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Posted March 31, 2003
Regarding Albert B.'s letter posted March 29:
First, we should give good marks to Albert for trying to start a debate rather than be someone who writes in calling us readers wimps, lefties, etc. He wants to have a discussion and we readers should have answered him.
In regards to your questions:
Yes, Saddam is an evil man and he also tortures his own people. I don't think you will find any debate on that. However there are a lot of bad guys out there in the world. If you would research Rwanda, Angola, Mozambique and many other places you will find that huge atrocities have been committed and yet we hear nothing about them and even more importantly do nothing about them. In the case of Somalia we went in there for humanitarian reasons and found out there were some warlords ruling that country. We got out of there after 18 dead soldiers in the streets of Mogadishu, do you think that was a mistake? Should we have stayed to make sure the people didn't starve to death? I don't believe that American soldiers should sacrifice their lives for conflicts around the world. This includes the strife in Iraq. The US military is for protecting the country, not policing the world. So if you want to intervene in places because of the brutality of the ruling there then you are going to be deployed in hostile lands for the rest of your life.
As for the local Iraqi businessman who lives in the States and had the stories about Saddam's brutality. Is he willing to go to Sudan and fight for human rights when a Sudanese-American speaks of all the atrocities going on there? I doubt it.
Does Saddam have WMD? Yes he possibly does have something. In fact we can thank ourselves (or more accurately the guys now in the Reagan/Bush1 administration) that he has them. But despite all the talk that Saddam is a crazy man his actions have shown that he is a survivalist who does not intend on bringing death upon himself and his family. First Gulf War, his army is getting decimated, daily bombings on Baghdad and yet he doesn't use any chemical weapons. He knew we would go all the way and get him if he did. In the past 12 years we have bombed him on a daily basis and yet he has not used them. Why? Because he would be killed if he did. And here we are a week into an invasion of his country and he still has not used them. Why? Because either he doesn't have them or else he won't use them until he is absolutely sure that he is going to be a goner, at the last moment.
Now let me ask you, Albert, now that he has been invaded how do you guarantee that he has not shipped or slipped across his wide borders some WMD to organizations that will use them after his demise? In other words, how do you know that all these supposed biological weapons that are so easy to conceal weren't sent on a camel caravan to somebody who promised to kill Americans upon Saddam's death? Does this invasion make us safer to Saddam's WMD? Doesn't seem like it if he is having a give away to anyone willing to provide some revenge from the grave.
And as for Iraq being better off after a war. Well to start with it was the most prosperous, educated Arab community with a big middle class before the sanctions we imposed. Those sanctions resulted in the death of half a million people (maybe that could explain some of the resistance we are enduring now). And do I believe it will be a better place than before after we conquer it? Actually no. I look at all the feel good talk about Afghanistan, how we are going to bring democracy and how we will create a better life for the people, blah, blah, blah.
Read some of the latest news on Afghanistan. Its nothing more than a bunch of paid off warlords running the country like before. According to the United Nations they have a record opium crop this year, George Bush only requested $400 million for aid to Afghanistan while giving $2 billion to Egypt! He was prepared to give like $26 billion to Turkey for troop launching. Human rights organizations are reporting that its back to the suppression of woman's rights similar to the Taliban days. In Herat they are making women have examinations to make sure they aren't having pre-martial sex. Is this what you pictured when Bush spoke about all the good things we are bring to Afghanistan? Do you think he actually cares about Afghanistan? Karzai comes to the States saying "don't forget about us" because he isn't seeing the help he was promised and the US has decided to let it go to a bunch of fiefdoms.
Basically Bush and his associates are lying to you. They lied in the first Gulf War (incubator story for example), they lied in the evidence of WMD (Saddam will have a nuke in six months for example) and they lied about everything else. You should come to terms with the fact that governments lie to their people and they are lying as to why we are going into Iraq. Its nothing new in our history, the Gulf of Tonkin was a lie and the Spanish-American war was started on a lie. Research Gen Smedley Butler (only two time medal of honor awardee in Marine Corps). You will find it very interesting to see how he viewed his time in the military.
Regarding Chad Nagle's Article "The New Leninism":
In regards to the article by Chad Nagle "The New Leninism," which I thought to be a very good article and I agree with a good portion of it. I would like to state, though, Mr. Nagle Americans being Christians should be reworded as "Americans are Christians by Name." I state this because American Christianity is a type of Christianity that is not Christian at all. I am an Orthodox Christian and the God I believe in is a totally different God than that of President Bush and the war party.
Remember that in the spring of 1999 this "Christian country" bombed a Christian nation into oblivion, dropping bombs over Serbian cities and towns on Paskha (Orthodox Easter) and Holy Week. This "Christian country" bombed churches and monasteries dating back to the 1200s.
Orthodox Christianity differs from the "American Christianity" in the fact that we do not tow the line. We do not say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, since that is for us idolatry. Instead we have icons, which are not idols, but windows into the Kingdom of God. Our icons honor Christ our Savior, the Holy Theotokos Virgin Mary the Mother of God and the saints. Our priests are often called "hippies" or "odd balls" since they have long hair and beards and wear cassoks, which look like "dresses." We also follow the Julian calendar, so for us Christmas is January 7, not December 25.
Furthermore, how our faith differs from the so-called "Christian Americans," we don't hate. We don't try to shove our ideology down everybody's throat. Our faith is the faith of modesty and humility. Though the Muslims have done horrible things to us for over 1,000 years, we do not hate them, nor do we seek to destroy them. Our faith is that of what Christ intended for Christians to be.
Every man has a free will and can choose to follow our teachings or not. We do not force people to be baptized. Because we do not accept certain things that are as American as apple pie and Chevrolet, our faith is viewed by Christian Americans as "intolerant." For example at the local political functions people look at me funny because during the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, when every one has their right hand over their heart and in unison recite the pledge I cross my self and mumble prayers in a foreign language.
The point I am trying to make is that America calls itself Christian, wants to save the unborn, which is fine and well, at the same time these "pro-life" American Christians would prefer to go to war and kill people as Mr. Nagle rightly said, in the name of "freedom and democracy." Though as an Orthodox Christian I am "pro-life," I find it hard to believe that these die-hard pro-Bush Republicans, who proudly proclaim their stand against abortion enjoy watching the pictures of the war in Iraq as some sporting event. ...
Chad Nagle replies:
Can't argue with you. The Catholic family into which I was born takes its cue from the Pope, at least on the issue of this war, and although I'm not a churchgoer I certainly see more humanity in John Paul II than George Bush II at this moment in history. As for Orthodoxy, I was in Gracanica, Kosovo, just a couple of weeks ago and visited the monastery, still officially under the protection of KFOR (smug looking Swedes driving around in jeeps). It is sad to see the village trashed, but the monastery is still well worth a visit. Supposedly the Serbs there are safe now but a Serb shop-owner told me it wasn't safe for him to go to Prishtina.
Crazy Over Polls
I just don't get it. No one I know is for this war, yet the polls say Bush is soaring in approval and seven in ten Americans support military force in Iraq. Where do they come up with these numbers. If it weren't for antiwar.com, I would think I was going crazy. Keep up the good work. We need truth!
Frum and 'Unpatriotic Conservatives'
I've read both the Buchanan and the Frum piece and the Frum piece is full of inaccuracies and important omissions. First paloconservatives do not charge that neoconservatism is a Jewish conspiracy and they cite such neocons as William Bennet, Jeanne Kirpatrick, Fred Barnes etc. They are also very critical of the Christian right and folks like Ralph Reed for its fanatical support of Israel But there is no denying that neoconservatism started out as a movement largely made up of Jews who broke with the left because it felt that the left was not sufficiently supportive of Israel and support of Israel is one of the most important issues in neocon ideology. Much of the current criticism comes from a policy paper prepared by the leading neocons for Israeli prime minister Netanyahu where they call for the removal of Saddam, Syria, ditching the peace process etc. Most of the participants in this paper now hold top positions in the state and defense departments and are the leading ideological/intellectual force behind the current "regime change" position of this government which lead to the current war. There is no doubt that these neocons are motivated by a strong desire to help and protect Israel, their whole lives, their writings, their campaigns, their scholarly work all reflect this. One only has to read the major neocon mags to confirm this (Weekly Standard, Commentary, National Review, etc.)
Second, at least three of the paleocons mentioned by Frum are themselves Jewish – Robert Novak, Paul Gottfried whose family fled Germany and the late Murray Rothbard, one of the fathers of modern libertarianism. The libertarians also come close to worshipping the free market economist Ludwig Von Mises, a Jewish immigrant from Austria. This is not a question of "some of my best friends are..." Frum neglects to mention this.
Third, it is crazy to say that these conservatives are antiwar because THIS WAR helps Israel. Buchanan and most of the other paleoconservatives have vigorously opposed every single American intervention since the end of the cold war. Buchanan opposed the Gulf War, the invasion of Panama by Bush senior, the invasion of Haiti by Clinton, the bombing of Bosnia, the bombing of Kosovo, the bombing of Serbia, American intervention in the Philippine civil war, and intervention in the Colombian drug war. In addition Buchanan and all the other paleocons have opposed not only the sanction against Iraq (because he hates Israel say the neocons) but also the sanctions against Cuba.
The neocons are very quick to throw the antisemitism charge at anyone, left or right, who doesn't agree with their war agenda. What they say about The NATION and left-wing patriots like Gore Vidal is not all that different than the dirt they throw at Buchanan and company. See here "socialism of fools" is a European term for anti-semitism.
Regarding D. Guenzel's letter posted March 28:
I write in regards to the posting of D. Guenzel's message on Backtalk. He mentions the tiresome cliché"support our troops," what about the ignorant cliché"no war for oil"? I am not a Republican or a war advocate, but a freethinking autonomous individual with friends fighting in Iraq. Does D. Guenzel know what it is like to live in a foreign country ruled by a maniacal dictator? Has he heard from Iraq expatriates about what life is like in Iraq? I was born in a country of shambles where individuals have no voice and I know what it is like to live under a regime that dictates the way you think, feel, and most importantly live life. If he thinks this image is bad, try growing up and seeing it everyday. The war is horrible, but necessary in order to preserve the way of life all of you Americans take for granted. You can never understand what it is like to grow up under such oppression and how it affects one's perception of the world. I want a swift resolution, but this is unlikely. Current casualties are nothing compared to what Saddam has done to his own people in years past. Educate yourself and you will understand. Stop fighting the war with ignorance.
Someone's Worried
Daniel Ellsberg was recommending Antiwar.com on CSpan this morning. I hope you've managed to move to the new servers, else we might all have long waits ahead.
As for the AlJazeera web site, both their new English (english.aljazeera.net) and Arabic sites (www.aljazera.net) have been under attack and unavailable for a number of days. Their Wall Street correspondents have also had their permits revoked. It's pretty clear that someone out there is very worried about the American people getting too informed about the goings-on in Iraq. Thank god for Antiwar.com.
Regarding "A Perle of High Price" by Justin Raimondo:
I disagree that Perle's resignation is indicative of his policy failures. Quite the contrary, he has managed to get the snowball rolling downhill. He knows the military cannot turn back now. To save face the military must, at a minimum, win this act of aggression then occupy Iraq for an indeterminate length of time. Perle's objective of a massive American presence in the Mideast will have been achieved. If Bush lasts, perhaps by spreading the war to Iraq's neighbors then campaigning as a " wartime " president, Perle's total insane scenario might just pan out.
An excellent article. I will forward it to many friends. How come more isn't being made of the fact that depleted uranium is being used as an exterior cover for bombs and missiles setting up radioactive areas dangerous to civilians as well as our own troops who look for souvenirs among the bombed Iraqi tanks? This is what veterans of Gulf War I are suffering from and many have died. Thanks for your honesty. I too hope America wakes up and ends this nightmare. Is there any move to pressure a cease-fire or am I still dreaming?
Regarding Lt. Col Beckham's letter posted March 28:
You said in your letter: "We could end this war in 48 hours by unleashing the full force of our military," and you are right, from a military standpoint. We could, however, end the war in four-and-a-half Hours by dropping a couple of nuclear bombs on Baghdad and Basra. Or we could end the world in less than four Minutes by striking at the Chinese and North Koreans – and have them retaliate.
When I served during the Vietnam War the argument was we could beat the Vietnamese by dropping a few atom bombs on them. Of course we could. And we could have united the entire world against us in condemnation. Dangerous is the country that allows its military superiority to supersede its moral authority. The Nazis did that, and so did the Russians with their "satellite" states. Up until now we have somewhat avoided that. The Iraqi War may end that policy.
I'm certain there are a thousand career American military officers, active and retired, who cautioned against an "offensive" war in the Middle East, but the career politicians who never served, convinced our Commander-In-Chief, who served badly, that an imperialist act disguised as a benevolent strike would be a wise foreign policy. Retired General Anthony Zinni spoke out against this Iraq involvement but the West Wing chose to heed men who served only in think tanks rather than in battle tanks. Check back in a year whether our country was better served by these shadowy men close to the president than by the career soldiers who were forced to remain silent.
~ Douglas Herman, USAF veteran
Regarding Kevin Woodman's letter posted March 29, and others:
You seem to be getting an awful lot of pro-war letters that accuse opponents of the Iraqi war of inconsistency in not likewise opposing Slick Willie's Balkan wars. The accusers are abysmally ignorant of the political orientation of your website since, as you have repeatedly pointed out, it was originally started in opposition to Clinton's war on Serbia.
But it was only a couple of months ago that this "why didn't you oppose the war in Kosovo" line started cropping up everywhere. I strongly suspect it is the talking point of some pro-war organization. Remember all those "President Bush is demonstrating true leadership" letters to newspapers?
~ Kevin Carson, Mutualist.net/
Peaceful Solution
After reading the varying issues surrounding the Iraq war I have come to the conclusion that every reason for war except one can be explained as unreasonable. The one reason that Bush states he is waging war against Iraq, which I have been unable to label as "unreasonable", is his goal to oust a tyrannical dictator. I have not seen any antiwar opinions that directly give a peaceful solution to Saddam. So my two questions to Antiwar.com are as follow: What would be an alternative (peaceful) method to oust Saddam and bring a more stable government to Iraq?
And also: If peaceful solutions to Saddam and his government do not work, can war be considered as a last resort?
Backtalk editor Sam Koritz replies:
Antiwar.com is dedicated to the principle of military non-interventionism, so of course we believe that governments should not attempt to overthrow other governments Interventionism is a recipe for destruction, since it's easy to arouse the hatred of the people of one country against the leader of another, and since (short of complete self-destruction) there are always government-connected individuals who benefit from war. Americans who didn't object when the US government supported Hussein by providing Iraq with biological weapons precursors and military assistance against Iraq in the 1980s now support the government's contention that Hussein must be overthrown. Two wrongs don't make a right.
How American People Think
I'm a Japanese, so I don't understand the way the American Government thinks about this war. They don't give any rest to their troops even when they have continued to battle more than a week, and some units already run out food, fuel and other supplies. It seems the Government doesn't really care how many troops will be killed. To get a power on Iraq is more important than troops' life?
Well, that's what I could get the image of the Government. My boyfriend is one of their troops who has battled in Iraq now, so I'm very worried about him, and I am just upset to know those decisions. If someone could explain me how American people think about this situation, that'll be nice.
Baghdad Market Massacres
...The massacre of 89 Iraqi civilians last week by the US exceeds anything that occurred during the siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia. But why isn't the US charged with war crimes? Why isn't the US charged for committing a genocide against Muslims?
Moreover, why doesn't the US Security Council condemn this US aggression against Iraq by declaring the US war a violation of the UN Charter and international law? Where is the UN in this illegal aggression by the US against a sovereign and independent UN state? I thought the UN was created in 1945 to prevent war. But the UN has only sponsored war. Wars have increased, not declined. And the US remains the largest arms supplier in the world. Like the Leauge of Nation, the UN is a defunct and useless relic that belongs in the trash bin of history. The UN is just so much garbage. We all see what really matters. ...
Finally, why not use the $75 billion that was spent on this illegal aggression so far to help Palestinian Muslims build their own state? After all, Muslim anger against the US is based on the genocide being committed against Palestinians by Israel. Why not alleviate that problem so that the Muslim world will support the US? Why not invest that $75 billion in creating a newly independent Palestinian state? Why not use that money to build homes and infrastructure for Palestinians? Why waste the money on an illegal war that will only generate more anger against the US? This is a no-brainer. We should give peace a chance.
Another Setback for the Antiwar Movement
I saw an item on the Internet Movie Database that actor Martin Sheen has covered his mouth with duct tape to protest the war. Unfortunately, I can't think of a more potent argument for the U.S. to never stop invading other countries.
Was 9/11 Just a Bad Dream?
I had a bad dream on 9/11/2001. Let me recollect from my vivid memory. A religious zealot named Osama bin Laden sent a team of well trained terrorists to shock us. "Go forth," he told his fanatic followers, "and deliver Shock and Awe" to America. That attack violated our soul. We hugged our children and cried, even if we were thousands of miles away from ground zero. We are deeply scarred and the wounds still bleed. Every time we saw a plane the next 30 days, we worried that it might crash in our living room.
It only took us a day to establish the source of that terror and we took the battle to the barbarians in their caves. We suspected that a dictator in Iraq may have had something to do with it. Yet, after 18 months of intense efforts by the world's superpower to find any hint of evidence, none was found to link Iraq with our tragedy.
We have been raining volleys of deadly missiles to deliver Shock and Awe in an attempt to Decapitate a poor third world nation. Our missiles repeat 9/11 every single day, like clockwork, on defenseless denizens of a doomed city called Baghdad. Their children scream in pain as their parents watch helplessly while we tune to our favorite cable channel and watch the fireworks as anchors gasp for breath while jumping around the scene looking for fireballs and craters.
How loosely we use terms like Decapitation and Shock and Awe! I expect bin Laden to use that language. I'm shocked to see our leaders, our press, our military use that language every day.
What have the people of Iraq done to us? They already paid dearly for their occupation of Kuwait in 1990. Why do we insist on beating a poor nation into submission? How do we expect them to welcome the invasion with flowers and music? And why do our leaders arrogantly express impatience when Iraqis desperately engage in homeland defense? Wouldn't we defend our homeland when invaded?
My recollection of 9/11 is so vivid that it may be more than just a bad dream. I cheered when we delivered Shock and Awe to the barbarians of Al Qaeda. But watching us do it to Iraq, I wonder if we experienced the horrors of 9/11 or if it was just a bad dream I had.
The Day of Judgment
I don’t know why I wrote to you to express my protest against what is happening in Iraq. I am seeing innocent kids dying for no reason, kids losing mothers and fathers. On March 28, 2003, more than fifty-plus innocent women, children, men and infants died for no cause while blaming on a high precision missile with accuracy over 99.9% that went astray. Would we like to see this thing happening to our beloved or to your place? Absolutely not.
Being in the Middle East our voice might not reach the ears of the President of the United States but I request you to send this letter to remind Mr. Bush that no matter how long we live on Earth there will be a day we all die then at the day of judgment we will stand in front of Almighty God and he will ask us about everything.
At this time we have to say the truth because we can not cheat anymore as we are doing now. Just ask him what would be his answer to God when he asks him why he killed these innocent human beings in such a savage way. I am sure God will not accept democracy and mass destruction weapon as an answer.
He should remember that what every pain people might get in this life is not comparable to the pain that God does to those who don’t respect the life of a innocent young human being.
At that day everyone will stand by himself without his aircraft carriers and smart weapons to answer the basic question: Why did you do that?
Please do your best to stop tears of millions of innocent Iraqis who now suffer for basic human right needs set by USA, clean water, shelter and food. ...
~ A. M. Al-Dossari, Saudi Arabia
Thank You
You probably hear the following statement a lot but I think it is important to repeat it in these perilous times: thank you! Thank you for providing a forum for people against war who aren't necessarily left-wing lunatics or frothing anti-Americans. Thank you for providing an alternative perspective that truly examines the war in an unfiltered, uncompromising, and objective manner.
About a year ago, I was a supporter of Bush's war against Saddam's "terrorist regime" due to my perception that the antiwar movement was composed of left-wingers and conspiracists who opposed the war based solely on their abject loathing of the US I dismissed perfectly reasonable analyses of American imperialism by left-wing scholars as mere "knee-jerk anti-Americanism". Yet, despite my support for the American government, I could not provide a perfectly legitimate defense of why we were so hell-bent on going to war. In order to legitimatize my support/defense of the American government, I was determined to find pro-war arguments from the Internet (as a general information source, not necessarily as an absolute reference to which I refer to all of my information from) since the mainstream newspapers and newsmagazines merely trumpeted the same homogenized arguments over and over again.
To my surprise, I found a plethora of RIGHT-WING and non-leftist antiwar sites ranging from your website to Lew Rockwell's own paleolibertarian home page. The arguments put forth by these paleo-conservatives and libertarians were eloquent and objective. These beautifully constructed right-wing antiwar arguments starkly contrasted with the irrational and emotive pro-war arguments which often utilized slander to nullify any dissenting opinion. The "left-wing, anti-American" label certainly could not be attached to the libertarians, conservatives, and war-veterans opposed to the war.
Suffice to say, your web-site and others like it changed my entire perspective of the war and US foreign policy. I became more aware of the poisoning of US foreign policy by the neoconservatives and how US"adventurism"/intervention in foreign countries breeded anti-American resentment which inevitably manifested itself in its most extreme form as terrorism.
For this "epiphany", I credit the editors of Antiwar.com and other right-wing antiwar sites. Once again, thank you! Keep up the good fight!
~ Stephen Choy, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Covered Tracks
Four days ago, on Meet the Press, Russert had Rumsfeld on and they debated. At one point, Rumsfeld stated that because of the planes running into the WTC, we had every right to attack Iraq. I was astounded that someone so high up in the administration would come out with such a flagrant and deliberate lie. My astonishment was magnified significantly when I just went on to the website and saw the transcript with Rumsfeld from yesterday and the remarks were nowhere to be found. It would appear as though a deliberate effort or disinformation is being made and their tracks are covered as well. ...
Photos of War
Americans and Brits are tender hearted and feel it is inappropriate to have photos of dead or wounded soldiers shown on TV. My feeling is, hey, we're paying for this show and we better well have the courage to look at it right in the face. And if you are too softhearted to approve of our carnage, then maybe you better demand we get out of where we're neither needed nor wanted and try to make amends for the damage we've already done.
Afghanistan is suffering with nothing but tents and mud after our "liberation" of the Taliban. They've even come to Washington begging for the aid they were promised. They now live in conditions twice as bad as they were under the Taliban. The Taliban are still hovering in the hills with many friends there and in Pakistan. Once again, because we couldn't work out an oil pipeline, we've blasted a people into chaos. Agreed, it wasn't much, but it was home.
Regarding "Washington's Hubris Invites a Fatal Iraqi Misjudgment" by Christoper Deliso:
Yours is one of the best analyses I have read of the unfolding disaster in Iraq. However, the following paragraph left me with some reservations.
"Not that they won't win in the end – after all, no one can hold out against the world's most powerful military machine forever. Inevitably, inexorably America will crush Iraq – even if it has to kill millions in the process."
Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967, in the “6 Day War.” Yet when it comes to the occupied land, the people of Israel will probably never get to enjoy it short of wiping out the Palestinians.
I see a similar scenario developing at a magnified level in Iraq, the day after the removal of Saddam and his regime. There will be a War of Occupation, fought every day in the ruins of Baghdad. This will be a war that we cannot win unless we resort to full genocide. Eventually, the only recourse our government will have will be to capitulate and leave Iraq – the sort of “Win with Honor” that ended up putting over 45,000 names on a memorial in the nation’s capital and cost the lives of more than one million Vietnamese.
On C-Span this morning, Daniel Ellsberg recommended your website. Lucky me. It's been a while since I've read a good writer/journalist. I thought good writer/journalists were extinct but wrong – 5 paragraphs into your article, I knew one still existed. YOU! Mr. Deliso, you are a great writer. I don't know anything about you but if you're middle aged, you've perfected your craft and if you're young, you're a genius. You have an excellent vocabulary, your word choice inspired and best of all, your writing is coherent and organized. The word Hubris sums it up. Have you interviewed Daniel Ellsberg, Brent Scowcroft or L. Eagleburger. Could you ask them, What would you do NOW, if you were President? Continued success to you. I expect to see you on CNN soon, or are you already on? If not, you should be.
Who Said Iraq Couldn't be Unified?
Although I have been an ardent reader of Antiwar.com it does seem that President Bush's policy is accomplishing one thing far ahead of schedule. There were those who said Iraq could never be made a democracy because it was so unstable between Sunni, Shiite and Kurd. While our invasion is still far from creating a democracy and far from toppling Saddam Hussein, it does appear that we are creating far more Iraqi unity than anyone ever imagined possible. The only problem is that it is that common unity found in many Middle Eastern battles, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." As the Iraqis unite in defending their homeland against the invaders from a half world away, Bush is proving his ability to unite the Iraqi people. But, we did not imagine that this unity would be against America instead of for America.
Geneva Convention Double-Standard
There is a full profile close-up photo of an Iraqi prisoner in today's edition of the online NY Times, "A Village Is Bloodied in a Stubborn Battle."
Balance?
Add one more item to the list of things the Bush administration has been quietly doing on the home front while the nation is preoccupied with Iraq. This week President Bush signed an executive order that makes it easier for government agencies, including the White House, to keep documents classified and out of public view.
The order does a number of things at once. It delays by three years the release of declassified government documents dating from 1978 or earlier. It treats all material sent to American officials from foreign governments – no matter how routine – as subject to classification. It expands the ability of the Central Intelligence Agency to shield documents from declassification. And for the first time, it gives the vice president the power to classify information. Offering that power to Vice President Dick Cheney, who has shown indifference to the public's right to know what is going on inside the executive branch, seems a particularly worrying development. ...
~ Ted Rudow III, MA, Menlo Park, California
Activism Vs. Anarchy
The last time widespread antiwar protests were in action in the USA was during the Vietnam era. The activists of that time employed various highly effective tactics whose goal was to change the minds of people who disagreed with them. Today's movement seems to have abandoned that successful strategy for some unknown reason.
Making people late for work does nothing to get people to agree with an antiwar point of view. It is naive to think that stopping someone who actually has a job from going to work is stopping the "war machine".
Fighting with police who are already trying to protect citizens from another terrorist attack does nothing to get people to agree with an antiwar point of view. It makes them hate you.
Black Blok tactics do nothing but tarnish public opinion of the antiwar movement, which is in the minority in this country. The key to expanding the movement beyond anti globalist, socialists, and anarchists is to engage the general public in informed polite debate. Try to persuade people to your point of view. Don't try to bully them to believe. Just some thought from a random person currently turned off by the antiwar antics of late.
Sam Koritz replies:
I'm not arguing against your main point here, but I would like to know: If the Vietnam-era protests employed highly effective tactics, why did the war last a decade and kill hundreds of thousands of people?
Regarding Eric Garris's reply to M. Coady's letter posted March 28:
Eric Garris seems to be offering more and more surreal replies to his respondents. His response on Al Jazeera has a bitter zest of sarcasm about it, but I know he'll forgive me if I'm mistaken about it. I just thought I'd update you as to what's happening. According to Cursor.org, Al Jazeera.net has been kept down by continual spamming (apparently from Americans angered by their coverage of the war on Iraq). It will not be available until mid-April, by which time the US government hopes to have a retired General presiding over a Sunni administration.
~ Richard Seymour, London, England
Sam Koritz replies:
I think this may be some sort of cultural misunderstanding, I didn't detect any sarcasm in Eric's reply. But thanks for the update on al Jazeera.
Regarding MK's letter posted March 28:
In 1986, my two children and I quit attending our Baptist Church of many years because many of their actions conflicted with teachings in The Bible. I was very disappointed when many Christians came out in favor of this horrible war. Fortunately, our relationship with God does not depend on any church or organization. We have a direct link, and that must give us hope. ...
~ Anastasia E. Kellar, Volunteer Coordinator, Antiwar.com
Shock and Horror
After having felt the immense pain that 9/11 caused, I am shocked and horrified that the US would choose to do the same to another country. On 9/11 we felt the pain of American deaths, we felt the pain of loosing beautiful skyscrapers that meant a lot to the American society, we felt economic pain, the pain of extreme financial loss, the worry of the psychological effects of 9/11 on American children, the people who lived near the twin towers felt the pain the debris and soot gave their bodies as they inhaled the dirty air, we felt the pain of the financial cost of having to rebuild, the financial cost of clearing the debris, the pain list can go on and on. We felt the blow of all this pain, yet we chose to inflict all this pain to Iraq.
What about the pain of the Iraqis? What about their innocent lives lost? What about their financial loss? What about destroying their beautiful buildings? What about psychologically hurting the Iraqi children? What about the long term effects of all the radiation on the Iraqi people from the bombings? Why doesn't all the list of pains and effects that the US applied to itself on 9/11 matter now in terms of the Iraqis?
If this is all about "kicking butt" and taking revenge for 9/11, then it is shameful that the United States had to stoop so low, and kill and destroy, to make itself feel good. Is that how Americans heal and help themselves feel better? I always thought that America was better than that. All the brilliant minds in this country couldn't put their heads together to figure out a better way to take out Saddam, other than waging a full fledged war. It would have really been something had we used our brains rather than our might to take out Saddam, that would have been the true "shock and awe." What we are doing now is simply shameful and horrifying.
~ LQ