From The Half-Red House

The Guardian is reporting that Dennis Kucinich is quitting the race for US President. I am saddened, and, assuming this is true, we all have the task of choosing between Obama and Edwards. In either case it will mean holding our noses. I think it’s a good idea to relegate Hillary to third place for the time being.

I suggest we still keep listening to Dennis (along with the Greens) for guidance on the issues, because we know none of the “big three” really have the interests of non-rich, peaceful working-class people at heart, but they would be easier to pressure with people-power than any Republican.

Apparently big-money interests (including the local newspaper) are running against him in the primary contest for his Ohio district, and the need to fight effectively in Ohio was the main motivation for quitting now. If Democratic Party heavyweights (associated with one of the “big three”) weigh in against him in the congressional primary, we will know for sure that all our skepticism about this party is justified. If you have some spare cash, it might be good to send some his way to thank him for the service he and Elizabeth have done for all of us this election season; it would be money better spent than in contributing to the ironically-named “war chests” of the “big three”.

There’s a lot of sarcasm in the blogosphere, but All Things Democrat
(http://www.allthingsdemocrat.com/2008/01/24/kucinich-out-when-we-lose-candidates-like-him-however-we-all-lose/)
is talking about why Dennis’s campaign has really mattered. Here is a youtube video of the speech he gave to union members in Cleveland today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8bhENjVLH8).

I am an outsider to the Israel Palestine conflit, but I have enough personal connections to both sides of the conflict so that I can’t ignore the incredible suffering that is going on in that region now. There are good arguments for a one-state solution (a secular, democratic Israel, encompassing all of Israel and Palestine, Jews, Christians, Muslims and others), a two-state solution (Palestine as two contiguous land areas with rights-of-way between, and Israel as a sovereign state). It seems there is now a good argument for a three-state solution, since Gaza and the West Bank have two politically disparate electorates. The one solution that will not work is pretending the the current situation can continue indefinitely. The region cannot afford it and the world cannot afford it.

The actions of the Israeli government in blockading Gaza over the past several months can’t be characterized as anything less than a war crime against a civilian population. Cutting off food, fuel, electricity, water and sewer services to a densely-populated territory is nothing short of attempted mass murder. This is not self-defense on the part of Israel, and it is obviously not the will of the Israeli population or Jews worldwide, who are generally kind, generous and empathetic people. The suffering of any Israeli citizen at the hands of cruel bombers is no more acceptable than the suffering of any Palestinian at the hands of the Israeli government (and the US), but one person’s suffering does not justify inflicting suffering on another person, either legally or morally.

Some Palestinian Gazans have taken the initiative in tearing down the wall between Egypt and Gaza at Rafah, and perhaps a third of the population has crossed the border in search of desperately needed supplies. By permitting the refugees to enter Egypt and carry on commerce and visitation, the government of Egypt is tacitly backing out of the international agreement it signed to keep Gaza locked up, and the Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai has just said Israel will no longer provide any fuel, food or electricity to Gaza because Gaza can obtain these from Egypt, which is a breach of several treaty obligations. If the Israeli government means this, then international aid must now begin entering Gaza from Egypt, new infrastructure must be built to distribute fuel and electicity from Egypt to all of Gaza. If Israel repudiates all responsibility for the Palestinian Gazan refugees, and if  Egypt opens normal relations with Palestine, the Gazans may have a way to rejoin the world economy on their own. Paradoxically, breaking of treaties by all sides may lead to the Gazan independence and prosperity that have seemed impossible until now. This might be compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall. For the effect to be positive, however, the US, the European Union and the UN must all support the re-writing of these treaties and avoid military actions that would doom the process. There are already good highway links between Rafah and port of Bur Said in Egypt. If infrastructure were extended northward from Egypt, Israel could build as big a wall as it liked on Gaza’s northern border, so it could feel secure from homemade mortars and rockets.

Once Gaza’s status has been stabilized as a de-facto independent state, the status of the West Bank must be dealt with, and Gaza’s success might prove to be a model. Why should Israel have anything to do with the policing of the border between Palestine and Jordan. If the West Bank were a de-facto independent state, with all Israeli settlements dismantled, it could receive its supplies from Jordan and cut all ties with Israel. Jerusalem could be a UN-administered international historical treasure, part of neither Israel nor Palestine. Again, Israel would not need to assert the “right” to invade the West Bank in order to be secure. With a final border established, Israel could build a towering wall on its side of the border (if it chose; I personally dislike walls). Medical care and schooling for Palestinians would be independent of Israel. If the two Palestinian states decided to form a federation, they could be linked via Jordan, the Red Sea and Egypt as well as via Israel. Eventually, the pressures of trade would cause the Israelis to re-open their borders with the two now-prosperous Palestinian neighbor states.

Before yesterday’s breach of the wall pressure was building for a change. Today there is also hope. Of couse this hope could be dashed by US, Egyptian, or Israeli actions. The people of the world must make their govenments do the right thing at this crucial juncture.
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Here is  a message that was forwarded on January 21 from a Palestinian-American Quaker who is teaching Conflict Resolution at the Friends’ Girls’ School in Ramallah, Palestine:

And here is an appeal, written on Jauary 21 by a local Quaker who recently returned from spending several months at Friends’ schools in the West Bank:

This morning’s “Morning Edition” on NPR had a feature on the way the Bush administration is attempting to commit the US to keeping permanent military bases in Iraq, and to the equivalent of a mutual defense treaty, requiring the US to defend Iraq from “internal and external threats”. If allowed to go forward, this plan would require US military to remain in that country for intervention in case of a civil war or, for example, an Iranian incursion. The US  Congress has voted to forbid the creation of permanent bases, but the Bush administration is attempting (deviously) to force the next administration to keep large numbers of troops in that country indefinitely. The NPR report brings these machinations to the fore, where alert citizens can take action to protest them. If Bush gets away with this, the US military could be in Iraq virtually forever, as it currently is in South Korea. I urge everyone to listen to the story and then contact her/his congress member.

I was delighted that Amy Goodman gave Dennis Kucinich a chance to “debate” the “big three” Democratic candidates after his exclusion from the Nevada debates, by splicing his answers in to excerpts from the debate during her Democracy Now program yesterday.

I didn’t hear the whole debate when it took place, so I was more or less horrified that all three candidates came out in favor a of a law that would mandate all colleges to have (or support) ROTC programs and allow military recruiters on campus. In other words, all three favor the continuation of the current hyper-militarization of our society, which makes it possible for any misguided president to have cannon-fodder anytime he/she wants it.

In my opinion, if we are to give peace a chance, colleges (and high schools for that matter) should follow the example of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and ban military recruiting and training from our children’s learning environment.
One good resource for MySpacers is http://myspace.com/militaryoutofourschools

A Japanese whaling vessel is holding two Sea Shepherd volunteers hostage and threatening to take them back to Japan for trial on “eco-terrorism” charges, for their attempt to deliver a letter to the captain of the ship asking him to stop violating international and Australian anti-whaling laws. There is good reason to believe that stopping whale slaughter is going to be vital if we are to save the planet’s environment for future generations of humans and most other species. These activists should be getting praise for their actions, but instead they are kidnapped and threatened with legal action. In the meanwhile, the Japanese whaling fleet has scattered and whaling has come to at least a temporary halt in the southern ocean.

My latest Thinking Out Loud show featured the issue of the continued whaling taking place in the southern ocean and what Sea Shepherds, Greenpeace and others are doing to stop it. You can listen to it at the WUML Community DJs Podcast Site
The discussion of this issue begins about a half-hour into the hour-long show. Also included is an overview of the situation from local anti-whaling activist John L. Crockett .

George Bush has spent the last day or so in Bahrain bringing charge after charge against the Iranian government. Most of these charges are not backed by any solid objective evidence. Clearly, the Bush administration wishes to provoke Iran into committing a warlike act.

The other day all US news outlets reported that a group of Iranian speedboats had threatened to blow up a US ship in the Straits of Hormuz. Now it turns out that the threatening message came probably from a ham radio prankster named Filipino Monkey (see this Guardian article), and not the Iranian patrol boats, which were engaged in routine observation of traffic in the Straits. There was also mention of the boats offloading boxes which might have been explosives; I have seen no source for this information other than US news reports. The way the US media jumped on this story leads me to believe that the Bush administration gave “signals” to its friends in the media to treat this incident as a verified terrorist attack by the Iranian govenment on a US ship, as part of the plan to provoke war with Iran, a kind of “tonkin gulf incident”, about which the media should be especially cautious in reporting.

As to what citizens can do, the Friends Committee on National Legislation recently released this bulletin on the subject. including ways to take action:

We at FCNL hope that President George Bush's trip to the Middle East this weekwill result in new steps toward peace. But the initial reports are not encouraging.

Ignoring the conclusions of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, the WhiteHouse spent the two weeks before the president's trip portraying the visit asan opportunity to put more pressure on Iran and work to further isolate the governmentin Tehran. Not surprisingly in this atmosphere of tension, a confrontation betweenU.S. Navy ships and Iranian government speedboats nearly erupted into a shootingwar earlier this week.

The president has continued down this aggressive path while in the Middle East. After meetings in Israel, President Bush said that "Iran was a threat, Iranis a threat, and Iran will be a threat if they are allowed to learn how to enrichuranium." This game of chicken can't have a good outcome. I hope you willtake a moment to read FCNL Legislative Secretary Jim Fine's analysis of why the president's approach to the region will not help advance prospects for peace:http://action.fcnl.org/r/4025/40384/.

We at FCNL argue for an approach to avoid war, one that combines active diplomacy,assurances that the U.S. does not intend to permanently occupy Iraq, and the kindof people-to-people interactions that can build links of understanding between ourtwo nations. That's why FCNL Executive Secretary Joe Volk went to Iran last year and why some of our staff joined two Iranian bicyclists in planting trees offriendship on Capitol Hill last week. 

*Take Action*

But there's more to do. You can help by working to make peace an issue in the2008 elections and working here in Washington to urge Congress to speak out in favorof more diplomatic engagement both with Iraq and with Iran. Urge your representativeto support legislation calling for a diplomatic surge in the Middle East: http://action.fcnl.org/r/4026/40384/.

If you've already written to your representative, ask two friends to write letters:http://action.fcnl.org/r/4027/40384/

*Background*

Read Dan Smith's analysis of the game of chicken between the U.S. and Iran, including a video of the encounter between the U.S. and Iranian Navy ships: http://action.fcnl.org/r/4028/40384/.

Read Jim Fine's memo "Iraq: How to End the War in an Election Year":http://action.fcnl.org/r/4029/40384/.

Visit by Iranian cyclists to Washington: Find out more: http://action.fcnl.org/r/4030/40384/.

Under a law that criminalizes public protest near the British Parliament, and whose provisions are secret, British peace activist Brian Haw has been injured and arrested. My friend Lucy Lepchani just reported this:

So far the only reports of this incident are in the alternative media, but the mainstream media will pay attention if there is enough noise about it in places like MySpace. This Indymedia-UK page has a horriying photo and a description of the incident. The first mainstream media report seems to be this bulletin from The Press Association issued earlier this evening. SOCPA includes some of the most pernicious features of the US Patriot Act and contains echos of the “Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” passed by the US Congress late last year, in that it  attempts to confuse protest with terrorism.