Despite President Obama’s talk about getting out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the U.S. military still has some 68,000 troops and almost 100,000 private contractors there, at a cost of $2 billion a week. And Obama is talking about a presence of U.S. troops, training missions, special forces operations, and bases for another decade. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of Americans think this war is not worth fighting, a sentiment echoed in a recent New York Times editorial “Time to Pack Up.” It is, indeed, time to pack up. The peace movement must push for withdrawal starting now—and definitely no long-term presence! Veteran’s Day should be a time to take a hard look at the impact of war on soldiers, particularly the epidemic of soldier suicide.  We must also look at the devastating impact of war on Afghan women and children, particularly as winter sets in. Despite the billions of dollars our government has poured into development projects, Afghan children are literally freezing to death.

American drone attacks are out of control, killing thousands in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, many of them civilians. Drones are sowing widespread anti-American sentiment and setting a dangerous precedent that will come back to haunt us. Anti-drones protests have sprung up all over the United States at air forces bases where the drones are piloted, at the headquarters of drone manufacturers, at the CIA and in Congressional offices. Our job now is to coordinate those efforts, to launch a massive public education campaign to reverse pro-drone public opinion, pass city resolutions against drone use, and to call on our elected officials to start respecting the rule of law. If we strengthen our ties with people in the nations most affected, as we have begun to do on our recent CODEPINK delegation to Pakistan, and join in with those at the UN bodies who are horrified by drone proliferation, we can make progress in setting some global standards for the use of lethal drones.

Also looming ominously is a possible Israeli attack on Iran that would draw the US into a devastating regional war. Almost 60 percent of Americans oppose joining Israel in a war with Iran. We must make sure Obama and Congress hear that voice above the din of AIPAC lobbyists gunning for war, and steer clear of dragging the US into yet another Middle Eastern conflict.  Public opinion campaigns such as the “Iranians We Love You” posters on busses in Tel Aviv, and cross-cultural exchanges in Iran and the US bring humanity to a tenuous political situation.  We also must renew efforts to oppose the crippling sanctions that are impacting everyday citizens in Iran, and rippling out to spike food prices elsewhere, including Afghanistan.

Perhaps hardest of all will be to get some traction on changing US policy towards Israel/Palestine. The grassroots movement to stop unconditional financial and political support for Israel is booming, with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation building networks across the country. Campaigns to boycott and divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation continue to win victories and attract global support. We’re unlikely to see the Obama administration and Congress condemning settlements, human rights abuses, or the ongoing siege of Gaza, much less cutting off the $3 billion a year that helps underwrite these abuses. But we can continue to shift public opinion and gain more allies in Congress, with an openness to reaching out to libertarians and fiscal conservatives calling for cuts in foreign aid.  In the aftermath of the election, Jewish Voice for Peace and interfaith allies have pledged to continue efforts to call for US aid to Israel to be conditioned on compliance with international law.

And then there’s the bloated Pentagon budget. At a time when the nation is looking at how best to allocate scarce resources, all eyes should be on the billions of dollars wasted on Pentagon policies and weapons that don’t make us safer. From the over 800 bases overseas to outdated Cold War weapons to monies given to repressive regimes, we need a rational look at the Pentagon budget that could free up billions for critical social and environmental programs.

Key to building a vibrant peace movement in the next four years is coalition-building, reaching out to a broad array of social justice groups to make the connections between their work and the billions drained from our economy for war. Environmentalists, women’s rights advocates, labor unions, civil rights—there are so many connections that have to be rekindled from the Bush years or started anew.

Finally, we have to provide alternatives to the worn narrative that the military interventions around the world are making us more secure. It’s time to demand alternatives like negotiations, creative diplomacy and a foreign policy gearing toward solving global problems, not perpetuating endless war. The UN declared November 10th “Malala Day” in honor of Pakistan’s 15-year-old Malala Yousefzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for supporting education for girls.  This tragedy awoke international commitments to ensuring girls can get to school, a relatively inexpensive goal with major returns for the advancement of women’s rights, health, prosperity, and security.  Wouldn’t it be nice to see our government prioritizing funds for school over drone warfare and endless weapons stockpiling?

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King. If we can connect these foreign policy issues with domestic needs and climate change, if we can follow the powerful examples of mass direct action movements from Chile to Egypt, and if enough people practice democracy daily rather than waiting until the next presidential election, then maybe–just maybe—we’ll be able to push the arc of Obama’s second term in the direction of peace and justice.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange, and is author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

Man Grieves the loss of family members, Photo Credit: Outlook Afghanistan

In 2002, inspired by the NYTimes portraits of individuals killed in the World Trade Center disaster, Global Exchange published a report called “Afghan Portraits of Grief,” which profiled the innocent victims of war, to expand the picture of the cost of our response to 9/11. Making the people’s stories come alive was so important to understanding the complexities and the suffering of war.

For the past two weeks as we’ve grappled with the horror of the massacre in the Kandahar province, I’ve been dismayed at the focus of the mainstream press. The press seems to be focusing almost entirely on the mind-set of Sergeant Bales and the effect of the massacre on US/Afghan relations without much mention of the actual victims who were all Afghan citizens, including nine children.

I set out to do a short piece about who the victims were — names, ages and any other details to humanize them so that we can feel and understand the real tragedy of this war…

AND I COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING!

We know that three homes were attacked in the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, which is in the Panjway District of Kandahar, 35 km west of the city of Kandahar. Rolling those names around on my tongue, though I’ve never been there I wondered what it looks like and who the people are who live there.

It’s an area in the southern part of Afghanistan, steep mountain views, but a mild climate where farmers are famous for their delicious grapes and pomegranates – where there is major trade in sheep’s wool, cotton, silk and dried fruit. They grow wheat and mulberries for silk worms, serve dried fruit and tea to their guests.

One Kandahar massacre victim was Abdul Samad*, a 60 year old farmer and village elder with a long white beard and turban. He and his teenage son had been visiting a nearby town when Sergeant Bales, disguised in local clothing – a Shalwar Kameez – climbed the fence at the base wearing night vision goggles, walked about 1 mile, and went house by house looking for an unlocked door.

Mr Samad’s family had recently returned to the area after fleeing during The Surge when his home had been destroyed. He moved into a neighbor’s house near the US army base because he thought it would be safer.

But that night – March 11th, eleven members of Abdul Samad’s family were killed:  His wife, four daughters between the ages of 2 and 6, four sons between the ages of 8 and 11, and two other relatives. Three were shot point blank and then set on fire.

Further down the road in the village of Najiban, Mohammad Dawoud, age 55 was killed. His wife and children escaped.

In Alkozi, at the home of 45 year old laborer Hajii Sayed, who had fled Kandahar three times during the years of fighting, four more people were killed: Alkozi’s wife, nephew, grandson and brother.

In total, sixteen people were killed, including nine children, four men, and three women. Five others were injured.

And for two weeks, I couldn’t even find their names! That is, until just as I got ready to post this, I find the names on Al Jazeera in a wonderful blog piece by Quais Azimy, “No one asked their names.”

Why did it take so long for the press to release the names of the victims? Until we can relate to the people hurt by our military we will continue to have innocent victims of war.

Mr. Samad who lost nine members of his family said the lesson was clear to him: “The Americans should leave.”

So *here are the names of the victims of the Kandahar massacre – with dignity and respect for lives cut too short:

Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
Khudaydad son of Mohamed JumaNazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeena
Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali

The wounded:
Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
Parween
Rafiullah
Zardana
Zulheja

*It is interesting that the one name I got from the New York Times. Abdul Samad is not here and instead is listed as Mohamed Wazir.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and President Barack Obama during the Defense Strategic Review, Jan. 5, 2012, at the Pentagon (Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP)

The following was written by Charles Davis and Medea Benjamin. Charles Davis has as covered Capitol Hill for public radio and the international news wire Inter Press Service. Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange.

In an age when U.S. power can be projected through private mercenary armies and unmanned Predator drones, the U.S. military need no longer rely on massive, conventional ground forces to pursue its imperial agenda, a fact President Barack Obama is now acknowledging. But make no mistake: while the tactics may be changing, the U.S. taxpayer – and poor foreigners abroad – will still be saddled with overblown military budgets and militaristic policies.

Speaking January 5 alongside his Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the president announced a shift in strategy for the American military, one that emphasizes aerial campaigns and proxy wars as opposed to “long-term nation-building with large military footprints.” This, to some pundits and politicians, is considered a tectonic shift.

Indeed, the way some on the left tell it, the strategy marks a radical departure from the imperial status quo. “Obama just repudiated the past decade of forever war policy,” gushed Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, calling the new strategy a “[s]lap in the face to the generals.”

Conservative hawks, meanwhile, predictably declared that the sky is falling. “This is a lead from behind strategy for a left-behind America,” cried hyperventilating California Republican Buck McKeon, chairman the House Armed Services Committee. “This strategy ensures American decline in exchange for more failed domestic programs.” In McKeon’s world, feeding the war machine is preferable to feeding poor people.

Unfortunately, though, rather than renouncing empire and endless war, Obama’s stated strategy for the military going forward just reaffirms the U.S. commitment to both. Rather than renouncing the last decade of war, it states that the bloody and disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan – gently termed “extended operations” – were pursued “to bring stability to those countries.”

And Leon Panetta assured the American public that even with the changes, the U.S. would still be able to fight two major wars at the same time—and win. And Obama assured America’s military contractors and coffin makers that their lifeline – U.S. taxpayers’ money – would still be funneled their way in obscene bucket loads.

“Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow,” the president told reporters, “but the fact of the matter is this: It will still grow.” In fact, he added with a touch of pride, it “will still be larger than it was toward the end of the Bush administration,” totaling more than $700 billion a year and accounting for about half of the average American’s incometax. So much for the Pentagon’s budget being slashed – like we were promised – the way lawmakers are trying to cut those “failed domestic programs.”

The U.S. could cut its military spending in half tomorrow and still spend more than three times as much as its next nearest rival, China. That’s because China, instead of waging wars of choice around the world, prefers projecting its might by investing in its own country. On the other hand, the U.S. under the leadership of Obama is beefing up its military presence in China’s backyard, more interested in projecting its dwindling power than rebuilding its economy.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once noted that every dollar going to the military is a dollar that can’t be used to provide food and shelter for those in need. Today’s obscene amount of military spending isn’t necessary if the administration wished to pursue the quaint goal of simply defending the country from invasion. Maintaining “the best-trained, best-equipped military in history,” as Obama says is his goal? That’s a different story – for a different purpose. Indeed, as Madeline Albright observed, possessing that kind of military might is no fun if you don’t get to use it, as Obama has with gusto in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Uganda.

The truth is that the Obama administration’s “new” strategy is more of the same—a reaffirmation of the U.S. government’s commitment to militarism for the all the usual reasons: to promote American hegemony and, by extension, the interests of politically connected capital. And U.S. officials aren’t shy about that.

Indeed, throughout the strategy document the ostensible purpose for having a military — to provide national security — repeatedly takes a backseat to promoting the economic interests of the U.S. elite that profits from empire. Repositioning U.S. forces “toward the Asia-Pacific region,” for instance – including the stationing of American soldiers in that hotbed of violent extremism, Australia – is cast not just as a means of ensuring peace and stability, but guaranteeing “the free flow of commerce.” Maintaining a global empire of bases from Europe to Okinawa isn’t necessary for self-defense, but according to Obama, ensuring – with guns – “the prosperity that flows from an open and free international economic system.”

Of course, that economic considerations shape U.S. foreign policy is nothing new. More than 25 years ago, President Jimmy Carter – that Jimmy Carter – declared in a State of the Union address that U.S. military force would be employed in the Persian Gulf, not for the cause of peace, freedom and apple pie, but to ensure “the free movement of Middle East oil.” And so it goes.

Far from affecting change, Obama is ensuring continuity. “U.S. policy will emphasize Gulf security,” states his new military strategy, in order to “prevent Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon capability and counter its destabilizing policies” — as if it’s Iran that has been destabilizing the region. And as Obama publicly proclaims his support for “political and economic reform” in the Middle East, just like every other U.S. president he not-so-privately backs their oppressors from Bahrain to Yemen and signs off on the biggest weapons deal in history to that bastion of democracy, Saudi Arabia.

Obama can talk all he wants about turning the page on a decade of war and occupation, but so long as he continues to fight wars and military occupy countries on the other side of the globe, talk is all it is. The facts, sadly, are this: since taking office Obama doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan; he fought to extend the U.S. occupation in Iraq– and partially succeeded; he dramatically expanded the use of killer drones from Pakistan to Somalia; and he requested military budgets that would make George W. Bush blush. If you want to see what his military strategy really is, forget what’s said at press conferences and in turgidly written Pentagon press releases. Just look at the record.

Early in 2002, Global Exchange, in response to the popular justification that we were at war “for the women of Afghanistan”, decided to see reality on the ground for ourselves. We convened a women’s delegation that included women who had left Afghanistan in the 1980s when the Soviet Union invaded, US women interested in women’s development and micro-finance, a concert producer and celebrity, all committed to spread the word after we got back. I represented Global Exchange.

Then there were no commercial flights into the country, so we got on a small UN plane loaded with equipment and UN officers sitting on small fold down seats and we held our breath as we descended between the steep mountains to the infamous runway in Kabul where Marla Ruzicka, our trip leader and friend on the ground, met us.  After landing, our bags were searched by candle light in a dark hangar before we emerged into the cold, high mountain air under the bluest sky and the brightest sun I’ve ever seen.

TT Nhu, a journalist from the Bay Area remembers:

“Our trip, organized on the fly, coalesced very quickly. As the plane descended into Kabul Airport, Katrin Fakiri and I held hands.  She was crying.  She had not expected to see Kabul in her lifetime.  ’All I want to do is to do something for my country,’ she said.  This is how her amazing journey in micro-finance began.

The city was just waking up from a long nightmare and the streets were empty. Only ancient yellow taxis and big white SUVS belonging to NGOs roamed the streets. Occasional women hurried along the streets filled with idling men.  Some soldiers in the U.S. Embassy across the way from the guest house unfurled a banner  “We Love You Bianca!” to welcome our most famous traveler, Bianca Jagger.”

Our visit was intense. We went to schools and orphanages, learned about mine sweeping operations in the Somali Plain, and Marla had us demonstrating outside the US embassy to insist that innocent victims of US bombing be compensated. We talked to refugees, teachers, nurses and journalists. We attended the International Women’s Day Celebrations under guard by US and European troops (all women that day) and the microfinance team even went to visit the completely empty Central Bank.

The trip, like so many of our Reality Tours,  established deep relationships across cultural and geographic distances for lasting change.  Three of the participants went on to establish Parwaz, the first Afghan-run microfinance organization, lending sums to women starting up small business enterprises. Katrin saw the needs of these women and ran it so successfully that she was asked to head all microfinance in Afghanistan, a role she still plays to the best of her ability in spite of the overwhelming obstacles of corruption and growing lack of security.

All of us were profoundly moved by the trip to Afghanistan, and the people we met, that we dedicated our lives to working for peace in different ways. Marla continued to advocate for justice for innocent victims of war and lost her life in Iraq doing that, Bianca founded the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and others have used their privilege and influence to tell the amazing story of a people’s resilience, of girl’s underground education during the Taliban days, of the meaning of juicy pomegranates and dusty orchards and to paint a human picture of the country’s trials and tribulations. It is those personal connections made in the heart and the mind that make life-long activists for peace.

We continue to coordinate annual trips to Afghanistan for International Women’s Day and our wonderful trip leader now is Najibullah Sedeqe. He sends this message:

“I would like to say thank you very much to you and to your colleagues (all Global Exchange) for sending Reality Tours to war affected countries, to see the realities with your own eyes and …. to share the information with your people.  Connecting people to people is very necessary …. to know each other better, each other’s culture and lives.. to avoid misunderstanding.. this will help the peace too. I appreciate the first visit of Global Exchange delegation to Afghanistan and for their hard work bringing us closer to each other, as we all are human and need this kind of relationship.”

This October 2011 and on this challenging anniversary, you can do something for the people of Afghanistan:

Tell the Senate: It’s long past time to stop the wars and bring our troops home.

The Senate plans to mark the tenth anniversary of the war by appropriating another $118 Billion more for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2012. Outraged people are marking it by occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington DC.  Join them if you can!

Call your Senators today: 1-877-429-0678.  (toll-free number kindly provided by FCNL)

Tell them to vote NO on the FY 2012 “Defense” Appropriations Bill.
The “Defense” budget (total $630 billion) is too expensive – bring our war dollars home.

1) Nonviolence Trainings on nonviolence, legal observation and peacekeeping by experienced trainers.
2) A music event at Bus Boys and Poets on Wednesday Night hosted by Code Pink, featuring Andy Shallal, Medea Benjamin, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, music by Dave Rovics and others.

You can find information about these and other events on the calendar here.

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“Call to Action for 10 Year Anniversary of Invasion of Afghanistan”

It’s been 10 years since the invasion of Afghanistan, an important time for us to take stock and get active. The war and neoliberal economic pressures have destroyed our foreign policy credibility and weakened our domestic budget. Now we are feeling the effects of this, so now is the time to join together and take action. Below are details about an urgent call to action happening next week.

People have been taking stands across the US this year –resistance to anti-union legislation in Wisconsin this spring, tar sands Keystone XL pipeline protests in August which resulted in over 1200 arrests for acts of civil disobedience, and thousands of people on the anniversary of 9/11 joined together for peace and an end to war.

So what’s next? A call to action on October 6th to Stop the Machine: Create a New World.

The October2011.org Team describes:

We are calling on people of conscience and courage—all who seek peace, economic justice, human rights and a healthy environment—to join together in Washington, D.C., beginning on Oct. 6, 2011, in nonviolent resistance similar to the Arab Spring and the Midwest awakening.

A concert, rally and protest will kick off a powerful and sustained nonviolent resistance to the corporate criminals that dominate our government.

We are the ones who can create a new and just world. Our issues are connected. We are connected. Join us in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6, 2011, to Stop the Machine.

Here are 3 key things to know about this event:
1.      It is going to be huge and historic.  Thousands have already signed up to join us in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. You are going to want to tell everyone you know you were part of this.  You are going to want your children and grandchildren to know you helped ignite the change to a new world.
2.      This event is critically important.  Our nation is at a crossroads.  We need to get off the wrong path and on to the right one.  We need to end the dominance of government by the political and economic elite when it is obvious that the people can do a better job.  We need to create an economic system where we participate, a government that responds to the people and a nation that puts the people’s needs before human greed.
3.      It begins soon.  In less than two weeks thousands will gather to begin a multi-day encampment that builds on the revolts being seen in Egypt, Tunisia, Span and Greece, as well as Madison, WI and Wall Street, NY.  The time is right for this moment in history.  The beginning of a massive movement to create a country that reaches its’ ideals, that becomes the more perfect union that then nation has always sought to be.

People will look back at this event and see it as the beginning – the turning point when the people demanded that the country move from militarism and war to diplomacy and cooperation; from funneling money to the wealthiest 1% to sharing the nation’s prosperity among each of us; and from environmental degradation to the planet’s renewal. It is our responsibility to get this Nation on the right track. You need to be part of this. Join in at the Freedom Plaza starting on October 6.

TAKE ACTION
Learn more about the 15 core issues.
Take the pledge and sign up to attend here.

THE PLEDGE
“I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza http://october2011.org/freedomplaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America’s resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning.” Once again, here’s a link to take the pledge.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was given a multi-million contract to write a book about his political career. According to Cheney’s media hype, the book, called In My Time, will have “heads exploding all over Washington.” The Darth Vader of the Bush administration offers no apologies and feels no remorse. But peace activists around the country are stealthily gearing up to visit bookstores, grab a stack of books, and deposit them where they belong—the Crime Section.

Here are ten of Cheney’s many offenses to inspire you to move Cheney’s book, and to insert these bookmarks explaining why the author of In My Time should be “doin’ time.”

1.   Cheney lied; Iraqis and U.S. soldiers died. As Vice President, Cheney lied about (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) ties to the 9/11 attack as a way to justify a war with a country that never attacked us. Thanks to Cheney and company, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and over 4,000 American soldiers perished in a war that should never have been fought.

2.   Committing War Crimes in Iraq. During the course of the Iraq war, the Bush/Cheney administration violated the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.

3.   War profiteering. U.S. taxpayers shelled out about three trillion dollars for the Bush/Cheney wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—a major factor in our nation’s present economic meltdown. But Cheney and his cronies at Halliburton made out like bandits, getting billions in contracts for everything from feeding troops in Iraq to constructing the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan to building the infamous Guantanamo prison. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995-2000, leaving for the VP position with a $20 million retirement package, plus millions in stock options and deferred salary. Before the Iraq War began, Halliburton was 19th on the U.S. Army’s list of top contractors; with Cheney’s help, by 2003 it was number one—increasing the value of Cheney’s stocks by over 3,000%.

4. Violating basic rights. Cheney shares responsibility for holding thousands of prisoners without charges and without the fundamental right to the writ of habeas corpus, and for keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.  He sanctioned kidnapping people and simply rendering them to secret overseas prisons. His authorization of the arbitrary detention of Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans–without due process, without charges, and without access to counsel–was in gross violation of U.S. and international law. A fan of indefinite detention in Guantanamo, Cheney writes in his book that he has been “happy to note” that President Obama failed to honor his pledge to close the Guantánamo prison.

5. Advocating torture. Cheney was a prime mover behind the Bush administration’s decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by the U.S. military by supporting “enhanced interrogation techniques.” This led to hundreds of documented cases in Iraq and Afghanistan of abuse, torture and homicide. The torture included the practice known as “water-boarding,” a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding. The sanctioning of abuses from the top trickled down, as the whole world saw in the photos from Abu Ghraib, becoming a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and sullying the reputation of our nation.

6. Trying to prolong the Afghan war. Not content with the damage he caused as VP, Cheney continues to encourage more grist for the war machine. In his book he criticizes President Obama’s decision to withdraw, by September 2012, the 33,000 additional troops Obama sent to Afghanistan in 2009. He has also cautioned Obama not to pull out all the troops from Afghanistan at the planned date of 2014. “I don’t think we need to run for the exits,” he told Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace.

7. Abusing executive privilege: Cheney used executive privilege to refuse to comply with over a dozen Congressional subpoenas related to improper firing of Federal attorneys, torture, election violations and exposing—for political retribution–the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation.

8. Spying on us. Cheney was the mastermind behind the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program that spied on thousands, perhaps millions of American citizens on American soil. This massive government interference with personal phone calls and emails was in violation of FISA (theForeign Intelligence Surveillance Act), the Federal Telecommunications Act, and 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

9. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. When Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the company skirted the law against investing in Iran by using a phony offshore subsidiary. Once VP, however, Cheney advocated bombing Iran. “I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues,” Cheney said in response to questions about whether the Bush administration should have launched a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities prior to handing over the White House to Barack Obama. Cheney thinks Obama is too soft on Iran, and has said that the only way for diplomacy with Iran to work is if Obama alsothreatens to bomb the country. Negotiations are “bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible” in threatening military action against Iran, he said. It seems that wars with Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, plus drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen, are not enough to satisfy Cheney’s war addiction. But wait, there’s more….

10. Favored bombing Syria—and North Korea—instead of negotiating. One of the key anecdotes in Cheney’s memoir is his recollection of a session with the National Security Council in 2007, when he advised Bush to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site. “After I finished,” he writes, “the president asked, ‘Does anyone here agree with the vice president?’ Not a single hand went up around the room.” Luckily, Cheney’s advice was dismissed in favor of a diplomatic approach (although the Israelis bombed the site in September 2007). As for North Korea, in his book, Cheney calls former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice naive for trying to forge a nuclear weapons agreement with North Korea.

Enough? Since President Obama is not interested in holding Cheney accountable, the least we can do is show our disgust by dumping his books in the Crime section and inserting this bookmark. And if you happen to be lucky and catch one of Cheney’s book signings, bring along a pair of handcuffs.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of the human rights group Global Exchange and the peace group CODEPINK.

The following post was written by Global Exchange Co-founder Medea Benjamin and originally appeared on The Huffington Post:

—

The 38 deaths in Saturday’s helicopter crash in Afghanistan include 31 Americans, making this the deadliest day for U.S. forces since the war began. The tragic loss of American lives might be worth the sacrifice if it was making America safer, or if our presence was significantly improving the well-being of the Afghan people. But neither of these is true.

Our presence in Afghanistan is not making us safer because Afghanistan is not a threat to us. This was clearly acknowledged by a senior Obama administration official in a background briefing to reporters on June 21.“United States hasn’t seen a terrorist threat from Afghanistan, for the past seven or eight years,” he said. He noted that Al Qaeda had moved on to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Meanwhile, thanks to President Obama’s surge, over 100,000 U.S. troops are bogged down chasing an indigenous Afghan ragtag army, the Taliban, which has no interest in attacking anyone inside the United States. The only reason they are attacking U.S. soldiers is that U.S. soldiers are occupying their country.

Even if there were a reason for U.S. forces to fight the Taliban, our presence only strengthens them. The Obama Administration has been trying to convince the American people that the surge in U.S. troops has been successful in weakening the Taliban. But a recent string of high-profile attacks that the Taliban have taken credit for belie that rosy assessment. The killing of Kandahar’s police chief, Kandahar’s mayor, President Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, a top presidential aide, and the deadly attack on the seemingly secure Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul—and now this helicopter downing–show that the Taliban are far from defeated.

The truth is that the presence of foreign forces gives the Taliban its raison d’etre. Every time NATO forces kill Afghan citizens, the Taliban benefits. And that happens all the time. In fact, the very day the helicopter was shot down, August 2, NATO troops attacked a house in southern Helmand province and “inadvertently killed eight members of a family, including women and children.” You can bet that the some of their relatives will soon be placing IEDs along the road to blow up U.S. tanks.

The Taliban have learned to downplay their unpopular fundamentalist ideology and take advantage of this popular discontent. Look at the case of In Wardak province, where the helicopter crashed. The Taliban had disappeared for several years, fleeing to Pakistan from 2002-2005. But capitalizing on the local anger about civilian casualties caused by NATO forces and anger at corrupt politicians, the Taliban returned and rebuilt, maintaining a stronghold in a province that borders Kabul.

The U.S. presence supports the Taliban in even more direct ways. Millions of dollars from U.S. contracts to Afghan trucking companies that supply U.S. troops have gone to bribe Taliban fighters not to attack the convoys. So U.S. taxdollars pay our enemies, who use these resources to buy weapons to kill our soldiers.

As for the well-being of the Afghans, our billions in development aid has done little to lift poor Afghans out of poverty. An in-depth report on Afghanistan just released by the International Crisis Group found that after 10 years of massive security, development and humanitarian assistance, “the international community has failed to achieve a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan. Despite billions of dollars in aid, state institutions remain fragile and unable to provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population or guarantee human security.” The report found that development funds distort the local economy and often contribute to instability.

So our presence has created financial and political conditions that strengthen the Taliban and leave Afghans in poverty. Our troops are being sacrificed to prop up a corrupt Afghan government that is not supported by its people. Precious resources are wasted on failed development projects while our own schools, roads and bridges are crumbling from lack of funds. This senseless waste of U.S. lives and resources, which is directly contributing to the catastrophic U.S. financial decline, is just what Osama bin Laden wanted to see happen.

The Obama administration is planning to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, leaving a huge force of 90,000 troops still fighting this unwinnable war. The deaths of these 31 Americans, and the more than 2,600 U.S. soldiers who have died in this quagmire, should raise a renewed debate about our presence in Afghanistan.

Let’s tell President Obama that the best way to pay tribute to the soldiers who have died—and to address our financial crisis–is to bring the rest of the troops home.

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Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK. For info about upcoming protest of 10 years of Afghan war, see October2011.org.

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis.

After campaigning as the candidate of change, the man awarded a Nobel Prize for peace has given the world nothing but more war. Yet despite Barack Obama’s continuation – nay, escalation – of the worst aspects of George W. Bush’s foreign policy, including his very own illegal war in Libya, you’d be hard-pressed to find the large-scale protests and outrage from the liberal establishment that characterized his predecessor’s reign (and only seems to pop up when a Republican’s the one dropping the bombs).

That’s not for a lack of things to protest. Since taking office, Obama has doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan and now looks set to break his pledge to begin a significant withdrawal in July. He has unilaterally committed the nation to an unapologetically illegal war in Libya and in two years has authorized more drone strikes in Pakistan than his predecessor authorized in two terms, with one in three of their victims reportedly civilians. In Yemen, he has targeted a U.S. citizen for assassination and approved a cluster bomb strike that, according to Amnesty International, killed 35 innocent women and children.

But these war crimes, which ought to shock the consciences of the president’s liberal supporters, haven’t spurred the sort of popular protest we witnessed under Bush the Lesser. At a recent congressional hearing on the bloated war budget, a handful of CODEPINK activists were the sole dissenters. Thousands poured into the streets to cheer Osama bin Laden’s death, but no Americans were in the streets decrying the drone attack that killed dozens of Pakistani civilians weeks earlier.

While die-hard grassroots peace activists continue to bravely protest U.S. militarism, with 52 people arrested last month protesting outside a nuclear weapons factory in Kansas City – if they’d been Tea Partiers protesting Obamacare, you may have heard of them – there’s no denying that the peace movement has taken a beating.

The question is, why? Part of the reason is the financial crisis. It’s hard to protest war when the bank’s foreclosing on your house. And it’s hard to find money for a trip to Washington, DC, when, like 14 million Americans, you’re unemployed.

War has also become normal – routine, boring – to many Americans, with U.S. troops stationed for nearly ten years in Afghanistan and eight in Iraq. And after the first volley of smart bombs, wars are barely covered by the media, eclipsed by the latest scandal involving a politician’s privates. Beyond apathy, many who once took to the street may now no longer see the value of protest in the face of the enormous power of the military-industrial complex.

But a recent study suggests that a major reason why the antiwar movement has withered even as the warfare state has grown is simply that the party in charge has changed.

After surveying 5,398 demonstrators between 2007 to 2009, the University of Michigan’s Michael T. Heaney and Indiana University’s Fabio Rojas found that prior to Obama’s election, up to 54 percent of antiwar protesters were self-described Democrats. After his inauguration, that number fell to less than a quarter.

“Democratic activists left the antiwar movement as the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success,” the researchers write. That is, Democrats successfully “exploit[ed] the antiwar movement for their own electoral success,” and many of their supporters took that as a victory in and of itself.

Instead of continuing the hard work of organizing and protesting unjust wars, too many people took the election of politicians with “D”s after their name as their own Mission Accomplished. Instead of continuing direct action, too many were content voting for “their” team and calling it a day, never mind the policies those they voted into office continued once in power.

It’s worth recounting just how Democrats have rewarded their antiwar supporters. In 2006, riding public anger over the war in Iraq to take back control of the House for the first time in a dozen years, Democrats had a mandate for change – and then turned around and consistently funded the war they claimed to oppose. The most congressional Democrats have done is offer a resolution requesting a “plan” for ending the war in Afghanistan, all the while dutifully approving the funds to fight it.

We know how Obama has governed after likewise cynically riding antiwar sentiment into the White House.

Once casting themselves as brave opponents of the warfare state, many Democrats have rejected their rhetorical support for peace just as thoroughly as their once-upon-a-time opposition to the Patriot Act. When Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich offered a measure condemning Obama’s illegal, undeclared war in Libya and demanding a withdrawal of all U.S. forces within two weeks, he was joined by more Republicans than he was his fellow Democrats. Nancy Pelosi, channeling every right-winger during the Bush years, even claimed lawmakers who opposed the president’s unilateral war policy would send the “wrong message” to the U.S.’s NATO allies. The former speaker of the House is seemingly more concerned about hurt feelings than dead civilians, taxpayer money or the Constitution.

Even the recent House vote to block the president from spending funds “in contravention of the War Powers Act” – meaning Libya – received more votes from Republicans than Democrats. Who says elections don’t change anything?

Democratic voters who genuinely believe in peace should know that ending the U.S.’s addiction to war requires more than spending a few minutes in the ballot box. The only change voting has brought in recent years is the party approving the money for war and the name of the president requesting it.

If voting isn’t changing things – and it’s not – it’s time we considered changing our tactics.

Obama, after all, whose campaign cast him as the most peaceful of the major party candidates, has committed acts of war in no less than half-a-dozen countries (that we know about): Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. Under Obama, the U.S. aids and abets Israeli war crimes to the tune of more than $3 billion a year in military aid, all while vigorously fighting international attempts to hold accountable those responsible for the slaughter of civilians in Gaza. And Guantanamo Bay? Still open.

But Obama has done more than disappoint the antiwar movement: he’s actively attacked it, using the power of the state to harass and intimidate peace activists, 23 of whom have had their homes and offices raided by the FBI. The pretense? That a group of pacifists may have provided “material support” to terrorists, a charge so slippery and ill-defined that the ACLU warns it can include a conversation on the need to embrace non-violence.

More war and the threat of prosecution to intimidate those who oppose these wars – or expose them, in the case of alleged WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning: that’s what Obama’s election has wrought. Was his rise to power really such a progressive victory?

Occasional rhetorical flourishes aside, Democrats and Republicans reliably back the killing of poor people on the other side of the globe in the name of “regional stability” and perceived U.S. national (read: corporate) interests. As they’ve made painstakingly clear over the years, neither is a friend of peace, especially when one of their own is making war.

If change is to come to U.S. foreign policy, it won’t be thanks to any politician, but to direct action and organizing of the sort that won African Americans and other minorities their civil rights. We already have public opinion on our side — 2/3 of Americans consistently say they want to get out of the wars. We now have to make the voice of the silent majority heard.

Rather than devoting time, money and energy into electing politicians who will betray the values of peace, we should organize and energize a new peace movement that values direct action over access to power; real and lasting peace over disingenuous politicians. Instead of waiting – and waiting – for politicians to buck party and power, we should make alliances with labor activists, environmentalists and advocates for the poor who have some pretty good ideas on protest and civil disobedience – and on what to do with the $2 billion the U.S. government wastes every week on the Afghan war alone. If we build a strong enough movement, politicians will figure out which way the wind is blowing.

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

photo: Reuters/Jim Young

Given that President Obama daily authorizes the firing of hellfire missiles and the dropping of cluster bombs in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, it was awful odd seeing him wax eloquent this week about the “moral force of non-violence” in places like Egypt and Tunisia. But there he was, the commander-in-chief of the largest empire in history, praising the power of peaceful protest in countries with repressive leaders backed by his own administration.

Were we unfamiliar with his actual policies – more than doubling the troops in Afghanistan, dramatically escalating a deadly drone war in Pakistan and unilaterally bombing for peace in Libya – it might have been inspiring to hear a major head of state reject violence as a means to political ends. Instead, we almost choked on the hypocrisy.

Cast beforehand as a major address on the Middle East, what President Obama offered with his speech on Thursday was nothing more than a reprisal of his 2009 address in Cairo: a lot of rhetoric about U.S. support for peace and freedom in the region contradicted by the actual – and bipartisan – U.S. policy over the past half-century of supporting ruthless authoritarian regimes. Yet even for all his talk of human rights and how he “will not tolerate aggression across borders” – yes, a U.S. president said this – Obama didn’t even feign concern about Saudi Arabia’s repressive regime invading neighboring Bahrain to put down a pro-democracy movement there. In fact, the words “Saudi Arabia” were never uttered.

It was that kind of speech: scathing condemnations of human rights abuses by the U.S.’s Official Enemies in places like Iran and Syria and muted criticism – if any – of the gross violations of human decency carried out by its dictatorial friends in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen.

Obama predictably glossed over the reality of U.S. policy and, in an audacious attempt to rewrite history, portrayed his administration as being supportive of the fall of tyrannical governments across the Middle East and North Africa, ludicrously suggesting he had supported regime change in Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt – a claim betrayed by the $1.3 billion a year in military aid his administration provided to Mubarak’s regime right up until the moment he resigned. The president’s revisionism might fool a few cable news personalities – what wouldn’t – but it won’t fool Egyptians, less than one in five of whom even want the closer relationship with the U.S. that Obama offered in his speech, at least one that involves more military aid and neoliberal reforms imposed by the International Monetary Fund.

And Obama’s remarks shouldn’t fool their primary audience: American voters.

Contrary to the rhetoric of Obama’s speech, if the U.S. has sided with Middle Eastern publics against their brutal dictators it has not been because of their dictators’ brutality, which in the case of Mubarak was seen as a plus in the age of the war on terror. Nor has that support for the oppressed come in the form of – hold your laughter – non-violence. Rhetoric of change aside, how best to use the liberating power of bullets and bombs continues to be the guiding principle of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

And Obama certainly isn’t apologizing for that. In his speech called the war in Iraq, which conservatively speaking has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, “costly and difficult” – and, grotesquely, “well intended” – but that was as much an acknowledgement as he was willing to make of the deadly failure of U.S. policy toward the region in recent decades. Indeed, Obama argued it was not a failure of policy but merely a failure of rhetoric, a “failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people” that had prompted the “suspicion” the U.S. pursues its own interests at the expense of those living in the countries it invades or whose dictators it supports.

But the truth of these suspicions was evident when Obama explained why the U.S.’s supposed national interests were at stake in the Middle East, claiming that “our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security.” Notice which came first (and just so you know: both have to do with oil).

The president also didn’t deviate from his policy of “unshakable” support for Israeli militarism, typified by his administration’s efforts to safeguard the Jewish state from accountability for its war crimes in Gaza – crimes that left some 1,400 Palestinians dead – and his determination to hand an already wealthy nation more than $3 billion a year in military aid, even as it flaunts the “peace process” and colonizes ever more Palestinian land.

Though typical of his first two years in office, Obama’s duplicity was more evident – and his rhetoric more sloppy – than usual. Mere seconds after proclaiming that “every state has the right to self-defense,” Obama called for the creation of a “sovereign, non-militarized state” for Palestinians, meaning one incapable of defending itself. And while he spoke of Israeli parents fearing their children “could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes,” he did not deign to mention the much for frequent and deadly Israeli violence perpetrated against Palestinians, saying only that the latter suffered “the humiliation of occupation,” as if Palestinian parents feel embarrassment, not pain, at the loss of child killed by an Israeli strike.

Obama’s remarks on the killing of Osama bin Laden were likewise delivered with a complete lack of self-awareness. Describing the latter as a “mass murderer,” Obama – who since taking office has the blood of hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani civilians on his hands – said bin Laden’s philosophy of using bloodshed to achieve desired political changes had been discredited “through the moral force of non-violence” that has swept the region. Peaceful protests, Obama proclaimed, had “achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades” – and more than decades of U.S. wars and occupations, he might have added.

Talking up the virtues of peaceful protest is great and all, but the pretty words lack their power coming from the commander-in-chief of the most lethal and widely deployed military force in world history. Mr. Obama, if you want talk about the evils of violence, great – but follow your own advice.

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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 public radio and the international news wire Inter Press Service.

Photo Credit: CODEPINK

The following originally appeared on our sister organization CODEPINK’s website and was written by CODEPINK/Global Exchange Co-founder Medea Benjamin:

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The death of Osama Bin Laden should be a time of profound reflection. With his death, we remember and mourn all the lives lost on September 11. We remember and mourn all the lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. We remember and mourn the death of our soldiers. And we say, “Enough.”

There was never any justification for invading Iraq. Our troops must come home now—all of them.

With Al-Qaeda driven out of Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden dead, there is no justification for continuing the war in Afghanistan. Our soldiers—and contractors—must leave, now, opening the path for Afghan government and the Taliban to negotiate a ceasefire.

Our drone attacks in Pakistan are only fueling the violence and creating more Osama Bin Ladens. We must stop these barbaric attacks, now!

You can read more about my take on the death of Osama Bin Laden in the Huffington Post article Osama Bin Laden Is Dead; Let the Peace Begin.

Our military, and our federal budget, must focus on rebuilding at home, not making new enemies abroad. Let us give meaning to the death of Osama Bin Laden by calling on President Obama to put an end to the violence.

TAKE ACTION!

Make your voice heard. Visit the CODEPINK website to send a letter or make a phone call to President Obama asking him to “Let the Peace Begin.”