[pjw] REPORT BACK: Fake False Flag News: Friday rally #98 since stay-at-home orders

[Peace and Justice Works]

Hello Iraq Affinity Group supporters

Last night at the Friday Rally for Peace and Justice, nine of us gathered 
and received a lot of thumbs up for our signs, which again included "no 
war on Russia" among them. There was one new attendee and a person who 
often stops by but usually never takes a sign or stays for the rally. The 
former didn't walk the whole march, the latter did so. We've now had five 
weeks without rain-- though I should be careful about saying these things 
out loud.

I was able to announce today's noon rally at Ron Wyden's office that I 
sent info about a few days ago, urging no war on Russia. On that note, 
here are news headlines we talked about:

--An Associated Press reporter pushed back on the White House claims of a 
Russian "false flag" operation, demanding proof and saying "I remember the 
[non-existent] Iraqi weapons of mass destruction":

  https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/04/i-remember-wmds-iraq-reporter-calls-out-us-official-russian-intel-claims

--As noted in yesterday's email, President Biden sent special forces into 
Syria to assassinate an Islamic State leader, which ended with at least 
six (oops, I wrote "sis" in the headline) children dead.

  https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/03/6-children-reportedly-killed-during-us-raid-syria

--The US says that because Iran could build a nuclear weapon in less than 
a year (something they have been claiming for 20 years, by the way) 
there's more urgency in completing the revived nuclear deal:

  https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sees-irans-nuclear-program-as-too-advanced-to-restore-key-goal-of-2015-pact-11643882545

---On the bright side, the US has reversed a Trump-era policy that blocked 
countries from working at Iran's nuclear sites:

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/4/biden-administration-restores-sanctions-waiver-to-iran

--For some reason, the United States is allowed to dictate to other 
countries whether they can send humanitarian aid money to Afghanistan; 
though they have now ok'd such transfers, there's still no talk of the US 
releasing the $9 Billion Afghan dollars locked in US banks.

  https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-02/u-s-advice-to-banks-ok-to-transfer-aid-money-to-afghanistan

--While Biden says he wants to stop the war in Yemen, the US has sent jets 
and warships to the United Arab Emirates declaring there's a new "threat" 
to their security (despite them having bought tons of US weapons):

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/2/us-to-send-destroyer-fighter-jets-to-uae-amid-houthi-attacks

--In Iraq, Turkey has established military bases inside Iraq's borders, in 
their efforts to squash Kurdish independence fighters, which is a 
violation of sovereignty. I'm not sure why nobody has stopped this.

  https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/310120222

In local news, a report came out this past week from a group investigating 
possible political and racial bias in the Portland Police Bureau. The way 
I'm reading the news about this, it says "this animal has a beak, a tail, 
webbed feet and quacks but we can't definitively say it is a duck."

  https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2022/01/31/38150660/resentment-unaddressed-bias-and-leadership-failures-report-unpacks-flaws-within-ppb-culture

Along the march route people were encouraged when I announced that Amnesty 
International, one of the world's preeminent human rights organizations, 
has checked Israel's treatment of Palestinians against the legal 
definition and declared it is an Apartheid state, a crime against humanity

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/1/israel-carrying-out-apartheid-against-palestinians-amnesty

(Side note: Amnesty doesn't consider war a crime against humanity but 
monitors possible violations of laws about warfare. Nobody's perfect.)

As we got to back to the Square, I called attention to a new article in 
the Nation, which isn't really news but talks about the Pentagon and arms 
industry's big boost of money in 2021, referring to the funding bill as 
weapons we don't need at prices we can't afford:

  https://www.thenation.com/article/world/weapons-spending-pentagon-2021/

This week the Ann Huntwork Peace Memorial Sign froze up outside the Gucci 
store but stayed lit up until we rounded the corner and got halfway up the 
next block, by the Apple store. Corporations don't like scrolling digital 
messages for peace I guess.

At the very end I was able to announce our Friday March 18 event about 19 
years since the US invasion of Iraq; a flyer will be available soon and 
I'll send out a separate email. In the meantime if you want to put it 
on your calendar or share out the info here's the link:

Remembering the Devastating US Invasion of Iraq 19 Years Later
https://pjw.info/iraq19yl.html

We're still at the corner of SW Yamhill and Broadway every week at 5 PM, 
if you are comfortable joining us, masked up and distanced, please do so!

peace
--dan handelman
peace and justice works iraq affinity group