Giu

28

RON PAUL: End the War in Afghanistan!

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END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN!

by Ron Paul

This past week various news events once again made it abundantly clear that our foreign policy is an abject failure. Unfortunately in spite of this the administration is determined to stay on this destructive course despite any past promises to change it. For Afghanistan especially, if ever there was an opportunity to admit shortcomings and change strategies, this past week was it.

There really is nothing for us to win in Afghanistan. Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country, to remaking an entire political system and even a culture. I remain highly skeptical that as foreign occupiers we can ever impose Western-style democracy on another country. Our troops have debilitating restrictions on defending themselves against enemies which are so often indistinguishable from civilians. They also face dire setbacks in winning hearts and minds when innocents are mistakenly harmed, which happens all the time. We can never make friends this way, and yet the tactic never works.

This is an expensive, bloody, endless exercise in futility, though few are willing to admit this just yet. But every second they spend in denial has real cost in lives and livelihoods. Many of us can agree on one thing, however: our military spending in general has grown way out of control. This is largely because fiscal accountability and military budgeting is seen by many as “weak on defense.” This is absolutely wrong in a dangerous way to think. It is certainly possible for the military to waste money, or to spend money counter-productively, and indeed it has. But out of political correctness the military has been getting blank checks from the administrations and Congress for far too long.

It is important to defend our soil, but let us defend us our own soil instead of defending Europe’s soil. Our willingness to defend Europe enables their lavish social spending at our expense while they criticize our model of capitalism. It’s time they allocated the money for their own defense. The same goes for Korea, Japan and other countries like Egypt and Israel. It is also important that while our troops are in combat, our soldiers have what they need to do the best they can even if we disagree with why they are there. It’s an embarrassment that some soldiers and families have had to buy body armor at their own expense when billions are awarded to politically well-connected defense contractors for weapons systems that don’t work, are over budget and past deadlines.

This is the kind of waste that needs to end. I firmly believe that there is enough waste in the military budget that we can both save money overall and at the same time make us safer. Of course, the obvious way to save money and be safer is to stop meddling in the affairs of foreign countries and just bring our troops home. This will happen eventually if our empire, like every other fallen empire, insists on spending itself into collapse. If we want to avoid this we must look into ways to bring our costs under control. The military budget must be on the chopping block along with everything else.

THE WAR THAT’S NOT A WAR

by Ron Paul

In January 1991, we went to war in the Middle East against Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator who was our ally during the Iran-Iraq war. A border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq broke out after our State Department gave a green light for Hussein’s invasion.

After Iraq’s successful invasion of Kuwait we reacted with gusto and have been militarily involved in the entire region, six thousand miles from our shores, ever since. This has included Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. After twenty years of killing and a couple trillion dollars wasted, not only does the fighting continue with no end in sight, but our leaders threaten to spread our bombs of benevolence on Iran.

For most Americans, we are at war — at war against a tactic called terrorism, not a country.

This allows our military to go any place in the world without limits as to time or place.

But how can we be at war? Congress has not declared war as required by the Constitution.

That is true, but our presidents have and Congress and the people have not objected. Congress obediently provides all the money requested for the “war.”

People are dying, bombs are dropped, our soldiers are shot at and killed.

Our soldiers wear uniforms; our enemies do not. They are not part of any government. They have no planes, no tanks, no ships, no missiles, and no modern technology.

What kind of a war is this anyway? If it really is one. If it was a real war we would have won it by now.

Our stated goal since 9/11 has been to destroy al Qaeda. Was al Qaeda in Iraq? Not under Saddam Hussein. Our leaders lied us into invading Iraq and deceived us into occupying Afghanistan.

There’s still really no al Qaeda in Iraq and only a hundred or so in Afghanistan, yet there is no end in sight to the “war.” Could there have been other reasons for this war that is not a war?

Military victory in Afghanistan is illusive. Does anyone really know whom we are fighting and why?

Why has the war not ended? Nine years and it continues to spread. Some claim it is to keep America safe, that our soldiers are fighting and dying for our freedom, defending our Constitution. Are we being lied to in order to keep us in this spreading war, just as we were lied to in the 1960’s to keep us in Vietnam?

We own the Iraq government as we do Afghanistan’s. In Afghanistan we are fighting the Taliban-those dangerous people with guns, defending their homeland.

Once they were called the Mujahideen, our old allies, along with Osama bin Laden, in the fight to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980’s.

In that effort our CIA funded radical jihad against those nasty foreign occupiers-the Russians.

What gratitude? Those same people now resent our benevolent occupation-with a little violence thrown in.

The resistance to our presence grows as our perseverance wanes.

Our people are waking up but our officials refuse to recognize the longer we stay the greater is the support for those dedicated to the principle that Afghanistan is for Afghans, who resent all foreign occupation.

The harder we fight a war that is not a war, the weaker we get and the stronger becomes our enemy.

When an enemy without weapons can resist an army of great strength, the most powerful of all history, one should ask, who has the moral high ground?

Military failure in Afghanistan is to be our destiny. Changing generals without changing our policies or our policy makers perpetuates our agony and delays the inevitable.

This is not a war that our generals have been trained for. Nation building, police work, social engineering is never a job for foreign occupiers and never an appropriate job for soldiers trained to win wars.

A military victory is no longer even a stated goal of our military leaders or our politicians, as they know that type of victory is impossible.

The sad story is:

This war is against ourselves, our values, our Constitution, our financial well being and common sense, and at the rate we are going, it is going to end badly. What we need are honest leaders with character and a new foreign policy.

(Saranno fra poco dieci anni di guerra in Afghanistan: tanti, troppi. La Seconda Guerra Mondiale durò tre anni in Sicilia, quattro in Oriente, cinque complessivamente in Europa. I laburisti olandesi sono usciti dal governo e portato il loro paese alle elezioni anticipate per ottenere il ritiro delle truppe dall’Afghanistan. Anche la Danimarca e la Spagna stanno considerando il ritiro. In questi due articoli - intitolati BASTA CON LA GUERRA IN AFGHANISTAN e LA GUERRA CHE NON E’ UNA GUERRA - il popolare parlamentare del Texas Ron Paul sostiene che è tempo di finirla con guerre insostenibili ed inutili spese militari e chiede l’immediato ritiro delle truppe americane dall’Afghanistan, definito un conflitto impossibile da vincere, accusando al contempo l’amministrazione democratica di non star rispettando gli impegni elettorali. Ron Paul è stato uno dei candidati alla Presidenza degli Stati Uniti nel 2008 per il Partito Repubblicano e potrebbe ricandidarsi nel 2012 contro Obama, che i sondaggi danno per sicuramente non rieletto indipendentemente da chi sarà il candidato presidenziale scelto dai Repubblicani.)

Giu

22

SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL Council at the United Nations, New York | 21-22 June 2010

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(Il Consiglio dell’Internazionale Socialista si è riunito il 21 ed il 22 giugno nella sede delle Nazioni Unite a New York. Alla presenza di oltre trecento leaders e delegati di oltre cento partiti socialisti, socialdemocratici e laburisti di tutto il mondo, il Consiglio ha dibattuto principalmente quattro temi: l’economia globale in vista degli incontri del G8 e del G20 di Toronto, la pace in Palestina, i cambiamenti climatici ed il disarmo e la non-proliferazione nucleare. Riportiamo di seguito il comunicato finale e la Dichiarazione sul Medio Oriente, con la quale l’Internazionale Socialista afferma il diritto del popolo Palestinese all’autodeterminazione, chiede la fine dell’occupazione dei territori palestinesi entro un anno ed il ritiro di Israele entro i confini del 1967, incluso da Gerusalemme Est; chiede inoltre la costituzione di uno Stato Palestinese indipendente e sovrano, con Gerusalemme Est come sua capitale, entro un anno da oggi. L’Internazionale Socialista richiede anche che Israele cessi la colonizzazione e la costruzione di muri in Palestina e la fine del blocco della Striscia di Gaza.)

The Council of the Socialist International met in New York at the United Nations Headquarters on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 June.

It addressed four main issues and priorities of the social democratic movement in its agenda: the Global Economy in the run-up to the G8 and G20 Summits in Toronto, peace in the Middle East, working for an international unified response to Climate Change; and recent developments in the field of Disarmament and Non-proliferation. (List of Speakers)

The Council was preceded on Saturday 19 June by a meeting of the SI Commission on Global Financial Issues to prepare the proposal on the first theme of the Council agenda, the World Economy. On Sunday 20 June, meetings were also were held of the organisation’s Finance and Ethics Committees, and, as customary on the eve of the Council, a meeting of its Presidium.

The plenary session of the World Council, which took place at the headquarters of the United Nations, was attended by over three hundred leaders and representatives from approximately one hundred parties and organisations from all continents and regions of the world. The meeting was formally opened with remarks by the Secretary General Luis Ayala, who referred to the work of the organisation on the themes to be discussed; a speech by President George Papandreou on the World Economy, in which he also conveyed his vision and perspective as a Head of Government; and a contribution by the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, OAS, José Miguel Insulza, who presented a hemispheric view on the main theme of the agenda.

The social democratic leaders gathered in New York, through numerous contributions and speeches, debated in depth the state of the World Economy and agreed on a course of action in this regard, reflected in a statement presented by Eero Heinäluoma of the SDP Finland as Rapporteur of the Commission on Global Financial Issues, which maintains that what is needed today is a well-coordinated economic policy between the world’s major economies, financial reform, new counter-cyclical capital requirements and more global governance.

A declaration on the challenges of global development in 2010 presented by the SI Committee on Economic Policy, Labour and National Resources was also approved by the Council.

The current situation in the Middle East was addressed by the Council on the first day in a frank and open debate with contributions from representatives of the SI Israeli member parties, Ehud Barak, Leader of the Labour Party and Defence Minister and Avshalom Vilan, member of the Knesset from Meretz, and from representatives of the SI Palestinian member parties, Husam Zomlot of Fatah and Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative, as well as from participants from other parties. Following intensive consultations with the Israeli and Palestinian delegations during the two days of the meeting, a statement on the Middle East was presented and adopted by acclamation.

The Council, with its sights on the forthcoming COP16 meeting in Cancún later this year, also approved a declaration on the issue of Climate Change. The matters of disarmament and non-proliferation were equally addressed by the Council leading to the approval of two declarations, one on A World Without Nuclear Weapons and the other on a Comprehensive Arms Trade Treaty.

Special contributions were also heard from the leader of the Socialist Party of Albania on the unresolved electoral violations in that country and from the leader of the Burmese delegation on the struggle of the people in that nation to restore democracy.

The Report of the SI Mission which visited Venezuela earlier this year was presented to the Council by two members of the Mission, Renée Fregosi of the PS, France, and Jesús Rodríguez, Secretary General of the UCR of Argentina.

The reports and recommendations of the SI Committees on Finance and Administration and Ethics were approved by the Council.

The Council agreed that its next meeting will be held in Paris on 15-16 November, hosted by the French Socialist Party.

________________________

STATEMENT OF THE COUNCIL ON THE MIDDLE EAST

The Council of the Socialist International has addressed the current situation in the Middle East, together with representatives of its Palestinian and Israeli member parties. The Council is committed to contribute to find once more the path for dialogue, negotiation and progress to achieve peace, an utmost priority today for the peoples of the region and the international community.

In this regard, the Socialist International:

1. Affirms the right of the Palestinian people for self-determination and calls for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land within one year and withdrawal to the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem.

2. Calls for the establishment of an independent, sovereign and viable democratic Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, within one year from now. This state should exist side by side with a secure Israeli state.

3. Calls on Israel to end all settlement activities, as well as the building of the separation wall and bypass roads and to guarantee freedom of movement of Palestinians within Palestinian territory. It also calls for the release of all Palestinian prisoners and the Israeli prisoner.

4. Calls upon the Israeli government to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip. All goods and merchandise destined for Gaza should be allowed in accordance with internationally accepted screening procedures and standards.

5. Encourages all Palestinian political parties and groups to reinstate Palestinian unity and democracy, and supports the Palestinian efforts for state building.

6. Decides to send a delegation of representatives of member parties without delay to Israel and Palestine to discuss with its Israeli and Palestinian member parties the tragic events of 31 May with the purpose of establishing the facts and to report back to the International.

________________________

Click here to download a PDF version of the statement

Giu

11

GIUSEPPE SARAGAT (Torino, 19 settembre 1898 - Roma, 11 giugno 1988)

Archiviato in Circolo Socialista Giuseppe Saragat | Leave a Comment

“La funzione ed il ruolo del PSDI, pur nel mutato quadro politico, non sono venuti meno. (…) L’obiettivo è dare al socialismo democratico anche in Italia quel ruolo al quale già assolve nelle libere democrazie dell’Occidente europeo.” (GIUSEPPE SARAGAT, Il Socialismo della coerenza, 1984)

Giu

10

GIACOMO MATTEOTTI - L’ultimo discorso al Parlamento del Segretario Nazionale del Partito Socialista Unitario

Archiviato in Circolo Socialista Giuseppe Saragat | Leave a Comment

.

… PRESIDENTE: Onorevole Matteotti, si attenga all’argomento!
MATTEOTTI: Onorevole Presidente, Ella forse non mi intende, ma io parlo di elezioni!

(applausi)
(proteste, interruzioni)

… PRESIDENTE: Onorevole Matteotti, non provochi incidenti.

… MATTEOTTI: Onorevole Presidente! …
PRESIDENTE: Onorevole Matteotti, se Ella vuol parlare, ha facoltà di continuare, ma prudentemente.
MATTEOTTI: Io chiedo di parlare non prudentemente, né imprudentemente: ma parlamentarmente!
PRESIDENTE: Parli, parli pure.

MATTEOTTI: I candidati non avevano libera circolazione…
(rumori; interruzioni)
(Voci): Lasciatelo parlare!
PRESIDENTE: Facciano silenzio! Lascino parlare!
MATTEOTTI: Non solo non potevano circolare, ma molti di essi non potevano neppure risiedere nelle loro stesse abitazioni, nelle loro stesse città. Alcuno, che rimase al suo posto, ne vide poco dopo le conseguenze. Molti non accettarono la candidatura, perché sapevano che accettare la candidatura voleva dire non aver più lavoro all’indomani o dover abbandonare il proprio paese ed emigrare all’estero…

MATTEOTTI: Noi difendiamo la libera sovranità del popolo italiano, al quale mandiamo il più alto saluto; e crediamo di rivendicarne la dignità domandando l’annullamento delle elezioni inficiate dalla violenza.

Giu

7

FREEDOM FLOTILLA TRAGEDY IS EUROPE’S WAKE UP CALL FOR THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION (Poul Nyrup Rasmussen)

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Freedom flotilla tragedy is Europe’s wake up call for the two-state solution

by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen

The world awoke last week in horror and frustration, to an Israeli raid against the “freedom flotilla”, in international waters, that caused several dead and injured.

This outrageous attack shows that the Israeli Government’s policy vis a vis Gaza is a dead end: the embargo must be lifted now. Israel must stop the blockade of Gaza; goods must have access to the strip and people must have the freedom to travel.

The Israeli assault cannot be allowed to claim hope for peace as another of its victims: it should not close the window of opportunity to achieve a viable two-state solution. The on-going proximity talks must have all our support: it is the only solution. It is high-time for Benjamin Netanyahu to show that he is committed to the high standards demanded of peacemakers. I call the Labour party, the party of Yitshak Rabin, to also play a strong role in the coalition to promote the peace agenda. Today, more than ever, Israel needs to demonstrate that there is political will to enter into real discussions for a peace treaty. This starts by immediately freezing illegal settlements, which are a provocation.

The Palestinians must also do their part, burdened though they are with heavy hearts. We have seen outstanding efforts by Palestinian President Abbas and Prime Minister Faayad on institution-building. The two-year program has led to substantial progress and remarkable results in the West Bank. The EU should complement its involvement with a process aimed at the accession of Palestine to international organisations. It would allow the Palestinian Authority to integrate into many of the structures of the international system, exerting peer pressure for reform, while allowing public officials and politicians to familiarise themselves with such institutions. This would serve as a transition measure allowing them to be ready once the country becomes a full-fledged state. The Palestinian Authority deserves our support – on the ground and internationally.

Today, a wakeup call is necessary for all actors involved to keep track and even to accelerate negotiations for a peace agreement. Europe has an unquestioned responsibility, as it is becoming clear that the right wing dominated Government of Israel is not going to make things easy for a peaceful resolution, nor will the Obama Administration alone be able to push for it.

The EU Council in December 2009 made a first step towards breaking the deadlock; demanding an immediate resumption of peace talks with the view to a two-state solution. Despite any reservations, all relevant parties, should now take the EU Council Conclusions as a starting point for future negotiations. After years of discussions, the outlines of a viable two-state solution are well known and widely agreed upon - borders based on the 1967 lines with agreed reciprocal land swaps; Jerusalem as the capital of both states; robust security arrangements; and an agreed upon resolution of the refugee issue. Europe can and must contribute to confidence-building and mutual trust in the region with a series of moves. Firstly, the EU could play a role in the “proximity talks”, which should have a timeline, to move forward the Arab plan. Secondly, the EU should commit itself to upgrading its relationship with Palestinians (to an Association Agreement) and with Israel (rightly frozen until new progress is made). Finally, European member states should already make commitments for the post-peace deal period. The local actors will not jump into an unknown zone. They need commitments, both financial and on security. The EU should engage with forces on the ground in order to prevent any risk of violence – in a ‘UNIFIL type’ mission.

Let’s not wait for another disaster. There have already been too many innocent victims. It is time to accelerate talks. The EU is ready to help achieve the ultimate objective: two independent states living in peace alongside each other. Europe is ready to act as the alarm clock; let’s make sure that everybody hears the wakeup call.

(Poul N. Rasmussen è il Presidente del PES, Party of European Socialists)