New Clear Vision

Shifting from Rhetoric to Reality

by Brian J. Trautman

President Obama addressed the nation on June 22 to explain his strategy for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. Of the 100,000 U.S. troops currently deployed there, the announced drawdown of 10,000 soldiers by year’s end and another 23,000 by September 2012 does little to end the longest war in U.S. history.

Under this plan, approximately 70,000 troops will remain in the country, roughly twice as many as when Mr. Obama took office in January 2009. According to the President, these troops will be removed “at a steady pace” through 2014. In the meantime, the human and financial costs of this war will continue to grow. (more…)

U.S. Mayors Call for End to Wars and Nuclear Weapons

by James Russell

Peace activists won a major victory on June 20th when the US Conference of Mayors voted to adopt two resolutions that call for a drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Both resolutions also demand the reprioritization of defense spending, including the $126 billion spent each year in Iraq and Afghanistan, toward the needs of municipalities.

The group, which represents mayors of municipalities with 30,000 or more residents, has not passed such a resolution in 40 years. (more…)

The Siege of Gaza Must End

by Kathy Kelly

(Editor’s Note: This week on NCV, as part of a thematic series, we are featuring articles focusing on the Israel-Palestine conflict and attendant issues, hoping to stimulate a dialogue and suggest potential ways forward.)

Later this month, I’m going to be a passenger on “The Audacity of Hope,” the USA boat in this summer’s international flotilla to break the illegal and deadly Israeli siege of Gaza. Organizers, supporters, and passengers aim to nonviolently end the brutal collective punishment imposed on Gazan residents since 2006 when the Israeli government began a stringent air, naval and land blockade of the Gaza Strip explicitly to punish Gaza’s residents for choosing the Hamas government in a democratic election. Both the Hamas and the Israeli governments have indiscriminately killed civilians in repeated attacks, but the vast preponderance of these outrages over the length of the conflict have been inflicted by Israeli soldiers and settlers on unarmed Palestinians. I was witness to one such attack when last in Gaza two years ago, under heavy Israeli bombardment in a civilian neighborhood in Rafah. (more…)

Nonviolence, the Peace Process, and Future Directions

by Michael Walzer

(Editor’s Note: This week on NCV, as part of a thematic series, we are featuring articles focusing on the Israel-Palestine conflict and attendant issues, hoping to stimulate a dialogue and suggest potential ways forward.)

I have been coming to Israel every year for the past thirty years, and I spend most of my time here talking about politics. But I don’t understand what’s been going on recently, in Jerusalem and in Washington, beginning with Obama’s big speech. It wasn’t the reference to the 1967 borders that was new in this speech but rather the proposal to deal now with borders and security and postpone all questions about Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. This makes sense to Israeli leftists, my friends here, who think that it’s to Israel’s advantage to get out of the territories — indeed, that withdrawal is an urgent necessity, and more so for the Jews than for the Arabs. (more…)

Marchers Take on History, Confront Mountaintop Removal

by James Russell

Serbian Demonization Sets Back Liberalization Process

by Zachary Gallant

“He doesn’t look like a war criminal…”

“What does a war criminal look like?”

“Y’know, angry, dead inside, crazy eyes — this guy looks like a folk singer or a farmer…”

I wish I were merely fabricating this conversation to build a straw man of ineptitude on human rights issues. The lesson of “the war criminal next door” has been taught and learned time and again, most recently with the Hungarian concentration camp supervisor living undetected for 50 years in middle America extradited months ago. But this was an actual quote from a very intelligent colleague, and the sentiment was echoed throughout friends and family in the past 3 days. (more…)

This World and the World Without War

by David Swanson

The New York Times published an op-ed on May 7th by a professor here in Charlottesville, Va., arguing that celebrating the killing of Osama bin Laden is actually a good thing, because in so celebrating we are building solidarity with those we view as part of our exclusive group. Implicit in this argument is that we can do no better. Bonding over our common hatred of an outsider is better than no bonding at all, and therefore we should rebrand such hatred as altruism. Or so says psychology professor Jonathan Haidt.

And why? Why was putting the Nazis on trial rather than simply putting bullets in their heads not just an unusual occurrence but a physiological impossibility, something that did not occur because it could not have? Why? Because professor Haidt has read some research on ants, bees, and termites. (more…)