mind, is the job description of the modern day biblical prophet -- aware of the world, immersed in the Word of God, a kind of Barthian recipe for readying oneself to announce the Gospel in word and deed. Deed especially. It is Dan's nonviolent direct action which gives Dan's words such vigor and power. But it is his words that unpack his deeds and vision and inspire so many others.

‘The Word of God is spoken for the sake of today,’ Dan writes, ‘for ourselves. If not, it lies dead on the page. Lift the Word from the page, then -- take it to heart. Make of it the very beat of the heart. Then the Word comes alive -- it speaks to commonality and praxis. Do it -- do the Word.’ This is the advice of a post-modern spiritual master. And it rings true because its ancient wisdom was first tested by the early saints and martyrs.

His message is a consistent Gospel word -- ‘Do not kill. Do not support the culture of killing. Do all you can to stop the killing.’ He put it succinctly in an influential open letter to the Weathermen: ‘The death of a single human being is too heavy a price to pay for the vindication of any principle, however sacred.’

Over the decades, Dan has stayed faithful to the Gospel journey of peace. He keeps on walking the road to peace, one mindful step at a time, whether others do or not. ‘We walk our hope and that's the only way of keeping it going,’ he says. ‘We've got faith, we've got one another, we've got religious discipline and we've got some access that goes beyond the official wall.’

‘Peacemaking is tough, unfinished, blood-ridden,’ he told one interviewer. ‘Everything is worse now than when I started, but I'm at peace. I don't have to prove my life. I just have to live.’ The point for Dan is to be faithful to the God of peace and the Gospel of Jesus.

‘Nobody can sustain him or herself in the struggle for a nonviolent world on the basis of the criterion of immediate success,’ Dan writes. ‘The Bible gives us a long view rather than the expectation of a quick fix. All of us are in grave danger of being infected by this American ethos that good work brings quick change, rather than the older spiritual notion that good work is its own justification and that the outcome is in other hands besides ours.’

‘The good is to be done because it is good, not because it goes somewhere,’ he says. ‘I believe if it is done in that spirit it will go somewhere, but I don't know where. I don't think the Bible grants us to know where goes, what direction. I have never been seriously interested in the outcome. I was interested in trying to do it humanly and carefully and nonviolently and let it go.’

Daniel Berrigan remains faithful to his vocation and the vision of peace, calling us to do the same -- whether we're successful or not. The focus, he teaches, is on the God of peace, and so, ‘the outcome is in better hands than ours.’ With that, he insists, we can live in hope.

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 3 - 28 May 2010 Stay in touch - Join our list by April 29!

Dear ICAN Australia partners and friends

Want to stay in touch with the NPT? Join our list by April 29!


As you know the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will begin in New York at the United Nations in just under a fortnight.

From 3 – 28 May, our government and nearly every other in the world will be working on nuclear weapons disarmament and non-proliferation issues in the United Nations. But civil society has a huge and important role to play both there and back home too.

If you would like to be kept up-to-date about the events, discussion and our Governments behaviour at the NPT this year, please send a return email to this email address and I will add you to the list. Updates will come at least twice weekly (action alerts may be more often depending on what happens there).

ICAN Australia will have unique access to the conference through our project based in New York staffed by Tim Wright. This means we expect to have regular access and meetings with the Australian delegation, and a pair of good eyes on the spot to help us not miss a trick. In addition, we can all access the daily reports and the freshest analysis through the work of our dear friends and colleagues at WILPF’s Reaching Critical Will project. Our updates from the ICAN Australia office will keep you in the loop on what is important to know.

We will also confirm dates for a follow-up/debriefing meeting between NGOs and DFAT following the NPT (mid-late June) in both Sydney and Melbourne through this list.

Please note: ICAN partners will NOT automatically receive these updates if they haven’t signed on to the list! So reply directly to me by April 29 to join this NPT update list for May 2010.

Thanks
Dimity

PS: check out the wonderful ANF petition on our website now! http://icanw.org/node/5138

Dimity Hawkins
Campaign Director
ICAN Australia

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN)
ph: +61 (0)3 9347 4795
f: +61 (0)3 9347 4995
m: 0422 612 702
e: dimity@icanw.org
w: www.icanw.org
skype: Dimity_iCAN

Northern Territory intervention

Incarceration rates among Australia’s indigenous people bear comparison with the jailing of blacks in minority-ruled South Africa. Aborigines make up just 2.5% of the country’s population, but they account for nearly a quarter of all prisoners. In the Northern Territory, the ‘outback Australia’ made famous in the Crocodile Dundee films of comedian Paul Hogan, the proportion of those held under lock and key who are Aboriginal is a staggering 83%.

Under the ‘Northern Territory National Emergency Response’ – known to everyone else as ‘the Intervention’ – government ‘business managers’ have assumed draconian powers over Aboriginal communities, and acquired compulsory leases over Aboriginal township land.

Assumptions still run through government policies, imposed from Territory and federal authorities alike, as the wording through a stick of rock, that Aboriginal people need to be assimilated into the way of life, and forms of political organization, brought by westerners.

But a creative resistance movement to the Intervention is now taking shape.

Read more at: http://www.transcend.org/tms/2010/04/apartheid-is-alive-and-well/

And come to the International Peace Research Association conference, in Sydney, July 6-10, to be opened by Patrick Dodson, the ‘father of Aboriginal reconciliation’, and addressed by Professor Larissa Behrendt, the eminent Aboriginal legal scholar.

More details at www.iprasydney2010.org

Register and pay to attend the whole event at http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/peace_conflict/news/ipra2010.shtmlOr pay on the door: $95 daily rate; $50 for students.
--
Jake

Associate Professor Jake Lynch, BA, Dip Journalism Studies, PhD
Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
Chair of Organizing Committee, IPRA conference 2010
Executive Member, Sydney Peace Foundation
Room 121 | Mackie Building (K01)
The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006
AUSTRALIA

p 61 2 9351 5440 | f 61 2 9660 0862
w www.arts.usyd.edu.au/cpacs
e jake.lynch@usyd.edu.au

Asylum seekers are not political footballs

© AFP Photo/Roslan RahmanI’ve just heard the most appalling news - the Australian Government has announced a blanket suspension on processing new asylum claims by Afghan and Sri Lankan nationals.

Over 90 per cent of asylum seekers who arrive here by boat are found to have genuine claims for protection.

The situation remains desperate for many people in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Activists, journalists, women and minority groups among others face real threats to their lives.

We cannot allow our politicians to use men, women and children fleeing persecution as political footballs. Join me and tell our Government to immediately reverse its freeze on applications by Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

As a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, we made a commitment to protect people at risk of torture, persecution and death. It's time to live up to our promises and show leadership on asylum and refugee issues.

Claire Mallinson
National Director
Amnesty International Australia

Tell our government to reverse this appalling policy move