Paul S. Graham

Please respond to this appeal, just in, from Eric Lee at Labour Start:

A few days ago I wrote to tell you about the increased repression directed against Iranian labour activists.

I told you about the case of two women in particular, Sousan Razani and Shiva Kheirabadi (at left), who have been sentenced to jail terms and whipping for the “crime” of having participated in a May Day demonstration this year.

I told you that Sousan was sentenced to receive 15 lashes and 4 months in prison.

We have now received the shocking news that it is actually worse than that.

Sousan has been ordered to receive 9 months in prison and 70 lashes.

In the last few days we have received photographs of Sousan and Shiva. I wish that every trade unionist, every person who cares about human rights, could look at those photographs today. You can see them on our campaign page: http://www.labourstart.org/iran

The campaign that we launched is now running in an unprecedented ten languages, with more to come. And so far, 3,448 people have sent off messages to the Iranian government.

This is not enough.

We must all redouble our efforts in the next few days to prevent this barbaric sentence from being carried out, to prevent the execution of the teacher Farzad Kamangar, and to push for the release of all jailed worker activists in Iran.

I know that there are 50,000 of you reading this message who have not yet sent off your protests. Please do not wait – go here now: http://www.labourstart.org/iran

For those of you who already did send off your message, thank you — but please do more.

Please pass this message on. Help us mobilize thousands more trade unionists in support of our sisters and brothers in Iranian jails.

If you are on Facebook, make sure to sign up to our cause – and sign up your Facebook friends, here:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/110025

August is a very difficult time to mobilize people. Many who would ordinarily be supporting this campaign are away on holiday. That’s why it’s so important that if you are reading this message, you act now.

Sousan and Shiva need our help. Let’s not fail them.

Thank you.

Eric Lee

Labour Start campaigns are featured on this page, in the right hand column, under “Campaigns.” Please check it regularly and take action. Better yet, get yourself on Eric’s mailing list, which you can do by selecting that option when you participate in any of his campaigns. An act of solidarity is just a click away.

Today, Stephen Harper gave Vladimir Putin some advice that he, himself, ought to follow. Said Harper:

“We do call on Russia to respect the territorial integrity of Georgia. I am deeply troubled by a notion I see developing in Russia, and that is a notion that Russia somehow has a say or some control over countries outside of its borders.”

Perhaps he was taking his cue from his mentor, George Bush, who today said: “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st Century.”

Perhaps these gents would agree with Adolf Hitler that “in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility.”

If you are an American who relies on US mainstream media reports for your world view, you might be forgiven for not knowing that Russia’s “invasion” of Georgia is a response to Georgian attacks on South Ossetia which began late last Thursday night. If you are a Canadian, the news stories are a liitle more balanced, but you still have to dig and read between the lines.

It’s complicated, but alternative and authoritative information and analysis can be found. A good place to start is Global Research, which has been doing a good job on following this issue as it unfolds.

There are signs Canadians are learning not to take what these hypocritic(al) oafs have to say at face value. Someone named Jaik, just today, responded to a blog post on Gary Doer’s support for the war in Afghanistan with this comment: “Wow. This is very disturbing and has prompted me to withdraw my monthly financial support of the provinical NDP.”

More broadly, a growing majority of Canadians are opposed to Canadian military action in Afghanistan. Below are some numbers from an Angus Reid poll done in July.

Angus Reid Poll: July 10, 2008

“As you may know, the House of Commons has authorized an extension of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan until the end of 2011, which is conditional on Canada coming up with unmanned aerial vehicles and transport helicopters, and NATO providing an additional 1,000 troops in the south. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan until the end of 2011?”

We shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty we face in reorienting Canada’s foreign policy from one of war making to peace building. The coming federal election will present some opportunities for debate, but given the pro-war position of the Liberal and Conservative parties, and the relative weakness of the anti-war NDP, we can’t count on the election to bring about quick changes.

That said, Canadians have shown themselves to be peace loving and that is a good foundation on which to build.

Taliban insurgents killed three humanitarian aid workers and their driver yesterday in an attack that is being condemned, rightfully, as murder.

Dead are two Canadians, Jacqueline Kirk (left) and Shirley Case, an American, Nicole Dial and an Afghan, Mohammad Aimal.

By all accounts, they were decent, loving people who didn’t deserve what was done to them.

Prime Minister Harper expressed the feelings of many when he said during a visit to eastern Newfoundland: “I want to first of all express my condolences to the families of these murdered humanitarian workers. This is obviously an outrage, a terribly brutal act, which I think should remind everybody of the brutality of the Taliban and the danger that everybody there faces — not just military people but all those who are there trying to help rebuild this country.”

I’m sure Harper is sincere, and that he never stopped once to wonder why Afghanistan needs rebuilding. I also suspect he never once considered what responsibility he might bear for the deaths of civilians and combatants on both sides of this conflict.

I suspect this of our Prime Minister because I don’t recall a time when he has publically expressed sympathy for any of the unarmed men, women and children killed by Canadian and other NATO soldiers over the past seven years.

Perhaps he has, and I missed it. On the other hand, perhaps he is unaware and just needs to be reminded. Well, given that he doesn’t have time to read my blog, maybe someone can pass it along to him. Better yet, pass along the Open Letter that Peace Alliance Winnipeg sent to Gary Doer this week; it has the stats I am going to quote below, and much much more.

Afghan Death Toll

The precise number of Afghans killed since 2001 is difficult to determine, but is safe to assume that tens of thousands have died needlessly.

• Writing in The Guardian in 2002, Johnathan Steele suggested that up to 8,000 direct deaths and 20,000 indirect deaths could be attributed to the invasion. The American Project on Defense Alternatives, which speaks of “adapting military policy to the opportunities of the new era”, puts the 2001-02 civilian death toll much lower, between 1,000 and 1,300.

• Dr. Marc W. Herold, of the University of New Hampshire, has estimated that American bombing had killed between 3,100 and 3,600 civilians by Oct, 2003.

• According to Agence France Presse, about 1,700 people were killed in 2005, “many of them militants.” A report by Human Rights Watch said that 4,400 Afghans had been killed in 2006, more than 1,000 of them civilians. Some 2,077 militants were killed in Coalition operations between September 1 and December 13, 2006.

• More than 7,580 people were killed in 2007, including: 1,980 civilians, 926 Afghan policemen and 4,478 militants.

• To date, in 2008, about 2,700 Afghans have been killed, including 960 civilians.

The Peace Alliance notes: “Let us not forget that Canadians are active participants in the killing of Afghan civilians as well as combatants. Reported civilian deaths include a taxi driver, a 10-year old boy, an elderly motorcyclist, two young children (aged 2 and 4, a young motorcyclist and his baby brother, an Afghan National Police officer and a homeless beggar, a Toyota driver, a taxi passenger, and a motorist. Given the obvious limitations on reporting in a war zone, this likely represents the minimum number of civilians killed by Canadians.”

One of 6 civilians killed by a US bombing raid in March 2008.

Does the death of Afghan civilians justify the death international aid workers? No. But remembering them helps us get some much needed perspective. And perhaps it helps us see, more clearly, through the hypocrisy of our political leaders in a twisted world where we mourn “our” dead and fail to acknowledge the deaths of the people “our” soldiers kill.

Canadians will continue to join Afghans in violent death until we compel our government to withdraw Canadian troops and work for international peace.

Let us pause to mourn the war dead of all nations. You can get acquainted with some of these victims by visiting the Afghan Victim Memorial Project.

And then, let’s get to work on building peace.

Dear Premier Doer,

We write to ask you to remove the “Yellow Ribbon Garden” from the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature and to refrain from lending provincial support to the “Red Shirt Rally” planned for August 15, 2008 on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature.

We do so because the “Yellow Ribbon” and “Red Friday” campaigns in Canada signify support for militarism and war. They do so under the guise of caring and compassion for “our troops.” But in reality, these campaigns are code for supporting a war of aggression being carried on in the name of, and against the will of, the majority of Canadian people. (A June 2008 poll suggests that only 36 per cent of Canadians agree with Parliament’s decision to extend Canada’s military intervention in Afghanistan through 2011. That is down from 41 per cent in a similar poll done in May, according to Angus Reid Strategies. )

We object strenuously to the war in Afghanistan and to the use of Canadian soldiers in that war. In no way is the participation of Canadians in the ongoing carnage in Afghanistan supportable by informed people of conscience.

In March, you announced provincial support for the Yellow Ribbon Campaign.  You followed this up with the planting of the “Yellow Ribbon Garden” in the front of the Legislature. Most recently, you agreed to host a “Red Shirt Rally” with MLA, Bonnie Korzeniowski, Special Envoy for Military Affairs as one of the featured speakers. While you are entitled to express your personal opinion about the war (one which is diametrically opposed by the federal New Democratic Party), you do not have the right to use provincial resources to promote it.

Read more: Open Letter To Gary Doer On Afghanistan

Action: Peace Alliance Winnipeg encourages you to circulate this letter widely and to communicate with the Premier of Manitoba and Manitoba MLAs.

The Yellow Ribbon Garden in front of the Manitoba Legislature asks people to “support our troops.” This is code for “support the war” and is one of the many tactics employed to manipulate the emotions of Canadians, justifiably concerned for the safety of our soldiers, into supporting an immoral war against the Afghan people.

Originally posted at Peace Alliance Winnipeg.

The “war crime” Omar Khadr is accused of having committed at age 15, killing an American soldier, would never have happened if the US had refrained from its war crime, the invasion of Afghanistan. Sgt. Christopher Speer, the soldier he is charged with killing, would still be alive, as would 810 other foreign troops and many thousands of Afghans.

As Osgoode Hall Professor of International Law Michael Mandel wrote in the Ottawa Citizen, Mar. 17, 2008, “The war on Afghanistan was George W. Bush’s war, not the UN’s. It had no more UN authority than the war on Iraq. Both are marked by the same original sin, Nuremberg’s ‘supreme international crime’ of aggressive war.”

Omar Khadr has been shot twice in the black, blinded in one eye, tortured, and imprisoned under laws passed by the United States which contravene international law and human decency. There is credible evidence that the “evidence” against him was fabricated. He has suffered enough. Bring him home.

Resources

• Wikipedia has an extensive and well documented article on Omar Khadr.
• Sulman Hassan, a graduate in law from Liverpool John Moores University reviews applicable international laws and concludes that the US violated them when it invaded Afghanistan.

While only a congenital idiot would call Stephen Harper a fascist, most would label him a right winger in today’s political parlance, some derisively, others with pride.

Politically speaking, Harper is, arguably, farther right than Adolf Hitler,* if all you take into account are his economic ideas. On other significant questions, thankfully, Harper is in another universe (though I wish he would get over his apparent shared fondness for things military).

How helpful is it, then, to describe Hitler and Harper as right wingers? Or Joseph Stalin and the Dalai Lama as lefties? Not helpful at all, in my experience, and frequently a cause of political confusion.

Some clever folks at The Political Compass have come up with an alternative to the worn-out left-right paradigm that takes into an account social issues, ideas about authority, individual freedoms and so on. By completing a short, five minute questionnaire you can determine where you live on the political landscape and how you compare with what passes for political leadership today.

I tried it out and learned that instead of merely being a left winger, that I lived somewhere in the bottom left quadrant near the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. How cool is that?!

(I also determined that my partner-in-life is a tad more authoritarian than I, though equally left-wing, I hasten to add. Ahem. So, if you involve friends, comrades and spouses in this exercise, the social learning potential is, well, interesting.)

Having taken the test and graphically illustrated my distance from Robert Mugabe (a man I once admired for his leading role in the liberation of Zimbabwe), I’m still not sure what to do with this little tool. If you have some thoughts on this, please feel free to share them here.

Grateful Acknowledgement Dept. – I found The Political Compass whilst visiting Stageleft, who I tripped over while browsing Progressive Bloggers. So, give these fine folks a visit as well.

Notes:

* Adolf Hitler’s relative position on the left-right continuum is plotted at The Political Compass, and dammit, he is farther left than Harper.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship . . . the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Hermann Goering, Nazi Reischsmarshall and Luftwaffe Chief

Goering was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Tribunals for crimes against humanity, but committed suicide, just hours before his execution, on Oct. 15, 1946. Source: Snopes

“I don’t have to tell you the story, the link between Afghanistan and the attacks of 9/11, the oppression and brutality endured under the Taliban and the risk that terrorism will come home if we don’t confront it here.”

– Prime Minister Stephen Harper, addressing the troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan, May 23, 2007. Source: Government of Canada

“Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary; confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. When I spoke to Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network.”

President George W. Bush, speaking at the Cincinnati Museum Center, Oct. 7, 2002. Source: White House News Releases

“Iran is today the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home. Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.”

George Bush, once more the warpath, this time in Abu Dhabi, Jan. 15, 2008. Source: The Telegraph

Halfway through a three-day fast, Winnipeg peace activist Michael Welch is spending his second night under the stars in support of Corey Glass and other US war resisters who have come to Canada rather than fight an immoral war. Tuesday night and part of Wednesday was spent outside the office of Tory MP Joy Smith (Kildonan-St. Paul); Wednesday afternoon and evening on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature.

Michael decided to become actively involved in supporting war resisters last month following the June 3rd vote in Parliament to urge the government to allow war resisters to remain in Canada as permanent residents. When it became evident the government would not follow the advice of Parliament, Michael decided to act, beginning with a sit-in at the office of Tory MP Steven Fletcher (Charleswood–St. James–Assiniboia). Last week he sat in at the office of Rod Bruinooge (Winnipeg South).

While his reception at Tory MP offices has been cordial (with the exception of Bruinooge’s staff, who locked him out when he went outside to speak with reporters), all three MPs continue to toe the government’s anti-war resister line.

Thankfully, the Federal Court is more sensible than the Federal Government. Following its July 4th decision to order the Immigration and Refugee Board to reconsider the failed refugee claim of Joshua Key, the court today granted Corey Glass a stay of removal. While the reasons for the decision have not been issued yet, it reinforces the positive decision in Joshua Key’s asylum case.

However War Resister Robin Long is still being held in jail in Nelson, B.C. and is threatened with deportation to the United States on Monday, July 14th. (See press release.)

July 10th actions are planned across the country to stop the deportation proceedings against Robin Long and let all the war resisters stay.

Prayer Vigil at the Canadian Mennonite University

In Winnipeg, a prayer vigil is planned for noon on July 10. Join Christian Peacemaker Teams in a public prayer vigil to call on Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley to rescind U.S. war resister Corey Glass’s deportation order, and to let all war resisters stay in Canada.

WHEN: Thursday, July 10, 12:10 – 12:30 pm

WHERE: Canadian Mennonite University, south campus.  600 Shaftesbury Ave., near the food tent (site of Mennonite Church Canada annual conference)

Vigil at “the Leg”

From his lawn chair at the Leg, Michael is helping to organize a vigil that will be held at the Manitoba Legislature, Thursday, July 10, beginning at 8:00 PM. Keynote speakers will include Howard Davidson, a Vietnam-era war resister who has spoken eloquently on the importance of supporting those who refuse to fight wars of aggression.

While war resisters and their supporters have been able to convince the Federal Court that there are grounds to consider the refugee claims of war resisters, we are not home free. Please come out to support war resisters on July 10 and in any other way you can.

This could include writing your MP, Immigration Minister Finley, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. You can get their addresses here.

The final words go to Michael Welch, recorded on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature, tonight.

(Cross-posted from the website of Peace Alliance Winnipeg.)

The War Resisters Support Campaign has called for another National Day of Action for Iraq War Resisters.

If you haven’t done so, please call Minister Diane Finley and insist that she:

• stop deportation proceedings against Corey Glass and all US Iraq war resisters
• implement the motion adopted by our Parliament to allow US Iraq war resisters to apply for permanent resident status.

Here are the numbers to call:

• Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley: (613) 996-4974
• MP Diane Finley’s constituency office (Simcoe): (519) 426-3400

Or email her at: minister@cic.gc.ca or finled1@parl.gc.ca.

Speculation about a US-Israeli invasion of Iran, which has been ongoing for the last couple of years, has reached a fever pitch. While most Americans are opposed to continuing the occupation of Iraq (68% according to CNN), about 25% of Americans believe that Iran is the country that poses the greatest threat to the United States (yet again proving that you can fool some of the people all of the time).

Many observers fear the US and Israel plan to attack Iran before the year is out. In an article posted today at the Edmonton Sun (and its sister publications, I imagine) Eric Margolis reviews some of the more ominous signs of an impending strike, including:

• Despite U.S. intelligence statements that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons, the US, Israel and France  are threatening military action if Iran does not end its nuclear enrichment program.
• Senior Israeli officials are threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear installations before Bush’s term expires. Recently Israel staged a dress rehearsal in the form of an exercise using F-15s and F-16s.
• American journalist Seymour Hersh has confirmed that the U.S. Congress authorized a $400-million plan to overthrow Iran’s government and incite ethnic unrest.
• Pentagon officials have said a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent, perhaps including the use of small tactical nuclear weapons.
• This year, senior American officers Admiral William Fallon and Air Force Chief Michael Mosley were fired for opposing war against Iran.

A war with Iran would be disastrous by any measure one might choose. As Canadians, we need to insist that our government express strong opposition to American war plans, and that work has to begin today.

As a starting point, write your MP and the Prime Minister. You can get their addresses here. If you aren’t already involved in an antiwar organization, find one to join, or start one.

As Eric Margolis puts it: “The dogs of war are being unleashed.”

There is no time to waste.