Secretary of State, or Secretary of War?

Until the Kellogg Briand Treaty of 1928, war was a legitimate function of government. It was the go-to method of resolving disputes among nations. Any land seized in war was considered legitimate spoils, regardless of the seizing country’s mendacity. Kellogg Briand shifted the paradigm. Aggressive war was deemed a crime and any land seized was not recognized by the international community.

War was so important in U.S. history that the cabinet post for national defense was the Secretary of War. Established in 1781 by the Articles of Confederation, it was carried over into George Washington’s first cabinet, with the War Secretary fifth in line to the presidency in case of vacancy. Fifty-eight men served as Secretary of War till the title was changed to the euphemistic Secretary of Defense in 1947.

While Defense Secretaries play the hardball game of preparing for war, the Secretary of State is charged with the delicate task of avoiding war thru sensible, reasoned negotiations. That’s why I’m a tad confused by President-Elect Biden’s choice of Anthony Blinken to be America’s 74th Secretary of State come January 20. As a Senate staffer, Blinken crafted Biden’s support for the criminal Iraq war of 2003 that got hundreds of thousands of innocents killed and millions fleeing overwhelming U.S. firepower. Then Blinken surfaced in the Obama administarti0n and cheered on our criminal intervention in Libya that has largely destroyed what is now a failed country torn apart by waring factions. Blinken hit a trifecta of failure promoting regime change in Syria by arming largely terrorist rebels that used American weaponry to send untold thousands of innocent Syrians to an early grave.

Failure in Iraq, failure in Libya, failure in Syria did not banish Blinken from public service. He will become Secretary of State next year under a president who also supported or went along with those catastrophic interventions. Maybe Blinken should have been appointed Defense Secretary for which he is eminently more qualified. If so, it would be appropriate to rebrand it for what it truly is: Secretary of War.

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Trump’s violence inciting treason finally lands on his idolatrous GOP

Gabe Sterling became a national hero yesterday, calling out Trump for his campaign to overturn a valid election with treasonous incitement to delegitimize his defeat. It’s the most powerful takedown of Trump’s mendacity yet, prompted by harassment and threats of violence against Republican official Sterling who serves as Voting Systems Manager for the Georgia Secretary of State. Sterling said he can handle the treats to himself and family but could no longer stomach that directed against his employees, including a 20 year old kid trying to earn a few bucks helping Sterling complete his now fear filled task.

But I’d like to know what Sterling had to say when Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 and called Mexican immigrants murders and rapists.

But I’d like to know what Sterling had to say when Trump called Obama an African born black man who was an illegitimate president.

But I’d like to know what Sterling had to say when Trump told his rally supporters to “beat the shit out of anti Trump demonstrators.

But I’d like to know what Sterling had to say when Trump said banning Muslims from America was necessary for our survival.

But I’d like to know what Sterling had to say when Trump began his campaign claiming mail in voting was a Democratic plot to steal the election.

My guess? “I’m cool with that”.

66 years ago Republicans dethroned a Trump like Republican demigod

December 2, 1954, sixty-six years ago today, the Senate censured Republican Senator Joe McCarthy for bringing disgrace upon that august body with what became infamous as McCarthyism. The censure vote was narrowly structured to appeal to the senators’ sense of decorum and respect for the Senate, but it was essentially their way of stopping a treasonous authoritarian doing enormous damage to American democracy. Using his demagogic appeal to tens of millions and his chairmanship of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, McCarthy spread fear and terror by accusing any of his imagined enemies and detractors as communists, pinkos or fellow travelers. Thousands suffered ruined lives thru immoral firings; some committed suicide

McCarthy’s disgraceful conduct during the televised Army-McCarthy Hearings spurred the Republican led Senate to take McCarthy down. Republican Senator Ralph Flanders introduced a resolution calling for the censure of his fellow Republican, who Flanders declared, ran his subcommittee "contrary to senatorial traditions and brought the whole body into disrepute”. When the vote came 5 months later, 22 of 44 Republican Senators voted for censure, ensuring its bipartisan legitimacy, the backlash from their Republican base be damned.

We ponder in sorrow today where is the Senator Flanders of 2020 who will initiate action to dethrone the traitor in the White House? And where is that 50% of patriotic Republican Senators who will push that effort over the goal line to redeem American democracy?

Trump going out a traitor committing treason

Outgoing President Trump is not leaving office quietly January 20. He did not use Thanksgiving Day to give thanks for the blessings of American democracy and constitutional government. He doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on his claim he won the election, tho he lost decisively, by 6,160,000 human votes and 74 Electoral College votes. He said it would be a mistake for the Electoral College to certify Joe Biden’s election because Biden prevailed due to “massive fraud from crooked officials in battleground states”. They weren’t just crooked, they were “communists and enemies of the state”.

These are not the ravings of a bitter loser in private. They are a call to action for his 73 million voters to overturn the election. It’s working. They’ve created ‘Stop the Steal’, a campaign holding protest events nationwide. Sixty members marched in Chicago on Turkey Day, including Remy Del Rio Gonzales, president of the Chicago chapter of the Proud Boys extremist organization. ‘Four more years’ was the battle cry.

Trump said he’ll never accede to the election results if forced to leave office, which he laments appears inevitable. But if he had an epiphany and conceded today, the damage has been done. He’s dragged much of the Republican Party down into the mud of treachery and treason with him to ensure the Biden presidency is de-legitimized. Tho not mortal, it is a grievous wound to the fragile American political fabric from a traitor to everything our democracy should represent.

Enemies of the state, Mr. Trump? Look in the mirror.

Pompeo hammers final nail into coffin of Palestinian statehood, humanity

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is depressed. Palestinians aren’t buying his Mideast Peace Plan, ‘Vision For Peace’. Pompeo, just back from his Mideast visit, claims the Palestinian leaders are ungrateful. "If you look at the Vision for Peace we laid down, it clearly demarcated a brighter future for the Palestinian people, and yet the Palestinian leadership refused to even negotiate on its basis. That's unfortunate for the Palestinian people." Pompeo’s ‘brighter future’ for Palestinians includes end to a possible Palestinian state, inexorable Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land; indeed an endless future of statelessness, stolen resources and a struggle for survival against human rights abuses. If that’s what a ‘brighter future’ is, I’d hate to see the opposite.

When Trump and Pompeo’s Vision of Peace was announced, Palestinian leaders denounced it as the ‘Fraud of the Century’ to counter Pompeo's hyperbolic ‘Deal of the Century’. They refused to acquiesce in their bleak future in which they were excluded from the negotiations. Pompeo responded by withdrawing over $200 million in aid the desperately poor and dispossessed Palestinians require to survive. Pompeo is punishing the Palestinian leaders, claiming Palestinians overwhelmingly support the end of statehood dreams, tho the latest poll has Palestinian support for Pompeo’s plan at 6%.

Evangelical Pompeo, a church deacon who teaches Sunday School, sure has an odd way of showing his Christian concern for this fellow man. Then again, we learned all we need to know about his penchant to wreak havoc on the world stage from his 2005 quote during a church talk: “Politics is a never ending struggle….until the rapture”.

Come January 20, the American people will rapture Pompeo out of office.

End Yemen war now

Honored to sign this letter on behalf of West Suburban Peace Coalition to incoming President Joe Biden to end U.S. participation in Yemen war. A hundred thousand dead and 20 million living with degraded health and food insufficiency dishonors everything America should represent.

Walt

Dear President-Elect Joe Biden:

Congratulations on winning the presidency. We know that you have an enormous task ahead of you and that there are a number of critical domestic and foreign policy issues that need to be addressed on day one of your term. As organizations representing millions of Americans concerned about the grave crisis in Yemen, we urgently ask that you include bringing an end to U.S. participation in the war in Yemen.

The U.S.-supported, Saudi/UAE-led war in Yemen, which began in March 2015, includes the blockade of Yemen’s ports, the bombing of funerals, weddings, hospitals, civilians in marketplaces, residential areas, and more. Under President Trump, war-related deaths have spiked. Despite this, the Trump administration issued an emergency declaration to push through billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE without congressional approval, vetoed a bi-partisan War Pow­ers Resolution passed by bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress to end unauthorized U.S. participation in the war, and cut USAID funding to Yemen right as COVID-19 hit the country.

Before coronavirus, Yemen was already experiencing the largest human­i­tar­i­an crisis on the planet. A 2018 report from Save the Children estimated that 85,000 Yemeni children had starved to death and in October 2020, the UN reported that 100,000 children in southern Yemen alone could die of acute malnutrition if urgent humanitarian aid is not taken. Now COVID-19 is spreading virtually unchecked. The war has decimated Yemen's already vulnerable health care infrastructure and disrupted access to clean water, sanitary systems, sufficient nutrition and adequate shelter.

The Sau­di-led war in Yemen began during the Obama-Biden administration, but since then more than a dozen senior Obama administration officials -- including Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes and Jake Sullivan -- have called for an end to U.S. participation in the war. With President Trump departing the White House, the Biden-Harris administration has an historic opportunity to end U.S. complicity in this war the moment you come into office.

We appreciate your consistent pledge to end unauthorized U.S. participation in the war, and we urge you to immediately inform the other members of the Saudi-led coalition that you will do so on day one of your presidency. To truly end U.S. participation and complicity in the war in Yemen, you should take the following measures:

Heed the bipartisan votes of Congress indicating that the Executive Branch does not have authorization -- as required by our Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973 -- to participate in the Saudi war in Yemen, and commit to signing a new Yemen War Powers Resolution if it arrives at your desk;

End all war-related U.S. logistical support, targeting assistance, spare parts transfers, and intel to the Saudi-led coalition;

Stop all sales of weapons to members of the Saudi-led coalition that could be used in the war and encourage US allies and other countries to do the same;

Pressure the Saudi-led coalition to end their military actions in Yemen, lift the blockade of Yemen’s ports, allow entry of humanitarian aid and commercial imports, open Sana’a airport for civilian travel, and negotiate a nationwide ceasefire;

Restore and expand USAID funding to all parts of Yemen and recommit U.S. financial support to UN, WHO, and WFP relief programs in Yemen. Work with the international community to pressure Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to meet and expand their funding pledges for humanitarian assistance and post-conflict reconstruction of the country.

Ending U.S. participation in the war in Yemen and restoring vital humanitarian aid to address the war’s impact on the Yemeni people is a moral and legal obligation. It would be the first step in ending this catastrophe, caused in large part by actions of the Saudi-led coalition. Ending U.S participation would signal to millions of Yemenis living in Yemen and thousands of Yemeni-Americans who worry about their families in Yemen that weapon sales and geopolitical chess moves are not more important than their lives and the lives of their loved ones. It would be a monumental first achievement for your administration that would be praised by Americans across the ideological spectrum. It would also be an important sign that you will be an advocate for restraint, as you were during the Obama Administration when you opposed U.S. participation in the military intervention in Libya, the troop surge in Afghanistan, and other military-first approaches.

As organizations that are deeply distressed about the U.S. role in perpetuating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, we are counting on you to immediately fulfill your pledge to end U.S. military participation and weapon sales for the Saudi-led war. With countless new deaths from war and starvation every single day, the people of Yemen can’t afford to wait.

Sincerely,

Signers as of November 25, 2020:

West Suburban Peace Coalition

Action Corps

American Friends Service Committee

Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain

Avaaz

Beyond the Bomb

Brooklyn For Peace

Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security

CAPA DePaul

CCDS

Center for Economic and Policy Research

Center for International Policy

Chicago Area Peace Action

CODEPINK

Daily Kos

Demand Progress

Democracy for America

Democracy for the Middle East Now (DAWN)

Episcopal Peace Fellowship

Fellowship of Reconciliation

First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, MI

Franciscan Action Network

Freedom Forward

Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)

Grassroots Global Justice

Health Alliance International

Historians for Peace and Democracy

Indiana Center for Middle East Peace

Institute for Policy Studies, National Priorities Project

Institute for Policy Studies, New Internationalism Project

Islamophobia Studies Center

Israel Palestine Mission Network PCUSA

Interfaith Community Sanctuary

Jetpac Resource Center

Jewish Voice for Peace Action

Just Foreign Policy

Justice Is Global

Kairos Center

MADRE

Massachusetts Peace Action

MPower Change

Organization for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain

Our Revolution

Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace

PAX Christi USA

Peace Action

PEACEWORKERS

Presbyterian Church USA

Progressive Democrats of America

Project Blueprint

Raytheon anti-war Campaign

Rethinking Foreign Policy

Revolving Door Project

RootsAction.org

Saudi American Justice Project

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

Sisters of Mercy of the Americas - Justice Team

The International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)

The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society

Tunisian United Network

United African Congress

United for Peace and Justice

U.S. Labor Against Racism and War

Veterans For Peace

WESPAC Foundation, Inc.

Western New York Peace

Win Without War

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom-US

World BEYOND War

Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation

Yemeni Alliance Committee

Current lessons of Nuremberg ignored by Dodd

The title of former Senator Christopher Dodd’s New York Times op ed intrigued me. ‘The Lessons of Nuremberg Must Be Continually Relearned’. Maybe, I thought, a highly respected former senator would address America’s endless war crimes in the Middle East and Africa. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. abandoned all pretense of following the lessons of the Nuremberg war crime trials that held the Nazis responsible for aggressive war and its resulting millions of victims. Today, aggressive war with millions of victims remains the foundation of U.S. foreign policy. We may be on the brink of another aggressive war, this time against Iran.

Dodd was honoring his father Thomas J. Dodd, on the 75th anniversary of his address as prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Dodd quoted chief prosecutor Robert Jackson who told the Tribunal “These were crimes so ghastly that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated”.

But instead of calling out America’s senseless, perpetual wars these past 20 years that have slaughtered hundreds of thousands and sent tens of millions fleeing our bombs, Dodd offers simple platitudes that “The path of peace through the protection of human dignity for all is still before us. Human rights, the rule of law and even truth itself are threatened by continuing violence”. Whose violence, Senator Dodd? Not one word on the pass that America and the world has given to the George W. Bush, Obama and Trump administrations to completely ignore the lessons of Nuremberg. Dodd closes with “Today, the trial is an important reminder that facts matter, the truth matters and the rule of law matters.” Sadly, none of that truly matters to former Senator Christopher Dodd.

'Not A Promised Land'

Revised Obama book title in lands he bombed, killing untold thousands of innocents, 2009-2016: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia.