WAR WATCH
WEDNESDAYS, #178, MAY 22, 2024
Compiled
by Dick Bennett
Assange,
Truthteller.
Peacemaking:
Bakewell and Humanism.
“A Future Without Nuclear Weapons” by Ward Hayes Wilson.
ASSANGE: TRUTHTELLING
“Julian Assange’s Final Appeal.” The Hedges Report (2-18-24).
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[Hedges’ dire conclusion]:
Julian is persecuted
because he provided the public with the most important information about U.S.
government crimes and mendacity since the release of the Pentagon Papers. Like
all great journalists, he was nonpartisan. His target was power.
He made public the
killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. convoys
and checkpoints, including pregnant women, the blind and deaf, and at least 30
children.
He made public the
more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians and the torture and abuse
of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to 89, at Guantánamo Bay detention
camp.
He showed us that
Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the
U.K., spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and
personal passwords.
He exposed that
Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA backed the June 2009 military coup in
Honduras that overthrew the
democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous
and corrupt military regime.
He revealed that
the United States secretly launched missile, bomb and drone attacks on Yemen,
killing scores of civilians.
No
other contemporary journalist has come close to matching his revelations. Julian is the first. We are next. [To read the entire essay click on title.]
[One of the most destructive laws v. our democracy was the Espionage Act, which
threatens Assange and should have been reversed long ago. See OMNI’S Espionage Act Anthology #1 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/07/omni-abolishing-espionage-act-anthology.html
#2 in preparation but needing a helper.]
PEACEMAKING
Humanism
A
humanist might not be a pacifist, but it is inconceivable that she or he might
be a warmonger like our present leaders.
The new book by Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred
Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope (2023), reinforces my
assumption. “The more than thirty humanist
figures profiled by Bakewell shared a desire to foster happiness and compassion
for all people and to reduce needless suffering as well as…injustice and
cruelty.” Every number of Free
Inquiry magazine (“celebrating reason and humanity”) includes “The
Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles,” all of which withstand
war; here is one: “We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on
race, religion, NATIONALITY, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and
strive to work together for the common good of humanity.” --Dick
ABOLISHING
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
“It Is Possible: A Future
Without Nuclear Weapons” by Ward
Hayes Wilson. 2023.
Publisher’s
Description:
“Provides the inspiration people need to eliminate these
weapons.” Beatrice
Fihn, Executive Director of ICAN and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“Arguably the most important contribution to the debate
over the efficacy/fallacy of nuclear deterrence ever written.” Martin Sherwin, Pulitzer
Prize-winning historian of nuclear weapons
“…makes me believe that the eradication of nuclear
weapons is feasible in our lifetime.”
Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate
“You owe it to yourself to read this remarkable message
of hope.” Joe
Morris Doss, Episcopal Bishop (ret.)
“The world doesn’t need nuclear weapons and this book
proves this fact clearly and firmly.”
Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Iranian judge, activist, founder of the
Defenders of Human Rights Center, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
For the
better part of a century, presidents, government bodies, admirals, academics,
journalists, and ordinary people alike have largely accepted the necessity of
nuclear weapons. But what are the historical, political, and technological
assumptions that underlie this widely shared belief, and do they hold water?
What if the value of nuclear weapons has been overestimated and overstated?
What if the elimination of nuclear weapons is not only possible, but actually
prudent and practical?
Endorsed
by Nobel Peace Prize laureates, former presidents, military leaders, Pulitzer
Prize-winning historians, and more, It Is Possible lays
out a practical, pragmatic pathway to eliminating nuclear weapons. Each
accessibly written chapter addresses a key issue in the nuclear weapons debate,
from the political failures of the anti-nuclear movement to the fundamental
ineffectuality of the weapons themselves and from the historical framing that
continues to shape our current understanding to the new grassroots movement
needed to change both minds and policies. It Is Possible arms
readers with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration needed to eliminate one of
the most dangerous threats to our shared civilization. . . .MORE