Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

This is a positive development. As someone entirely dedicated to peace, I am extremely pleased with the direction Pres. Obama appears to be taking

Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources. During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an...

Peace and Justice Groups Protest warmongering "Christians," Hateful Hagee For Comment: Immediate Release Malachy Kilbride, Wash. Peace Center, (202) 841-2230 July 18, 2008 Barbra Bearden, Peace Action, (301) 565-4050, ext. 330 WASHINGTON – Monday evening a coalition of peace and social justice groups wishing to foster greater understanding between faith traditions and stopping an illegal and immoral military strike on the nation of Iran will be protesting outside the Christians United for Israel Conference at the DC Convention Center. When: 5:00-8:00 PM, Monday, July 21st Where: 9th Street and Mass. Avenue NW, Across from DC Convention Center What: Protest the right-wing Christians United for Israel Annual Conference, and raise awareness about preventing war with Iran and the importance of respecting world reli...

By Nadia Hijab, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies Beyond the histrionics of US foreign policy, the real issue concerning an Iranian development of nuclear weapons is international nonproliferation – and, indeed, a world free of all nuclear weapons, argues Nadia Hijab. Whatever else it is, Iran’s nuclear quest is not short on drama. Israel and Iran have just flexed their military muscles in highly publicized exercises and tests. The P5+1 - the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China, all permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany - just brandished another acre of carrots and rainforest of sticks at Iran. In the US Congress, resolutions to impose a naval blockade against Iran, among other measures, have been cosponsored by nearly half the House and a third of the Senate, in complete disregard of the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that says Iran no longer has an active nuclear weapons program. These histrionics have cloaked the elephant in the roo...

Challenged Gen. Petraeus During September 2007 Hearing Washington – Last September General David Petraeus sold the continued illegal and immoral war of Iraq to Congress, and they bought it. Washington, D.C. activist David Barrows was arrested for rising and speaking during Petraeus’ testimony before during a congressional hearing in order to bring attention to the general’s lies and the possible expansion of the criminal war and occupation into Iran. Barrows faces sentencing this Wednesday, April 23, at 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom 220 of D.C. Superior Court, 500 Indiana Avenue N.W. On September 11, 2007 Barrows was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police and charged with “Disrupting Congress.” Earlier this month he had a jury trial in D.C. Judge Robert S. Rigsby’s courtroom. After a two-day trial, the jury returned a guilty verdict and Barrows, an artist and a nonviolent peace and justice activist faces up to six months in prison. “I continue to believe that we, the people, should not allow Con...

Street Address of headquarters: 4420 Fairfax Drive N., Arlington, VA WASHINGTON -- On January 2, 2008, one day before the Iowa caucus, citizens will go to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign headquarters, at 4 p.m., to follow up on a letter requesting the Senator's pledge to affirm the points put forth by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. A small delegation of peace activists, representing the Washington Peace Center, Code Pink, Grassroots America and Northern Virginians for Peace and Justice will attempt to persuade Ms. Clinton to take measurable steps to end the Iraq War, which is entering its fifth year. Previously, Ms. Clinton has made remarks indicating her position to keep troops in Iraq through 2013, in spite of the fact that more than 70% of Americans favor a more immediate withdrawal of troops. Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org, the initiator of the SODaPOP "Seasons of Discontent; a Presidential Occupation Project" has made visits to the of...

Sen. Hillary Clinton 4420 North Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203 Re: Seasons of Discontent; a Presidential Occupation Project Dear Senator Clinton: I am writing to announce a new initiative of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and several peace and justice groups in the earliest races of the presidential campaign, SODaPOP, or "Seasons of Discontent; a Presidential Occupation Project." We at the Washington Peace Center are joining VCNV in this campaign, and are inviting activists to come to Iowa and New Hampshire from around the nation "to bring nonviolent civil resistance and civil disobedience to the campaign offices and headquarters of Presidential candidates, both Republican and Democrat, who do not publicly declare that they will take the necessary concrete steps to end the Iraq war, to rebuild Iraq, to forswear military attacks on other countries such as Iran, and to fully fund the Common Good in the U.S." Please sign the enclosed promise and return it to our of...

1. An End to All Funding for U.S. Military Operations in Iraq 2. Safe and Rapid Withdrawal of All U.S. Troops and Coalition Forces from Iraq, With No Future Deployments 3. No Permanent U.S. Military Bases or Installations in Iraq 4. Support for an Iraqi-led Peace Process, Including a Peace Conference to Shape a Post-occupation Transition 5. Return Control of Iraqi Oil to the People of Iraq, as Well as Complete Sovereignty in their Economic and Political Affairs 6. Support for Reparations and Reconstruction to Address the Destruction Caused by the U.S. Invasion, Military Occupation, and Thirteen Years of Economic Sanctions 7. Establish a U.S. “Peace Dividend” fo...

By John Nichols, The Nation When it comes to the question of impeachment, the difference between Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joe Biden and Department of Peace champion Dennis Kucinich is merely a matter of timing. Biden says that if George Bush attacks Iran without a formal declaration of war by Congress, the president must be impeached. Kucinich thinks it would be smarter to act before the bombs start flying. The distinction was illustrated during Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas when Catherine Jackson, the mother of an Iraq War veteran – Marine Christopher Jackson, who told the audience, "Our troops need to come home now" -- expressed her fear that "members of the Bush administration and neoconservative members of Congress are beating the drums of war again." Ms. Jackson asked what the candidates what they would do to prevent an attack on Iran. Biden was especially pointed in his response, saying of the president: ...

(First Appeared on OpEd News) By Malachy Kilbride President Bush will soon ask Congress for about another $200,000,000,000 as the official death count of US service people killed in Iraq passes the 3,800 mark. This 3,800 does not even include those who have died because of their injuries after they left Iraq. The numbers are far higher! According to Iraq Body Count the number of hostile and non-hostile US injured evacuated by air from Iraq was almost 37,000 as of the end of August, 2007. The number of Iraqis killed as a result of the invasion and occupation is estimated to be over 1,063,825. That is more than those slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide according to www.justforeignpolicy.org . Furthermore, these figures do not capture the real horror, devastation, and unimaginable misery inflicted on the Iraqi people. A recently released report by the American Friends Service Committee’s Cost of War Campaign says that the United States is spending about $720 million per day for the Iraq W...

For the last couple months I knew it was coming, but now the wonderful anti-war nonviolent direct action INSIDE the Capitol Building has come and gone, I will be suspending my organizing activities with the peace and justice movement for two years while I am in grad school. I am studying Library and Info. Sciences at CUA, and following my completion I will need a few months starting my new career before I return to organizing. Sadly, I think the U.S. military occupation of the nation of Iraq will still be continuing, and we may also be engaged in a war with Iran at that point. So there will be a lot to organize around. Furthermore, D.C. will still not have a vote in Congress and our government will be spending more on military expenditures than health care and housing. So, there will be a lot of work for an anarchist archivist/librarian to help organize and support. The action yesterday inside the Capitol Building resulted in 36 people arrested. This was a joint nonviolent direct actio...