The U.S. is operating drone strikes without including Pakistan on the decision making process. What would we do if another nation were lobbing missiles into our country? Would you be inspired to become a “terrorist” against that nation?

Minute 5:00 of video, “President Obama has quadrupled the number of drone strikes that took place during the Bush administration.”

The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law. In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution.

Enacted in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, the WPR may or may not be wise. It is, however, unquestionably a law, and President Obama certainly is violating it. It stipulates that a president must terminate military action 60 days after initiating it (or 90, if the president “certifies” in writing an “unavoidable military necessity” respecting the safety of U.S. forces), unless Congress approves it. Congress has been supine and silent about this war which began more than 70 days ago.

All presidents have resented the WPR but have taken care to act “consistent with” its 48-hour reporting requirement. So on March 21, two days after the administration took the nation to war in Libya, Obama notified Congress of this obvious fact, stressing that U.S. operations would be “limited in their nature, duration, and scope” in the service of a “limited and well-defined mission.” Months ago, before it metastasized into regime change, the “well-defined” mission was to protect civilians.

In his March 28 address to the nation, Obama said “the United States will play a supporting role.” But the WPR does not leave presidential war-making utterly unrestrained if it is a “supporting role.”

Read more…

This is from March 1, 2011. The United States went into Libya anyway, but it’s important to remember that despite our claims of a humanitarian war, the people of Libya do not agree with U.S. propaganda.

A historical outline of presidential military action since Reagan. It’s the same old same old…

PeaceRally.org has recently added the free version of Meetup.com to it’s toolbox for peace. Now you can use your meetup account or facebook account to login and use this new tool.

Just go to http://www.meetup.com/PeaceRally to start a peace rally anywhere in the world…free!

As millions of people already use meetup and facebook this new tool should provide a great way for us to reach a larger audience.

Please check it out and let us know what you think!

http://www.meetup.com/PeaceRally

There was ample coverage of the loss of a US F-15 fighter jet over Libya Tuesday, and it always came with reassurances that the crew was safe. Less safe, however, were the Libyan civilians who came to the aid of one of the crew.

The F-15E has a crew of two

That’s because the civilians who met the plane’s weapons officer and offered him fruit juice while he waited to be rescued were attacked by US Marines during the brief ground incursion meant to rescue the crew. Some of the reports suggest the Marines arrived in a V-22 Osprey attack helicopter and opened fire on the crowd with it.

Six Libyan civilians were shot in the attack, including a young boy who local hospital officials say may lose his leg. The weapons officer had been found in a sheep field and was met by the civilians, who were backers of the anti-Gadhafi rebellion…

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/03/22/us-troops-shoot-six-libyan-civilians-during-rescue-mission/

GRAND RAPIDS — U.S. Rep. Justin Amash opposes U.S. military action in Libya and says President Obama is not only violating the Constitution, he is contradicting his previous statements about a commander-in-chief’s unilateral declarations of war.

Grand Rapids Press File PhotoRep. Justin Amash

“I wouldn’t support going into Libya under the present circumstances,” Amash, R-Cascade Township, said Monday, two days after the U.S. began launching missiles as part of a coalition effort to enforce a no-fly zone over the country.

But his opposition to the offensive is a separate issue of his belief that U.S. involvement violates the Constitution.

“I don’t see any imminent danger to the U.S,” he said. In an interview, Amash also talked about his sponsorship of a resolution to remove U.S. forces from Afghanistan, his “present” vote on eliminating federal funding for public broadcasting and his willingness to part with his GOP colleagues on votes…

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/03/congressman_justin_amash_says.html

America has become a nation marching to war in lockstep, left foot following right foot towards the all-too-certain future that has already befallen the body’s other half. Crushing electoral defeats serve as little deterrant in a political system where the pendulum swings comfortably on the same axis, the defeat coming at the hands of the opposite extreme which just as aggressively pursues the same noble goals via the same dead ends with the same overdrawn credit card.

What are the American people to care if its government’s missile strikes land in the bedroom of a young boy who was guilty only of being born in the wrong nation, to the wrong family, at the wrong time? That missile was far enough away from the American’s suburban home to leave an impression in his more sophisticated brain – you know, the one with the attention span that lasts longer than 10 seconds only when celebrity gossip or local rumors or evening sitcoms are on the agenda. The same brain that can comprehend the suffering of an upper-middle income child who needs more government grant money to get that Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, so they can go to Washington, DC and feel self-important, lobbying a tiny cell of the organism that is the American war machine.

That machine is marching, left foot following right.

That young boy looks down in spirit alongside a new found…

http://libertymaven.com/2011/03/22/marching-to-war-requires-two-feet/11447/

http://afghansforpeace.org/archives/1416

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22nd, 2011

Yesterday Afghans for Peace learned that a German news organization, Der Spiegel, released 3 of some 4,000 photographs and video footage showing gruesome images of US soldiers and corpses of innocent Afghans they murdered in Kandahar last year. The photographic evidence exposes the crimes committed by a “Kill Team”, where U.S. soldiers randomly targeted and murdered Afghan civilians for sport, followed by an attempt to cover them up. These appalling and inhumane acts are condemned by AFP.

USE DISCRETION BEFORE VIEWING

The first photograph shows U.S. soldier, Spc. Jeremy N. Morlock, posing with the bloodied and partially naked corpse of Gul Mudin, grabbing the victim by his hair, and grinning proudly at the camera with his trophy kill. From close observation, the victim’s body appears slim and hair-less, suggesting he was very young and had not yet reached puberty.

The second photograph shows U.S. soldier, Pfc. Andrew Holmes, posing with the same bloodied and partially naked corpse of Gul Mudin,casually holding a cigarette in one hand and grabbing the victim by the hair with the other.

The third photograph shows two unidentified Afghan male civilians murdered by the “Kill Team”. The dirty clothing worn by the victims, unnatural positioning of a foot, blood stains on the back, and bound legs and hands suggest they were possibly dragged by a vehicle and/or tortured.

January 15, 2010 was the beginning of periodic murders of Afghan civilians by the “Kill Team” that resulted in some of the most shocking allegations against American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2001.

A subsequent investigation shows the military clearly had ignored warnings of soldiers committing atrocities against civilians. Spc. Adam Winfield had informed his father, Christopher, about the killing and those planned for the future. Winfield Sr., persistently tried to inform the military of his son’s warnings, only to be turned away.

“The guys in my group have murdered an innocent Afghan,” Adam Winfield wrote. “They planned everything out. I knew about it … I want to do something about it, but I don’t have the courage.”

This is a repeated incident of US soldiers from all ranks taking photos and video footage of civilians they tortured and killed and then attempting to cover up their crimes. Many critics are comparing these recent events to what took place in Abu Ghraib in 2004. Afghans for Peace wants to distinguish between the two incidents. The Afghans were civilians chosen at random and not inside a prison. The extreme acts, including murder, occurred publicly in broad daylight.

These crimes illustrate the means by which the military industrial complex functions through dehumanization, forced inferiority, and occupation both historically and at present. This was the case with Native Americans, Africans, Iraqis, and now Afghans. When the military force is led by a US superpower, with almost 1,000 military bases worldwide, and aided by NATO forces, the murders in Kandahar go unnoticed.

Afghans for Peace is reminded that it was the Abu Ghraib photographs that turned the public’s eye toward the realities on the ground in Iraq. Thus, we hope these photographs further encourage the public to seek the truth on the ground realities in Afghanistan.

AFP denounces these horrid, repulsive targeted attacks against the civilian population of Afghanistan and urges Der Spiegel to release all 4,000 photographs and video footage in order to pressure the international community to put an end to this illegal war and occupation.

Afghans for Peace (AFP) is an alliance of Afghans from various ethnic, religious, socio-economic, cultural, and political backgrounds with a united vision for a democratic, all inclusive, just and peaceful Afghanistan. In order to actualize this vision, we demand an end to U.S. and NATO military operations within Afghanistan.

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Afghans for Peace contact:
info@afghansforpeace.org