Former Vice President Dick Cheney manages to stay in the news defending torture and insisting the intelligence to invade Iraq was correct. He has praised President Obama’s use of targeted assassination and felt the White House should apologize to former Bush administration officials for criticizing enhanced interrogation. President Obama has increased drone attacks, killing supposed enemies without trial or due process. In these attacks innocent civilians including women and children have perished. The drone industry continues to receive a surplus of funds from the government to continue to operate while much needed programs in the country are being cut. CODEPINK cofounders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans speak out against manufacturer General Atomics, maker of the killer Predator and Reaper drones.

Donald Rumsfeld continues on the speaking circuit across the globe. He received a real patriotic welcoming from members of Veterans for Peace and CODEPINK while in Boston. Rumsfeld helped craft the invasion of Iraq and lied the country into war.

Rumsfeld found himself going toe-to-toe with Al-Jazeera news. If you recall, while working as cameraman with Al-Jazeera news, Sami al-Hajj was detained in Pakistan and wrongfully held for six years at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo.

Former President George W. Bush is expected to receive an un-welcoming from the city of Surrey in Canada later in the month. Amnesty International and other human right groups are urging the government of Canada to arrest the former president when he enters the country. Even though there has been a public outcry against Bush traveling to Canada, former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg has been denied entry into the maple leaf country. Begg who has traveled throughout Europe, Northern Africa, Middle East and Central Asia speaking out against his wrongful detainment, flew into Montreal and was taken into custody and denied entry.

Karl Rove was the latest politician to get “glitter-bombed” by gay rights advocates in Minneapolis. Rove and former President Bush are opposed to same-sex marriage. Rove does not regret his or Bush’s stance on this issue.

The controversial media-mogul Rupert Murdoch whose company News of the World faced allegations of hacking the phone numbers of private citizens was speaking at an education conference in San Francisco. In true San Francisco spirit, Morduch was greeted by demonstrators from Occupy Sesame Street and US Uncut, an organization holding corporations accountable through creative actions.

Xe Services, aka Blackwater, continues to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan even with strong opposition from the governments. Even after Karzai issued a presidential order, Blackwater is prospering in Afghanistan, recruiting future mercenaries for Libyan rebel support. In 2009, the Iraqi government said it would not extend Blackwater’s license after the tragic killing of innocent civilians and news headlines shown the company was kicked out, but recent leaked US cables indicate that Xe continues to function in the country.

CODEPINK & other activists have been bird-dogging former Bush administration officials across the country. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed by his daughter, Liz, at the Nixon Library in southern California. During the event, CODEPINK cofounder Jodie Evans was able to present an arrest complaint and speak out against his crimes. Next, Cheney spoke at an American Institute Enterprise forum in Washington DC, and CODEPINK activists were outside holding a vibrant street presence with props and costumes.

CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin talks about trying to move Cheney’s book to the crime section at the DC Union Station Barnes & Noble.

While speaking at the Metropolitan State College in Denver, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was interrupted by protesters who shouted “war criminal”. According to the Denver Post, five students in the auditorium stood up and placed black hoods over their heads. Also, CODEPINK and NYC activists protested inside and outside an event where former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke.

Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern and CODEPINK activist Nancy Mancias disrupted Donald Rumsfeld inside the Kaufmann Concert Hall. The discussion was hosted by the 92nd Street Y. When the conversation turned towards Bush’s decision to invade Iraq after 9/11, Ray McGovern rose from his seat and stood in silent protest at the front of the auditorium wearing a Veterans For Peace t-shirt. He remained standing for about ten minutes until he was escorted out by six NYPD officers. Later in the evening, Mancias tossed 100 pink arrest complaints from the auditorium balcony, showering down on to the audience, and shouting “It’s known that you are a war criminal. It’s known there were no weapon’s of mass destruction. It’s known that Iraq was not a threat.”

Former British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward will once again manage an oil company. His investment firm Vallares will purchase Genel Energy Oil Company which operates in Iraq. Tony Hayward is remembered for his criminal behavior in the handling of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. CODEPINK cofounder Diane Wilson had the opportunity to address Mr. Hayward’s behavior when he testified at a Congressional hearing.

Andy Shallal. How can one post show our love and devotion to Andy? In case you haven’t made the trek to the DC area and had the pleasure of eating, reading, dancing, drinking, crying, laughing in his fabulous establishments–including the revolutionary Bus Boys & Poets– well, then, you haven’t really experienced the beauty that is DC. Andy is an Iraqi-American artist, activist and restaurateur who brought a radical flavor to the nation’s capitol as the Iraq War erupted. He has generously hosted CODEPINK events for years–his energy and spirit are an inspiration to us all!  And the catfish plate at Bus Boys will bring you right out of your I-just-spent-the-night-in-jail-for-demanding-the-US-stop-killing-Iraqi-civilians funk. We also heard from our sources that when he recently hosted an Eve Ensler event he got up on stage and announced “As an Iraqi man I never thought I’d be saying the word vagina in public! VAGINA! VAGINA!” Can you get ANY COOLER?? (The answer is no, you can’t. Sorry.)

Join CODEPINK at Andy’s famous Bus Boys & Poets restaurant on Saturday, March 20 for our Women Say No to War event on the 7th anniversary of the Iraq occupation.  RSVP here for this event featuring Eve Ensler.  Who knows, maybe you’ll get a chance to hear Andy proclaim love for Vs again!

Jim Turpin is a bold CODEPINK man for peace hailing from Austin, Texas.  Whether out in the streets in an audacious costume or behind the scenes doing the work to make actions happen, Jim is at every CODEPINK event and protest with a heart of gold (ahem, hot pink!) and energy and passion to make peace happen.  Jim’s letters to the editor have been published in the local papers and a photo of him with Austin CODEPINK at a vigil mourning the death of the 1,000th soldier in Operation Enduring Freedom appeared in last week’s CODEPINK email alert.  In the words of Austin CODEPINKster Deb, “He happens to be Heidi’s hubby but he’s a full on equal member of the group in every way.  [Jim]‘s a conflict resolution KING and just the sweetest, most lovable dude to boot.  Jim Turpin = Rockstar.”

Daniel Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in America! You can read all about Dan here (because it would take a LONG post to really explain his impact on activism, and the truth about lies and our government) and if you haven’t seen the new documentary based on his life and role as the Pentagon Papers whistle blower then you should check out the documentary site AND root for the film this Sunday during the Oscars! It is up for Best Documentary! And CODEPINK’s Jodie Evans was a producer on the film to boot! Daniel, we are in awe of your courage and we channel it each time we find ourselves about to raise our voices and our signs at a congressional hearing, before we try to slap the cuffs on another war criminal or confront power in our own lives.  We hope to see you up on stage with a statue on Sunday!

I do not believe in war at all; although I am as capable of anger as anyone. To me war is something to be outgrown, recognized as immature, wasteful and so destructive to life that human beings should shun it as they shun Swine Flu, or HIV/AIDS or as they once shunned Bubonic Plague. If our species survives, and it may well not, it will be because we learn not to fight to kill each other, though some of us may continue to fight as an expression of our not yet controllable nature. It is painful to feel the war machine continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan and in all the other parts of the globe not covered by our media. It isn’t that I thought one man, a new president, could stop it overnight or in one year – it has been acceptable behavior for millennia – but it was my hope that there would be, out of Washington, an entirely new and different approach to what is essentially the failure of human beings to listen to each other; to teach and guide and share with one another. To see the best, even in “the enemy.” And where no “best” is discernable, to understand how what might have been good has become horribly twisted or destroyed. To think of small children who have no alternative, often, to growing up imprisoned in poisonous ideologies; there they stand in our missile sights, “terrorists” who never really had a chance.

Is there no way to reach our enemies other than by killing them? Do we “win” in this way? I cannot believe it. Rather I believe killing other human beings is not about winning, but about failure. Winning would be to begin to train our military to do what it also does wonderfully well: look after the inhabitants of the planet. It has been such a relief to see our soldiers stepping in to help earthquake victims in Haiti and elsewhere; to see their self-assurance and can-do spirit as they tackle the problems of crumbled buildings, trapped children, pain crazed persons who, having lost homes and possessions, have nowhere to go. This is when I have felt most proud of our military. And it has been easy to see that this is where our soldiers have felt most proud of themselves.

There is much anger at our president from the community of pacifists and anti-war activists to which I belong. There is so much disappointment and rage. I share some of this; what I mostly feel, however, is not anger or rage, but grief. Eisenhower was right to warn us about the burgeoning power of the Military Industrial Complex, as he termed it. That it was quite capable of taking over the country, and the president with it. That we are in the hands of a war machine that doesn’t really care who is elected to run the country; it’s aim is plunder, destruction, conquest and exploitation. Taking whatever its creators want by force. All in the name of “defense.” Looking in our own families we can see how we are connected to this machine: the jobs, the pensions, the chance to learn a trade or go to school. Many people’s fear is that if the military stopped its machinations around the globe millions of people would have no place, and no work.

And that is why what we must insist on, I believe, is transformation of the Military. Though what use can be found for our obsolete missiles and weapons of mass destruction I cannot, myself, imagine. But my faith is that someone can imagine this; that we can make something useful out of things like old fighter planes and bomb casings. The way the earth is shaking so many of us out of bed in the middle of the night with no shelter left to our names, perhaps we should put our architects and builders to the task of designing and creating housing out of them. Humans are very clever, as we know. No more clever humans exist – along with some who are abysmally not clever – than in the United States.

In these times it is easy to see why war is obsolete. Nature has taken it on herself to show us how destructive unanticipated and uncontrollable violence is. And that nothing humans can ever do on the battlefield is a match for her power. After an earthquake, especially after earthquakes like the recent ones in Haiti and Chile, how can humanity permit our governments to cause similar devastation, with our money, deliberately?

Recently I was in Cairo, attempting to cross into Gaza with the courageous women of CODE PINK. This organization had worked for nearly a year to collect about 2 million dollars worth of aid for the people of Gaza. They had also invited fourteen hundred people from around the world to join in a Freedom March inside Gaza, in protest of the imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians, in Gaza, by the Israeli government. The Egyptian government, apparently under the control of Israel and the United States, refused to permit us entry. Perhaps its leader feared losing the large amount of aid the U.S. gives Egypt every year.

In any case, on my third day in Cairo I found myself traveling with Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODE PINK, to pay a visit to the Red Crescent, similar to the Red Cross. We were escorted into the office of a large, kindly man who seemed to want to help us. Jodie Evans, wearing a lot of pink, had come armed with her cell phone and her computer. At each point of questioning from the kindly but cautious Egyptian, she used these tools to connect with her base of information. There was not a single question put to her that she did not, sitting there in all her glorious pink, answer politely, firmly and conclusively. She explained about the 1400 citizens from around the world who were outside, some camping in front of Embassies, some battling police in the Cairo streets. She talked about the 2 million dollars worth of aid. Milk and cheese and bread and beans. Water. Chocolate. School supplies. Medicine.

I had arrived in Cairo ill; speaking brought on a spell of coughing; I was sorry to be of so little help. However I did have one question:

“Have you ever been to Gaza?” I asked our host, when Jodie Evans took a moment to catch her breath.

“No,” he said. “But I hear it’s better than when you were there last year.”

More people dead? I wondered. Or did he mean more rubble cleared?

But then Jodie Evans was back on the case. To every question, she found an answer.

At last, the kindly man, someone’s uncle or father or brother or son, allowed the possibility of 65 people being allowed entry into Gaza. 65 out of 1400. Jodie Evans tried to increase the number, speaking again of the hardship many had suffered to be able to come so far. Maybe two buses? And what of the aid? There was now given to us a long list of all that could not be carried into Gaza. Milk was out, for starters. It was a liquid.

This haggling went on for some time. As people who had visited Gaza a year ago, both she and I would be denied entry this time.

And so forth.

But here is what the feeling was: We were begging to be allowed to help desperate people, many of them slowly starving to death. Begging. I will not forget this feeling as long as I live; because it was not right. And yes, I longed to have a government behind me that would have made it unnecessary for us to beg; I yearned for a government whose leaders would go with us into Gaza. Shoulder to shoulder with us. Because until our leaders go with us to try to understand and right the wrongs our nations have caused, what chance as a planet do we have? And yet, ironically, this encounter, where we felt we had nothing officially supportive at our backs, is where I saw the Goddess in Jodie Evans. Even though this was begging, she never lost her dignity, her resolve, her commitment to the people of Gaza who are suffering. I witnessed something I never expected to experience that day: that to beg for the good of others is noble. I saw this nobility, very strong, in her. That moment was worth the trip.

When the disastrous earthquake hit Haiti, even Israel sent a shipment of aid. But why not send such a shipment to Gaza, where Israel has done the damage? Looking at a collapsed school in Port –au- Prince it seemed almost identical to the American School in Palestine in whose rubble, a year ago, I spent part of a morning. America sent aid, but why had it not helped the Haitians (over decades) as their capsized boats filled with impoverished people headed toward survival in the US, floundered and were drowned by the waves. Not to mention the atrocious colonial treatment of Haiti, for centuries.

I have said many times that my caring for Barack Obama and his family is unconditional; this is the only kind of caring that makes sense to me. Within that caring, held just as unshakably, is my disagreement with some of his choices. War cannot be stopped by killing more people; there has to be another way. What is it? Nuclear power is treacherous; is there no faith that Americans can consume less of everything, especially the rapaciously pursued “energy?”

And so on.

Talking some of this over with a friend, I asked her to make a list of all the good things Barack Obama has done in his first year. Within minutes she had a list of about a hundred things. This was a great relief, because sometimes the rhetoric against his leadership is so condemning it is as if he’s done nothing at all. What is the blindness and anger that causes this unfairness? How can it become more balanced? Not for Obama’s sake, he seems to be weathering his storms as well as one could, but for the sake of those of us who like to think of ourselves as people of ethics, fairness, balance. Some of us call ourselves “spiritual progressives.”

At the end of some of the more virulent blasts against Obama there is the threat of punishment: Wait until the next election! Can we learn to disagree with someone without instantly attempting to punish them? What is this but a stirring up of one’s inner war? War without a military, but violence just the same. And who do we have in mind as a replacement? With our luck we will find ourselves stuck with another Bush, or worse, though our dream might be Dennis Kucinich whose belief that the United States should have a Department of Peace is one with which most of us resonate. Anger makes us lose our ability to think clearly, to strategize, to plan. It is useless at this point in humanity’s distress. We are headed over a cliff of our own making; blaming anyone without at the same time blaming ourselves is a waste of the time we could at least spend dancing.

Can we learn to care about our leaders in ways that support their ability to move forward as we would wish them to? Is our only mode of behavior instant rage and blame if someone cannot deconstruct in one year what has taken five hundred years to build? Can we sit with ourselves and the truth of our crisis as humans long enough to see where we ourselves must lead and change?

Before traveling to Cairo I spent a few days in Dharamsala calling on the Spiritual and Political leaders of Tibet in Exile. These are people who obviously know a thing or two about life, about conflict, about inner discipline and care of the personal and the planetary soul. At a dinner with the political head of Tibet in Exile, Professor Rinpoche, along with six of his ministers, we found ourselves talking about what it feels like to be up against enemies who might be a billion times larger than you. Which is pretty much the case of China vs. Tibet. Talking together we soon realized that everyone in the room was working hard for the same things: feeding and clothing and teaching and healing our people and our communities. Finally, in the face of all attempts to stop us from doing what we feel we must, someone raised a glass to toast “the enemy.”

“Thank you,” I said, raising my glass in return: “They (our enemies) have their job and we have ours.”

That is also how I feel about every US administration I have ever known; none of them as morally intelligent and responsive to regular Americans as the one we have now, for all its limitations. They have their job, whatever it might be. But I have mine. Mine is to work for the world that I want, in the belief that it can only be just, fair, balanced and dedicated to peace, if I am.

Alice Walker is author of the children’s book: WHY WAR IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.

Jodie Evans, CODEPINK co-founder, wears a blindfold while protesting torture of prisoners outside the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif., June 25. The protesters submitted a judicial misconduct complaint against federal judge Jay Bybee, seeking disbarment of former assistant attorney general linked to memos on harsh interrogation techniques of detainees (AP/Jae C. Hong)