COMMON DREAMS– 235 years after the American colonies declared independence from Britain, the passenegers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza call for a new American Declaration of Independence, this time from Israel.

The passengers issued their call from the decks of the U.S.-flagged boat, The Audacity of Hope, which is currently confined to a Greek military pier near Athens, while its captain sits in jail.

Like the Founders in Philadelphia, the passengers in Athens recognize that “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them to another, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separataion.”

Just as the Founders cited “a long train of abuses and usurpations” committed by the British, The Audacity of Hope passengers detailed the Israeli abuses motivating their call for U.S. independence:

*For generations Israel has engaged in a systematic campaign to disposess Palestinians of their lands and drive them from their ancestral homes.

*Since 1967 Israel has occupied East Jerusalem the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights in open defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. Residents of these occupied territories have been subjected to numerous forms of mistreatment, including military attacks, arbitrary arrests, home demolitions, and the confiscation of vast areas for the construction of illegal Jewish-only settlements and roads.
    
*Since the mid-1990s Israel has imposed an ever-tightening regime of economic strangulation on the Gaza Strip. Since 2006 in particular the 1.5 million people of Gaza have been kept in isolaton and under siege, with severely limited access to medical care, clean water, and construction materials needed to rebuild after Israeli military attacks. They have been prevented from fishing in their coastal waters, growing crops on much of their farmland, or exporting almost anything.
   
*Israel has used its powerful influence inside the U.S. to secure Washington’s backing for these illegal and counterproductive policies. In addition to more than $3 billlion per year of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military aid, Israel has gained uncritical American diplomatic support, including repeated use of the American veto in the Security Council to stymy any U.N. effort to enforce international law and to hold Israel accountble for its crimes.
   
*In recent years Israel has reacted with brutal violence against international as well as Palestinian and Israeli activists who have dared to step in where the U.S. and the U.N. have feared to tread. On May 31, 2010, Israel’s vicious assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters caused the deaths of nine unarmed human-rights volunteers, including the 19-year-old American citizen Furkan Dogan.
   
*This year Israel, in collusion with the U.S., has deployed a variety of economic, diplomatic, and other pressure tactics to undermine the sovereignty of Greece, Turkey, and other nations and force them to obstruct the Gaza Freedom Flotilla II in defiance of their own maritime regulations and procedures. In addition, Israel has carried out a campaign of unbridled distortion and defamation against the organizers and participants in this year’s flotilla. When that failed, Israel’s agents resorted to life-threatening sabotage operations against at least two of the flotilla’s ships.

“In light of this long – but still very partial – list of abuses and usurpations committed by Israel, it’s past time for the U.S. to end its ‘special relationship’ with Israel and declare its independence from that country,” said a letter that the passengers will deliver to the U.S. Embassy in Greece on July 4. “Just as the original American Declaration of Independence inspired popular sturuggles for independence and democracy all over the world, we humbly call on other countries that have been subjected to Israeli pressure and manipulation, particularly Greece and Turkey, to join us in our campaign to rid our country of this scourge.”

© 2011 Common Dreams

Photo by Flickr user gitsul

TRUTHDIG– The most important moral and intellectual voices within a disintegrating society are slowly discredited when their nonviolent protests and calls for justice cannot alter intransigent and corrupt systems of power. The repeated acts of peaceful civil disobedience, efforts at electoral and political reform and the fight to protect the rule of law are dismissed as useless by an embittered, dispossessed and betrayed public. The demagogues and hatemongers, the purveyors of violence, easily seduce enraged and bewildered masses in the final stages of collapse with false promises of vengeance, new glory and moral renewal. And in the spiral downward the good among us are reviled as naive and ineffectual fools.

There is no shortage of courageous dissidents in America. They seek to thwart the imperial disasters, looming financial insolvency and suicidal addiction to fossil fuel. They have stood in small knots on street corners week after week, month after month, year after year, to denounce the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have occupied banks, shut down coal-fired power plants, attempted to halt mountaintop removal, interfered with whaling ships and walked in blustery weather to the White House, where they were arrested. They are struggling to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza on a ship called the Audacity of Hope. But because the corporate state and the two major political parties are indifferent to principled calls for reform, and because the mass of the public still buys into the myths of globalization and the American dream, the plundering and destruction continue unimpeded.

When most Americans face the nightmare before us, when they realize the irreversible devastation unleashed on the ecosystem and the economic misery from which they cannot escape, violence will have a broad and terrifying appeal. Those of us who demand a return to the rule of law and remain steadfast to nonviolence will find ourselves cast aside—the useful idiots Lenin so despised. I watched this happen in the social and political implosions in El Salvador, Guatemala, the Palestinian territories, Algeria, Bosnia and Kosovo. I watched the same cocktail of despair, economic collapse and callousness from a corrupt power elite mix itself into potent brews of civil strife. I watched the same untiring efforts by those who detested the violence and cruelty of the state, and the nascent violence and intolerance of the radical opposition. I covered as a reporter the disintegration that tore these societies apart. Those who held fast to moral imperatives, including Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and Ibrahim Rugova in Kosovo, were thrust aside and replaced with killers on both sides of the divide who embraced violence.

Continue reading about Hedges: Nader is Tired of Running for President.

Written by Chris Hedges

© 2011 Truthdig

Photo by Flickr user Nick Bygon

MEDIA ROOTS- The following contains the full transcript of President Obama’s June 22 speech regarding the troop pullout in Afghanistan. All additional commentary is italicized.

President Obama on June 22, 2011

***

BARACK OBAMA: Good evening.  Nearly 10 years ago, America suffered the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. This mass murder was planned by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and signaled a new threat to our security– one in which the targets were no longer soldiers on a battlefield, but innocent men, women and children going about their daily lives.

We can’t actually go to trial to prove Al Qaeda’s involvement because Leon Panetta supposedly had OBL murdered by special operations trained killers. How do you like that for due process?

BO: In the days that followed, our nation was united as we struck at al Qaeda and routed the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Thanks to the dutiful stenographer-like news-casters and cowardly political elites, the Bush administration was able to amplify and carry the trauma onto millions of Americans. People whose lives would otherwise have been unaffected were suddenly subjected to fear, paranoia, anxiety, PTSD, anger, hate and manipulation.

BO: Then, our focus shifted. A second war was launched in Iraq, and we spent enormous blood and treasure to support a new government there. By the time I took office, the war in Afghanistan had entered its seventh year.

Let me just gloss over the million or so deaths in Iraq that were attributable to America’s invasion and the trillions of dollars pissed away to private contractors.

BO: But al Qaeda’s leaders had escaped into Pakistan and were plotting new attacks, while the Taliban had regrouped and gone on the offensive. Without a new strategy and decisive action, our military commanders warned that we could face a resurgent al Qaeda, and a Taliban taking over large parts of Afghanistan. For this reason, in one of the most difficult decisions that I’ve made as President, I ordered an additional 30,000 American troops into Afghanistan. When I announced this surge at West Point, we set clear objectives: to refocus on al Qaeda; reverse the Taliban’s momentum; and train Afghan Security Forces to defend their own country.

Some might say that the American and Coalition presence in Afghanistan and Iraq are to strategically control the resources there: oil, minerals, opium, etc.  Well, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

BO: I also made it clear that our commitment would not be open-ended, and that we would begin to drawdown our forces this July. [Nothing on the ground has really changed, but hey, it’s an election year.  I can’t spin my December 2009 escalation of troops in Afghanistan as having been effective if I don’t declare that we’ll be de-escalating now.] Tonight, I can tell you that we are fulfilling that commitment. Thanks to our men and women in uniform [To whom you should all be grateful — man, it’s easy to use the troops as props and political human shields — just tell your critics that they’re not supporting the troops no one will dare disagree with you!] our civilian personnel, and our many coalition partners, we are meeting our goals.

As a result, starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point.

Notice how I cleverly don’t mention the amount of troops that would be left on the ground? Even after this fantasy withdrawal, there will still be 70,000 troops and even more contractors in Afghanistan, just as there are in Iraq.

BO: After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security. We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11. Together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of al Qaeda’s leadership.

Nevermind that the global “War on Terror”— yes, the phrase which I retired rhetorically but in all other ways supported— has created more terrorists worldwide, more threats to US security, and has even caused the US government to turn on its own people.

BO: And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Osama bin Laden, the only leader that al Qaeda had ever known. This was a victory for all who have served since 9/11.

The killing of one man has been worth spending trillions on the illegal, immoral US wars that have killed more than a million civilians?

BO: One soldier summed it up well. “The message,” he said, “is we don’t forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes.” [Isn’t that cute?  This anonymous soldier thinks there’s accountability in this world.]

The information that we recovered from bin Laden’s compound shows al Qaeda under enormous strain. Bin Laden expressed concern that al Qaeda has been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that have been killed, and that al Qaeda has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam – thereby draining more widespread support. [I’m counting on you to not try and verify anything I’m saying by actually talking with people who might be brown and from other countries.]. 

BO: Al Qaeda remains dangerous, and we must be vigilant against attacks. But we have put al Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done. [We will also keep killing, exploiting, torturing and waging war on people all over the world, and then pretend to express shock and incompetence when these victims retaliate.] In Afghanistan, we’ve inflicted serious losses on the Taliban [and in Mcchyrstal’s words, an “amazing number of people” who were not threats] and taken a number of its strongholds. Along with our surge, our allies also increased their commitments, which helped [de-] stabilize more of the country. Afghan Security Forces have grown by over 100,000 troops, and in some provinces and municipalities we have already begun to transition responsibility for security to the Afghan people.

In the face of violence and intimidation, Afghans are fighting and dying for their country [and mainly to kick us out of their country], establishing local police forces, opening markets and schools, creating new opportunities for women and girls, and trying to turn the page on decades of war. Of course, huge challenges remain. This is the beginning – but not the end – of our effort to wind down this war. We will have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we have made [don’t ask for specifics about the “gains” I am referring to], while we drawdown our forces and transition responsibility for security to the Afghan government. And next May, in Chicago, we will host a summit with our NATO allies and partners to shape the next phase of this transition.

We do know that peace cannot come to a land that has known so much war without a political settlement. So as we strengthen the Afghan government and Security Forces, America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban. [Is that why we are paying members of the Taliban to “switch” to our side?] Our position on these talks is clear: they must be led by the Afghan government, and those who want to be a part of a peaceful Afghanistan must break from al Qaeda, abandon violence, and abide by the Afghan Constitution. But, in part because of our military effort, we have reason to believe that progress can be made.

The goal that we seek is achievable, and can be expressed simply: no safe-haven from which al Qaeda or its affiliates can launch attacks against our homeland, or our allies. We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government, which must step up its ability to protect its people; and move from an economy shaped by war [a war that we’ve had a huge hand in for decades ] to one that can sustain a lasting peace. What we can do, and will do, is build a partnership with the Afghan people that endures – one that ensures that we will be able to continue targeting terrorists and supporting a sovereign Afghan government [and as long as energy and mining companies can extract resources from the soil and seas in and around the country].

Of course, our efforts must also address terrorist safe-havens in Pakistan. No country is more endangered by the presence of violent extremists, which is why we will continue to press Pakistan to expand its participation in securing a more peaceful future for this war-torn region. [How do we know they’re violent?  We’ve got their calling cards in our Rolodexes.  And they’ve got receipts from subsidized weapons sales from American dealers.] We will work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keep its commitments. For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.

Don’t bother asking about justice for American politicians. I believe in the double standards afforded by American exceptionalism. We are an empire– laws and justice are for other people.

BO: My fellow Americans, this has been a difficult decade for our country. We have learned anew the profound cost of war — a cost that has been paid by the nearly 4500 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq, and the over 1500 who have done so in Afghanistan – men and women who will not live to enjoy the freedom that they defended. Thousands more have been wounded. Some have lost limbs on the field of battle, and others still battle the demons that have followed them home.

Yet tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding. [Let me frame that in a way that makes war a phenomena that is caused by the pull of celestial bodies and gravity, rather than the design and greed of men.]  Fewer of our sons and daughters are serving in harm’s way. [Don’t ask who put them there.]

We have ended our combat mission in Iraq, with 100,000 American troops already out of that country. [Don’t ask how many tens of thousands of troops remain, and how many contractors are still cashing nice checks in the name of freedom and democracy and liberation. Did I mention that June was the deadliest month for the US Army in Iraq since 2009?] And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end.

As they do, we must learn their lessons. [Let me ignore the lessons of Vietnam and from every other war in history. That way, I can choose  lessons that won’t preclude future military interventions.]  Already this decade of war has caused many to question the nature of America’s engagement around the world. Some would have America retreat from our responsibility as an anchor of global security, and embrace an isolation that ignores the very real threats that we face. Others would have America over-extend ourselves, confronting every evil that can be found abroad.  

That thing in Libya that I’ve done—yeah, don’t think about that…

BO: We must chart a more centered course. Like generations before, we must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events. But we must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute. When threatened, we must respond with force – but when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas. When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own. Instead, we must rally international action, [by pressuring the UN and then broadly interpreting UN resolutions, such as UNSCR 1970] which we are doing in Libya, where we do not have a single soldier on the ground, but are supporting allies in protecting the Libyan people and giving them the chance to determine their destiny.  

When we’re attacked by Libyans in years to come, remember, act surprised!

BO: In all that we do, we must remember that what sets America apart is not solely our power – it is the principles upon which our union was founded. We are a nation that brings our enemies to justice while adhering to the rule of law [don’t mention torture, don’t mention torture], and respecting the rights of all our citizens. [Never mind that privacy is completely eradicated in this country and that big brother is watching your every move.] We protect our own freedom and prosperity by extending it to others.  

That nut-grab at the airport is just a friendly freedom fondle! 

BO: We stand not for empire, but for self-determination. That is why we have a stake in the democratic aspirations that are now washing across the Arab World. [Even though, admittedly, we propped up and befriended those very dictators that are now getting overthrown… see, it’s useful to American politicians to have an American public so ignorant of history.]  We will support those revolutions with fidelity to our ideals, with the power of our example, and with an unwavering belief that all human beings deserve to live with freedom and dignity. 

Actually, it’s not so much that we care about congruence of ideals—I mean, look at China. Where it suits the interests of the economic elites and warprofiteers, we’ll turn a blind eye to human rights. Though sometimes I wish we could censor the internet like China does, so we could prevent ugly reports pointing out American hypocrisy from being accessed.

BO: Above all, we are a nation whose strength abroad has been anchored in opportunity for our citizens at home. Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war [actually close to three or five], at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource – our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war. For our nation draws strength from our differences, and when our union is strong no hill is too steep and no horizon is beyond our reach.

Let’s not talk about 800 military bases, or the fact that US military spending costs more than 2 billion dollars a day. I hope no one looks up the employment effects of military spending either.

BO: America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home. In this effort, we draw inspiration from our fellow Americans who have sacrificed so much on our behalf. To our troops, our veterans and their families, I speak for all Americans when I say that we will keep our sacred trust with you, and provide you with the care, and benefits, and opportunity that you deserve.

I met some of those patriotic Americans at Fort Campbell. A while back, I spoke to the 101st Airborne that has fought to turn the tide in Afghanistan, and to the team that took out Osama bin Laden. Standing in front of a model of bin Laden’s compound, the Navy SEAL who led that effort paid tribute to those who had been lost – brothers and sisters in arms whose names are now written on bases where our troops stand guard overseas, and on headstones in quiet corners of our country where their memory will never be forgotten. This officer – like so many others I have met with on bases, in Baghdad and Bagram, at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital – spoke with humility about how his unit worked together as one – depending on each other, and trusting one another, as a family might do in a time of peril.

That’s a lesson worth remembering – that we are all a part of one American family. Though we have known disagreement and division, we are bound together by the creed that is written into our founding documents, and a conviction that the United States of America is a country that can achieve whatever it sets out to accomplish. Now, let us finish the work at hand. Let us responsibly end these wars, and reclaim the American Dream that is at the center of our story. With confidence in our cause; with faith in our fellow citizens; and with hope in our hearts, let us go about the work of extending the promise of America – for this generation, and the next. May God bless our troops. And may God bless the United States of America.

Transcript of Obama’s Speech, Commentary written by Smedley Butler’s ghost

Photo by flickr user family mwr

TEHRAN TIMES– June marks the deadliest month in combat related fatalities for U.S. forces in Iraq since 2009 amid fears of a rise in attacks against the U.S. military.

The most recent killing of two American soldiers in northern Iraq on Sunday raised the U.S. forces’ death toll to 11 in June. Sunday’s casualties raised the total death toll for U.S. forces in Iraq to 4,463 since March 2003, according to icasualties.org.

U.S. military commanders warn that there could be a rise in attacks against U.S. troops as they prepare to withdraw from war-torn Iraq. Many of the remaining U.S. military bases in southern Iraq have faced a surge in rocket and mortar attacks, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.

Analysts believe that the prolonged presence of U.S. troops in the war-ravaged country and the U.S. military officials’ efforts to keep the troops in Iraq beyond December 2011 are the root causes of armed attacks on American soldiers.

“There are stories that the U.S. has been telling Iraqi officials that they would like to stay there a little bit longer and that they think they would need to keep the troops there a bit longer and that is I think why some of these violences are happening in Iraq,” Director of Peace Action Paul Martin said.

According to a security agreement between Baghdad and Washington, known as the Status of Forces Agreement, all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011.

“We hear a lot about Afghanistan, but we still have 50,000 troops in Iraq and probably double that in contractors and I don’t think the American people know about that,” Martin added.

Read full article about June Deadliest Month in Iraq Since 2009.

© 2011 Tehran Times

Photo by Flickr user Peyman

SALON– With the possible exception of Jon Huntsman, the Republican presidential field is weak on candidates who could appeal to centrist swing voters, including moderate Republicans. But there is one 2012 prospect who has a proven track record of pursuing policies that owe a great deal to the moderate Republican tradition and who could potentially shake up the race for the GOP presidential nomination: President Barack Obama.

If Obama chose to run for reelection not as a Democrat but as a moderate Republican, he could bring about two healthy transformations in the American political system. The moderate wing of the Republican Party could be restored. And the Democratic presidential nomination might be opened up to politicians from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

 In the last generation, the old-fashioned moderate Republicans from New England and the Midwest symbolized by Nelson Rockefeller have been driven out of the GOP by the conservative followers of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Streaming into the Democratic Party as voters, and buying it with ample Wall Street cash as donors, this upscale elite has changed the party from a populist liberal alliance of unionized workers and populists into a socially liberal, economically conservative version of the old country-club Republicanism of the pre-Reagan era.

The transformation began under Jimmy Carter, accelerated under Bill Clinton and has nearly been completed under Barack Obama. This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party. It is your grandfather’s Republican Party of 1955.

Read the full article about Why The GOP Should Nominate Barack Obama In 2012.

© 2011 Salon

Photo by Flickr user jamesomalley