By John Anderson

This email is being sent to you because I believe that the Peace and Justice organization to which you belong may well be going to the UfPJ National Assembly, Dec 12-14. If not, then you may ignore this email and I apologize for the distraction.
This Assembly is likely to be pivotal in determining whether or not UfPJ can be an effective agent for Peace and Justice. Our member organization, Silicon Valley Impeachment Coalition, believes that in order to be effective, UfPJ must wholeheartedly embrace the concept and practice of Accountability. Many of its member organizations, such as The Center for Constitutional Rights, Progressive Democrats of America, and After Downing St, have already done so. The best way for UfPJ to begin to follow suit is to place a strong paragraph on Accountability in its Unity Statement. We propose inserting the following paragraph in the Unity Statement as the first bullet point after the heading To Move Toward this World:

The International Center for Transitional Justice announces the release of in-depth research and policy papers addressing U.S. human rights abuses in the course of the "war on terror."

The papers explore:

* the Bush administration's possible use of a preemptive pardon for illegal acts committed since September 11, 2001, in relation to the "war on terror," including the legal framework for such a pardon, the potentially unprecedented abuse of this power, and likely consequences; and
* the value, form and scope of a fact-finding inquiry into these abuses being launched under the administration of President-Elect Barack Obama, based on U.S. and international precedent.

They can be found at: http://ictj.org/en/news/features/2154.html

Jack Cafferty at CNN wants you to tell him.

Members of Military Families Speak Out greeted the announcement of the composition of President-Elect Barack Obama's national security team with concern, and reiterated their call for the Obama administration to bring an immediate end to the war in . The announcement that Robert Gates will continue to serve as Secretary of Defense raised particular concern among members of the organization.

Keri Wheelwright, a member of Military Families Speak Out from Fountain Hills, AZ

By Louise Gray, the Telegraph/UK

Stephen Hockman QC is proposing a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment.

The first role of the new body would be to enforce international agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions set to be agreed next year.

But the court would also fine countries or companies that fail to protect endangered species or degrade the natural environment and enforce the "right to a healthy environment".

The innovative idea is being presented to an audience of politicians, scientists and public figures for the first time at a symposium at the British Library.

Mr Hockman, a deputy High Court judge, said that the threat of climate change means it is more important than ever for the law to protect the environment.

By Elsa Rassbach

Here in Germany there has just been an important new development for the international peace movement. Iraq war veteran André Shepherd announced on Thanksgiving Day that he will seek asylum via a court proceeding in Germany.

Over the past several years, peace activists in Europe have been raising the issue of asylum rights for U.S. soldiers in accordance with European law. For example, in March 2006, American Voices Abroad (AVA) Military Project (a U.S. peace group in Europe) initiated a hearing in the European Parliament regarding asylum. Hart Viges of IVAW a witness at the hearing along with German and UK military resisters, and Cindy Sheehan sent a video with her testimony. The Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild and the GI Rights Hotline have participated in seminars with German attorneys to explore representation of resisting GIs, including those that might seek asylum here.

By Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t

The best military advice I know supposedly comes from a subordinate of Napoleon at a time that the French emperor was facing difficulties with his ill-fated military occupation of Egypt. "One can do anything with bayonets, Sire, except sit on them." If only Gen. Jim Jones, the new National Security adviser, had the wisdom to give President-elect Barack Obama the same advice about the already planned escalation of forces in Afghanistan. But don't count on it. From all available evidence, the good general has already urged Obama to dig the United States even deeper into a far-off land that Alexander the Great, the British raj and 150,000 Soviets troops all came to know as "the graveyard of empires." Read the rest.

From the Committee on "Homeland" Security

On Wednesday, December 3rd, the Majority Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security will host a series of roundtable discussions on the future of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security. The event, entitled “A Path Forward: Constitutional Protections in Homeland Security”, is sponsored by Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. Experts from the public sector will give their views on the focus the Department should take in dealing with privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties during the new Administration. There will be a total of six panels, all listed below.

Chairman Thompson released the following statement regarding the event:

By David Swanson

The debate among progressive activists and commentators in recent weeks has tended to range from the leave-Obama-alone-and-he'll-fix-everything position to the stage-a-protest-at-Obama's-house-for-the-next-month position, including numerous stances in between those extremes. What all these positions share is acceptance of the incredible shift of power from Congress to the White House that we have seen in just the last eight years. It is in these concluding moments of the Bush-Cheney era that Congress's coffin is being constructed just outside our window, and I'm afraid that the peace and justice movement is picking flowers to bring to the funeral.

By Dave Lindorff

Before the odor of burned gunpowder has left the air of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the US is lecturing India not to go off half-cocked and attack Pakistan, simply because all of the attackers in the terrorist assaults in that city arrived by boat, apparently from neighboring Pakistan. US officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, are calling on India to engage in a “transparent” and “thorough” investigation into the attacks to establish who was responsible.

How different this is from the American government’s response to the 9-11 attacks in the US!

David, this is a letter from a vet that has been protesting a land grab of VA land by the Veterans Park Conservancy who want to take 16 acres of land deeded in the 1800's for the exclusive use of vets and turn it into a public park. I'll be writing something up on this later in the week when I have gathered more information. But I think this is worth calling attention to. -- Amy Branham

Colonel Thomas Bowman (USMC retired)
Chief of Staff
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Washington, DC

Colonel:

Just when we thought the VA couldn't crawl any lower, your bureaucrats at the West LA VA donned their top-hats and shamelessly walked under the belly of a snake.

From the aftermath of the 2003 "shock and awe" bombing campaign all the way through Thanksgiving Day 2008, major US news outlets have nearly uniformly blacked out or downplayed reports of the Iraqi death toll. But a recent Associated Press article reveals the depths to which these outlets are still willing to delve to censor this information. READ THE REST.

By Lisa Pease, Consortium News

It’s good to see President-elect Barack Obama studying history. How wonderful to have a President who actually reads book such as Doris Kearns Goodwin’s A Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln’s inclusion of political opponents in his war-time Cabinet.

But there’s another “team of rivals” in more recent history that proved disastrous for a President's goals.
If there’s one book Obama should read before he sets any more appointments in stone, it would be James Douglass’s remarkable book JFK and the Unspeakable.

Douglass outlines in clear form how a generous-minded President Kennedy brought his rivals into his inner circle, only to find them banding together against him and working against his stated goals.

Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. READ THE REST.

BONUS: This WaPo article by an interrogator documenting torture in Iraq in a newspaper opposed to prosecutions or impeachments.

Nixon bids nation goodbye in historic resignation
by Stacy Smith Segovia | The Leaf-Chronicle

President Richard Nixon's resignation in the face of impeachment after the Watergate scandal was not a surprise to Americans. Still, his announcement Aug. 8, 1974, that he was quitting our nation's highest post was a blow.

No American president had ever before resigned, nor has one since.

The day is singular in American history.

The Leaf-Chronicle chose to cover the story by leading with Ford at the top of the page, above the name of the newspaper itself. "Nation Has New President" Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle proclaimed on Aug. 9, 1974.

The article, by Gaylord Shaw of the Associated Press, begins:

Sadrists Announce a Three-Day "Mourning" after the Passing of SOFA
By Amer Mohsen, Iraq Slogger

The Iraqi Parliament ended up voting in favor of the SOFA agreement, with a
majority of 144 MPs - out of 198 present and 275 MPs in total (the treaty
required 138 votes to pass.) The last-minute deal with the Sunni parties
guaranteed the plurality, but also made the ratification conditional to a
popular referendum by next July. A political reform package was also passed
along with the security agreement, another perk for the Sunni blocs; but the
Shi'a and Kurdish parties refused to include the abolishing of the
de-Ba'thification measures and the ex-regime criminal court in the package,
as certain Sunni leaders had wanted.

The Shi'a Fadhila party and the Arab bloc preferred not to attend the
session, few IAF MPs dissented and voted against the treaty, but the

A useful reminder:
Impeach if You Care About Obama, You Have Been Warned
By Ralph Lopez