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Spirit of Peace * War Crimes - Tonkin - Iraq * Plutonium SC * LFAS
08 August 2002
"We must be the change we wish to see"
- Mahatma Gandhi -
1) Spirit and Stardust - Dennis Kucinich Speech in Croatia
2) To attack Iraq is a crime
3) Tonkin Incident Might Not Have Occurred
4) Cynthia McKinney Update by M. Ruppert
5) S. Carolina plutonium shipments under way
6) ENS - New Sonar System Could Deafen Marine Mammals
Editor's Notes:
This issue starts off with an inspirational speech by Dennis J. Kucinich in Croatia during the Praxis Peace Institute Conference. Item 2 includes a petition that you can print out and use to send to Senators and Representatives that argues that attacking Iraq would be a crime. Item 3 is clearly related to this concern, since it shows evidence of how the US public and Congress may have been misled in supporting the bombing of Vietnam by the fabrication of the Tonkin incident. Following this item is a link to a 60 Minutes 2 transcript of another military operation in the Vietnam War under the command of Bob Kerrey, who was in command of a 1969 operation where his Navy SEAL unit killed more than 20 unarmed civilians - one old man, the rest women and children. Meanwhile the attacks of Cynthia Mckinney have not let up. It is getting closer to a critical race for her re-election. This update comes from Michael Ruppert. Item 5 is progress, as usual, taking command over reason, and the best efforts of a Governor. South Carolina plutonium shipments are under way. Item 6 is more on the sonar system shown to have harmed to marine life. The Navy has denied reports of using this system since 1998. Yet public records show their use for 90 days in fiscal year 2001. Would the US military ever lie to the public?
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1) Spirit and Stardust - Dennis Kucinich Speech in Croatia
U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich
Praxis Peace Institute Conference
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Sunday, June 9, 2002
" S p i r i t a n d S t a r d u s t "
As one studies the images of the Eagle Nebula, brought back by the Hubble Telescope from that place in deep space where stars are born, one can imagine the interplay of cosmic forces across space and time, of matter and spirit dancing to the music of the spheres, atop an infinite sea of numbers.
Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental. We, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling.
We begin as a perfect union of matter and spirit. We receive the blessings of the Eternal from sky and earth. In our outstretched hands we can feel the energy of the universe. We receive the blessings of the Eternal from water, which nourishes and sanctifies life. We receive the blessings of the Eternal from the primal fire, the pulsating heart of creation. We experience the wonder of life multidimensional and transcendent. We extend our hands upwards and we are showered with abundance. We ask and we receive. A universe of plenty flows to us, through us. It is in us. We become filled with endless possibilities.
We need to remember where we came from; to know that we are one. To understand that we are of an undivided whole: race, color, nationality, creed, gender are beams of light, refracted through one great prism. We begin as perfect and journey through life to become more perfect in the singularity of "I" and in the multiplicity of "we"; a more perfect union of matter and spirit. - - This is human striving. This is where, in Shelley's words, " . . . hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates."
This is what Browning spoke of: Our 'reach exceeding [our] grasp'. This is a search for heaven within, a quest for our eternal home. In our soul's Magnificat, we become conscious of the cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace, we hear the music of cooperation, we hear music of love. We hear harmony, a celestial symphony. In our soul's forgetting, we become unconscious of our cosmic birthright, plighted with disharmony, disunity, torn asunder from the stars in a disaster well-described by Matthew Arnold in Dover Beach: " . . . the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude nor peace, nor help for pain. And we are here, as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night."
Today Dover Beach is upon the shores of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Our leaders think the unthinkable and speak of the unspeakable inevitability of nuclear war; of a nuclear attack on New York City, of terrorist attacks throughout our nation; of war against Iraq using nuclear weapons; of biological and chemical weapon attacks on civilian populations; of catastrophic global climate change; of war in outer space.
When death (not life) becomes inevitable, we are presented with an opportunity for great clarity, for a great awakening, to rescue the human spirit from the arms of Morpheus through love, through compassion and through integrating spiritual vision and active citizenship to restore peace to our world. The moment that one world is about to end, a new world is about to begin. We need to remember where we came from. Because the path home is also the way to the future.
In the city I represent in the United States Congress, there is a memorial to Peace, named by its sculptor, Marshall A. Fredericks the "Fountain of Eternal Life". A figure rises from the flames, his gaze fixed to the stars, his hands positioned sextant-like, as if measuring the distance. Though flames of war from the millions of hearts and the dozens of places wherein it rages, may lick at our consciousness, our gaze must be fixed upward to invoke universal principles of unity, of co-operation, of compassion, to infuse our world with peace, to ask for the active presence of peace, to expand our capacity to receive it and to express it in our everyday life.
We must do this fearlessly and courageously and not breathe in the poison gas of terror. As we receive, so shall we give. As citizen-diplomats of the world, we send peace as conscious expression where ever, whenever and to whomever it is needed: to the Middle East, to the Israelis and the Palestinians, to the Pakistanis and the Indians, to Americans and Al Queda, and to the people of Iraq, and to all those locked in deadly combat. And we fly to be with the bereft, with those on the brink, to listen compassionately, setting aside judgment and malice to become peacemakers, to intervene, to mediate, to bring ourselves back from the abyss, to bind up the world's wounds.
As we aspire to universal brotherhood and sisterhood, we harken to the cry from the heart of the world and respond affirmatively to address through thought, word and deed conditions which give rise to conflict: Economic exploitation, empire building, political oppression, religious intolerance, poverty, disease, famine, homelessness, struggles over control of water, land, minerals, and oil. We realize that what affects anyone, anywhere affects everyone, everywhere. As we help others to heal, we heal ourselves. Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in nongovernmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines. New transnational web-based email and telecommunications systems transcend governments and carry within them the power of qualitative transformation of social and political structures and a new sense of creative intelligence. If governments and their leaders, bound by hierarchy and patriarchy, wedded to military might for legitimacy, fail to grasp the implications of an emerging world consciousness for cooperation, for peace and for sustainability, they may become irrelevant.
As citizen-activists the world over merge, they can become an irresistible force to create peace and protect the planet. From here will come a new movement to abolish nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction. From here will come the demand for sustainable communities, for new systems of energy, transportation and commerce. From here comes the future rushing in on us.
How does one acquire the capacity for active citizenship? The opportunities exist every day. In Cleveland, citizens have developed the ability to intercede when schools are scheduled to be closed, and have kept the schools open; to rally to keep hospitals open; to save industries which provide jobs; to protect neighborhood libraries from curtailment of service, to improve community policing; to meet racial, ethnic and religious intolerance openly and directly.
Active citizenship begins with an envisioning of the desired outcome and a conscious application of spiritual principles. I know. I have worked with the people in my own community. I have seen the dynamic of faith in self, faith in one's ability to change things, faith in one's ability to prevail against the odds through an appeal to the spirit of the world for help, through an appeal to the spirit of community for participation, through an appeal to the spirit of cooperation, which multiplies energy. I have seen citizens challenge conditions without condemning anyone, while invoking principles of non-opposition and inclusion of those who disagree.
I have seen groups of people overcome incredible odds as they become aware they are participating in a cause beyond self and sense the movement of the inexorable which comes from unity. When you feel this principle at work, when you see spiritual principles form the basis of active citizenship, you are reminded once again of the merging of stardust and spirit. There is creativity. There is magic. There is alchemy.Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to make non-violence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift in our culture for human development, for economic and political justice and for violence control. Its work in violence control will be to support disarmament, treaties, peaceful coexistence and peaceful consensus building. Its focus on economic and political justice will examine and enhance resource distribution, human and economic rights and strengthen democratic values.
Domestically, the Department of Peace would address violence in the home, spousal abuse, child abuse, gangs, police-community relations conflicts and work with individuals and groups to achieve changes in attitudes that examine the mythologies of cherished world views, such as 'violence is inevitable' or 'war is inevitable'. Thus it will help with the discovery of new selves and new paths toward peaceful consensus.
The Department of Peace will also address human development and the unique concerns of women and children. It will envision and seek to implement plans for peace education, not simply as a course of study, but as a template for all pursuits of knowledge within formal educational settings.
Violence is not inevitable. War is not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are inevitable. We can make of this world a gift of peace which will confirm the presence of universal spirit in our lives. We can send into the future the gift which will protect our children from fear, from harm, from destruction.
Carved inside the pediment which sits atop the marble columns is a sentinel at the entrance to the United States House of Representatives. Standing resolutely inside this "Apotheosis of Democracy" is a woman, a shield by her left side, with her outstretched right arm protecting a child happily sitting at her feet. The child holds the lamp of knowledge under the protection of this patroness.
This wondrous sculpture by Paul Wayland Bartlett, is entitled "Peace Protecting Genius". Not with nuclear arms, but with a loving maternal arm is the knowing child Genius shielded from harm. This is the promise of hope over fear. This is the promise of love which overcomes all. This is the promise of faith which overcomes doubt. This is the promise of light which overcomes darkness. This is the promise of peace which overcomes war.
Thank You.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich info@denniskucinich.net
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For more information on Dennis J. Kucinich, see Flyby News updated page on this one of a kind member of Congress, who we are appealing to run for US President in 2004!
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1021307488,43210,m
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2) To attack Iraq is a crime
Affirm the rule of law! To attack Iraq is a crime
To the Hon. [name of senator], U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510:
We citizens of the United States ask you to reject President George W. Bush's unlawful plan to invade Iraq in order to overthrow its government.
To attack any nation without a congressional declaration of war against that nation violates the Constitution, which gives Congress alone the authority to initiate a war. And an invasion of Iraq is not authorized by the resolution of September 14, 2001, approving "necessary and appropriate force" against those found responsible for the September 11 terrorism. Iraq had nothing to do with it, as U.S. allies all agree.
But even with a declaration of war, a war of aggression contradicts treaties of the United States, which under the Constitution are federal laws. Other presidents since FDR, including George H. W. Bush, condemned international aggression. The Nuremberg war crimes tribunal called it "the supreme international crime." It is outlawed by:
-- The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. Nazi and Japanese leaders were hanged for violating it by waging aggressive wars, thus committing "crimes against peace," among their crimes.
-- The United Nations Charter. It forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" and requires members to "settle their international disputes by peaceful means."
Moreover, The Hague Convention on laws of war prohibits "the attack or bombardment ... of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended...." Such attacks under Presidents Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II have killed thousands of civilians. We expect more news like this: "Hundreds of women and children were killed or wounded when American bombers blasted a packed air raid shelter in Baghdad" (The Times, London, 2-14-91).
Just because George W. Bush declares the ruler of Iraq to be "evil" and suspects that he has "weapons of mass destruction," it does not legitimize the use of our weapons for the mass destruction of that country and its people.
If our government stops at nothing to overthrow a foreign leader it dislikes—committing overt and covert aggression and assassination (a U.S. felony)—couldn't a foreign government try to do the same here someday?
The United States must not be an outlaw nation. Bush II says we stand for "the rule of law." Let's carry it out.
To print out the above, go to:
http://www.warandlaw.homestead.com/files/index.html
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To link to a letter by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, which was sent to all members of the UN Security Council, with copies to the UN General Assembly and Senator Biden ofthe Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, see http://www.iacenter.org/
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Meet Country X --
An Innovative Pentagon War Game Fine Tunes a U.S. Attack on Iraq --
By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
e-mail Arkin: william.arkin@wpni.com
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; 7:42 AM
Since July 24, the U.S. military has been playing a $235 million wargame named Millennium Challenge 02 (MC 02), one that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blandly says "will test the forces and equipment that will help us judge and define both near-term and future capabilities."
The scenario for Millennium Challenge is classified. All military spokesmen will say is that the scenario includes an earthquake in Country X followed by chaos and a military coup and the taking of some islands in a mythical part of the world where most of the oil lifelines exist.
"We have taken real targets -- about 14,500 -- targets from Country X," says Brig. Gen. James Smith, the direct wargame supervisor and Deputy Commander of the military's Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, Virginia. "We are using real data points, from a real country."
"We have developed about a thousand electronic target folders."
Smith says that the United States has developed a "very in-depth look at each of these nodes, both military, economic, information and political."
What country is Country X?, General Smith was asked at a May 22 press conference.
"Country X. It's not relevant. And it's classified," he answered.
Well it is relevant. Country X is Iraq..
For the complete article, see,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49207-2002Aug6.html
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3) Tonkin Incident Might Not Have Occurred
Published on Saturday, August 3, 2002 in the San Antonio Express-News (Texas)
Tonkin Incident Might Not Have Occurred
by Bob Richter
AUSTIN - Thirty-eight years ago Sunday, network television was interrupted at 11:36 p.m. EDT so President Lyndon B. Johnson could tell the nation that U.S. warships in a place called the Gulf of Tonkin had been attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats. In response to what he described as "open aggression on the open seas," Johnson ordered U.S. airstrikes on North Vietnam. The airstrikes opened the door to a war that would kill 1 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans and divide the nation along class and generational lines.
Over the years, debate has swirled around whether U.S. ships actually were attacked that night, or whether, as some skeptics suggest, the Johnson administration staged or provoked an event to get congressional authority to act against North Vietnam. Recently released tapes of White House phone conversations indicate the attack probably never happened.
The tapes, released by the LBJ Library at the University of Texas at Austin, include 51 phone conversations from Aug. 4 and 5, 1964, when the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred. Two days earlier, on Aug. 2, North Vietnamese forces in Russian-made "swatow" gunboats had attacked the USS Maddox, a destroyer conducting reconnaissance in the gulf. But from the get-go, many have doubted anything really happened to the Maddox and a sister ship, the USS C. Turner Joy on Aug. 4. Even LBJ seemed skeptical, saying in 1965: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."
For the complete story, see:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid965302444,49107,m
Editors Note:
From the time JFK was assassinated to present times, only those lost in denial and greed can be still disillusioned that the American ideals of justice, freedom and democracy, has been more than compromised.
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For another bizarre war story, see: "Memories Of A Massacre"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/05/01/60II/main288832.shtml
This above link is to a transcript of several segments from 60 Minutes 2 with Dan Rather. This is the story of a military operation in the Vietnam War under the command of Bob Kerrey, a former Senator, governor and Presidential candidate. The story was a secret until Senator Kerrey agreed to talk to 60 Minutes and the New York Times Magazine about the 1969 operation, when his Navy SEAL unit killed more than 20 unarmed civilians - one old man, the rest women and children.
But a very experienced Navy SEAL who was at Kerrey's side that night, Gerhard Klann, a man who later helped save Kerrey's life, told us it was no accident - that in the chaos women and children were rounded up and shot at point-blank range for what was considered to be necessary reasons.
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And for another terror of war story, "One Year On In Afghanistan" by Robert Fisk, which was published in The Independent on August 05, 2002
See:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=2189
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4) Cynthia McKinney Update by M. Ruppert
In what is has become a down-to-the-wire race to determine the fate of Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, has resurrected innuendo-like charges implying that somehow McKinney is a supporter of terrorism. These implied connections are reminiscent of the vigorous effort by the FBI and ruling elites to portray Martin Luther King as a Communist protégé when, in fact, years later U.S. Congressional investigations disclosed that all of those supposed Communist connections had originated from within the FBI and had no basis in fact.
McKinney did receive campaign donations from people who have been connected to terrorist support groups. So have the Republicans in a much harder case. [See Guardian story below]. That is not the point. No politician has ever been asked, or expected to run a background check on every campaign donor. That's nonsense. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has shown its stripes by glossing over the case of the Safa Trust, a significant donor to the Republican Party and supporter of the Bush Administration that was targeted earlier this year by the FBI and described as being a money laundering operation for terrorist groups that actually shared office space with Republican Party operatives.
That such tactics are being resorted to, less than three weeks before a primary election which will determine McKinney's fate, is an indicator of the desperation and deception that vested interests will go to make McKinney an object lesson. Her fearless and vindicated questioning about the events of 9/11, her unpartisan support of human rights issues, her refusal to worship the sacred cows and pork of Washington, and her symbolic position on Capitol Hill make her Political Enemy Number One for the corporate, financial and political interests that are trying so hard to silence nascent dissent over 9/11.
As a dark night of repression tries to settle down on what remains of a great nation - where the administration threatens lawmakers with polygraph examinations and a CIA official has said that SWAT teams should be sent into the homes of journalists - Cynthia McKinney's survival on August 20th would lend broad hope and courage to all who are asking deep questions about economic, political, and moral corruption. Her defeat would likely suck the air from the lungs of a movement that is just beginning to learn how to walk. It would almost certainly suck the life out of a dying republic.
Michael C. Ruppert
Publisher/Editor
"From The Wilderness"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com
For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, "McKinney donors probed for terror ties" by Bill Torpy - Staff, August 3, 2002, see:
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/metro_d3b4e67b17a052210020.html
For the Guardian article: FBI raids pro-Republicans
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles; Monday March 25, 2002, see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4380933,00.html
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5) S. Carolina plutonium shipments under way
August 3, 2002
Charles Seabrook - Staff
Atlanta-Journal Constitution
After months of court battles and bitter opposition from South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, the federal government has begun trucking bomb-grade plutonium to the governor's state from a former Colorado nuclear weapons plant. Energy Department officials told U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) on Friday that the first loads of 6 tons of plutonium from the former Rocky Flats nuclear plant near Denver had departed for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Georgia's border near Augusta.
For the complete story, see:
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/news_d3b4a64a80ae704510e1.html
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6) ENS - New Sonar System Could Deafen Marine Mammals
From the Environmental News Service
01 August 2002
"New Sonar System Could Deafen Marine Mammals"
Between the crash of waves, the bellows of whales, and the chatter of snapping shrimp, the oceans have never been quiet. Ship engines and petroleum blasting have only upped the noise level.
Now the United States Navy is about to deploy a powerful new sonar system that scientists say could disturb just about every marine mammal out there. The plans, approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, involve dropping 18 Volkswagen-bug-sized speakers into the water below sonar ships in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to detect silent-running enemy submarines. The speakers will pulse low-frequency rumbles at an intensity of about 215 decibels, the sound level of a rocket launch.
The pulses are well within the hearing range of many seals and whales. Even 100 miles away, the sound level would be about 150 decibels — as loud as a jet takeoff and potentially loud enough to disrupt whale migrations. To date, 44 scientists from 13 universities and research institutions and the Humane Society of the United States have opposed the plans.
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/08/08012002/s_47986.asp
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