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A
great new resource about the federal
budget from our friends at National
Priorities Project!
Security
Spending Primer: Getting Smart
About The Pentagon Budget
is now available. The Primer is
a “one-stop-shopping”
resource and has two main goals:
- to
provide comprehensive, easy-to-understand
information on the complexity
of the federal budget process;
and
- to
help build the capacity of people
across the U.S. who want their
voices and their priorities
to be heard in the debate over
federal spending in general
and military spending in particular.
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(We
don't really have anything to add.
We just find it amusing and painful...) |
| The
2009 WAND/WiLL national conference
in Washington DC in early October
was just great!
Visit
our Facebook
page for loads more photos!
(l
to r) State Rep. Becky Edwards
(UT); State Rep. Trisha Beck
(UT); Lily Eskelsen, vice president
of the National Education Association;
State Sen. Nan Grogan Orrock
(GA), WiLL President.
Lily
captivated the crowd with a
rousing speech about women taking
leadership roles and making
positive, progressive change.
She also sang a bit of her folk
song about the CTBT... Remarks
by NEA vice president Lily Eskelsen
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We
honored our WiLL
Pacesetters; and
our outstanding volunteers
who won the Janice
Kelley Award:
Doloris Cogan (l) of Indiana
and Krista Brewer (r) of
Georgia.
See a piece
about Doloris Cogan
in Indiana media. |
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Karen
Jacob, Chair of WAND, represented
the U.S. at the 2009 Northeast
Asian Women's Peace Conference
at George Washington University.
This piece was adapted from
her speech there.
It's
a sound tip for 21st century,
too: Remember the ladies
By
KAREN JACOB | South
Bend Tribune | October 18,
2009
We at WAND are
encouraged by the number of
progressive women President
Obama has seated at the tables
of power, who will be influencing
how our government goes forward
with negotiating peace and reconciliation
between North and South Korea. |
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WAND
is so sad to note the passing
of a tireless longtime activist
in Oregon, Leslie Brockelbank.
We invite you to read more about
her...
Farewell to a Duchess
Leslie Brockelbank remembered
by Aria Seligmann | Eugene
Weekly
 |
Longtime
human rights activist Marion
Malcolm says, “Leslie
was active in the creation
and sustenance of the Oregon
chapter of Women’s
Action for New Directions.
She was a dynamic and tireless
activist for peace and nuclear
disarmament. It is hard
to imagine Oregon WAND without
her.” The WAND booth
at the Eugene Celebration
this year featured a large
display of photos, a tapestry
and a wooden chair that
was one of Brockelbank’s
favorites. |
“She
lived a purpose-driven life,”
says WAND member Kathy Kirsh,
who made the tapestry. “She
kept the focus that we as individuals
can really make a difference.”
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 |
UN
Report: October 2009
by Sayre Sheldon, WAND representative
on the NGO Working Group
for Women, Peace and Security
October
2009 report | View all
Sayre's UN reports here. |
The
President debuts at the U.N.
by Sayre Sheldon, WAND representative
on the NGO Working Group for
Women, Peace and Security
| Read the full report.
New
York, September 23-25: What
a week this was for the U.N.
The security outside
and the sea of media trucks
made the U.N. look like a military
site and the ways of getting
in took a meandering route through
the rose garden with stunning
views of the early morning East
River.
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Gila
Svirsky in Arkansas
"I'm
a better person for hearing
that", was one man's comment
after hearing Gila Svirsky,
Israeli peace activist, give
a very balanced presentation
about the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict. More
here.
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Church
Women United In Georgia
awards Human Rights Celebration
Award to Georgia WAND
More
here.
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On
the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama,
and the end of nukes...
- Nobel
Committee Member: Nuclear Disarmament
Efforts Won Obama the Prize
| Wall
Street Journal
- It
is about so much more than "peace"
| WAND
blog
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Five
Myths about Iran and the bomb
By Joseph Cirincione | October
18, 2009 | Washington
Post
A great piece...
one of our favorite myths...
2. A military
strike would knock out Iran's
program.
Actually,
a military attack would only increase
the possibility of Iran developing
a nuclear bomb.
"There is
no military option that does anything
more than buy time," Defense
Secretary Robert Gates said last
month. "The estimates are
one to three years or so."
And that's if the United States
struck hundreds of targets. A
less powerful Israeli attack could
only damage, not destroy, Iran's
facilities.
Worse, after such
a bombing, the Iranian population
-- now skeptical of its leadership
-- would probably rally around
the regime, ending any internal
debates on whether to build a
bomb. Iran would put its nuclear
program on fast-forward to create
weapons to defend itself. It could
also counterattack against Israel
or other U.S. allies. This month,
a top official of Iran's Revolutionary
Guard threatened to "blow
up the heart of Israel" if
the United States or Israel attacks
first.
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Many
in WAND, on staff and throughout
our membership nationwide, worked
hard on the Senate’s 1999
consideration of the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty. This is an
excellent article brought to
us by our friends at the Arms
Control Association summarizing
that experience, and laying
out reasons why we can win this
time around.
Learning
From the 1999 Vote on the Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty
by Daryl Kimball, Arms
Control Association | October,
2009
There is cause
for optimism. The prospects
for U.S. ratification are better
than they ever have been. Technical
developments since 1999 have
strengthened the arguments of
treaty proponents, and the political
alignment in the Senate has
changed significantly. One key
factor, though certainly not
the only one, is that President
Barack Obama pledged in his
April 5 nuclear weapons speech
in Prague that his administration
“will immediately and
aggressively” pursue U.S.
ratification of the CTBT.
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Making
a Mark in Space: An Analysis of
Obama’s Options For a New
U.S. Space Policy
Victoria Samson | Arms
Control Association | October,
2009
The Obama administration,
because of its general philosophical
bent, seems likely to move toward
a more multilateral approach to
its space policy. Such a shift
would shape the debate on space
in the international community. |
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IRAQ
-- and now! Afghanistan as well!
|
| John
Burns Q. and A. on Private Military
Contractors
New
York Times | October 19, 2009
The
flow of comments and questions
we’ve fielded show in stark
manner how deeply the
excesses of some of these armed
privateers, numbering tens of
thousands at the height of the
war in Iraq and now flowing in
growing numbers into Afghanistan,
have affected the popular and
political perceptions of the two
wars, in America and elsewhere
in the world. Fairly
or unfairly – and there
is much unfairness, inevitably,
in condemning an entire class
of individuals because of the
brute behavior of the worst among
them – the allegations of
trigger-happy violence by private
security contractors that have
marched onto the front pages of
newspapers around the world have
loaded the very term “contractors”
with connotations of arrogance,
indiscipline and a contempt for
the lives of others. |
| Leaving
Iraq Is a Feat That Requires an
Army
By MARC SANTORA | October 8, 2009
| New
York Times
There is no more
visible sign that America is putting
the Iraq war behind it than the
colossal operation to get its
stuff out: 20,000 soldiers, nearly
a sixth of the force here, assigned
to a logistical effort aimed at
dismantling some 300 bases and
shipping out 1.5 million pieces
of equipment, from tanks to coffee
makers.
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A
Hitch in Iran's Nuclear Plans?
By David Ignatius | October 16,
2009 | Washington
Post
Here's
the bottom line: There
may be more time on the Iranian
nuclear clock than some analysts
had feared. The fuel
stock that the Iranians have worked
so hard to produce might damage
their centrifuges if they try
to enrich it into a bomb. Making
a deal with Iran to enrich nuclear
fuel outside the country makes
sense, so long as the international
community can monitor where and
how it's used -- and learn whether
there's a secret stash.
Talks
on Iranian Reactor Deal Show Divisions
on Sanctions
By Glenn Kessler | Washington
Post | October 18, 2009
A
team of Obama administration officials,
joined by officials from France
and Russia, will begin negotiating
in Vienna on Monday with Iranian
diplomats over terms of an unusual
deal that could remove a significant
amount of Tehran's low-enriched
uranium from the country.
The
administration views the deal
-- which would convert the uranium
into fuel for a research reactor
used for medical purposes -- as
a test of Iranian intentions in
the international impasse over
the nation's nuclear program.
The reactor is running short of
fuel, according to Iran, and so
the administration proposed that
80 percent of Iran's enriched
uranium stockpile be sent to Russia
for conversion into reactor fuel.
France would then fashion the
material into metal plates, composed
of a uranium-aluminum alloy, used
by this reactor.
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Click
here and find out more.
Click
here and find out all about
what our chapters and partners are
planning for this month.
The
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