Monday, October 12, 2009

Israeli Nobelist, Howard Zinn, M. Moore, on Terror, Wars and Peace Prizes

From: R.A.I.N. Newsletter

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120041.html

Israeli Nobel Laureate calls for release of all Hamas prisoners

By Haaretz Service and Army Radio
Haaretz Sat., October 10, 2009

Israeli Nobel Prize for chemistry laureate Professor Ada Yonath on Saturday
said all Hamas prisoners held in Israel should be released in order to bring
Gilad Shalit home.

"I don't understand why we incarcerate them in Israel in the first place,"
the professor told Army Radio Saturday.

She added that "all prisoners should be returned to Palestine regardless of
a deal for Gilad Shalit's release."

Yonath was interviewed on the weekly Saturday radio show about her thoughts
in general regarding the Middle East conflict and called for a "change in
the status quo." She said that holding Palestinians captive encourages and
perpetuates their motivation to harm Israel and its citizens.

"If we hold Palestinian prisoners captive for years on end, their familys'
resentment for Israel will grow and we are actively creating terrorists,"
the Nobel Laureate suggested.

She also said that if we cease from incarcerating Palestinians it will end
soldier abductions. "Once we don't have any prisoners to release they will
have no reason to kidnap soldiers."

Yonath described many Palestinian lives as having "no hope for the future,"
and said that "in a state of such despair they have every reason to jump at
the opportunity to better their prospects for a better afterlife."

***

From: R.A.I.N. Newsletter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/09/nobel-peace-prize-war-obama

Howard Zinn : War and peace prizes

The dismaying gift of the Nobel prize puts Barack Obama on the list of its
winners who promised peace but prosecuted war

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 10 October 2009 08.00 BST

I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A
shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given
a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and
Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is
famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty
gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations - that ineffectual body
which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast,
sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US
into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among
stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he
was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending
to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains on that tiny island. And
as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos,
even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless
villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel prize to
Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticised the war, nor to William
James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger,
because he signed the final peace agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of
which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went
along with Nixon's expansion of the war, with the bombing of peasant
villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the
definition of a war criminal very accurately, is given a peace prize!

People should be given a peace prize not on the basis of promises they have
made - as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises - but on the basis of
actual accomplishments towards ending war, and Obama has continued deadly,
inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Nobel peace committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to
some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and
rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history.

***

http://www.alternet.org/story/143192/michael_moore:_congratulations_president_obama_on_the_nobel_peace_prize_--_now_please_earn_it!

Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn
it!

By Michael Moore,
AlterNet. October 9, 2009

In a letter to Obama, Moore writes, "The irony that you have been awarded
this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of our War in Afghanistan is not
lost on anyone."


Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your
swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the
troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to
the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in
1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've
eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to
torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more
safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you
have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane
direction.

But...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth
year of our War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a
crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to
result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over,
and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would
do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do --
capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on
9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a
criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a
mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of
Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789,
the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East
Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people
who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom
themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from
the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll
have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such
good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the
feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be
denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would
have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve
this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to
walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the
last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it
is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole
world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet.
Let's not let them down.

Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author. He directed
and produced Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko.
He has also written seven books, most recently, Mike's Election Guide 2008

No comments:

Post a Comment