Iraq Toll: 3808 brave U.S. citizens dead

Those who died in Iraq from Sep 23 to 29::

Cpl Anthony Bento 23 San Diego CA

Sgt Kevin Brown 38 Harrah OK

Sgt Zachary Tomczak 24 Huron SD

Sgt Randy Johnson 34 Washington DC

Sgt Donnie Dixon 37 Miami FL

Sgt Robert Ayres III 23 Los Angeles CA

Sgt James Doster 37 Pine Bluff AR

40 were seriously wounded and maimed.

33 were returned to occupation.

362 Iraqi brothers and sisters were killed.

Cf: www.icasualties.org

Promoting REAL Security through International Cooperation and Democracy Building

This week we have all seen the horrors unfold the territory formerly known as Burma. It was renamed Myanmar in recent years by the ruling military junta.  Up until 2 weeks ago Myanmar was the internationally recognized and used name for this state much to the dismay of Democracy activists and Buddhist Monks.   Now, since the pictures of a dead Monk floating in the Inle Lake and the truth of the military dictatorship have immerged in mainstream media the international community has jumped on the ‘democracy for Burma’ bandwagon.

Isn’t it a little late to support these Democracy activists?  Would it not have been more productive to address this issue back in 1990 when a general election voted agianst the militaristic government and these results were thrown out by then State Peace and Development Council Chairman Than Shwe?  This is the man who responsible for the atrocities of recent weeks and for the renaming of this once democratic country. 

Pres. Bush, at the UN meeting declared that we must support democracy in Burma.  After our invasion he declared we must support democracy in Iraq, and after 9/11 he declared the Afghans ‘hated us for our freedom’.  Why, after we supplied AK47’s and rocket launchers to the Taliban to support our proxy war with the Soviets did they have such a change of heart against the U.S.? 

Surely, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism was a significant factor.  But how did this rise occur?  The Taliban, like the SPDC did in Bruma, took over Afghanistan with military might.  They terrorized Afghan citizens, created a huge refugee crisis, and institutionalized Madrasah educational systems to teach Islamic fundamentalism to the oppressed and disenfranchised population.  It is apparent to me that if we had supported a democratic movement and given non-military aid (in the way of education and basic necessities) to citizens in those early years we could have avoided the tragic events of 9/11.  Subsequently, we could have avoided the current international quagmire we find ourselves in today.  No one straps a bomb to their body if they are leading a fulfilling and secure life.

The only way to combat terrorism and promote grassroots democratic systems is to engage the population BEFORE the violence comes to a head.  We have the largest military in the world and yet we have no Peacekeepers.  We allocate 90% of our security budget to our own military and a fraction of it to international cooperation.  It is time we switched our priorities to secure a future for our children and children all over the world.

Creating a Digital Movement

“As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of ‘do it yourself.”
Marshall McLuhan

In The Medium is the Massage McLuhan suggests that our world is moving into a digital age.  Written in 1967 he made predictions of a ‘global village’ a place where people can come together, across geographical & cultural borders, to share ideas and experience media simultaneously.  He believed this would bring our world closer together and prelude a more harmonious existence on this earth.  Forty years later we are still embroiled in wars which, at their core, speak to the inability of the global village to overcome greed and hate.

We who believe in peace are the global majority.  And yet, our President is unresponsive and mainstream media  continue to trumpet his call to war.  How, without satellites and TV stations, can we make our voices heard above the gatekeepers?  The lessons from Media still apply:  we are in the age of automation, we must ‘do it ourselves’. 

The genius of the internet is the decentralization of power and information.  In other words, YOU have the power to share the information.  Every time you pass on an action alert to your network, every time you research a subject, every time you publish your opinion - you are unseating the status quo.  You are saying NO to watered down information ‘from the ground’ in Iraq.  You are saying NO to the lies perpetrated by the Bush administration. 

Instead, you are saying YES to the peace movement.  We will never have a satellite (or the money to rent one) so we depend on you to broadcast our message of peace to the global village.  I urge you to take on this challenge.  Go to our website, do your research and remember that every moment is a teaching moment.  Take action, online or otherwise, and tell people what you did encouraging them to join the movement.

You are frustrated by the lack of movement in a progressive direction – I understand.  We long for peace and justice while our world seems to become less and less oriented towards those goals.  There is no alternative than to ‘sound my (our) barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world.’ (Walt Whitman) demanding we be heard.  The Internet is the best way to unite our voices so they cannot ignore us. We have the power share our goals with the world and expand our knowledge of that world - use it.

Reflecting 6 Years Later

It is hard to believe how much in our world has changed since the events of September 11^th. I do not intend this post to paint a rosy picture of the world before the towers fell, only to mark how that day exacerbated the oppression and violence in our world by playing to our fears and prejudices. Bush and Bin Laden have created a world in their image though the violence they met out on our global community. They have created a world where we see a ‘culture clash’ instead of a chance to learn one another. They have created a world where our fears of ‘an imperialist west’ or ‘a terrorist threat’ command us to abdicate our rights and responsibilities as human beings. They created a world where the threat of nuclear destruction is at its highest levels ever.

On this fateful and devastating anniversary I ask that we come together to mourn the millions lost since to violence: in Afghanistan, England, Guantanamo, India, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Spain, Sudan, United States & countless other locations.

• Afghanistan: After 9/11 the destruction of this country quelled Taliban power briefly while leaving millions without homes, jobs, or hope. They as a nation are still struggling with abject poverty, mounting violence, corruption, inequality, and oppression.
• England: On July 7^th London suffered a calculated attack to their transit system 52 people were killed and over 700 were injured. The horrors of that day were followed up by a less deadly attempt to destroy the Glasgow airport on June 30^th, 2007.
• Guantanamo: The camp has drawn strong criticism for its extrajudicial detention of captives and the possibility that captives held there were subjected to abusive interrogation techniques that constitute torture. The detainees held by the United States were classified as “enemy combatants” by executive order and without due process.
• India: On July 11, 2006 at least 200 people were killed when a train was bombed in an attack.
• Iraq: Too many deaths to count. Too much destruction to fathom. Too many soldiers used, abused, raped, manipulated, and martyred without one ounce of remorse from their Commander and Chief. Too many refugees scattered around the world. It makes me sick so I want you to check out this link for a realistic picture of the losses in Iraq.
• Israel & Lebanon: In July of 2006 Israel and Lebanon engaged in a deadly war. The violence began when Hezbollah forces crossed into Israel, killing three soldiers and abducting two others. After that cross-border raid, five more Israeli soldiers were killed, as well as two Israeli civilians. Two Lebanese soldiers and 45 Lebanese civilians were killed. Rocket fire to Israel was confined to the Haifa region while the air strikes on Lebanon destroyed the capital city of Beirut.
• Pakistan: On March 2, 2006 a car bomb killed 4 and injured 52 outside the Karachi Marriott – yards away from the U.S. consulate. In June 2002 a car bombing attack left 14 people dead, all Pakistanis outside the building, which lies in an upscale district of the sprawling city’s downtown.
• Palestine: Palestine, since 9/11, has deteriorated into wounded nation broken by rocket fire from Israel and sickened with civil war between 2 political parties. The violence mounts daily with civilians suffering the most.
• Spain: The 2004 train bombing in Madrid killed 191 people and wounded 2,050.
• Sudan: The genocide continues unabated while the world watches. Internationally, states make decisions about foreign priorities not based on resources but politics. The genocide continues because Africa is not priority in the war on terror.
• United States: On September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda orchestrated the most devastating attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. There were 2,974 fatalities, not including the 19 hijackers: 246 on the four planes (no one on board any of the hijacked aircraft survived), 2,603 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. Among the fatalities were 343 New York City Fire Department firefighters, 23 New York City Police Department officers, and 37 Port Authority Police Department officers. An additional 24 people remain listed as missing.

On this, the day as we recall the horrors of violence in our borders let us not forget the violence meted out since. We have a choice in this. We must learn to address violence with justice or we will always be fighting the terror campaigns raged by state and non-state actors. We must invest in humanity by rebuilding New Orleans, by investing in healthcare, by stopping atrocity with diplomacy. We have a choice; to unquestioningly follow our leaders to a new war with Iran or to say NO before the war starts. It is beyond time to take our democracy back and make progressive priorities American policy. Only peace and justice can end terror.

Saving the Intellectual Capital in Iraq

Financial Times recently reported the Gates Foundation is diverging from its primary missions, to irradiate AIDS and Malaria world-wide, and focusing $5 million “for a project granting fellowships to Iraqi scholars seeking to continue their work at institutions in other countries.” The U.S. Congress has approved an additional $5 million to further fund this project.

I am a champion of preserving intellectual capital, especially in countries like Iraq where the infrastructure is so broken investment in academia is a low priority. It is vital that we protect the present and future knowledge of this ancient civilization. However, this effort is, like so many before, short sighted.

Investing in intellectual capital is a multi faceted process. You must protect the intellectual elite from persecution and allow them to do their research; but, that is a short term solution to a long term problem. You must also provide for the future academics by through proper educational facilities at refugee camps and psychological care to address student’s substantial emotional needs during a war. So many children, forced to leave their homes, interrupt their education, and basically live in transience desperately need the stability of school and the support of adult mentors. Additionally, there must be a way to ensure intellectual capital sent abroad can return home. An Iraqi scientist working out of Sweden does very little to help rebuild their country of origin. Nothing I read about the Gates effort addresses these needs.

The Gates Foundation has founded itself on attacking a problem from all sides to make the most positive impact possible. Indeed, in the case AIDS and Malaria it has done just that. I hope, in the oversight process for this program, they will maintain the same strategy and look at investing in the future of Iraqi intellectual capital by investing in the children they are leaving behind.

The Shift - a trailer that gave me chills

Wrestling with Modern Imperialism

“All I know is that you have participated directly or indirectly in the crime.”
Why is Half of Iraq in Absolute Poverty? By: Layla Anwar

This is a line from an article written by an Iraqi woman named Layla Anwar. The crime she is referring to is, of course, the U.S. occupation of Iraq. She talks about the crimes of apathy and arrogance on the part of Westerners who want to ‘save’ the ‘those people’. This is arrogance is a part of all of our foreign policy - especially in international aid to the supposed ‘third world’, or the global south including the Americas, Africa, and Southern Asia.  She talks about the lack of direct action on the part U.S. citizens to stop war before it began. Of course, she talks about the ramifications of our ‘democracy building’ in Iraq – of how many are starving, are displace, are scarred for life. I found myself torn between my occupation advancing peace ideologies and my education in international development. My life is focused on all the things she condemns and yet I feel my work is important.

Then I remember what drove me to be a part of the peace movement in the first place. I was in Kosovo (Kosova for those in the know) and I worked with a local group, the Kosova Womens Network, deeply entrenched in the feminist movement during the Serbian occupation and today. In my work there I came into contact with the Women in Black from Serbia. They told me their stories of standing in front the Belgrade government buildings asking “how can we talk about democracy in our country while we squash it abroad.” These stories affected me in so many ways. Regardless of the imminent danger they were in; regardless of the stigma and harassment they faced – they stood in solidarity against violence meted out in their names. That is why I joined the peace movement.

And yet, in my inbox today was a recently released study on the ‘progress’ we’ve made in Iraq. According to this study by the University of Michigan, Iraqis are becoming more nationalistic and secular in their government. Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? Is it my place to say one way or another? Certainly it is not my place to make judgments on what is good or bad for Iraq.

It is only my place to emphatically say it is our job as U.S. citizens to expose the crimes of our government. It is my duty to be uncomfortable in acknowledging that the lifestyle I lead is directly related to this war. The same is true for you who are reading this. Every time we turn on our AC, drive the children to work, eat fresh citrus from Mexico, and drink water out of bottles we contribute to the deaths of millions across the world through our modern imperialism.

We live in a system, a globalized system, created hundreds of years ago when the first colonialists boarded their ships to explore and dominate for gold, God, and glory. We perpetuate this system with ‘development programs’, ‘international aid’, and ‘democracy building’. War is not the only way we destroy the culture and infrastructure of other states. The only way to uproot this system is to challenge our idea of what is ‘progress’, ‘democracy’, ‘wealth’, ‘education’, and ‘power’. I challenge you, as peacemongers, to do so in your daily lives. I promise you to take that challenge with you. I bid you peace to do the good work I know you want to do.

Taking Action for Peace: 50 years in the making

Below is our press release about the recently released book on Peace Action. We love to hear about your take on the peace movement over the past 50 years. Tell us how you have been active and how you would like Peace Action to continue for the next 50 years.

AMERICA’S LARGEST PEACE NETWORK PUBLISHES ANTHOLOGY

(Silver Spring, MD) Peace Action: Past, Present, and Future is a collection of lively essays written by prominent leaders and supporters of Peace Action and its two important predecessors—the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.

Editors Glen H. Stassen and Lawrence S. Witter survey a half-century of the work in the peace movement by three of the largest and most influential peace organizations in American history. With a foreword by Representative Barbara Lee, this book provides a unique resource for understanding popular protest against nuclear weapons and war in the modern era. It also illuminates the local, national, and international role of Peace Action today.

Peace Action: Past Present and Future is published by Paradigm Publishers, and will be retailing for $16.95 through the publisher and Peace Action.

Glen Harold Stassen, Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary, in addition to Peace Action: Past Present, and Future has edited Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War, and authored Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Peace and Justice, Living the Sermon on the Mount, and Kingdom Ethics. He is a long respected activist and scholar and is a board member of Peace Action.

Lawrence S. Wittner, Professor of History at the State University of New York at Albany, is the author of Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983, Cold War America: From Hiroshima to Watergate, The Struggle Against the Bomb (an award-winning trilogy), and of numerous other books and articles. He is a prominent historian who serves on the national board of Peace Action.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee was elected to represent California’s ninth Congressional District in 1998. She is the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, First Vice-Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and a Senior Democratic Whip.

This book is dedicated to the late William Sloane Coffin, Jr. and produced in conjunction with Peace Action’s 50th anniversary celebrations. Contributing authors: Sandy Gottlieb, Monica Green, Marcus Raskin, Andrea Ayvazian, Cora Weiss, Jim Wallis, David Cortright, Jon Rainwater and Kevin Martin, Peace Action Executive Director.

Peace Action, with over 100,000 members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs.