SEN. ANGUS KING ON SYRIA

Sen. Angus King (Independent-Maine) still has not publicly declared his official position on Syria attack. But today on the way home from New Harbor, Mary Beth and I got a good glimpse of his thinking. He hosted an interview with former Maine Republican Sen. William Cohen, who also served as Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense.

The radio interview was on WGAN's "Inside Maine" show.

During the interview Sen. King said that he'd seen the administration's evidence of Syrian chemical use and that it was "strong but circumstantial".

King agreed with Cohen that the growing "isolationism" inside the Republican party (by the likes of Rand Paul) was problematic.

King said that on his recent trip to Jordan and Turkey, The Arabs (Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Jordan) want us to "quarterback" this thing and that "we should have started that a long time ago".

Cohen and King trashed Vladimir Putin several times with Sen. King calling Putin's recent Op-Ed in the New York Times "A joke". King complained that the Russian leader should not have access to American media like that. You can see Putin's piece here.

King admitted that Al-Qaida forces were mixed in with the so-called Syrian rebels but discounted their overall influence by saying they only made up about 20% of the rebel fighters.

Cohen suggested that Obama should have just attacked Syria and then gone to Congress for discussions after the damage was done. He suggested that the 1998 US four-day Desert Fox attack on Iraq was a model to have followed in this case. Cohen called for the taking out of Syrian military infrastructure, which we know is what Obama wanted to do anyway, as a way to help make it possible for a "rebel" victory in Syria.

King concluded the show by thanking Cohen: "You helped me think it through...I can argue it pretty persuasively either way.....do we have to authorize the strike to make the negotiation possible?"

Cohen agreed that this was the strategy to pursue as long as there was a short leash on the timeline to get rid of chemicals. It appears that the Obama administration will pursue this line - a new Congressional resolution giving Syria and Russia a very limited time to act coupled with permission to bomb if that arbitrary "red line" timeline is not met.

So it seems clear to me that King will pursue this path to allow limited diplomacy and give permission for military strikes.

MANY TO THANK

In the days following Obama’s recent request to Congress to “delay a vote” on authorizing his Syria attack many peace groups were sending emails around declaring victory.  In many respects it was right for people to celebrate the fact that the House of Representatives was going to resoundingly defeat Obama’s “red line” military strategy.  Even the vote in the Senate was becoming more contested than anyone ever imagined possible.  Here in Maine our Republican Sen. Susan Collins, always a loyal supporter of the Pentagon and endless war, came out against the Obama Syria plan.  That indicated something larger than normal was happening.

But the left must be fair before we quickly declare this as our victory.  The truth is that during the Obama administration’s time in office, the peace movement across the US has been a weak and fading shell of what it was prior to George W. Bush’s “shock and awe” attack of Iraq in 2003.  Since Obama took office he has successfully demobilized the peace movement and other progressive organizations, as legions of “liberals” who once declared themselves peaceniks have taken their protest signs and their peace group memberships back home and locked them up in a closet.

In recent months, as Obama’s rhetoric and CIA-directed war against Syria escalated, these same liberals have been reluctant to emerge from their self-imposed isolation.  The powerful Democratic Party front-group MoveOn was slow to jump into the Syria issue, only deciding to poll their online members during the last two weeks.  By that time it appeared that an Obama attack on Syria was inevitable.

By the time MoveOn, and some other liberal organizations, got into the Syria issue there had already been significant efforts underway by some right-wing forces to organize against an attack.  Amazingly we heard Republicans in Congress sounding very much like left wing anti-war activists in their opposition to an attack.  Right-wing radio “shock jocks” like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage were correctly opposing the attack for reasons very similar to ours – it was illegal, dangerous, destabilizing, too expensive, would be wrongly supporting terrorist groups like Al-Qaida and their principle funders the Saudi Arabian “royalty”.

It is obvious that grassroots right-wing opposition to a Syria attack was paying off in Congress.  Leading anti-war Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) was reporting that Republicans were 10-1 opposed, while Democrats in the House of Representatives were 4-1 in opposition. 

Certainly, some of this opposition by Republicans was part of their long-time anti-Obama strategy.  But it would be wrong to conclude that was the primary motivation for their strong opposition.  I saw enough interviews of ordinary American citizens from conservative communities who were saying, “We can’t afford these endless wars.  Our communities are falling apart.  We can’t keep doing this.”  Their conservative representatives in Congress were hearing these messages loud and clear.

We should embrace those messages and those who spoke them – no matter what political party they belong to.  We also have to give conservatives credit when they have in the past harshly critiqued the traditional liberal base for not standing against wars when Democrats are in power with the same ferocity as they have when guys like Bush-Cheney ran the government.

So in my mind this initial victory has been a win for all the American people.  It’s not only a victory for the left, or the peace movement, per se.  We could not have slowed down Obama’s drive for a dangerous and destabilizing attack on Syria without the solid support of the right wing across the nation. We should be quick to acknowledge that.

I for one see this as something to build on.  I would hope that people from the left and right have learned important lessons from this current episode.  Clearly it is in the interest of all the people that we put a leash on the war appetite of the military industrial complex.  Hopefully all of us can better understand that on foreign policy issues “we the people” must reign in the corporate dominated military empire whose interests are not in alignment with those of the general public. 

Hopefully the nation develops more confidence in itself from this remarkable display of people’s power. We are going to need each other as this battle is far from over.

THE FORGOTTEN

The world marks the 12th anniversary of 9/11. RT's Anastasia Churkina meets with first responders who feel abandoned by the system, and share their personal struggles of fighting illnesses while they wait for compensation that they are no closer to receiving over a decade after the tragedy.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING, RIGHT?

Yeah, come on Putin, you gotta believe that the US-NATO first-strike "missile defense" system now being deployed to surround Russia and China is really aimed at Iran!

What's wrong with you Putin?  Don't you trust Obama when he says it is not aimed at Russia.

Putin has an Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday entitled "A Plea for Caution From Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria".  See it here

AT PEMAQUID

 I made this cairn (on the left) while at Pemaquid Point the other day.....actually quite fun.

ANOTHER MAINE PEACE VIGIL

A WAY OUT OF THE DARKNESS?

HELP OBAMA PAY FOR HIS WARS!?!?!

FROM NEW HARBOR, MAINE

THE INSIDE STORY

The Wall Street Journal recently revealed new details about how Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud — Saudi’s former ambassador to the United States — is leading the effort to prop up the Syrian rebels. Intelligence agents from Saudi Arabia, the United States, Jordan and other allied states are working at a secret joint operations center in Jordan to train and arm hand-picked Syrian rebels.

The Journal also reports Prince Bandar has been jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the Élysée Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime. "Really what he’s doing is he’s reprising a role that he played in the 1980s when he worked with the Reagan administration to arrange money and arms for mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and also worked with the CIA in Nicaragua to support the Contras," says Wall Street Journal reporter Adam Entous. "So in many ways this is a very familiar position for Prince Bandar, and it’s amazing to see the extent to which veterans of the CIA were excited to see him come back because, in the words of a diplomat who knows Bandar, he brings the Arabic term wasta, which means under-the-table clout. You know his checks are not going to bounce and that he’ll be able to deliver the money from the Saudis."

SUNDAY SONG - A DAY EARLY

I'm going away today on a long planned week-long vacation to an ocean cottage north of here.  Bad timing I know, my heart is divided. 

Please do all you can in the coming days to stop this new war.

VICTORY IN BRITAIN

Recent protest in Britain.  Rejoice rejoice.

UPCOMING PROTESTS AT BIW

There are going to be two protests at Bath Iron Works (BIW) here in Maine during the month of October.  The first will be on Saturday, October 5 from 11:30 am to 12:30.  That vigil will be part of Keep Space for Peace Week and will be held on Washington Street in Bath.

The second, and likely larger protest, will be held on Saturday, October 19 during the "christening" of the Navy's first Zumwalt class "stealth" destroyer, DDG-1000.  This protest will come at the end of the Maine Drone Peace Walk and will be from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and will be held on the corner of Washington Street and Hinckley Street.  Just across the street from this spot many people will be lining up to enter BIW for the "christening" ceremony.  Yes indeed it is a sacrilege and presumptuous to give the blessing of Christ (the Prince of Peace) to a first-strike killing warship.

Long-time noted peace and justice activist Kathy Kelly will be on the last couple of days of the drone peace walk and will speak at the BIW protest.

The Associated Press has reported,  “A super-stealthy destroyer that could underpin the U.S. Navy’s China strategy will be able to sneak up on coastlines virtually undetected and pound targets with electromagnetic ‘rail guns’ right out of a sci-fi movie.  Using electric pulses, not chemical explosives, the ‘rail gun’ can shoot a 40-pound metal slug from New York to Philadelphia at up to 5,600 mph — more than seven times the speed of sound — with 32 times the force of a car traveling at 100 miles per hour."

The new stealthy DDG-1000 being built by General Dynamics in Bath will cost between $4-7 billion each.  The Navy did not actually want the destroyer because it would eat up too much of their shipbuilding budget.  But Obama, who was strongly supported in his run for president in 2008 by the Chicago-based Crown family (which are majority stockholders in General Dynamics), has insisted the ships be built.  

Previous versions of Navy destroyers, outfitted with ‘missile defense’ systems cost about  $1.5 billion each.

These protests will be sponsored by Maine Veterans for Peace, the Smilin' Trees Disarmament Farm, Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home, CodePink Maine, and the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND WATCHING THIS INTERVIEW

Given what we know about what's going on in Syria, is a U.S. response justified? And if we take action, where and when does it stop? In this segment with guest host Phil Donahue, historian and analyst strong Andrew Bacevich is asking those questions.

LEST WE FORGET

The police move priests and nuns to make a way for buses loaded with conservative and pro-base church followers who are increasingly being brought to the Jeju naval base sight in order to build support.  One might consider this a compliment of sorts when you consider that solidarity for the Gangjeong village struggle is growing in South Korea and around the world and the right-wing government feels it must increase support for their destruction of the village.

I wonder if the hearts of any of the conservative church people were touched when they saw the cement being poured over the sacred rocky coastline and the dredging of the seabed that is killing the already endangered soft coral reefs?  How could they not be moved by the humble protest at the front gate?

The Jeju Island navy base is a key element in Obama's other war front as we witness the global expansion of the US military empire.  The current US-NATO global war, on behalf of corporate capital, is being played out in the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. Just imagine the $$$$ being wasted by all this militarization.

OBAMA ESCALATES PLANNING FOR ATTACK

It's another version of "shock and awe"..... if Obama strikes Syria it will be to take out their airfields, missile sites, command and control centers, troop compounds and more.  The civilian casualties will be high.

Obama wants to decimate the Syrian military in order to allow the Al-Qaida led "rebels" a clear path to victory.  Make no mistake, if Obama launches this attack it will not be a "limited strike" - it will be an all out blast of US military firepower.

These Navy destroyers outlined in this video are built here in Bath, Maine.

"WE ARE GETTING CRUSHED WITH CALLS"

I rode with friend Regis Tremblay to Augusta, Maine today to join other members of Veterans For Peace (VFP) in a meeting with the staff of Sen. Angus King (I-ME).  The first thing we heard from staff person Scott Wilkinson was, "We are getting crushed with calls."

Edie Smith, King's state director, was more specific.  On Tuesday this week they got 1,200 calls to their Maine office, on Wednesday 900 calls, and on Thursday 1,500 calls.  Who knows how many calls today will bring?  Smith had to be coaxed to say that the "majority of the calls were against" Obama's attack on Syria.  After further coaxing she acknowledged that the calls were 90% against the war plan.

We asked what the senator's position was on the attack and Smith told us that he is "currently undecided" and is gathering information and looking forward to the debate on the senate floor.  The vote is now likely to happen next Wednesday.

One thing that caught my attention was when King's top Maine aide Smith said with pride that the senator was "in the inner circle" of decision makers on foreign policy issues.  To claim that as a source of pride, knowing that the "inner circle" in Washington DC is full of agents of the military industrial complex, is enough to give most anyone pause.

VFP founding member Doug Rawlings told King's representatives that, "VFP is totally opposed to intervention in another country's affairs.  The attack will be the beginning of a long war.  We find it awfully ironic and tragic that we'd be supporting and arming Al-Qaida."

Current Maine VFP President Richard Clements shared the story about when his own son was in Iraq during the Bush war.  He said that he is "always watching to see the possible impact of depleted uranium (DU) on my son" who participated in the shelling of Fallujah.  Today in that city legions of babies are being born with severe cases of genetic mutations.

As my contribution to the discussion I said it was the height of hypocrisy for the US to be lecturing the world about poison gas when we are the only country that has used atomic weapons, Agent Orange in Vietnam, DU in the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990's and again in the Kosovo War and then more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ridgely Fuller told King's staffers, "There are no jobs in Maine, we need to be taking care of our own people...we can't keep doing this."

Vietnam veteran Dud Hendrick said, "I felt betrayed by the lies in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria."

When I got home from the meeting I checked my emails and found a link to an Op-Ed in the Washington Post.  Written by Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general and former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, the piece is headlined "A war the Pentagon doesn't want".  Speaking about military personnel he has been talking with, Scales writes, "They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense.... They are outraged by the fact that what may happen is an act of war and a willingness to risk American lives to make up for a slip of the tongue about 'red lines'.... Our people lament our loneliness.... They are tired of wannabe soldiers who remain enamored of the lure of bloodless machine warfare."

We made the case to Sen. King's staff that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents don't support this war.  He has political cover if he truly listens to the voters in Maine.  But the lure of power and being a part of the "inner circle" in Washington is strong.  Deals can be cut that would ensure more Pentagon largesse for our state.

What is clear is that the American people are presently in a state of political revolt.  They know that the country is being hollowed out and that we can't afford these endless wars.  They don't trust the system or the politicians anymore.  Sen. King's vote will either make him a hero in the eyes of the people or will completely tarnish his political legacy.

You can help by letting your member of Congress know how you feel.  Do it soon - we are running out of time.

Call 202-224-3121.

BAN THE BASE CONFERENCE COVERAGE

Here is belated coverage of the Ban the Bases international conference held in the Philippines last July.

OBAMA'S NEW FRIENDS

TIF OF THE ICEBERG - ROUND 2

Bath Iron Works in Maine is owned by General Dynamics Corporation

Last night I attended the city council meeting in Bath, Maine where they held their second "workshop" about another TIF (Tax Increment Financing) request by Bath Iron Works (BIW).

Because the workshop would not allow public comments four people who oppose the tax break for the $33 billion weapons corporation spoke during the public comment period at the start of the meeting.  One local resident told the story of one top General Dynamics executive who recently got a $60 million compensation package for just one year.  The same Bath resident talked about how his street is unexpectedly being torn up because the sewer system in the city is falling apart.  The city, which has a municipal budget of less than $15 million per year, can't afford to tackle the whole sewer system at once so is just putting our fires as they happen.

The workshop did not begin until all other city business was finished which meant it did not get underway until 10:00 pm.  By that time everyone who had arrived for the 6:00 pm meeting was long gone.  I was the only person from the public left when the workshop started.

The corporate lawyer for BIW, Jon Fitzgerald, began the workshop with a head-spinning fast paced ramble through a dense PowerPoint presentation.  I tried to take notes but could not keep up.  I asked for a paper copy of the BIW presentation but was told there were none - even for the city councilors.  Even though the public is not allowed to speak during council "workshops" I insisted that an open public process should allow for real information.  The city manager then wavered and asked BIW to make copies available to the public at the city clerk's office.

One thing I did pick up on in Fitzgerald's presentation was that from the Navy on down they are talking about squeezing everyone.  They (BIW) are squeezing the workers by announcing there will be no pay raises for about 18 months. They are laying off more workers.  While collecting signatures at the polls last week (during a special state senate election) one BIW worker who signed the petition opposing the corporate tax break said she was doing the work of "three people now".  They are squeezing the city and taxpayers here in Bath.  Who is not being squeezed?  The General Dynamics executives and shareholders.  Corporate profits trump everything else.

Fitzgerald went on alot about all the tax breaks that the Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi is getting.  One example he had in his PowerPoint jumped out at me.  It was a couple hundred thousand dollars in Hurricane Katrina relief Community Development Block Grant that Mississippi handed over to Ingalls. So money from the federal government directly to help poor communities rebuild after the hurricane was diverted for corporate welfare.

My feeling is that as the federal budget crisis grows, and some cuts happen to the Pentagon budget, the weapons corporations new strategy is to squeeze harder local and state governments (who are already strapped and are in fiscal crisis) in order to keep their profits at the highest level possible. They have no real concern for local conditions.  And the whole Ingalls-BIW "competition" feels like two professional wrestlers snarling at each other with the microphone inside the ring before the match begins where they crank the audience up. It's all a great show but usually scripted.

In Mississippi the city of Pascagoula recently granted Ingals a big tax break.  Here is a quote from an Ingals shipyard representative:  "In this day of shrinking budgets, we need every bit of help we can to keep our shipyard competitive and bring it back to being known as America's shipyard," he said. Almost the exact same words were heard last night from BIW at city hall here in Bath.

I was forced to leave the city council meeting at 10:45 pm because they went into "executive session".  The city manager seemed eager to get them to show their commitment to BIW.  The whole thing felt forced and hurried.  City Councilor Carolyn Lockwood (one of the few to ask a question) said she did not really understand TIF's and felt these late night meetings were not conducive to real public participation.  I sent her an email this morning thanking her for speaking up honestly in the meeting and she responded.  In her email she said, "Thanks Bruce and thanks for staying until that late hour. As you know, I wanted to move the workshop to a time that would be more productive for everyone. I lost that vote. This is a really important issue that many people know little about, or they think they know about it. I was hoping that last night's workshop would be a TIF 101 lesson, especially with our TIF attorney present. I do know some things about TIFs but this discussion was moving at such a pace that unless you worked with TIFs on a daily basis, there was no way you could keep up. The hard part about TIFs is that each one is different and what you think you know about one can be totally different for the next."

It's quite sad that our city government appears to fear having an accessible public process where BIW must provide us all with real pertinent information about their request for tax "relief".  As it turns out they are requesting, on top of $197 million in past tax breaks, another $250,000 each year for the next 25 years.  That kind of money would go a long way in our city for fixing our sewer system, our roads, and funding our schools.

It was not at all clear to me what the next steps in the process will be.  I don't even think the city council knew as of last night at 10:45pm. I've not heard, and maybe never will, because what happened in the "executive session" is not required to be public.  My guess is that BIW used the time to scare the city council with threats of moving the shipyard if they don't get their way.