[Stopwar-l] Dec 28 updates & announcements

[StopWar]

1. Solidarity event with Iran ">  

*****

1. 

 Condemnation of Ashura's
Brutal Crack-down in Iran

MONDAY DECEMBER 28TH  

6:00PM - 6:30PM


VANCOUVER ART GALLERY - ROBSON SIDE     Organized by: STUDENT GREEN
MOVEMENT OF VANCOUVERجنبش سبز دانشجوئی ونکوور

In the aftermath of the June
12th Presidential elections, protests in Iran have continued to be brutally
suppressed. Yesterday, December 27th, protests taking place during the Shi'
festival of Ashura, were again confronted with violent bloodshed. So far
over 10 persons have been confirmed killed, at least five in Tehran, four
in Tabriz, and two in Najafabad; over 300 people have been arrested, and
many have been beaten and injured by batons, knives, tear-gas, pepper-gas,
and other weapons. 

In solidarity with the people of Iran in unconditional
condemnation of inhumane and brutal suppression of the protests by the
Iranian regime, and in full support of the Iranian people's democratic,
civil, and human rights, we will gather tomorrow at 6 pm in front of the
Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson-side). Please join us in voicing our concerns
and show your support by spreading the word. V
http://vancouver4iran.com
[1]
info at vancouver4iran.com [2]    

NEWS
There's an interview today about
yesterday's crackdown on protests on Iran, in which 12 people were killed:


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/28/crackdown_in_iran_up_to_12
[3]

"This is a very critical time. We have to realize that Iran
is
domestically--its political system is falling apart. And
political
solutions are becoming less and less obvious. There is very much
the danger of a full-scale military coup by
the Revolutionary Guard. And
the US and other foreign actors involved
with issues on Iran have a big
responsibility here. Anything that they
would provoke in bringing any kind
of military action against
Iran--particularly during the past few weeks we
have seen again the
reemergence of discourse that Iran has to be attacked,
that Israel
should be given a green light to launch aerial attacks against
Iran.
These would all be extremely dangerous. That is pretty much what
the
Revolutionary Guards are looking for. They're looking for any kind
of
confrontation that can rescue them from the domestic crisis
they're
facing and, that way, just shut down the whole country and put it
on a
war footing. "

****

2. 
Vancouver's Gaza Freedom March 
In
solidarity with the real Gaza Freedom march. 
Friday January 1st 2010 at
3:00 PM
VANCOUVER ART GALLERY

On December 31st, 2009 the largest-ever
international delegation will hold a massive non-violent demonstration
aimed at breaking the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, marching from Gaza
into Israel. 

Standing in solidarity with them, and expressing our desire
to end the occupation on the anniversary of the Gaza Massacre- we will be
holding a demonstration in Vancouver itself!!! Vancouver's own Gaza Freedom
March will be held at the Vancouver Art Gallery (750 Hornby Street) on
FRIDAY JANUARY 1st 2010, in solidarity with those who will be attending the
march in Gaza. This is for those of us who unfortunately are not able to
attend the march in Gaza- so PLEASE INVITE all your friends so that we can
have AS many people as possible in this solidarity march that is going to
take place ACROSS THE GLOBE!

The protest will begin at 3pm, and will end
by 7pm so that after we are done with our march, we can ring in the new
year in hopes that the siege will be broken once and for all!

If you are
interested in donating money to help make Vancouver's Gaza Freedom March a
success, please email sphr.ubc at gmail.com if you're interested in
donating.

Vancouver Gaza Freedom March on Friday January 1st, 2010- at the
Vancouver Art Gallery at 3pm. Check out the facebook event here and invite
all of your friends!

****

3.
POLITICS IN THE RING: DAVE ZIRIN IN
VANCOUVER!

Award-winning sports writer Dave Zirin will be speaking in
Vancouver on
the politics of sport and mega sporting events on January 20
and January
21, 2010. You will not want to miss him!

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=249378115627">
****

4. BUILDING
BRIDGES: OUR NEXT PUBLIC PRESENTATION...

Monday, January 11, 2010, 7:30
pm, Langara College 
(100 West 49th Avenue in Vancouver), 
Room TBA--_if
you come, watch for signs at the main entrance on 49th_

THE TERRA SANCTA
EDUCATION TRUST:
education for girls of the Holy Land's Christian minority

Speaker: Dr Jordan Lancaster

In 1219, during the 
Crusades, Francis of
Assisi travelled to the Holy Land to meet the Sultan in 
order to seek
peace between Muslims and Christians. This prophetic gesture of 
love and
respect is the inspiration for the work of the Terra Sancta Trust, 
which
supports education and the relief of poverty among families of the Holy

Land's Christian minority, and which also promotes respect and dialogue
between 
the Abrahamic faith-communities of the region. 

JORDAN LANCASTER
holds a Ph.D. in Italian from the University of Toronto. 
She taught in
Canada and the US before moving to Naples where she did a post-doc 
at the
Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici. She now works as a

translator/interpreter in London. 

****
5.
News on Afghanistan 

A Grave
Breach of the Geneva Conventions
Why the Af/Pak War is Illegal

By MARJORIE
COHN
December 21, 2009

President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine
days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when
it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war.

In 1945, in the wake of
two wars that claimed millions of lives, the nations of the world created
the United Nations system to "save succeeding generations from the scourge
of war." The UN Charter is based on the principles of international peace
and security as well as the protection of human rights. But the United
States, one of the founding members of the UN, has often flouted the
commands of the charter, which is part of US law under the Supremacy Clause
of the Constitution.

Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as
illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans saw it as a justifiable
response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The cover of Time magazine
called it "The Right War." Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war but
escalating the war in Afghanistan. But a majority of Americans now oppose
that war as well.

The UN Charter provides that all member states must
settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can
use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the
Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two
resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in
Afghanistan.

"Operation Enduring Freedom" was not legitimate self-defense
under the charter because the 9/11 attacks were crimes against humanity,
not "armed attacks" by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the
United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia.
Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the
United States after 9/11, or President Bush would not have waited three
weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity
for self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of
means, and no moment for deliberation." This classic principle of
self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg
Tribunal and the UN General Assembly.

Bush's justification for attacking
Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training
terrorists, even though bin Laden did not claim responsibility for the 9/11
attacks until 2004. After Bush demanded that the Taliban turn over bin
Laden to the United States, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said his
government wanted proof that bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks
before deciding whether to extradite him, according to the Washington Post.
That proof was not forthcoming, the Taliban did not deliver bin Laden, and
Bush began bombing Afghanistan.

Bush's rationale for attacking Afghanistan
was spurious. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the
United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979
and the U.S. gave him safe haven. If the new Iranian government had
demanded that the U.S. turn over the Shah and we refused, would it have
been lawful for Iran to invade the United States? Of course not.

When he
announced his troop "surge" in Afghanistan, Obama invoked the 9/11 attacks.
By continuing and escalating Bush's war in Afghanistan, Obama, too, is
violating the UN Charter. In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize,
Obama declared that he has the "right" to wage wars "unilaterally." The
unilateral use of military force, however, is illegal unless undertaken in
self-defense.

Those who conspired to hijack airplanes and kill thousands
of people on 9/11 are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be
identified and brought to justice in accordance with the law. But
retaliation by invading Afghanistan was not the answer. It has lead to
growing U.S. and Afghan casualties, and has incurred even more hatred
against the United States.

Conspicuously absent from the national
discourse is a political analysis of why the tragedy of 9/11 occurred. We
need to have that debate and construct a comprehensive strategy to overhaul
U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who despise
American imperialism. The "global war on terror" has been uncritically
accepted by most in this country. But terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy.
One cannot declare war on a tactic. The way to combat terrorism is by
identifying and targeting its root causes, including poverty, lack of
education, and foreign occupation.

In his declaration that he would send
30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Obama made scant reference to
Pakistan. But his CIA has used more unmanned Predator drones against
Pakistan than Bush. There are estimates that these robots have killed
several hundred civilians. Most Pakistanis oppose them. A Gallup poll
conducted in Pakistan last summer found 67% opposed and only 9% in favor.
Notably, a majority of Pakistanis ranked the United States as a greater
threat to Pakistan than the Taliban or Pakistan's arch-rival India.

Many
countries use drones for surveillance, but only the United States and
Israel have used them for strikes. Scott Shane wrote in the New York Times,
"For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using
robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for targeted
killings in a country where the United States is not officially at
war."

The use of these drones in Pakistan violates both the UN Charter and
the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit willful killing. Targeted or
political assassinations--sometimes called extrajudicial executions--are
carried out by order of, or with the acquiescence of, a government, outside
any judicial framework. As a 1998 report from the UN Special Rapporteur
noted, "extrajudicial executions can never be justified under any
circumstances, not even in time of war." Willful killing is a grave breach
of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War
Crimes Act. Extrajudicial executions also violate a longstanding U.S.
policy. In the 1970s, after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
disclosed that the CIA had been involved in several murders or attempted
murders of foreign leaders, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order
banning assassinations. Although there have been exceptions to this policy,
every succeeding president until George W. Bush reaffirmed that
order.

Obama is trying to make up for his withdrawal from Iraq by
escalating the war on Afghanistan. He is acting like Lyndon Johnson, who
rejected Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's admonition about Vietnam
because LBJ was "more afraid of the right than the left," McNamara said in
a 2007 interview with Bob Woodward published in the Washington
Post.

Approximately 30% of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have occurred
during Obama's presidency. The cost of the war, including the 30,000 new
troops he just ordered, will be about 0 billion a year. That money could
better be used for building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
creating jobs and funding health care in the United States.

Many
congressional Democrats are uncomfortable with Obama's decision to send
more troops to Afghanistan. We must encourage them to hold firm and refuse
to fund this war. And the left needs to organize and demonstrate to Obama
that we are a force with which he must contend.

Marjorie Cohn is a
professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and immediate past president of
the National Lawyers Guild. She is a member of the Bureau of the
International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her latest book is Rules
of Disengagement.

from: http://counterpunch.org/cohn12212009.html



Links:
------
[1] http://vancouver4iran.com/
[2]
mailto:info at vancouver4iran.com
[3]
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/28/crackdown_in_iran_up_to_12
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