Official 9/11 commemorations, again, reminded those listening to never forget how "we" were attacked while pursuing the "just cause" of U.S. dominance of the globe. Let's just put that aside as the propaganda it is.

You're reading this newsletter because you will never forget that 9/11 was instantly used to launch global war crimes. Rumsfeld bragged the U.S. military would "go massive" and Dick Cheney vowed the U.S. would go to the "dark side" in war that would last generations.

From the U.S. Secretary of "Defense" Lloyd Austin:  

"Protecting civilians from harm in connection with military operations is not only a moral imperative, it is also critical to achieving long-term success on the battlefield."

This, on Friday, as Austin announced the new DoD plan to "mitigate civilian harm and achieve strategic success across the full spectrum of conflict."

Was this from a sudden recognition that European colonizers began systematically slaughtering native inhabitants across the "new world" about 400 years ago? Or that the hundreds of military interventions by the U.S. resulted in uncounted millions of deaths? Or an acknowledgement of specific global atrocities such as the carpet bombing of Dresden? The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki? Napalm and Agent Orange on the people of southeast Asia? The massacre at Nisour Square in Baghdad or the carnage of the battle of Fallujah?

I read a lot of commentary and condemnation in the liberal press of Biden's fist bump with MBS, who runs the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most of the criticism, which is justified, centered on the hypocrisy of Biden saying he would make Saudi Arabia a pariah for the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi and then looking jovial while meeting with MBS to get on with business.

With heightened moves towards nuclear war and the ever-increasing climate and ecological crises, we demand: No nuclear war! No nuclear weapons! These are totally incompatible and intolerable for the existence of humanity and our planet.

Join us on Tuesday August 2, gathering at noon at the Isaiah Wall on First Avenue and 43rd Street in Manhattan and then marching to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations at 45th Street where there will be a non-violent sit-in accompanied by vigiling, picketing and leafleting by those unable to risk arrest. Please register here. And, do visit the Facebook Event Page and help spread the word.

As we considered how to approach the contradictory aspects and on-going frightening prospects of the current war in Ukraine that could lead to nuclear war ending life on earth, we read Nan Levinson's most recent article in TomDispatch. We quote from Tom Engelhardt's introduction:

During the month of April We Are Not Your Soldiers traveled remotely to educational institutions in three states: New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Our speakers – Joy Damiani, Miles Megaciph and John Burns – also were located in three different states but all our “voyages” worked well via Zoom.

At age 14, I decided the Democrats were the "war party," having only looked at WWII and the wars on Korea and Vietnam. Then R. Nixon and H. Kissinger considered using nukes to hold onto Vietnam and threaten China, and I was persuaded the Republicans are every bit as bad.

Since 2005, every time I write to World Can't Wait supporters about how dangerous the party in power is, I get responses saying, essentially - wait, the other party is worse!

While the victims of U.S. wars are nameless, U.S. media is 24/7 on the tragic death Russia is bringing to Ukraine. Children, pregnant women, elderly have all died there, just as they have in Yemen by the Saudis with U.S. weapons, as they died in Libya by U.S./NATO forces.

People have written us with a legit point: People around the globe have suffered historically from reactionary violence backed by the U.S. and its allies - right now in Yemen for instance - but these aggressive acts get mostly ignored by U.S. politicians and press, while the Russian attack on Ukraine is 24/7 news. But then, no one has proved that the U.S. isn't #1 in hypocrisy.

This war is dangerous for humanity and the planet! We shouldn't support either "side."

It's no exaggeration to say that the showdown between Russia and the U.S./NATO bloc has profound dangers for the people of Ukraine. Millions are already facing death and displacement from the immediate incursion of the Russian military. Russia doesn't want NATO at its borders in its mission to control Eastern Europe.

Many hundreds of millions more are endangered by the U.S. missile launchers recently installed in Poland and Romania, on the border of Russia. These are MK 41's, the same weapon the U.S. used thousands of times on people of Iraq, Syria and Yugoslavia. The U.S. wants to encircle Russia with NATO countries in its mission to maintain imperialist dominance.

The tsunami of U.S. coverage of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, almost completely through the lens of people killed in the U.S. or in fighting "for" the U.S., needs to be answered with the force of our understanding and commitment. Buried beneath the rubble of America-first jingoism, historians, thinkers and activists contributed much this week. Rather than summarize, we are sharing links to what really got our attention:

Nazia Kazi, the anthropologist who wrote ..., produced a snappy graphic story published on The Nib last week, What We Forget, with Anuj Shrestha.