Compiled by Dick Bennett https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/05/war-watch-wednesdays-178-may-22-2024.html
Assange, Truthteller.
Peacemaking: Bakewell and Humanism.
“A Future Without Nuclear Weapons” by Ward Hayes Wilson.
ASSANGE: TRUTHTELLING
“Julian Assange’s Final Appeal.” The Hedges Report (2-18-24).
| Julian Assange will make his final appeal this week to the British courts to avoid extradition. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press. CHRIS HEDGES |
[Hedges’ dire conclusion]:
Julian is persecuted because he provided the public with the most important information about U.S. government crimes and mendacity since the release of the Pentagon Papers. Like all great journalists, he was nonpartisan. His target was power.
He made public the killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. convoys and checkpoints, including pregnant women, the blind and deaf, and at least 30 children.
He made public the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians and the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to 89, at Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
He showed us that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the U.K., spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords.
He exposed that Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA backed the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime.
He revealed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians.
No other contemporary journalist has come close to matching his revelations. Julian is the first. We are next. [To read the entire essay click on title.]
[One of the most destructive laws v. our democracy was the Espionage Act, which threatens Assange and should have been reversed long ago. See OMNI’S Espionage Act Anthology #1 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/07/omni-abolishing-espionage-act-anthology.html
#2 in preparation but needing a helper.]
PEACEMAKING
Humanism
A humanist might not be a pacifist, but it is inconceivable that she or he might be a warmonger like our present leaders. The new book by Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope (2023), reinforces my assumption. “The more than thirty humanist figures profiled by Bakewell shared a desire to foster happiness and compassion for all people and to reduce needless suffering as well as…injustice and cruelty.” Every number of Free Inquiry magazine (“celebrating reason and humanity”) includes “The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles,” all of which withstand war; here is one: “We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, NATIONALITY, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.” –Dick
ABOLISHING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
“It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons” by Ward Hayes Wilson. 2023.
Publisher’s Description:
“Provides the inspiration people need to eliminate these weapons.” Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of ICAN and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“Arguably the most important contribution to the debate over the efficacy/fallacy of nuclear deterrence ever written.” Martin Sherwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of nuclear weapons
“…makes me believe that the eradication of nuclear weapons is feasible in our lifetime.” Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“You owe it to yourself to read this remarkable message of hope.” Joe Morris Doss, Episcopal Bishop (ret.)
“The world doesn’t need nuclear weapons and this book proves this fact clearly and firmly.” Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Iranian judge, activist, founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
For the better part of a century, presidents, government bodies, admirals, academics, journalists, and ordinary people alike have largely accepted the necessity of nuclear weapons. But what are the historical, political, and technological assumptions that underlie this widely shared belief, and do they hold water? What if the value of nuclear weapons has been overestimated and overstated? What if the elimination of nuclear weapons is not only possible, but actually prudent and practical?
Endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates, former presidents, military leaders, Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, and more, It Is Possible lays out a practical, pragmatic pathway to eliminating nuclear weapons. Each accessibly written chapter addresses a key issue in the nuclear weapons debate, from the political failures of the anti-nuclear movement to the fundamental ineffectuality of the weapons themselves and from the historical framing that continues to shape our current understanding to the new grassroots movement needed to change both minds and policies. It Is Possible arms readers with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration needed to eliminate one of the most dangerous threats to our shared civilization. . . .MORE