This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.
Iran Sanctions Bill
The Jewish-American group Americans for Peace Now has condemned the proposed Iran sanctions bill circulated Thursday by 26 US Senators. "The mere act of introducing such a bill at this delicate juncture represents a reckless, provocative and wholly gratuitous step. The Geneva interim agreement with Iran demonstrates that sincere, determined diplomacy can deliver results....If the timing of its introduction weren't bad enough, the substance of the bill appears designed to undermine the initiative launched last month in Geneva and, bafflingly, to undermine international cooperation on Iran....Anyone who is truly concerned about curbing Iran's nuclear program should be outraged by this latest sanctions effort. For the first time in decades, there is an historic and promising diplomatic engagement with Iran, and the entire world is focused on the importance of resolving concerns about Iran's nuclear program and nuclear ambitions. Now is the time for members of the House and Senate to stand up to outside pressure, foreswear partisan and political grandstanding, and get behind the efforts of the Obama Administration and the international community to achieve a negotiated final agreement that does just that."
Juan Cole headlines his Informed Comment post of December 21:"Obama will Veto new Iran Sanctions, Israel War Mandate pushed by AIPAC Senators".
He then takes it to the 13 Democrats who are cosponsoring the bill. "This behavior is no surprise coming from the GOP, but the thirteen Democratic
senators involved are traitors to the party. They are acting at
the behest of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other
American supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who actively
wants to torpedo Obama’s Iran talks." Cole provides a transcript of Obama's comments on the matter from the Friday press conference, concluding that "Obama in his gentlemanly way excused the senators on the grounds that they
might have tough reelection fights coming up in which hawkish posturing on Iran
might be useful for fundraising and vote-getting. Nevertheless, the White House
had earlier made clear that Obama would veto any such sanctions bill." But then Cole adds: "In fact, the vast majority of Americans approve of Obama’s Iran negotiations
in polling and only a minority is opposed. So the rebel senators aren’t playing
to the voters, but rather to determined and very wealthy special interests in
the Northeast."
(See December 20 Left Bank Café post for further discussion.)
NSA Surveillance
As President Obama spoke Friday on possible reforms in the NSA spying program (specifically the NSA's holding of telephone records of Americans), new revelations from the documents leaked by whistle blower Edward Snowden were discussed in The Guardian. "British and American intelligence agencies had a comprehensive list of surveillance targets that included the EU's competition commissioner, German government buildings in Berlin and overseas, and the heads of institutions that provide humanitarian and financial help to Africa, top-secret documents reveal. The papers show GCHQ, in collaboration with America's National Security Agency (NSA), was targeting organisations such as the United Nations development programme, the UN's children's charity Unicef and Médecins du Monde, a French organisation that provides doctors and medical volunteers to conflict zones. The head of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) also appears in the documents, along with text messages he sent to colleagues." [The Guardian, December 20]
Selections from recent TomDispatch.com posts
Here are brief selections from and links to several recent posts.
Former Harper's Magazine Editor Lewis Lapham wonders why we have no equivalent of Mark Twain in today's "second Gilded Age" in an essay about that great American writer, laughter and comedy. (To be published in Lapham's Quarterly's Winter 2014 issue.)
Laughter follows from the misalignment of a reality and a virtual reality,
and the getting of the joke is the recognition of which is which. The notions of
what is true or beautiful or proper held sacred by the other people in the
caucus or the clubhouse set up the punch line -- the sight of something where
it’s not supposed to be, the story going where it’s not supposed to go, Groucho
Marx saying, “Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot and look like an
idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
Commentator Bill Moyers, speaking at The Brennan Center, discusses the impact of money on politics and our democracy, the danger of shredding the social contract to privilege the donor class, and the unfinished work of America in "The Great American Class War, Plutocracy vs. Democracy".
We don’t have emperors yet, but one of our two major parties is now dominated
by radicals engaged in a crusade of voter suppression aimed at the elderly, the
young, minorities, and the poor; while the other party, once the champion of
everyday working people, has been so enfeebled by its own collaboration with the
donor class that it offers only token resistance to the forces that have
demoralized everyday Americans.
Climate change journalist Dahr Jamail explores "what climate scientists just beyond the mainstream are thinking about how climate change will affect life on this planet." After discussing how the continuing rise in global temperatures will lead to an ice-free Arctic, which in turn may lead to a release of methane currently trapped in the ice, Jamail writes:
How serious is the potential global methane build-up? Not all scientists think it’s an immediate threat or even the
major threat we face, but Ira Leifer, an atmospheric and marine scientist at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, and one of the authors of the recent
Arctic Methane study pointed out to me that “the Permian mass extinction that
occurred 250 million years ago is related to methane and thought to be the key
to what caused the extinction of most species on the planet.” In that extinction
episode, it is estimated that 95% of all species were wiped out.
(See The $60 Trillion Climate Time Bomb Left Bank Café post for further discussion of the methane release threat.)
Showing posts with label Americans for Peace Now. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Americans for Peace Now. Show all posts
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Friday, December 20, 2013
Sabotaging diplomacy? What are they thinking?
Yesterday, thirteen Senate Democrats joined thirteen Republicans and began circulating a new Iran sanctions bill with the potential to derail the Iran nuclear talks. This action came in spite of requests from the White House that Senators hold off on any new Iran legislation while the nuclear talks are in progress. I'm ashamed to say that New Jersey's own senior senator. Robert Menendez, is one of the leading supporters of the proposal and introduced it with Republican Mark Kirk.
These thirteen Democrats should know better. They have put themselves in the camp of conservative hardliners in Iran and the Netanyahu government in Israel - about the only other people on the planet against the historic interim agreement achieved by the G3+3 with Iran just last month.
The influence of the lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), strong supporters of the right-wing Netanyahu, is all over this. Many, if not most, of the Senators pushing the legislation have received significant contributions from pro-Israel groups, who are heavily influenced by AIPAC. Menendez received more than $340,000 in campaign contributions in the six-year period ending December 31, 2012. Mark Kirk, the leading Republican proponent of the current legislation, received more than $925,000. All told, the 26 Senators received nearly $5,000,000 from pro- Israel groups. [maplight.org]
The proposed bill sets strong, and, likely illegal, conditions for a final agreement. "Among those conditions is a provision that only allows Obama to waive new sanctions, even after a final deal has been struck, if that deal bars Iran from enriching any new uranium whatsoever." [Daily Kos quoting Foreignpolicy.com, Dec.19] As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as energy and medicine. Denying them this right to the peaceful use of nuclear power is a clear violation of the meaning of the treaty. This is especially specious when we consider that Israel is a non-signatory to the NNPT and has 80 nuclear weapons sitting 1000 km or so from Iran's borders. This condition all but guarantees that no lasting détente will ever be reached with Iran.
But that isn't the worst part of this bill. The bill includes a non-binding provision that states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program", the United States should support it. Since when does the United States outsource its military and foreign policy to a foreign power?
As Andrew Sullivan writes on The Dish website:
As usual, English is the first casualty in propaganda. Any act of “self-defense” against a mere “program” is not an act of legitimate self-defense. In international law, you are allowed to defend yourself if attacked; you do not have a right to attack another country just because you don’t like one of their military programs (which the Iranian regime has, in any case, sworn it would never use). That would be a license to shred international law and any concept of just warfare. For the US Senate to proactively bless future aggressive military action by a foreign government when it is not justified by self-defense is an appalling new low in the Israeli government’s grip on the US Congress.
If the Senate goes ahead and approves the bill when it comes to the floor next year, President Obama will have no choice but to veto it. If he does not, he should hand back his Nobel Peace Prize. And the Senate should congratulate themselves for caving in to AIPAC and taking us all a step closer to war.
Other Notes
Being pro-Israel does not mean being anti-Iran diplomacy. Americans for Peace Now is a Jewish-American organization that supports the two-state solution and works for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. They recently circulated a petition asking Congress to allow time for the nuclear talks with Iran to succeed. It's a shame that this group of peace activists doesn't have the influence of AIPAC on potential donors.
Update
This afternoon, Americans for Peace Now updated its petition. You can sign the petition here and send it to your Senators.
Links
Link to Wikipedia entry on Americans for Peace Now
Link to Wikipedia entry on AIPAC
Correction
An earlier version of this post indicated that Charles Schumer of New York introduced the bill with Mark Kirk of Illinois. While Schumer was one of the 26 co-sponsors, it was Sen. Menendez, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, that led the Democrats supporting the bill.
These thirteen Democrats should know better. They have put themselves in the camp of conservative hardliners in Iran and the Netanyahu government in Israel - about the only other people on the planet against the historic interim agreement achieved by the G3+3 with Iran just last month.
The influence of the lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), strong supporters of the right-wing Netanyahu, is all over this. Many, if not most, of the Senators pushing the legislation have received significant contributions from pro-Israel groups, who are heavily influenced by AIPAC. Menendez received more than $340,000 in campaign contributions in the six-year period ending December 31, 2012. Mark Kirk, the leading Republican proponent of the current legislation, received more than $925,000. All told, the 26 Senators received nearly $5,000,000 from pro- Israel groups. [maplight.org]
The proposed bill sets strong, and, likely illegal, conditions for a final agreement. "Among those conditions is a provision that only allows Obama to waive new sanctions, even after a final deal has been struck, if that deal bars Iran from enriching any new uranium whatsoever." [Daily Kos quoting Foreignpolicy.com, Dec.19] As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as energy and medicine. Denying them this right to the peaceful use of nuclear power is a clear violation of the meaning of the treaty. This is especially specious when we consider that Israel is a non-signatory to the NNPT and has 80 nuclear weapons sitting 1000 km or so from Iran's borders. This condition all but guarantees that no lasting détente will ever be reached with Iran.
But that isn't the worst part of this bill. The bill includes a non-binding provision that states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program", the United States should support it. Since when does the United States outsource its military and foreign policy to a foreign power?
As Andrew Sullivan writes on The Dish website:
As usual, English is the first casualty in propaganda. Any act of “self-defense” against a mere “program” is not an act of legitimate self-defense. In international law, you are allowed to defend yourself if attacked; you do not have a right to attack another country just because you don’t like one of their military programs (which the Iranian regime has, in any case, sworn it would never use). That would be a license to shred international law and any concept of just warfare. For the US Senate to proactively bless future aggressive military action by a foreign government when it is not justified by self-defense is an appalling new low in the Israeli government’s grip on the US Congress.
If the Senate goes ahead and approves the bill when it comes to the floor next year, President Obama will have no choice but to veto it. If he does not, he should hand back his Nobel Peace Prize. And the Senate should congratulate themselves for caving in to AIPAC and taking us all a step closer to war.
Other Notes
Being pro-Israel does not mean being anti-Iran diplomacy. Americans for Peace Now is a Jewish-American organization that supports the two-state solution and works for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. They recently circulated a petition asking Congress to allow time for the nuclear talks with Iran to succeed. It's a shame that this group of peace activists doesn't have the influence of AIPAC on potential donors.
Update
This afternoon, Americans for Peace Now updated its petition. You can sign the petition here and send it to your Senators.
Links
Link to Wikipedia entry on Americans for Peace Now
Link to Wikipedia entry on AIPAC
Correction
An earlier version of this post indicated that Charles Schumer of New York introduced the bill with Mark Kirk of Illinois. While Schumer was one of the 26 co-sponsors, it was Sen. Menendez, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, that led the Democrats supporting the bill.
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