PINKtank » Bush http://codepink.org/blog the Personal is Political Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:23:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Obama on Libya: George W. Bush 2.0 http://codepink.org/blog/2011/03/obama-on-libya-george-w-bush-2-0/ http://codepink.org/blog/2011/03/obama-on-libya-george-w-bush-2-0/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 23:15:10 +0000 Alli http://codepink.org/blog/?p=10198 by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

His lines may be better delivered, but Barack Obama is sounding – and acting – more like the heir to George W. Bush than the change-maker sold to the public in his award-winning ad campaign. Indeed, when not sending billions of dollars to repressive governments across the globe, the great liberal hope is authorizing deadly drone strikes and military campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and now, in his most morally righteous war yet, Libya.

Strutting out to a podium before an audience of uniformed military personnel – wonder where he got that idea from – a confident, some would say cocky, American president offered a fierce albeit belated speech justifying another preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to the United States. And if you closed your eyes, you could almost hear that faux-Texas drawl.

“As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe,” the president declared, adopting his predecessor’s favorite title for himself. “I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests.”

Put another way, President Obama says he will only start a war – without consulting Congress, much less the public – when it is absolutely necessary for defending the “homeland” or for, you know, whatever he deems an “interest.”

Enter Muammar Gaddafi, a caricature of a tyrant who the Obama administration just a matter of weeks ago was looking to sell $77 million in weapons, including more than 50 armored troop carriers. Back then – mid-April – Gaddafi was a thuggish but reliable client in his old age. And he happened to rule over a country that has the largest oil reserves in Africa.

Funny how friendship works.

But a few short weeks ago, Gaddafi became unreliable – a public relations nightmare – when he started using the weapons he purchased from his erstwhile allies against his own people. Like Saddam Hussein before him, he became a liability.

So now Obama believes Gaddafi to be a “tyrant” who has lost his “legitimacy” – as if there was anything “legitimate” about his previous 42 years of dictatorial rule. On Monday, the president argued war was necessary to prevent Gaddafi from massacring rebel forces and their supporters in Benghazi. Such a massacre “would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world,” said the war president. “I refused to let that happen.”

I – me – the imperial president. Cue the commander-in-chief landing on an aircraft carrier.

But if the threat of a massacre is what spurs President Obama to action, what are we to make of his reaction to Israel’s massacre of more than 1,400 Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, or what Amnesty International calls “22 days of death and destruction? Giving Israel an additional $30 billion in American weapons is a rather curious response, no?

And what about the hundreds of civilians killed by drone attacks in Pakistan since Obama took office – as many as 1,850 according to the New America Foundation? In early March, the very administration cloaking its new war in moralizing rhetoric carried out a massacre of 40 Pakistani civilians – a massacre the president who authorized the attack couldn’t even be bothered to comment on.

Right now, the Obama administration is actively supporting brutal regimes in Yemen, Iraq and Bahrain – to name a few – where protest movements are being violently suppressed on the American taxpayers’ dime. And the Obama administration is selling $60 billion in weapons to the Saudis, who not only oppress their own dissidents but recently occupied neighboring Bahrain and violently cracked down on peaceful protesters there with the U.S.’s stamp of approval.

So if one thing’s clear, it’s that the U.S. government is fine with tyranny – when it’s “pro-American” (business). Fancy rhetoric aside, there is no “freedom agenda.”

Speaking to reporters this week, Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough conceded as much, saying that the White House doesn’t “make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent.” Rather, “We make them based on how we can best advance our interests in the region.”

And as history professor and war supporter Juan Cole helpfully notes, the rebels control significant swaths of oil-rich territory and have taken “key oil towns” thanks to the U.S.-led bombing campaign – of 200 cruise missiles fired so far, 193 have been fired from American warships. They are also on the verge of taking 80 percent of the Buraiqa Basin, writes Cole, which “contains much of Libya’s oil wealth.”

Bingo: We just found “our interests.” And unsurprisingly, they don’t involve protecting innocent people from being killed so much as they do protecting the natural resource on top of which they’re dying – and then having the freshly liberated locals pick up the tab for American contractors to rebuild everything American missiles destroyed.

Major General Smedley Butler had it right: war is a racket.

But even assuming Obama has the best of intentions – with which the road to hell is paved, mind you – U.S. intervention in Libya is more likely to do harm than good. Besides the inevitable “collateral damage,” meaning widowed mothers and orphaned children, war sets off an unpredictable chain reaction of evil – evil that no side has a monopoly over.

Indeed, The Los Angeles Times reports that while the intervention is sold as in defense of human rights, the Libyan rebels on whose behalf the U.S. is intervening are actively rounding up hundreds of their perceived political opponents and imprisoning them without charge in Gaddafi’s former torture chambers. Those being rounded up are primarily black immigrants, with rebel spokesman Abdelhafed Ghoga telling the paper that suspected Gaddafi mercenaries who don’t voluntarily turn themselves in will be subjected to extra-judicial “justice” (read: murder) for being “enemies of the revolution.” If they seize the country, who will stop roundups – and massacres – in Tripoli and elsewhere of those deemed to be supporters of the Gaddafi regime, perhaps for no reason other than the color of their skin?

U.S. official have publicly acknowledged an al-Qaeda presence among the rebels, bringing to mind U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. And with the self-proclaimed leadership consisting of former top-level Gaddafi cronies who had no problem with the regime’s human rights abuses four weeks ago, those lionizing the rebels – and suggesting the U.S. illegally arm them — should take a closer look at who the U.S. and its allies are preparing to put in power when Gaddafi’s gone.

The Obama administration and supporters of the war — who a month ago couldn’t tell the difference between Benghazi and Baghdad — portray the intervention in Libya as a simple morality tale, with evil on one side and good on the other. But the reality is more nuanced than the applause lines the president laid out in his speech. In the real world, peace is rarely achieved by dropping bombs and installing the most avowedly “pro-American” locals you can find in power. Just look at Afghanistan and Iraq, where George Bush started wars that Barack Obama has only continued – and in the case of the former, escalated.

“Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries,” Obama said this week. “The United States of America is different.” And credit where credit’s due, he’s right: From Gaza to the Arabian peninsula, Obama doesn’t stand idly by while others carry out atrocities – he funds and arms those carrying them out.

And just like Bush, he doesn’t let his hypocrisy get in the way of a good war.

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org).

Charles Davis (http://charliedavis.blogspot.com) is an independent journalist who has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations across the country, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.

]]> http://codepink.org/blog/2011/03/obama-on-libya-george-w-bush-2-0/feed/ 5 Victory: CODEPINK Wins the Future! http://codepink.org/blog/2011/01/victory-codepink-wins-the-future/ http://codepink.org/blog/2011/01/victory-codepink-wins-the-future/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:43:10 +0000 Jean Desiree http://codepink.org/blog/?p=9780 The future will be here in April and Code Pink: Women for Peace has already won it (thus answering President Obama's State of the Union call to "win the future"). The color coded threat warnings our government has been bombarding us with since shortly after September 11, 2001, will be gone. The fear-mongering tactic that Code Pink was named in mockery of will have been mocked right out of existence.

To listen to the corporate media, Code Pink cannot be taken seriously because decorum and politeness are universal values of a much higher order than peace or justice. (Code Pink has been known to disrupt a formal event or two, in addition to all its other work advocating for peace.)

]]> By David Swanson | Reposted from War is A Crime.org

The future will be here in April and Code Pink: Women for Peace has already won it (thus answering President Obama’s State of the Union call to “win the future”). The color coded threat warnings our government has been bombarding us with since shortly after September 11, 2001, will be gone. The fear-mongering tactic that Code Pink was named in mockery of will have been mocked right out of existence.

To listen to the corporate media, Code Pink cannot be taken seriously because decorum and politeness are universal values of a much higher order than peace or justice. (Code Pink has been known to disrupt a formal event or two, in addition to all its other work advocating for peace.) But that sort of snobbish mockery has nothing on Code Pink’s power to afflict the comfortable in the process of comforting the afflicted. Code Pink has gone from being ignored, to being laughed at, to being attacked, to being agreed with on matters of war and peace by two-thirds of the country.

It is something else entirely that cannot be taken seriously — and increasingly has not been taken seriously: the moronic and insulting color coded threat level warnings. Announcing that they will cease to exist is effectively to remind us that they once did. These meaningless warnings are announced incessantly but have faded into the background along with advertisements and campaign promises: nobody notices. (And of course it’s hard to notice while you’re being scared by the new techniques of pat-downs and porno-scans.) The Code Yellow and Code Orange propaganda aids to the terrorists are scheduled to be phased out over the next 90 days, but their involuntary phasing out began almost 9 years ago when what was at first a small group of Americans had the presence of mind to make fun of them rather than obediently calibrating fear levels as instructed.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is scheduled to announce the demise of the already dead and rotting colored threats on Thursday in what she is calling the “first annual State of America’s Homeland Security address.” I sincerely hope that Code Pink holds a first annual state of the fatherland’s insecurity dress contest or something of the sort. Because, the fear mongering is not going to end, and whatever the color codes are replaced with could be subtler but more effective; and therefore Code Pink cannot end either — even if its name has served its purpose.

Code Pink: Women for Peace has about 100 chapters and hundreds of thousands of members, many of them recruited through national Code Pink’s creative communication of inspiring and amusing resistance to the very serious business of frightening people into supporting evil policies. Nothing cures fear like laughter, and nothing brings laughter like the joyful and irreverent interruption of self-important stupidity.

Al Qaeda and terrorism are concepts that promise at least cameo appearances in many a State of the Union address to come. The threat of global terrorism has an advantage over the communist threat in that it can never be proven to have ceased to exist. And yet, with enough disruption of the patterns of thought our government seeks to impose on us, and with enough reversal of the terrorism-generating policies with which our government opposes terrorism, these threats too — just like the color codes — can be phased out.

We can stop being afraid. We can refuse to become obedient. We can refuse to stop questioning. We can embarrass officials who promote bigotry and hatred. But we can’t do it without leadership. We can’t win the future or anything else without the unrelenting activism of people of principle who refuse to be corrupted or intimidated or to place the value of tranquility in congressional hearings above peace in every part of the earth.

The elimination of the fear colors is symbolic of a deeper success, and yet it is only a beginning. We are not yet holding national days of courage or generosity. Fear and hostility are still the dominant notes in our political posture toward the world.

But much of the world knows that not all Americans back their government’s abuses, and a lot of that awareness has been generated by Code Pink. I lived in Italy when the United States was loved and returned when it was hated, but I returned with a Code Pink member, Desiree Fairooz, who had been on the front page of newspapers around the world holding bloody hands up to Condoleezza Rice. We were loved because of Desiree’s action, I assure you.

Serious and solemn strategists will tell you that holding red hands up to an official’s face discredits you and hurts your cause. I will tell you that in this case it restored a measure of international trust and friendship to our troubled nation.

Good riddance, color codes.

Long live Code Pink!

]]> http://codepink.org/blog/2011/01/victory-codepink-wins-the-future/feed/ 0 CHEESE! Shame on Yoo http://codepink.org/blog/2009/08/cheese-shame-on-yoo/ http://codepink.org/blog/2009/08/cheese-shame-on-yoo/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:13:16 +0000 Rae http://codepink4peace.org/blog/?p=2256 A police officer leads protester Cynthia Papermaster from a University of California, Berkeley classroom while Professor John Yoo, left, prepares to teach on Monday, Aug. 17, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. Anti-war activists protested on the University of California, Berkeley campus Monday to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

A police officer leads protester Cynthia Papermaster from a University of California, Berkeley classroom while Professor John Yoo, left, prepares to teach on Monday, Aug. 17, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. Anti-war activists protested on the University of California, Berkeley campus Monday to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

]]> http://codepink.org/blog/2009/08/cheese-shame-on-yoo/feed/ 1 Accountability for torture, says CODEPINKer’s letter to the NYTimes http://codepink.org/blog/2009/06/accountability-for-torture-says-codepinkers-letter-to-the-nytimes/ http://codepink.org/blog/2009/06/accountability-for-torture-says-codepinkers-letter-to-the-nytimes/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:18:36 +0000 Jean http://codepink4peace.org/blog/?p=1531 Elsa Rassbach, a longtime CODEPINKer based in Berlin, penned this powerful letter to the New York Times last week calling for the Obama administration to root out and prosecute all those in the Bush administration who allowed torture. Dang, check out this last line:

“We Americans, too, must cleanse our country and make a fresh start. The rot and stench of U.S. crimes not brought to light and left unpunished would destroy our chances of reviving our own democracy.”

Bring on the bleach! (Read the rest here).

]]> http://codepink.org/blog/2009/06/accountability-for-torture-says-codepinkers-letter-to-the-nytimes/feed/ 0 Open Letter on Accountability http://codepink.org/blog/2009/02/open-letter-on-accountability/ http://codepink.org/blog/2009/02/open-letter-on-accountability/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:37:32 +0000 Dana http://codepink4peace.org/blog/?p=1172
GROUPS REQUEST SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FOR BUSH, CHENEY
For Immediate Release
February 24, 2009
Contact: David Swanson david@davidswanson.org

Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or “truth” commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.

Drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committee

http://afterdowningstreet.org/robertjackson

Signed By:

Center for Constitutional Rights

http://ccrjustice.org

The National Lawyers Guild

http://nlg.org

American Freedom Campaign Action Fund

http://americanfreedomcampaign.org

High Road for Human Rights Advocacy Project

http://www.highroadforhumanrights.org

After Downing Street

http://afterdowningstreet.org

Democrats.com

http://democrats.com

Gold Star Families for Peace

http://cindysheehansoapbox.com

Ann Wright, retired US Army Reserve Colonel and US diplomat

http://voicesofconscience.com

Delaware Valley Veterans for America

http://delvalvets4america.org

Voters for Peace

http://votersforpeace.us

Wisconsin Impeachment / Bring Our Troops Home Coalition

http://impeachwi.com

Backbone Campaign

http://backbonecampaign.org

CODE PINK: Women for Peace

http://codepink4peace.org

Velvet Revolution

http://velvetrevolution.us

Justice Through Music

http://jtmp.org

Progressive Democrats of America

http://pdamerica.org

Brad Blog

http://bradblog.com

Cities for Peace

http://citiesforpeace.org

National Accountability Network

Northeast Impeachment Coalition

http://neimpeach.org

Republicans for Impeachment

http://republicansforimpeachment.com

Op Ed News

http://opednews.com

Marcus Raskin, cofounder of Institute for Policy Studies, member of editorial board of The Nation, member of the special staff of the National Security Council in Kennedy Administration

The Progressive

http://progressive.org

Peace Team

http://peaceteam.net

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

http://afterdowningstreet.org/vips

Defending Dissent Foundation

http://defendingdissent.org

Grassroots America

http://grassrootsamerica4us.org

Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored

http://projectcensored.org

Peace Action

http://peace-action.org

Grandmothers Against the War

http://grandmothersagainstthewar.org

World Can’t Wait

http://worldcantwait.net

United for Peace and Justice

http://unitedforpeace.org

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

http://space4peace.org

War Crimes Times

http://warcrimestimes.org

Veterans for Peace 099

http://veteransforpeace.org

Veterans for Peace 26

http://veteransforpeace.org

Veterans for Peace

http://veteransforpeace.org

Naomi Wolf, author of “End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” and “Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries”

Iraq Veterans Against the War

http://ivaw.org

Daniel Ellsberg, Truth-Telling Project

http://ellsberg.net

Peter McLaren, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Smirking Chimp

http://www.smirkingchimp.com

Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald

People for Peace & Justice/St. Augustine, FL

http://www.staugppj.org

Indict Bush Now

http://www.IndictBushNow.org

Society of American Law Teachers – SALT

http://www.saltlaw.org

Organizations and individuals can add their names to this statement at http://prosecutebushcheney.org

]]> http://codepink.org/blog/2009/02/open-letter-on-accountability/feed/ 0 Local Report – “I’m better than you” in San Antonio http://codepink.org/blog/2008/10/local-report-im-better-than-you-in-san-antonio/ http://codepink.org/blog/2008/10/local-report-im-better-than-you-in-san-antonio/#comments Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:53:40 +0000 Heidi http://codepink4peace.org/blog/?p=632 On October 3rd, a group of CodePink activists went to San Antonio to protest the arrival of Sarah Palin who was there to attend a high-end Republican fundraiser.  When we arrived, there was already a large group of  Palin fans standing in front of the hotel, holding signs and chanting her name.  Our group, being significantly smaller, chose to stand on the median, just across from the pro-Palin group. 

 

Although much smaller in number, we were drawing a great deal of attention from passers-by and news media.  In bright pink and with signs in hand, several of us flashed peace signs at the traffic and at the group standing on the other side of the street.  Two of us, dressed as McCain and Bush – bride and groom, kissed as the crowd fell silent.   In tow was a little baby carriage with a baby Palin doll and a sign that read “Bush-McCain Love Child”.

 

After a few minutes of peaceful protest, an elderly man crossed over to the median.  Wearing a red white and blue shirt in the design of a Texas flag and carrying a small U.S. flag, he stepped in front of me, trying to cover up my message.  He turned and looked at me in my McCain bridal outfit.  Trying to keep things cordial, I said “Hi, how are you?”  He responded “I’m better than you.”  After the Palin fans left and the protest dwindled, that simple statement kept floating back into my head. 

 

“I’m better than you.”  I started thinking about the true impact of that single statement.    If I’m better than you, then my race is better than yours, my country is better than yours, my religion is better than yours.  If I’m better than you, then I deserve to live and maybe you don’t.  If I’m better than you, I can use up all of the resources and save nothing for future generations.  If I’m better than you, then global warming isn’t a problem – I’ll be dead before its impact is felt.  If I’m better than you, then it’s okay for my country to invade yours.  If I’m better than you, then I deserve all of the wealth and you deserve to remain in poverty.  If I’m better than you, then my child deserves to be educated, housed and fed, but yours does not.  If I’m better than you, then peace isn’t necessary as long as I remain unscathed. 

 

So our mission is clear — to remind each other that no one person is better than another. 

<br /> 

 

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