City of Olympia Nuclear Free Zone Act Repeal

The Olympia City Council just voted to repeal the 2005 Nuclear Free Zone Act. It seems that the City of Olympia no longer feels that it is important, or appropriate, to legislate against the nuclear weapons establishment. There were many arguments in opposition to the repeal, and many similar arguments in favor of retaining the ordinance. Many people turned out to express their opinion. I wasn't counting, but it seemed like there were about 40 who went on record in support of retaining the ordinance. There were exactly two people at the meeting who expressed approval for repealing ordinance.

Wow. I was shocked when I heard of the motion to recommend repealing the ordinance. Now I am shocked again by the seemingly sudden decision to repeal. Let me say to make it plain and clear that it is my opinion that the Council Members did not adequately address the arguments of the citizens whom were gathered to express opposition to the repeal.

The meeting got underway at about seven. There were a few items of business before public comment. And an interesting matter of note occurred before public comment. Two Council Members spoke up to express their concern over the new council's practice of limiting public comment to 30 minutes. With two contentious issues (the noise ordinance was also on the agenda to be decided) on the meeting agenda tonight, there were a lot of people who wanted to speak. Many people were turned away at the door, told that they would not be allowed into the council chambers.

Frankly, I am in shock. This new council seems bent on changing Olympia. It's not [only] the repeal. It's the special maneuvering to enter the motion to repeal on the consent calendar (i.e. to pass it without discussion). It's the Council Members' inadequate rebuttals of their constituency's statements of support for the ordinance. It's a lot of things.

I have a lot to say about this and I will probably write more. You may have already read the letter I sent to the Council last week. I also provided oral testimony at tonight's meeting, and submitted a written version of that testimony. Maybe I will post a copy of that tomorrow, but hopefully that will show up in the public record in relation to tonight's decision to repeal the NFZ ordinance. This meeting will definitely provide for your entertainment. It was riveting at many points. Almost non-stop great testimony, so much eloquence on the part of citizens for a City Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons.

I seriously wonder what is going on. What is going on with Olympia? I am pretty much ready to wonder if our Council Members are serving the public interest.

One of the things that Mayor Mah said is that if the people who support the NFZA ordinance were to put as much energy into it at the national level, that he thinks something might come of it. All I have to say is that believe me. Our elected officials at the national level are not hearing this argument. Nor are they interested in establishing a nuclear free zone. That's why the local aspect is important.

If enough localities take important stands against the immoral and unethical manufacture and maintenance of nuclear weapons, then it makes it more possible for those at the national and international levels to take action. This is about principled leadership. This is about setting an example. This is about empowerment, and education. This is about knowledge, and awareness. This is about respect for history and a desire to see a better tomorrow - to create a better world. A world that is rid of the subtle yet pervasive looming threat of nuclear Armageddon.

Lots of emotion. Lots more rebuttals. This is a rough draft. I am going to publish it now. But know, please, that there is a lot more. I want answers. I want to be represented.

Public officials at the national level are not doing their job. They are not promoting the important tasks of nonproliferation and disarmament. Instead of doing those things, they are actually using the threat of nuclear weapons to intimidate their adversaries. Hardly fulfilling the public interest. For three years we had representation at the local level here in the City of Olympia. Now this. Sad. Shocking. To whom or what can we now turn for representation on this important issue?

You'll be able to find a link to a page with a link to video of the meeting at this page: City of Olympia Council

Here's a more direct link to the video: City of Olympia September 9, 2008 City Council Meeting Video

plain url (maybe subject to change): http://olympia.granicus.com/mediaplayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=386

[This move has aspects that are reminiscent of shock doctrine.]

[updated september 10th, 2008]

Nuclear Free Zone Olympia

I just published a letter that I sent to the City Council of Olympia Washington in regard to the Nuclear Free Zone Act of 2005: olyblog.net/what-nfza-means-me

Still Looking for WMD in Iraq

Why did the US invade Iraq? Wasn't it because Iraq posed a threat to US National Security via WMD? Well no WMD has been found in over four years of occupation. The chances of finding a significant enough cache that might have threatened the US is getting smaller by the day.

We already heard (via the Downing Street Memo) how the facts were being fixed to the policy of invading Iraq. It looks more and more like WMD was simply one of those "facts" that grew out of a fiction. And it was used, in violation of the public trust, to justify invading Iraq. In that light, the invasion was an attack - an aggressive invasion - an belligerent act of war.

Hideous. Read about the continuing mission to discover WMD in Iraq:

go to original

Though Work Is Seen as Irrelevant, Security Council Can't Agree to End It

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 2, 2007; A01

UNITED NATIONS -- More than four years after the fall of Baghdad, the United Nations is spending millions of dollars in Iraqi oil money to continue the hunt for Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Every weekday, at a secure commercial office building on Manhattan's East Side, a team of 20 U.N. experts on chemical and biological weapons pores over satellite images of former Iraqi weapons sites. They scour the international news media for stories on Hussein's deadly arsenal. They consult foreign intelligence agencies on the status of Iraqi weapons. And they maintain a cadre of about 300 weapons experts from 50 countries and prepare them for inspections in Iraq -- inspections they will almost certainly never conduct, in search of weapons that few believe exist.

The inspectors acknowledge that their chief task -- disarming Iraq -- was largely fulfilled long ago. But, they say, their masters at the U.N. Security Council have been unable to agree to either shut down their effort or revise their mandate to make their work more relevant. Russia insists that Iraq's disarmament must be formally confirmed by the inspectors, while the United States vehemently opposes a U.N. role in Iraq, saying coalition inspectors have already done the job.

"I recognize this is unhealthy," said Dimitri Perricos, a Greek weapons expert who runs the team, known as the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and manages its $10 million annual budget. But, he added, "we are not the ones who are holding the purse; the one who is holding the purse is the council."

There was a time when the work of U.N. weapons inspectors on Iraq was the stuff of front-page news and impassioned speeches by world leaders. President Bush even argued that Hussein's refusal to cooperate with U.N. inspectors offered legal backing for the 2003 invasion.

But the inspectors' primary mission -- ridding Hussein's regime of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons -- has become irrelevant since a U.S.-led coalition toppled the Iraqi leader and discovered that his government had destroyed its most lethal weapons shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"The reality on the ground is there is no WMD there," said Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector who published the landmark 2004 report of the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, which concluded that Iraq's weapons had been destroyed. "I think they understand the distance their work is from reality."
...

Terrorism and Iraq

The connection between Iraq and Terrorism is one that is a figment of the war hawk's propaganda machine. It is a cleverly and insidiously conceived fabrication - that the reason for the US military occupation of Iraq is due to the threat of terrorism.

We have to remember, and keep it in the forefront, that it has been (and is) the actions of the USA that have turned Iraq into a hotbed of "terrorism" (in quotes because it is arguable that the situation in Iraq involves freedom fighters who oppose occupation by a foreign invading force.)

*Important: Iraq posed no credible or immediate threat of terrorism or terroristic actions prior to the March 2003 unilateral decision by the USA (i.e. Bush Administration) to invade.

Also Important: the invasion contravened explicit demands in the UN charter that require security council authorization - or the credible and immediate threat to national security. Neither of these conditions were met prior to the invasion.

Iraq posed no threat to national security. Therefore the invasion was illegal. Therefore the occupation is illegal.

A Principled and Patriotic Call for Withdrawal from Iraq

A soldier's statement relating to his signing of An Appeal for Redress (a petition for withdrawal from Iraq):

"Sgt. Gary"--21 years old. US Army. Deployed with 20th Infantry Regiment, near Mosul, Iraq:

I joined up in 2001, still a junior in high school. I felt very patriotic at the end of my US History class. My idea of the Army was that you signed up, they gave you a rifle and you ran off into battle like in some 1950s war movie. The whole idea of boot camp never really entered my head.

I supported the war in the beginning. I bought everything Bush said about how Saddam had WMDs, how he was working with Al Qaeda, how he was a threat to America. Of course, this all turned out to be false.

This is my second tour, and as of a few days ago it's half-over. Before I deployed with my unit for the second time I already had feelings of not wanting to go. When in late September a buddy in my platoon died from a bullet in the head, I really took a long hard look at this war, this Administration, and the reasons why.

After months of research on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that this war was based on lies and deception. I started to break free of all the propaganda that the Bush Administration and the Army puts out on a daily basis.

So far in three years we have succeeded in toppling a dictator and replacing him with puppets. Outlawing the old government and its standing army and replacing them with an unreliable and poorly trained crew of paycheck collectors. The well is so poisoned by what we have done here that nothing can fix it.

Sgt. Gary: Thank you for your principled stand. You do honor to your profession, your country, and most importantly - yourself.

Tony Blair Implicated in Iraq War Fraud

Damning information:

Diplomat's Suppressed Document Lays Bare the Lies Behind Iraq War
By Colin Brown and Andy McSmith
The Independent UK

Friday 15 December 2006

The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

...

Here's a link.