Hungering for a True Thanksgiving

By Amy Goodman

“In the next 60 seconds, 10 children will die of hunger,” says a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) online video. It continues, “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry.”

The WFP launched the Billion for a Billion campaign this week, urging the 1 billion people who use the Internet to help the billion who are hungry. But if you think that hunger is far from our shores, here is some food for thought ... and action: The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report Monday stating that in 2008 one in six households in the U.S. was “food insecure,” the highest number since the figures were first gathered in 1995.

Economist Raj Patel, author of “Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System,” told me he was “gobsmacked” by the U.S. hunger numbers, which he finds appalling: “The reason that we have this huge increase in hunger in the United States, as around the world, isn’t because there isn’t enough food around. Actually, we produced a pretty reliable solid crop last year. ... The reason people go hungry is because of poverty.”

In addition to the online campaign, the United Nations is hosting the World Summit on Food Security in Rome this week, hoping to unite world leaders on the cause of eliminating hunger. Patel remarked on the U.N. summit, “They’re making all the right sounds about hunger around the world, but as some of the activists outside that summit are saying, poor people can’t eat promises.”

Almost 700 people from 93 countries, many of whom are small-scale food producers, have gathered outside the U.N. summit. They are there in behalf of the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum, and they are pushing for small-scale, organic, sustainable food-sovereignty and food-security programs, as opposed to large-scale agribusiness with its dependence on genetically modified organisms and chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Michelle Obama said last March when planting the White House’s organic kitchen garden, “It is so important for them [children] to get regular fruits and vegetables in their diets, because it does have nutrients, it does make you strong, it is all brain food.” The first lady of the U.S. made the point that a homegrown, organic garden is a sustainable and affordable way to strengthen family food security.

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This has led some to wonder, then, why her husband has appointed Islam Siddiqui to be the U.S. chief agricultural negotiator. Siddiqui is currently vice president for science and regulatory affairs for CropLife America, the main pesticide industry trade association. According to the Pesticide Action Network of North America, “This position will enable him to keep pushing chemical pesticides, inappropriate biotechnologies, and unfair trade arrangements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.” It was CropLife’s mid-America division that circulated an e-mail to industry members after Michelle Obama’s garden announcement, saying, “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator, and I shudder.”

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, engaged in a 24-hour hunger strike over the weekend, before the food security summit kicked off. He said in a statement, “We have the technical means and the resources to eradicate hunger from the world so it is now a matter of political will, and political will is influenced by public opinion.” Diouf has estimated that it would take $44 billion per year to end hunger globally, compared with the less than $8 billion pledged recently to that goal. Juxtapose those numbers with the amount being spent by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. has spent on average about $265 million per day in Afghanistan since the invasion of that country in 2001 (which is a much lower estimate than that provided by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and others). Even at that rate, five months of military spending by the U.S. would meet Diouf’s goal, and that would be if the U.S. were the sole contributor.

Consider pausing this Thanksgiving, which for many in the U.S. is a major feast, to reflect on the 10 children who die of hunger every minute, and how your elected officials are spending hundreds of billions in public funds on war.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback.

© 2009 Amy Goodman

Distributed by King Features Syndicate

The War Condolences Obama Hasn’t Sent

By Amy Goodman

U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself. He was just one in what is turning out to be a record year for suicides in the U.S. military.

In August, President Barack Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, saying, “[T]here is nothing more sobering than signing a letter of condolence to the family of [a] serviceman or -woman who has given their life for our country.” To their surprise, Jannett and Gregg Keesling, Chance’s parents, won’t be getting such a letter. Obama does not write condolence letters to loved ones of those who commit suicide in the theater of combat. [After making inquiries, the Keeslings discovered that this was not because of an oversight. Instead, it’s because of a longstanding U.S. policy to deny presidential condolence letters to the families of soldiers who take their own lives.]

Jannett told me: “Chancellor was recruited right out of high school, and this was something he was passionate about, joining the military. I wanted him to go to college, but he said that he wanted to be a soldier.” Gregg added: “We had doubts about him joining. ... When the war broke out in 2003, when many of us were trying to retreat, Chancy decided, ‘This is my duty.’ ... But once he did his first tour ... his marriage broke up during that deployment.”

Chance was very troubled during his first tour of duty in Iraq, although he performed admirably by all accounts. At one point he was put on a suicide watch and had his ammunition taken away for a week. After Iraq, Chance declined a $27,000 reenlistment bonus and transitioned to the U.S. Army Reserves, hoping to avoid another deployment. He sought and was receiving treatment at a Veterans Affairs facility. Gregg said, “We sat down as a family, and we said, ‘President Obama is going to be elected, and President Obama will end this war, and you won’t have to go.’ ” But then his son’s orders to deploy came again.

Current laws prevent transfer of mental health information from active-duty military to the reserves, so Chance’s commanders did not know of his previous struggles. Last June, troubled again, he sent his parents a dire e-mail, mentioning suicide. Jannett recalled: “I spoke to Chancellor the night before he died for about four minutes. And as always, he wore a really tough exterior. ... But what he did tell me that night is that he was going to have a very long, difficult day. His conversation was quite brief. Normally he would say that he loves me, and he would say goodbye. But this time he simply hung up.”

The next morning, Gregg said, Chance “locked himself in the latrine and took his own life, with his M-4 ... our grief is deep. The letter won’t stop [our pain]—we’ll still be hollow inside for the rest of our lives, but the acknowledgment from the president that our son gave his life in service to the causes of the United States is important to us.”

The Pentagon admits to a mounting suicide crisis in its ranks. Numbers of acknowledged suicides have steadily climbed, from fewer than 100 in 2005, by one report, to nearly 200 in 2008, with a like number among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Gregg Keesling said that when he and Jannett went to Dover Air Force Base to greet Chance’s coffin, a master sergeant encouraged him to speak out, saying: “I’m greeting a suicide body almost every day. There’s something going on.”

The Keeslings credit Maj. Gen. Mark Graham with helping them through their grief, and working to reduce the stigma of suicide within the military. One of Graham’s sons committed suicide in 2003, while studying as an Army ROTC cadet in college. His other son, also in the Army, deployed to Iraq months later and was killed by a bomb not long thereafter. But the GI Rights Hotline, which advises active-duty soldiers on options for leaving the military, says outside psychological professionals can help suicidal soldiers obtain a medical discharge: “The military wants to know whether the patient can perform their duties without causing trouble, embarrassment or expense. His or her welfare is distinctly less important.”

The United States is engaged in two intractable, massive military occupations, with no end in sight. Obama should certainly write letters of condolence to the Keeslings and to others whose loved ones have found that the only sure way to end the living hell of war, or to escape the horror of its aftermath, is to kill themselves. But an immediate withdrawal from the wars Obama inherited is the only way to stem the bleeding.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091027_the_war_condolences_obama_hasnt_sent/

Let Us Not Become the Evil We Deplore

By Amy Goodman

On Sept. 14, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives considered House Joint Resolution 64, “To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” The wounds of 9/11 were raw, and the lust for vengeance seemed universal. The House vote was remarkable, relative to the extreme partisanship now in evidence in Congress, since 420 House members voted in favor of the resolution. More remarkable, though, was the one lone vote in opposition, cast by Barbara Lee of San Francisco. Lee opened her statement on the resolution, “I rise today with a heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.” Her emotions were palpable as she spoke from the House floor.

“September 11 changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. ... We must not rush to judgment. Far too many innocent people have already died. Our country is in mourning. If we rush to launch a counterattack, we run too great a risk that women, children and other noncombatants will be caught in the crossfire.”

The Senate also passed the resolution, 98-0, and sent it on to President George W. Bush. What he did with the authorization, and the Iraq War authorization a year later, has become, arguably, the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in United States history. What President Barack Obama will do with Afghanistan is the question now.

On Oct. 7, the U.S. enters its ninth year of occupation of Afghanistan—equal to the time the United States was involved in World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined. Obama campaigned on his opposition to the war in Iraq, but pledged at the same time to escalate the war in Afghanistan. On his first Friday in office, Commander in Chief Obama’s military fired three Hellfire missiles from an unmanned drone into Pakistan, reportedly killing 22 people, mostly civilians, including women and children. He has increased U.S. troops in Afghanistan by more than 20,000, to a total numbering 61,000. This does not count the private contractors in Afghanistan, who now outnumber the troops. The new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is expected to ask for even more troops.

This past August was the deadliest month yet for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with 51 killed, and 2009 is by far the deadliest year, with 200 U.S. troops killed so far. These statistics don’t count the soldiers who commit suicide after returning home, nor those injured, and certainly don’t include the number of Afghans killed. The attacks also are increasing in sophistication, according to recent reports. So it may be no surprise that more comparisons are now being made between Afghanistan and Vietnam.

When asked about the comparison, Obama recently told The New York Times: “You have to learn lessons from history. On the other hand, each historical moment is different. You never step into the same river twice. And so Afghanistan is not Vietnam. ... The dangers of overreach and not having clear goals and not having strong support from the American people, those are all issues that I think about all the time.”

According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll, 57 percent of those asked oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan, reportedly the highest level of opposition since the war began in 2001. Among those polled, 75 percent of Democrats opposed the war, which might explain statements recently from key congressional Democrats against sending more troops to Afghanistan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last Thursday, “I don’t think there’s a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress,” echoing Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Obama said in his health care speech before the joint session of Congress, “The plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years—less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”

President Lyndon Johnson escalated the war in Vietnam and ultimately decided not to run for re-election. But he also passed Medicare, the revered, single-payer health insurance program for seniors. Barbara Lee presciently compared the invasion of Afghanistan to Vietnam in her speech back in 2001 and closed by quoting the Rev. Nathan Baxter, dean of the National Cathedral: “As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.”

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” recently released in paperback.