February, 27 2009, 01:25pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Paul Kawika Martin, Political Director, 301.565.4050
x 316, 951.217.7285 cell, pmartin@peace-action.org
Kevin Martin, Executive Director, 301.565.4050 x 307,
301.537.8244 cell
Largest Peace Group Gives Mixed Review of Obama's Iraq Plan
WASHINGTON
Peace Action, the nation's largest peace organization, today praised President Obama's Iraq plan as a step towards ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The group claimed that all troops and contractors could be redeployed from Iraq more rapidly and that Iraq needs more resources focused on reconstruction and humanitarian aid to mitigate the refugee crisis.
"Peace Action has consistently called for all troops and contractors to come home within a year and for increased investments in Iraqi-led reconstruction and humanitarian aid," stated Kevin Martin the group's executive director.
Martin hoped that President Obama's phrase "The U.S. pursues no claim on your territory or your resources," definitively meant no permanent U.S. bases in Iraq and perhaps a decrease in the oversized U.S. Embassy. He also applauded the President's plans to increase health care to veterans, to engage with Syria and Iran and to finally put the cost of wars into the budget rather than emergency supplementals.
"The ending of this illegal, immoral war, where we found no weapons of mass destruction, is long overdue. We want to see the troops coming home more quickly from Iraq and not shipped to another quagmire in Afghanistan. There is no need for a residual force or permanent bases in Iraq. There are unmet needs to rebuild the country and to solve the refugee crisis," concluded Martin.
Peace Action is the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization with over 100,000 members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs and encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights.
LATEST NEWS
Sanders Says US Must 'End All Offensive Military Aid' as Israel Targets Rafah
The Vermont independent condemned the United States' support of Israel in a speech announcing his Senate reelection campaign.
May 06, 2024
As Israel rejected a cease-fire deal that Hamas had accepted Monday, dashing the hopes of civilianstrapped in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that an invasion could be averted, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the Biden administration to stop the looming attack that humanitarian and rights organizations have been warning against for months.
The Vermont independent senator said President Joe Biden must follow through on his call for Israel to protect civilian lives by forgoing a ground invasion of Rafah. In March Biden said the attack would be a "red line" unless Israel developed a credible plan to evacuate civilians, who include an estimated 600,000 children in the city.
To stop Israel from killing potentially hundreds of thousands of people in the city, where 1.4 million people are sheltering following Israel's obliteration of cities across Gaza, the U.S. must "end all offensive military aid" to the country, Sanders said Monday.
"Now an assault is imminent," said Sanders. "It will kill countless civilians. President Biden must back his words with action."
The senator made his latest demand for an end to Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza hours after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated a forced evacuation of about 100,000 people in eastern Rafah, dropping leaflets that ordered displaced families to move to a strip of land along Gaza's coast. An estimated 600,000 children are among the city's current population.
Israel has killed scores of people in Rafah in recent weeks with airstrikes on residential areas. Last week, dozens of U.S. House Democrats called on Biden to ensure a full-scale ground assault would not go forward, days before Israeli officials briefed the U.S.—the world's largest funder of the IDF—about its plan to forcibly expel people from the city.
Late last month Biden signed a foreign aid package that included $17 billion for Israel's military—legislation that Sanders voted against.
Sanders reiterated his demand for Biden to end his support for the IDF as he announced his 2024 reelection campaign.
Along with the climate crisis, healthcare and prescription drug costs, and protecting U.S. democracy, said Sanders, Israel's assault on Gaza is "very much on the minds of Vermonters," whom he has represented in the Senate since 2007.
While Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas for its October 7 attack, said Sanders, "it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing."
"Thirty-four thousand Palestinians have already been killed and 77,000 have been wounded—70% of whom are women and children," he added. "According to humanitarian organizations, famine and starvation are now imminent. In my view, U.S. tax dollars should not be going to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people."
Top Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have pushed back against a potential cease-fire deal in recent days, with Smotrich saying last week that Israel must see to the "total annihilation" of cities in Gaza, including Rafah.
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Senators Threaten ICC: 'Target Israel and We Will Target You'
"You have been warned," wrote 12 Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
May 06, 2024
Just over a week before the International Criminal Court issued a statement condemning threats against the institution, a dozen Republicans in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the ICC's prosecutor warning him against pursuing charges against Israeli officials over war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
The letter, dated April 24 and reported exclusively by Zeteo on Monday, explicitly threatens U.S. retaliation against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top Israeli officials.
"Target Israel and we will target you," reads the letter, which was led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a notorious war hawk, and signed by 11 others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The letter specifically threatens to sanction ICC employees and associates and bar them and their families from entering the United States, which is not a party to the ICC.
"You have been warned," states the letter, which invokes the American Service-Members’ Protection Act—a 2002 law informally known as "The Hague Invasion Act."
As Zeteo explained, the law "authorizes the U.S. president 'to use all means necessary and appropriate' to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC."
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who delivered the infamous GOP response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address earlier this year, told Zeteo that the letter is "not a threat," but "a promise."
Read the letter from 12 Republican senators threatening ICC chief prosecutor @KarimKhanQC with "severe" consequences for him, his family & staff if he goes ahead with an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. "You have been warned."
Oh and subscribe to Zeteo too: https://t.co/pVvXi4IB6C pic.twitter.com/aXfKH03T16
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 6, 2024
The 12 Republicans sent their letter days before the office of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan released a statement warning that its "independence and impartiality are undermined... when individuals threaten to retaliate against the court or against court personnel" as they conduct their investigations.
"Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offense against the administration of justice under [Article] 70 of the Rome Statute," the statement added. "The office insists that all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence its officials cease immediately."
While the ICC statement did not mention any individuals or governments by name, it is apparent that its message was directed at least in part at Republican lawmakers in the U.S.
The Biden White House and Netanyahu have also spoken out against the ICC amid reports that it is considering arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and other senior officials.
"We've been really clear about the ICC investigation," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters late last month. "We do not support it. We don't believe that they have the jurisdiction. And I'm just gonna leave it there for now."
Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed more than 34,600 people in Gaza—a death toll that could surge if Israel moves ahead with its planned ground invasion of Rafah. Women and children account for up to 70% of those killed by Israel's military thus far.
Like the U.S., Israel is not a party to the ICC, but the court says it has jurisdiction over the occupied Palestinian territories. In 2021, the ICC launched a probe into alleged war crimes in the territories, including Gaza.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Putin's Tactical Nuclear Weapons Drills Called 'Dangerous and Irresponsible'
"What is needed now is de-escalation," said ICAN. "Russia can still stop the exercises and should be called on to do so immediately by all states."
May 06, 2024
Disarmament advocates on Monday denounced the Russian Defense Ministry's plans to hold tactical nuclear weapons drills "in the near future," an announcement that came over two years into Russia's war on Ukraine.
"Russia announcing nuclear weapons exercises near Ukraine is dangerous and irresponsible. It must be widely condemned," the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) declared on social media. "This kind of brinkmanship, typical of 'nuclear deterrence' thinking, can spiral out of control and result in catastrophe."
'"Saber-rattling' like this is part of how all nuclear-armed states show they are serious about using nuclear weapons. But it's reckless: It increases the risk of nuclear weapons use, whether intentionally or by accident, at a time when it is at its highest since the Cold War," ICAN continued. "And let's not forget these 'exercises' train military personnel to mass murder civilians in seconds."
While strategic nuclear weapons are intended to wipe out cities, nonstrategic or tactical arms have shorter ranges and lower yields, and are designed for battlefield use. However, as ICAN highlighted, "'tactical' nuclear weapons could have up to 20 times the destructive power of the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima."'
"What is needed now is de-escalation. Russia can still stop the exercises and should be called on to do so immediately by all states," the group said, urging all "responsible states opposed to nuclear drills and nuclear blackmail" to join the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), passage of which
earned ICAN the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
Since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials have
ramped up fears of nuclear war. Russia has the largest arsenal of the nine nuclear-armed nations, followed closely by the United States—which has armed Ukrainians throughout the ongoing war. The other countries known to have nukes are China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. None of them support the TPNW.
As
Reutersreported on Monday:
Some Western and Ukrainian officials have said Russia is bluffing over nuclear weapons to scare the West, though the Kremlin has repeatedly indicated that it would consider breaking the nuclear taboo if Russia's existence was threatened.
"We do not see anything new here," said Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence. "Nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of Putin's regime."
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that its exercises would involve troops of the Southern Military District—which, as The New York Timesnoted, is "an area that covers Russian-occupied Ukraine and part of Russia's border region with Ukraine."
The ministry explained on social media that its plans "to practice the preparation and use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons" come "in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation."
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, echoed that reasoning for the drills, citing statements from British, French, and U.S. officials, according toTASS. He also told reporters that "deploying NATO soldiers to confront the Russian military in the latest escalation of tensions is an unprecedented move. And, of course, it requires special attention and special measures."
NATO in January launched the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills—its largest exercises since the Cold War, involving more than 90,000 troops, over 1,000 combat vehicles, and dozens of ships and aircraft. The drills in Poland are due to end this month.
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that while "Putin has previously used nuclear rhetoric against [the] West during his war in Ukraine," this is the first time he knows of that the Russian leader has ordered tactical nuke drills in this district "with explicit reference to West," and it is "obviously intended as a signal."
"For NATO this is an opportunity to double down on condemnation of nuclear threats, reaffirm that nuclear war can't be won and should never be fought, and study how Russia operates its tac nuke forces in exercise," the expert added. "Just don't take the bait and respond with NATO nuke operations!"
Pavel Podvig, the Geneva-based director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, agreed that "this is, of course, a signal." He urged Western leaders to "avoid... getting sucked into this" and rally the world around the message that "nuclear threats are inadmissible."
Responding to Podvig's remarks on social media, former ICAN executive director Beatrice Fihn pointed out that over 70 nations condemned threats to use nuclear weapons at the first TPNW meeting.
"I wish more NATO states would work with the TPNW states that have close connections to Russia to strengthen and support this kind of work," she said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular