121Contact

May 1 2012 Karzia/Obama: A Harmony of Erosion of Civil Liberties

The Afghan Peace Volunteers remind us that “Today, Afghanistan and the U.S. initialed and locked the text of the strategic partnership agreement,” said Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed…”

The Obama administration's continued assault on civil liberties gained a new partner as Karzai agreed to keep the U.S./Afghanistan agreement a secret from the public. How many troops will remain? For how long? Will U.S. assassinations/drone strikes in Afghanistan continue? By whose orders? What will the level of military aid be?

The Public: That's the Afghan citizen whose life is directly affected by this agreement. They have a right to know. You Think!?

The Public: That's you, boss. You who are supposed to be intelligently informed so that you may better govern yourselves. Democracy gives you the vote, but with less and less knowledge of what your elected representatives do (enact, attack, choose to assassinate, support, agree to) your vote becomes more meaningless. (with your power to vote). You have a right to know. You Think!?

"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." - James Madison, 1822  OMG, he could actually see into the future...

We brought Democracy to Afghanistan, but we stifle one of the most important powers of the people: the right to know. We are beginning to live the farce and generate the tragedy that Madison envisioned.

For those too lazy to click the links: The Afghan Peace Volunteers are a grassroots group of ordinary Afghans seeking a life of non-violence, the unity of all people, equality, and self-reliance. ‘I wish to live without wars.’ An Afghan boy Abdulai, 15 year old student and farmer... [Read more of this review]

 

 

April 1 2012 Getting Rachel Maddow's "Drift", The Constitution, and you.

Rachel Maddow's "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power"  is a sometimes humorous look (she can't help it) at:

1-the depressing distance the American Government has put between itself (especially the Executive) and the Constitution,

2-the depressing extent to which the Military operates beyond the knowledge and control of the legislature (let's hear it for the Contractors, public and private), and

3-the depressing state of our Nuclear Arsenal and its attendant, uselessly rising, costs.

One of the first things many Iraqi refugees we met in New York said, with uniform incredulity, was "There's no war here." This book goes a long way to explaining why.

It is the unmooring of the American people from the realities of our foreign policy actions that is most worrisome to me.

Did you know that in the last 2 years there were 182 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan? [New America Foundation] Some 1,280 people died in these dronings. Most of America knows nothing about this.

U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye the number of nations in which U.S. Special Forces will be operating in 2012 "will likely reach 120." [Nick Turse, Salon] This includes operations in which there are only Contractors with no legal accountability.

Unfortunately, Maddow's proscription for change fails to move me to more optimism. Her ideas are fine. "Let's do away with the secret military" is a good thought, but how? How can this trend of out-of-popular-control be reversed?

It will take a transformation of the American psyche. More facts will help. Exposing the truth of the extralegal, extraconstiturional, beyond oversight mechanisms [like Maddow's "Drift"] will help, but the change must be deeper than statistics. Our failure to act to oppose and change these systems is not just a deficit of information. It is a moral failure. I must admit that the solution eludes me.

 

Nov 1 2011 Ground Zero: A Monument to Violence?

Ground Zero: A Monument to Violence?
Nov 1, 2011 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

It is with great anger and sadness that I write this piece about the monument ‘they’ are planning to site at Ground Zero.  It will carry the Green Beret motto and depict a lone U.S. commando on horseback in the Afghan mountains; a monument to violence at the very spot at which so many victims of violence were murdered. 

My anger is directed both at the group of cowardly members of Wall Street banking firms (they ask to remain anonymous) who have privately financed this monument to violence,  and to the bureaucrats  that are allowing this to go forward. Where was the public hearing?  Where was the sensitivity? 

In a particularly callous statement one of the private backers was quoted by CNN as saying, “We wanted to do [this]…because every day since 9/11, we've had to look at that hole in the ground." A statement seemingly cold to the fact that for so many Ground Zero is much more than a ‘hole in the ground.’ 

My sadness stems from the lack of compassion inherent in this proposal. We have just witnessed 10 years of useless loss and devastation as a result of our invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing operations in Afghanistan. The American lives lost are countable, as are the wounded soldiers who gave so much for so little. The ‘collateral damage’ (as the military likes to refer to innocent civilians killed or wounded in or as a result of war) was enormous. Millions of displaced persons, hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and countless wounded and traumatized victims follow in the wake of the wars. 

And this speaks nothing of the tax dollars that went from the American people into the pockets of those who profit handsomely from military actions. Don’t forget: the US10 billion dollars a month we spent (for ten years) in Iraq, did not just vanish into the air. And now we are spending that much on both Iraq and Afghanistan.   

My hope is that we can stop the statue from ever sitting at Ground Zero, and let our government, and those heartless bankers know we need monuments to peaceful solutions, not to violent profit taking.

Oct 25 2011 Phyllis Bennis Speaks, Brooklyn for Peace Listens, will you?

It was a stunning display of Phyllis Bennis'  intimate knowledge of Middle East machinations, aspirations, and failed American efforts to get it right. A darn good performance, considering that she'd already spoken at two events earlier in the day. 

I felt at home in the  audience, organized by Brooklyn for Peace, as a grey-haired, over 60, liberal activist. I suspect there were more than a couple of old-line socialists in the crowd...a few lefty, commie, pinko keepers of the flame. About 50 of us sat in front room of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, across from Prospect Park. 

She focused mainly on how past US Middle East policy (create stability by support for dictators, control the oil and water, unflinching support for Israel) is now empty since 'the people' have thrown the dictators out, or are in the process of doing so. She did not describe a detailed US policy going forward, but concentrated instead on the importance of US civil society keeping the pressure on politicians to steer away from the 'problem, therefore use force'  mentality.

She did, however prescribe a broad conceptualization of future policy that would help guide the world to more peaceful tomorrows: end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and stop the military support of Israel which come to some US$3 billion/year. She called for US civil society to demand, and US government to admit,  the discourse has changed. We must move from the militaristic, simplistic "support the dictators at all cost" mode of thinking. It just doesn't work.

Some point that caught my attention:

• Although Obama takes credit for pulling the troops ouf of Iraq the American civil society movement had more to do with it, and the Iraqi people are the most responsible. Maliki found almost no internal support for keeping troops there, although he would dearly love the occupation, and it's tacit support for his regime, to stay... "after all, Gaddafi was our guy."

• Obama's "we stand with the fruit sellers" is a painful distortion, given that we supported/continue to support so many dictators in the Middle East; those same powers that led to the self-immolation of a fruit seller in his misery of oppression.

• Even if we remove all Department of Defense troops from Iraq by the end of the year, as the SOFA demands, the State Department has already signed contracts that will put 5-10,000 mercenaries on the ground, not under DoD control. Many contracts are right now being moved from Dod to the State Department to avoid counting the troops uner the SOFA agreement.

• Afghanistan is now holding about a quarter of a million occupation forces: 100 thousand US military, 100,000 US mercenaries, and the rest from NATO countries.

One of my favorite moments was her acknowledgement (I love people who validate my own ideas) that U.S. media, in fact most Western media outlets ignore the facts of peace movements in the Middle East. Palestinians have been peacefully active for at least 10 years. Their Palestine Spring had no positive media attention. The first intifada was, in fact, a peace movement. There are many Budrus-like activities that take place in Palestine each and every day.

[Iraq has a fast-growing civil society that embraces non-violence. All the Arab and non-Arab nations of the Middle East have withing them non-violent movements that are pressuring their governments to transform into more democratic regimes, even Saudi Arabia! b]

Now what? The moral equations have failed to move the American public to pressure the US government to alter policy. Dead children, collateral damage, the destruction of Iraq, ... none of this has led to widespread moral outrage. What is moving people today? It's the economy.

Civil society in America must hammer home the relationship between the costs of war and the failure of the US economy to recover quickly. The US$10 billion/month that feeds the war machine could go a long way to helping create jobs, increase technical education, decrease class-size (by hiring more teachers), and repair our failing infrastructure (creating more jobs in the process). The list is longer, but the aim is clear. Make the economic facts known.

In the Q/A session that followed her talk she was asked if she was worried about the Islamists taking over the Egyptian government. Her response was a succinct, "I am not afraid of the Islamists. I am concerned that the people of Egypt  get what they want." We may not like their chosen path, but if it is democratically chosen then let us support it, deal with it, and move forward.

Bennis closed by saying, "US civil society has to speak up, and keep speaking. I know it is frustrating...but the discourse must change. You can't give up. Let them know, "We are not going away."

 

 

 

Sept 13 2011 "Your 9/11 is our 24/7," and other 10 year memorial thoughts...

Oh, it's not original. It's been around for a while, but this year it seemed more pungent somehow, more odious, outrageous, disrespectful, and horribly true.

"Your 9/11 is our 24/7" Facebook saw it posted over and over; multiple "Letters to the Editor" columns, and innumerable blogs (including this one) carried the bleak comparison. Google carried 79,400,000 hits. There must be something to it. After all, it was just yesterday that a busload of familiesm headed out of Iraq to Syriam was intercepted by armed men dressed in military uniforms. All the women and children were forced off and told to march across the desert. The bus was later found a few miles down the road. All the men who remained on board were executed.

What? Sure, the body counts are inversely proportional to the asymmetry of the warfare, as are the vastly more unbalanced  count of injured. Sure, also, the number of people deeply affected by long term trauma are also weighed heavily on the side of 'the enemy'; 'the other'; the 'not with us, therefore against us'...the very people we claimed to be helping.

It is ten years since the term 'ground zero' got applied to the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S.A. It's first use in print was in a 1946 New York Times article: "The intense heat of the blast started fires as far as 3,500 feet from 'ground zero' (the point on the ground directly under the bomb's explosion in the air)." It was a catchy 2001 phrase and caught on quickly as the media frenzy began to take hold. "Collateral damage" came in second, I think, as Americans began to understand the reality behind that phrase. But only a few Americans.

It was the proximity factor that did us in; prevented us from attaining the moral high ground; interfered with our grasping the simplest of truths: This was not a time for revenge, but a time to dig deep and find the peaceful paths to victory.Unfortunately, fear carried the day and made it easy for the Bushmen to manipulate public opinion.

If you lost a loved one, a friend, an acquaintance, then you knew the pain of collateral damage. If you were witness to the attack or a rescue/recovery worker, on the scene as we were, then the meaning of collateral damage was clear. It was in the air. It was in the stinking smell of death that permeated your clothes, your pillow, and stubbornly refused to leave  your nostrils. It was the stench that had you double over with vomit spewing from your mouth and nose.

But if you were a TV witness, then all was probably transformed for you. That media wall protected you from a deeper, sadder understanding of the phrase. Collateral damage. Collateral damage. Many Americans were already filled with compassion, but the curtain of distance kept the majority of us from a visceral, emotional understanding of the events and their consequences. Not, however, from a stirring of our basest emotional triggers that spawned a taste for revenge.

Repeated film clips of the bodies falling (note: not referred to as people jumping to their deaths), the towers collapsing, the smoke and debris rushing toward the camera...all stirring flight/fight responses that were unanswerable from the living room. This left us with untapped energies that the administration could manipulate to its own ends.

And now, the now of 9/11, the now of Bush's decisions, we were to inflict collateral damage on Afghanistan, and then Iraq. To win the "war on terror?" I think not. To take revenge, send a message, appear strong in a modern warfare way? I think so.

And then came what no one was able to predict in scale. Many had opined that using violence would only lead to more violence. Many had stood and tried to stop the carnage they knew would only create more enemies than it killed. But few, if any, knew the extent of the horror we would unleash in Iraq.

We aren't any safer. We don't understand much more about the mind of the terrorist or how to steer young people away from paths of destruction. We haven't brought the world's nations any closer. What did we gain? A lot of money for the war-suppliers, a lot of weapons know-how, and a lot of enemies.

"Your 9/11 is our 24/7" became an ironic truth. One bumper sticker said, "Be nice to America or we'll bring Democracy to your nation." We were still able to joke about it,  but to this day, and forward many generations, there are Iraqis who will be hard pressed to find the humor in the pain we unleashed upon their nation, their people, their generations of young Iraqis growing up traumatized by what surrounded them day after day for so many years.

It's never too late to learn. It's not too late to admint the errors of our foreign policies. It's not too late to teach young ones about compassion and the folly of using violence to solve problems.

"Your 9/11 is our 24/7." It's not a joke.

What if we made September the International Month of Peace Studies? What if we made the eleventh of September a day of rememberance for all those lost to political violence in all countries in all times? What if we began to steer this world toward more peaceful tomorrows?

September 13, 2001 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

 

Sept 11, 2011

9/11 is not about how many died. It is about _each_ one who died. There is true mourning within the media spectacle of 9/11 and we must remember without comparing,  the mourning in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel...so many places, so many lives...how long will it take to learn? But we will evolve, and we will know more peaceful tomorrows. Inshallah.

Aug 4 2011 Teaching 9/11: a dangerous exercise

We ran across an ad for a tele-conference about "Teaching 9/11" and were appalled when we read the list of materials, and extrapolated from that the content of the conference. 

The materials listed in the references and referenced organizations are the thinnest of ways to teach about 9/11. They have nothing to do with the WHY of 9/11; the politics, psychology, foreign policy, culture, and religion (and how religion can be subverted).

Instead, the materials focus on: the artistic response to 9/11, the themes of service and volunteerism, time-lines, and artifacts of the events of that day. All well and good, but as a main focus this buries important  truths of 9/11 beneath a cloud of facts and events that came after the attacks.

Teaching from such a viewpoint serves to limit the thoughts of students and enhance their blindness toward the harsh truths that lie beneath the surface of these superficial facts, time-lines, etc. of that day. Herein lie the seeds of collective disconnection from our logical and compassionate selves. And yes, one can be logical and compassionate at the same time. The danger? Another generation of people with the power to vote who lack a compassionate understanding of what that power can do to innocent civilians.

If you want real lessons for your students about 9/11 then set up an event with 121Contact and allow your students to see some of the harsh realities associated with that day and its consequent effects on innocent civilians.

Aug 4, 2011 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

Aug 2 2011 Obama, the Media, and the Muslim Invasion

Those who propagate fear of Muslims and fear of the Islamic takeover of Western society are aided by both the media's propagated perception of Muslims and US (Obama's) foreign policy.

What is being taken over, anyway? Why the American/European way of life. Our very moral fibre. This is a very strong argument since it can easily be shown that our moral standards are declining,  Western values are being corroded. But is that the fault of the Muslim Invasion?

We think  not.

First of all: there is not invasion.  In Europe only France (8%)  and Belgium (5.8%) have notable Muslim populations. Example: UK: 2.8% [BBC] In the US there are about  5,000,000 Muslims, making up some 1.6% of the population. Almost half of these are native born Americans of African descent. NY has the highest state percentage: 4.7%. For comparison, Jews number about 2.6% of the US population, [JewishVirtualLibrary] and they hardly constitute a threat to 'the American way.'

Tarak Barkawi's work points to an important role the media plays in this hysteria. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge. Negative portrayals of Muslims predominate in mainstream media. Most articles refer to violence propagated my Muslims, and controversy over Muslim participation in society gets far more coverage than positive contributions of Muslims.

So what is the cause of the erosion of our values? Look not to Islam. Look to neo-Capitalism.

Our society is becoming simpler by the day as all values are subsumed by the one value: the bottom line. What is 'right' is becoming synonymous with what is profitable, and the people be damned.

With US and European unemployment soaring (officially at 9.2%, but over 16% and climbing), the values of the dollar steeply declining, commodity prices rising...well it's no wonder folks are freaking out.

Finding scapegoats to blame for our troubles is not new. The latest target happens to be Muslims, and they fit the bill perfectly. They have members who are self-proclaimed terrorists who make headlines, they have distinctive dress and rituals, and they are generally voiceless, having not made significant inroads into the media.

And, oh yes, let's not forget Bush-Obama wars, especially the expensive Iraq and Afghanistan engagements. The 'enemy' is Islamic. Every day we reinforce the idea of violent Muslims among us even though our foreign policy, our leaders, and our soldiers are the instigators of the violence. It is hard to train soldiers to kill friends, so the portrayal of Muslims as enemies is critical to the war effort. When such a small percentage of the population puts on the uniform it becomes important to spread the 'enemy' stereotype broadly within the population.

And the wars, again, point to Capitalism as the culprit. These are wars of profit and their prolongation increases profits to the tune of some US$10 billion dollars a month. After all, the money spent on war does not just go up into the air. It goes into people's/corporations pockets.

Blame Capitalism, not Muslims.

 



July 31 2011 US Media kills thousands while Afghan Young Lovers gain front page

It's not just the NY Times. It's the American media and their non-conspiratorial avoidance of the harsh truths of war.

July 31 2011 Three Iraqi civilians have been injured in an explosive charge blast in southern Baghdad on Friday night, a security source reported. “An explosive charge blew off on Friday night in southern Baghdad’s Saydiya district, wounding 3 civilians, the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. 

 

What if, instead of 'human interest' pieces that portray all Afghanis as social primitives (Afghans Rage at Young Lovers), the NYTimes ran the news of the war's dead and wounded, American and foreign? Would that make  a difference in American attitudes toward continuing our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What if they ran the pictures that illustrate the carnage? Would that change people's minds?

 NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers from an IED attack in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, July 29th.

Americans are willing to ignore the human cost of war. There is a cost in this, too. We all know,  whether we want to admit it or not, that our wars cause pain and death. Most of us keep this knowledge deep within and are loath to let it surface. There is a hidden burden of guilt in this denial that poisons the American soul/psyche/culture.

Libya, Yemen, Somalia...we are part of massive destruction of life and terrible maiming of innocent civilians in our efforts to 'help the people'. 

Why do I pick on the NY Times when almost all American media are part of this denial? Because it is my morning paper, and each day it leaves me wanting more honesty, more truth, and a more of a chance for Americans to take responsibility for the actions of our government. "Pictures [of dead or dying American troops] have rarely been seen in recent years from Iraq and Afghanistan," acknowledged The New York Times in September 2009. [AlJazeera] Acknowledgement of a deficiency is not the same as rectification.

Is it fair to blame the US media for the carnage? You tell me.

Diyala Prv:
#1: Armed men killed one policeman and a government-backed Sunni Sahwa militia member when they opened fire on a joint police-Sahwa foot patrol in Baquba, 65km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a Diyala police source said.


Taji:
#1: Two Iraqi civilians have been killed and 5 others, among them 2 women and 2 children, have been injured in 3 explosive charges blasts in northern Baghdad’s Taji district, 20 km to the north of the Iraqi Capital, a security source reported on Saturday. “Three explosive charges blew up on Friday night, close to a house in Umm-al-Hadayil village in northern Baghdad’s Taji district, killing 2 civilians and wounding 5 others, including 2 women and 2 children,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Salah al Din Prv:
#1: US troops killed three Iraqi civilians and injured six during a Saturday pre-dawn raid on a village in the province of Salah al-Din, north of Baghdad, a local clan chief said. Sheikh Youssef Ahmed Hassan said the US forces opened fire after a local villager fired into the air. 'The villager thought that the US troops were operatives from al-Qaeda,' he told the German Press Agency dpa. An exchange of fire between the villagers and the US soldiers left three local men dead, and four women and two children injured, according to Hassan.


Irbil Prv:
#1: An Iraqi Kurdish citizen has been killed and large numbers of citizens of northern Arbil’s Choman border township with Iran, were force to leave their villages, due to Iranian bombardment of the area on Friday, a military source in the Border Guards Command reported. “A citizen in a Choman village has been killed due to artillery bombardment by the Iranian side on the village on Friday,” the source stressed, adding that about 40-50 families from the areas that came under bombardment were forced to desert their villages.

A shepherd was killed late on Thursday during clashes between the PJAK rebel group and Iranian Revolutionary Guards along Iraq's border with Iran, an Arbil provincial hospital official said. Arbil is 310 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad


Kirkuk:
#1: Two cops were injured by a bomb blast south of Kirkuk, police sources said here. The source told Aswat al-Iraq that an emergency patrol unit found a bomb near a mosque, south of the city. Anti-bombs squad arrived, but the bomb exploded by itself which resulted in injuring two cops.

#2: Iraqi police found the body of a man in his twenties with gunshot wounds in eastern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, a source from the Kirkuk police operations centre said.


Mosul:
#1: A civilian was killed today by a sticky bomb north of Mosul, security sources said here.

#2: Gunmen shot dead a civilian in western Mosul late on Thursday, a Nineveh police source said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: An Afghan official says seven Afghan soldiers and a translator were killed alongside two NATO service members in a bombing and ambush in eastern Paktia province. The deputy provincial governor of Paktia, Abdul Rahman Mangal, said Saturday the soldiers and a translator were killed on Friday while on patrol in the Zurmat district of the province. Mangal says the troops were on a joint patrol when a roadside bomb detonated. He added that the patrol was then attacked by insurgents. He did not have any further information on other casualties or wounded.

#2: Ten Shiite Muslims and another man were killed on Saturday when gunmen opened fire in an apparent sectarian attack in southwestern Pakistan, police said. The shooting took place on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas-rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. "Gunmen opened fire on a passenger van carrying Shiite Muslims. Ten Shiites and a passer-by were killed and four injured in the attack," senior police officer Jamil Ahmad Kakar told AFP by telephone. Kakar said the unidentified gunmen stood by the roadside spraying bullets at the van before they fled the scene in a waiting car.

#3: An explosive device went off in a NATO supply oil taker in Sadu Khel area of Landikotal here on Friday, however, no casualty was reported. Official sources said that last morning an Afghanistan bound Nato supply tanker (TLT 350) was blown up by non-disclosed militants by installing explosive device to it. When it had been parked on the roadside. The explosive had been fit in the middle portion of tanker, the sources said. The oil in the tanker caught fire and wasted while destroyed the tanker, the sources said. The fire flames melted the electricity lines, which suspended the power supply to Khyber Zakha Khel areas.

#4: Seven people were killed and one wounded when two unknown gunmen opened fire at a transport company's office in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, police said. The dead include two Uzbeks and one Iranian national, said senior police official Hamid Shakeel. The transport company runs buses from Quetta to Taftan, a city that borders Iran, he said.

#5: At least 10 people were wounded in a bomb blast in Mastung district of Baluchistan province.

#6: Three coaches of a passenger train derailed after a blast ripped off a portion of a track in the Jaffarabad district of southwestern Baluchistan province, police said. There were no casualties.

Is it fair to blame the US media for the carnage? You tell me.

 

July 29 2011 Budgets, deficits and war profiteering in the days of Obama

The 2011 US budget stipulates $160 billion for 'overseas contingency operations.' Read that as over $13 billion dollars a month for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Americans aren't stupid. PEW research tells us that the majority of Americans blame the soaring debt on the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. It's not hard to see that if Obama kept his pledges regarding the end of US occupation  of Iraq and and end to US inv0lvement in Afghanistan our economy would look very different.

Why aren't we shutting down these wars more quickly? Why are our men and women still being maimed and killed in these wars? What is the benefit? Who is making the money here?

CorpWatch reports that Aegis, DynCorp,Triple Canopy. Blackwater and Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions aren't doing badly. Protected by Washington lawmakers who fail to vote for subpoena level investigations, these are among the largest war profiteers. Bechtel's amazing record of mismanaged projects ranks up there, too, and their failure to properly dispose of waste (open pit burning is a favored method) has cost the lives and health of too many military personnel, not to speak of the uncounted civilians who die from these same practices.

And these are the small guys. When you get into the Lockheed Martins of the war machine you see some real power in action. So much of our economy is locked up in the war machine that it is going to take a social retooling to alter our path. Attacking Xe services wont do it.[Tom Engelhardt]

We have to start teaching our young ones a different way of moving in the world; a way of peaceful economies and solutions; not profiteering from violent conflict. First, I guess, we have to start acting/voting/talking with peace in mind.  We are evolving in our relationship to environmental and health issues. We can evolve in our thinking about confict, too.