accuracy.org Home
  • News Releases
  • Blog
  • News Items
  • About Us
    • Board
    • Staff
  • Subscribe
  • ExposeFacts
  • Calendar
twitter facebook donate

Latest News Release – Interviews AvailableRSS

Thirty Years of Bombing Iraq

March 3, 2021

Share

AP reports this morning: “U.S. forces: Rockets hit airbase in Iraq hosting U.S. troops.” This follows a U.S. government strike from Iraq into Syria last week. Last year NBC reported: “Iraq asks U.S. to make plans to withdraw forces.”

KATHY KELLY, kathy.vcnv@gmail.com, @voiceinwild
A long-time peace activist, who has frequently been in war zones and prison, Kelly just wrote the piece “Blood for Oil: Amid the ongoing horror, it’s important to find ways to atone for war crimes — including reparations,” originally published by The Progressive.

Pope Francis is scheduled to make the first papal visit to Iraq from March 5 to 8.

Kelly writes: “Thirty years ago, when the United States launched Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, I was a member of the Gulf Peace Team. We were 73 people from fifteen different countries, aged 22 to 76, living in a tent camp close to Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia, along the road to Mecca. …

“Iraqi authorities told us we must pack up, readying for a morning departure to Baghdad. Not all of us could agree on how to respond. Adhering to basic principles, twelve peace team members resolved to sit in a circle, holding signs saying ‘We choose to stay.’ …

“Another evacuation was happening as Iraqi forces, many of them young conscripts, hungry, disheveled and unarmed, poured out of Kuwait along a major highway, later called ‘the Highway of Death.’ …

“Shortly after viewing photos of gruesome carnage caused by the ground and air attacks, President George H.W. Bush called for a cessation of hostilities on February 27th, 1991. An official cease fire was signed on March 4. …

“Noam Chomsky notes that there were diplomatic alternatives to the bloodletting and destruction visited upon Iraq by Operation Desert Storm. Iraqi diplomats had submitted an alternative plan which was suppressed in the mainstream media and flatly rejected by the U.S. …

“After the ‘success’ of Operation Desert Storm, the bombing war turned into an economic war, which lasted through 2003. As early as 1995, United Nations documents clarified that the economic war, waged through continued imposition of U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq, was far more brutal than even the worst of the 1991 aerial and ground war attacks. …”

Blog Posts

Stop Tightening the Thumb Screws, A Humanitarian Message

March 17, 2020 by journalist ·

U.S. sanctions against Iran, cruelly strengthened in March of 2018, continue a collective punishment of extremely vulnerable people. Presently, the U.S. “maximum pressure” policy severely undermines Iranian efforts to cope with the ravages of COVID-19, causing hardship and tragedy while contributing to the global spread of the pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Iran’s Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif urged member states of the UN to end the United States’ unconscionable and lethal economic warfare.[more]

Timeline: How DNC Manipulated 2016 Presidential Race 

February 13, 2020 by journalist ·

April 25, 2017: In class action lawsuit alleging DNC fraud, DNC attorney argues the party has the right to ignore primary voters: “The party has the freedom of association to decide how it’s gonna select its representatives to the convention and to the state party. Even to define what constitutes evenhandedness and impartiality really would already drag the court well into a political question and a question of how the party runs its own affairs. The party could have favored a candidate. I’ll put it that way... We could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.’” (See Newsweek: "Was the Election Rigged Against Bernie Sanders? Dnc Lawsuit Demands Repayment for Campaign Donors.")[more]

Francis A. Boyle in Defense of Kings Bay Plowshare 7 Activists

October 18, 2019 by journalist ·

It was my conclusion in June 25, 2018, for the reasons set out at length in that document, that the existence, threat or use of any of the Trident thermonuclear weapons at Kings Bay is absolutely illegal and criminal under the laws of the United States and international law...I repeat my opinion that the charges against these Defendants should be dismissed. The Court must recognize that the possession, preparation for use, threat of use or use of Trident nuclear weapons at Kings Bay is illegal and criminal. The non-violent, symbolic disarmament actions by Defendants in this matter are in full compliance with the laws, treaties and principles of U.S. and international law and served a lawful purpose: preventing the ongoing commission of genocidal international and U.S. domestic crimes.[more]

Affidavit by Daniel Ellsberg for Plowshare Activists Being Allowed a Defense of Necessity

October 15, 2019 by journalist ·

In 1971 I gave the U.S. Senate, the New York Times and the Washington Post copies of what have come to be known as The Pentagon Papers. I was arrested on twelve felony counts. My trial was dismissed because of government misconduct which figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon...These considerations bear on two other elements of the necessity defense, the "lack of legal alternatives" and the "imminence" of the harms to be averted. Again, I speak from my own experience, but not only mine, in saying that it is the perceived insufficiency of other means, by themselves not their unavailability or irrelevance that impels one to add, in some circumstances, tactics that risk arrest to a program of social action. And the urgency of such means reflects the prolonged time required to mobilize political efforts perhaps measured in months or years to avert deaths and injuries that will not be averted at all without campaigns that include these dramatic elements.[more]

News ItemsRSS

Scrutinizing Mueller and Russiagate

July 26, 2019

Following being on a pair of accuracy.org news releases, FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and journalist Aaron Maté appeared on several programs just after Robert Mueller's long-anticipated testimony on Capitol Hill. See Rowley on The Real News, where, among other things, she gives critical background on Mueller. And see Maté on the Jimmy Dore Show and CGTN's "The Heat"scrutinizing much of the conventional wisdom on Russiagate.[more]

Manuel Pérez-Rocha in “New York Times”

July 5, 2018

After appearing in a recent IPA news release, Manuel Pérez-Rocha, an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, was quoted in the article "Trump and Mexico’s New Leader, Both Headstrong, Begin With a ‘Good Conversation’."[more]

Activist Kathy Kelly talks Afghanistan on Democracy Now!

June 8, 2018

After appearing on an IPA press release, Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was interviewed by Democracy Now! today to discuss the significance surrounding Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's announcement of an unconditional ceasefire with the Taliban.[more]

ExposeFacts Panel Discussion on War, Journalism and Whistleblowers on “Flashpoints”

March 23, 2018

Thomas Drake, Katharine Gun, and other key 21st century whistle blowers featured in a special panel discussion sponsored last week by the Institute for Public Accuracy, on the radio program "Flashpoints," 15 years after Katherine Gun blew the whistle on U.S. dirty tricks to try influence the UN on the invasion of Iraq.[more]

Pat Elder on JROTC and the NRA in U.S. Schools on Democracy Now!

February 21, 2018

After appearing on an IPA news release, Pat Elder, author of Military Recruiting in the United States and director of National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, @studentprivacy (studentprivacy.org) was interviewed this morning on Democracy Now! He spoke about the role of JROTC and the NRA in U.S. Schools, including the one that trained the Parkland Shooter, Nikolas Cruz.[more]

From the NYT: Robert Parry, Investigative Reporter and Founder of ConsortiumNews, Dies at 68

February 1, 2018

Robert Parry, a tenacious investigative reporter and author who exposed details of the Reagan administration’s secret support for Nicaraguan rebels in the 1980s, died on Saturday in Arlington, Va. He was 68.[more]

Recent News ReleasesRSS

Withdrawal of Tanden Nomination

March 3, 2021

"But it was inexcusable for Democratic senators to be silent about the legitimate reasons to oppose her nomination -- the potential conflicts of interest raised by her years of coziness with powerful corporate elites. That silence may be explained by the fact that Democrats in the Senate are beholden to some of the same corporate donors that lavishly bankroll Tanden’s think tank. Tanden was the wrong choice to head a federal agency that is vital in the regulatory process. It strains credulity to contend that she would have been a true advocate for the public interest after many years of dutifully serving corporate interests.”[more]

Tax Billionaires to Pay for Pandemic Recovery

March 2, 2021

"Under the Warren-Jayapal-Boyle bill, the richest 100,000 Americans would be subject to an annual tax of a few pennies on the dollar on their great fortunes." [more]

Biden Bombing Syria: “Illegal”

February 26, 2021

"Biden's bombing of Syria on Thursday is illegal -- a violation of international law. It's especially egregious since the attacks in Syria came out of Iraq, as the Iraqi government has been telling the U.S. government to leave." [more]

Mars Mission Had 1-in-960 Odds of a Plutonium Release

February 26, 2021

"One in 100 rockets undergo major malfunctions on launch, mostly by blowing up." [more]

New Report Calls on Biden to Put an End to Program That’s “Not Far From Slavery”

February 25, 2021

"Will it support the H-2A program and protect the profits of growers, or will it stand with the farmworkers who labor in the fields to feed this country?” [more]
National Office
1714 Franklin Street #100-133
Oakland, CA 94612-3409
Voice 510-788-4541
ipa[at]accuracy.org
Washington Office (journalist contact)
980 National Press Building
Washington DC 20045
Voice 202-347-0020
Fax 615-849-5802
ipa[at]accuracy.org