Protestors tell DeLauro: stop war in Ukraine

 

 By Reginald Johnson

  NEW HAVEN ---- For over a year, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, has been an ardent supporter of the United States’ military aid program for Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia.

The U.S. has provided over $100 billion in assistance to Ukraine --- much of that lethal aid --- and DeLauro has used her influence as a leader on the House Appropriations Committee to make sure the aid packages got approved.

 Last Friday marked the 1-year anniversary of the start of the war and a group of area residents gathered in chilly weather outside the congresswoman’s office at 59 Elm Street to say they don’t like DeLauro’s pro-war position and demand an end to the Ukraine conflict.

  “We’re here to stop this war. It’s killing thousands of people and destroying the infrastructure of Ukraine and Russia and is causing economic pain for all of Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States,” said Henry Lowendorf, a member of the Greater New Haven Peace Council, which organized the vigil.

   Lowendorf said they want DeLauro to get behind the idea of a cease-fire and negotiations to end the war.

  “What we want Rosa to do is to cut the silence of the Biden administration that there are alternatives to war and start promoting negotiations. It is absolutely regrettable that when someone from the Pentagon like Gen. Mark Milley says that we need to negotiate, he can be shut down by the Biden administration – ‘you can’t talk like that,’ said Lowendorf.  He added that when some congressional progressives suggested peace talks, they were also shut down.

  “So the result is, dissent is being crushed,” he said.

Members of the group carried signs that read “Don’t Escalate --- Negotiate,” and “Diplomacy Works --- No More Wars.” and handed out fliers to passersby.

 Several drivers honked their horn in approval at the sight of the protest.

     

 

Ukraine War protestors outside Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro's office in New Haven. (Henry Lowendorf photo)

   The flier warned that the longer the war goes on, the chances increase that nuclear weapons will be used. “Both the U.S. and Russia possess enormous arsenals of nuclear weapons. If used, they spell doom for civilization.”

  The protest also took aim at America’s bloated military budget, which siphons money away from addressing domestic needs such as housing, health care, education and the environment. The leaflets invoked the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, who criticized the U.S. for spending so much money on war. In his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967, King said that “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

   Just a ten percent reduction in America’s $858 billion military budget by Congress, the flier suggested,  “would return billions of dollars back to cities like ours.”

 Lowendorf and others urged people to call their local congresspersons and the White House and ask that the military budget be cut and that diplomacy be used to end the war in Ukraine.

 The Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121 or toll free at 800-826-3688. The White House number is 202-456-1111 to leave a message.

  The end of the flier read simply: “Remaining Silent Prolongs The Wars.”

 

 

 

Ukraine War: peace now --- or else

 

 By Reginald Johnson

      Commentary

 

     While the United States and NATO continue to fuel the Ukraine-Russia War by sending more lethal aid to Ukraine, former President Donald Trump warned last week that peace talks are needed immediately to avert disaster.

  “It’s far past the time for all parties involved to pursue a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine before this already horrific catastrophe spirals out of control and ends up leading indeed to World War III and this would be a war like no other war, because this would be a nuclear war,” he said on his social media platform, Truth Social.

   You can trash Trump all you want, but he’s right on this one. The war is threatening to spiral out of control and a nuclear confrontation with Russia is entirely possible.

 The implications of that are terrifying --- a nuclear clash would likely be a world-ending event.

 Just last week President Biden went ahead and approved the dispatch of M-I tanks to Ukraine, breaking a promise he made in March when he said he would never do that because it would mean “World War III.”

  Now there’s talk of sending fighter jets. The Russians have warned that such a step could have very serious repercussions. Again, Biden has said he won’t go that far. But will he keep his word?

  Sending the jets may be crossing the Rubicon for the United States.

  It’s a sad commentary on the state affairs in our country when the much-criticized Donald Trump is the only national political leader who’s making any sense on Ukraine.

  Are there any leading Democrats speaking out on the need for peace and urging that the administration change course to avoid disaster? The answer is, sadly, no. This is an utter disgrace. We have the prospect of nuclear war on the horizon and the Democrats say nothing; in fact they’re getting on board for sending more aid to Ukraine to “help Ukraine win.”  Win what? A radiated wasteland?

 Unfortunately, the Democrats today are not the party of George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Wayne Morse and Al Gore Sr. --- courageous statesmen who spoke out generations ago against the terrible Vietnam War and urged peace. Far from it.

  But the Republicans are not much better on the war. Except for some libertarians in the House, there is little opposition from the GOP on Ukraine. And some Republicans, like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are goading Biden to ratchet up the war by sending the fighter jets.

  Already the Ukraine-Russia War has been disastrous. There’s been 200,000 casualties, including tens of thousands of deaths. More than 5 million people have been forced to flee Ukraine and the country’s infrastructure has been devastated.

     

The US is sending M-I battle tanks to Ukraine, in a major escalation of the war. (Photo, Wikimedia Commons)

  Right from the beginning the Biden administration has turned its back on tentative peace deals that could have settled the conflict and opted instead to provide an unending stream of military aid to the Eastern European country.

  Biden’s flip-flop on delivering tanks to Ukraine recalls the lying by another president in the lead-up to the Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson had pledged during his 1964 campaign for president against the hawkish GOP candidate Barry Goldwater that he would never send American soldiers to Southeast Asia, where the US was supporting South Vietnam in its efforts to beat back a communist insurgency. America had limited its involvement to providing military advisors and equipment.

But within eight months of his victory in the ‘64 election, Johnson  went back on his word and dispatched 40,000 troops to Vietnam, and the United States became fully involved in a land war in Asia.

   After that, the US spent eight years trying to win in Vietnam with a seemingly unending series of troop deployments (the US troop total rose to over 500,000) and relentless bombing campaigns against North Vietnam and targets in South Vietnam. The US effort ultimately failed and America had to pull out of Vietnam in defeat.

  Some 54,000 Americans and 3 million Indochinese lost their lives during that war. The Vietnamese countryside was left poisoned by environmental toxins used by the US to defoliate the jungle during combat operations.

 Where is the Ukraine War headed? Nowhere good, in my view --- unless political leaders, the media and yes, the peace movement, wake up from their comatose state, realize the severity of the situation and demand an end to the fighting.

   Fortunately, there is some ray of hope that the peace movement may be finally expanding to stop the war. A rally called “Rage Against the War Machine” will take place February 19^th in Washington DC. What is noteworthy here is that several prominent activists associated with the left and people tied to the libertarian movement on the right are joining forces in the protest.

 Anti-war activists and left-leaning figures such as Jill Stein, Max Blumenthal, David Swanson, Chris Hedges and Ann Wright will be speaking out against the war along with libertarians like Ron Paul.

  The event is being sponsored by the Libertarian Party and the People’s Party. A statement by the People’s Party said “While the People’s Party and the Libertarian Party do not agree on a number of substantial issues, we agree that there is no “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” in a world devastated by nuclear war. We agree that US resources should be used to improve the lives of Americans, not to prolong wars around the world that profit the war industry. We agree that diplomacy has not been given a chance in Ukraine and that the senseless deaths and destruction could have been avoided and needs to be stopped.”

  The statement added, “To make a difference in this country, we need to be able to come together with a diversity of voices and opinions.”

  Some people on the left may quibble with the idea of joining forces with libertarians on the right but this is no time to insist on ideological purity. This is a time when people of diverse views but who share a common desire for peace have to come together to stop the madness.

 

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World Disinformation Forum

 By Reginald Johnson

   I checked out a few bits of the "World Economic Forum" meeting in Davos, Switzerland and it is distressing. The WEF is supposedly this elite group that promotes all these advanced ideas that will save the world. Billionaires are in attendance so you can only imagine what those "advanced" ideas would be.

 In the morning on Euro News, I heard the Finnish President, I can't remember her name, say repeatedly how important it was to give Ukraine all the weapons it needs to win the war with Russia. Crucial for Europe, she said, without saying why. No mention of the need for negotiating a peace or of possible nuclear dangers if the war keeps going.

 Then later in the day, I saw former CNN pundit Brian Stelter interviewing Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, in a discussion about controlling "disinformation." As they used to say back in the '60s, can you dig it? Here was Stelter, who promoted the totally wrong Trump-Russia collusion claims a few years ago talking with the head of the Times, which also backed the same bogus claims, over and over, in addition to censoring the explosive Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 election, blacking out the FBI's strongarming of social media in violation of the First Amendment and running one-sided stories about the Ukraine War.

Disinformation is right --- perpetrators are on full display in Davos. So much for the WEF.

 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: we must work for peace

 

  By Reginald Johnson

 

   

  The immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were heard in New Haven City Hall Friday as people took part in a community reading of King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech given in 1967.

 About 15 people read excerpts of the speech, in which the civil rights leader came out and condemned the Vietnam War and demanded that American leaders take steps to end the brutal conflict.

 “The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war,” he said.

 King also urged that America stop spending so much money on the military and invest more money at home to eliminate poverty, racism and improve peoples’ lives.

 “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” he said.

  King, who was attacked bitterly for his criticism of the war and America’s militaristic policy overseas, said it was crucial for people to take a stand, work for peace and turn away from violence.

  Giving his address before an audience at the Riverside Church in New York City, King said, “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late…We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation.”

Community residents take part in a reading of Dr. Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence" speech in New Haven City Hall. (Photo by Reginald Johnson)

 The community reading of King’s speech, the full title of which is “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence,” takes place every year in New Haven and is sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council. It coincides with the Martin Luther King’s birthday, which is Monday.

 Peace council members said the reading took on extra significance this year, as the United States is now heavily involved in another overseas conflict – the Ukraine War. Although there are no American boots on the ground --- yet --- the US and NATO countries have delivered more than $120 billion of lethal aid to Ukraine, to fight its war with Russia.

  The war began after Russia invaded Ukraine last February. US and Ukrainian leaders called the invasion “aggression” and totally unjustified. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said his nation acted only after a series of provocations by the West, including violations of the Minsk peace agreement covering eastern Ukraine, expansion of NATO to include countries close to Russia and a build-up of Ukrainian forces close to the Russian border.

  The war has taken 200,000 casualties so far and shows no sign of letting up. A number of observers have expressed the concern that the war could escalate into a nuclear conflict, which would be catastrophic.

 Peace groups are holding protests around the country this month demanding that the US stop fueling the war and take steps to bring about a ceasefire and ultimately a peace settlement. The Biden administration has so far refused to call for negotiations and in fact has scuttled tentative peace deals since the war began.

  Henry Lowendorf, the president of the Greater New Haven Peace Council said Dr. King’s Riverside Church speech still has so much relevance today. His call for an end to a brutal overseas conflict, stopping US militaristic policies in general and reducing military spending to free up money for domestic needs, all have application today.

 

  

   

Public reading of King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech

   

   By Reginald Johnson

 

   The Greater New Haven Peace Council will sponsor a community reading of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s famed “Beyond Vietnam" speech on Friday Jan. 13 at New Haven City Hall.

 King’s address on April, 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City was the moment when the civil rights leader decided to come out against the Vietnam War and condemn America’s militaristic policies abroad.

  “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube,” King said.

  “So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

   King also said that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

   The community reading of King’s address comes just weeks after Congress and President Biden approved a record $858 billion for the military budget. Defense spending takes up well over half of the total federal discretionary budget.

 The New Haven event also takes place as the deadly and highly costly Ukraine-Russia war continues. There have been more than 200,000 casualties in that conflict which shows no signs of letting up. The United States has given more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

  Many observers have expressed the concern that the longer the war drags on without a diplomatic settlement, the chances grow that tactical nuclear weapons might be used on the battlefield by either Ukraine or Russia. Such an event could then escalate to a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

  Rev. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War angered some people who thought that the civil rights leader had overstepped his bounds by speaking out about foreign affairs. King was assassinated in Memphis exactly one year to the day after his speech at the Riverside Church.

(The community reading of “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” will take place at 12 noon on the second floor of New Haven City Hall at 165 Church Street.  More information can be obtained by contacting the peace council at grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  King said when he had counseled poor black youth in the cities against resorting to violence to achieve political change . he had been challenged.

  “”But they ask --- and rightly so

Secret files said to link CIA to JFK assassination

 

      By Reginald Johnson

 

   In an astonishing newscast last week dealing with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, FOX’s Tucker Carlson said a source who has access to still-unreleased CIA files on the case stated “unequivocally” that the agency “was involved” with Kennedy’s murder.

 “We spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents, a person who was deeply familiar with what they contained,” said Carlson. “We asked this person directly,  ‘did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American president?’ And here’s the reply we received, verbatim: ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’ “

   “It’s hard to imagine a more jarring response than that,” Carlson said. “Again, this is not a conspiracy theorist that we spoke to. Not even close. This is someone with direct knowledge of the information that once again is being withheld from the American public. And the answer we received was unequivocal --- ‘yes. the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president.’ ”

  Carlson’s show ran the same day that the Biden administration opted to release some of the secret CIA files dealing with the assassination ----- but not all.  Some of the most sensitive documents are still hidden, despite the fact that a congressional act was passed more than 30 years ago mandating that all the records relating to Kennedy’s assassination should be made public by the year 2017. That has not taken place, with successive administrations, Republican and Democrat, slow-walking the process.

  It’s long been speculated that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) was involved with the JFK assassination, which took place on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Tex. Thousands of books and articles and been written about the case, and many authors have either speculated about the CIA’s responsibility, or in some cases pointed the finger directly at the CIA. Kennedy had a bad relationship with the agency, after he faulted the CIA for the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

  Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK,” also told a story about FBI, CIA and military officers being involved in the murder, in what was portrayed as a coup d’etat.

   However, no one in the mainstream press, in Congress or in the government bureaucracy has ever dared to come out and say that the CIA might have been tied to the president’s killing. The establishment view on the assassination for years has remained that the Warren Commission --- which reviewed Kennedy’s murder in 1964 --- was correct in concluding that the 35^th president was murdered by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and there was no conspiracy involving other actors or government officials.

  Carlson’s show therefore was unusual --- a highly rated commentator on a mainstream channel voicing the strong possibility that a branch of the United States government was involved in the murder of a sitting president.

 The FOX commentator also said if what the source is saying is true, it confirms the belief held by many over the years --- that the US has a democracy in name only.

  “It means that within the US government, there are forces wholly beyond democratic control. These forces are more powerful than the elected officials that supposedly oversee them,” Carlson said. “These forces can affect election outcomes. They can even hide their complicity in the murder of an American president. In other words, they can do pretty much anything they want. They constitute a government within a government, mocking by their very existence the idea of democracy. As cynical as we have become after 30 years of watching government officials ignore the voters who employ them, we were shocked to learn of this. It’s not acceptable,” Carlson stated.

  Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who, like his brother, was also assassinated, called the Carlson show,  “The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered.”

  Sen. Kennedy was killed in 1968, also allegedly by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan, now in his late 70s, is serving a life sentence.

 Robert Kennedy Jr. has said previously that he believed that neither Oswald nor Sirhan acted alone in the two murders.

  In a follow-up show on the JFK case on Dec. 16, a lawyer who is pushing for the full release of the CIA files on Kennedy, told Carlson the Biden administration’s decision to only release part of the files was “very disappointing, frustrating and infuriating.”

  New York Law School Adjunct Prof. Lawrence Schnapf said, “Essentially what we got yesterday was old wine packaged in new bottles. The 13,000 records released yesterday were basically records that had already been released and maybe with less redactions.”

  He added “the spin that the CIA is doing is unfortunately (something) that the New York Times and the Washington Post have taken hook, line and sinker … this is a big nothing burger.”

  The Mary Ferrell Foundation, the nation’s largest nonprofit repository of the assassination records has sued the administration to make all the documents public. The foundation says the CIA is withholding most of the records at issue.

 The Assassination Records Review Board that was established under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 has also tried to obtain more Kennedy files from NBC that it says the company is holding,  according to Schnapf.

 “To show you the level of obstruction in our government, the review board prepared a subpoena to serve on NBC and the Department of Justice refused to serve it,” Schnapf said.

  The attorney urged Carlson and his listeners to pressure leaders of the new incoming Congress to hold hearings and subpoena CIA officials to come and testify why they are not turning over the Kennedy files as required by law.

  The last few years have seen more calls for Congress to set up a new "Church Committee" to investigate abuses by the intelligence community, including the CIA, FBI and NSA.

  In the 1970s, a Senate committee headed by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho conducted a sweeping investigation of irregularities at the agencies and that triggered a number of reforms.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

  

 

 

"Christmas Truce" in Ukraine?

 

     By Reginald Johnson

       Commentary

 

    For two wonderful days in December, 1914 during World War I, the guns fell silent and tired soldiers on both sides of the conflict crawled out of their trenches to shake hands with combatants on the other side and celebrate Christmas.

  English, French, and  German soldiers came together in a spontaneous moment to eat dinner, sing Christmas carols and even play soccer.

  The informal cease-fire was dubbed “The Christmas Truce.”

 Though the truce didn’t last long ---  the war resumed and dragged on for another four years --- the Christmas Truce is long remembered as a special moment in history, when the killing stopped and there was a glimmer of hope that a brutal conflict could somehow be brought to an end.

  Now, peace advocates are urging that a “Christmas Truce” be called in the Ukraine War, also a brutal conflict that has left 200,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed or injured in just nine months.

“The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a symbol of hope and courage, when the people of warring countries organized an armistice on their own authority and joined in a spontaneous act of reconciliation and fraternization,” said a statement by CODE Pink, an anti-war organization.

  “In this same spirit, we ask you to join us in urging President Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and congressional representatives to support the International Peace Bureau’s call for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine,” the statement said. 

“A truce --- a moment of holiday peace --- could pave the way for negotiations to reach a lasting security agreement to end the bloodshed once and for all.”

  A petition has been set up on the CODE Pink website for people to sign and indicate their support. https://www.codepink.org/christmas_truce_in_ukraine_gen

   The peace group and other organizations such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation have also been urging leaders of the faith community and social justice movements to support the campaign.  Dr. Cornel West and the Rev. Jesse Jackson have gotten behind the effort.

 The Ukraine War began in February when Russia invaded Ukraine in what Russia called a “Special Military Operation.”  US and Ukrainian officials called the invasion an act of naked aggression --- completely unjustified and illegal under international law.  Russian officials maintained, however, they acted after a series of provocations by Ukraine and the US-led military alliance, NATO, which has bases in many countries close to Russia.

  The US has supplied over $100 billion in military aid to help Ukraine to fight the war.

 Negotiations to end the war have stalled, with Biden administration officials indicating little interest in peace talks. A tentative plan to end the war last April --- agreed to by Russia and Ukraine --- fell apart after the US rejected the deal.

  The possibility the war could turn nuclear arose after Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky suggested preemptive strikes against Russia to prevent the Russians from using nuclear weapons. Russian officials said they interpreted Zelensky's remarks as suggesting that NATO should launch a nuclear first strike against Russia.

. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would not fire a nuclear first strike at Ukraine, but said Russia would use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack.

 Noam Chomsky,  the world renown intellectual and long-time foreign policy critic, warned recently that there could be dire consequences for the human race if the war is not brought to a close in the near future.

  Chomsky foresees possible catastrophe in two ways --- first by the possibility of a nuclear war starting in Ukraine; and second, by the environmental consequences of more widespread use of highly-polluting liquid natural gas, as the flow of Russian gas has been stopped. He said the world only has limited time to shut down high-carbon fossil fuel usage and control global warming, and the wider use now of dirty fuel will hasten the arrival of a total climate collapse.

  “Every possible path to a diplomatic settlement should be pursued,” Chomsky told an audience at The Peoples Forum. “There is no time for delay.”

  The International Peace Bureau is calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine for Christmas 2022/2023 from Dec. 25^th to January 7^th  “as a sign of our shared humanity, reconciliation and peace.”  https://www.ipb.org/ipb-christmas-peace-appeal/

To ask for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine, call the White House at 202-456-1111 and your members of Congress, at 202-224-3121.