Editor’s Note: Sadly, Tikkun does not have enough staff to be able to verify the claims made in our articles by various respected authors. Nor does Tikkun always agree with their political perspectives.
Articles
Will the Neo-Cons’ Long War Ever End?
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June 5, 2017
America’s Long War or Global War on Terror has taken some ugly turns as the West’s continued war-making in the Muslim world leads to new terrorism against Western targets, with no end in sight, explains Nicolas J S Davies.
By Nicolas J S Davies
The recent news from Kabul (in Afghanistan), from Manchester and London (in England), from Mosul (in Iraq), from Raqqa (in Syria), from Marib (in Yemen) and from too many devastated and traumatized communities to list makes it only too clear that the world is trapped in an unprecedented and intractable cycle of violence. And yet, incredibly, none of the main parties to all this violence are talking seriously about how to end it, let alone taking action to do so. At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”
After 15 years of ever-spreading conflict has killed two to five million people, the main perpetrators are still getting away with framing their violence entirely as a response to the violence of their enemies. How much violence and chaos will the world accept before people start holding their own leaders morally and legally accountable for decisions and policies that predictably and repeatedly result in massive loss of life, cities reduced to rubble and shattered societies? The neoconservative vision of a “Long War” or “generational conflict” to reshape the Middle East and other parts of the world has, in effect, created its own reality, as its proponents in the Bush II administration promised. The new crony-capitalist order they envisioned has taken root in places where entrenched ruling classes were already predisposed to it, like the Persian Gulf monarchies. But wherever the would-be new rulers of the world – the U.S., NATO and the Arab royals – have made good on their threats to impose their new order by force, the results have only confirmed the soundness of the United Nations Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force and the urgency of actually enforcing it.
Editorials & Actions
What would war with Korea look like?
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Here’s a reasonable question to ask in our unreasonable world: Does Donald Trump even know where North Korea is? The answer matters and if you wonder why I ask, just remember his comment upon landing in Israel after his visit to Saudi Arabia. “We just got back from the Middle East,” he said. In response, reported the Washington Post, “the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, put his forehead in his palm.” Which brings us back to North Korea. As pollsters working for the New York Times recently discovered, were President Trump to have only the foggiest idea of that country’s location, he would be in remarkably good company. Of the 1,746 American adults the polling group Morning Consult queried, only 36% could accurately point to North Korea on a map of Asia.
Editorials & Actions
Civilian Victims of War
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Whose Children? A World that Cares Little for Civilian Victims of War
www.counterpunch.org
A little over a month ago a suicide car bomb blast hit a convoy of civilians outside of the towns of Fua and Kefraya west of Aleppo in Syria. It is unclear who is responsible for the deaths from th…
Whose Children? A World that Cares Little for Civilian Victims of War
By Howard Lisnoff
June 01, 2017 “Information Clearing House” – A little over a month ago a suicide car bomb blast hit a convoy of civilians outside of the towns of Fua and Kefraya west of Aleppo in Syria. It is unclear who is responsible for the deaths from the bombing of the buses carrying these refugees, among whom were 68 children. A total of 126 people were killed according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (“‘Sixty-eight children among dead’ of suicide bombing attack in Syria,” Guardian, April 16, 2017)Compare the latter to the horrific suicide bombing attack in Manchester, England, where 22 people were ruthlessly killed.
Editorials & Actions
Is Trump Instigating Sectarian Violence Between Shia and Sunni Muslims?
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Editor’s Note: Shia and Sunni forces have engaged in sectarian violence long before there was a president Trump. But as the authors suggest, his attempt to put together a Sunni alliance against Iran will likely contribute to an escalation of the struggle between Sunni and Shia, with unpredictable consequences.
MAY 31ST, 2017 6:18 AM
How Trump Instigates Sectarian Warfare
By Dr. Abdul Cader Asmal and Craig Considine
In recent years, President Donald Trump has questioned the legitimacy of Islam as a world religion. His body of work in this regard is impressive. He posed the deliberately ambiguous question, “Why does Islam hate us?”, proposed the creation of a registry for Muslims in the U.S., issued a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries for those returning home, and framed the malignancy of “radical Islamic terrorism” as a hallmark of 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.
Articles
Down the Memory Hole: Living in Trump’s United States of Amnesia
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Editor’s Note: Glad to share with you another article from our media ally TomDisptacht.com with an introduction from Tom. I can’t really say “enjoy” because the message is so disturbing!– Rabbi Michael Lerner
In the first paragraphs of George Orwell’s famed novel 1984, Winston Smith slips through the doors of his apartment building, “Victory Mansions,” to escape a “vile wind.” Hate week — a concept that should seem eerily familiar in Donald Trump’s America — was soon to arrive. “The hallway,” writes Orwell, “smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats.” Smith then plods up to his seventh-floor flat, since the building’s elevator rarely works even when there’s electricity, which is seldom the case. And, of course, he immediately sees the most famous poster in the history of the novel, the one in which BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. (“It was one of those pictures… so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.”)
Now, imagine us inside our own “Victory Mansions,” an increasingly ramshackle place called the United States of America in which, like Smith, we simply can’t escape our leader. Call him perhaps “Big Muddler.” He may not be looking directly at YOU, but he is, thanks to a never-ending media frenzy, remarkably omnipresent. Go ahead and try, but you know that whatever you do, however you live your life, these days you just can’t escape him. And if Donald Trump’s America isn’t already starting to feel a little like that ill-named, run-down building in a future, poverty-stricken London, then tell me what it’s like. Can’t you feel how rickety the last superpower on planet Earth is becoming as our very own Big-Muddler-in-Chief praises himself eternally for his “achievements”? Here’s just a small sample from a recent graduation address President Trump gave at the Coast Guard Academy.
Articles
The Psychopathology of the 2016 Election
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IT’S NO SECRET that the past several decades have witnessed growing economic inequality and deepening economic insecurity for a very large section of working people both in the U.S. and other capitalist countries around the world. Yet what most analysts miss are the hidden injuries of class that become dramatically intensified when the underlying psychological and spiritual dysfunction of global capitalism interacts with economic insecurity. Right-wing, ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist, and/or racist movements gain support as more people begin to lose faith in the efficacy of democratic governments and turn to authoritarian leaders in the hope that their own fears and pain can be alleviated. This has been happening around the world, not just in the U.S. As a nonprofit we are prohibited from endorsing any political candidate or party, so the reflections here are not meant to influence your voting in 2016, but to shape an agenda for how to build a healthier and more just society in the coming decades. In his presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders addressed some of these economic inequalities by advocating for New Deal-type reforms, but he shied away from any systematic critique of the capitalist order itself.
Articles
The Silent Slaughter of the US Air War by Nicholas J S Davies
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The U.S. mainstream media voiced moral outrage when Russian warplanes
killed civilians in Aleppo but has gone silent as U.S. warplanes
slaughter innocents in Mosul and Raqqa, notes Nicolas J S Davies. By Nicolas J S Davies
April 2017 was another month of mass slaughter and unimaginable terror
for the people of Mosul in Iraq and the areas around Raqqa and Tabqa
in Syria, as the heaviest, most sustained U.S.-led bombing campaign
since the American War in Vietnam entered its 33rd month. The Airwars monitoring group has compiled reports of 1,280 to 1,744
civilians killed by at least 2,237 bombs and missiles that rained down
from U.S. and allied warplanes in April (1,609 on Iraq and 628 on
Syria). The heaviest casualties were in and around Old Mosul and West
Mosul, where 784 to 1,074 civilians were reported killed, but the area
around Tabqa in Syria also suffered heavy civilian casualties. In other war zones, as I have explained in previous articles (here and
here), the kind of “passive” reports of civilian deaths compiled by
Airwars have only ever captured between 5 percent and 20 percent of
the actual civilian war deaths revealed by comprehensive mortality
studies.
Articles
The American Way of War by William D. Hartung
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Editor’s Note: Thanks to our media ally TomDispatch.com for this valuable analysis of US spending for war (consistently and not a product of only one political party).
The American Way of War Is a Budget-Breaker
Never Has a Society Spent More for Less
By William D. Hartung
When Donald Trump wanted to “do something” about the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Syria, he had the U.S. Navy lob 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield (cost: $89 million). The strike was symbolic at best, as the Assad regime ran bombing missions from the same airfield the very next day, but it did underscore one thing: the immense costs of military action of just about any sort in our era. While $89 million is a rounding error in the Pentagon’s $600 billion budget, it represents real money for other agencies. It’s more than twice the $38 million annual budget of the U.S. Institute of Peace and more than half the $149 million budget of the National Endowment of the Arts, both slated for elimination under Trump’s budget blueprint. If the strikes had somehow made us — or anyone — safer, perhaps they would have been worth it, but they did not.
Editorials & Actions
Wisdom from a man who prosecuted Nazi war crimes
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Introducing: 60 MINUTES ALL ACCESS LEARN MORE +
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The Nuremberg Prosecutor
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When Ben Ferencz met Marlene Dietrich
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Learning history from a man who made it
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Ferencz: Rejecting refugees is a “crime against humanity”
What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know
At 97, Ben Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive and he has a far-reaching message for today’s world
2017May 07
CORRESPONDENTLesley Stahl
COMMENTS 94
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Twenty-two SS officers responsible for the deaths of 1M+ people would never have been brought to justice were it not for Ben Ferencz. The officers were part of units called Einsatzgruppen, or action groups. Their job was to follow the German army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and kill Communists, Gypsies and Jews. Ferencz believes “war makes murderers out of otherwise decent people” and has spent his life working to deter war and war crimes.
Ben Ferencz
CBS NEWS
It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz. He’s 97 years old, barely 5 feet tall, and he served as prosecutor of what’s been called the biggest murder trial ever.
Other Voices
Global Population and the Insane Policy of US State Dept.
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In the wake of the U.S. State Department eliminating American contributions to the United Nations Population Fund, Mary Anne Mercer reminds us of the importance of family planning.
Articles
National Faith Leaders Statement on Anti-LGBTQ Bills
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I’m proud to be part of this group of faith leaders challenging the anti LGBTQ moves that are being taken in many states in the wake of the Trump presidency. Please read our statement and the full list of faith leaders backing the statement below. As you might imagine, the statement is a little tamer and less addressing the psychological and spiritual dysfunctions that have led us to this moment when such a statement is needed than it would have been if it had just come from me and Tikkun’s editorial board, but there’s always a lot to be gained by being part of larger and more varied groups of people who fundamentally agree with each other on the substance of this letter. –Rabbi Michael Lerner rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com
National Faith Leader Statement on Anti-LGBTQ Bills
May 01, 2017
As religious leaders and people of faith, we are committed to creating a society that embraces the diversity of God’s creation and affirms the inherent dignity, agency, and worth of people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. We believe all people must be free to express their gender and sexuality, unburdened by discrimination, unequal treatment, or systemic injustice.
Articles
Shutting Down American-Style Authoritarianism
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[Note from Tikkun: We are happy to share with you the latest thinking of Tikkun’s contributing editor Henry Giroux. We have a strategy to defeat Trumpism, and a training on how to be an effective progressive activist in the Trump years ahead (offered on line so people anywhere can be part of it). Please check it out at www.spiritualprogressives.org/training (the current training with over two hundred people is finishing this week, but you can sign up to be informed of when the next training begins and how to register for it). [Meanwhile, if you happen to be in the SF Bay Area, Rabbi Lerner is sitting “shiva” and mourning the loss of his sister Trish Vradenburg who was, among many other things, a co-publisher of Tikkun for some ten years with her husband George. The tradition is for people to visit the mourners at their home, and to bring a vegetarian dish so that the mourner doesn’t have to attend to normal errands and tasks and can just stay in the mourning (as opposed to the American culture of ‘cheerinesss’ in which the goal is to get the mourner out of their grief, the Jewish tradition is to support them to fully grieve).
Articles
An appeal for a creative nonviolence by Dieter Duhm
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Nonviolence: Attempt at an Answer
by Dieter Duhm
Translated from the German original by Martin Winiecki and Dara Silverma
I.
I was around 14 when I heard about Concentration Camps for the first time. It was information in history class; it turned into my start signal. I have always been afraid of violence. In 1948 I was scarcely six years old when I got into a massacre in a village near Lake Constance that local children – incited by their parents – carried out against immigrant refugee children. I was a refugee too and left the scene notably changed. They had beaten me up and then covered me in tar “in order for the wounds to better heal.” A few days later they tied me to a telephone pole and pelted me with horse turd. This was how I got initiated into the psychology of the human being. When I later, at 14, found out what was committed in the Concentration Camps I did not want to believe any of it. I defended myself with all mental weapons available to me; I tried to persuade myself that the victims were in reality the perpetrators… or that perhaps adults do not suffer as much under pain. Then I began interrogating my parents and their relatives. I must have annoyed them quite a bit. My hope to find something comforting, moderating, pain soothing disintegrated the more I researched. There was no consolation. Auschwitz: this was the reality, at least an ineradicable part of it. A last hope remained; perhaps this was reality, but no longer is. The hope died. Ten years later, I saw the photos of the Vietnamese women with cut off breasts. I saw the images of people burnt by napalm. I saw the downside of occidental moral and culture. Then there was the time of the declining students’ movement and the fights among different left-wing fractions in the early 70’s. The KPD/ML [Communist Party of Germany / Marxists-Leninists] carried Stalin posters. In Mannheim I witnessed the death of an alleged spy. I experienced the tyranny of political doctrine against any ‘sentimentality.’ I experienced the inhumanness of a political practice, which had not overcome the inner structures of the system it fought against. I understood the most elementary fact of the political life: the ideological confessions are interchangeable so long as the human structures remain the same. Structures of suppression. Structures of violence – whether of latent or manifested violence does not matter.
2015
Our Misguided “Wars of Choice”
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Our misguided ‘wars of choice’Jeffrey D. SachsThere is one foreign policy goal that matters above all the others, and that is to keep the United States out of a new war, whether in Syria, North Korea, or elsewhere. In recent days, President Trump has struck Syria with Tomahawk missiles, bombed Afghanistan with the most powerful nonnuclear bomb in the US arsenal, and has sent an armada toward nuclear-armed North Korea. We could easily find ourselves in a rapidly escalating war, one that could pit the United States directly against nuclear-armed countries of China, North Korea, and Russia. Such a war, if it turned nuclear and global, could end the world. Even a nonnuclear war could end democracy in the United States, or the United States as a unified nation.