First, I would like to congratulate Barack Obama for his unlikely and historic win. He is an inspiration to not only people across this country, but across the globe. I have a new sense of what can be accomplished and I owe that, in no small part, to Barack Obama's victory. But that's enough of this adulation, I'm not comfortable with it and besides, nothing yet has been done. This turn of events brings possibilities for our future, but just as easily as ending war, or probably much more easily, we could fall back into our old ruts and change nothing. The campaign rhetoric gave me little comfort in regards to peace and, it seems to me, that in times as twisted as these, going the path of least resistance involves bombing innocent people and endless wars. Yes, there are people here very interested and invested in endless war. After all, war is business and here business isn't something you fuck around with, especially not if it's carrying a machine-gun and has fleets of warships and war-planes behind it... But isn't that why we are here? Yes, I think it is, to throw a kink into the war-machine, a major kink, a world changing breakdown of the war-machine that will usher in a new age of peace unseen on this earth for maybe a millennium. We can end war!
Seven Simple Demands to President-elect Barack Obama for Ending War:
- Uphold the promise to remove all troops from Iraq, and as soon as possible. No residual forces shall be left behind to guard our massive military posts constructed by the Bush administration, to guard private interests in the oil fields, or for any reason. The Iraqi people have been fighting us in the fields and now also in their government offices to make us leave. Even if Bush forces the security agreement on the Iraqi government and people, we will not leave any troops there to continue instigating violence in that ravished and raped region.
- Peacefully settle any disputes with Iran. Pre-emptive strikes are the absolute worst way to deal with any nation, group, person, ect.. Settling the dispute over Iran's nuclear program should be no problem because there is absolutely no evidence, or even reasonable suspicion, that their program is aimed at developing anything other than nuclear power plants, which is completely within the letter of the law and must be respected. Beyond that, there is no real conflict.
- Do not bomb, invade, or attack Pakistan in any way. While the conventional wisdom has it that Al-Qaeda and even Osama bin Laden are hiding out and plotting in Pakistan, the invasion to get them proposed by Barack Obama, although a genius political move, will not resolve anything because it misses too many important details. We must, first, fully investigate the connections between the members of Pakistan's military and government and Al-Qaeda. There is a historical connection between the Pakistan military and government and Al-Qaeda that dates back to the 1980s when both the U.S. and Pakistan were funding and training religious fundamentalists to fight with the Russians. The connection between Al-Qaeda and Pakistan existed through the attacks of September 11th, evidenced by the funds Muhammad Atta, a hijacker, received from the Pakistani military, and almost certainly still exists today. Confronting Pakistan with what we know is their culpability, even if partial, in the crimes of September 11th will undoubtedly force them to stop protecting any individual who is guilty and a threat and will, simultaneously, force Pakistan to change their policy from one that supports random murders. If they do not change their policy and stop protecting the criminals, then we simply stop giving them the funds they use to do this... which we should do anyway. Policy will solve what violence cannot.
- Halt all nuclear weapons research and expansion. It is illegal under international law and it only encourages other nations to develop their own nuclear weapons arsenals. Re-ignite a world-wide nuclear disarmament campaign, leading by example.
- End the occupation of Afghanistan. Opium and heroin are terrible drugs anyways.
- Abandon the missile defense system. The original idea of "missile defense" has long ago evolved into more of an effort to threaten and intimidate other nations with the specter of hundreds of U.S. missile bases across the globe and our unilateral ability to launch massive attacks at distant nations on any whim. This is unacceptable to any peaceful and sovereign nation, as it was to us when the Soviet Union built missile bases in Cuba for "defense" purposes.
- Investigate the crimes of September 11th, 2001. The 9/11 Commission's investigation into the attacks was completely inadequate, which was admitted by the people who headed it. That the truth of what happened may be totally different from what the conventional belief is, our entire understanding of the state of international terrorism may be fatally flawed and dealing with the threat to the peace that international terrorism poses must be done, but not until we have a full understanding of who the criminals were and who they were working for. That there is overwhelming and even hard evidence that auspices of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia played roles in the attacks; that the Bush Administration used the attacks to justify their already ordained plans for the Middle-East and America, (the Patriot Act, Afghanistan, Iraq, ect..) most of which is evidenced in their writings as the neo-conservative think-tank, Project for a New American Century; that dozens of the opportunities for our intelligence agencies to prevent the attacks were thwarted by a few ranking members within them; are all reasons to believe that the threat of terrorism we the world face is anything but what it is painted as by the establishment.
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