by Debra Sweet      It was heartbreaking to hear of the suicide of Jacob David George last week.  He had been sent to Afghanistan three times with the Marines, from the age of 19-22.  We met him in NYC on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, just on the even of OWS.  An Arkansan, he rode his bike with the Guitarmy.  I last saw him playing his guitar and singing at the Ft. Meade rally for Chelsea Manning.Most significantly, Jacob was one of the veterans who threw their medals toward the NATO meeting in Chicago, at the 2012 antiwar protest in Chicago.

As the 2014-2015 high school and college year starts, we send you our  greetings and best wishes for a rewarding year. The We Are Not Your Soldiers project is ready to visit your school or  classroom with Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans to talk about their on-the-ground experience in occupying countries, where civilians pay the price.

Over a month ago, Michael Brown was shot six times by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.  More witnesses have come forward to corroborate eye-witness testimony that Brown's hands were up, and he was not aggressive. But, still Officer Darren Wilson is on paid vacation.  No indictment, no justice.

by Debra Sweet    If “brutal” enemies do the beheading, start bombing whole regions, asHenry Kissinger said on Sunday, and respond disproportionately, in a way that “you would not analyze in terms of a normal response.”If authoritarian “friendly” governments do the beheading, as Saudi Arabia has done 26 times since August 4, 2014 (mostly to non-Saudis and political dissidents) say and do nothing. Human Rights Watch says the U.S. maintains a “deafening silence” on human rights violations by Saudi Arabia, its key ally in the region.

 September 2014 War Criminal Appearances & Protests

The Senators leading the pack of war-dogs, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, opined in The New York Times this week on the need for the U.S. to go all-out in the Middle East:  We must face facts: A comprehensive strategy to defeat ISIS would require more troops, assets, resources and time. Such an undertaking should involve Congress. We have consistently advocated revising the Authorization for Use of Military Force that has provided congressional backing for counterterrorism operations since September 2001.These plans carry with them a repeat, or worse, of the mass death and destruction of society the U.S. carried out in an attempt to control Iraq.

by Debra Sweet      Intense world events have again eclipsed news of the Guantanamo prisoners, meaning that their situation grows worse. No wave of releases has followed Obama's promise in May 2013 to once again close it. Andy Worthington reported Friday in Guantanamo Violence: Prisoners Report Shaker Aamer "Beaten," Another Man Assaulted "For Nearly Two Hours":

People's Climate March - SEPT. 21, 2014. NYC    Meet the Stop the Crimes Against Our Planet Contingent at 10:00 am at 77th St. & CPW    Humanity and the Planet Must Come First!    The World Can't Wait!

World leaders have called for yet another International Conference at the UN in September. Their meeting will, however, do nothing to stop the global environment's escalating destruction. Using the justifications of “national security” and "business necessities," the US government itself has consistently sabotaged climate talks, supported dangerous drilling, fracking, plunder and exploitation of non-renewable energy resources here and around the world. It has also ruthlessly prosecuted and jailed environmental and animal rights activists explicitly as “terrorists.”

World Can't Wait cordially invites you to a discussion it is hosting at the New York City Climate Convergence., Sept. 20,2014. entitled Climate Crisis: The Roots of the Problem .The workshop will examine underlying economic, political and philosophical roots of the climate crisis. The science is clear: what are the obstacles preventing action commensurate with the crisis? Speakers will address the capitalist economic and political system, theological understanding of humanity's relation to the earth and the inheritance of colonial domination and the settler mindset.

Dangerous arguments and actions came this week from both President Obama, who plans to increase airstrikes on Iraq & Syria and announced drone surveillance (as if that has not been happening for years), and from John McCain, leader of the “US has to get back in Iraq” cabal.“Limited” airstrikes by the world's most powerful military combined with U.S.

On August 5, World Can't Wait put out a call to Stop Israel's War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity on the People of Gaza.The mission was to bring the reality of what Operation "Protective Edge" did to the people of Gaza, and why this rose to the level of "war crimes;" to expose the role of the United States in fully backing Israel politically and militarily; and to challenge all watching to bring forth resistance to stop these crimes that is much more broad, diverse, and determined.

by Debra Sweet      Dangerous arguments and actions came this week from both President Obama, who plans to increase airstrikes on Iraq & Syria and announced drone surveillance (as if that has not been happening for years), and from John McCain, leader of the “US has to get back in Iraq” cabal.“Limited” airstrikes by the world's most powerful military combined with U.S. more troops going into this extremely volatile region will not bring peace, stability, or safety.

Daddy George H.W. Bush; Bill Clinton; W. Bush and now Barack Obama have an unbroken streak of bombing Iraq.Let us say as strongly as we can, that the bombing begun overnight in Kurdish areas — no matter who “asked” for it to be done — is outrageously dangerous, will not “save civilians,” but instead will endanger them further. Rather than protecting people in harm's way, US bombs and secret operations are a message to other powers that no one else will be allowed to run Iraq.

LAOS: THE BIRTHPLACE OF MODERN U.S. EXECUTIVE SECRET WAR AND A NEW “AHUMAN” AGE

A Powerpoint Presentation by Fred Branfman

By Debra Sweet  Monday, I participated in a discussion led by Alan Goodman of revcom.us(Revolution Newspaper), whose most recent article on the bombing of a schoolyard in Gaza last weekend, where 16 children were killed, concludes:

Save the Date!  Join Our Contingent at the People’s Climate March.  Sunday, September 21, 2014 in NYC

Stop the Crimes Against Our Planet! Humanity and the Planet Must Come First! The World Can't Wait!

by Debra Sweet.     July 10, 2014: Syracuse, NY. Anti-drone protester Mary Anne Grady was sent to county jail for a maximum 12 month sentence for violating a temporary "Order of Protection" granted by a County Judge to explicitly to protect the Commander Evans of Hancock Air Force Base, who said he wanted to keep protesters "out of his driveway." Years of non-violent protest, including civil disobedience, led by the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and Stop the Wars, have focused public attention on the role of Hancock in remotely piloting US drones around the world, particularly Reaper drones over Afghanistan, and also in training drone operators.

Israel has unleashed another murderous campaign against Gaza. If your heart is sickened by what Palestinians are living and dying through now, let us confront – and act to help many people confront -- that all this violence is backed by the $3.1 billion in military aid Israel receives each year from the U.S. People of conscience must stand against and resist the crimes of our own government, and that includes U.S. political and military support for the crimes of its cohort, its allies, when those powers commit crimes against humanity funded by and therefore “made in the U.S.A.”

By Debra Sweet   Curt Wechsler writes on FireJohnYoo.net "The selection of John Yoo to fill an endowed faculty chair at Boalt Hall has raised righteous indignation across the board, from academics to un-credentialed people of conscience. The appointment represents a huge leap in institutional complicity in war crimes.

When ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses tried to drop children off at a US detention center in Murrietta, CA, last week, a crowd of anti-immigrant "go home" protesters blocked the buses.  The sight recalled nothing so much as the White Citizens Councils greeting Freedom Riders in the South, or racist crowds demanding segregation of schools.

In a most bizarre twist, the Dean of Morgan State University's Journalism school suggested sending the children to Guantanamo because there's a lot of empty space there. NO! Close that torture camp now.

By Debra Sweet      Since 2009, when Obama began the targeted killing rampage in Pakistan & Yemen, killing uncounted thousands, World Can't Wait has demanded an end to it.  Others have demanded "transparency" in knowing how the targeting decisions were made.Last month, they got their wish, to a point.  Because The New York Times and the ACLU filed a lawsuit to get it, parts of a redacted Office of Legal Counsel memo on targeted killing were released.

A hearty "thank you" to Courage to Resist, which just issued a call to "all U.S. military personnel to resist any effort to pursue a new military attack on Iraq via troops, bombs, drones or any other means.  In keeping with our Mission Statement, we affirm that, just as there was never any legitimate reason for the United States to send military forces to Iraq in the past, there is not now any reason for the United States to participate militarily in the affairs of the people of Iraq."

It is absolutely essential to put before the US public the need for visible resistance to US re-escalation and occupation of Iraq. 

A World Can't Wait Panel at the Left Forum, June 1, 2014  With 1100+ bases, the US military is the single largest user of fossil fuels in this century, while at the same time it fights wars and engages in occupations both to ensure strategic access to those resources and deny rivals control. In its military operations, it uses weapons of mass destruction, such as Agent Orange (in Vietnam) and depleted uranium (in the former Yugoslavia and in Iraq) which cause horrendous suffering including cancer and birth defects and remain over time as potent environmental toxins. The ecological effects of war, such as the burning of oil fields and the destruction of large urban constructions, spreads poisonous fumes and dust, with devestating effects on land, humans, flora and fauna.