WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #40

40.  WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, September 22, 2021
Robert Weissman, Public Citizen, “In Memory of the Lives Lost” for Peace
Dennis Kucinich and the Department of Peacebuilding Act of 2021 (DoP
     2021) sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA).
Hank Kaminsky’s Peace Rock

In memory of the lives lost    9-11-21

Twenty years ago today, two hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center, another slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania.

3,000 people lost their lives that sad and terrible morning.

Like so many of us, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when the first and then second planes hit the Twin Towers.

Like so many of us, I remember the shock, the horror, and the fear that followed.

Our nation was traumatized.

The truth is, the whole world was shocked and horrified.

Though Americans pay far too little attention to what’s going on to people in other countries, people around the world can’t help but know what’s going on in the United States. People around the world cried, sympathized, and expressed solidarity.

At that moment, the United States had an opportunity to unite the world around diplomacy and shared humanist values.

This path would have rejected war and violence and embraced diplomacy, peace-making, and justice.

Yes, it was imperative that the conspirators behind the 9/11 attack be brought to justice — but that justice could and should have been pursued by global law enforcement and according to international law rather than military means.

But our nation chose a different path.

George W. Bush categorically rejected offers from the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden, without even exploring their viability.

And Bush — and the United States — went to war.

In Afghanistan.

Then in Iraq.

And around the world, as part of the so-called “Global War on Terror.”

Two decades later, the toll is clear.

Here’s the tally from Brown University’s Costs of War Project:

·  More than 929,000 people — including at least 387,000 civilians — have died in the post-9/11 wars due to direct war violence.

·  Several times more have perished from other war-related causes, like malnutrition and disease.

·  14 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq became war refugees or were internally displaced by war.

·  The U.S. federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is more than $8 trillion.

·  Over 7,000 U.S. soldiers died in the wars, as did more than 8,000 American contractors.

·  There isn’t adequate data to assess the scope of injuries and trauma suffered by U.S. soldiers. We do know that more than 30,000 active duty personnel and war veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died of suicide.

All those numbers, of course, fail to reveal the individual tragedies that have befallen people and families around the world.

The needless pain, sorrow, and heartbreak is utterly incalculable.

As the author and historian Garrett Graff writes in The Atlantic:

“The United States — as both a government and a nation — got nearly everything about our response wrong, on the big issues and the little ones.”

·  We waged war on Iraq based on completely fabricated grounds.

·  The Central Intelligence Agency adopted a full-fledged, illegal torture program that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later conclude was “brutal and far worse than the C.I.A. represented.”

·  Military and political leaders repeatedly lied to the nation about purported progress in Afghanistan — now confirmed by the immediate collapse of the Afghan government and army upon U.S. withdrawal.

All of this had a horribly corrosive effect on our country domestically.

·  The war and terrorism narrative inevitably led to a dangerous rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-immigrant sentiment.

·  Fear and paranoia were used to justify intrusive surveillance policies — some of it legal, much of it not — that shredded civil liberties and privacy protections.

·  And the lies and body bags boomeranged to deepen domestic cynicism about government, worsen alienation, and fuel conspiracism.

As Graff writes, “the fear and suspicion that came to dominate America’s reaction to the 2001 attacks ... yielded a long succession of tragic consequences, cynical choices, and poisonous politics.”

Which brings us to the current moment.

We all owe thanks to President Biden for showing the courage to end the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan and to declare an end to “forever wars.”

Yes, the withdrawal was done imperfectly — due in significant part to the surprisingly sudden collapse of the Afghan government.

But the most important thing is that the withdrawal was completed.

Yet there is no easy escape from 20 years of pursuing war instead of diplomacy.

The U.S. military budget now stands at roughly three quarters of a trillion dollars. And the defense committees in the House and Senate each just voted to bump it up even more.

It’s time now to make a fundamental turn away from war, fear, and militarism.

And, in doing so, to turn toward diplomacy, solidarity, and cooperative efforts to face our great global problems — including the coronavirus pandemic, poverty, and climate catastrophe.

Please join me in telling President Biden:

Thank you for ending the Afghan War. Now please oppose the proposed increases in the Pentagon’s budget. It’s time to redirect the nation away from war and toward addressing the giant global threats that do not yield to military might.

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

In memory of the lives lost on 9/11 and in the needless wars that followed,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
 Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 

Department of Peace, Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich
                           PEACE IS BUILDING

Department of Peacebuilding Past and Future

Twenty years ago, Congressman Dennis Kucinich(OH) introduced into Congress a bill to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace (DoP). This was exactly two months before 9-11-2001.  PEACE IS A PART OF AMERICA'S DNA from the days of George Washington, but how do we transition to a culture of peace? That is the question.  A DoP is part of the answer. Going forward, we continue to build support for the Department of Peacebuilding Act of 2021 (DoP 2021) which is sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA).  We need your help.

On this 20th anniversary of DoP legislation, we commemorate those who have remained steadfast in the goal of making peace and violence prevention integral to policy decisions in this nation.  We honor the continuing evolution of the art and science of peacebuilding and its practitioners.

Peace is building. We urge you to TAKE TWO (or more) of these actions to build support for a DoP: 

·        One click Ask Your Congressperson to Cosponsor Dept. of Peacebuilding (HR 1111)

·        Contact two organizations to join this list of DoP Organization Endorsers. To endorse, organizations should submit the information in this DoP Organization Endorsement Form to nancy@peacealliance.org

·        Forward to your friends/ family members this email for them to TAKE TWO actions.

·        Call two (or more) of the following former DoP endorsers and ask them to cosponsor DoP 2021 (HR 1111):  

Karen Bass (CA-37) (202-225-7084); Judy Chu (CA-27) (202-225-5464); Peter DeFazio (OR-4) (202-225-6416); Al Green (TX-9) (202-225-7508); Pramila Jayapal (WA-7) (202-225-3106); Robin Kelly (IL-2) (202-225-0773); Andy Kim (NJ-3) (202-225-4765); Alan Lowenthal (CA-47) (202-225-7924); Carolyn Maloney (NY-12) (202-225-7944); James McGovern (MA-2) (202-225-6101); Peter Welch (VT-At-Large) (202-225-4115); Susan Wild (PA-7) (202-225-6411).  

What to Say to Congress About Cosponsoring Dept. of Peacebuilding

·        Post this information on your Facebook page

This nation has a rich history of working to mainstream peacebuilding, beginning with the administration of George Washington, calls for a Department of Peace after World War I, introduction of 88 Department of Peacebuilding bills in the House and Senate during the years of World War II and Vietnam (1943-1968), creation of the United States Institute of Peace relating to international conflict issues, and introduction in 2001 to the present of Department of Peace(building) legislation relating to domestic and international conflict resolution. See DoP - Part of America’s DNA Since Day 1. 

To build a sustainable culture of peace takes all of our efforts.  We thank you for being a peacebuilder and we urge you to TAKE TWO (or more) of the actions listed above as we move forward to establish a Department of Peacebuilding and a culture of peace.

"To ever have a peaceful world, we need to proactively and diligently wage peace." - Marianne Williamson. Continue building a culture of peace and a government which prioritized peace by creating a cabinet-level Department of Peacebuilding. 

Peace is building. Make history. Work for a Department of Peacebuilding.

Nancy Merritt,

On Behalf of the National Department of Peacebuilding Campaign 

DOP Committee and Campaign Members: Fernando I. Andrade (GA), Laura Brown (PA), Anne Creter (NJ), Karen Johnson (IL), Maggi Koren (CA), Nancy Merritt (CA), Kendra Mon (CA), Debra Poss (GA), Josh Roebuck (CA), Pat Simon (MA), Cetta Smart (IL), Jerilyn Stapleton (CA), Stephanie Thomas (CA) and many others

For more information, see  Department of Peacebuilding.  Join National Department of Peacebuilding conference calls on the third Wednesday of every month at 5 pm PT/ 8 pm ET, 1-929-436-2866 or 1-669-900-6833, meeting ID 464 735 321 or, to be placed on the call notice list, contact nancy@peacealliance.org.

BACK FROM

HANK KAMINSKY’S “PEACE ROCK”

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/09/hank-kaminskys-peace-rock.html

     Hank Kaminsky's "Peace Rock'' (1998) greets visitors to the OMNI Peace, Justice, and Ecology Center.  The sculpture was commissioned by James Richard (Dick) Bennett in 1997. The sculpture honors all peacemakers by naming thirty United States peacemakers, men and women equally.

     The oval sculpture --17 inches wide, 40 inches long, 19 inches tall--is eloquent in its function.  In bold raised letters along the top, the sculpture spells out PEACE, supported by the names of the peacemakers, also in raised letters, around the sides.

    Three features of the sculpture deserve special comment (with thanks to Hank).  First, it is shaped and colored dark brown to appear from a distance as a large stone, to suggest a connection between peace and the evolving earth and humankind.  Second, the letters of PEACE are designed to contain soil for growing moss and ferns to suggest the connection between the ideal of peace and the tranquility of plants, in contrast to the machines of death--machine guns, planes, nuclear bombs. The quest is for peace not only among humans but between the human-made techno-sphere and the natural ecosphere. Among the planet's greatest problems--perpetual wars, nationalism, imperialism, hunger and malnutrition, the global war of rich against the poor, nuclear holocaust--ecological destruction /climate catastrophe ranks highest in urgency. Third, the names of the peacemakers are not always immediately discernible because, in contrast to the Vietnam Memorial Wall's incised clarity for quick identification, the sculptor wished to involve viewers in the peacemaker’s search for peace. The incompleteness of the names Thoreau and Rukeyser, for example, share the subsidence of the letter E, to suggest the perpetual danger of the collapse of peace into war.

      All of the names are inscribed horizontally to suggest time and the equality of these peacemakers in time, who are placed in random order up and down, left and right. The sculpture rests in a setting of flowers, shrubs, and trees.

    The United States is a war-making nation. It has fought a dozen wars since 1941, none of them defensive (despite its name-change, the Department of Defense remains the old Department of War).   It invaded a dozen countries during the second half of the 20th century, in violation of international laws and treaties.  Sovereign nations were defined as "enemies” because they offended US military and civilian leaders (expressed a different ideology, or simply stood in our way to some national goal : Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Libya, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Iraq). From childhood, we are conditioned to accept aggression and war and the violence essential to war-making.  The United States glorifies war; ceremonies and symbols and monuments of warriors pervade national life.  Militarism inhabits the niches of our society, it is grassroots.   Terrorism comes always from some other nation or group or in-dividul.  .  The War on Terrorism is really the War of Terrorism.

     Many methods exist for diminishing nationalistic, conditioned aggression. One is to increase the ethos of peace and of peacemaker models for our youth by building memorials to peacemakers and nonviolence in peaceful and beautiful landscapes. Our children know the names of our warriors, who are celebrated in countless ways. They do not know the names of our peacemakers. So we must instill the values of beauty, peace, and just law by celebrating the peacemakers by naming them. Just as citizens have always expressed their patriotism by erecting a flag in their yard, or by setting aside a place in their home to remember loved ones who served or were killed in war--the home as a war memorial, privately reinforcing the legitimacy of the war-making nation---, we can also transform our places into peace memorials.to honor those who sacrificed for peace and imagined a peacemaking nation.

   John Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of Architecture argued that architecture, as the art of edifices that contributes to our "mental health, power, and pleasure," is an index of a nation’s values. Throughout our history, warriors have appropriated this domain of public good.  But a counter-movement is rising of beautiful monuments dedicated to peace, especially in landscaped places. We must know and remember peacemakers, not warmakers and killers, if we are to have peace. The plastic arts and literature provide us with memory.  Ruskin: "it is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life.”

   This sculpture is a measure of our culture's struggle with violence.  In conception, design, and execution, it offers "health, power, and pleasure.'  And it benefits from the spiritual and sensory power of the landscape, both of` which are to be discovered by the inquiring visitor.  In contrast to the immensely successful conditioning of soldiers to kill by the U. S. Army, and the apparently successful conditioning of the population to be violent by our culture---in films, television, computer games—this sculpture and place invite non-violent reflection and behavior.

     It is hoped that this private place for peace will inspire the creation of more private peace memorials and Iead outward to more public peace memorials. We should strive to create not only private places of peace but also to create peace parks and gardens and sculptures in our towns, cities and countryside, if we are ever to evolve into a nation and world dedicated to peaceful rather than Pentagon values.

     Biographies of all of the peacemakers named on Kaminsky's sculpture (except for one) may be found in books by Michael True: Justice-Seekers, Peacemakers: 32 Portraits in Courage (1985) and To Construct Peace. 30 More Justice Seekers and Peacemakers (1990). True has also written An Energy Field More Intense Than War: the Nonviolent Tradition and American Literature (l995).

     A note on heroes. Our genuine heroes are less well known than the false heroes used to sell products. Our society is saturated with meretricious celebrities pushing commodities. Celebrity names sell; celebrity makes money. What kind of person the celebrity is or what relation the celebrity has to the product sold matters little. But the heroes listed on Hank Kaminsky's engrossing “Peace Rock” possess authentic identity as seekers for a peaceful world.

  Hank Kaminsky was born April 3, 1939. He is married to Jo Ann Burton Kaminsky and has two sons. Jesse and Daniel. He was educated at Queens College (Flushing, NY), the Art Students League, the New School for Social Research, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the University of Arkansas. His most well known work is the World Peace Prayer Fountain on the downtown Square of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Some of his other sculptures are: "The Miracle of the Double Helix,'' University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock; a Set of Communion Vessels and Candle Fixtures for the First United Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville; "Islands in the Sea" for Temple Shalom, Fayetteville; “Yahrzeit" for Temple B'nai Israel, Little Rock; and "Eternal Light" and "Words for Healing" at the Washington Regional hospital in Fayetteville.. His works have been shown widely in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Birmingham, AL, and throughout Arkansas. He has taught widely from Dallas to New York City to Branson, including the position of Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art, University of Arkansas. Fayetteville. "Since 1971 I have been working with a technique which I call 'Sand-Matrix Design.'' The latest example of this technique can be seen in the sculpture series called "The Sacred Ground Project," a collection of concrete sculptures designed for gardens.

   To read about the thirty Peacemakers celebrated on the sculpture, in alphabetical order, all from the United States, go to::

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/09/hank-kaminskys-peace-rock.html