Malu 'Aina

STATEMENT ON ESCALATING THREATS OF

MILITARY ACTION ABROAD AND INCREASED

VIOLENCE/REPRESSION AT HOME

Below are excerpts from United National Antiwar Coalition. See www.UNACpeace.org

The news is filled with alarming new threats of attacks on Syria and Iran.  Secretary of State Clinton says the U.S. and Turkey are discussing details for a “No-Fly Zone” over Syria.  We know from the Libyan experience that a “No-Fly Zone” would require massive NATO bombing of Syrian air defenses and huge civilian casualties.  At the same time, State Department spokespeople are targeting Iran and Hezbollah for alleged military support to the Assad government… 

This is how the public was whipped up and the basis was laid before attacking Iraq and Libya.  Going after Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya, causing massive loss of life and destruction, could be small potatoes compared to the conflagration we might see following military intervention in Syria, Iran and Lebanon. .. All of this stemming from a rapacious drive for imperialist domination of resources and power.

At the same time, we see increased repression and poverty at home…  Increased militarization of our society leads to an expansion of surveillance and stop-and-frisk operations, military weapons in the hands of police, and an explosion of the prison industry… Civil liberties and the right to dissent are under siege with indefinite detention and extra-judicial assassinations now the law of the land.

To pay for wars and to maximize the profits of the haves, they take more and more from the have-nots.  We see cuts to the social safety nets, attacks on labor, privatization of government programs, huge unemployment, neglect of infrastructure, rapid climate change and poisoning of the environment.

  We need a strong and unified movement to mobilize against these horrors…Join us!

 1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622.  Emailja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (August 17, 2012 – 569th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Mid-East & Global

WMD-Free Zones

Urgently Needed!

      This past week the world observed the 67^th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6th and Nagasaki on Aug. 9th 1945 that killed more than 200,000 Japanese civilians. Professor and author, Noam Chomsky, recently wrote about how to defuse the world’s current nuclear threats, including today’s dangerous conflict with Iran over its nuclear program. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/13626/the_next_hiroshima

Chomsky notes the threat of Israeli pre-emptive bombing of Iran, but says, “the attack against Iran is in fact already well underway, including economic sanctions that have reached the level of “undeclared war,” in the judgment of Iran specialist Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan.”

“Consider, for another example, the Flame virus, revealed in mid-July, developed jointly by the United States and Israel, and used to secretly monitor Iranian computer networks. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon regards cyberwarfare as “an act of war” that authorizes the target “to respond using traditional military force” (though with the usual exception: not when the United States or an ally is the perpetrator).

“The escalation of the undeclared war against Iran increases the possibility of a large-scale war being sparked, even accidentally. The danger was illustrated when a U.S. Navy vessel, part of the huge deployment in the Gulf, fired on a civilian fishing boat July 16, killing one and wounding three. It would not take much more to ignite a major conflict.

“One sensible way to avoid such dread consequences is to pursue, in the wording of U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 of April 1991, “the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons…” The goal has been an Arab-Iranian objective since 1974, regularly re-endorsed. It now has near unanimous global support, at least formally… Progress is unlikely unless there is mass public support in the West. Failure to grasp the opportunity will, once again, lengthen the grim shadow that has darkened the world since that fateful August 6.”

      It should be noted that Israel possesses several hundred nuclear weapons but it is hardly ever mentioned in western media. A special note should also be made that Hawaii County declared itself by law in 1981 to be a Nuclear-Free Zone, but the U.S. military has refused to respect that law. In fact, the military has contaminated Hawaii island with radiation from nuclear weapon spotting rounds used at Pohakuloa that contained Depleted Uranium (DU) and has stonewalled the call for clean up and comprehensive, independent, testing and monitoring to determine the full extent of contamination.

Never Again!  No More Hiroshimas!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622.  Emailja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (August 10, 2012 – 568th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Remembering

Hiroshima

and Nagasaki!

The amount of plutonium in the Nagasaki 22KT bomb:  the equivalent of 22,000 tons of TNT

2012 marks the 67thAnniversary of the tragic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also marks the first anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdowns at Fukushima.

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 US bomber dropped a uranium bomb named “Little Boy” over Hiroshima

                                    killing over 140,000 Japanese civilians.

On August 9, 1945, the US dropped another nuclear bomb, a plutonium weapon named “Fat Man,”

                                    on Nagasaki sending 60,000 men, women, and children to their death.

Many thousands more have suffered and died in the aftermath from physical and psychological injury and from radiation exposure.

Now, in our day, the nuclear menace has returned to afflict Japan in another form – the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered several disastrous nuclear power plant meltdowns at Fukushima with still unfolding consequences. This should be a warning to the whole world.

It is time to wake up from our nuclear sleep, time to pay attention to survivors of direct attack, atmospheric and underground testing, and numerous plant meltdowns. Their message to us –from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima, Bikini Atoll, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl –is crystal clear: NO MORE NUKES!

No more should the U.S. use weapons of mass destruction –theirs or ours – as a threat, excuse, or act of deception in dealing with other nations. The U.S. crime of invading Iraq cannot be repeated in Syria, Iran, or whatever nation U.S. political, military, and corporate interests may decide to attack and occupy.  May the lessons of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima encourage us all to work harder for a nuclear-free world, a world of justice and peace.

Never Again! No More Nukes!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622.  Emailja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (August 3, 2012 – 567th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office