Today most of the world is celebrating a new international treaty, now in force, that bans all nuclear weapons. So far, 52 nations have ratified the treaty, and 50 nations ratifying is what is needed to become law. The United States, in case you’re wondering, has not signed the treaty and currently possesses 5,800 nuclear… Read More Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Becomes International Law
If the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee, Joe Biden, have a weak spot, it is their general fondness –since the debacle of the Vietnam War– for military solutions and support, including the selling of American weapons, of governments whose commitment to democracy and human rights leave much to be desired. So in the interest… Read More Dear Democrats: A Letter for Peace in the Middle East
To be “liberal” is to be “open to new ideas” and “favourable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms.” Given the above definition, can a true liberal be a promoter or defender of that most ancient flaw of humanity–war? Is such a thing as a “liberal hawk” logical or possible? One of the oldest… Read More Why I am a “bleeding-heart liberal”
By Rumple Oxbridge, liberal lyricist It’s sad to see, the president said, knocking down our metal-molded racist generals green with age. Once such men were all the rage, killing to keep owning slaves. You gotta admit, they looked brave on their green horses, on pedestals, so “beautiful” were those generals as all the monuments… Read More Rumple Oxbridge: “Ode About Not Missing Statues of Racist Generals”
By T.S. Swanky, an imaginary, confused conservative. Any resemblance to any actual person or conservative columnist, living or dead, is an astounding coincidence. I confess that I was one of the many conservative “Never Trumpers” who said publicly before the election that I would under absolutely no circumstances stoop to voting for a guy that the most… Read More T.S. Swanky: “War is Making TRUMP (and US) Great!” [Satire]
By John Frederick Kaufman So the United States suddenly felt the need to give our MOAB (“mother of all bombs”)–more officially known as GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast–a try on Thursday in the desert of Eastern Afghanistan. Though the bomb has been around for awhile, neither Presidents George W. Bush nor Barack Obama cared to actually… Read More In the Aftermath of Dropping the “MOAB” Bomb on Afghanistan
By Rumple Oxbridge (The Pacific’s unreal radical rhymer) How many mothers can it kill, this “mother of all bombs?” It’s only dropped on terrorists we’re certain have no wombs. What is the mother of this bomb– fear, or hate, or profit? Your question makes no sense to us. Our job is just to drop it. How… Read More Rumple Oxbridge: “The Mother of All Bombs”
The ongoing war in Syria is a vast catastrophe; what began as a peaceable resistance movement against the Assad regime, one among many in the “Arab Spring” of 2011, has devolved into a brutal war in which at least 300,000 have been killed and as many as 96,000 Syrian civilians have died, including more than 17,000 children. It… Read More Syria: War Still Not the Answer
Must politicians and journalists succumb to the language of war? Or the flip side: Must we put words like “peace” on weapons of war? I’m thinking of the U.S. nuclear missiles called “peacekeepers.” The “war” on this or that, we say, or the dropping of “bombs” to mean big news; the use of “killer” as an adjective synonymous with… Read More Let’s Stop Saying “Nuclear Option”
First published February 17, 2017 in The Capital Times If there is any consolation to be found in the election of President Trump, it is the opportunity to make anti-war protest great again. Most liberals/progressives were willing to overlook Hillary Clinton’s militaristic sympathies during the Democratic primary and in the national election. I certainly did,… Read More It’s a Really Good Time for an Anti-War Movement
Talks are underway this week at the United Nations in New York on a possible global treaty to officially ban all nuclear weapons. More than 120 nations are participating, but not surprisingly the nuclear nations (those that own nuclear weapons), including the United States, and various allies of them are not eager to outlaw what they… Read More Why it’s Realistic to Ban Nuclear Weapons and Why U.S. Should Lead
Surely it’s time to refute the great American myth our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. so believe in: an armed citizenry and war abroad will protect us from criminal and terrorist violence. There is a sort of mass mental incongruity going on, a splitting of the political brain in which the epidemic of “mass shootings” is deplored and denounced but ignored while generally… Read More In Guns We Trust, Again and Again
One question not heard at last night’s Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee was anything about what we might call “Patriotgate.” This has nothing to do with deflated footballs but does include the New England Patriots, as well as the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers and the UW-Madison Badgers. A report released last week by Arizona Senators Jeff Flake and… Read More Debate in Wisconsin? Let’s talk about Patriotgate
“These are people who had been working hard for months, non-stop for the past week. They had not gone home, they had not seen their families, they had just been working in the hospital to help people… and now they are dead. These people are friends, close friends. I have no words to express this.… Read More “Killing Blindly in the Endless War” by Kathy Kelly
[From the Institute of Policy Studies via Common Dreams] By Phyllis Bennis The destruction of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, with 22 dead so far, including doctors, other staff and patients, capped a week that also saw the bombing of another hospital in Afghanistan, plus the U.S.-backed Saudi Arabian bombing of a… Read More Bombing Hospitals All in a Day’s Work
Speaking of perpetual war, the NY Times is reporting that the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which, despite a major withdrawal of troops, was never entirely over, has erupted again as the U.S. launched airstrikes and deployed Special Forces troops after the Taliban captured the city of Kunduz. Though the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was, after much… Read More More perpetual war: Afghanistan again
The Pacific 