Urgent call for Arctic-global peace coalition (AGPC)

The Times of London reports today

Arctic military bases signal new Cold War
Canada fired a warning shot in a new Cold War over the vast resources of the far North by announcing last night that it will build two new military bases in the Arctic wilderness.

A week after Russia laid claim to the North Pole in what is rapidly becoming a global scramble for the region’s vast oil and gas reserves, Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said that Canada would open a new army training centre for cold-weather fighting at Resolute Bay, and a deep-water port at Nanisivik, on the northern tip of Baffin Island

Under international law, each of five Arctic countries – Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark – controls an economic zone within 200 miles of its continental shelf. But the limits of that shelf are in dispute.

This writer calls for the immediate establishment of the Arctic-Global Peace coalition, consisting of civil-society leaders (arts, sciences, media, business leaders) to envision an era of harmony and world prosperity aided in part from sustainable relationship with Arctic natural resources.

Concurrently there should arise in support of the Coalition a global movement (beginning in the 5 countries) protesting the militarization of the Arctic.

Celestial show this weekend

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk The annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak during the early hours of Monday, but it will be visible from Saturday night until Tuesday morning. The celestial show will be most apparent in the north-eastern part of the sky near the Perseus constellation. If the skies remain clear, it will offer stargazers the best opportunity for a few years to see the Perseids. The shower this year coincides with a new Moon, providing sky watchers with the dark skies necessary for excellent observing conditions. The best viewing conditions will be where the sky is clearest and darkest. However, meteors should be visible, to a lesser degree, in cities despite light pollution and smog. Both hemispheres will receive good views but the prime locations will be Western Europe and North America. As an added bonus, watchers should be able to see Mars, which will be in view as a bright red dot in the eastern sky after midnight. The Forbes article has some good viewing tips.

How sad - reduced to this

The United States of America - the richest and most powerful nation in human history has been reduced to a grade school-yard nyah nyah and bullying session with Iran.

Here are the headlines:

Listen up, Bush tells Maliki: Iran is a danger to the Middle East
In a warning to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, President George Bush said Iran was a danger to the Middle East, and that if Mr Maliki did not share that view, Mr Bush would have a "heart to heart" talk with him.

Iran Warns Iraqi Leader U.S. Exit Is Key to Peace
TEHRAN -- Iranian officials told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday that only a U.S. pullout would bring peace to his country and asserted that Tehran was doing its best to help stabilize its neighbor.

Thinking world citizens should begin serious reflection on a leadership concept for human affairs that diminishes the status of politically elected leaders of nation states . The infantilism with which we are represented cannot persist. The gap in consciousness between citizens and virtually all who seek and gain elected office is growing simply too great to perdure.

Keep an eye on this!

Religious Israeli troops refuse orders
From correspondents in Jerusalem
August 08, 2007 05:28am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

ISRAEL plunged into bitter debate over the source of authority for many of its soldiers overnight after a group of officers and troops refused orders to evacuate hardline Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The four hour operation overnight in the flashpoint town of Hebron sparked fiery rhetoric over the future of the Jewish state's army after a dozen soldiers decided to listen to their parents and rabbis, instead of their commanding officers, and refused to participate.

Startlingly, virtually none of the coverage of this significant development mentions the 1956, landmark, Israeli Supreme Court ruling (following the Kfar Qasem massacre):

The Israeli Supreme Court made a new ruling on the right and duty of soldiers to disobey unlawful orders. That ruling has been incorporated into Israeli martial law. On the 43rd anniversary of the incident (1999), Israeli civics teachers were instructed to lead a one-hour discussion on Kafr Kassem in their classes. Israel wants its future soldiers to understand the need to identify and disobey an illegal order in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.

For a quick grasp of what's going on here, read on:

Many religious soldiers in Israel - whose military service sometimes combines studies at a yeshiva religious school - identify themselves with right-wing national religious ideology and themselves live in settlements.

Although there are no figures on their exact number, they form the backbone of many elite combat units. During the 2005 Gaza pullout, a number of them refused to follow orders to forcibly remove the settlers who refused to leave.

"The Jewish Bible is above the laws of the state of Israel," Rabbi Yishai Babed of the Judea and Samaria, as the West Bank is known in Israel, rabbis' council said.

"Expelling people from their homes contradicts the Bible and therefore the morality overrides any military orders," he said.

Headlines call for annual irony award

Three headlines conspired last week to recommend the institution of US government irony awards. These are:

Senate OK's eavesdropping measure for Bush administration
The Senate voted to approve a White House-backed measure that extends the power of the government to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for a court-ordered wiretap beforehand.


Congress Enacts Bush's Anti-Terrorism Spy Measure
The U.S. House completed congressional passage of anti-terrorist legislation that gives President George W. Bush more power to conduct electronic surveillance for the next six months.


and

Bush To Mandate Aid To End Tyrannies
WASHINGTON — President Bush today is scheduled to sign a law mandating that America develop strategies to help tyrannies and police states to make the transition to democracies.

The irony here of course is the fact that, we have just witnessed our own opposition-gorged democracy devour itself (through the impact of threat and fear- "we might get blamed if anything bad happens while we're on vacation, we better vote for warrantless wiretapping even though we have ranted about the forsaking of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights") and disgorged legislation found in tyrannies and police states!

That democracy has blessed us with Hamas, Ahmadenijad and others, and partisan politics creates two votes giving a secretive and imperial executive added powers, has to force thinking political scientists to question the sacred devotion evoked with every utterance of the word democracy.

Obama warns he would attack Al-Qaeda in Pakistan

I believe this is the single most important statement from any candidate on either side of the aisle since the premature and exhausting '08 presidential race began.

The Iraqi government is unraveling

BAGHDAD - Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining efforts to seek reconciliation among the country's rival factions, and three bombings in Baghdad killed at least 70 people.

The present administrations continues to expand US military presence. Language has shifted before our eyes from UK's Brown's "generation long battle," and Gates now speaking of years of military presence in Iraq ("but not 50 years" he assures us).

And all of a sudden the nation's supposedly most moderate candidate (the same one who runs attacking H. Clinton's Iraq invasion vote) states flat out that as commander in chief he would be willing to invade Pakistan even against the will of the Pakistani government?

Such a statement should properly and promptly bring Mr. Obama's otherwise interesting candidacy immediately to a close.

Sudan agrees to 26,000 UN troops in Darfur

Article summary:

The Security Council resolution, passed unanimously on Tuesday, would have boots on the ground by the end of the year.

The force will be largely composed of Africans and will consist of nearly 20,000 military personnel and 6,000 police officers. Known as the UN African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), the force is expected to select its commanders by October and take over operations from the 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers currently in Sudan by the end of the year, reports the UN News Service. For the first 12 months, UN forces will incorporate the AU troops into their mission.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the mission "historic and unprecedented." It will come after months of Sudanese resistance and will cost about $2 billion in its first year, reports The New York Times.

Read the entire article here

While there are no words to describe the horror that persists in Darfur and the urgent need for a world response, one has to ask if spending 2 billion dollars a year to build an army of 26,000 mostly African men, plus mercenaries from other countries without gainful employment for their able bodied men, is such a cause for celebration.

The world needs more armies?

Why are these people called "peacekeepers"? There is no peace to be kept

It is reported:

The Security Council resolution grants the peacekeeping mission authority to use military force to protect its personnel, guarantee the safe travel of humanitarian aid workers and provide protection for civilians.

Increasingly it seems all world problems are approached solely through military solutions, now also in the United Nations, as it devotes at least 2 billion dollars a year to create yet another army.