ukraine

My family, friends, and millions of civilians are under non-stop airstrikes and missile rocket attacks in Ukraine. Putin is trying to wipe Ukraine and the Ukrainian people off the map because they refused to join his "Russian World".  Let's demand that the U.S. State Department recognize that the actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine constitute genocide and state terrorism and take action to stop it. Will you stand by and watch the slaughter of civilians, another genocide taking place in real-time?  Because Ukrainians want freedom and democracy?  Ask the U.S. State Department to fulfill its obligation to the UN Charter and the signed 1948 Genocide Convention. Recognize the genocide of the Ukrainian population happening now. #StandWithUkraine #StopRussianAggression United Nations Charter:  Russia violated Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the use of armed conflict to resolve disputes absent self-defense or authorization from the Security Council.  Definition of Genocide > 1948 Genocide Convention: According to the Article 2 definition, Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:  (a) Killing members of the group;  (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;  (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;  (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;  (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.  Attack on Ukraine’s Civil Population as an Act of Genocide: Since 5 am on February 24, 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation, with the complicity of the Republic of Belarus, have been inflicting massive missile attacks and bombing airstrikes against Ukrainian cities and towns, destroying residential buildings and critical civil infrastructure facilities. The destroyed roads and bridges make it impossible to deliver food and medicine to many settlements. Downed power lines deprive Ukrainian people of water and heat for their homes. Petroleum products storage facilities have been destroyed making it impossible to repair the damaged gas lines, water supply, and electricity networks. People are not given the warning to evacuate. The attack against Ukraine has been unprovoked. Ukraine hasn’t given the slightest justification for such aggression. Also, there has been not the slightest indication that the actions of the Russian Federation are in any way selective. On the contrary, civilian transport, residential homes, historical city centers, kindergartens, hospitals, and maternity wards are being shelled. Attacks are being carried out throughout Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov bluntly stated the need to "cleanse" Ukraine from "pro-Nazi-minded" people. Vladimir Zelensky, a Jew by nationality, was elected president of Ukraine in 2019 in free democratic elections. There is no "Nazism" in Ukraine. Such statements of the Russian Federation should be regarded solely as justification of already committed and planned acts of genocide by its top leadership. We demand that the actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine are recognized as genocide and be stopped.

While Russia is murdering innocent Ukrainians every single day, the worldwide retailer group Inditex (the parent company of Zara, Bershka, and Pull & Bear) will be resuming its operations in Russia in the very near future. Bershka will reopen its Russian stores under the brand name Ecru, Zara and Pull & Bear will reopen under the names Maag and DUB respectively.  Please add your voice to this petition if you stand with Ukraine and believe it is morally wrong for global retailers to operate in Russia. 

The only purpose of the United Nations Security Council is to prevent armed conflicts and war, yet we have not lived one single day in the past seventy eight years without war somewhere on this planet. The primary cause for failure of the Security Council is the unanimous consent clause of Article 27 and enforcement of Article 27 paragraph 3 on abstention. The world has changed and the United Nations must change and adapt to that changing world for peace to prevail. Expanding the number of seats in the Security Council has been tried, it did not and will not work as long as the unanimous consent clause exists. The unanimous consent clause needs to be eliminated and the United Nations and United Nations Security Council need to abide by the United Nations Charter. We need to change Article 23 Paragraph 1, Article 27 Paragraph 3, Article 108, and Article 109 Paragraph 2 as follows: Article 23 1. The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. the People’s Republic of China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council. The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution. Article 27 3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting. Article 108 Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all Members of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations. Article 109 2. Any alteration of the present Charter recommended by a two-thirds vote of the conference shall take effect when ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations. Changes to the Security Council without the elimination of the unanimous consent clause is an exercise in futility which will only prolong the problem because the voting pattern of the five permanent members will not change. If we can create a functional United Nations with a functional Security Council we have many other problems that we need to solve. They are all problems we can resolve if we can create a functional United Nations that can hold our leaders and policy makers accountable for their actions. The biggest obstetrical we face is the United Nations Security Council itself. The war in Ukraine is our most immediate threat to global stability and international peace. UN General Assembly Resolution 11/1 condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and demanded a full withdrawal of Russian forces. One hundred forty one member states supported that resolution. Yet the war goes on because the Security Council itself is impotent and dysfunctional. It was the Russian Federation that vetoed Security Council resolution S/2022/720 on 30 September 2022 in violation of Article 27 paragraph 3 which requires them to abstain as a party to the dispute. The unanimous consent clause of Article 27 has made the Security Council dysfunctional from the day it was created. Windows of opportunity to correct those fundamental flaws have existed in the past, but the political will to make those changes did not existed. The United Nations Charter is a fundamentally flawed document the Republic of China and the United Soviet Socialist Republic were founding members of the United Nations and original members of the UN Security Council. The current UN Charter as displayed on the UN’s own website still lists the Republic of China, which is no longer a member of the United Nations, and the USSR, which no longer exists, as permanent members of the Security Council. Article 23 paragraph 1 states: The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council. The Peoples Republic of China occupies the Republic of China’s seat and regularly uses their veto power. The USSR no longer exists and the Russian Federation sits in their place. The changes may have been politically expedient, but they simply made a bad situation worse. Global warming, natural disasters, the resent pandemic, regional armed conflicts, and war in Ukraine have created an existential crisis for the human race which has once again opened a window of opportunity for change. That existential crisis and the inability of the Security Council to move forward where consensus does exist because of the unanimous consent clause necessitates the elimination of that clause from the United Nations Charter. If we do not correct the deficiencies in the Security Council, war and nuclear war are inevitable. It is therefore essential for our long term survival to take advantage of this opportunity and convene a special session of the United Nations General Assemble to resolve those charter deficiencies and create a functional United Nations. In the existential crisis we currently face, all five permanent members of the Security Council are parties to this dispute and in accordance with Article 27 Paragraph 3 must abstain from voting. The five permanent members of the Security Council have created the problem so let the world decide and make the permanent members comply as equal partners going forward.

On March 8th, the Pentagon announced their unwillingness to facilitate the transfer of Polish MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine using USAF base in Germany. It appears that the US is afraid to share the risks associated with this transfer and wants, instead, Poland to bear it alone when providing this critical resource to Ukraine.  While Poland is a NATO member, it is situated immediately adjacent to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and has significantly less military capabilities than the US to defend itself if attacked. Their citizens, as well as the over a million Ukrainian refugees, will be immediately in harms way should Russia decide to attack Poland due to direct transfer of the planes. Under such circumstances, the US will ultimately be compelled to defend Poland according to Article 5 of NATO treaty and become directly involved in the conflict. It is therefore in everyone's best interests for the US to facilitate the transfer of planes to Ukraine per Poland's proposal.  People in Ukraine are fighting for freedom and democracy against the adversary equipped with significantly more capable offensive weapons, like ballistic and cruise missiles. Defending its airspace is essential to protect their military and civilian targets against Russian onslaught, which is becoming less and less discriminate each day resulting in more civilian deaths and suffering. As a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, the United States has an obligation to assist Ukraine against Russian aggression. All the humanitarian aid will be for naught without the critical resource these planes represent to protect the Ukrainian airspace. The Polish proposal is already extremely generous, and it is simply morally irresponsible on our part to insist that "the decision about whether to transfer Polish-owned planes to Ukraine is ultimately one for the Polish government". Let us show by our deeds that the United States is the moral leader of the world. While Ukrainians defend our common values with their bravery, Poles with their generosity, let us do our part and hold up our end of agreements by providing our any assistance we can to stop the tyranny. This view is undoubtedly shared by many Americans as demonstrated by recent massive pro-Ukraine rallies. We ask the President, our elected representatives in the United States Congress, the Pentagon and other government officials to see the Polish proposal implemented as soon as possible and, hopefully, encourage similar deals with Bulgaria and Slovakia.