CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Stopping the War and Starting Diplomacy

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

February 28, 2022

 

Hello All – Apologies at the beginning.  I have been distracted by the war news this week, and have not prepared a full Newsletter.  But I want to share with Readers a short statement about the Russian invasion of Ukraine that was passed out as a leaflet at our vigil in Hastings last Saturday. While to me it is full of "common sense," it differs from the mainstream framing of the issue by stressing that we need to transition from shooting to diplomacy as soon as possible, AND that dogmatic assertions by the USA and the EU that NATO has an inalienable right to expand to the east, even to Russia's borders, are a fundamental obstacle to peace.

 

Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, successive Russian leaders have made it clear that this is unacceptable to Russia; and the refusal of the USA to engage this issue in the months of semi-negotiations leading up to the Russian invasion may have played a role in provoking the Russian invasion.  Whatever the strength of this argument, I think it is clear that a near-term diplomatic settlement of the war will have to seriously address the "expansion of NATO" issue.  If the USA – Ukraine – NATO refuses to do this, it is foreseeable that the war/Russia's occupation of Ukraine will be prolonged and cause great suffering.  Or that Russia will suffer near/collapse under the weight of sanctions and of losing a war.  Or that Russia and NATO forces will somehow find a way to collide, with an escalation towards a nuclear exchange being a possibility. None of these is an acceptable alternative to negotiations.

 

Is this common sense or heresy?  At the moment, no one in Congress or connected with the Biden administration, or who is prominent in the mainstream media (other than the Far Right) is talking about diplomacy and give-and-take.  Perhaps they are right, and that somehow magical thinking will take this war to a Happy Ending.  But I don't think so, and I encourage everyone to speak up for a cease fire in Ukraine and a re-start of serious negotiations.

 

There have been many protests against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and admirable resistance by antiwar stalwarts in Russia.  Next Sunday, March 6^th, Code Pink and allies will have a "Global Day of Action." The slogans for the action are "Stop the War in Ukraine.  Russian Troops Out.  No to NATO Expansion." To find an Action near you, go here.  The closest event to the Rivertowns that I know of will be in Riverdale, at the Russian Diplomatic Compound, Mosholu Avenue and W. 255^th St., starting at 3 pm.  ALSO, CFOW will have a similar protest on Saturday, March 5, in Hastings (Warburton and Spring St.), from noon to 1 pm.  Hope to see you!

 

CFOW Statement on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Saturday, February 26, 2022

 

STOP THE WAR!

START THE DIPLOMACY!

 

We condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It is a violation of the United Nation's charter and is illegal under international law.  Just as we condemned the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, so now we condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

 

We join with millions of people across the globe to demand an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Ukraine.  It is clear that, if war continues, it will lead to thousands of civilian deaths and perhaps a million refugees.

 

Russia's President Putin denies that Ukraine is a real nation.  He states that the Ukrainian government must be changed and that "Nazis" running the government must be purged. This is a formula for a puppet police-state and a bloody military occupation.  We admire and support the thousands of Russian citizens protesting this war, and we join with them.

 

The Roots of War

With the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine, once a Soviet republic, became an independent country.  At that time U.S. and European leaders promised Russia's leader Gorbachev that NATO – the military union of 14 European countries and the United States and Canada – would not move "one inch" to the east. But this promise was not kept, and over the next 25 years 14 more countries joined NATO, most of them former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. Russian leaders saw the eastward expansion of NATO as a threat to Russian security.

 

The immediate background to today's war reflects deep divisions within Ukraine.  Does its future lie with joining Europe or remaining as a close partner with Russia? The US-supported coup in Ukraine in 2014 overturned a Russian-leaning government with one seeking to join Europe. Russian leaders responded by annexing Crimea and supporting break-away movements in southeastern Ukraine.  Negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and NATO failed, and now we have war.

 

Return to Diplomacy

Since the end of the Soviet Union, neither the United States nor NATO has conceded any legitimacy to Russian concerns that the expansion of NATO threatened Russian security. We think this is a mistake, and a dangerous one.  From Russia's point of view, it is obvious that they would be concerned about US/NATO military bases on its borders, within Ukraine, just as the US found Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba unacceptable in 1962. Negotiations should support a process by which Ukraine becomes a "neutral" state, like Austria or Finland, and not part of a military alliance.

 

Re-starting diplomacy is urgent.  Accidents happen in wartime. Between them, the United States/NATO and Russia have enough nuclear weapons to end civilization. The war must be stopped. The world can't wait

 

And Some Useful Reading/Viewing on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

 

Respond to Putin's Illegal Invasion of Ukraine with Diplomacy, Not War

By Phyllis Bennis, Foreign Policy in Focus [February 25, 2022]

The illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine is already causing enormous suffering. Our first concern must be for civilians across the country, now facing violence and displacement. And our first call must be for an immediate ceasefire, a pull-back of Russian troops from Ukraine, and international support for the humanitarian challenges already underway in the region.  As for resolving the conflict, that requires understanding its causes — which has everything to do with when we start the clock. If we start the clock in February 2022, the main problem is Russia's attack on Ukraine. If we start the clock in 1997, however, the main problem is Washington pushing NATO — the Cold War-era military alliance that includes the United States and most of Europe — to expand east, breaking an assurance the U.S. made to Russia after the Cold War.

 

Many foreign policy experts and peace advocates have called for ending the anachronistic alliance ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But NATO remains and has only encroached toward Russia further, resulting in new NATO countries — bristling with NATO arms systems — right on Russia's borders. Russia sees that expansion — and its integration of neighboring countries into  U.S.-led military partnerships —  as a continuing threat. Ukraine is not a member of NATO. But in the past the U.S. and other NATO members have urged its acceptance, and Russia regards Ukraine's drift toward the West as a precursor to membership. None of that makes Russia's invasion of Ukraine legal, legitimate, or necessary. President Biden was right when he called Russia's war "unjustified." But he was wrong when he said it was "unprovoked." It's not condoning Putin's invasion to observe there certainly was provocation — not so much by Ukraine, but by the United States. [Read More]

 

(Video) Putin Puts Russian Nuclear Forces on High Alert as Resistance to Ukraine Invasion Grows

From Democracy Now! [February 28, 2022]

---- Following a wave of peace rallies held across the globe this weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to diplomatic talks with Russia. This comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin placed Russia's nuclear forces on high alert on Sunday, citing increasingly tightened international sanctions. We speak with Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who says it's not clear whether Putin is using a nuclear threat to topple the Ukrainian government or pressure them into a deal. Lieven also speaks about Belarus's support of the Russian invasion and argues future protests inside Russia against the war will be greatly influenced by Western sanctions. [See the Program]  For additional insights from Anatol Lieven, read "Worse than a crime; it's a blunder," American Prospect [February 25, 2022] [Link]

 

America's Collusion With Neo-Nazis

By Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation [May 2, 2018]

[FB – At the time of his death in September 2020, Stephen Cohen was a leading historian of modern Russia and one of the few scholars who publicly questioned US policy toward Russia.]  

---- The orthodox American political-media narrative blames "Putin's Russia" alone for the new US-Russian Cold War. Maintaining this (at most) partial truth involves various mainstream media malpractices, among them lack of historical context; reporting based on unverified "facts" and selective sources; editorial bias; and the excluding, even slurring, of proponents of alternative explanatory narratives as "Kremlin apologists" and carriers of "Russian propaganda." … No less important, however, is the highly selective nature of the mainstream narrative of the new Cold War, what it chooses to feature and what it virtually omits. Among the omissions, few realities are more important than the role played by neofascist forces in US-backed, Kiev-governed Ukraine since 2014. [Read More]

 

How Did We Get Here?

By Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Critical Thinking [February 28, 2022]

---- Ukraine's sovereignty cannot be questioned. The invasion of Ukraine is illegal and must be condemned. The mobilization of civilians ordered by the Ukrainian president can be read as a desperate act, but it does suggest that a guerrilla war looms in the future. Putin should remember the experience of the US in Vietnam: no matter how powerful, an invader's regular army will ultimately meet with defeat if the people being invaded rise in arms against it. All this makes us anticipate an incalculable loss of innocent human life. Still barely recovered from the pandemic, Europe is bracing itself for a new challenge, one of unfathomable proportions. In the face of all this, one's perplexity could not be greater. The question to be asked is this: how and why did we get here? [Read More]

 

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather/covid permitting, we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil will be held on Monday, March 7th from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.  Thanks!

 

That's it from me, for now.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on the danger of war in Ukraine

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

February 20, 2022

 

Hello All – As I write, the headline of the on-line New York Times has jumped to "US Learned of Kremlin Order to Proceed with Invasion, Officials Say."  And so there you have it.  Or do we…?  A few hours ago, Aljazeera reported that Prime Minister Macron of France and President Putin of Russia had discussed diplomacy via phone, and that several meetings were scheduled for early next week.  European spokespeople are reported to be vexed that the US will not share details of any intelligence about an "imminent invasion" with them.  Needless to say, Congress and the US people are in the dark.

 

I do not share the apparent confidence of the heads of state involved in this mess that a shooting war, involving even a small portion of military resources now on the ground, can be contained so that diplomacy can be restarted.  A recent article from The Nation, "Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War: Why do we fail to consider the danger?," asks the obvious question:  Are we nuts? The Nation's publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel poses the question differently: "Putin's goal is the status quo: Keep Ukraine out of NATO. We have already made clear we aren't prepared to defend Ukraine militarily. Isn't it time for a deal that guarantees Ukraine's sovereignty and independence in exchange for guaranteeing its neutrality?"

 

Veteran Australian journalist John Pilger, in an article linked below, recounts Russia's (and Ukraine's!) horrible experiences in World War II, and encourages us to imagine how the Russians might feel threatened by the NATO's drive to the east, almost to Russia's borders. Former US ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock (now 92) recounts his warnings to the US Senate 25 years ago about the dangers of NATO expanding to the east; and now the dangers have arrived. 

 

Thus Russia's demands (as summarized by Pilger):

 

·    NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missiles in nations bordering Russia. (They are already in place from Slovenia to Romania, with Poland to follow)

·    NATO to stop military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.

·    Ukraine will not become a member of NATO.

·    The West and Russia to sign a binding East-West security pact.

·    The landmark treaty between the US and Russia covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be restored. (The US abandoned it in 2019)

 

The United States, and under its direction NATO, have already rejected these demands, and are unlikely to even discuss them further until Russia withdraws its troops from their forward deployment.  Thus war/peace hangs by a thread, with little protest from citizens of the USA, Europe, Russia, or Ukraine. We have been lucky before; let us hope we are lucky again.

 

Some useful reading on the USA-Ukraine-Russia Crisis

 

A path out of the Ukraine crisis

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, [former editor and now publisher of] The Nation [February 15, 2022]

---- Putin's goal is the status quo: Keep Ukraine out of NATO. We have already made clear we aren't prepared to defend Ukraine militarily. Isn't it time for a deal that guarantees Ukraine's sovereignty and independence in exchange for guaranteeing its neutrality? [Link].

 

What Is Going to Happen in Ukraine?

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Code Pink [February 18, 2022]

---- There are three possible scenarios: The first is that Russia will suddenly launch an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The second is that the Ukrainian government in Kyiv will launch an escalation of its civil war against the self-declared People's Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR), provoking various possible reactions from other countries. The third is that neither of these will happen, and the crisis will pass without a major escalation of the war in the short term. So who will do what? [Link].

 

War in Europe and the Rise of Raw Propaganda

By John Pilger, Counterpunch [February 18, 2022]

---- Marshall McLuhan's prophecy that "the successor to politics will be propaganda" has happened.  Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the US and Britain. … The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, "shaping the narrative", much if not most of it is pure propaganda. … Having dragged European "allies" into American wars that do not concern them, the great unspoken is that NATO itself is the real threat to European security. [Link].

 

News Notes

In a mere 15 years, Alexandra Ocassio-Cortez moved from Yorktown High School to Congress, where she is now in her third year as an "insider."  The current New Yorker magazine has an in-depth interview, by David Remnick, in which she tells us how the legislative sausage factory looks from the inside. Read it here.

 

I was unaware that, as the US lifts basic pandemic emergency measures, millions of "immunocompromised people" face difficulties and dangers.  Pulitzer Prize-winning science editor of The Atlantic Ed Yong described the health risks for this compromised population on Democracy Now! last week.  I found it very interesting, and perhaps you will too.

 

A serious disappointment with the Biden presidency is his failure to do with the stroke of a pen what he could do to reduce/end student debt, which now entangles 44 million people to the tune of $1.5 trillion.  In an interesting article, Thom Hartmann informs us how the student debt crisis got its start under Governor and then President Reagan, whose motive was to punish "liberal" college students.  American "should not subsidize intellectual curiosity," he said.

 

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather/covid permitting, we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil will be held on Monday, March 7th from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.  Thanks!

 

Rewards!

This week's Rewards for stalwart readers come from our friends Hudson Valley Sally.  Choosing some of my favorites, here are Sister Moon, Annie, and Billy in Air: Billionaire.  There are lots more on linen; enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW Weekly Reader

 

Featured Essays

If Joe Biden Doesn't Change Course, This Will Be His Worst Failure

By Ezra Klein, New York Times [February 20, 2022]

---- Ninety-five percent of Afghans don't have enough to eat. Nearly nine million are at risk of starvation. The U.N.'s emergency aid request, at more than $5 billion, is the largest it has ever made for a single country. "The current humanitarian crisis could kill far more Afghans than the past 20 years of war," David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, wrote recently. And we bear much of the blame. We have turned a crisis into a catastrophe. … This is how it looks to me, and to many analysts I spoke to: Over 20 years, the United States built an aid-dependent economy in Afghanistan. When we left, we withdrew the aid on which it depended. When the Taliban took over, we turned the sanctions and financial weapons we'd wielded against them against the government and country they now controlled. We comfort ourselves by saying we are the largest donor to the Afghanistan relief effort, but we are also a major reason the crisis is dire in the first place, and we continue to be. [Read More]

 

Freedom Comes to Canada

By Bryan D. Palmer, Verso Books [UK] [February 15, 2022]

---- Everything happening in the United States comes to Canada, only a little later and a tad more politely. The rage that erupted in a Presidential-endorsed riot in Washington on 6 January 2021 has now exploded to the north. Fueled by a confused swirl of resentment against the array of pandemic protocols that all advanced capitalist states have invoked to curb and contain Covid-19 – including vaccination passports, mandatory masking, business lockdowns, and cross-border restrictions – so-called "Freedom Convoys" have descended on the nation's capital Ottawa, holding the city hostage. … "Freedom" in the face of the pandemic we have all been living through has a nice ring to it. But the politics of these Canadian convoys do not. They are animated by a Breitbart-like appreciation that destabilization of the status quo is the first step in halting the rush to a Marxist-inspired, totalitarian world order and the restoration of a political economy of acquisitive individualism. [Read More] For another perspective, read "Why the Freedom Convoy Is More American Than Canadian," by Sonali Kolhatkar, Independent Media Institute [February 19, 2022] [Link].

 

Chile's Bold Adventure in Democracy

By Ariel Dorfman, New York Review of Books [February 18, 2022]

---- Like so many countries around the world, Chile, my country of origin, is facing a series of intersecting crises. What is encouraging is the democratic, creative, and responsible way it has found to deal with this situation: a Convención Constitucional (constitutional convention) that has been tasked with creating a new Magna Carta to replace the military dictator Augusto Pinochet's constitution, which, since its fraudulent approval in 1980, has thwarted indispensable reforms. The convention was born as a response to a widespread revolt in October 2019, during which millions of enraged citizens demanded a drastic change in the way their nation is governed and, indeed, in its very self-conception. [Read More]

 

Mass Murder in Afghanistan

(Video) "Adding Insult to Injury": Afghan Activist & 9/11 Mother Condemn Biden's Seizure of Afghan Funds

From Democracy Now! [February 15, 2022]

---- President Biden is facing mounting criticism for seizing $7 billion of Afghanistan's federal reserves frozen in the United States. Biden is giving half of the money to families of September 11 victims while Afghanistan faces a humanitarian catastrophe. We speak to two of the founders of a new campaign called Unfreeze Afghanistan, a women-led initiative to lift sanctions and other economic restrictions on Afghanistan, and a woman who lost her son in the World Trade Center attack, who says the money should stay in Afghanistan. "The suffering of the Afghan people at the hands of the United States and its allies is reprehensible. This is adding insult to injury," says Phyllis Rodriguez, a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, whose son Greg was killed in the World Trade Center attack and who says 9/11 families want "information, not remuneration." Afghan American activist Masuda Sultan says continued lack of access to money and basic services in Afghanistan will inspire a new wave of underground terrorism in the country, "endangering the entire world." Biden's order is gravely hypocritical, adds Medea Benjamin, critiquing the administration for "putting themselves forward as these great saviors of Afghanistan" for releasing Afghan-owned assets as "aid" while taking no punitive action against Saudi Arabia, whose citizens led the 9/11 attack. [See the Program]

 

Additional reading – For the convoluted explanations/dynamics by which the Biden administration is "releasing" Afghanistan's money and not releasing it, read "White House Shifts Blame to Courts as Afghans Endure Winter Famine, Says It's Being "Proactive," by Austin Ahlman and Ryan Grim, The Intercept [February 18 2022] [Link].  The mainstream media's handling of the impending deaths of tens of thousands of Afghans is surveyed in "Biden's Multi-Billion Afghan Theft Gets Scant Mention on TV News," by Julie Hollar, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [February 15, 2022] [LInk].  A petition signed by Noam Chomsky and other luminaries, demanding that the Afghanistan money be released, can be read here.

 

The Climate Crisis

Humanity Subsidizing 'Our Own Extinction,' Warns Study

By Julia Conley, Common Dreams [February 17, 2022]]

---- Releasing a new study showing that world governments spend at least $1.8 trillion annually to subsidize activities which worsen the climate crisis, global subsidies experts on Thursday said leaders must eliminate or redirect the financial supports as part of an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework at an upcoming summit in China. "Reforming the $1.8 trillion a year of subsidies that are harming the environment could make an important contribution towards unlocking the over $700 billion a year needed to reverse nature loss by 2030." … The report identifies at least $640 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies, $520 billion used by the agricultural sector, $350 billion in water management and wastewater infrastructure, and $155 billion subsidizing logging and unsustainable forest management, all of which account for the majority of annual subsidies. [Read More]  Also useful is "The Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn't Create Nearly as Many Jobs as it Says It Does," by Wenonah Hauter, In These Times [February 14, 2022] [Link].

 

Israel/Palestine

Israeli Reactions to Amnesty's Apartheid Report

By Lawrence Davidson, Counterpunch [February 18, 2022]

---- In late January 2022 the human rights organization Amnesty International released a 278-page evidence-based report entitled Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity. The report covers Palestinians both in the Occupied Territories and in Israel within the Green Line. It even notes Israeli attempts to limit the rights of Palestinians living in other countries. … The Amnesty International report does not stand alone. It follows similar investigations by Human Rights Watch, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, and Palestinian organizations as well. … If reports like those of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem and various Palestinian agencies cannot change the behavior and practices of Israeli governments, neither can Israel's dismissal of such reports as anti-Semitic make the reality of its apartheid society invisible to the rest of the world. The real challenge is to turn the awareness of Israeli apartheid into political and economic action in support of the oppressed Palestinians. [Read More]

 

Our History

To Fight Attacks on "Critical Race Theory," Look to Black History

By Keisha N. Blain, The Nation [February 18, 2022]

---- While the obsession over "critical race theory" is a new manifestation, it represents long-standing efforts to keep Black history—and the perspectives of Black writers—out of the classroom. For many conservatives, the attack on "critical race theory" is rooted in a desire to shield their children from the uncomfortable aspects of history and evade "sensitive" topics such as racism, white supremacy, and inequality. As this wave of anti-Blackness and anti-intellectualism grows, Black educators and their allies must be prepared to oppose these forces, building on a long tradition of Black protest. For as long as white politicians have employed these tactics, Black educators in the United States have vigorously resisted. Through a myriad of strategies—including creative lesson plans and the production of anti-racist books and articles—Black educators have worked to counter the spread of misinformation and ensure that students have access to texts and perspectives that represent the diversity of the nation—and the world. [Read More]  Also very interesting is "It's Time for the Left to Embrace the Critical Race Theory Debate," by Linda Martín Alcoff, The Indypendent [NYC] [February 14, 2022]

[Link]

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on the curious world of pre-war USA-Ukraine-Russia

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

February 14, 2022

 

Hello All – "Curiouser and Curiouser," exclaimed Alice, as her Adventures in Wonderland began to unfold. And this might be the way a modern Alice would feel as the President of the Greatest Power on Earth states that Russia might begin a war on Wednesday, or perhaps after China's Winter Olympics are finished – and no one outside the mainstream media seems to be paying any attention.  Americans go about their business, taking in the Super Bowl, with no sense of Impending Doom or even stocking up on supplies.  The "Ukraine Crisis" seems surreal, and Ukraine's government asks the Americans to lower the volume, as 24/7 crisis talk is bad for foreign investment.

 

Alice experienced her Wonderland directly, but Americans take in the Looming War mainly through media owned by giant corporations that devote few resources to actual news gathering. "News" has become mainly reports of what government officials are saying, spiced by "intelligence" leaks about false-flag operations or insights into Vladimir Putin's interior monologues.  The context of current events – the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" of 2004, or the overthrow by mob action of Ukraine's elected government in 2014 – are simply Off the Agenda.  Ukraine's complicated history?  Off the Agenda.  The vicissitudes of NATO, and why it still even exists?  Off the Agenda.  And so on.

 

The reading linked immediately below addresses some perspectives on events from inside Ukraine and Russia; speaks to the diplomatic disaster that failed to incorporate Russia into Europe after the end of the Soviet Union; notes that the "Minsk" agreement of 2015 – again under discussion by Ukraine, France, Germany, and Russia – provides a sensible path towards settling the immediate conflicts; reminds us that nuclear disarmament has so far left in place thousands of nuclear weapons that, if used, would destroy civilization; and asks whether the US leadership in NATO is not mainly to "deter" Russia or China, but to sustain US hegemony in the capitalist world.  Perhaps in the days remaining until World War III breaks out, we can bring ourselves up to date on what the events now unfolding – "Curiouser and Curiouser" – are all about.

 

Some Useful Reading on USA-Ukraine-Russia

 

A Ukrainian Sociologist Explains Why Everything You Know About Ukraine Is Probably Wrong

An interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko, Jacobin Magazine [February 14, 2022] [Link]

 

The Strategic Blunder That Led to Today's Conflict in Ukraine

By Rajan Menon, The Nation [February 10, 2022] [Link].

 

Memo to Congress: Diplomacy for Ukraine Is Spelled M-i-n-s-k

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Code Pink [February 9, 2022] [Link]

 

Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War. Why do we fail to consider the danger?

By Ira Helfand, The Nation [February 8, 2022] [Link].

 

A New Project by CFOW

It's called The Beauty as Fuel for Change Project. As Community leaders of this initiative, Concerned Families of Westchester stalwarts hope to inspire an exploration of expressive, creative visioning. We want to plant seeds of positive representations, to interrupt the negative, divisive patterns we live with today; A project to change the conversation, with creative expression that is hopeful and helpful and inspires us to create a better world! This is a vehicle for positive imaginings & a way to reach out beyond borders to build bridges between activists in all arenas and to let us unleash the power of creativity in our human community! Color Your Imagination! CFOW is asking people of all ages to show, in all manner of Art imaginable, what our beautiful future looks like. Show us your vision of a truly working Democracy, a more perfect union! Join the peaceful visionaries of Concerned Families of Westchester in this project to help manifest positive change. – And more details coming soon!

 

News Notes

On Thursday CFOW published a statement expressing our outrage at the attack by Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano on Rep. Jamaal Bowman of NY's CD16.  You can read the statement here.

 

Included in Spano's attack on Rep. Bowman was an attack on bail reform. Passed by the NYS legislature almost three years ago, the reforms eliminated cash bail in cases of misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. The reform has helped tens of thousands of people avoid incarceration while awaiting trial, with only a very small "failure" rate.  But "Law 'n' Order" forces are pushing back, and NY Mayor Adams is in Albany today to press for the reinstatement of bail.  For more about this issue, read "Bail Reform is Working" by Rodney Holcombe, here.

 

Connie Hogarth, founder of WESPAC and a stalwart for peace and justice, died last week at the ago of 95. On Democracy Now! today Amy Goodman spoke about Connie's life and work.  Her presentation was accompanied by pictures of Connie over the years by Westchester's Andrew Courtney.  You can see this brief clip on today's program (Monday), starting at 13:00.

 

Today, Valentine's Day, is also the 20^th anniversary of the important peace organization September 11^th Families for Peaceful Tomorrow's.  Composed of people who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, and who immediately stood up against calls for war and revenge – "Not in Our Name!" – for two decades Peaceful Tomorrows has worked in solidarity with civilian victims of war, "turning our grief into actions for peace." Three of the founders of CFOW attended the Valentine's Day press conference in 2002 when Peace Tomorrows was launched, beginning a long-lasting friendship. Read about Peaceful Tomorrows here..

 

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  Weather/covid permitting, we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil will be held on Monday, March 7th from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.  Thanks!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW Weekly Reader

 

America's Real Adversaries are Its European and Other Allies

By Michael Hudson, Counterpunch [February 11, 2022]

----- The sanctions that U.S. diplomats are insisting that their allies impose against trade with Russia and China are aimed ostensibly at deterring a military buildup. But such a buildup cannot really be the main Russian and Chinese concern. They have much more to gain by offering mutual economic benefits to the West. So the underlying question is whether Europe will find its advantage in replacing U.S. exports with Russian and Chinese supplies and the associated mutual economic linkages. What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? [Read More]

 

The Martyrdom of Afghanistan

Biden Hammers a $7 Billion Nail Into Afghanistan's Coffin

By Cheryl Benard, Medea Benjamin, and Masuda Sultan, The National Interest [February 14, 2022]

[FB – The authors are founders of an important new organization, Unfreeze Afghanistan.  Learn about who they are and what they do here.]

---- On February 11, President Joe Biden issued an executive order regarding the Afghanistan Central Bank's funds. This exercise in autocratic, superpower muscle-flexing delivers yet another blow to the struggling civilian population of Afghanistan. The order is ill-informed, unjust, and damaging to vital U.S. interests—and it will have devastating consequences. With the stroke of a pen, Biden decided that the $7 billion of Afghan funds invested in the U.S. Federal Bank would not be returned to Afghan's Central Bank. Instead, it would be divided in two, with half going to compensate 9/11 families who had been suing the Taliban for colluding with Al Qaeda and the other half going to humanitarian aid. … The first problem with this executive order is that it disposes of money on the assumption that it belongs to the Taliban. But it does not. It belongs to the Afghan people, many of whom have their life's savings invested in their Central Bank. We should also be clear that it is not their fault that the Taliban are in control. The present Taliban rule is the outcome of a poorly conceived and badly executed twenty-year social engineering experiment by the United States, accompanied by a war-fighting strategy that failed, and culminating in a chaotic exit. Another problem with Biden's order is that it entirely misconstrues the purpose of a national reserve. It is not some slush fund that you can hand out to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for humanitarian aid or use to settle court cases. It's the backbone of a country's fiscal stability.  [Read More]

 

'Thank You for Hearing Our Afghan Pain'

By Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence [February 11, 2022]

---- Recently, I received an email from a young friend in Kabul: "Living conditions are very difficult for people who do not have bread to eat and fuel to heat their homes," the young friend wrote. "A child died from cold in a house near me, and several families came to my house today to help them with money. One of them cried and told me that they had not eaten for forty-eight hours and that their two children were unconscious from the cold and hunger. She had no money to treat and feed them. I wanted to share my heartache with you. … For two decades, the United States' support for puppet regimes in Afghanistan made that country dependent on foreign assistance as though it were on life support. 95% of the population, more than three-quarters of whom are women and children, remained below the poverty line while corruption, mismanagement, embezzlement, waste and fraud benefited numerous warlords, including U.S. military contractors. After the United States invaded their country and embroiled them in a pointless twenty-year nightmare, what the United States owes the Afghan people is reparations, not starvation. [Read More]

 

Also of interest – "What We Must Do for Afghanistan," by Jean Athey, Maryland Peace Action [February 11, 2022] [Link]; "The Terrible Fate Facing the Afghan People," by Vijay Prashad, The Globetrotter [February 12, 2022] [Link]; "'Death Sentence for Untold Numbers of Civilians': Biden to Permanently Seize Afghan Assets," by Jon Queally, Common Dreams [February 11, 2022] [Link]; and "Ilhan Omar Blasts 'Unconscionable' Biden Plan to Seize Afghan Assets" by Brett Wilkins,Common Dreams [February 11, 2022] [Link].

 

The War in Yemen

(Video) Rep. Ro Khanna: The U.S. Could End the Yemen War Tomorrow. It's Time to Stop Arming the Saudis, from Democracy Now! [February 10, 2022]

President Joe Biden had promised to end support for offensive operations by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and stop all "relevant" arms sales, but the U.S. continues to service Saudi warplanes, and the administration recently approved the sale of $650 million in air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia. Congressmember Ro Khanna, one of the most outspoken congressional critics of the war, says the U.S. has the power to stop the fighting. "We could ground the Saudi Air Force to a halt tomorrow if we stopped supplying them with tires and parts," says Khanna. "Instead, we continue to authorize arms sales to the Saudis." [See the Program].  Also useful is "Joe Biden Still Hasn't Stopped Supporting the War in Yemen" by Luke Savage, Jacobin Magazine [February 2022] [Link].

 

Civil Liberties

The Supreme Court is Helping Consolidate White Political Power in America

By April England-Albright, et al., The Guardian [February 10, 2022]

---- On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court in its Merrill v Milligan decision, upheld Alabama's racially gerrymandered congressional map, which see Black people represented in only 14% of congressional districts, despite making up about 27% of Alabama's population. This ruling is reminiscent of the holding in the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision that Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect". Even though the two cases addressed two different situations, the overall disregard of the rights of Black people in America by the highest court in the country is the same. And just as the Dred Scott decision laid the groundwork for similar rulings that led to the continuation of white political power at the expense of Black political power, so too does the Miller case lay the groundwork for ending voting rights and political power for Black people in this country and a path towards white political power at all levels of government. Some reading this will gasp and accuse us of misusing an explosive pre-reconstruction case to make a racially charged argument. But the reality is that the conservative gang of justices, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, had already joined its pre-1954 brethren who had indoctrinated Jim Crow policies and the disenfranchisement of Black voters. [Read More]

 

Also of interest – "Dear President Biden: Clemency for Leonard Peltier Now" by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, Democracy Now! [February 13, 2022] [LInk].

 

The State of the Union(s)

A Rhodes Scholar barista and the fight to unionize Starbucks

By Greg Jaffe, Washinton Post [February 12, 2022]

---- The omicron variant was racing through the Starbucks on Elmwood Avenue so fast that by early January one-third of the store's 30-person workforce was sick or isolating at home. The worried, angry and exhausted workers who remained had asked Starbucks for KN95 masks, better protocols to inform them when co-workers tested positive for the coronavirus, and the right to deny service to customers who refused to comply with their county's mask mandate. Their concerns were no different from those of many of the other 383,000 Starbucks employees stuck laboring through the latest wave of the pandemic. The Elmwood baristas, though, believed that they had leverage that others lacked. Three weeks earlier, they had voted to become the first unionized Starbucks in the country, an improbable victory that overcame stiff resistance from the coffee giant and caught the attention of baristas in Boston, Chicago, Knoxville, Seattle and Baltimore, who were requesting their own votes, just like the one in Buffalo. Congratulations were pouring in from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former labor secretary Robert Reich, who called their win "a watershed for the biggest coffee seller in the world" and "a small step on the long trail toward rebalancing such power in America." With the virus tearing through their workforce, the baristas were ready to make their demands. [Read More]

 

Also of interest – (Video) "Workers at Largest GM Plant in Mexico Win Historic Vote for New Independent Union After 2019 Reforms," from Democracy Now! [February 9, 2022] [Link]; and "Rest in Power Mike Parker, Labor Movement Activist," by Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes [January 20, 2022] [Link].

 

Israel/Palestine

Israeli Law & Torture: From Detained Minors to a Prison "Torture Room"

By Mohammed El-Kurd, The Nation [February 11, 2022]

---- The sun had not yet risen on January 21 when 30 Israeli soldiers arrested 12-year-old Ammar at his home in the Naqab. … According to Adalah, a Haifa-based legal center working to protect the rights of Palestinians, 150 Palestinian Bedouins (some 40 percent of whom are minors) have been arrested and accused of "rioting" during protests against their expulsion from the area. The push is being led by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a para-public organization, and is the latest chapter in the decades-old colonial effort to "make the desert bloom."  … To Fayrouz Sharqawi, the goal of Operation Law and Order was obvious: "It is to explicitly terrorize people…to deter them," she said, noting that all the Israeli attempts of "domesticating" Palestinians with "soft policies" have failed. Yet this crackdown achieved another result. We saw a resurgence of mutual aid efforts and popular committees, especially within communities hit hardest by the Israeli regime's violent crackdown on anti-colonial dissent. … The collective punishment and repression meant to reinforce a national fragmentation in which Palestinians fight for their lands on isolated fronts has instead reaffirmed that Palestinians, no matter the legal status, suffer from and will continue to struggle against the same colonial violence. [Read More]

 

Also of interest – "Human Rights Groups Agree: Israel is Practicing Apartheid" by Phyllis Bennis, Counterpunch February 11, 2022] [Link]; and "Israeli apartheid: an international consensus" by Ben Jamal, UK Palestine Solidarity Campaign [February 10, 2022] [Link].

 

Our History

What If the U.S. Hadn't Gone to War After 9/11?

By Nick Turse, The Intercept [February 8 2022]

---- On September 19, 2001, CIA officers collected cardboard boxes filled with $3 million in nonsequential $100 bills to buy off Afghan warlords, beginning America's martial response to the 9/11 attacks. A day later, President George W. Bush stood before Congress and declared a "war on terror" that would "not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." Over the next 20-plus years, the tab on that conflict, which began in Afghanistan but spread across the globe to Burkina Faso, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen, has ballooned to more than $6 trillion. The payoff has been dismal: To date, the war has killed around 900,000 people, including more than 350,000 civilians; displaced as many as 60 million; and led to humanitarian catastrophes and the worst U.S. military defeat since the Vietnam War. American cash has built armies that have collapsed or evaporated when challenged; meanwhile, the number of foreign terrorist groups around the world has more than doubled from 32 to 69. It didn't have to be this way, according to a new study of counterterrorism approaches from Brown University's Costs of War Project. [Read More]