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Jimmy Carter's Daughter Thanks Writer for Focus on Her Dad's Defense of Palestinian Rights
"There is no better way to remember him," said Amy Carter.
Dec 30, 2024
Amid of flurry of reflections on former U.S. President Jimmy Carter following his death at age 100 on Sunday, his daughter Amy Carter thanked one writer for highlighting her father's historic support for Palestinian rights and criticism of Israeli apartheid.
Qasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer and former Democratic congressional candidate who has forcefully criticized the ongoing U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past nearly 15 months, remembered Carter on Sunday by writing on Substack about the 39th president's stance on Israel and Palestine. Rashid included a clip from a 2007 interview with Democracy Now! about a book that Carter published the previous year, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
"In this book, President Carter cogently argues that the main obstacle to peace in Israel and Palestine is in fact the hundreds of thousands of illegal settlements that Israel continues to build, all with U.S. backing and support," Rashid wrote, also emphasizing Carter's point from the interview that it is politically risky for elected officials in Washington, D.C. to support Palestinian rights. "Contrast President Carter's clarity and courageous voice with the cowardice and complicit nature of every president since, including their appeasement of the Israeli government's settlement expansion, land annexation, and apartheid enforcement."
Later Sunday, Rashid posted on social media a screenshot of Substack subscriber Amy Carter's response to his article. The 57-year-old—who was arrested as a teenager for protesting apartheid in South Africa—said in part: "There is no better way to remember him and I appreciate that you and your readers are keeping this important part of his legacy alive. Thank you."
Floored to receive this beautiful comment from Amy Carter, daughter of President Jimmy Carter. She proudly elevates her father's legacy in promoting justice for Palestine & calls upon everyone to keep that legacy alive. Here's my article she is responding to: www.qasimrashid.com/p/president-...
[image or embed]
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. ( @qasimrashid.com) December 29, 2024 at 9:33 PM
While the former president has faced praise and scrutiny from across the political spectrum for various foreign policy decisions and positions, the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner's support for Palestinian rights does stand out from those who have held the Oval Office since his single term—which included the Camp David Accords, signed in September 1978 by him, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Rashid was not alone in focusing on Carter's controversial 2006 book and broader position on Palestine in the wake of his death—as Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for slaughtering over 45,500 Palestinians in Gaza and starving those who have managed to survive.
On Monday morning, Democracy Now! shared on social media a version of the 2007 clip Rashid noted, during which Carter stresses that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) "is not dedicated to peace," but rather is working and succeeding at convincing the American public, media, and political leaders to support the policies of the Israeli government.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan—who recently launched Zeteo after his MSNBC show was canceled following his criticism of Israel's assault on Gaza—on Sunday shared "eight critical Jimmy Carter quotes you won't see in most mainstream media obits."
In a Sunday obituary for Foreign Policy, Jonathan Alter—author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life—wrote:
The Camp David Accords turned out to be the most durable diplomatic achievement since the end of World War II. "What he has done with the Middle East is one of the most extraordinary things any president in history has ever accomplished," said Averell Harriman, a veteran U.S. diplomat who sometimes gave Carter advice.
Carter was the first president to back a Palestinian state, which along with his rhetoric afterward—including a 2006 book titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid—made him the most pro-Palestinian U.S. president ever, a fact that angered American Jews for decades. Based on the Camp David Accords alone, however, he also turned out to be the best U.S. president for Israel's security since Harry Truman. That's because the only army with the capacity to destroy Israel—the Egyptian army—has been neutralized for more than four decades.
Mitchell Plitnick, a political analyst and writer, asserted at Mondoweiss on Sunday that Carter "is a man whose legacy will forever be inextricably linked to Israel and Palestine. Yet that legacy will be built as much on myth as on reality, as with so many other aspects of the history and politics of the 'Holy Land.'"
Calling for Carter's legacy to be "scrutinized carefully and honestly," Plitnick—like Alter—wrote of the Camp David Accords that "Carter understood, as any observer would, that if Israel made peace with Egypt, it would remove the single biggest military challenger in the region and the remaining Arab states would no longer be able to mount a credible threat against Israel."
He also argued that Carter's 2006 book "itself was far less remarkable than the title," given that its substance "made it clear that he was trying to steer Israel away from its own self-immolation on the altar of its occupation."
"The hateful comments that came his way for many years, mostly from the Jewish community but also from the Christian Zionists who share his evangelical beliefs but not his understanding of what those beliefs mean, were horribly misplaced," Plitnick added. "He cared deeply and tried to do what he could to create a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. For that, he's been called an antisemite. Every person who ever uttered that slur against him owes him an apology. Now would be a good time to send it."
As The Guardian's Chris McGreal reported on Monday, at least one key person did apologize before Carter died:
Among those outraged by Carter's book in 2006 were members of the former president's own foundation, which has built an international reputation for its work on human rights and to alleviate suffering. Steve Berman led a mass resignation from the Carter Center's board of councilors at the time.
Earlier this year, Berman revealed that he later wrote to Carter to apologize and to say that the former president had been right.
"I had started to view Israel's occupation of the Palestinians as something that started in 1967 as an accident but was now becoming an enterprise with colonial intentions," Berman said in his letter to Carter.
Shortly before Carter's death, Peter Beinart, described as "the most influential liberal Zionist of his generation," said the time had come for the former president's critics to apologize for the "shameful way that the book was received by many significant people."
Leading Muslim groups in the United States have also released statements since Carter's death on Sunday.
"President Carter was a friend of the American Muslim community and a champion for many just causes, including Palestinian freedom," said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national executive director Nihad Awad. "Even when President Carter faced vitriolic attacks from anti-Palestinian groups for his prescient book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, he stood firm. He was a humanitarian role model, and we pray that a new generation of political leaders will take inspiration from his legacy."
The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO)—an umbrella group that includes CAIR—said that it "joined American Muslims in commemorating former President Jimmy Carter as a principled humanitarian who dedicated his post-presidency to pursuing social and international justice, including courageously and forthrightly warning the American public about the harmful influence of pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC and the Israeli government's intent on entrenching a colonial apartheid state on Palestinian land."
In addition to praising Carter's 2006 book, USCMO said that "he candidly called the U.S. 'Road Map for Peace' a sham that intended failure. He went on record, nearly alone among U.S. politicians at the time, to debunk the so-called Israeli 'security wall' as an 'imprisonment wall' to intern West Bank Palestinians. Moreover, he stood alone among his political peers in the U.S. in unfailingly and publicly defending Islam and Muslims against a rising, politically motivated, systematic Islamophobia media campaign as a foil for promoting religious nationalism in American politics."
"We convey our sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of James Earl Carter Jr.," USCMO concluded, "and to the American people who have lost a rarity in our politics—a former president who stood for the best interests of this nation and its stated values of freedom, justice, and democracy, regardless of outside political pressure to sell out those American values."
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Israeli Government Funded Covert Influence Campaign Targeting US Lawmakers: NYT
The head of an Israeli watchdog group called the operation "anti-democratic" and "extremely irresponsible."
Jun 05, 2024
Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs organized and paid for a digital campaign to influence U.S. lawmakers, especially Democrats who are Black, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
The ministry allotted $2 million to the operation in October and hired Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm, to carry it out. Stoic established fake news websites and hundreds of fake accounts on X, Instagram, and Facebook that posted pro-Israeli messages, trying to push lawmakers such as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the House minority leader, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) to fund Israel's military and support its war efforts, the Times reported.
The influence campaign had been reported by a few news and nonprofit organizations in recent months, but the Times article, which drew from operation documents and interviews with current and former diaspora ministry officials, was the first to show that Israel's government was behind it. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, published a related story one hour later on Wednesday.
Critics condemned the Israeli government for its role in the disinformation campaign.
"So in addition to the pro-Israel lobby spending tens of millions to defame and defeat progressives in Congress, we now learn that Israel creates fake media to target friends and opponents by inundating with fake news supporting Israeli positions," James Zogby, co-founder of the Arab American Institute, wrote on social media.
Wow—New York Times & Haaretz report Israel ordered a secret digital operation on US lawmakers (esp. Black Democrats) that spread misinformation & anti-Arab sentiment and attacked pro-Palestinian Americans, to sway public opinion & influence the lawmakers to fund Israel’s military pic.twitter.com/D5U5ewiqLP
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) June 5, 2024
The disinformation campaign comes amid other efforts by pro-Israel groups to influence U.S. politics during its assault on Gaza, notably the lobbying and campaign money spent by groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliates.
The Israeli disinformation campaign also drew comparisons to Russia's well-known attempt to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which was a central focus of the U.S. political commentariat in the years that followed. Ishmael Daro, an editor at Democracy Now!, made a tongue-in-cheek prediction that the reaction from the U.S. political establishment would be similar this time.
When Russia set up bots to post ineffective propaganda in 2016, it led to a multi-year meltdown by much of the U.S. political establishment that basically treated it like a coup attempt. I assume we'll get a similar reaction to this. https://t.co/sEXeO41ozb pic.twitter.com/nPkQtWsCyb
— ishmael n. daro (@iD4RO) June 5, 2024
Last week, both Meta and OpenAI issued reports on Stoic's disinformation campaign and said they had blocked the company's network from further activity. Meta said it had closed more than 500 fake Facebook accounts and OpenAI called Stoic a "for-hire Israeli threat actor," NBC News reported. Stoic's users remain active on X, the Times reported.
Many of the fake social media posts were generated using ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot owned by OpenAI, and much of the language in the posts was "stilted" and repetitive, the Times reported.
The covert scheme has also been characterized as "sloppy" and "ineffective," and it made little penetration with the general public or government figures. "We found and removed this network early in its audience building efforts, before they were able to gain engagement among authentic communities," Meta wrote in its report.
The Times did not explain that the covert influence campaign was discovered in February by the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and by Marc Owen Jones, a professor in Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, according to social media posts.
FakeReporter, an Israeli disinformation watchdog, followed up those initial discoveries with a March report on the campaign's activities, including the fake social media accounts and creation of the online platforms—Non-Agenda, The Moral Alliance, and Unfold Magazine—that created or republished news from a pro-Israel perspective, focusing on, for example, purported links between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and Hamas. The findings were reported in Haaretz at the time.
That Israel "ran an operation that interferes in U.S. politics is extremely irresponsible," Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter, told the Times. He characterized it to Haaretz as "amateurish" and "anti-democratic."
FakeReporter in fact issued a second report on Wednesday showing that Stoic's influence network may have gone further than the Times reporting shows. The watchdog group uncovered four additional websites, apparently Stoic-affiliated, that contain Islamophobic and anti-immigrant content. DFRLab had issued a report in March which also cited pro-Israeli disinformation and Islamophobic rhetoric, in that case targeted largely at Canadians.
The new report concluded that the influence network has "apparently developed into a large-scale effort to target various groups, some outside the U.S., using Islamophobic and anti-immigrant content."
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Israeli Scholar Sees Hope for Democratic Palestine 'To Replace This Apartheid State'
"We are seeing... important processes that are leading to the collapse of the Zionist project," said Ilan Pappé, following his interrogation in the U.S.
May 21, 2024
Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, a prominent anti-Zionist, expressed hope for a free, democratic Palestine in which Jewish and Arab people can coexist, during an interview on Tuesday with Democracy Now! following his interrogation by U.S. federal agents last week.
Pappé, director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, was interrogated by the agents for two hours about his views after arriving in Detroit on a flight from London on May 13. The agents took his phone away before returning it. Pappé initially said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had interrogated him but later clarified that he was not sure which U.S. federal agency the agents represented.
Pappé
cited the interrogation in Detroit as an example of the "sheer panic and desperation" of Israel and pro-Israel lobbies due to fear the country will become a "pariah state." The interrogation came amid crackdowns on pro-Palestine demonstrations on U.S. college campuses, as well as arrests of protestors and cancellations of pro-Palestine intellectual activity in Europe.
In Tuesday's interview, Pappé denounced Israel's historical policy toward Palestinians, declaring it to be clearsighted in its cruelty and intentional in its methods, as he has long done in his scholarly work, most notably in his 2007 book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
Referring to events in the late 1940s, he told Democracy Now! that "the Nakba is a bit of a misleading term, because it means, in Arabic, a 'catastrophe.' But really what the Palestinians suffered was not an actual catastrophe, but rather ethnic cleansing, which is a clear policy motivated by clear ideology."
"There is not one moment in the history of the Palestinians in Palestine, since the arrival of Zionism in Palestine, in which Palestinians are not potentially under danger of losing their home, their fields, their businesses, and their homeland," he added.
Pappé has argued that as ugly as that history may be, the current war in Gaza is even worse—a step up from ethnic cleansing to genocide, in his view. His forthcoming book, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, documents the influence of the pro-Zionist lobbyists in the U.S., the U.K., and elsewhere.
Despite that influence, Pappé said that he sees signs that the ideological hold of Zionism is weakening, and a freer, more democratic Palestine may be possible, telling Democracy Now!:
I think we are seeing processes, important processes, that are leading to the collapse of the Zionist project. Hopefully, the Palestinian national movement and anyone else involved in Israel and Palestine would be able to replace this apartheid state, this oppressive regime, with a democratic one for everyone who lives between the river and the sea and for all the Palestinians who were expelled from there since 1948 until today.
"I am really hopeful that there will be a different kind of life," he added, "for both Jews and Arabs between the river and the sea under a democratic, free Palestine."
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Advocates Lament 'Extremely Disappointing' Exclusion of Noncitizens From Biden Marijuana Pardons
"President Biden can and should ensure that marijuana possession convictions do not jeopardize a person's immigration status," argued one immigrant rights attorney.
Oct 07, 2022
While welcoming U.S. President Joe Biden's executive action Thursday pardoning Americans convicted of low-level federal marijuana possession offenses, immigrant rights advocates expressed disappointment that the policy does not apply to noncitizens--and hope that the administration will ensure that everyone benefits from the clemency.
"Federal immigration authorities regularly deny green card and citizenship applications due to marijuana possession convictions."
As Common Dreams reported, Biden granted "a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all current U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who committed the offense of simple possession of marijuana," a plant listed by the Drug Enforcement Administration in the same category as heroin and in a more serious class than cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl.
While progressives largely applauded Biden's move, many expressed hope and expectation that is was only a first step toward federal decriminalization and, ultimately, legalization of a plant that is legal for recreational or medical use in most states today.
Some called for the inclusion of noncitzens and undocumented people in the policy. The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice tweeted that Biden "says no one should be in jail for just using or possessing marijuana, but fails to include immigrants without status in his pardon."
"It's not the first time the government actively excludes immigrants without status from important decisions or reparations," the advocacy group added.
Although Drug Policy Alliance executive director Kassandra Frederique said Thursday that her group was "thrilled to see President Biden holding true to his commitment to pardon every person with simple marijuana charges at the federal level," she tempered her praise during a Friday interview with Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman.
Frederique lamented that "noncitizens were excluded from this, which is really unfortunate, because people who are noncitizens, cannabis is one of the main reasons why people are detained or deported."
"Drug Policy Alliance has learned an incredible amount of the intricacies between immigration policy and drug policy over the last decade," she continued. "And in fact, most people don't realize that our first drug laws were xenophobic immigration policies."
"And so," Frederique added, "this is why Drug Policy Alliance is working with our groups around the country to really figure out how do we continue to push where the president is right now, to a broader conversation that's actually going to bring the necessary material condition changes that our community needs."
Jane Shim, senior policy attorney at the Immigrant Defense Project, called Biden's move "one step in addressing" the harms caused by marijuana prohibition, which she said "has devastated poor communities and communities of color for too long."
"However, it is extremely disappointing that the administration went out of its way to exclude undocumented immigrants," she continued. "Furthermore, even immigrants who were pardoned may remain at risk of detention and deportation because of a marijuana offense, thanks to our punitive immigration laws."
"President Biden can and should ensure that marijuana possession convictions do not jeopardize a person's immigration status," Shim argued. "Federal immigration authorities regularly deny green card and citizenship applications due to marijuana possession convictions."
Shim noted that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "has already deported thousands of people for marijuana possession, and continues to do so today."
"Pardons that clear the way for employment, housing, and educational opportunities will be little solace to families threatened with separation through deportation by ICE," she added.
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Despite Calls for Diplomacy to End War, US Confirms More Weapons Headed to Ukraine
"Are there still negotiation possibilities?" asked Noam Chomsky. "There's only one way to find out. That's to try. If you refuse to try, of course, there's no option, no possibilities."
Oct 04, 2022
Proponents of a negotiated diplomatic solution to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine this week decried the Biden administration's latest military assistance package for the embattled country, warning that the longer the fight continues, the greater the chance of a catastrophic nuclear war.
"The chances of a nuclear war increase significantly every day that passes."
The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the U.S. will deliver up to $625 million worth of additional armaments and ammunition to Ukraine following Russia's illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions last week, a move that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to formally apply for NATO membership.
The new package includes four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and an unknown number of guided missiles; 16 155mm howitzers and 75,000 precision-guided artillery rounds; 1,000 155mm remote anti-armor mines; 16 105mm howitzers; 30,000 120mm mortar rounds; 200 MaxxPro mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles; 200,000 rounds of small arms ammunition; and other armaments.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the new aid--which comes on top of more than $15 billion in American military assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24--is "carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield and strengthen Ukraine's hand at the negotiating table when the time is right."
Peace advocates stressed that--with Russian President Vladimir Putin's repeated threats to use nuclear weapons--the right time is right now, and that the United States and NATO allies should stop trying to weaken Russia by prolonging the war.
"The longer the war goes on, the longer it's maintained, the more the prospects for a diplomatic settlement diminish," U.S. political dissident and professor Noam Chomsky told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman in a Monday interview. "The longer the war continues, the more the window closes."
However, Chomsky noted that the United States and Britain "are keeping to the principle that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia--meaning no negotiated settlements, with all the consequences that follow."
Harry J. Kazianis, senior editor at 19FortyFive and president of the Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank based in Washington, D.C., wrote Monday for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft that "tensions are rising by the second," while "the chances of a nuclear war increase significantly every day that passes."
"Considering the stakes--among them, the possibility that Russia will feel so boxed in that it will turn to its arsenal of 6,400 nuclear warheads and try to end the Ukraine war on its own terms despite the risk of a nuclear holocaust--one would think talks would already be happening as we speak," Kazianis continued.
"Sadly," he added, "due to the Western narrative that Ukraine is 'winning' the war against Moscow, the Biden administration appears to believe it can put enough pressure on Putin with more weapons for Ukraine that he will give up his newly annexed territories and go home with his atomic tail between his legs."
According to recent polling by the Quincy Institute and Data for Progress, 49% of Americans want Biden to do more to seek a diplomatic solution to the war.
"This is not just the United States," Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic told "Breaking Points" podcast hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti on Tuesday. "There was a poll in Germany that shows most Germans, who are really feeling harshly the economic blowback of the sanctions, they want more diplomacy to try to end the war."
"This is also the prevailing opinion in most of the rest of the world, the Global South," he added. "You can look at... countries like Turkey, or say Mexico, who have attempted to try and broker some sort of peace agreement."
China has been a leading proponent of de-escalation and finding a diplomatic solution to the war. Speaking last week, Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said that his country's government "calls on all parties concerned to exercise restraint, refrain from actions that exacerbate tensions, and leave space for settlement through diplomatic negotiations."
"Where is the peace movement? There used to be a robust peace movement throughout the Cold War."
"The pressing priority is to make every effort to de-escalate the situation," he added, "and guide the parties to restart diplomatic negotiations as soon as possible to open the door to a political settlement with legitimate concerns brought into the negotiations and viable options put on the table, in an effort to achieve an early ceasefire."
With Zelenskyy having signed a decree Tuesday asserting that the prospect of talks with Putin is "impossible"--while signalling an openness to future negotiations with a change in Russian leadership--many Western observers have argued that seeking a diplomatic solution is an exercise in futility at this point.
"Are there still negotiation possibilities? There's only one way to find out. That's to try," said Chomsky. "If you refuse to try, of course, there's no option, no possibilities."
Marcetic asked: "Where is the peace movement? There used to be a robust peace movement throughout the Cold War."
"All that seems to be gone," he added. "I wish that people were more active and more outspoken about this to demonstrate that, no, you know, nuclear war is not worth anything."
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The Largest Pentagon Budget Cut in History Is a Great Idea
Complaining that domestic priorities are being sacrificed, these Democrats want to slash military spending by $100 billion.
Jun 15, 2022
Reps Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) introduced a bill Monday that would cut $100 billion from the defense budget--the largest single-year budget cut in Pentagon history.
Lee and Pocan offered a range of ways to spend the $100 billion, claiming it could be used to create over one million green jobs or to provide healthcare for more than 28 million people.
The text of the proposed People Over Pentagon Act says "many of the most urgent threats to the United States are not military in nature," and argues that Americans would be safer if this money was used to pay for major domestic projects.
"It is time that we realign our priorities [to] reflect the urgent needs of communities across the country that are healing from a pandemic, reeling from ongoing economic insecurity, and confronting an international energy crisis, none of which will be addressed by more military spending," Lee and Pocan wrote in a letter to other members of Congress.
The representatives added that the government's budget has long "put profits over people," arguing that "[n]owhere is that more apparent than in our Pentagon topline."
Lee and Pocan offered a range of ways to spend the $100 billion, claiming it could be used to create over one million green jobs or to provide healthcare for more than 28 million people. They added that the priority shift would "ensure that our concept of national security centers our people and builds upon our strengths as a nation."
This messaging could help build support among Democratic colleagues, though some in the military restraint movement worry it could alienate fiscal conservatives who have called for less defense spending but are skeptical about investing in progressive priorities.
Notably, the bill would not try to save money by firing Pentagon employees or cutting their benefits. Instead, the Pentagon would follow a recent Congressional Budget Office report that lays out how America could maintain a strong defense strategy for a lot less money.
The proposal is nothing new for Lee and Pocan, who have pitched major Pentagon spending cuts several times in recent years. If their prior attempts are any indication, the bill is unlikely to become law. But advocates say that attention-grabbing proposals like this provide important opportunities to convince the public that defense spending may not be the best way to keep Americans safe.
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As Putin Asserts Russia's Right to Defend Against NATO, US Urged to Avoid 'New Cold War'
While the Biden administration vows to "stand up for Ukraine," one expert implored U.S. leaders to "recognize our own provocations and aggressions" and to "make an effort to understand Russia."
Dec 08, 2021
As Russian President Vladimir Putin responded Wednesday to NATO provocations along his nation's western frontier by warning that his country reserves the right to defend itself, peace advocates stressed the need for U.S. self-awareness and restraint in order to avoid a "new Cold War."
"We can see Russia as a partner rather than an adversary in Eastern Europe."
Following U.S. vows to "stand up for Ukraine"--including by sending combat troops and sanctioning Moscow--in the event of Russian aggression, Putin said during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that "Russia has a peaceful foreign policy, but has the right to defend its security," according to Agence France-Presse.
The remarks were Putin's first in public since he and U.S. President Joe Biden met during a two-hour virtual summit on Tuesday. U.S. leaders are alarmed by Russia's concentration of troops within striking distance of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014.
Putin is seeking a guarantee that NATO will not expand further eastward, as it has done nine times since 1999. He called NATO enlargement a "very sensitive" issue for his country and "one of the key questions in preserving Russia's security," while citing the Biden administration's "open door" policy of potential membership for Ukraine and Georgia--both of which border Russia and were former Soviet republics--as cause for alarm.
"We cannot but be concerned about the prospect of Ukraine's possible admission to NATO," Putin said, "because this will undoubtedly be followed by the deployment of appropriate military contingents, bases, and weapons that threaten us."
Russian troops invaded Georgia--home to pro-Moscow separatist enclaves--in 2008, and Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which Russia subsequently annexed with the support of a majority of the local population, in 2014. Crimea was previously part of Russia from 1783 to 1954.
Biden followed Putin's remarks by saying that "the idea that the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not... in the cards right now," according to Defense One.
Appearing on Democracy Now! Wednesday, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation, said that "this escalation is not new."
"We have a one-sided narrative in this country, which is a problem because we haven't followed the growing mass of NATO troops on... Russia's border," she explained. "The escalation is neither in the United States' national interest nor security interest at a time when politics, [a] political solution, [a] diplomatic solution, is the only way forward."
"History matters," vanden Heuvel asserted. "In 1990, Gorbachev presided over the reunification of Germany and [then-U.S. Secretary of State] James Baker promised... NATO would not expand one inch eastward. That promise, which is documented in the National Security Archive, in [former Secretary of State] Condi Rice's book, in other materials, was violated. I think that is the original sin of what we witnessed today."
NATO--formed in 1949 as a mutual defense pact against the Soviet Union--has long been condemned as a provocative anachronism in the post-Cold War era, with many critics arguing that the trans-Atlantic alliance should be dissolved.
Instead, NATO has steadily expanded eastward and currently counts 10 former Soviet or Warsaw Pact nations as members. NATO's eastern boundary is now less than 100 miles from St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city.
Writing for Responsible Statecraft Tuesday, Worcester State University professor Joseph Preston Baratta urged U.S. leaders to "recognize our own provocations and aggressions" and to "make an effort to understand Russia."
"We can see Russia as a partner rather than an adversary in Eastern Europe," he said. "We can ask for a 'generous act' on the part of European leaders, like bringing Russia back into the Group of Eight, rather than continuing to hurt her people by sanctions."
When Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman mentioned the House of Representatives' approval Tuesday of a $778 billion U.S. military budget--more than the next 10 countries combined--vanden Heuvel called the development "such a tragedy."
"We have seen a revival of this national security strategy where we have made Russia and China the grave enemies," she said. "They are not going to be friends but mutual interests demand a working partnership."
Vanden Heuvel stressed that the U.S. "must wake up and understand... that we need to sort out a relationship with Russia."
She said that means recognizing that policies and actions like Biden's Summit for Democracy--which is taking place this week and has angered Beijing and Moscow--are provocations that have "a kind of Cold War feel."
"But the one-sided coverage, and it is not even commentary, in the U.S. media about U.S.-Russia, is I think debilitating and dangerous for our security and thinking," vanden Heuvel added.
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Dangerous Republican Anti-Protest Laws Grant Drivers License to Kill
Many of these laws include provisions legalizing violence against protestors, granting immunity to people who drive their cars into crowds.
Apr 30, 2021
As vaccinations against COVID-19 increase and with the CDC's recently-released relaxed outdoor masking standards for vaccinated people, the U.S. appears to be inching towards normalcy. Meanwhile, many state legislatures across the country are working to ensure that one aspect of our society does not return to normal--by criminalizing protest. Clearly jarred by the power and the depth of the protests against systemic racism and against police brutality that erupted in the wake of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis Police last year, right-wing, Republican-controlled state legislatures are passing laws specifically targeting dissent. At the same time, chillingly, many of these laws include provisions legalizing violence against protestors, granting immunity to people who drive their cars into crowds.
Robinson's group is tracking these frightening legislative trends, with close to 100 anti-protest bills proposed nationwide and five already enacted since George Floyd's murder.
"These are really extreme laws," the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law's Nick Robinson said on the Democracy Now! news hour. "For example, in Florida, if you're with 25 or more people or you're obstructing traffic, it becomes a felony and an aggravated riot, punishable by 15 years in jail....There's five years in jail if you deface a monument. If you tag a Confederate monument, it's a super serious charge under the Florida bill."
Robinson's group is tracking these frightening legislative trends, with close to 100 anti-protest bills proposed nationwide and five already enacted since George Floyd's murder. Florida's 61-page "Combating Public Disorder" bill, signed into law by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on April 19th, vastly expands the definition of 'riot' to just three people, and denies people arrested for 'rioting' release on bail until after their first court appearance. It gives the governor veto power over municipalities seeking a reduction in police department budgets, and shields from civil liability anyone accused of causing "personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage," if those who they injure or kill were guilty of so-called "rioting."
In Oklahoma, Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has just signed an anti-protest bill into law that protects drivers who injure or kill protesters by running into them with their cars from both civil and criminal prosecution.
"It's declaring open season. It's a hunting license," Susan Bro said on Democracy Now! Her daughter, Heather Heyer, was killed on August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, while peacefully protesting against the violent, white supremacist "Unite the Right" rally. James Alex Fields Jr., a 24-year-old neo-Nazi, slammed his car into a crowd of anti-racist counter-protesters, killing Heather and injuring at least 35 others. Susan Bro now runs the Heather Heyer Foundation in her daughter's memory, providing scholarships to students working for social justice.
Heather Heyer's killer is currently serving two life sentences in prison. Susan Bro said she relives the lethal attack on her daughter every day:
"Heather's friends were hurled into the air. The young gentleman whose shoe was seen dangling from the front bumper of the car as he retreats was Heather's friend, Marcus Martin. He was two people behind her. He reached and moved [his fiancee] Marissa out of the way. He's cried over and over that he could not get to Heather. And I've just said, 'Marcus, you can't help that.' I have a photograph of the split second before he hits Heather. I have seen footage of him hitting Heather, but my brain will not absorb it, even now. To say that that is not criminal, that that is not an offense--since when do we allow the public to become judge, jury and executioner? Because that's what this amounts to: Let's go hunt protesters."
The current slew of anti-protest laws follows similar legislation prompted by the massive, indigenous-led protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. Desperate to avoid similar mass protests, many states have enacted "pipeline protection" laws, criminalizing the type of nonviolent civil disobedience at the heart of the Standing Rock resistance . It isn't only Republicans pushing these, either. Democratic Kansas Governor Laura Kelly recently signed a law banning trespassing near pipelines and other "Critical Infrastructure Facilities." (Kansas is one of 16 states where Republicans hold a veto-proof majority in the state legislature.)
The AP reported that the Kansas bill "was introduced at the request of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers association." Oil, gas, and other polluting industries and trade groups are driving many of these anti-protest laws, with help from the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
Protest has driven every significant social change in this country. The right to dissent is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These dangerous anti-protest laws that are sweeping the country have to be resisted and overturned.
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