Anti-War
You get what you pay for in life. What are you willing to pay for peace?
With George Bush as president, it doesn't seem to be a problem any of us will ever have to face again, but you can't be a pacifist only in peacetime. You can't be a pacifist by yelling at your tv set, or forwarding a million emails to everyone you know. Pacifism isn't that passive, it isn't that easy. It is, and always has been, by definition, a radical challenge to every element of worldly power and violence.
I'm in Iraq with a handful of other Americans: Eric Edgin, an Indiana college student; Nathan Mauger, a recent journalism graduate from Washington State; Farah Mokhtareizadeh, a Pennsylvania college student; Jon Rice, a history teacher from Chicago; Henry Williamson, a paramedic from South Carolina; and Joe Quandt, a writer from New York. More are joining us. By the end of October, we'll have over 30 people on our team. By December, our numbers will be over 100. We're here to tell the stories of the Iraqi people; to put our lives on the line to stop this war.
With George Bush as president, it doesn't seem to be a problem any of us will ever have to face again, but you can't be a pacifist only in peacetime. You can't be a pacifist by yelling at your tv set, or forwarding a million emails to everyone you know. Pacifism isn't that passive, it isn't that easy. It is, and always has been, by definition, a radical challenge to every element of worldly power and violence.
I'm in Iraq with a handful of other Americans: Eric Edgin, an Indiana college student; Nathan Mauger, a recent journalism graduate from Washington State; Farah Mokhtareizadeh, a Pennsylvania college student; Jon Rice, a history teacher from Chicago; Henry Williamson, a paramedic from South Carolina; and Joe Quandt, a writer from New York. More are joining us. By the end of October, we'll have over 30 people on our team. By December, our numbers will be over 100. We're here to tell the stories of the Iraqi people; to put our lives on the line to stop this war.
Soon we hope to have hearings on the
pending war with Iraq. I am con-
cerned there are some questions that won’t be asked, and maybe will not even be allowed to be asked. Here are some questions I would like answered by those
who are urging us to start this war.
1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate, which just confirms that there is no real threat?
3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?
4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?
1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate, which just confirms that there is no real threat?
3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?
4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?
“Doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t.”
That’s how a Bushwhacked-sounding Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz described the box President Bush has put Iraq in to American journalist Norman Solomon.
Solomon is one of the few American journalists who has tried to get Iraq’s side of the crisis over whether the Mideastern country’s purported “weapons of mass destruction” are such a threat to world peace that the United States has a right to take preemptive military action against it.
Of the many tragedies of last year’s terrorist attacks on America, one of the worst was that it turned a war wimp like President Bush into an international bully. Bush is intent on telling the world what to do, and if the rest of it won’t go along with him he will go it alone.
That’s how a Bushwhacked-sounding Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz described the box President Bush has put Iraq in to American journalist Norman Solomon.
Solomon is one of the few American journalists who has tried to get Iraq’s side of the crisis over whether the Mideastern country’s purported “weapons of mass destruction” are such a threat to world peace that the United States has a right to take preemptive military action against it.
Of the many tragedies of last year’s terrorist attacks on America, one of the worst was that it turned a war wimp like President Bush into an international bully. Bush is intent on telling the world what to do, and if the rest of it won’t go along with him he will go it alone.
Thousands protested in Cincinnati
yesterday [Monday, Oct. 7] as president George W. Bush spoke, calling
upon the American people to support a Congressional measure which
would give him the power to carry out a war against Iraq.
While Bush spoke inside, demonstrators lined the sidewalks in front of the Cincinnati Museum Center (the former Union Terminal) and for blocks around, chanting, singing, and waving signs opposing the war.
"What an amazing peace rally that was last night! When I first sent out an e-mail one week ago to mobilize people, I had hoped to get 1,000 people to protest Bush's speech for war. We estimate over 5,000 people gathered last night! It was beautiful!" said Sayrah Namaste, one of the organizers of the event. Local news media and NPR also reported "thousands" at the event.
While Bush spoke inside, demonstrators lined the sidewalks in front of the Cincinnati Museum Center (the former Union Terminal) and for blocks around, chanting, singing, and waving signs opposing the war.
"What an amazing peace rally that was last night! When I first sent out an e-mail one week ago to mobilize people, I had hoped to get 1,000 people to protest Bush's speech for war. We estimate over 5,000 people gathered last night! It was beautiful!" said Sayrah Namaste, one of the organizers of the event. Local news media and NPR also reported "thousands" at the event.
As we celebrate the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks upon the United States, I find myself experiencing a
sense of discomfort with many of the commemorations. Of course,
September 11 is a day which we should remember. Like Pearl Harbor, the
attacks galvanized the American people and will be a day which lives in
infamy. Also, those who lost loved ones on that terrible day deserve
our respect and support. It is also appropriate to commemorate the
contribution made to public safety by the police and fire departments of
New York City and the nation. Of course, to feel the pain of that
fateful day one did not have to experience a personal association with
the deceased in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Americans,
especially our youth, who remain traumatized by visions of people
leaping from the towering infernos to their deaths below on the
sidewalks of New York need community and family efforts to assuage the
horror.
The disaster that unfolded before our eyes on September 11th has generated a number of articles attempting to explain how this event could have occurred. The majority of these articles tended to start with one of two assumptions. The first assumed that the perpetuators of this crime were purely madmen, religious fanatics incapable of comprehension. Consequently, theses articles required little in the form of analysis, relying primarily on code words anchored by a crass nationalism.
The second assumed that the perpetrators while indeed criminals, nevertheless were not simply madmen and religious fanatics but driven to their actions by some force no matter how perverted. Consequently, these articles were less popular with the public given their seemingly non-patriot stance and more difficult to write since they required, to a certain degree at least, some self reflection primarily that of United States foreign policy.
The second assumed that the perpetrators while indeed criminals, nevertheless were not simply madmen and religious fanatics but driven to their actions by some force no matter how perverted. Consequently, these articles were less popular with the public given their seemingly non-patriot stance and more difficult to write since they required, to a certain degree at least, some self reflection primarily that of United States foreign policy.
“We would never let some hymn-
reciting, illiterate religious bigots run the country,” declared Pakistan’s Interior Minister Moin Hyder in Karachi while speaking to a seminar, “Terrorism: A new challenge to the world of Islam.” The December 20 seminar was hosted by one of Pakistan’s leading newspaper organizations that also publishes The News.
“Taliban’s extremist viewpoint of Islam could not triumph and their narrow concept of Islam was both misguided and misguiding,” Hyder said. The seminar was well attended by Muslim scholars, academics, politician, ambassadors and dignitaries from around the world.
“Taliban’s extremist viewpoint of Islam could not triumph and their narrow concept of Islam was both misguided and misguiding,” Hyder said. The seminar was well attended by Muslim scholars, academics, politician, ambassadors and dignitaries from around the world.
In America’s war on terrorism, the first U.S. casualty was the First Amendment. The military, the Bush administration and the media itself have squelched important information about the war in Afghanistan since it began on September 11.
Asked at a press conference whether he would lie to the media about the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated this statement by Winston Churchill about misleading information disseminated before and during the D-Day invasion: “Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.”
Unfortunately, Rumsfeld has been the major source of information about the war as reporters’ access to the battlefield has been extremely limited. “They plan to fight the war and then tell the press and the public how it turned out afterwards,” CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre complained. Others wonder, though, if the American press would tell the full story of the war even if it were free to do so.
Asked at a press conference whether he would lie to the media about the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated this statement by Winston Churchill about misleading information disseminated before and during the D-Day invasion: “Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.”
Unfortunately, Rumsfeld has been the major source of information about the war as reporters’ access to the battlefield has been extremely limited. “They plan to fight the war and then tell the press and the public how it turned out afterwards,” CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre complained. Others wonder, though, if the American press would tell the full story of the war even if it were free to do so.
How many people do you know who claim to be skeptical,
who pride themselves on their distrust for authority, who
like to pretend that they’re wise to the ways of the world — and then, every time there’s a war, they swallow the lies of the government with all the gullibility of a
three-year-old child in the lap of a department store Santa Claus? Don’t fall into that trap yourself! Learn to identify and refute official misinformation when you see it. Let’s count down some of the common misconceptions about this war:
Lie #5: “We’re not at war with the Afghan people — look, we’re bringing them food!”
Lie #5: “We’re not at war with the Afghan people — look, we’re bringing them food!”
Mainstream news accounts have finally fingered Battelle Memorial Institute, the spooky Dr. Strangelove Institute in Columbus, as ground zero in our domestic military-industrial anthrax scare. With five people dead and eighteen ill, Battelle’s role in directing the Defense Department’s “joint vaccine acquisition program” is now coming under heavy scrutiny.
Battelle, in partnership with Michigan-based Bioport, has a virtual monopoly on military anthrax vaccine production in the U.S.. British and U.S. news accounts describe Bioport’s owner as a top secret British biowarfare consortium, Porton Down. Perhaps not ironically, the Chairman and CEO of the Porton Down company is Fuad El-Habri, a bin Laden family associate. Laura Rozen’s interesting article for the website Salon is must reading on the subject.
Battelle, in partnership with Michigan-based Bioport, has a virtual monopoly on military anthrax vaccine production in the U.S.. British and U.S. news accounts describe Bioport’s owner as a top secret British biowarfare consortium, Porton Down. Perhaps not ironically, the Chairman and CEO of the Porton Down company is Fuad El-Habri, a bin Laden family associate. Laura Rozen’s interesting article for the website Salon is must reading on the subject.