Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 18, 2022
Hello All – Two men who are behind bars this Christmas should go free. Both men – Daniel Hale and Julian Assange – are in prison for revealing secrets about our government's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both men are charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, a piece of law designed to crush dissent under the guise of guarding against spies.
Daniel Hale is a veteran of the US Air Force. During his military service from 2009 to 2013, he worked in the US drone program, based in both Afghanistan and the USA. After leaving the Air Force, Hale became an outspoken opponent of the US targeted killings program, and of US wars. Hale bases his criticisms on his own participation in the drone program, which included helping to select targets based on faulty criteria and attacks on unarmed innocent civilians. To learn more about his case, his conditions in prison, and the efforts to free him, go to his website, https://standwithdanielhale.org.
Julian Assange is better known. He is a co-founder of WikiLeaks, and in 2010 he published hundreds of thousands of government documents leaked by US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. This is Julian Assange, now in prison in London, fighting extradition to the USA. A co-founder of the internet platform Wikileaks, in 2010 Assange The publication of these documents cast light on war crimes committed by US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as unsavory activities revealed by State Department diplomatic cables. The documents were then picked up and published by news media around the world. If extradited to the USA and convicted of the charges against him, Assange faces 175 years in prison. In the UK, a vigorous campaign attempts to prevent Assange's extradition to the USA. In the US, we are demanding that the Biden administration drop the charges against Assange. More information about Hale and Assange can be found in the good articles linked below.
Some reading about our captured whistle-blowers
Where the Heart Is [Afghanistan and Thinking of Daniel Hale]
By
---- Whenever I visited Kabul, a U.S. surveillance blimp was always visible, hovering over the city and recording film footage of the streets below. Less visible but at times terrifyingly audible, weaponized drones constantly patrolled the skies, gathering surveillance to target people deemed a threat to the United States. Pilots and analysts working inside dimly lit trailers at bases in the United States would, when given the order, launch Hellfire missiles from Reaper drones, striking homes, villages, farms and roadways. Drone attacks killed and maimed thousands of Afghan civilians and the surveillance was repeatedly so flawed that, according to a U.S. government document, over one five month period, 90% of Afghans killed by drones had been innocents, mistakenly identified as terrorists. Daniel Hale, a drone whistleblower who disclosed this information, is now serving a 45-month prison sentence at the Marion, Illinois federal penitentiary. Accused of stealing documents, he told the judge: "I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take — precious human life. I couldn't keep living in a world in which people pretend that things weren't happening that were. Please, your honor, forgive me for taking papers instead of human lives." [Read More]
Nearly Every War Has Been The Result Of Media Lies': Julian Assange, State-Corporate Media And Ukraine
By David Cromwell, Media Lens [UK] [December 14, 2022]
---- Julian Assange once observed that, 'Nearly every war has been the result of media lies.'For daring to publish evidence of US war crimes, Assange now sits in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London, at risk of being extradited to the US within the next few weeks. The prospects for a fair trial range from miniscule to zero. In a recent interview, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson told US journalist Glenn Greenwald that legal avenues in London to challenge Assange's unlawful extradition were being exhausted. What is needed now is, not recourse to a legal system that is subservient to power, but a political fight. … The Guardian recently joined with the New York Times, Le Monde, El País and Der Spiegel in publishing an open letter calling on US President Joe Biden to end Assange's prosecution. [Read More]
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather 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 is held (winter schedule) on the first Monday of each month; the next vigil will be January 2nd, from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. To learn about our new project, "Beauty as Fuel for Change," go here; and to make a financial contribution to the project, go here. (And for Susan Rutman's video of October 2022 in Vermont, go here.) 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. Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. 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!
The Rewards this week for Stalwart Readers raise up the world-class athleticism of "Double Dutch," a sport invented by girls on the streets of New York a half-century ago. As an introduction to the sport and its cultural world, here is a short video of an early famous group, "The Fantastic Four." The Fantastic Four are also featured in one of the first documentary films about Double Dutch, "Pick Up Your Feet" (1981); and their story was recently charted on an NPR Program. Double Dutch has grown and is now a sport with an audience and participants worldwide. Here is a nice short doc about a contemporary group in Hartford, "Black Magic." Enjoy!
The CFOW Newsletter will be taking a vacation.
The next issue will be sent out on January 8, 2023.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
How Neighbors in the Borderlands Fought Back Against Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's Illegal Wall — and Won
By Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept [December 14, 2022]
[FB – This is an in-depth article about how a border community rallied to take on the Governor's idiotic plan to construct his own border wall by using shipping containers. For a short video overview, go here.]
---- In late October, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey began unloading thousands of shipping containers on the border in the Coronado National Forest to thwart a supposed "invasion." Topped with concertina wire and welded together, the nearly 9,000-pound boxes would be stacked two high on land where the retirees chop wood every winter, where they took their sons hiking and camping as kids, and where they still hike and camp to this day. In the early 2000s, they saw evidence of heavy migration through the area — discarded desert clothes, empty water jugs, trash — but it hadn't been like that in more than a decade. On October 26, two days after Ducey's project began, the Browns got in their truck and set off to see the shipping containers for themselves. … No one knew if the contractors would try another night installation, but they were ready if they did. Instead, strangers and neighbors shared soup under the stars. At one point, Scott described how a wave of energy had rushed over her at dusk. Maybe it was just the hawk she had seen hovering over the now quiet work site, but it felt like it was something more. "I don't know," she said, "I just think that we won." The next morning, we awoke to frost on our tents. The desert was still. The governor's men did not return for work. They have not put down a container since. [Read More]
(Video) "Eve of Destruction"
---- Three years ago the South African Daily Maverick launched a project called Our Burning Planet, which focused on climate change and government incompetence. A recent effort is the powerful music video "Eve of Destruction," a climate-focused updating of Barry McGuire's antiwar anthem from 1965. Added here for good measure is the latest from "Tom Tomorrow" - "Getting Warm in Here." The truth is out there.
Remembering Grace Paley
---- Last Sunday, December 11th, was the 100th birthday of the late Grace Paley, an icon of American literature and a stalwart in the US/World peace and justice movement. The Allen Ginsberg website has put together a comprehensive memorial to Grace, with links to writings and memoirs and some video. I was fortunate to work with Grace while on the staff of Resist in the 1970s; all the wonderful things said about her are true. Here is a clip of her reading one of her stories, which I think captures her well. [h/t DM]
War & Peace
Military Spending Surges, Creating New Boom for Arms Makers
By Eric Lipton, et al., New York Times [December 18, 2022]
---- The prospect of growing military threats from both China and Russia is driving bipartisan support for a surge in Pentagon spending, setting up another potential boom for weapons makers that is likely to extend beyond the war in Ukraine. Congress is on track in the coming week to give final approval to a national military budget for the current fiscal year that is expected to reach approximately $858 billion — or $45 billion above what President Biden had requested. … Spending on procurement would rise sharply next year, including a 55 percent jump in Army funding to buy new missiles and a 47 percent jump for the Navy's weapons purchases. … The combination of the Ukraine war and the growing consensus about the emergence of a new era of superpower confrontation is prompting efforts to ensure the military industrial base can respond to surges in demand. The issue has become urgent in some cases as the U.S. and its NATO allies seek to keep weapons flowing to Ukraine without diminishing their own stocks to worrisome levels. [Read More] And more good news for the "merchants of death" – "US Weapons Makers Set to Profit as Japan Readies $320 Billion Military Buildup," by Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams [December 16, 2022][Link].
The Night Raids [Afghanistan]
[FB – This is an amazing in-depth article. Not for the squeamish. Check it out.]
---- On a December night in 2018, Mahzala was jolted awake by a shuddering wave of noise that rattled her family's small mud house. A trio of helicopters, so unfamiliar that she had no word for them, rapidly descended, kicking up clouds of dust that shimmered in their blinding lights. Men wearing desert camouflage and black masks flooded into the house, corralling her two sons and forcing them out the door. Mahzala watched as the gunmen questioned Safiullah, 28, and 20-year-old Sabir, before roughly pinning them against a courtyard wall. Then, ignoring their frantic protests of innocence, the masked men put guns to the back of her sons' heads. One shot. Two. Then a third. Her youngest, "the quiet, gentle one," was still alive after the first bullet, Mahzala told me, so they shot him again. Her story finished, Mahzala stared at me intently as if I could somehow explain the loss of her only family. [Read More]
The War in Ukraine
[FB – The focus for this week – the two articles below – addresses some of the difficult questions that arise in pushing for "negotiations" to end the Ukraine War. Further down, I've linked several articles indicating a significant push from the US/NATO to escalate the war, as Ukraine carries out attacks in Russia itself.]
The Ukrainian Left View on the Prospects of Peace Negotiations
Lately, in the West, the sentiment on the prospects of a peaceful end to the war imposed on the Ukrainian people is heard more and more often. But are such negotiations possible, and who will benefit from them? And does Putin actually want peace? … People in the USA, European countries, and the rest of the world who want the beginning of peace negotiations should at least achieve an immediate end to the destruction of Ukrainian critical infrastructure by Russian missiles and the restoration of regular electricity and heat supply to the population. This requires introducing stricter sanctions against Russia, which will reduce its ability to produce such missiles, as well as providing Ukraine with more effective air and missile defense systems, reducing the effectiveness of Russian attacks. It would be worthwhile to convince the governments of the world to stop buying Russian oil and gas, to provide anti-missile defense systems and at least a couple of thousand industrial-grade electricity transformers to restore regular electricity, water, and heat supply (preferably with the repair crews for their installation) instead of wasting time talking about how the world needs to convince Zelenskyy of something. Only if this is done can we at least hypothetically expect that the interest of Ukrainians in peace negotiations will increase. [Read More]
America's Roving Goals for Ukraine
By Ted Snider, The American Conservative [December 13, 2022]
---- U.S. goals have shown signs of shifting. There have been three shifts, gradually growing, with the most significant almost imperceptibly whispered on December 7, when Secretary of State Blinken suggested for the first time that the "territorial integrity" part of Biden's vow may be flexibly open to interpretation. … That was the first shift. The Biden administration went from ruling out nudging Ukraine to negotiate to pushing Ukraine to negotiate. The second shift came only days later. … U.S. officials began to say that "they believe that Zelensky would probably endorse negotiations and eventually accept concessions, as he suggested he would early in the war." And that was the second shift. Western officials began suggesting that Zelensky compromise. … If that is so, it suggests the possibility that the U.S. and its NATO allies are shifting to a position of openness to the possibility of a ceasefire, one where Russia remains in Crimea and the area of the Donbas that it controlled prior to the war, with the final status of those territories negotiated at some later date. [Read More]
[FB] – The US Supports an Expanding War
---- Last week the US announced programs to significantly increase the number of Ukrainian troops to be trained each month in Western Europe. The US also announced that it would send "Patriot" anti-missile missiles to Ukraine, though it would take considerable time before they are operable. Also announced is the establishment in Germany of a headquarters devoted to managing/supporting the Ukraine war, an indication that a long war is expected. -- Useful sources on the US buildup –unfortunately behind a New York Times pay wall – are "US Plans to More Than Double the Number of Ukrainian Troops It Trains in Germany" December 15, 2022] [Link]; and "Russia warns that it would 'undoubtedly' target U.S. Patriot air defense systems in Ukraine," [December 15, 2022] [Link]. Not behind a pay wall are two articles from Antiwar.com: "US Gives Tacit Support for Ukrainian Drone Attacks Deep Inside Russia," [Link]; and "NATO Chief Says Full-Blown War With Russia Is a 'Real Possibility' [Link].
The Climate Crisis
The Keystone Pipeline Ruptures
By Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American [December 11, 2022]
---- The Keystone Pipeline ruptured Wednesday night near a creek in northern Kansas, spilling what its operator, TC Energy, says is about 14,000 barrels of oil. This is equivalent to about 588,000 gallons (an Olympic swimming pool holds about 666,000 gallons). TC Energy says the leak is now contained. This is the largest land-based crude pipeline spill in the U.S. in nine years. Although the Keystone Pipeline has leaked 22 times before this, this week's spill is bigger than all the others put together. … The leak recalls arguments over the extension of the Keystone Pipeline, known as the XL Pipeline, that right-wing Republicans made a symbol of what they considered an antigrowth attack on U.S. energy production by Democrats. The second extension is the one that caused such a fuss. It was supposed to carry crude oil from Alberta to Kansas, traveling through Montana and North Dakota, where it would pick up U.S. crude oil to deliver it to the Gulf Coast of Texas. This leg crossed an international border, and thus the Canadian company building it needed approval from the State Department. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
Israelis Have Put Benjamin Netanyahu Back in Power. Palestinians Will Surely Pay the Price.
[FB - Ms. Buttu is a lawyer and former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Last year PBS did a very interesting program with Ms. Buttu about her experiences in Palestine.]
---- As the prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, finalizes the formation of Israel's most extreme right-wing government to date, I, along with other Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied territories, am filled with dread about what the next few years will bring. Every day since the elections, Palestinians wake up with a "What now?" apprehension, and more often than not, there's yet another bit of news that adds to our anxiety. The atmosphere of racism is so acute that I hesitate to speak or read Arabic on public transportation. Palestinian rights have been pushed to the back burner. We Palestinians live knowing that a vast majority of Israeli politicians don't support an end to Israel's military rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip or equality for all of its citizens. We are made to feel we are interlopers whose presence is temporary and simply being tolerated until such time as it is feasible to get rid of us. [Read More]
The Nakba Day Triumph: How the UN Is Correcting a Historical Wrong
---- The next Nakba Day will be officially commemorated by the United Nations General Assembly on May 15, 2023. The decision by the world's largest democratic institution is significant, if not a game changer. For nearly 75 years, the Palestinian Nakba, the 'Catastrophe' wrought by the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias in 1947-48, has served as the epicenter of the Palestinian tragedy as well as the collective Palestinian struggle for freedom. … May 15, 2023, UN Nakba Day represents the triumph of the Palestinian narrative over that of Israeli negationists. This means that the blood spilled during Gaza's March of Return was not in vain, as the Nakba and the Right of Return are now back at the center of the Palestinian story. [Read More]
Our History
How the Left Was Lost in the 1990s—but Found Its Way Again
By Naomi Klein, The Nation [December 12, 2022]
---- I came of age in the '90s, and my first steady job in journalism was as editor of a small left-wing magazine that subsisted on atrophying subscriptions and crashing arts grants and was, in those years, perpetually on the verge of publishing its last issue. … I often pictured us—the relatively small and marginal group that still identified as leftists in those days—as jamming our foot in the heavy door of history so that the full weight of neoliberal power would not succeed in slamming it shut completely. We bruised some toes in our efforts, but we did hold it open a crack. Just enough for a new generation to come along and kick it wide open. [Read More]
(Video) "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power": New Film on Radical Voting Activism in 1960s Alabama
From Democracy Now! [December 14, 2022]
---- We look at "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power," a remarkable new documentary that shows how a small rural community in Alabama organized during the civil rights movement to challenge white supremacy and systematic disenfranchisement of Black residents, and would become, in some ways, the first iteration of the Black Panther Party. Lowndes County went from having no registered Black voters in 1960 — despite being 80% Black — to being the birthplace in 1965 of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a radical political party that brought together grassroots activists and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. [See the Program]
