{news} From Cynthia McKinney: Mr. President, Give Us a Clean Break from War"

Mon Jan 26 13:21:08 EST 2009

----- Original Message -----

From: "Brent McMillan"
To: "national comm affairs"
Subject: [usgp-dx] From Cynthia McKinney: Mr. President, Give Us a Clean
Break from War"
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:01:08 -0500

Cynthia McKinney
Statement on Obama Actions Thus Far re Gaza

"Mr. President: Give Us a Clean Break from War"

In a message to President Obama today, former Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney wrote:

"It is time that the United States negotiate in good faith with
Hamas, the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It
is also time that the U.S. government tell Israel to release the
Hamas Parliamentarians it illegally arrested. President Obama,
please say something about Gaza. You have been roundly condemned
for your continued silence in the face of war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza. Silence is
complicity. Not one more bomb for Israel."

Israeli action in Gaza has outraged the world. Starting with
Israel's inhumane blockade of Gaza when it didn't like the 2006
election results that put Hamas officially into power. In
September 2007, Israel declared Gaza an "enemy entity." Of course,
Israeli efforts to isolate the Gaza Strip can be traced back to
Ariel Sharon as early as 2005. In carrying out its military
Operation Cast Lead, Israel not only committed war crimes and
crimes against humanity, it also carried out a long-standing goal
of Gaza isolation. The President's continued silence on Gaza and
the Palestinian right of self-determination is unacceptable.

I would like to commend President Obama for recognizing that peace
is the imperative and that the United States can play a
constructive role in its attainment. However, placing a phone call
to an irrelevant "leader" in an attempt to revive his political
standing is not a route to peace: it is a journey down the same
road that we're already on, that is massacres, genocide, war
crimes, crimes against humanity, torture--all with U.S. weapons,
paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

The President must call the elected representatives of the
Palestinian people and that means dealing with Hamas.

President Obama has already spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert. George Mitchell, the President's Middle East Envoy, is
reportedly scheduled to visit the region, but is expected to meet
only with Egyptian, Israeli, Saudi, and Jordanian leaders, and the
West Bank's Abbas. Unfortunately, despite worldwide revulsion and
United Nations outrage at Israeli actions in Gaza, Gaza has not
been reported to be one of the Presidential Envoy's destinations.

Even worse, one of the first officials that Obama called on his
first day in office was Palestinian Mahmood Abbas. Abbas, however,
is no longer President, heading a government that has no
opportunity to govern, from a state that exists only as a construct
not made by the Palestinian people. For the United States to
embark upon the path of peace, it must recognize and act on the
fact that Mahmood Abbas is now irrelevant.

I believe that the call to Abbas occurred because of pressure on
President Obama from outraged activists around the country and
around the world calling for him to do something. But Abbas is
irrelevant if the goal is peace.

If the goal, however, is to appear to be doing something while all
the time doing nothing but allowing the violence of U.S.-sponsored
military action to spread including saber rattling against Syria
and Iran, then the President is on the right path.

The American people voted for change and peace. President Obama's
current path will produce neither.

I have implored President Obama to say something about Gaza. He
has been roundly condemned for his continued silence in the face of
war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza.
Silence in the face of such criminal behavior is complicity.

President Obama must urgently place a call to the elected
government of the Palestinian people.

President Obama can send a strong message to the warmongers inside
his own party and present them "a clean break" from war. I
encourage him to do so. We will not be fooled by actions that have
the appearance of putting us on a path for peace, but that are
public relations projects that buy time for more war.

To activists and human rights lawyers around the world I say: Now
is not the time to let up. We must be unrelenting in our pressure
for justice and recognition of the rights of all peoples embodied
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those rights include
the right not to be occupied. And the right to resist occupation.
This is the embodiment of self-determination. And the Palestinian
people are holders of these rights.

It is time that the United States negotiate in good faith with
Hamas, because it is the legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people. It is also time that the U.S. government tell
Israel to release the Hamas Parliamentarians it illegally arrested.

While the United States Government spends precious resources to
imprison Palestinians in the United States who attempted to
ameliorate the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, I will attempt
another trip to Gaza to assess the depth of the worsened
humanitarian catastrophe now there.

I have repeatedly called on the President to ask for and the
Congress to vote not one more bomb, not one more dime for the
Israeli war machine.

# # # #

_______________________________________________
Natlcomaffairs mailing list
To send a message to the list, write to:
Natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org
To unsubscribe or change your list options, go to:
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/natlcomaffairs

You must know your password to do this.

If you can't figure out how to
unsubscribe, as a last resort only,
send a message OFF LIST to
steveh at olypen.com

If your state delegation changes, please see:
http://gp.org/committees/nc/documents/delegate_change.html

To report violations of listserv protocol, write to
forummanagers at lists.gp-us.org

For other information about the National Committee, see:
http://gp.org/committees/nc/

******************************************
Tim McKee, Manchester CT, main number cell-860-778-1304, 860-643-2282
 National Committee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
BLOG-http://thebiggreenpicture.blogspot.com

-- 
Be Yourself @ mail.com!
Choose From 200+ Email Addresses
Get a Free Account at www.mail.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/private/ctgp-news/attachments/20090126/bfa6e4ac/attachment.html>