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phyllis bennis
As Israel and Gaza Erupt, the US Must Commit to Ending the Violence — All the Violence
'Right now, we need U.S. support for the U.N. as it calls for an immediate ceasefire'
Oct 08, 2023
The most recent eruption of violence in Gaza and Israel is a tragic reminder of the human consequences of decades of oppression. The human toll – hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis killed so far – tells that appalling story. Many of the targets, and many of those killed, on both sides, were civilians.
And, as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory noted about attacks on civilians, “whoever launches them (Palestinian armed groups or Israeli occupation forces) commits crimes that must be accounted for.”
But while it’s necessary, condemning attacks on civilians isn’t enough. If we are serious about ending this spiraling violence, we need to look at root causes. And that means – hard as it may be for some to acknowledge it – we must look at the context.
While this attack against Israel may have been a surprise to Israel’s political and military officials, it should not have been unexpected. Eruptions of violence have well-known causes; they are no secret. Human rights organizations (Israeli, Palestinian, American and international) and UN officials, parliamentarians and governments around the world have long warned that Israel’s longstanding denial of freedom and equality for Palestinians would continue sparking cycles of violence.
Our understanding of reality is shaped by when we start the clock.
Saturday’s attack from Gaza did not happen out of thin air. It took place in the context of decades of Israel’s domination and control over Palestinians. As the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem describes it, “in the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. … [I]n 2007, Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip that is still in place. Throughout all of these years, Israel has continued to control nearly every aspect of life in Gaza from outside.”
Generations of Palestinians, 80 percent of them refugees, have grown up in the teeming, impoverished Gaza Strip, one of the most crowded pieces of land on Earth. Since Israel besieged Gaza in 2007, most of them have never been allowed to leave the walled-in, military-guarded Strip, have never glimpsed the West Bank or Jerusalem, let alone 1948 Israel, and certainly not the wider world.
In 2012 the UN determined that without “herculean action” by the international community, by 2020 Gaza “will not be livable” – largely, though not only, because of the profound lack of access to clean water. In 2015 the UN again reported that conditions had worsened, particularly because of the Israeli military assault in 2014 and its destruction of water and electrical infrastructure. And once again they urgently warned that Gaza would be “unlivable” by 2020.
Yet more than 2 million Palestinians remain in Gaza, locked into an open-air prison. 2020 has come and gone. The international community did not take “herculean action” to stop Israel’s blockade or to stop the current extremist government’s annexation of Palestinian land. They did nothing (then-President Trump even praised it) when Israel passed a law stating that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” — so even Palestinians who are Israeli citizens are officially denied equal rights. And Gaza remains unlivable.
In 2018, a series of overwhelmingly non-violent marches, organized by Ahmed Abu Artema, a young Gaza poet, and taking place inside the besieged Strip, called for an end to the blockade and freedom of movement for the Gaza population. They were met with tear gas, rubber bullets and Israeli sharpshooters taking aim at the mostly young protesters.
After two years, the result was 214 Palestinians killed, including 46 children, and more than 36,000 injured, including 8,800 children. More than 8,000 of those injured were hit by live ammunition. By the time the protests waned, in 2019, the United Nations reported that 1,700 of the protesters faced amputation of legs or arms because Gaza hospitals had insufficient health care funding to provide advanced care for those shot by Israeli snipers.
None of this makes attacks on civilians legal or acceptable. But without addressing the root causes, violence will continue to erupt. Israel remains the occupying power. Before today, Israeli soldiers had already killed more than 214 Palestinians, 47 of them children, in the occupied West Bank, and settler violence had escalated, with nearly 600 attacks in just the first six months of this year.
Too many Palestinians and too many Israelis have been killed. If Israel was in fact surprised by the attack, it was an intelligence failure – something that won’t be solved by sending it more weapons. The United States provides $3.8 billion – 20 percent of Israel’s military budget – every year, and that clearly isn’t helping deal with the root causes of violence.
Right now, we need U.S. support for the UN as it calls for an immediate ceasefire. And then we need a serious U.S. commitment to ending the violence — all the violence. That means ending Washington’s enabling of Israeli violations, and instead demanding real accountability for violations of human rights and international law, real moves to end the occupation and apartheid system and real moves to demand equality for all living under Israeli control.
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Why Far-Right Republicans Cannot Be Trusted on the Pentagon Budget
We have plenty of good reasons to cut the military budget. But we can’t trust the extremist caucus with either ending wars abroad or funding urgent human needs at home.
Mar 01, 2023
Since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives earlier this year, the so-called “Freedom Caucus” — the badly misnamed right-fringe of the congressional GOP — has been flexing its influence.
Caucus members are deeply invested in an agenda that would increase inequality and enrich corporations and billionaires, strip hard-won rights from people of color, immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community, destroy the environment to enrich fossil fuel companies and slash social investment for the poor.
And yet surprisingly, some of these extremists are also—sort of—calling for cutting the military budget. Does that provide an opening for anti-war progressives looking to cross the aisle? Unfortunately, no.
Of course cutting the military budget is an urgent necessity — both to halt the destruction that military spending enables and to free up the funding needed for social investment at home. But this group of right-wing lawmakers can’t be trusted to do either.
Cutting military spending is an urgent moral need
Some Democrats have criticized the GOP for even considering military cuts. But no progressive — inside or outside of Congress — should defend our bloated military budget.
This year, Congress is giving the Pentagon and the nuclear weapons arsenal $858 billion—which accounts for more than half of all U.S. discretionary spending. The United States continues to spend more on the military than the next nine countries combined, including big military spenders like China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia.
Some of these extremists are also—sort of—calling for cutting the military budget. Does that provide an opening for anti-war progressives looking to cross the aisle? Unfortunately, no.
In fact, you could cut that budget in half and Washington would still be spending about $70 billion more than Russia and China together.
That $858 billion is about $100 billion higher than former President Trump’s last military budget. The increase from 2022 alone could pay for almost all the abandoned social program commitments left unfunded from President Biden’s Build Back Better plan. Or it could help fund lapsed priorities like the expanded Child Tax Credit, which lifted millions of kids out of poverty for one year — only to let them slide back into abject hardship when conservative lawmakers refused to extend it.
Instead, that money is going to the military, fueling war and rights abuses around the world.
Despite bipartisan votes in both houses of Congress to stop supporting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, for example, U.S. backing for the bombing campaign and blockade of Yemeni ports continues. Because of the U.S.-backed Saudi war, 1.3 million pregnant or breastfeeding women and 2.2 million children under 5 need treatment for acute malnutrition, 17 million more are food insecure, and around 400,000 Yemenis have already died in the war.
Meanwhile, the almost forgotten, smaller-scale wars of the Global War on Terror continue. U.S. airstrikes, drone attacks, Special Forces deployments, and other military engagements persist from Somalia to Syria, Iraq to Pakistan, Mali to Niger and beyond. The Pentagon always has plenty of money for those missions.
More broadly, about half of the Pentagon budget every year goes directly to arms manufacturers who produce bombs, warplanes, armed drones, nuclear submarines, and more — including new ships and weapons designed to challenge China, significantly escalating the threat of military conflict. The budget includes about $19 billion per year to “modernize” the U.S. nuclear arsenal, increasing the danger that any accidental escalation between nuclear weapons powers — like in Ukraine — could result in a nuclear exchange.
This renewed military build-up in preparation for great power confrontation with China and Russia is extremely dangerous. And there’s no shortage of funds in the Pentagon budget for increasing it.
We can’t trust the far Right
Military spending doesn’t keep us safe from the real enemies we face — like climate change, pandemics, inequality, gun violence, the rise of white supremacy and authoritarianism. Instead, it does enormous harm.
There is a consensus among U.S. residents that we need to cut military spending. The hard part is convincing Congress to actually do it. So should progressives see these claims by the extremist Republicans as an opportunity to work with them when they say they might be on board with cutting some fraction of military spending?
No — at least not on their terms. These members have said very little about ending actual wars or reducing suffering at home or abroad. Instead, they’ve called for ending so-called “woke” policies in the military, like challenging white supremacy in the ranks , protecting trans troops from discrimination, and considering climate change in U.S. military policy.
And they would do it while adding to the suffering of people in this country. The $75 billion military cut they’ve suggested would come as part of a broader package — cutting $130 billion from social investments — which would mean big cuts to nutrition assistance, healthcare subsidies, climate protection, and other programs that create jobs and keep people and the planet safe.
We have plenty of good reasons to cut the military budget. Such cuts are popular with voters and other people across this country too — so we need to convince Congress of that and push hard for a real plan to cut military spending. But we can’t trust the extremist caucus with either ending wars abroad or funding urgent human needs at home. We can only trust these white supremacist, transphobic, and classist legislators to do exactly the opposite. They’re not our allies.
This article was jointly produced by Foreign Policy In Focus and InTheseTimes.com.
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20 Years Ago Today: We Didn't Stop the Invasion of Iraq, But We Did Change History
The global protests proved the war's clear illegality and demonstrated the isolation of the Bush administration's policies—and later helped prevent war in Iran in 2007 and the bombing of Syria in 2013. And they inspired a generation of activists.
Feb 15, 2023
Twenty years ago — on February 15, 2003 — the world said no to war. People rose up in almost 800 cities around the world in an unprecedented movement for peace.
The world stood on the precipice of war. U.S. and U.K. warplanes and warships — filled with soldiers and sailors and armed with the most powerful weapons ever used in conventional warfare — were streaming towards the Middle East, aimed at Iraq.
Anti-war mobilizations had been underway for more than a year as the threat of war against Iraq took hold in Washington, even as the war in Afghanistan had barely begun.
Opposition to the war in Afghanistan was difficult following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Even though none of the hijackers were Afghans and none lived in Afghanistan, most Americans saw the war as a legitimate response — a view that would change over the next two decades, with the vast majority saying the war wasn’t worth fighting when American troops were withdrawn in 2021.
But Iraq was different from the beginning. There was always opposition. And as the activist movement grew, its grounding in a sympathetic public expanded too. By the time February 15, 2003 came around — a year and five months after the 9/11 attacks — condemnation of the looming war was broad and fierce.
Plans for February 15 had been international from the beginning, starting with a call to mobilize against the war issued at the European Social Forum in Florence in November 2002. With just a few weeks of organizing, the first internet-based global protest erupted.
On that day, beginning early in the morning, demonstrators filled the streets of capital cities and tiny villages around the world. The protests followed the sun, from Australia and New Zealand and the small Pacific islands, through the snowy steppes of North Asia and down across Southeast Asia and the South Asian peninsula, across Europe and down to the southern tip of Africa, then jumping the pond first to Latin America and then finally, last of all, to the United States.
Across the globe, the call came in scores of languages: “The world says no to war!” and “Not in our name!” echoed from millions of voices. The Guinness Book of World Records said between 12 and 14 million people came out that day — the largest protest in the history of the world. The great British labor and peace activist, former MP Tony Benn, described it to the million Londoners in the streets that day as “the first global demonstration, and its first cause is to prevent a war against Iraq.”
What a concept — a global protest against a war that had not yet begun, with the goal to stop it.
Standing against the scourge of war
It was an amazing moment — a movement that pushed governments around the world to do the unthinkable: They resisted pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom and said no to endorsing Bush’s war.
The governmental opposition included the “Uncommitted Six” members of the UN Security Council. Under ordinary circumstances, U.S.-dependent and relatively weak countries like Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico, and Pakistan could never have stood up to Washington alone. But these were not ordinary circumstances.
With diplomatic support from “Old Europe,” including Germany and France who for their own reasons opposed the war, the thousands filling the streets of their capitals allowed the Six to resist fierce pressure from Washington.
The U.S. threatened to kill a free-trade agreement seven years in the making with Chile. (The trade agreement was quite terrible, but the Chilean government was committed to it.) Washington threatened to cancel U.S. aid, granted under the African Growth & Opportunity Act, to Guinea and Cameroon. Mexico faced the potential end of negotiations over immigration and the border. And yet all stood firm.
The day before the protests, February 14, the Security Council was called into session once again, this time at the foreign minister level, to hear the final reports of the two UN weapons inspectors for Iraq.
Many had anticipated that their reports would somehow wiggle around the truth — that they would say something Bush and Blair would grab to try to legitimize their spurious claims of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Or at least they might appear ambivalent enough for the U.S. to use their reports to justify war.
But the inspectors refused to bend the truth, stating unequivocally that no such weapons had been found.
Following their reports, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin responded with an extraordinary call, reminding the world that “the United Nations must remain an instrument of peace, and not a tool for war.” In that usually staid, formal, rule-bound chamber, his call was answered with a roaring ovation beginning with Council staff and quickly embracing the diplomats and foreign ministers themselves.
Enough governments said no that the United Nations was able to do what its Charter requires, but what political pressure too often makes impossible: stand against the scourge of war.
A new internationalism
On the morning of February 15, just hours before the massive New York rally began outside the United Nations, the great actor-activist Harry Belafonte and I accompanied South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to meet with then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan on behalf of the protesters. We had to be escorted by police to cross what the NYPD had designated its “frozen zone” — not in reference to the bitter 18 degree temperature or the biting wind whipping in from the East River, but the forcibly deserted streets directly in front of UN headquarters.
In the secretary-general’s office on the 38th floor, Bishop Tutu opened the meeting. He looked at Kofi across the table and said, “We are here today on behalf of those people marching in cities all around the world. And we are here to tell you, that those people marching in all those cities around the world, we claim the United Nations as our own. We claim it in the name of our global mobilization for peace.”
It was an incredible moment. And while we weren’t able to prevent the Iraq war, the global mobilization pulled governments and the United Nations into a trajectory of resistance shaped and led by global movements. We created what the New York Times the next day called “the second superpower.” It was a new kind of internationalism.
Midway through the marathon New York rally, a brief Associated Press story came over the wires: “Rattled by an outpouring of international anti-war sentiment, the United States and Britain began reworking a draft resolution…. Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the final product may be a softer text that does not explicitly call for war.” Faced with a global challenge to their desperate struggle for UN and global legitimacy, Bush and Blair threw in the towel.
Someone called in the text to those of us backstage. A quick debate: Should we announce it? What if it wasn’t true? What did it mean? A quick decision: Yes, the people have the right to know. Someone pushed me back out onto the stage to read the text.
Half a million people or more, shivering in the cold, roared their approval.
We didn’t stop the war. But we changed history.
Our movement changed history, but we didn’t prevent the Iraq war. While the AP story was true, it reflected the U.S.-U.K. decision to ignore international law and the UN Charter and go to war in violation of them both.
Still, the protests proved the war’s clear illegality and demonstrated the isolation of the Bush administration’s policies — and later helped prevent war in Iran in 2007 and the bombing of Syria in 2013. And they inspired a generation of activists.
February 15 set the terms for what “global mobilizations” could accomplish. Eight years later some Cairo activists, embarrassed at the relatively small size of their protest on February 15, would go on to help lead Egypt’s Arab Spring as it overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator. Occupy protesters would be inspired by February 15 and its internationalism. Spain’s indignados and others protesting austerity and inequality would see February 15 as a model of moving from national to global protest.
In New York City on that singular afternoon, some of the speakers had particular resonance for those shivering in the monumental crowd.
Harry Belafonte, veteran of so many of the progressive struggles of the last three-quarters of a century, called out to the rising U.S. mobilization against war and empire, reminding us that our movement could change the world, and that the world was counting on us to do so.
“The world has sat with tremendous anxiety, in great fear that we did not exist,” he said. “But America is a vast and diverse country, and we are part of the greater truth that makes our nation. We stand for peace, for the truth of what is at the heart of the American people. We will make a difference — that is the message that we send out to the world today.”
Belafonte was followed by his close friend and fellow activist-actor Danny Glover, who spoke of earlier heroes, of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, and of the great Paul Robeson on whose shoulders we still stand. And then he shouted: “We stand here today because our right to dissent, and our right to participate in a real democracy, has been hijacked by those who call for war. We stand here at this threshold of history, and we say to the world, ‘Not in Our Name’! ‘Not in Our Name!'”
The huge crowd, shivering in the icy wind, took up the cry, and “Not in our Name!” echoed through the New York streets.
Our movement’s obligation as “the second superpower” remains. February 15 inspired a generation. Now what we need is a strategy to rebuild the breadth and intensity of that moment, to build broadly enough to engage with power and to challenge once again the wars and militarism, the poverty and inequality, the racism and xenophobia and so much more oppression that still faces people around the world.
We have a lot of work to do.
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'We Need to Make Sure It's Done Right': Peace Advocates Welcome Biden Move to Limit War Powers
The president and Congress, said one leading anti-war campaigner, "must work together to actually end the decades long fighting, killing, dying, and spending that is on automatic pilot."
Mar 04, 2021
Longtime advocates for a more peaceful U.S. foreign policy expressed cautious optimism Friday following news that President Joe Biden intends to work with Congress to repeal some of the authorizations that have enabled decades of unending U.S. war and military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
"Let's be clear, repealing the AUMFs only to replace them is not an end to forever wars."
--Stephen Miles,
Win Without War
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that Biden seeks to "ensure that the authorizations for the use of military force currently on the books are replaced with a narrow and specific framework that will ensure we can protect Americans from terrorist threats while ending the forever wars."
The statement was a remarkable departure from previous administrations. The United States has been continuously at war ever since every member of Congress except Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) voted for the post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that empowered then-president George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 and launch the worldwide so-called "War on Terror."
In addition to the September 2001 AUMF, Congress passed another (pdf) just over a year later to allow the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations subsequently claimed and exercised expanded war powers. The results: Nearly 20 years of ceaseless war, 10 countries invaded or attacked by American forces, U.S. troops in scores of nations, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, tens of millions of people displaced, and trillions of dollars spent--with no end in sight.
The White House's announcement Friday came two days after Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) reintroduced a resolution to repeal the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs against Iraq--but not the 2001 War on Terror authorization.
Peace Action executive director Jon Rainwater told Common Dreams that while the announcement from the Biden White House comes as "welcome news"--a development that "will allow Congress to step up and take its rightful role as a body that decides whether or not the country engages in an endless war"--his group meets it with "very cautious optimism."
"Getting at the legal unpinning for endless war is critical," said Rainwater, "but it doesn't truly get at the heart of this life and death matter." He further stressed that Biden and Congress "must work together to actually end the decades long fighting, killing, dying, and spending that is on automatic pilot."
"That means bringing all U.S. troops home from far-flung war zones from Syria to Afghanistan," said Rainwater. "That means ending the U.S. airstrikes that tragically often kill civilians and only serve as a recruitment pretext for the very forces the U.S. is fighting."
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women-led peace group CodePink, said the organization supports repealing the AUMFs, "but this won't be enough to stop this or other administrations from undertaking unauthorized military attacks."
"The recent case in point is the February 25 airstrike in Syria," Benjamin told Common Dreams. "The Biden administration didn't use the AUMFs as justification. Instead it used an arguably more dangerous claim of self-defense as outlined in both Article II of the Constitution and Article 51 of the U.N. Charter."
"So yes, we should get rid of the AUMFs that date back from the 9/11 attacks," added Benjamin, "but we also need to rein in the executive's broad claim of self-defense when it is really carrying out offensive retaliatory attacks that can drag us into a full-scale conflict. Any such attacks should not be undertaken without congressional approval. Congress should push back on the administration by invoking the War Powers Act of 1973 to prohibit further unconstitutional airstrikes on Syria."
Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, noted the "serious limitations" in the Kaine-Young proposal, most notably its omission of the 2001 AUMF.
"That means it fails to challenge the congressional authority that has been used more than any other in justifying--however much of a stretch is required--far-flung military activities that have killed people across the world in the name of fighting terrorism," Bennis told Common Dreams.
"There is another danger, if repealing the existing AUMF is merely a cover for passage of a new authorization designed to give presidents permanent authority to go to war."
--Phyllis Bennis,
Institute for Policy Studies
"There is another danger," warned Bennis, "if repealing the existing AUMF is merely a cover for passage of a new authorization designed to give presidents permanent authority to go to war."
In a statement, Win Without War executive director Stephen Miles said "it is long past time to repeal the blank checks for endless war that are the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs" but that "we need to make sure it's done right." That means not only repealing the authorizations, said Miles, but also "democratically debating whether or not more war will make the United States or the world more secure."
"Let's be clear," added Miles, "repealing the AUMFs only to replace them is not an end to forever wars."
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Biden 'Revenge' Bombing of Syria 'Violates International Law': Legal Scholar
"The use of military force on the territory of a foreign sovereign state is lawful only in response to an armed attack on the defending state for which the target state is responsible."
Feb 25, 2021
A Notre Dame Law School professor is among the legal experts who condemned U.S. President Joe Biden's bombing of Syria Thursday as a clear violation of international law.
"The United Nations charter makes absolutely clear that the use of military force on the territory of a foreign sovereign state is lawful only in response to an armed attack on the defending state for which the target state is responsible," Mary Ellen O'Connell, a research professor of International Dispute Resolution at the school's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, told The Associated Press. "None of those elements is met in the Syria strike."
Biden on Thursday ordered airstrikes on facilities in Syria purportedly used by Iranian-backed militia groups, an act of military aggression that "killed 22 people after hitting three trucks loaded with munitions near the border town of Abu Kamal," The Guardian reported Friday. Pentagon officials said the airstrikes were in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on bases in Iraq housing U.S. troops.
The president's bombing of Syria--described as "provocative and dangerous" by Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert at the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank--was swiftly condemned by progressives, as Common Dreams reported Thursday night.
"It's a disgrace that President Biden managed just 35 days before bombing the Middle East," Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition said in a statement released Friday. "He becomes the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents to treat the Middle East as a bombing ground. Decades of U.S. intervention in the region are cast-iron proof that bombing raids do nothing to bring about peace."
Following Biden's authorization of the airstrikes, a 2017 tweet resurfaced in which now-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki questioned the legality of bombing Syria.
"What is the legal authority for strikes?" Psaki asked nearly four years ago, during the presidency of Donald Trump. "Assad is a brutal dictator. But Syria is a sovereign country." Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Thursday called it a "great question."
Also citing Psaki's past comment, journalist Glenn Greenwald recommended that someone in the White House press corps ask the press secretary directly to account for her 2017 remarks in the context of Thursday's bombing.
"Someone should ask [Psaki] her own question verbatim about Biden's Syria bombing at [Friday's] briefing," said Greenwald, noting that "while the context of her tweet was Trump's bombing of Syrian forces, the question still applies."
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To Secure Lasting Peace in Afghanistan, Task Force Proposes Prolonging Longest US War
"This recommendation is a practical guarantee that U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan until the sun explodes," said one expert.
Feb 02, 2021
In order to achieve a lasting peace in Afghanistan, the United States needs to keep waging its longest-ever war there. That's the encapsulated conclusion of a report published Wednesday by the Afghanistan Study Group, a congressionally mandated task force that is recommending the Biden administration keep U.S. troops in the war-torn nation beyond the May 1 deadline set under former President Donald Trump.
"Military officials agree there is no military solution, so keeping a few thousand U.S. troops in the country... makes no sense strategically."
-- Phyllis Bennis,
Institute for Policy Studies
According to the study group--a 15-member bipartisan panel led by former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, and former United States Institute for Peace CEO Nancy Lindborg--the Taliban has not met the prerequisite conditions for the withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops in the country.
"The study group... believes that it will be very difficult, and perhaps impossible, for those conditions to be achieved by May 2021," the report states. "Achieving the overall objective of a negotiated stable peace that meets U.S. interests would need to begin with securing an extension of the May deadline."
The conditions, established during the talks that led to the February 2020 Doha agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, include reducing violence, severing ties with al-Qaeda militants, and engaging in intra-Afghan talks. Under the agreement, the U.S. committed (pdf) to reducing the number of forces in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days, with a complete withdrawal within 14 months.
However, "complete withdrawal" is a misnomer, says Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
"No one is talking about withdrawing the U.S. bombers and drones that are responsible for so much civilian suffering," Bennis told Common Dreams. "By calling them 'counter-terrorism operations,' it seems those airstrikes and drone attacks are completely off the withdrawal agenda."
The 2,500 U.S. troops Trump left in Afghanistan just before President Joe Biden took office were the fewest that have been there since the United States invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for the then-ruling Taliban's harboring of Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda militants who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001. At the peak of former President Barack Obama's "Afghan surge" in 2011, there were over 100,000 U.S. troops in the country.
The war, currently in its 20th year, is now a multi-generational conflict for both the Afghan civilians who endure its terrors and those who inflict them. That includes Afghan government forces, Taliban and other militants, and U.S. and allied troops--some of whose parents also fought there.
The cost in blood and treasure has been tremendous. More than 100,000 Afghans civilians were killed by all sides in the years 2010-2020 alone, according to the United Nations. Taliban militants have killed the most noncombatants, but thousands of men, women, and children have also been killed by U.S., coalition, and Afghan government bombs and bullets. The Trump administration's 2017 decision to loosen military rules of engagement meant to protect noncombatants was followed by a 330% surge in civilian deaths since the end of the Obama administration, according to the Brown University Watson Institute's Costs of War Project.
Millions of Afghans have also been displaced by the decades of fighting.
The total U.S. price tag for the war is estimated at over $1.5 trillion, with hundreds of billions of dollars more spent on reconstruction, economic development, training and equipping Afghan security forces, and counternarcotics operations.
"Billions were spent to prolong the war, enabling vast profits for military contractors, various warlords, and mafiosa-style groups that often gained control over foreign funds."
--Kathy Kelly,
peace activist
However, critics say that after all that war, the U.S. cannot buy peace in Afghanistan. That, says U.S. peace activist Kathy Kelly, "will require finding jobs and incomes for desperate people [and] also require finding ways to greatly reduce the power of various warlords who have profited through prolonged warfare."
"It's important to reckon with the reality that billions were spent to prolong the war, enabling vast profits for military contractors, various warlords, and mafiosa-style groups that often gained control over foreign funds," Kelly told Common Dreams. "Equivalent sums should be directed toward reparations that would enable Afghanistan to rehabilitate its agricultural infrastructure and provide work and income for people."
"Young Afghan friends regularly tell me that they can't find work unless they are willing to work for a military group," Kelly added.
While progress has been made in Afghan civil society and other areas, the Afghan government remains one of the world's most corrupt, and Afghan military and police forces are plagued by human rights violations, while remaining incapable of defeating the Taliban and other insurgents.
In recent days and weeks, reports of widespread torture (pdf) in Afghan prisons and of U.S.-backed military death squads underscore the yawning chasm between the U.S. government's vision for Afghanistan and the stark reality there--a reality for which there is no military solution.
"U.S. troops weren't able to protect Afghans or prevent Taliban attacks when they were deployed in the tens of thousands--they just caused more casualties with their own actions," said Bennis. "Military officials agree there is no military solution, so keeping a few thousand U.S. troops in the country... makes no sense strategically."
Stephen Miles, executive director of the peace advocacy group Win Without War, agrees.
"The word for spending another minute trying to 'win' on the battlefield after the last two decades isn't 'logic,' it's absurdity."
--Stephen Miles,
Win Without War
"The word for spending another minute trying to 'win' on the battlefield after the last two decades isn't 'logic'--it's absurdity," Miles told Common Dreams via email. "In a situation where everyone agrees that the challenges we face do not have military solutions, only in Washington can the solution be to keep using the U.S. military."
"The future of Afghanistan must be up to Afghans," he added, "and while the United States has a moral obligation to help rebuild what we've spent decades breaking, the Biden administration should also listen to the U.S. public that has been crystal clear that they want the United States' longest war to finally and fully end."
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If War Breaks Out with Iran, It Won't Be an Accident
A range of U.S. policies have been deliberately designed to provoke an Iranian response.
Jul 01, 2019
Some things are still unclear about Trump's recent decision to bomb Iran -- and his rapid-fire follow-up decision not to.
We still don't know what he or his bomb-Iran cheerleaders -- National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- thought the bombing would actually accomplish. We also don't know why Trump decided to recall the bombers. (Trump claimed it's because a general told him 150 people would die in the attack. But given Trump's indifference to civilian casualties in Yemen and elsewhere, I'm willing to bet the store that had little to do with it.)
But some things are pretty clear. One is that while Trump pulled back on starting a shooting war, the administration is directly attacking millions of Iranians already.
Three sets of new sanctions, imposed in recent months, are crippling much of Iran's economy. They're killing Iranians, as the health care system strains to survive shortages of medicine and medical equipment. "Sanctions [are] the first problem in our country and in our system. We can't transfer the money and make the preparations for surgery. It's a big problem for us," says Dr. Mohammad Hassan Bani Asad, managing director of the Gandhi Hotel Hospital in Tehran. "We have the procedures, but we don't have the instruments. It is very difficult for patients and maybe leads to death of some patients."
"The tensions between the two countries go back a long way, but the threat of war right now is rooted in Washington walking away from the Iran nuclear deal two years ago, not in the Iranian response to that rejection. There's no strategic reason for either side to go to war, but war could absolutely result."
A set of sanctions fourth was added just last week, ostensibly aimed at Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khameini. Those are likely to have less immediate impact on the public than the earlier ones, but the political impact is huge, with Iran subsequently threatening to cut off diplomatic channels altogether.
Sanctions are simply war by other means. Under the terms of the United Nations Charter, in fact, the unilateral imposition of economic sanctions may constitute an internationally prohibited act of aggression.
Meanwhile the risk of armed conflict still remains on the table.
In recent weeks, Trump sent a U.S. aircraft carrier group with 7,500 or so troops, a squadron of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, plus another 2,500 U.S. troops to the already over-armed and over-occupied Middle East.
Meanwhile Trump administration officials blame Iran for the mine attacks on U.S.-allied oil tankers in the waters surrounding Iran -- a possible pretext for an attack. These are serious escalations. Even more serious were the cyber-attacks the U.S. launched against Iran shortly afterward.
These are all actions designed to provoke Iranian responses, deliberately edging us closer to a direct military exchange that could easily lead to a full-fledged regional war. Such a confrontation doesn't have to start with a direct U.S. military strike on Iran, although Bolton and Pompeo have certainly been pushing for that.
By now there are strong political pressures on both governments from hardline elements keyed up for a confrontation.
On the U.S. side, Trump's under pressure from both his own hawkish advisers and from allied anti-Iranian governments in Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would be happy to see the U.S. go to war with Iran. In fact, Israel or Saudi Arabia -- armed to the teeth with U.S.-provided weaponry -- could even force the issue by attacking Iran and demanding that the U.S. protect them from an inevitable Iranian response.
On the Iranian side, hardliners have been pointing out that diplomatic measures like the nuclear deal, negotiated by the reformist-led government, failed to end crippling sanctions by the United States. That could make future diplomacy much more difficult, especially following Trump's latest sanctions on the Supreme Leader.
The most immediate danger, though, lies in the narrow, crowded, hyper-militarized Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian coast, through which a huge percentage of the world's oil and natural gas heads for global markets. It's there we see the "what if" scenario that should be keeping us awake at night.
What if a young sailor -- U.S. or Iranian -- on duty in the Strait of Hormuz, late at night, sees a flare and thinks it was a weapon fired by the other side? Maybe they thought it came from one of the U.S. destroyers, or from one of the small Iranian speedboats, all of which cruise the strait. Maybe they're scared and feel like they have to respond. Do they fire their weapon into the dark? Then what?
In Syria, the U.S. and Russia communicate military-to-military to avoid killing each other's forces (even while continuing to kill Syrians). But there's no such military hotline between Washington and Tehran. Small misunderstandings in the dark could spiral massively out of control, with no way to de-escalate. That's the nightmare scenario.
The tensions between the two countries go back a long way, but the threat of war right now is rooted in Washington walking away from the Iran nuclear deal two years ago, not in the Iranian response to that rejection. There's no strategic reason for either side to go to war, but war could absolutely result.
And with key figures in the Trump administration trying so hard to provoke Iran, it would hardly count as an accident.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistated the number of troops and carriers in the Gulf region.
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Foreign Aid That Costs an Arm and a Leg -- Literally
The U.S.-funded Israeli military is shooting so many unarmed Palestinians that the UN is warning of an amputation crisis in Gaza.
May 22, 2019
My friend Andrew Rubin is an amputee. He's lost his right hand, lower arm, right foot, and lower leg.
He used to be an avid runner and cyclist. He can't do much of that anymore, although his walking is getting much better. Soon he might be able to run with his artificial leg.
Andrew is incredibly lucky.
The medical catastrophe that left his hand and foot so terribly damaged didn't kill him. But when his limbs never healed even after a decade, he decided to undergo the amputations. It was his choice, and it was made much easier because he knew what lay ahead: the most advanced artificial limbs ever imagined. The kids call him Bionic Man now.
Andrew is lucky for another reason: He doesn't live in Gaza.
According to the United Nations, 1,700 young Gazans are facing amputation, mainly of their legs, in the next two years. They're among the 7,000 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza shot by Israeli snipers over the last year.
Since last spring, thousands of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza have poured out of their teeming refugee camps and houses every Friday to join nonviolent protests, demanding an end to the siege that's destroying their lives, and the right to return to the homes Israel displaced them from.
Even though they were nonviolent, they were met by Israeli snipers from the beginning. Children, journalists, and medics were targeted too.
International law prohibits using live fire against unarmed civilians unless the police or soldiers are in imminent danger of death. That's not the case in Gaza. A UN investigation of 189 killings during the first nine months of the protests found that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes.
More than 220 Palestinians have been killed so far. Stunningly, more than 29,000 have been wounded -- including those 7,000 by live fire. So far, 120 have had to endure amputations -- including 20 children.
Anyplace else, their limbs might've been saved.
But Gaza has been under Israeli military siege for more than 10 years. Hospitals are massively under-equipped, many of them seriously damaged by Israeli bombing. The delicate surgery needed to save shattered bones is virtually impossible there, and the surgeons have no access to the most up-to-date methods.
Andrew had a choice about his amputations. Gazans don't.
The UN needs $20 million to fill the immediate health funding gap in Gaza. Otherwise, those 1,700 young Gazans face the catastrophic loss of arms and legs, or risk dying of infection. They'll have virtually no access to the advanced artificial hands, legs, and feet that my friend Andrew uses.
Unfortunately, U.S. taxpayers are funding this madness.
Every year, we send $3.8 billion directly to the Israeli military -- no strings attached -- and American companies make the tear gas and other weapons that Israel deploys against demonstrators. Washington makes sure that no Israeli officials, political or military, are ever held accountable at the United Nations for potential war crimes.
Crueler still, the Trump administration has cut off funding for the very UN refugee agency that staffs health clinics in Gaza, even as it funds the Israeli military that's filling them with gunshot victims.
The protests, overwhelmingly nonviolent, continue -- and the killing has continued too, week after week. Meanwhile, there are so many disabled kids in Gaza now that the beleaguered territory is setting up special sports leagues for them.
Israel needs to call off its snipers, lift the siege of Gaza, and stop violating the human and political rights of Palestinians. And until they do, American taxpayers need to close their checkbook.
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The Alarming Rise of Civilian Deaths in the War On Terror
New reports show an escalation in civilian casualties from U.S. operations in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia—and a pattern of U.S. denial about the scale of the problem
May 10, 2019
"There is no military solution" is an often-heard saying since the "global war on terror" began almost 18 years ago.
We need political solutions to the military conflicts we've embroiled ourselves in over the last two decades, most policymakers agree. But in the meantime, the last three administrations have sent in the military to pave the way for a political solution--and have kept them there, allegedly to protect civilians from the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS in Syria and al-Shabab in Somalia, among other militant groups.
Yet all too often, these civilians become casualties of the very military forces Washington supposedly deployed to protect them.
The result is a global war on terror that persists in killing and injuring civilians--including children--in ever rising numbers.
A series of new reports document an alarming escalation of civilian casualties caused by U.S. operations in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia -- and with it, a pattern of U.S. denial about the scale of the problem. The result is a global war on terror that persists in killing and injuring civilians--including children--in ever rising numbers.
Syria
ISIS claimed the city of Raqqa, in north-central Syria, as the capital of its so-called "caliphate" in January 2014. The Obama administration launched a bombing campaign in Syria that fall, followed by ground troops in 2015.
The group's control of the city was marked by horrible conditions for the civilian population--including brutal punishments for infractions of ISIS's religious rules, extra-judicial killings and sexual slavery. The fighting across Syria involved both ISIS and the various powers operating in the country: Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, the U.S. and Russia, not to mention the Syrian government and a variety of opposition forces. As a result of this global onslaught, Raqqa and its beleaguered inhabitants faced constant death and destruction for years.
But it was the U.S.-led bombing campaigns in Raqqa for which civilians and their city paid the highest price. The April 2019 Amnesty International report title sums it up: "Rhetoric versus Reality: How the 'most precise air campaign in history' left Raqqa the most destroyed city in modern times."
The assault was relentless. "One U.S. military official boasted about firing 30,000 artillery rounds during the campaign -- the equivalent of a strike every six minutes, for four months straight -- surpassing the amount of artillery used in any conflict since the Viet Nam war," the report notes. It added that "unguided artillery" is "notoriously imprecise."
Amnesty documented 1,600 civilians killed by U.S.-led airstrikes on the city, limiting their count mostly to those the organization and its partners were able to reasonably verify on the ground. "Raqqa's soaring civilian death toll is unsurprising," the report concludes, "given the Coalition's relentless barrage of munitions that were inaccurate to the point of being indiscriminate when used near civilians."
In one incident, a five-story residential building where four families were taking shelter was completely leveled by an air strike. "Almost all of them -- at least 32 civilians, including 20 children -- were killed," the report said. And worse: "A week later, a further 27 civilians --including many relatives of those killed in the earlier strike -- were also killed when an air strike destroyed a nearby building."
Pentagon officials who routinely bragged about their "precise" bombing of the city acknowledge the killing of only 159 civilians in Raqqa -- about 10 percent of those Amnesty confirmed. So far, they've dismissed the rest as "non-credible," while refusing to launch serious investigations of the real toll.
There's no doubt that more serious investigations like Amnesty's in Raqqa would document far more casualties in all the theaters of the global war on terror.
Afghanistan
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is in its 18th year, and more civilians are dying every year.
In the first months of 2019, the United Nations determined that, for the first timesince the UN Assistance Mission began documenting deaths, more civilians had been killed by U.S. and U.S.-backed forces than by the Taliban or ISIS. Nearly half of those deaths caused by the U.S. and its allies occurred as a result of U.S. airstrikes, which killed a significant number of women and children.
A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan intoned the well-known trope that U.S. forces "hold ourselves to the highest standards of accuracy and accountability," before repeating that familiar refrain about a political solution: "The best way to end the suffering of noncombatants is to end the fighting through an agreed-upon reduction in violence on all sides."
According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the U.S.-backed government in Kabul now controls only about 54 percent of the country's districts. Eighteen years of war and occupation haven't eliminated the Taliban -- quite the contrary. The U.S., Russia and various Afghan civil society groups are all negotiating with the Taliban, while the U.S.-backed Afghan government fades under a morass of corruption and incompetence.
The war in Afghanistan has been a failure not only in political but in human terms. As of at least 2017, Afghanistan's infant mortality rate--the proportion of babies dying before their first birthday--was exactly where it was when the Taliban was in control, before the U.S. invasion: Number one in the world.
Somalia
The largely invisible U.S. war on Somalia has been underway sporadically since the early 1990s. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, U.S. operations there have included Special Forces and other ground troops hunting for al-Qaeda, al-Shabab and other militant organizations. Beginning under the Obama administration, the main focus has been an air war carried out largely by drones.
In 2017, President Trump loosened the already not-very-tight regulations governing drone attacks, reducing Obama-era rules that were supposed to protect civilians. The result was a significant escalation in drone strikes in the country: The number of attacks in 2017 rose to 34, and then rose again in 2018 to 47 -- and this year's total looks on pace to surpass even that.
The U.S. Africa Command rather remarkably claims it has killed only two civilians in the dozens of airstrikes launched in the last two years. But Amnesty International's Brian Castner calls that a "denial of reality." In the New York Times, Castner writes that "in five of those airstrikes alone, Amnesty International can identify by name 14 civilians killed. By denying these casualties, our government is essentially trying to gaslight an entire country."
The escalation of U.S. military intervention across Africa has remained largely under the public radar. But it continues -- and just like in the more well-known U.S. war theaters, it results in the same consistent failure of military operations to end security threats.
According to the extraordinary journalist Nick Turse, "Over these last years, the number of personnel, missions, dollars spent, and special ops training efforts as well as drone bases and other outposts on the continent have all multiplied... Almost no one, however -- neither those senators nor the media -- has raised pointed questions, no less demanded frank answers, about why [security] crises on the continent have so perfectly mirrored American military expansion."
Perhaps that's because -- as in Afghanistan and Syria -- these operations do nothing about the extreme poverty, climate change, corruption and wars (often launched by the West) that together provide the source and the impetus for extremist actions.
The human toll
Behind the numbers is an almost unbearable human toll.
"I saw my son die, burnt in the rubble in front of me," said one bereaved woman from Raqqa. "I've lost everyone who was dear to me. My four children, my husband, my mother, my sister, my whole family. Wasn't the goal to free the civilians? They were supposed to save us, to save our children."
Yet denial of the scale -- and in many cases, the very existence -- of civilian casualties has been a feature of Washington's global war on terror since its origins. In 2002, Gen. Tommy Frank, then-U.S. commander Central Command, asserted that "we don't do body counts."
The toll from bombs, drone strikes and firefights is only the tip of the iceberg. Not included are the hundreds of thousands killed in war zones around the world by U.S.-imposed economic sanctions, by hunger stemming from food system disruption, and by disease resulting from the bombing of water treatment facilities, hospitals and clinics.
The hoary old statement is still true: There is no military solution to any of these conflicts. As long as failing military actions are still taken, however, civilians will continue to die. And they are being killed by the very soldiers and pilots, bombers, National Security Councils, congressional war-funders, parliaments, prime ministers and presidents who claim to be liberating them.
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We Welcome Asylum Seekers and Defend Their Rights
An open letter from over one hundred artists, activists, scholars, and writers
Feb 04, 2019
We--activists, scholars, writers and artists--strongly condemn President Trump's efforts to vilify, intimidate, and use force against refugees and asylum seekers at and approaching the U.S. border.
We are deeply troubled by the government's responses to current and recent asylum seekers, which include the deployment of military personnel to an already highly militarized border, and expansion of detention facilities meant to incarcerate people entering the U.S. rather than welcome them. We reject President Trump's maligning of the refugees as an "invasion." And we recognize the fact that U.S. political, economic, and military activities in Central America have contributed to the situation that so many people--including families with small children--are fleeing.
"We believe that the people and government of the U.S. are not only accountable to ourselves, but to the world. We believe that all people, wherever they come from, should be free to move to wherever they choose."
President Trump has spoken about the asylum seekers currently stuck in Tijuana, claiming without evidence that "a significant majority will not be eligible for or be granted that benefit." In fact, all people have the right to come to this country, seek asylum, and have their cases heard.
U.S. law is clear in outlining the rights of people to come to the country and claim asylum. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 states that a foreigner "who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States, whether or not at a designated port of arrival" may apply for asylum. The participants in the Exodus from Central America--as the refugees refer to their journey--are doing exactly what the law requires to seek refuge in the United States.
The rights of asylum seekers are also supported by international law. The 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees--which the United States has signed--states that "refugees shall have free access to the courts of law on the territory of all contracting states" and that they shall enjoy "the same treatment as a national in matters pertaining to access to the courts." The United States' actions violate this principle.
The signatories of this statement include people who live both within and outside of the borders of the United States. We believe that the people and government of the U.S. are not only accountable to ourselves, but to the world. We believe that all people, wherever they come from, should be free to move to wherever they choose. We call on others to join us in offering solidarity and welcome to all refugees and asylum seekers.
Signed (organizational affiliations are included for identification purposes only),
1. Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Rev. William J. Barber II, National President & Senior Lecturer, Repairers of the Breach
3. Tom Morello, Musician
4. Teju Cole, Writer and Photographer
5. Molly Crabapple, Artist and Author
6. Noura Erakat, Human Rights Attorney
7. Yesenia Portillo, Organizer, CISPES - Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
8. Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, Language, Literacy, and Culture, College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Member, National Academy of Education
9. Mercedes Martinez, President, Puerto Rican Federation of Teachers
10. Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor, Author, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
11. Rory Fanning, Former US Army Ranger, War Resister
12. Jennifer Rosenbaum, Global Labor Justice
13. Lisa Lowe, Tufts University
14. Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
15. Maggie Martin, About Face
16. Steven Mayers, Co-editor of Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders With Youth Refugees from Central America, Professor at City College of San Francisco
17. Katherine Gallagher, Center for Constitutional Rights
18. John Cavanaugh, Executive Director, Institute for Policy Studies
19. Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians
20. Sameerah Ahmad, United Students Against Sweatshops
21. Dave Zirin, Sports Editor, The Nation
22. Peter McLaren, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, College of Educational Studies, Chapman University
23. Jesse Hagopian, Co-editor, "Teaching for Black Lives," editor, Rethinking Schools
24. Mike Davis, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Riverside
25. Katherine Hite, Vassar College,
26. Lisa Kaul, Vassar College
27. Joseph Nevins, Vassar College
28. Diana Taylor, Professor, New York University
29. Jonathon Kahn, Professor of Religion, Vassar College
30. Akua Gyamerah, University of California, San Francisco
31. Tim Koechlin, Director, International Studies Program, Vassar College
32. Pamela Yates, Film Director
33. Eva Woods Peiro, Professor, Vassar College
34. Nancy Kricorian, Writer
35. Greg Dawes, North Carolina State University
36. Kathleen Vernon, Stony Brook University
37. Dao X. Tran, Editor
38. Eileen Leonard, Professor of Sociology, Vassar College
39. Mimi Lok, Voice of Witness
40. Kate Doyle, National Security Archive
41. Sophia Harvey, Associate Professor
42. Terrence Fraser, Black4Palestine, Black Alliance for Peace
43. Marlene Solis, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte
44. Ricia Anne Chansky, Professor, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez
45. Ariana Vigil, Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
46. Daralee Vazquez-Garcia, New York Collective of Radical Educators
47. Natalia Ortiz, New York Collective of Radical Educators
48. Hector Agredano, Pasadena City College
49. Shirley Leyro, PhD, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
50. Katrina Powell, Virginia Tech
51. Edna Bonhomme, Democratic Socialists of America and Frauen Streik Berlin
52. Emily Satterwhite, Virginia Tech
53. K.M. Powell, Virginia Tech
54. John Whitley, Poor People's Campaign
55. Natalie Pien, Unitarian Universalist Church of Loudoun, Green Team
56. Jason Rylander, Artist, Attorney, Activist
57. Stacy Lovelace
58. Shane Lovelace
59. Laura Gillman, Professor Emerita, Virginia Tech
60. Rachel Carle, ActionAid USA
61. Doug Hertzler, ActionAid USA
62. Brandon Wu, Director of Policy & Campaigns, ActionAid USA and Organizer, Sanctuary DMV
63. Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Assistant Professor of Religion
64. Brad Simpson, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut
65. Alberta Guerra, ActionAid USA
66. Adam Miyashiro, Literature Program, Stockton University
67. Holly Painter, English Faculty, University of Vermont
68. Yolanda Flores, University of Vermont
69. Peter Spitzform, Librarian
70. Emily Coderre, Researcher
71. Anthony E Grudin, University of Vermont
72. Kristen Kelley, Housing Advocate and Activist
73. Andrew Sloin, Associate Professor of History, Baruch College, CUNY
74. Teresa Mares, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Vermont
75. Boris Dralyuk, Executive Editor, Los Angeles Review of Books
76. Kenneth Allen, Senior Lecturer
77. Eve Sicular, Musician, Isle of Klezbos
78. Susan A.Comerford, University of Vermont
79. David Slucki, College of Charleston
80. Selene Colburn, Assistant Library Professor, University of Vermont
81. Eric M. Fink, Associate Professor, Elon University School of Law
82. Samuel Greenberg, Jewish Solidarity Caucus
83. David Shneer, Louis P. Singer Chair, University of Colorado Boulder
84. Nick Riemer, Departments of English and Linguistics, University of Sydney, Australia
85. David Brophy, Department of History, University of Sydney, Australia
86. Michael Gould-Wartofsky, Author, The Occupiers; PhD Candidate in Sociology, New York University
87. Pam Campos-Palma, Strategist & Movement Leader
88. Zakiyah Ansari, New York State Alliance for Quality Education
89. Miguel Zavala, Co-President, California Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education
90. Anaida Colon-Muniz, Ed.D., Professor of Scholarly Practice, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University
91. Noah Asher Golden, Assistant Professor, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University
92. Rosemary Rivera, Citizen Action New York
93. Pranav Jani, Associate Professor of English, The Ohio State University
94. Snehal Shingavi, Associate Professor, Department of English, The University of Texas, Austin
95. Anton Ford, Associate Professor, University of Chicago
96. Dana L. Cloud, Professor, Graduate Program Director, Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse University
97. Nagesh Rao, Lecturer, Colgate University
98. Martin J. Ponce, Ohio State University
99. Bill V. Mullen, Professor of American Studies, Purdue University
100. Deepa Kumar, Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
101. Nancy Welch, Professor of English, University of Vermont
102. Phil Gasper, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Notre Dame de Namur University
103. Sam Nelson, Jobs With Justice
104. Denise Guadalupe Romero, International Socialist Organization and LSSA 2320 of the United Auto Workers
105. Gillian Russon, United Teachers of Los Angeles
106. Khury Petersen-Smith, Institute for Policy Studies
107. Celia Cuddy, University of Vermont
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