One year after Russia
invaded Ukraine, the US and NATO continue to escalate the war
with sophisticated weapons and military training of Ukrainian troops
on US soil. While President Biden bemoans the need for an exit
strategy for Russian leader Vladamir Putin, there seems to be little
evidence of diplomatic efforts to push for a ceasefire and peace
negotiations. Instead, Congress budgets over $100 billion for
the war in Ukraine, with roughly half the money filling the
coffers of military contractors in what some would call a
giant money laundering scheme.
Is there any hope on the horizon?
Can the United Nations broker a peace? Does China hold the cards? What
about a Korean-style armistice? Join us as we discuss answers
to these questions and the role of the anti-war movement in resolving
this crisis.
Featuring
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and
journalist. Prashad is the author of forty books, including
Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World,
The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and
The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.
His latest book The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the
Fragility of U.S. Power was written with Noam Chomsky. He is
Executive Director of The Tricontinental: Institute for Social
Research and Chief Correspondent for Globetrotter. He is also the
Chief Editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi) and a senior non-resident
fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University
of China. He has appeared in two films – Shadow World (2016) and Two
Meetings (2017).
Helena Cobban is the President of
Just World Educational and an essayist at Globalities.org. Helena is a
veteran global-affairs analyst and former long-time columnist for The
Christian Science Monitor (Boston) and Al-Hayat (London). Of her seven
sole-authored books, four dealt with the Middle East, the rest with
more global topics. In 2010, she founded the publishing company Just
World Books, which focuses on works relating to Palestinian rights and
anti-militarism. As President of Just World Educational, she has led
ground-breaking public inquiries into the conflicts in Ukraine and
Syria, US-China relations, the world balance in the wake of the Covid
pandemic, and the Palestinians’ search for justice. She earlier spent
many years as a member of both the Middle East Advisory Board of Human
Rights Watch and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
She is a member of the Friends Meeting of Washington, D.C., where she
lives.
Take Action!
The US has budgeted an estimated $60 billion for weapons and
military training for Ukraine. Half of that money will fill the
coffers of military contractors. Meanwhile, over 30 million
people in the US are food insecure and 100 million are steeped in
debt. Rather than bring Ukrainian troops to the
US to train for a year on an expensive weapons system, join us in
telling the White House and Congress to demand a ceasefire,
diplomacy and a weapons freeze!
Google Group & Local
Leaders
Join our CODEPINK Congress Google Group, a space for sharing events
and actions. Request to be added here!
Become a CODEPINK Congress liaison in your district to mobilize
support for demilitarization and progressive foreign policy! Sign up
here as a volunteer organizer.
P.S. Our co-founder Medea Benjamin is currently
on a book tour to talk about her latest release, War in Ukraine:
Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, co-authored with Nicolas
Davies. If you are interested in bringing Medea to your community, in
attending upcoming events in your area, or in ordering the
book, click
here for more info!
Finally, if you missed our last meeting, you can view it here on YouTube. View the entire CODEPINK
Congress archives here.
Onward toward peace and
justice,
Medea, Marcy, Hanieh, Maha, and the
entire CODEPINK team