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The tragic shootings in Connecticut again raise the perennial question ‘Why are human beings violent?’ Are we genetically programmed to be violent? Is violence socially learned? Or are some individuals just ‘psychotic’?

Perhaps the most important question is this: Can we do anything to end human violence?

Because of the death of my two uncles in World War 11, I have been researching the question ‘Why are human beings violent?’ since 1966, including spending 14 years living in seclusion from 1996 to 2010 with Anita McKone, undertaking a deep psychological examination of our own minds.

I have summarized our learning in the document ‘Why Violence?’ – http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence

In essence, human beings are violent because of the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children. And this is in addition to the ‘visible’ violence that we inflict on them consciously.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do everyday, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to itSelf thus destroying its internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what it wants (or ignore it when it does), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as it keeps trying to meet its own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, it is genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine its sense of Self-worth and teach it to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout its childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, parents and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when it expresses its feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when it expresses its feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing its feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing its feelings (e.g. by screaming at it when it cries or gets angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by its feelings (e.g. by hitting it, restraining it or locking it into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress its awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing its awareness of its feelings (rather than being allowed to have its feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed its awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress its awareness of the feelings that would tell it how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and it will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards itself, others and/or the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioural change in the direction of functionality be possible.

‘But these adult behaviors you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviors – many of them perpetrated in school – that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? We do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen.

The tragic reality of human life is that few people value the awesome power of the individual Self with an integrated mind (that is, a mind in which memory, thoughts, feelings, sensing, conscience and other functions work together in an integrated way) because this individual will be decisive in choosing life-enhancing behavioral options (including those at variance with social laws and norms) and will fearlessly resist all efforts to control it or coerce it with violence.

So how do we end up with people like Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot and all those other perpetrators of violence, including political leaders who conduct wars and those who perpetrate their violence in our homes and on our streets? We create them.

And can we do anything to end human violence? Yes we can. Each one of us. Here is the formula, briefly stated:

If you want a child who is nonviolent, truthful, compassionate, considerate, patient, thoughtful, respectful, generous, loving of itself and others, trustworthy, honest, dignified, determined, courageous and powerful, then the child must be treated with – and experience – nonviolence, truth, compassion, consideration, patience, thoughtfulness, respect, generosity, love, trust, honesty, dignity, determination, courage and power.

And if you need an incentive, ask yourself this: Do you think it is possible to successfully tackle the many manifestations of violence – war, terrorism, street violence, the ongoing climate catastrophe, the ongoing exploitation of Africa, Asia and Central/South America … – without addressing its fundamental cause?

It’s a big task. But we have a world to save. Literally.

By Robert J. Burrowes

15 December, 2012

Robert has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach’, State University of New York Press, 1996. His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

By Finian Cunningham

15 December, 2012

@ PressTV

Barack Obama, America’s Conjurer-in-Chief, is trying to entertain the world with a new smoke-and-mirrors trick, with the announcement that his government is recognizing the Syrian National Coalition as “the sole representative of the Syrian people”.

The chemical weapons trick seems to have fizzled like a damp squib. So, now it’s time for another illusion – the “worthy Syrian opposition”.

This motley crew of treasonous exiles – who mysteriously somehow have bags of money to trot all over the globe from Doha to Cairo, Tokyo to Marrakech – are all of sudden anointed by the American President as the next government of Syria.

Anyone who has read the Doha Protocol that the SNC willingly signed up to while seduced in a luxury hotel last month by their Qatari sponsors should be under no misapprehension. This group of self-serving opportunists has been cobbled together with the sole purpose of selling Syria’s sovereignty to the highest, or even lowest, bidder. The people of Syria have been spared no treachery low enough in the imperialists’ manifesto of regime change, including surrender of wealth, natural resources and all of Syria’s independent foreign policy principles.

Under the regime of the SNC, if it ever gets into power, Syria will become a shell of a once-proud nation, in hock to Western and Persian Gulf investors and schemers, betraying its people and its regional neighbours.

Yet, hey presto, with the panache of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, Obama declares: “We’ve made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime.”

Cue the arms sales and military logistics floodgates – as already worked out by British General Sir David Richards in secret talks last month in London with his American, French, Turk and Qatari counterparts.

The latest Obama stunt follows the dress rehearsals in previous weeks by Britain, France, Turkey and the Persian Gulf Arab dictators who had already appointed the SNC as the de facto government-in-waiting on behalf of the 25 million Syrians.

The White House joker tried to give his “recognition” wheeze some credibility by demarcating an illusory line between “legitimate” and “renegade” Syrian opposition, by proscribing certain militant groups within Syria as “terrorists”. The Jabhat Al Nusra front, which is said to be linked to Al Qaeda, is henceforth ostracized, at least officially, by Washington.

Of course, Washington had to crank out some rhetorical fog to cover up the glaring contradiction between its decade-long “war on terror” mantra and the fact that Islamic extremists are central to the Western-backed campaign of subversion in Syria.

But this chicanery is fooling no-one who has been accurately following the state terrorist war of aggression in Syria over the past 22 months. No-one, that is, except those perhaps who have been brainwashed by the Western mainstream media echo chambers, which call this campaign of terror afflicting Syria a “pro-democracy uprising”.

Obama’s cynical charade of isolating extremists from supposed worthy opposition belies the fact that Syrian society is being assailed by a gargantuan criminal conspiracy authored, fomented and fuelled by Western governments and their regional proxies. The so-called Syrian rebels are terrorist foot-soldiers of foreign masters.

Think about it. What group claiming to liberate Syria would murder their own compatriots – men, women and children – with such fiendish, unrelenting barbarity?

For Obama to try to make out that the opposition has now been cleansed from extremists – on the basis of his say-so – is transparent nonsense.

Are we expected to believe that the litany of atrocities perpetrated against the Syrian people are all down to “rogue Jihadists”?

Let’s review just some of the low-lights of the putative Syrian liberators:

1. Massacres of whole villages. Just as Obama was sanitizing the opposition, news was coming in of yet another massacre this week in the village of Aqrab. Reports put the number of killed at over 125. Typically, the Western media lie machine was vague in ascribing blame, but past record shows that such atrocities are stock-in-trade of the anti-government foreign militants. On 25 May, the village of Houla, also in Hama Province, was massacred, including 49 children. After initial media misinformation, it turned out that the mass murders were carried out by the Western and Arab-backed mercenaries.

2. No-warning car bombs across Syria in urban areas of Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib, Daraa, Homs. The newly American-sanctioned Al Nusra front is said to be based in Aleppo. Are we to believe its operatives can whisk around the entire country of Syria carrying out suicide bombings? Again, as Obama was pronouncing the validity of Syrian opposition, the suburb of Jaramana outside Damascus was attacked with no-warning bombs, killing two and injuring several. Last month, the mainly Christian and Druze community of Jaramana was targeted for the fourth time in as many months with multiple explosions that claimed over 34 lives.

3. Video evidence emerges this week showing Saudi mercenaries recruiting a child to behead what appears to be a captured Syrian soldier as he lay on the street, his neck propped on a concrete block and his hands tied behind his back.

4. Other footage shows foreign militants taking unarmed men out on to a street and executing them one-by-one. In other horrific scenes, Syrian soldiers lying on the ground are seen begging for mercy as gun-toting captors spray them with bullets.

5. Victims of cold-blooded executions are thrown off multi-storey buildings on to the pavement below, their mangled corpses lined up in the gutter for gruesome public display.

6. Mosques and churches are desecrated by being turned into sniper posts by Western-backed mercenaries, from where they shoot randomly at civilians in the streets.

7. Family members are kidnapped for ransom only to find that their loved ones have been slain in the most heinous way.

8. Mortar shells are fired deliberately at civilian apartment blocks by mercenaries who then film the aftermath fabricating that the crimes were committed by the Syrian Army, fabrications which the Western mainstream media peddle in line with their governments’ propaganda.

9. Journalists who are trying to give an accurate account of all of the above and more are targeted and assassinated, including Press TV’s Maya Naser and at least 15 other Syrian media workers.

10. In yet another crime against humanity, it is revealed this week that Saudi Arabia has forced inmates from its seething jails to go and wage “holy war” on the Syrian people.

This is the kind of replete, systematic terrorism that Western, Arab and Turk-backed militants have been engaging in to destroy Syria and to impose a regime that will have nothing to offer the Syrian people except more internecine killing.

This is the kind of mayhem that America’s Conjurer-in-Chief and his band of Western terrorist allies are now trying to dissimulate as being the work of rogue extremists, whom they allegedly do not support.

The deception being engineered here is to create an illusion under the cover of which the Western governments can now proceed “legitimately” with direct military supply to Syrian terrorist “freedom fighters” – as opposed to their erstwhile covert supply of weapons which has so far not succeeded in their criminal plan for regime change.

In the Season of Goodwill, that’s like expecting us to believe that Obama is Santa Claus and Cameron and Hollande are his angelic little helpers.

Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to PressTV where this article appeared. Read other articles by Finian.

By Kate Randall

15 December, 2012

@ WSWS.org

A gunman walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday morning and opened fire, killing 26, including 20 young children. The shooter was also found dead inside the school of a self-inflicted gunshot.

The horrific event took place at Sandy Hook Elementary, a K-4 school for five- to ten-year-old students. The massacre was the worst in the US since the 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech University, which left 33 dead. The killings follow by less than five months the shooting rampage at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 were killed and 58 injured.

Newtown, a small, affluent New England town about 80 miles northeast of New York City, has been ranked as one of the safest places to live in America. The community attracts families who want to send their children to the town’s well-regarded public schools. Residents, shocked and in mourning, expressed disbelief that this type of tragedy could take place in their town.

The shooter has been tentatively identified by law enforcement officials as 20-year-old Adam Lanza. There was initially some confusion about his identity, as he was carrying the identification of his brother, Ryan Lanza, 24, of Hoboken, New Jersey. Ryan Lanza reportedly told authorities that his brother had a history of mental health issues. The elder brother is not a suspect.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m. Friday morning, local police received a call from Sandy Hook Elementary where the rampage was under way. According to a Connecticut State Police news briefing, the shootings took place in two rooms in a single section of the school.

The Hartford Courant reported that one entire classroom of children was unaccounted for. Eighteen children were pronounced dead at the scene and two died after being transported to the hospital. One wounded victim remained hospitalized as of Friday evening.

Children, who huddled in the corners of classrooms, reported hearing loud booms. Survivors escaped the carnage in groups—holding hands, many crying—escorted from the school by teachers. Students reported that they were told to cover their eyes and not look around, apparently in an effort to prevent them from seeing the dead and wounded.

Six adults were killed, although not necessarily all at Sandy Hook. The school principal, Dawn Hochsprung, was shot and killed at the school. According to a law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly, kindergarten teacher Nancy Lanza, 52, the shooter’s mother, was among the victims. The body of an as yet unnamed adult male was found at the Newtown home owned by Nancy and Peter Lanza, Adam and Ryan Lanza’s father.

At least three weapons were recovered at the school shooting scene, including a .223-caliber assault rifle from the back of a car and two semiautomatic handguns found near Lanza’s body. Witnesses reported that some 100 shots or so were fired.

“It’s not a simplistic scene,” police spokesman Vance commented. “We will be here through the night, through the weekend. There is a great deal of work that has to be done.” He reported that the murder scene was so gruesome that first responders were provided counseling. “This was a tragic, horrific scene they encountered,” he said.

However, virtually nothing in the way of explanation has been offered in the nonstop media coverage of the shootings, or in the various comments of police and government officials, who uniformly term the deadly chain of events as “inexplicable” and “senseless”.

President Barack Obama made a brief statement from the White House Friday afternoon. “We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years,” he said. “And each time I learn the news I react not as a president, but as anybody else would—as a parent.” He made no effort to account for the events, which his own comment acknowledged were a persistent feature of American life.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s comments proceeded along similar lines: “School shootings are always incomprehensible and horrific tragedies,” he said. “But words fail to describe today’s heartbreaking and savage attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School.”

What intellectual bankruptcy! No US government official or media personality has the mental capacity or courage to ask why these horrible tragedies occur in America with such heartbreaking predictability. The public has barely adjusted itself to one horror when the next one takes place. Even as the media reports Friday’s incident, everyone knows that it is only a matter of time before the next atrocity.

Details of the tragic events in Connecticut are still emerging. In particular, little is known about what could have driven the shooter to plan and carry out such an atrocity. But statements to the effect that such tragedies are always incomprehensible block any examination of the processes that make possible such an antisocial explosion.

Whatever the immediate personal circumstances of each perpetrator, and such circumstances—psychological alienation, mental illness—of course play a role, the regularity of these mass killings expresses the profound sickness of American society, afflicted by social tensions that can find no progressive outlet.

The same figures that speak of “inexplicable tragedies” preside over extreme levels of violence both at home and abroad. Obama is the first US president to openly claim the right to select and order assassinations, including of US citizens. The ruling elite prosecutes an unending series of wars and military invasions, with hundreds of billions of dollars going to the giant killing machine. How could any expression of violence in America today be entirely “incomprehensible”?

At home, the American population is subjected to a culture of violence, not only in the form of police shootings and brutality, but an assault on democratic rights. While the financial elite continues to amass record profits, growing numbers of working families are plunged into poverty.

On the surface, such social tensions do not seem to be part of the reality of a town like Newtown, Connecticut, but they found terrible expression there Friday.

James Dietter, 26, lives in the neighborhood where one of the victims was found. His mother works in the school system. Dietter told the Hartford Courant. “This is the idyllic New England hamlet… there was a bit of a magical insulation or feeling that tragedy won’t happen here. Now it has, and, unfortunately, I think it is going to define this town.”

By Ralph Nader

15 December, 2012

@ Nader.org

Say what you will about Yoko Ono’s art, there is no denying that she is unique. Who else will put several $100,000 full-page notices in The New York Times displaying only the word “Peace” or “Imagine Peace” in small type with the rest of the page blank? No elaboration, no examples of the ravages of war or mention of people “waging peace” around the country and world. Inscrutable, yes. Effective, who knows, except maybe Yoko Ono?

Well, in the December 10th issue of the Times there appeared a most un-Yoko type message. And this one wasted no space with the headline “Governor Cuomo: Imagine there’s no fracking.” The ad, commissioned by her and her son Sean Lennon, contained a graphic case against fracking designed to get New Yorkers to urge the governor to ban fracking and make permanent the moratorium first established by former N.Y. Governor David Paterson. The moratorium was in place pending further scientific studies regarding the environmental and health impact of drilling deep into the Marcellus Shale deposits underneath a large portion of the state.

The gas companies are putting heavy pressure on Gov. Cuomo to join Pennsylvania, which is already suffering the ravages of fracking. Landowners in Pennsylvania and in other permitted states now realize that their water was contaminated by chemicals used in the fracking process and leaked natural gas from fractured shale deposits.

There also exists a formidable coalition of government officials, physicians, scientists at Cornell, civic groups, farmers and other diverse opponents fighting against this hydrofracking. The relentlessly-factual Walter Hang, President of Toxics Targeting in Ithaca, New York, is one of the most effective environmentalists opposing fracking.

Of course, on the other side are the oil and gas industries pursuing profits, landowners seeking royalties (though the fine print contracts may rise up to bite them), and upstate laborers hoping for employment. The gas industry publicists, who exaggerate the benefits to the local economies, ignore the short-term nature of most of the jobs and the costly toxic air, water and land destruction fracking leaves behind.

The fight against fracking in New York is like the recurrent struggle put on by the taxpayer-subsidized fossil fuel and nuclear industries that want to dominate energy policies in government and push the safer alternatives out of the way because energy efficiency and renewable energy don’t make profits for them. As Yoko and Sean point out, through their new group Artists Against Fracking, by insulating buildings, for example, they could “save far more energy and create far more jobs than fracking can produce, plus save consumers money forever.”

Industry engineering manuals portray the immense complexity of fracturing technology, the huge amount of water used per well, the pipelines and compressor stations, the congested truck traffic, the dozens of chemicals needed in the water to draw out the gas vertically and horizontally under the surface of the land. These materials leave out the emerging, grim reality which is memorably portrayed in the documentary “Gasland” by Josh Fox.

Hydrofracking, whose side effects haven’t been fully vetted, is a new industrial way of obtaining natural gas. Instead of seeking these deposits, alternative energy sources should be pursued. Think of solar energy, dutifully, naturally providing most of the energy needed, from absolute zero, to make the Earth habitable. The rest is up to Homo sapiens – a species that must be giving Mother Sun the fits over not adapting its energy for efficient, safe daily uses.

We need to remember Ben Franklin, our frugal forebear who coined the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Today he would say “a trillion BTUs saved is a trillion BTUs earned.” The problem is that reducing waste – and despite progress, we are far less energy efficient than Western Europe or Japan – is not encouraged by present perverse market and regulatory incentives.

Germany is way ahead of us in both energy conservation and renewable energy. There, nuclear power is being phased out. And, price is used to discourage use of fossil fuels. There is also growing support for a carbon tax in this country including some leading corporate chieftains, but the message hasn’t reached the lawmakers in Congress. Too many of them are marinated in oil.

Your tax dollars helped develop fracturing technology which, if not stopped, will unleash its furies all over the world. There are hydrocarbons everywhere. Methane, among other gases, will be released in excess, which is many times worse a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The regulators are not keeping up.

But the sun is everywhere in many forms – solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, passive solar architecture, wind power, wave power, non-corn biomass that doesn’t compete with food supplies and raise food prices. As I said years ago, “If Exxon owned the sun, we’d have solar energy very quickly.”

Therein is the rub. What is best for a planet with a decentralized, job-producing, safe, efficient, inexhaustible form of energy (at least for 3 billion more years) does not yet have the political muscle to go to the top of the U.S.’s energy priority ladder. The concentrated profits and the limited energy infrastructure are in the grip of the Chevrons and the Peabody Coals.

But history is not on their side. Countries with minimal fossils fuels are leading the way with renewables. Post the Fukushima disaster, Japan is upping the ante on conservation and renewables. Climate changes and natural disasters will wake up the rest of the world. Let’s act to make it sooner rather than later.

The latest bulletin (toxicstargeting.com/Marcellus_Shale) from the indefatigable Walter Hang alerts people to protest that the State Department of Health review is now “being conducted in total secrecy without any public participation.” He believes Mr. Cuomo will make his decision within three months and urges you to call the Governor’s office at 518.474.8390 or 212.681.4580.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and “Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us” (a novel).

By Marian Wright Edelman

15 December 12

@ Reader Supported News

he horrendous news from Newtown, Connecticut has pierced our hearts. Allegedly, a black-clad man in his 20s armed with two semi-automatic handguns entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School and made an elementary school for kindergartners through fourth graders the scene of the worst mass shooting in a public school in American history. Reportedly, 20 children were shot and killed, and seven adults were shot and killed. We don’t yet know how many were wounded. We do know dozens of parents are experiencing the worst nightmare any parent could imagine. We do know more than 500 young children in the school are traumatized.

Once again we are faced with unspeakable horror from gun violence and once again we are reminded that there is no safe harbor for our children. How young do the victims have to be and how many children need to die before we stop the proliferation of guns in our nation and the killing of innocents? The most recent statistics reveal 2,694 children and teens were killed by gunfire in 2010; 1,773 of them were victims of homicide and 67 of these were elementary school-age children. If those children and teens were still alive they would fill 108 classrooms of 25 each. Since 1979 when gun death data were first collected by age, a shocking 119,079 children and teens have been killed by gun violence. That is more child and youth deaths in America than American battle deaths in World War I (53,402) or in Vietnam (47,434) or in the Korean War (33,739) or in the Iraq War (3,517). Where is our anti-war movement to protect children from pervasive gun violence here at home?

This slaughter of innocents happens because we protect guns before children and other human beings. Our hearts and prayers go out to the parents and teachers and children and the entire Newtown community that has been ripped apart by each bullet shot this morning. We know from past school shootings and the relentless killing of children every day that Newtown families and the community will never be the same. The Newtown families who lost children today will never be the same. The families of the teachers who were killed will never be the same. Every child at the Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning will never be the same.

Each and all of us must do more to stop this intolerable and wanton epidemic of gun violence and demand that our political leaders do more. We can’t just talk about it after every mass shooting and then do nothing until the next mass shooting when we profess shock and talk about it again. The latest terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is no fluke. It is a result of the senseless, immoral neglect of all of us as a nation to protect children instead of guns and to speak out against the pervasive culture of violence and proliferation of guns in our nation. It is up to us to stop these preventable tragedies.

We have so much work to do to build safe communities for our children and need leaders at all levels of government who will stand up against the NRA and for every child’s right to live and learn free of gun violence. But that will not happen until mothers and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, and neighbors and faith leaders and everybody who believes that children have a right to grow up safely stand up together and make a mighty ruckus as long as necessary to break the gun lobby’s veto on common sense gun policy. Our laws and not the NRA must control who can obtain firearms.

It is way past time to demand enactment of federal gun safety measures, including:

Ending the gun show loophole that allows private dealers to sell guns without a license and avoid required background checks;

Reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004;

And requiring consumer safety standards for all guns.

Why in the world do we regulate teddy bears and toy guns and not real guns that have snuffed out tens of thousands of child lives? Why are leaders capitulating to the powerful gun lobby over the rights of children and all people to life and safety?

I hope these shocking Connecticut child sacrifices in this holy season will force enough of us at last to stand up, speak out, and organize with urgency and persistence until the president, members of Congress, governors and state legislators put child safety ahead of political expediency. And we must aspire and act together to become the world leader in protecting children against gun violence rather than leading the world in child victims of guns. Every child’s life is sacred and it is long past time that we protect all our children.

Albert Camus, Nobel Laureate, speaking at a Dominican monastery in 1948 said: “Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.” He described our responsibility as human beings “if not to reduce evil, at least not to add to it” and “to refuse to consent to conditions which torture innocents.” It is time for a critical mass of Americans to refuse to consent to the killing of children by gun violence.

Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children’s Defense Fund and its Action Council.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

By Franklin Lamb

15 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

“Who does that obnoxious woman think she is?” demanded a staffer who works in the Russian Embassy media office inside the vast windowless soviet style massive high walled compound which belongs to his country, here in Damascus.

“Viktor” had been invited to our table, for lunch at the “Lady of Damascus” (“sitt a cham”) restaurant in the middle class neighborhood of Shalan, having been spotted by our charming host, a Sheik and MP in Syria’s Parliament. The well-spoken gentleman was furious, after putting down his mobile phone having apparently heard some rather upsetting news. What ignited Viktor were the recent statements of the US State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland and her seemingly anti-Russian statements lecturing and insulting Syria’s ally, which Victor considered a bald effort to misinterpret the recent statement of Russia’s Middle East envoy, Mikhail Bodganov. Badganov, on 12/13/12 had stated, in response to a question, “One must look the facts in the face… unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out.” Bogdanov also noted that the Syrian government was “losing control of more and more territory.”

Viktor explained that what has galled the Russian and his embassy colleagues here about Nuland, known for her pro-Zionist, anti-Syrian, Russian, Arab and Muslim views, was her arrogant language: “We want to commend the Russian government for finally waking up to the reality and acknowledging that the regime’s days are numbered.”

According to Viktor, “Bodganov said nothing really new. And we will issue a clarification of this very soon.” He continued, “Everyone knows that theoretically the foreign-backed rebels could win. This is not new and is always a possibility during an uprising. But Mrs. Nuland surely knows that the Syrian government has purposely pulled back from some rural areas where there is mainly open space in order to concentrate its forces to protect population centers. This is very basic military strategy and has been employed throughout history. In the English language I think it’s called something like a “strategic retreat or tactical redeployment. It is reprehensible for western and Gulf media to use our Middle East envoys statement as a form of psychological warfare while deceiving the media.” He added, “Of course we have contingency plans for an evacuation of our citizens if necessary. This is quite normal and we and other countries have such plans for Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf countries and Palestine, among others. Russia has not lessened its support for Syria and to think otherwise is yet another in the series on many miscalculations from Washington.”

Sure enough, within hours, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, a friend of Viktor’s issued a statement: “We would like to remark that he (Bogdanov) has made no statements or special interviews with journalists in the last days. We once again confirm the principled Russian position about the lack of any alternative to a political solution in Syria.”

After venting on Nuland, Victor and others at our table were totally dismissive of the statement of the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who told reporters in Brussels after a meeting with the Dutch prime minister at NATO headquarters. “I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse,” he told reporters after a meeting with the Dutch prime minister at NATO headquarters. “I think now it is only a question of time.”

The Syrian MP explained that Rasmussen has no credibility at all after all the lies he spoke concerning NATO in Libya and how NATO’s more than 9,000 bombing missions “protected the civilian population” whereas in truth, everyone there at the time (including this observer) knew very well that the main threat to Libya’s population, starting in March 2011 and continuing until mid-October was from NATO. From Sorman to Sabna NATO forces rained indiscriminate death on the civilian population of Libya and according to Russian President, due to meet with Obama in February, has condemned the US and NATO for deceiving Russia and the international community regarding its true aims. Viktor told us that his country fears the same deception is afoot in Syria.

Damascenes are tense, sullen, but not panicked following the recent events and what many consider terrorist acts by so-called “rebels.”

According to students I very much enjoy meeting with from Universities and Colleges here, their President, Bashar Assad, still has the support of a majority of the population. Many, as does the Assad government, accept, in principal, the April 2012 Geneva Proposals. That initiative, proposes a transitional government resulting from dialogue leading up the 2014 election which would be open to all candidates. They favor letting the Syrian people choose at the ballot box the next president whoever that may be.

It is evident here in Damascus that the main worry of the population is the manifold effects of the generally viewed illegal and immoral US led sanctions. On a another subject, “Tamara, a university student explained that the target of students and intimidation by rebel backers of students and faculty plus the kidnappings, taking of houses and cars by these same elements are affecting education here although almost all the schools and universities are still functioning.

This observer had the help of a small group of Damascus University students in conducting a survey of the effects of the US led sanctions regime on the civilian population. Virtually every person who expressed a view on this subject told this observer that the only purpose of the American sanctions is regime change by way of trying to force the population to suffer to such an extent that the long lines for bread etc. turn violent and break the bond between the Bashar Assad government and the civilian population. People here commonly refer to the US led sanctions against Iran as also being about regime change and not because Washington believes it can force Iran to abandon its perfectly legal nuclear development program.

The results of a student led survey of grocery stores in Damascus, completed on 12/12/12, shows the following increases in food prices that citizens here must pay against the backdrop of current unemployment figures currently estimated by economists as being between 40-60 percent of the population.

Damascus Student survey: Price rises for food items between May 2011 and December 2012

(Official exchange rate is currently 80 Syrian pounds for one US dollar)

Lamb—500 Syrian pounds to this week’s price of 750 sp, Chicken—200 sp to 450 sp, Milk—per liter….from 40 to 95 sp, Rice—from 40 sp to 100 sp, Eggs—160-300 sp for a carton of 30 medium sized eggs, Cooking oil—30 per liter to 60, Sugar—40 sp per kilo to 85 sp, Bread—20 sp for 10 loaves of flat bread to 55 currently in Damascus but 220 s.p. in Aleppo where, as in Homs, Hama and the east, a massive humanitarian crises in rapidly spreading.

Russia has promised wheat for this basic staple in Syria. But time is of the essence. In many areas of Syria most in need, basic food stuff supplying NGO’s are absent.

Bottled cooking gas– 500 sp now up to 1000 sp, is also becoming more difficult to find in several Damascus neighborhoods.

Heating oil which was 100 sp per liter is now on average 250 sp but becoming quite scarce. Even some of the five star hotels here in Damascus, due to a severe shortage of “mazot” fuel oil, are cutting off the heat and hot water to rooms except for periods between 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 8-10 p.m. Russia has reportedly promised a tanker of fuel oil but it will be dangerous to transport it by road to the population centers here because, according to students working as volunteers with the Syrian Arab Republic Red Crescent Society and other humanitarian organizations, rebel forces are increasing stealing or destroying aid convoys and rampaging the countryside.

Students here in Damascus intend to publish a more detailed list of consumer goods every two weeks. Yesterday some picketed the empty American embassy in protest against US led sanctions. “The Syrian people will never forget or forgive the American campaign to starve us into submission”, one sign read.

It appears to this observer that, rather as is the case with Iran, the illegal and immoral US led sanctions, which urgently need to be challenged at The Hague, imposed on the civilian population of Syria is having the opposite effect of what their cynical architects intended. The piling on of sanctions is giving credibility to the Assad government which, while employing measures to curtail prices increases here, so far with modest success, is arguing that the price rises are the result of Syria’s American and Zionist enemies. This view is widely shared among students at Damascus University and the general public.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Damascus and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

By Jay Janson

15 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Another school shooting massacre. Of course everyone is shocked and saddened. But why is it not expected that occasionally an armed America will turn on his own? ] (Wikepedia lists 54 massacres by Americans in the US since 1950.

Another school shooting massacre. This time in Connecticut. Twenty, as President Obama reported, “between the ages of five and ten.”

Of course everyone is shocked and saddened.

But why is it not expected that occasionally an armed America will turn on his own? [1] ( Wikepedia list of 54 massacres by Americans in the US since 1950 ) [2] (Worst Eight US Massacres recalling Columbine ) [3] (Top Recent Five)

Violence and heroic gun play is in the air in the United States of America. It’s on TV and in movies all the time, whether real or fictional. The world knows children in the US are brought up on violence and expected to be ready to go overseas to ‘protect American freedom’ in wars ordered by America’s presidents and commanders-in-chief.

Its kind of a catchy thing – ‘Like father like son!”

America’s pentagon fed war promoting prime time TV anchors are showing emotion, concern and compassion, as will all the organized clergy that have been blessing America’s innumerable ‘Just Wars.’ The politicians fronting for corporatist governance will be talking about gun control for weeks to come – once again.

This writer and all his anti-imperialist wars colleagues  might appropriately suggest or plead that every parent in the United States be assigned the following homework:

1. Watch Michael Moore’s “Bowling at Columbine” again and write a review of what it means to you. Full length movie at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jGtAcDefHg

2. Search the Internet for statistics on how many schoolchildren Armed Americans killed in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Dominica Republic, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, etc. – how many schools were bombed, how many children were killed in while at home. Weaponized Americans have been collaterally killing innocent people overseas in poor countries for the past sixty-four years.

3. Watch Michael Moore’s “Bowling at Columbine” a second time and write a review of what it means for America.

4. Meditate on how all Americans surely agree with President Obama that “Our hearts are broken,” while others say we should make sure they did not die in vain. Meditate on doing something about our school massacres. Meditate on the connection between the militarized nation backing US private investments abroad, that Martin Luther King Jr. spelled out for the world.  Try to realize that millions of hearts were broken in the same way in the above mentioned countries, by Americans firing weapons upon their countrymen designated as ‘bad guys.’

5. Never forget “They had their entire lives ahead of them,” as noted correctly President Obama. And in humility consider that those children that perished for having fallen in the way of armed Americans invading their beloved nations, also, “had their entire lives ahead of them.”

6. Watch Michael Moore’s “Bowling at Columbine” a third time and write a review of what it means for the world, and not only the danger Americans have become unto themselves.

7. Remind yourself daily that the only American with a three day holiday honoring his birthday, shocked the world and made headlines everywhere with, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government,” and held himself and the American people responsible for being fully capable of making America’s “atrocity wars” as unacceptable as the “social injustice their expenditure caused at home.” [watch Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm]

[read King Condemned US Wars http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/

8. Do try to get your elected officials to make some effective gun control laws, but reflect upon the fact that every citizen in Cuba has been armed for decades, in expectation of another US invasion, but Cubans are not  using their weapons upon themselves.

9. Tell all your friends and family to watch Michael Moore’s “Bowling at Columbine,” and to call for prosecution of US crimes against humanity, as the invasions of Germany were prosecuted at Nuremberg. [read Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign

http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/

I mean if Americans focus on their love for children, everyone’s children and not just their own, they can, Rev. Dr. King Jr. said, end American violence at home as well as the violence America brings overseas in the name of freedom for “predatory investments.” And the way to do this is for Americans to prosecute its crimes against humanity and let the indictments fall where they may.

What else but prosecution and the threat of imprisonment could possibly serve as a brake on future wars for profit, and give Americans the chance they and their children deserve to end its nation’s culture of violence,  and free the world of it as well?

Footnotes:

[1]

List of massacres in the United States From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alabama

Geneva County massacre

2009 Mar 10

Geneva and Samson

11

6 injure

Arizona

2011 Tucson shooting

2011 Jan 8

Tucson, Arizona

14 wounded

4

2 wounded

Arkansa

Westside Middle School massacre

1998 Mar 24

Jonesboro, Craighead County

5

10 injured

California

101 California Street shootings

1993 Jul 1

San Francisco

9

6 injured

Cleveland School massacre

1989 Jan 17

Stockton

6

29 children and 1 teacher/ 30 injured

Cupertino quarry massacre

2011 Oct 5

Cupertino

4

7 injured; death toll includes perpetrator

Cal State Fullerton massacre

1976 Jul 12

Fullerton

7

2 injured

Golden Dragon massacre

1977 Sep 4

San Francisco

5

11 injured

Ingleside mass murder

2012 Mar 23

San Francisco

5

Newhall massacre

1970 Apr 6

Newhall

5

death toll includes 4 officers and perpetrator

Oikos University shooting

2012 Apr 2

Oakland

7

3 injured

San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre

1984 Jul 18

San Diego

21

19 injured

Seal Beach massacre

2011 Oct 12

Seal Beach

8

1 injured

Colorado

2012 Aurora shooting

2012 Jul 20

Aurora

12

59 injured. Suspect James Holmes in custody.

Columbine High School massacre

1999 Apr 20

Columbine

15

24 injured. Both perpetrators committed suicide.

Connecticut

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

2012 December 14

Newtown, Connecticut

27

20 killed were children, 6 were adults, and the gunman himself. One of the adults that perished was the gunman’s mother who was also a teacher at the school.

Illinois

Brown’s Chicken massacre

1993 Jan 8

Palatine

7

Northern Illinois University massacre

2008 Feb 14

Dekalb

6

18 injured

University of Iowa shooting

1991 Nov 1

Iowa City

6

4 faculty members and 1 student killed (in addition to the perpetrator), 1 student injured and paralyzed

Kansas

Wichita Massacre

2000 Dec 8–14

Wichita

5

Massachusetts

Blackfriars Massacre

1978 Jun 28

Boston

4

Wakefield massacre

2000 Dec 26

Wakefield

7

Chinatown massacre

1991 Jan 1

Boston

5

1 injured

O’Leary Family Massacre

1973 Jun 8

Boston

7

Includes the suspect

Michigan

2011 Grand Rapids, Michigan mass murder

2011 Jul 7

Grand Rapids

7

3 injure

Minnesota

Red Lake massacre

2005 Mar 21

Red Lake

10

Death toll includes perpetrator. 5 injured

Nebraska

Westroads Mall shooting

2007 Dec 5

Omaha

9

4 people injured

New Mexico

Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre

1990 Feb 10

Las Cruces

4 Dead, 3 injured

New York

Attica Prison riot

1971 Sep 9

Attica

39

Happy Land fire

1990 Mar 25

New York City

87

Wendy’s massacre

2000 May 24

Flushing, Queens, New York City

5

2 injured

Ohio

Kent State shootings

1970 May 4

Kent State University

4

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City bombing

1995 Apr 1

blast claimed 168 lives

Oregon

1977 Jul 23

Klamath Falls, Oregon

6

Gunman randomly kills patrons leaving nightclub.

Pennsylvania

Flight 93 of September 11 attacks

2001 Sep 11

Shanksville

40

Amish school shooting

2006 Oct 2

Nickel Mines

6

5 injured.

South Carolina

Orangeburg Massacre

1968 Feb 8

Orangeburg

3

Texas

Fort Hood shooting

2009 Nov 5

Ft. Hood

13

30 injured.

Luby’s massacre

1991 Oct 16

Killeen

24

20 injured.

Waco siege

1993 Apr 19

Waco

76

Deaths after fifty-day siege

University of Texas massacre

1966 Aug 1

Austin

16

Virginia

Virginia Tech massacre

2007 Apr 16

Blacksburg, Virginia

33

One death was perpetrator. 25 were injured. It was the worst shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S history and one of the deadliest massacres in the world.

Washington

Cafe Racer massacre

2012 May 30

Seattle

6

Capitol Hill massacre

2006 Mar 25

Seattle

6

Wah Mee massacre

1983 Feb 18

Seattle

13

Wisconsin

2004 Nov 21

Meteor

6

Chai Vang (Deer Hunting)

Sheraton Hotel massacre

2005 Mar 12

Brookfield

7

Terry Ratzmann {Bible Study}

Delavan Shooting

2007 Jun 9

Delavan

6

Ambrosio Analco killed his two sons, wife, her sister, a friend, and then himself

Crandon, Wisconsin shooting

2007 Oct 7

Crandon

6

Deputy Tyler Rampage – Killed by police sniper

2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting

2012 Aug 5

Oak Creek

6

Assailant died of self-inflicted gunshot wound

Spa Shooting

2012 Oct 21

Brookfield

4

Radcliffe Haughton (Shot 7 – Killed 3 and Himself)

[2] Top 5 Worst | Death Statistics | The United States | Crime & Punishment Statistics

The Top 5 Worst Gun Massacres in Recent U.S. History

Perpetrator

Location

Date

Victims

1 Seung-Hui Cho

(aged 23, suicide at scene)

Blacksburg, Virginia

(university campus)

April 16th, 2007

32 killed

(25 wounded)

2 George Hennard

(aged 35, suicide at scene)

Killeen, Texas

(restaurant)

Oct 16th, 1991

23 killed

(20 wounded)

3 Adam Lanza

(developing information)

Newtown Connecticut

(Sandy Hook Elementary School )

Dec 14th, 2012

*26 killed

(developing)

4 James Oliver Huberty

(aged 42, shot at scene by police)

San Diego, California

(McDonalds restaurant)

July 18th, 1984

21 killed

(19 wounded)

5 Nidal Malik Hasan

(age 39, arrested at scene)

Fort Hood, Texas, (military base)

Nov 5th, 2009

13 killed

(29 wounded)

[3] Shooting recalls Columbine massacre

1. April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

2. Oct. 16, 1991: A deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at Luby’s Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life. Twenty others were wounded in the attack.

3. July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an out-of-work security guard, killed 21 people in a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty.

4. Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman opened fire from the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31.

5. April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school’s library.

6. Aug. 20, 1986: Pat Sherrill, 44, a postal worker who was about to be fired, killed 14 people at a post office in Edmond, Okla. He then killed himself.

7. April 3, 2009: A shooter entered the American Civic Association building in Binghamton and killed 14 people, including himself, wounding four others.

8. July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta brokerage offices, then killed himself. Barton also killed his family before the spree, which raised the total dead to 13, including Barton.

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinnlent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, Uruknet; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; Ta Kung Bao; China Daily; South China Morning Post; Come Home America; OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; 300 of which are available at: click http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html ; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989.  Is coordinator and founder of the King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign: (King Condemned US Wars) http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/and originator of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/ featuring a country by country history of US crimes.

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

14 December 12

@ readersupportednews.org

I ask myself, “Why?”

Why do US cable news networks intensively cover these mass shootings, making it the only story for a day or two and prying into every detail of them, when they aren’t interested in preventing them from happening again through banning semi-automatic weapons? Is it just, like, a natural disaster to them?

Why don’t the news anchors or discussants ever bring up the simple fact that between 1994 and 2004, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994: The Federal Assault Weapons Ban prohibited assault weapons? The prohibition was not unconstitutional. Congress foolishly put in a 10-year sunset provision, and of course Bush and his Republican Congress allowed it to expire.

Why doesn’t anyone blame George W. Bush for these mass shootings? He’s the one who led the charge to let the assault weapons ban expire. Why aren’t the politicians in Congress who take campaign money from assault weapons manufacturers ever held accountable by the public?

Why don’t the news programs bring up the reported moves of Sen. Diane Feinstein to prepare new legislation banning assault weapons and their accoutrements? Are they so afraid of the NRA that they can’t even discuss the legislative process in public?

What in the world does the 2nd amendment have to do with these incidents? Do they look like a “well-regulated militia” to you? Semi-automatic weapons are the 18th-century equivalent of artillery in terms of their ability to kill. Do you think people should be allowed to have artillery pieces in their back yards, too? Is this some sort of sick joke, that you are telling us our children have to die because the Founding Fathers wanted madmen to have high-powered weaponry?

Why does complaining about semi-automatic weapons (and the means to make ordinary guns semi-automatic by attaching e.g. ammunition drums) being freely available always devolve into an argument about gun control and hunting? No one minds if people buy rifles to shoot deer with in the countryside. An ordinary, non-automatic rifle can’t produce a mass killing like that in Connecticut because it cannot get off so many rounds so quickly. Nobody hunts with an automatic pistol, and if they do, they should be publicly shamed by, like a group of hot girls calling them wusses as they set off in their hunting jackets.

Why aren’t there more class-action lawsuits against the people responsible for the proliferation of high-powered weaponry in our society? Lax gun laws and inadequate security checks in Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky and 7 other states meant that they supplied nearly half the 43,000 guns traced to crime scenes in other states in one recent year. The guns aren’t randomly acquired, and they aren’t used or Saturday night specials. They come disproportionately from specific states.

Likewise, a relatively small number of corporations produce and market semi-automatic weapons for the civilian market. Why aren’t they named and shamed?

Why doesn’t anyone on these news channels ever mention that firearms are used in 300,000 crimes a year in the US?

Why doesn’t anyone on television news ever simply give this statistic: In one recent year, there were 39 murders by gun in the UK, but 9,000 in the United States? Why is it wrong to let Americans know how peculiar is the situation Americans have to live in?

By Ismail Salami

14 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

It is very unfortunate to note that the United States has constantly sought to depict the Islamic Republic in the light of a tenacious nation resilient to any logic and dialogue whatsoever.

Iran ‘s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has emphasized the Islamic Republic’s readiness to hold negotiations on the country’s nuclear energy program in a win-win situation.

“We have repeatedly expressed our readiness and announced that we are ready for talks in a win-win situation.”

He added that Iran has never lost the “opportunity for diplomacy.”

Iranian officials are pessimistic about any upcoming dialogue with the US as they almost unanimously believe that Washington is not consistent in its policies and that it should first show some good will instead of resorting to an unacceptable bullying attitude. Spokesman for Iranian Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Hossein Naqavi Hosseini slams the contradictions between what Washington says and what it does and urges the US to show some goodwill if it ever seeks to hold talks with the Islamic Republic.

“The Americans are not honest in their words….there is no consistency in their words and actions.”

A historical look at Tehran-Washington relations testifies to the antagonistic nature of Washington in dealing with Iran .

According to Tim Guldimann, former Swiss ambassador to Tehran , Iran issued a proposal to the United States in May 2003 and called for negotiations on a number of issues. Based on the proposal, the US should accept a dialogue “in mutual respect” and agree that Iran put the following aims on the agenda:

1) Halt US hostile behavior and rectifications of status of Iran in the US : (interference in internal or external relations, “axis of evil”, terrorism list.)

2) Abolishment of all sanctions: commercial sanctions, frozen assets, judgments (FSIA), impediments in international trade and financial institutions.

3) Iraq : democratic and fully representative government in Iraq , support of Iranian claims for Iraqi reparations, respect for Iranian national interests in Iraq and religious links to Najaf/Karbala.

4) Full access to peaceful nuclear technology, biotechnology and chemical technology.

5) Recognition of Iran ‘s legitimate security interests in the region with according defense capacity.

6) Terrorism: pursuit of anti-Iranian terrorists, above all the MKO and support for repatriation of their members in Iraq , decisive actions against anti-Iranian terrorists, above all MKO and affiliated organizations in the US .

However, the Bush administration rejected the proposal and exerted additional pressure on the Islamic Republic.

In August 2005, France , Germany , and the United Kingdom presented their proposal for a long-term agreement which was dismissed by Iran simply because it did not recognize Iran ‘s right to enrichment.

In 2010, Brazil and Turkey conducted a diplomatic initiative to broker the TRR (Tehran Research Reactor) fuel swap with Iran . It was agreed that the Islamic Republic of Iran deposit 1200 kg LEU in Turkey . In an April 20 letter to the leaders of the two countries, US President Obama said , “For us, Iran ‘s agreement to transfer 1,200 kilograms of Iran ‘s low enriched uranium (LEU) out of the country would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran ‘s LEU stockpile. I want to underscore that this element is of fundamental importance for the United States .”

The fruit of the initiative was the May 17 Tehran Declaration agreed among Lula da Silva, Erdogan, and Ahmadinejad. While the trio recalled “the right of all State Parties, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy (as well as nuclear fuel cycle including enrichment activities) for peaceful purposes without discrimination”, they agreed :

1) the nuclear fuel exchange is instrumental in initiating cooperation in different areas, especially with regard to peaceful nuclear cooperation including nuclear power plant and research reactors construction.

2) Based on this point the nuclear fuel exchange is a starting point to begin cooperation and a positive constructive move forward among nations. Such a move should lead to positive interaction and cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear activities replacing and avoiding all kinds of confrontation through refraining from measures, actions and rhetorical statements that would jeopardize Iran ‘s rights and obligations under the NPT.

3) Based on the above, in order to facilitate the nuclear cooperation mentioned above, the Islamic Republic of Iran agrees to deposit 1200 kg LEU in Turkey . While in Turkey this LEU will continue to be the property of Iran . Iran and the IAEA may station observers to monitor the safekeeping of the LEU in Turkey .

4) Iran will notify the IAEA in writing through official channels of its agreement with the above within seven days following the date of this declaration. Upon the positive response of the Vienna Group (US, Russia, France and the IAEA) further details of the exchange will be elaborated through a written agreement and proper arrangement between Iran and the Vienna Group that specifically committed themselves to deliver 120 kg of fuel needed for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

However, France , Russia , and the United States rejected the Tehran Declaration for reasons only known to themselves and easily comprehensible to others.

In 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an unprecedented move and sent an 18-page letter to George W. Bush , then US president, an act which was interpreted by some as an invitation to dialogue with the United States .

While the letter – thought to be the first from an Iranian president to a US leader since Iran’s 1979 revolution- addressed the paradoxical nature of Washington’s policies all across the world and addressed crucial issues such as the fake claim that Iraq possessed WMDs as a pretext to launch an invasion of the country, and billions of dollars spent from the common purse to inflict pain and misery upon the people of Iraq and America, it could have been used by the United States as a first step towards resolving an old-time gaping problem between the two countries.

Instead, Washington officials made a strategic mistake, ponderously ignored the letter and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed the letter as “offering nothing new” and the White House said there would be no formal written reply.

The letter was favorably received by many media channels. The Peninsula , a Qatari news site, saw it as “a taboo-breaking initiative … an opening—even if only slim—for the longtime foes to engage in a dialogue.” Arab News of Saudi Arabia hailed it as “remarkable and encouraging … an unexpected diplomatic opening.” Germany ‘s Der Spiegel calls it “a deft move for Ahmadinejad’s image in the Middle East .”

After all, the letter was a good sign that Iran was interested in talks but on equal terms and in an ambience of mutual respect, a condition the US has spitefully declined.

In a sudden turn of events, however, things seem to be taking a new spin and the US has made some gestures to the effect that it wishes a direct talk with the Islamic Republic. A recent report indicates that US President Barack Obama is planning to propose to Iran that it negotiate directly with the Americans about its nuclear program. According to the report, Obama’s move was made without any coordination or consultation with Israel and that Washington will allow a period of four to five months for negotiations with Tehran . If the talks fail, the report says, they may then resort to the military option.

Be that as it may, so far, the Islamic Republic has taken constructive steps towards talks with Washington in order to allay international concerns and resolve any ambiguities surrounding its nuclear program and each time Washington has embarked on a crooked diplomatic detour and has demonstrated a strong penchant for political approach-avoidance.

Does it not mean that Iran ‘s nuclear issue is not an issue at all but part of Washington ‘s pretext to persevere in its path of political pungency?

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.

By Mairead Maguire

14 December, 2012

@Warisacrime.org

Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire Goes to Afghanistan to Join Afghan Peace Volunteers’ Demand for Cease Fire and Negotiation

I have come here to give my support to the campaign for 2 million friends of the Afghan people. You have chosen to run this campaign because you remember that 2 million people from Afghanistan have died in violence under war, under killing.

We’re here today to remember every single one of those people who died needlessly and for this I am sorry, and I say, “Sorry to the Afghan people for what the governments of the US and NATO and other governments have done to the Afghan people, and I say, ‘Not in my name.’”

We’re here on behalf of the Afghan Peace Volunteers to give a petition to the UN and that petition is to ask the UN to broker a cease fire for Afghanistan amongst all the warring factions here in Afghanistan.

Peace is possible. You have to believe that when you’re working for peace.

The killing must stop in order for peace to develop and grow.

But a passion for peace can come from the people. And that passion, working for peace, marching for peace, demanding your politicians make these….

The people can do this when you believe that peace is possible. All the killing, all the war must stop.

I come from Northern Ireland and we had war and fighting among all the different ethnic groups, and it went on for a long time, a lot of people died.

My sister’s three little children were killed in our war.

People came out and said we want nonviolence, we want dialogue, we want negotiation from our politicians.

We want to solve the problems through forgiveness, through love, through dialogue.

And it happened! It took time, but it happened.

Today in Northern Ireland we have peace, and the people have security. They can go out and walk in freedom.

And I have hope in Afghanistan because I believe in the people of Afghanistan.

You’re good people. You don’t want war. You never asked for all these years of war and division and occupation of your country and that must cease. But you can that

You can do that through the methods of nonviolence

Your young people here, – I’m so inspired by them. They’re teaching Gandhi.

And they’re solving their problems without killing and this is a way that works

To all the armed groups, please put up your guns, stop the killing and start talking.

To the Taliban and the armed groups I say to you,

You love your people you want Afghanistan to be a better country

Do you want them to continue for a long time suffering, dying and living in poverty?

I know in your hearts, Taliban and armed groups, it’s not what you wanted. You started your struggle to have a better way for the Afghan people.

If you want a better Afghanistan, you must choose better means to bring about a good Afghanistan.

Bad means cannot bring about good results.

Your means must be consistent with your ends.

And if you really love the Afghan people and want a better future for them, put up your arms and enter into dialogue with the government.

I Appeal to the Afghan government that they enter into dialogue with the Taliban and the armed groups

There cannot be a solution without the groups that are part of the problem of a way forward

In Afghanistan

All inclusive unconditional talks around the table to solve this problem

In Northern Ireland it was the only way that we could get a solution

We acknowledged—and the Afghan government and the Taliban will surely acknowledge there will not be a military solution or a

Or a paramilitary armed solution to our deep ethnic political economic, human problems that can only be solved in a human, compassionate, loving way not by militarism and war.

Most especially to the US to the UK and to NATO forces:

Withdraw from Afghanistan.

You’re doing more damage by being here and using military force.

The use of drones on an innocent people is not acceptable in a civilized community. It is against international law and human rights to bomb innocent civilians. There’ve been over 400 drone bombs dropped by the allied forces on people in their villages. You’ve dropped them on weddings, you’ve dropped them on people working in the mountains collecting wood to warm their homes because they’re cold and hungry. This is against all international law and human rights and is indeed a crime against humanity to be using these methods against a civilian population.

So we appeal to them. The allied forces, NATO the US, they will say they are here to help the people.

How do you help a people? By giving them military aid worth billions, but then dividing it up. 60% of the military aid that comes in here from the west is used to maintain the infrastructure of the military forces, to provide them with all their needs.

A great percent of it then goes to contractors who are then not fulfilling their obligations to make roads, hospitals and schools for the Afghan people

What is left for the Afghan people? Nothing.

We have met women here who are living in absolute poverty, trying to rear their children, trying to feed them, hungry and cold. And they have received nothing in the way of aid coming into this country.

So that is not working.

I invite them to revisit….

When they send aid to the Afghan people that they monitor where it is going and how it is helping the people of Afghanistan Most certainly help them but help them build their schools, build their roads

Help them get a hope for life

One young Afghan woman described to me Afghanistan is like living in a hospital where people are being killed, people are dying, people are sick — they don’t have the basics of life

I invite the international community and the forces to turn their military towards helping people get the very basics of life in order that they may live free, human and dignified life in Afghanistan.

And to the women here,

I know you’re suffering tremendously and I feel for your pain and your suffering

But I encourage you to move beyond your suffering to work for peace and nonviolence

Because peace and nonviolence, – you have to work for it.

I know you pray, “Praise Allah” because you are a people of prayer.

The Muslim people are a people of faith, a people of prayer.

We also need to go out and work very hard for peace.

In Northern Ireland, when we had our war, women didn’t normally go out to work for peace, onto the streets and work and build a peace movement. But we knew for the sake of our children and our future, we had to act as well. So, I encourage you to act and work for your human rights, your dignity. The Afghan people have a right to rights and I encourage you to be more vocal in your demand to stop all killing, and to work for peace in Afghanistan.

To my friend President Obama.

President Obama, your foreign policies are killing many people in the world. You’re destroying our civil human rights. You’re destroying in the world people’s hope for a peaceful, united, fair world.

Your policies are not working, for us all, for the American people, for the Afghan people, for the Palestinian people, for the Israeli people, for the people of the world! Change your policies!

We want peace. We’re tired of war. We’re sick of militarism, war and killing. We don’t want stay on this road anymore. We want a new way. We want a way of friendship, reconciliation, working together, feeding the poor, taking care of each other as a human family.

President Obama, we need you. We need you and the American people to move on to a different foreign policy.

(To the children of Afghanistan and the world)

We adults pledge to work hard to make your world safer, more peaceful. And you can help us. You can help us by being happy, by singing for peace, by dancing for peace, by creating peace, by believing in peace because some of the older ones are not so sure peace can happen. But when we look at you, we know that peace is possible.

Salam ‘aleikum. God bless you all.

Mairead Maguire is a Northern Irish peace activist, and winner of 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. (www.peacepeople.com)