WomenPowerPeace

If we stop building a perpetual war machine, we CAN build other things... like a healthcare system.

An old friend of WAND is a doctor who's rallying doctors to buck up and work for genuine healthcare... not profit.

The pitting of doctor against doctor By Stephen J. Bergman | Boston Globe

How to pay for this? It is simply a matter of priorities. A whole year's budget for the National Institutes of Health is a few days' budget for the Department of Defense. In a humane society, providing good healthcare for all has to be a higher priority than spending half of our tax dollars for what, in my lifetime, seems like an endless progression of foreign wars.

Friday. Rain. Here's something for ya...

I have no hopes we will dismantle the military industrial complex anytime soon. In fact, I fear it's become so central and deep in our country/economy/society that we may not see the end of it til we see.... the end of it. And that end likely brought about by... the military industrial complex. In one way (nuclear) or another (major war) or another (the crumbling of the rest of the country/economy/society).

And it's been raining for days.

However, here's something amusing for you: an idea put forth many years ago by the astonishingly insightful and clear-headed Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired in his piece "War is a Racket"

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers – yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Today's reason not to give up on politics: We need to be at the table where these decisions get made

WAND public policy director Marie Rietmann reports from the Hill:

"It gives me great pleasure to report that on the amendment to the defense authorization during committee consideration very early yesterday morning to add funds for the F-22 --  all four WAND/WiLL Women on the House Armed Services Committee voted no.  Hooray for Susan Davis, Carol Shea-Porter, Niki Tsongas, and Chellie Pingree.  I have passed on WAND appreciation to their defense aides.  The vote was 31-30 to add the money -- so now we will hopefully have a floor amendment next Thursday to reverse the decision."

Okay, so we're funny. But this isn't.

So our dear Marie Rietmann, intrepid lobbyist on Capitol Hill, stayed up AS LONG AS SHE COULD last night. But she still missed the fateful moment when the House Armed Services Committee blew air back into the lungs of the dearly departed F-22.

Yep, sometime after midnight, they decided the obsolete, expensive, unnecessary Raptor, designed to fight the Soviet Union (remember them?), derided by many, cut by Defense Secretary Gates and the Air Force and EVEN Lockheed Martin -- would be getting $369 of YOUR TAX DOLLARS. We invite you to join us in trying to kill this thing once and for all. Thanks. Click here.

Ack! F-22! It JUST WON'T DIE

They just keep making them, even though no one wants them. It's like they've invested so much in cassette tape players they just won't admit times and technologies have changed... How can we keep on playing our cassettes of Rush?

Who doesn't want them? Defense Secretary Gates. President Obama. THE AIR FORCE. Who does? Members of Congress who need jobs in their districts. That's it.

In the dead of night...

The House Armed Services Committee early this morning voted to continue F-22A Raptor production beyond the 187-aircraft program of record.

In its review of the Pentagon's FY-10 defense budget request, the panel included $369 million for the advance procurement of 12 F-22A. Those aircraft would be purchased in FY-11.

The long winding road to the end of missile defense: The first step

It's not the end of missile defense, but we'll take it: Even with North Korea and Iran beating the drums, Democrats managed to hold tight in committee and vote down increases in funding missile defense programs. Mind you, the darn thing is still getting around $11 billion of your tax dollars for FY10... but still. Every journey and all...

Our folks on Capitol Hill anticipate that the whole House will concur in turning down the increases, but predict more of a struggle in the Senate.

Why not take action while you can? Take action to hold down missile defense funding.

Here's an excerpt of the story:
Markup Report: House Armed Services Republicans Lose Bid to Hike Missile Defense Spending | By: Eugene Mulero | GalleryWatch | 6/16/2009 2:31:20 PM

House Armed Services Committee Republicans today lost a bid to reverse cuts in missile defense spending proposed by the Obama administration.

After a long and heated debate this morning, the typically bipartisan Armed Services panel voted along party lines to back the administration’s $9.3 billion funding request for missile defense. The move came as the panel began its markup of the 2010 Defense authorization bill, which is expected to stretch late into the evening.

Republicans sought to increase missile defense funding by an additional $120 million to pay for a ground-based, midcourse defense system at Fort Greely, Alaska, under an amendment offered by Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member of the panel’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

Instead, the panel approved by roll call vote, 35-27, a substitute amendment from Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) that did not include the $120 million. In effect, the vote was an endorsement of the administration’s missile defense request.

Sen. Nan Grogan Orrock on WAND Mother's Day Celebrations

The Georgia WAND 25th anniversary was a wonderful evening, packed crowd, high spirits, laudable awardees, and inspiring words – Janisse Ray commented to me as the evening closed, “this was all done with such loving attention to every detail!”  and how right she was!

The Arkansas WAND Mother’s Day luncheon was stellar as well!  A beautiful setting and ambience – seated luncheon for 200 in the beautifully done atrium of the Governor’s Mansion, honoring elected women and in particular Kathy Webb, a legislator, businesswoman, activist, and WAND/WiLL member – one of our Arkansas WiLL State Directors along with Joyce Elliot.  Kathy’s speech was moving and inspiring; she’s a legislator with a moral compass and could well be Arkansas’ first woman governor! Incredibly accomplished, productive, and principled – she awed us all!  Bad weather and late planes kept me from the Board’s informal dinner the night before at the restaurant owned by Kathy and her partner.  Board hospitality abounded, a wonderful group of talented and committed women who made it happen – doubled their attendance with their new venue. And the unstoppable Jeanne Gordon hosted me overnight in her uniquely charming home, was saluted by one and all at the luncheon, then took off for Boston board meeting two hours later! I can’t wait til my next opportunity to visit Little Rock – there was nearly a standing ovation at my mention of Obama-Gates reining in the F-22!

Sorry we couldn’t all have been at the Boston Mother’s Day event – sounded spectacular – Ellen Goodman and MOC Nikki Tsongas in conversation! What a hit for the MASS community of WAND supporters as well as the new fans that were drawn to this great event!

Mother's Day for Peace: How best to help women in Afghanistan?

by Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss

“Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: ‘We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’” --Julia Ward Howe

Though we’ve lost sight of its origins, Mother’s Day began as a cry for peace in the wake of war. In 1872 Julia Ward Howe--mother, abolitionist, poet, and suffragist--envisioned that for one day each year the women of the world would call for peace. She named it Mother’s Peace Day.

And this year, I want to honor the mothers of

Afghanistan

by calling for a renewed commitment to a peaceful and democratic

Afghanistan

that empowers women to participate on equal footing with men in the rebuilding of their nation.

When President Obama announced his plan to send an additional 21,000 troops into Afghanistan, I came down with a serious case of ambivalence. Just give the President’s plan a chance, I found myself thinking. Yet the striking parallels between the surge in Iraq (which candidate Obama vociferously opposed) and the proposed surge in Afghanistan prompted me to engage the issue more thoughtfully. Why, I wondered, was my knee-jerk reaction to entrust the healing of a war-torn nation to a military escalation?

My thoughts turned to a personal email I received from a Pakistani woman, who confessed: the Taliban are getting stronger in Northern areas of Pakistanand people are conscious that if they are not stopped, one day they will reach our capitol. Women across the country are terrified due to this incident in which the Taliban whipped a young veiled girl publicly in a Swat village. Children are shocked by watching this scene on TV and ask their parents, “Why are they beating her?” Yesterday our women’s prayer group prayed for this wave of Talibanization, for God to stop it.

The news has come in from Kandahar, Karachi, and Kabul about the resilience of girls and women in the face of fundamentalist violence. Teenage girls sprayed with acid defy terror daily in their perilous journey to school. More than 500 women rallied in Karachi to protest the flogging of a burka-clad teenager. And despite the heckling of angry men, 300 women marched two miles to the parliament building in Kabul to resist a new law that permits marital rape.

In spite of their courage, I seem to have lost mine. The Taliban’s terrible hatred of women tempts me to trust in the myth of redemptive violence. If ever there was a time when I wanted to solve a problem with military force, this is it. I imagine the terror of a nuclear armed Taliban and another generation of girls robbed of their right to quality education and health care, exposed to violence in every sphere of their lives. The absolute horror of misogyny disguised as religion compels even a peacemaker like me to proclaim that all options should remain on the table for dealing with such unjust violence.

But what is best for the girls and women of Afghanistan and Pakistan? What do they want for their future and, in their experience, what is the best pathway to a just peace that welcomes them to fully participate in public life?

In a recent poll, just 18% of Afghans support a troop increase. Afghan women surveyed through Women for Women International cite peace and security as their greatest priority. Their 2009 Afghanistan Report states, “If Afghan women can participate shoulder to shoulder with men in rebuilding their country, all of society will benefit. Before this can happen, though, women need access to the health, education, economic, civic, and security resources that are their rights as humans.”

Can military escalation achieve these goals? According to Gilles Dorronsoro of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

U.S.

and NATO forces in Afghanistan are “the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban.” And with those forces pushing insurgents into

Pakistan

, risking the further destabilization of a nuclear-armed state, military escalation could prove disastrous.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, argues that the “militarization of

U.S.

foreign policy” has not been constructive in achieving security. In fact, the

RAND

Corporation issued a report last year demonstrating that only 7% of terrorist groups were brought down by military force. Most terrorist group networks have dissolved into the political process or through intelligence resulting in criminal prosecution.

Highly militarized societies, however, almost always produce bad results for women. Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women claims, “Yes

Afghanistan

needs troops–but it needs troops of doctors, troops of teachers, troops of Peace Corps volunteers, and troops of farmers to go and replant the fruit orchards.” While nations like India have provided

Afghanistan

with doctors, the world has grown weary of the only American boots on the ground belonging to those in the military. Eleven aid agencies, including Oxfam, recently issued a report claiming that a military escalation will lead to increased civilian casualties, further eroding our credibility. Rather than military escalation, we need “targeted economic and strong diplomatic engagement to resolve this conflict.”

And so in memory of Julia Ward Howe’s audacious proclamation of Mother’s Peace Day and in honor of the Afghan women who so courageously resist fundamentalist violence, I lift my voice for peace this Mother’s Day. I hope you will join me. In the words of Julia, “Arise, all women who have hearts!”

WAND greets possible end of Iraq war...

Notes from WAND executive director Susan Shaer

WAND applauds President Barack Obama for announcing the U.S. combat mission will effectively end in Iraq on August 31, 2010.

He further asserted that all our troops will be removed from Iraq by the end of 2011, and that we will engage with other nations in the region, including Iran and Syria.
 

Our instinct was to cry out that the war is over! Let an era of diplomacy instead of war-mongering begin!

Yet jubilation is a bit premature. Our troops there are in danger, and those left on the ground (50,000 or so) will still be in harm’s way even though they will be designated for support and training. So until the danger has passed and the Iraqis have taken responsibility for their own security, we will lose soldiers. The count of money and lives will continue to mount.

It is a powerful statement, however, and encourages us to believe that diplomacy and all alternatives to war will be a part of a new foreign policy regime. This is the sea change we were waiting for. Now we must all get behind President Obama to make sure all steps that need to be taken by Congress follow suit.

Finally, as the war winds down, we will see monetary savings. The cost of rebuilding Iraq will be ongoing, and it is a positive thing that the President has allowed for increased salary and benefits for veterans. What we do know for certain is that war is destructive, not constructive; and that troops and veterans deserve more than lip-service.

Yes, we CAN create more jobs by investing in not-military projects

We've been saying it for years. Now people are starting to hear it!

Congress continues to fund weapons systems, year after year, because those projects create JOBS; and voters need jobs. It's hard to defund those projects, because your own voters will be unemployed and angry.

But we need to, for so MANY reasons. And the good news is, you can take the money freed up and spend it elsewhere -- AND CREATE MORE JOBS.

Now the we have a new administration willing to consider this prospect, media is perking up and hearing the new note:

Catch this video on CNN

Check out our "jobs study" action guide.

And then contact your Members of Congress! Thanks!