Hello Friends,

On this side of the Atlantic there’s very little mainstream reporting about NATO, certainly almost nothing about NATO member Turkey serving as a corridor for fighters and arms to reach ISIS in Syria or criticism of U.S. and NATO support for Turkey after the downing of the Russian warplane after being over Turkey at most for 17 seconds, if at all.

So, it’s significant that today’s New York Times ran a ¾ page article titled “NATO Nations No Longer Question Need for Alliance” which focuses on the run up to the Warsaw Summit and the limited debates within NATO over how to balance its military planning for the Europe and for the South.  You’ll find the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/world/europe/nato-nations-no-longer-question-need-for-alliance.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

Two other quick points, Related to Poland, I was disheartened, but not surprised, by a recent article about Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s assault on what remains of constitutional government in Poland, and in the same article that “at a rally of right-wing youth groups in Wroclaw last month, the figure of an orthodox Jew was burned in effigy.”  The Middle Ages seem to be alive and well at least in some corners of Poland.

And, finally, you have likely been reading about the racist, xenophobic, Islamaphobic and downright callous and dangerous calls by Republicans and some Democrats to ban Syrian war refugees from the U.S.  If there’s good news, it’s that numerous polls show that the majority of U.S. Americans oppose Trump’s call for a total ban.  Also, last week, in response to our Peace & Planet call for events on Human Rights Day urging diplomatic and not military resolution of the Syrian War, events were held in about a dozen U.S. cities. Our call had originated from the concern that a U.S./NATO-Russian military incident (as later happened with Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian plane) could escalate to the unthinkable.  With the right-wing responses here to the massacres in Paris and San Bernardino, these events also had a strong pro-refugee message. You can see some of the photos at: http://www.peaceandplanet.org/action-across-america-for-human-rights-day/

With all best wishes in demanding times,

Joseph