Our Leaders should stress Peace and Diplomacy in Iran and not War

 In Congress, diplomacy, Iran, Kosovo, Middle East, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Peace, Smart Bomb, Uncategorized, War

Last Sunday on Face the Nation, Sen. Joe Lieberman said. “If they don’t play by the rules, we’ve got to use our force, and to me that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they’re doing.” He spoke of 200 U.S. soldiers whose deaths, he believes, can be directly attributed to Iranian forces working inside of Iraqi boarders. I won’t examine the validity of this argument but rather deconstruct the neo-liberal thinking which perpetuates violence in our world.

The idea that we can specifically target the camps where these Iranians are training or even that we know where these camps are is preposterous. I recall the use ‘”smart bombs” to target Serbian forces in Kosova during the 1999 NATO attack. These “smart bombs” destroyed civilian bridges, homes, hospitals, and other vital community infrastructures. There is no such thing as a “smart bomb” – it’s an oxymoron. Without doubt any military action in Iran will degrade the livelihoods of innocent Iranian civilians and further the disillusionment of Middle East people with the U.S.

What Lieberman has so critically overlooked is that Iran is a powerful state. Bombing, even specific targets, in that country would be an act of war on our part. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, like Bush, is not one to look for a diplomatic solution first. There is no doubt, in my mind, that U.S. military action within the boarders of Iran will spark a monumental war in the region involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and a host of non-state groups. With the U.S., Israel, India, and Pakistan (all nuclear powers) invested in the region, it is not far fetched to assume nuclear weapons could be involved. Attacking Iran will only lead to more civilian and military deaths , high global economic costs, and environmental destruction.

What disturbs me the most is that while the world’s leaders posture to one another, showing military might, citizens beg for a new approach. A recent study by the Arab American Institute (AAI) and Americans for Peace Now (APN) gauged support for Arab-Israeli peace from both Arab and Jewish communities. Approximately three of four Jewish Americans and Arab Americans think that the U.S. should work to avoid military interaction with Iran, even if diplomacy fails. Our future is contingent on letting our leaders know we demand peace.

We send our children to fight. We invest our taxes into the destruction of other nations. We work to support a floundering economy crippled by the expense of the Iraq occupation. Will we let the Bush administration take us further away from our ideals and closer to World War III? Sen. Lieberman seems to believe this is a good idea – let’s tell him it’s not.

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  • Joseph Bernard
    Reply

    I am confused why so many people feel it is ok to kill others because we want to control a situation. Where is the wisdom and consciousness in that thinking? Does anyone in office truly value the individual life? War is an insane thing to start and our president did that. Now they are looking at expanding the war by killing more. Mr Lieberman is a sad case and I hope he finds his sanity someday. We the people, the true deciders must let our representatives know that they must act according to our demands and if they don’t we will come peacefully to DC and take the government back into the hands of the people.

    I write about peace, purpose and consciousness at http://www.explorelifeblog.com
    and have a peace company at http://www.peace-together.com

  • RONALD L. WALDRON
    Reply

    HAMAS and ISRAEL’S “RIGHT to EXIST’
    BELIEVE IT: “ORGANIZED CRIME EXIST”

    Hamas and Israel’s “Right to Exist”

    This conundrum should have diplomats, parliamentarians, and foreign ministries huddled in their back rooms trying to sort out their own positions, rather than attempting to starve the Palestinians into Hamas’s capitulation. For it is not only the funding freeze that has become rampant nonsense. The entire Road Map logic has become nonsense, too.

    Zionists have betrayed all of this, and that is a tragedy not just for Jews, but for all of us.

    Did the Jews of the Old Testament come from what is now Israel? The answer is No.

    “people who occupied some land two thousand years ago for a historically brief period, to the detriment of those who have been there since.”

    “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”

    “Israel was established on the basis of theft. The State of Israel is Satan’s offspring – a satanic offspring. It was founded on theft from the first moment. It was founded on the basis of robbery, terror, killing, torture, assassination, death, stealing land and killing people and will continue this way, never able to exist because its birth was unnatural, a satanic offspring, and cannot exist among human beings…

    It cannot exist naturally, like other nations in this world.”

    “Our position is that even if the Zionist State [Israel] is the size of a postage stamp it has no right to exist. Occupied Palestine must be decolonized, deracialized and restored to the Palestinian people as a single sovereign state. In plain English, the Zionist State must be dismantled.”

    “All Palestine should be returned to the Palestinians and other occupied lands should be returned to their owners. And the Zionist enterprise should cease to exist. Only then will the misery wrought by Zionism disappear.”

    “This Naqba [‘Catastrophe’] is the worst day of remembrance for the Palestinian people … because with the loss of Palestine, the Arab nation was lost, and with the establishment of the false state of Israel, the whole Muslim nation was lost… He who says that the Jews have any right over this land – besides being occupiers – is a liar, and they will disappear.”

    “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.” It is entirely legitimate for Hamas to require firm confirmation of Israel’s borders before recognizing it. It should also be incumbent on the international community to confirm where those borders will be before insisting that Hamas recognize Israel’s “right” to them. Otherwise, recognizing Israel’s “right to exist” could be construed to mean that Israel has a “right to exist” within whatever borders it chooses in coming years.

    As the Palestinians stand to lose most of what is left of their homeland to this fuzziness, Hamas is refusing to endorse it. Is this extremist Islamic intransigence, warranting a funding freeze? Let us run a little thought experiment: Would Canadian, or Norwegian, or English, or French governments be called on the international carpet for not recognizing the “right to exist” of a neighboring state that is, with military force, settling its own ethnically defined population within contiguous walled cities and enclaves in Canadian, Norwegian, English or French national territories, while promising to carve those nations into “cantons?”

    The problem is that the quid pro quo that supported this recognition, formalized in the Oslo process, is now clearly wrecked by Israel’s unilateral annexations of land. Carving the West Bank into cantons has eliminated any hope of a viable Palestinian state. The two-state solution is not working. In these conditions, should Hamas recognize Israel’s “right to exist” if it is recognized to be eliminating Palestinian sovereignty altogether?

    The more embarrassing problem, however, is that the EU itself has not explicitly recognized Israel’s “right to exist” in this sense. Nor has Canada, or Norway. The United Nations has not done so, either. They haven’t, because they can’t.

    This may take some people by surprise, but the UN has not used the term “Jewish state” since 1947. Resolution 181 then called for a “Jewish state” and an “Arab state,” with gerrymandered borders designed to craft Jewish and Arab majorities in each state. But the attempt was rendered obsolete when Zionist forces established “Israel” on a much greater swath of territory that had, in total, held a substantial Arab majority, and expelled most of the Arab residents. As refugees, according to the Geneva Conventions, those Arab residents have the right to return to their homes, villages, towns and cities. But their return would eliminate the Jewish majority in what became “Israel,” so Israel hasn’t allowed this.

    Hence the UN cannot confirm Israel as a Jewish state (i.e., a state that can legitimately sustain a Jewish majority) without contradicting international law regarding the right of refugees. When the UN refers to “Israel” today, it does not understand Israel as the “Jewish state” in the old ethnic-majority terms of 1947, because Israel can be granted no “right” to an ethnic demography that would prevent the return of refugees.

    Also, times have simply changed. In 1947, ethnic nationalism still made some belated sense, although it was already discredited by the dreadful abuses wreaked by Germany and Japan. Today, recognizing the “right” of any state to compose itself legally as an ethnic-majority state would clearly flout UN conventions on human rights and non-discrimination. The UN and EU therefore cannot openly endorse Israel’s right to compose itself as one. It would make hash of international efforts in Rwanda, the Sudan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and many other crisis spots.

    So the US has lured the EU, Canada, and Norway into a trap. If they hold that Hamas must recognize Israel as a Jewish state (with a right to preserve an ethnic-Jewish majority), then they must state clearly that it endorses ethnic-majority governance. But them themselves cannot explicitly endorse Israel’s right to ethnocracy, because it would contradict international law as well as its own diplomacy in a host of other conflict zones, so on what grounds does they require Hamas to do so?

    Why is the USA involved.
    Due to (AIPAC), and a move for globalization, Israel
    and select Eletus from USA will become the
    brokers of all Middle East Wealth.

    ORGANIZED CRIME CONTROL MADE LEGAL ??

  • RONALD L. WALDRON
    Reply

    NO MORE PUBLIC FUNDS, TAX DOLLARS, FOR ISRAEL SUPPORT !

    We as citizens of the United States request that
    no further funding of a religious state with Our
    public funds continue. We request that no further military aid be given to a religious state. We also
    request a return of our funds. From the “Jewish State of Israel”.
    Our constitution specifically separates chuirch & state. NON of our tax dollars should be used in support of any religious institution, government or
    annex of such state.

    They may have declared themselves a separate State, but our constitution strictly forbids using
    our public money or tax dollars from supporting such,
    and we demand that such practice discontinue immediately.

    The term “Jewish state” is used to describe the State of Israel and refers to its status as a nation-state for the Jewish people. This concept of a national Jewish homeland is enshrined in Israeli national policy and reflected in many of Israel’s public institutions. The concept was codified in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 as well as in the Law of Return, which was passed by the Knesset on 5 July 1950, and stated “Every Jew has the right to come to this country.
    Should the Justice system be based on secular common law, secular civil law, a combination of Jewish and common law, a combination of Jewish and civil law, or pure Jewish law?
    On what mandate or legal principles should the constitution of a Jewish state be based
    What role do schools play in supporting Jewish heritage, religion, culture, and state
    They integrate the economy of the state in line with Jewish law.

  • barbpa
    Reply

    Ronald,
    I hear your anger and dismay over this difficult situation. I too struggle with the legality, historical precedent, and current conflict in Israel and Palestine. What disturbs me most is the thought of innocents (both Palestinian and Israeli) who are hurt and killed in over this issue. Or the citizens whose livelihoods are dismantled by check points and walls that only push the peace process further away.

    The U.S. has a stake in peace for the whole region and we have been addressing the problem incorrectly for the past 60 years. I hope that moderate voices of caring, humanity, and humility prevail in the peace process.

  • Esmat Baradar
    Reply

    I have been told the newly turned “Independent Party ” Senator Lieberman hold
    2 passports; one from Israel and an American citizenship. Is that true.
    And why does he keep changing Parties ? A concerned senior citizen

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