January 3, 2020

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• Last month's local letters
• (12/31/19): Reminder: workshop & training Thursday January 2, Santa Fe
  
• (12/22/19): Important meetings January 2 & 8
• (12/12/19): No LANL in Santa Fe -- update
  
• (12/07/19): Please come tomorrow to Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo Street, Santa Fe, 11 am: Developer to present plans for Midtown Santa Fe campus: will they include nuclear weapons research, training, manufacturing, administration?
• (12/02/19): Safety Board: Los Alamos plutonium facility does not adequately protect the public

• Previous Bulletin (12/23/19): Please help us work this coming year! Also: important meetings Jan 2 & 8 in Santa Fe; Pope Francis and The Bomb

• This letter: Demonstrate tomorrow, Jan. 4, in Albuquerque, 2 pm: illegal US assassination of top Iranian general dramatically inflames region
  

Dear New Mexico activist friends –

The Study Group is joining number of antiwar and social justice groups locally and across the US in emergency demonstrations tomorrow, Saturday, at 2 pm at Kirtland Air Force Base (specifically, the corner of San Mateo and Gibson Blvds, map) in Albuquerque. Groups sponsoring include Stop the War Machine, Popular Resistance, Code Pink, UNAC, Answer, International Action Center, Veterans For Peace, Los Alamos Study Group, Voices for Peace and many others.

If you don't live in Albuquerque perhaps you will find another way to join the nationwide expressions of disgust where you are.

Any demonstration like this is a short-lived thing, of little value in itself. But it can be a start.

This latest U.S. act of war is illegal even by degraded U.S. standards, let alone international ones. Some quick background:

• Fear of a Major Mideast War (Joe Lauria, Consortium News)
• U.S. Will Come To Regret Its Assassination of Qassim Soleimani (Moon of Alabama, "MoA")
• US Assassination Of Top Iranian Military Official May Ignite World War (Caitlin Johnstone)
• US Kick Starts Raging ’20s Declaring War on Iran (Pepe Escobar, Consortium News)

Yesterday's strike comes on the heels of a previous air strike on Shia militias in the Iraqi army (Background from the valuable MoA: After U.S. Strike On Iraqi Forces Its Troops Will (Again) Have To Leave and What Will The Trump Administration Do When Iraq Asks U.S. Troops To Leave?).

You will notice the absence of major mainstream media in this list. I usually don't have time to parse the truth from the lies and strategic omissions in the typical New York Times or Washington Post story. Cable and broadcast news, including PBS and NPR, are even worse.

Now there is a third strike (Iraq official says airstrike targets Iran-backed militia, AP).

As Caitlin Johnstone put it at the link above,

And now, as I sit as the mother of two teenagers watching what might be a third world war looming on the horizon, all I can think is about how infuriating it is that we've spent the last three years on Russia bullshit and sectarian political infighting instead of building an actual cohesive antiwar movement and pushing real opposition to Trump's warmongering.

We need to talk about U.S. militarism, urgently. Tomorrow is a good place to start, at this demonstration and after. If you live nearby, hopefully we will see you there.

Greg, for the Study Group