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This article is the foreword to David Swanson's new book, War No More: The Case for Abolition.

I lived in Iraq during the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing. On April 1st, about two weeks into the aerial bombardment, a medical doctor who was one of my fellow peace team members urged me to go with her to the Al Kindi Hospital in Baghdad, where she knew she could be of some help. With no medical training, I tried to be unobtrusive, as families raced into the hospital carrying wounded loved ones. At one point, a woman sitting next to me began to weep uncontrollably. “How I tell him?” she asked, in broken English. “What I say?” She was Jamela Abbas, the aunt of a young man, named Ali. Early in the morning on March 31st, U.S. war planes had fired on her family home, while she alone of all her family was outside. Jamela wept as she searched for words to tell Ali that surgeons had amputated both of his badly damaged arms, close to his shoulders. What’s more, she would have to tell him that she was now his sole surviving relative.

Senator Seitz moves to squash third parties in Ohio: Fears democracy may break out

Ohio Republican Senator Bill Seitz (District 8) is at it again. His Senate Bill 193 is out to purge Ohio minor parties from the ballot.

On Friday, September 20, former Ohio State Representative Charlie Earl announced that he is running for governor as a Libertarian candidate next year. By Tuesday, Seitz was holding hearings on his new bill that would make it difficult for Earl to stay on the ballot.

Earl ran as the Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in 2010 and received nearly 5% of the vote. In his announcement, Earl claimed he had “Tea Party support.”

The bill requires minor parties to get 3% of the presidential vote in order for their party to stay officially on the Ohio ballot. Essentially, minor parties will be removed from the 2014 ballot on the grounds that they did not pass a vote test – that was not in existence – in 2012. Seitz’s bill appears to violate due process by requiring minor parties to undergo this process in 2014. The Ohio Green Party planned to run a gubernatorial candidate in 2014 as well.

The demand for a global take-over at Fukushima has hit critical mass

More than 48,000 global citizens have now signed a petition at www.nukefree.org asking the United Nations and the world community to take charge of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. The petition was first linked at Nukefree

Another 25,000 have signed at Roots Action. An independent advisory group of scientists and engineers is also in formation.

The signatures are pouring in from all over the world. By November, they will be delivered to the United Nations.

The corporate media has blacked out meaningful coverage of the most critical threat to global health and safety in decades.

The much-hyped “nuclear renaissance” has turned into a global rout. In the face of massive grassroots opposition and the falling price of renewable energy and natural gas, operating reactors are shutting and proposed new ones are being cancelled.

Poison Values

Poison gas is not only a “moral obscenity” — one the United States stockpiled for decades after its use was banned in warfare — but a metaphor for human recklessness and wasted science.

Like it or not, we’re forced to think about it these days, since it’s still an enticing pretext for war. And the more I think about it, the more I marvel at the persistent insanity of its existence. The “red line” that the so-called civilized world crossed over a century ago was not in the use of poison gas but in its creation, because it’s lethal whether it’s used or not. Attempting to get rid of it — by burying it, burning it, dumping it — has consequences almost as deadly as firing it off in battle.

The enormous toxic mess that encircles the globe needs serious and sustained attention, something present-day governments are, seemingly, incapable of. The fact that this mess of our own making exists at all ought to inspire not missiles and self-righteousness but the deepest questions we know how to ask. And the first question is this: How in God’s name do we untangle ourselves from this mess collectively?

Obama’s Justice Department: Trumpeting a New Victory in War on Freedom of the Press

There’s something profoundly despicable about a Justice Department that would brazenly violate the First and Fourth Amendments while spying on journalists, then claim to be reassessing such policies after an avalanche of criticism -- and then proceed, as it did this week, to gloat that those policies made possible a long prison sentence for a journalistic source.

Welcome to the Obama Justice Department.

While mouthing platitudes about respecting press freedom, the president has overseen methodical actions to undermine it. We should retire understated phrases like “chilling effect.” With the announcement from Obama’s Justice Department on Monday, the thermometer has dropped below freezing.

Iran tweets greetings to Jews & does not deny holocaust

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Iran's foreign minister says the newly elected government does not deny the Holocaust, is not anti-Semitic and tweeted Rosh Hashanah greetings to all Jews, but is still against political Zionism.

"We were never against Jews. We oppose Zionists who are a small group," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the semi-official Tasnim news agency in September, according to Tehran Times.

"We do not allow the Zionists to represent Iran as an anti-Semitic country in their propaganda so they can cover up their crimes against Palestinian and Lebanese people," Zarif said.

Zarif is a U.S.-educated former ambassador to the United Nations and posted on his Twitter account "Happy Rosh Hashanah" on Sept. 5 to welcome the Jewish New Year.

Twitter link

Christine Pelosi -- daughter of U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi -- responded to Zarif on her Twitter by writing, "Thanks. The New Year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran's Holocaust denial, sir."

Top 45 lies in Obama's speech at the U.N.

1. President Obama's opening lines at the U.N. on Tuesday looked down on people who would think to settle disputes with war. Obama was disingenuously avoiding the fact that earlier this month he sought to drop missiles into a country to "send a message" but was blocked by the U.S. Congress, the U.N., the nations of the world, and popular opposition -- after which Obama arrived at diplomacy as a last resort.

2. "It took the awful carnage of two world wars to shift our thinking." Actually, it took one. The second resulted in a half-step backwards in "our thinking." The Kellogg-Briand Pact banned all war. The U.N. Charter re-legalized wars purporting to be either defensive or U.N.-authorized.

3. "[P]eople are being lifted out of poverty," Obama said, crediting actions by himself and others in response to the economic crash of five years ago. But downward global trends in poverty are steady and long pre-date Obama's entry into politics. And such a trend does not exist in the U.S.

Rouhani and the United States: A sign of hope?

As President Hassan Rouhani of Iran makes his debut appearance before the United Nations in New York this week, the world is exercised with anticipation about his remarks. Granted Mr. Rouhani’s words will surely not resemble the theatrics put on by his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, performances that resulted in the U.S. and Israeli delegations walking out of the venue. No, expectations this time around are much higher for the Iranian President, perhaps too high.

Since his election, Rouhani has used the podium in Tehran to promote a contemporary relationship between Iran and the West. Whereas Ahmadinejad preferred anti-Semitic hyperbole and diplomatic posturing, President Rouhani has suggested over the past month that he sees a somewhat different path ahead for Iran. For Rouhani positive relations with the United States appear to be atop his agenda. Before we break out the champagne, however, there are some inconvenient truths that qualify this reality.

A new scandal

Keep hope alive with a new war on poverty

Only a couple of weeks ago, as the nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful “I Have a Dream” speech, I was reminded of the Rev. King’s last birthday, in January 1968.

He combined it with work — a staff meeting, planning for the multiracial Poor People’s March, where we made plans to occupy the National Mall. He spoke to us of the need to march to demand an end to the War in Vietnam and to push for a full commitment to the War on Poverty.

This week — four-and-a-half decades later — the U.S. Census Bureau reported that “the nation’s official poverty rate in 2012 was 15.0 percent, which represents 46.5 million people living at or below the poverty line.” That’s up from 46.2 million in 2011, and translates to a poverty rate of 15 percent — one out of every seven Americans. The Census Bureau says that number includes about 16 million children and almost 4 million seniors. Is anybody listening?

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