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Vast Surveillance of Whole Populations: The NSA Revelations One Year Out

A World Can't Wait Panel at the Left Forum, June 1, 2014.  The US government collects billions of bytes of "metadata" on phone calls, emails, bank traffic, text messaging, chats - content, recipients, etc. - storing everything for future use, if not needed immediately. Edward Snowden and others in the field say the amount of data collected doubles every two years. The ramifications of this data collection and storage process goes beyond issues of civil liberties and abstract rights.

How is Harlem Like Afghanistan?

by Debra Sweet        Anand Gopal has written a fascinating book after learning Pashto and living in Afghanistan for 5 years. No Good Men Among the Living, through the stories of 3 Afghans, tells the tale of how the US quickly defeated the Taliban in 2001, and then so oppressed, alienated, and night-raided the population, that they revived the Taliban, and created thousands of indidigenous operators becoming enriched by US contracts.

Iraqis Are Not Abstractions

by Debra Sweet        Today, help on challenging how people in the U.S. are looking at "helping" Iraq:  Larry Everest writes in Revolution, More U.S. Killings and War Crimes in Iraq? HELL NO! today:

When you hear the commander-in-chief of the U.S. empire talk about freedom and giving people "the opportunity to forge their own future," here's what that has meant for the people of Iraq:

Helping the People of Iraq

by Debra Sweet  N THE EVENT of U.S. bombing of Iraq, choose the best protest location in your city/town, and call on people to go there at 5:00 pm the day of the attack, or, in the case of an evening attack, the next day at 5:00 pm

Hunter HS Commencement Award Protest Report

On Friday, June 13, a group of protesters, organized by War Criminals Watch/World Can't Wait and KnowDrones.com gathered outside Hunter College as families and students began to gather for the Hunter College High School commencement.  This otherwise happy occasion was marred by the fact that the Distinguised Graduate award was about to be given to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Avril Haines - in absentia (it would be accepted for her by a Hunter High School assistant principal).  The fact that the school administration kept the award quiet until two days before the ceremony is an indication of how unacceptable the choice for this year's award was.

24 Years of US War on Iraq - No Bombing Now!

by Debra Sweet      Within days or hours, the U.S. may be bombing Iraq again.  John Kerry predicts drone strikes on Iraq. Democracy Now says today, "The U.S.S. George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier has recently arrived in the Persian Gulf. The carrier is accompanied by the U.S.S. Philippine Sea guided-missile cruiser and the U.S.S. Truxtun guided-missile destroyer, both of which carry Tomahawk missiles that can reach Iraq."  It's time to be in the streets in protest, demanding NO further war on Iraq.

Pakistan court orders case against CIA drone attacks

A Pakistani High Court ordered Pakistani police to lodge a complaint against former CIA station chief Jonathan Banks on Thursday, for the killing of civilians in U.S. drone strikes along the country's northwestern border with Afghanistan.Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court made the order in a case filed by Karim Khan, a North Waziristan resident and an anti-drone activist whose son and brother were both killed in a drone strike in 2009.

Still, the Grim Farce that is Guantanamo

by Debra Sweet         Guantanamo attorney Ramzi Kassem, in his op-ed in Saturday's New York TimesA View from Gitmo, said, “Guantánamo remains at its core a lawless place.”  The torture camp was set in Cuba in 2002 to avoid U.S. and international law, but mostly to provide a place where the Bush regime could make it known, “here, we can do anything we choose to you.”  

NO MORE WAR ON IRAQ!

Protest Obama when he speaks at the Democratic Party Fundraiser.

Tuesday, June 17th - 5:30pm

Gothem Hall. 1356 Broadway. (35 & 36th Sts) New York City

Bring your signs and banners.

Protest CIA Deputy Director Avril Haines at Hunter HS Commencement

Hunter College High School will be giving its Distinguished Graduate award to the Deputy Director of the CIA, Avril Haines, at this year’s senior commencement. The administration has tried to keep it quiet, hoping to avoid criticism.

Haines is a top official of an agency guilty of torture of detainees, launching drone attacks that have killed or maimed thousands of civilians and that has a long record of complicity in the overthrow of governments and the occupations of many countries. Millions of people have suffered from the dictatorships that followed in their wake.

American Exceptionalism & the Words of Two Young Men

By Debra Sweet        As he gave vague outlines of developing US military strategy while speaking at the West Point commencement last week, President Obama affirmed that he believes “in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.” The previous day, he had announced that instead of all U.S. troops leaving in 2014, as had been the mantra, 9,800 would stay at least until 2016. We don't know what they will be doing, but securing the bases they've built from where secret operations — drones? missions into Pakistan? — are launched from is one likely explanation.

Report on World Can't Wait/War Criminals Watch Left Forum Panels

By Debra Sweet       Memorable moments from the World Can't Wait panels this weekend at the Left Forum, attended by 240, and soon to be available on video:

Appearances/Protests of War Criminals

June-July 2014 War Criminal Appearances & Protests

George Bush
6/25/14 Orlando FL

Dick Cheney
6/25/14 Billings MT

US “Dirty” Wars, Targeted Killing & Secret Operations Supercede Military Occupations – But Are Still Illegitimate

 Join us at the Left Forum, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 W. 59th St, New York City on Sunday, June 1, 10:00 - 11:50 am to hear this panel on US dirty wars, especially drone warfare. It not only will provide historical background and context to the issues facing us and the world today, it is action-oriented, grappling with how to challenge how people think. Come, participate and help plan mass action to stop the crimes of your government.

Vast Surveillance of Whole Populations: The NSA Revelations One Year Out

 Join us at the Left Forum, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 W. 59th St, New York City on Saturday 5/31/2014, 12:00 - 1:50 pm to hear hear this panel on vast surveillance. The US government collects billions of bytes of “metadata” on phone calls, emails, bank traffic, text messaging, chats -- content, recipients, etc. – storing everything for future use, if not needed immediately. Edward Snowden and others in the field say the amount of data collected doubles every two years. The ramifications of this data collection and storage process goes beyond issues of civil liberties and abstract rights.

Imperialist Wars & Global Ecological Degradation

Join us at the Left Forum, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 W. 59th St, New York City on Saturday 5/31/2014 at 5:00 to 6:45pm to hear this panel on imperialism and ecological devastation. It not only will provide historical background and context to these issues facing us and the world today, it is action-oriented, grappling with how to challenge how people think. Share this with your friends, family, and colleagues!

Bringing CUNY into the US War Machine – Students and Faculty Rise Up

Come to the Left Forum -5/31 & 6/1/2014 -in New York City to hear World Can't Wait/War Criminals Watch empowering 4 panels. Share this widely and invite all your friends, fellow & sister workers and family! Our first panel, Sat. 5/31- 3:20-4:50 pm is on CUNY students present struggle to shut down its restored ROTC after 40 years off campus & end Gen David Petraeus' tenure at CUNY. 

Global Protests Say Shut Down Guantanamo - End Indefinite Detention

By Debra Sweet       ALERT:  Ominous action taken in the U.S. is a Senate vote this week to authorize Obama to move all the 154 prisoners to prisons in the   would allow Obama the claim that he has “closed” Guantanamo, while creating a terrible precedent of holding prisoners indefinitely and without charge, and possibly trying those few they have charged in sham military commission trials, within the U.S. Some of the prisoners' attorneys say that disappearing them into the hellhole of mass incarceration here would make it even harder to get them freed, even though many have already been cleared for release.

Obama to Outline How He'll Keep International Order

by Debra Sweet       Press reports say Obama will make a major address at West Point’s commencement Wednesday morning on US foreign policy objectives, and portray the US as “the ultimate guarantor of international order” according to The New York Times. Days after his “surprise visit” to Afghanistan to announce that whoever is president after Karzai will allow occupation troops to stay past this year, we speculate on this vision of international order...

What Would it Take to Close Guantanamo NOW?

by Debra Sweet      What would it take?  We are wrangling over this.  A lot of people thought that to close Guantanamo it would take electing Barack Obama.  Our guest on World Can't Wait's national conference call this past Thursday evening,  Carlos Warner, said he thought that in 2008.  A federal public defender for Northeast Ohio, Carlos represents 13 men still detained there, which he has visited "at least 30 times." He describes his clients as "artists, poets, musicians, and some just regular guys who have had a very difficult life." These are the stories & voices we will bring to life this coming Friday in protests around the world.

#BringBackYourDrones Mr.Obama

By World Can't Wait        It would be hard to have missed Michelle Obama's photo with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, displaying sad eyes as she gave the pre-Mothers Day President's talk Saturday, assuring the public that the US would do everything it can to help rescue the hundreds of girls kidnapped by the Islamic fundamentalist group Boko Haram in Nigeria.  We hope this turns out like the New York Police Department's Twitter campaign recently, which asked for photos of people with #MyNYPD, and got barraged with photos of police brutality from Occupy protests, stop & frisk arrests and unjust murders by the NYPD.

World Can't Wait at the Left Forum

World Can't Wait is presenting four great panels at the Left Forum. We look forward to meeting you there.Left Forum 2014 will be at  John Jay College New Building, 524 West 59th St, NYC. Our panels will be on Saturday May 31st and Sunday June !st. Check them out below.

Vast Surveillance of Whole Populations: The NSA Revelations One Year Out   Session 2 on Saturday, May 31st from 12:00 pm - 1:50 pm in Room 1.85

Not Another Day in Guantanamo! Not Another Broken Promise!

On May 23rd of last year, President Obama again promised to close the detention facility at Guantanamo.  His pledge came in response to the mass hunger strike by men protesting their indefinite detention and to the renewed, global condemnation of the prison.  One year later, far too little has changed: few detained men have left the prison and hunger strikes and forced feeding continue.

Demonstrations will be taking place across the United States and the world to demand that President Obama and the US Congress end indefinite detention and close the detention facility at Guantanamo.

Sunrise Anti-Drone Protest At West Point

Meet us at the the United States Military Academy on May 28,2014  to protest when Obama speaks at the West Point commencement. We'll be on public roads at two West Point gates as cars enter the campus for the ceremony.  We will gather at 6:45 am near the Stoney Lonesome Gate of West Point just off Route 9W, one exit north of the exit leading to Highland Falls, NY, home of West Point.

We Demand An Accounting For War Crimes

Saturday May 10th a core of 15 anti-torture activists anchored the seventh annual protest of University of California accommodation and promotion of Boalt Hall 'Torture Professor' John Yoo. Defying the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility finding that professor Yoo and his boss,now federal district court judge Jay Bybee, were guilty of 'professional misconduct,' Berkeley Law administrators continue to harbor an unrepentant advocate for illegal policies deployed by the Bush regime.

Many graduates and their guests accepted and wore orange ribbons in support for repudiation of U.S. torture practice.

World Can't Wait applauds the potential of this new generation of lawyers and judges to prosecute the crimes of arbitrary detention, torture, and suppression of civil rights prescribed by John Yoo's 'Unitary Executive' theory (that "if the President does it, it's legal").

Professor Yoo not only supports U.S. targeted assassination policy; he complains that President Obamaisn't being hawkish enough in the War on Terror:

"Yoo's flippant attitude toward killing civilians is noteworthy in two ways. First - the obvious - 
is that it reveals a truly sick disregard for the killing of innocent human beings...
The second reason it is noteworthy is that Yoo argues trying to avoid killing civilians who are in the vicinity of enemy combatants doesn't apply 'to wartime operations.' Leave aside the legal reasoning for a moment and consider if Yoo would support the same standard in reverse."
 

A university that allows a war criminal to teach constitutional law under prejudice of 'academic freedom' is protecting war crimes.

 

Fire John Yoo... Close Guantanamo... Ground Killer Drones

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Outside Berkeley Law Graduation 2014. More Outside Berkeley Law Graduation 2014. Morephotos here; thanks Bindu!

Protest President Obama Speaking at West Point Commencement

Sunrise Anti-Drone-War Protest
 
Protesters are asked to gather at 6:45 am near the Stoney Lonesome Gate of West Point just off Route 9W, one exit north of the exit leading to Highland Falls, NY, home of West Point.

Obama: Humanity & the Planet Come First!

On May 14,2014 President Obama will be in New York City for a fundraiser at the home of a major financier of deals worth billions of dollars.  Let's be a visible presence saying no to the Keystone XL pipeline and all the other outrages against humanity and the planet.  Sponsors (list in formation): World Can't Wait, 350NYC, 350.org, Center for Biological Diversity, Sane Energy Project.

Meet on the corner of 79th St. and 5th Ave, Manhattan  NYC 10075

World Can't Wait at the Left Forum

World Can't Wait is presenting four great panels at the Left Forum. 

We look forward to meeting you there.

May 31-June 2014  -  John Jay College New Building - 524 W. 59th St. New York, NY

 

Panal 1 - Vast Surveillance of Whole Populations: The NSA Revelations One Year Out

Three Reports on the Rutgers May Teach-In on Condoleezza Rice

By Deanna Gorzynski, World Can't Wait volunteer

The palpable excitement and satisfaction of the Rutgers students success
with exiling war criminal Condoleezza Rice from their commencement
exercises didn’t take long for me to see. Hours before the teach-in I was
at a Staples making copies for World Can’t Wait posters, some 50 miles
north of Rutgers, and as I left a young employee ran up to me excitedly, “She’s
not speaking at Rutgers, we put an end to it!”

Speaking Events

2017

 

August 2-6: Peace and Democracy Conference at Democracy Convention in Minneapolis, Minn.

 

September 22-24: No War 2017 at American University in Washington, D.C.

 

October 28: Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference



Find more events here.

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