Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • Scene of the Crime

    Iraqi President Saddam Hussein levels a sneer at the thought of combat with the United States, the specter of which looms more vivid with the seasons. His derision may visit him out of habit these days—military conflict, one area peace advocate contends, is only one more phase in a de facto war waged on the country for the better part of the last 12 years.

    “Sanctions are a form of war,” the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Leah Wells said. “Essentially, what they amount to is one in eight children not reaching their first birthday and 5,000 children a month under the age of 5 dying as a result of malnutrition and water-borne diseases.”

    The United Nations imposed numerous embargoes on fundamental goods to Iraq following its 1990 attack on Kuwait and amid speculation that Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction.

    Wells, who will leave for Baghdad Sept. 19 on a fact-finding mission for her Santa Barbara-based nonprofit peace group, has experienced such degradation firsthand. Her trip to Iraq last August yielded the sight of raw sewage mixed with water supplies as children played around them.

    Iraq’s educational infrastructure founders under the sanctions, Wells added—an irony given the nation’s stature among world cultures.

    “That’s the area where the art of writing was invented—it’s the cradle of civilization,”Wells said. “The love of learning has always been very rich there. I’m really curious to see what the effects of this war preparation have on teachers and students.”

    Wells, 26, will return from Baghdad Sept. 29.

  • A Time For Vision

    Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press

    Terrorism did not begin on September the 11th 2001. However, for Americans it is a date to remember our fallen heroes and the innocent victims of a vicious and senseless act. We must also remember the event was perpetrated by cowards, criminals, and extremely zealous fundamentalists, who, in the name of a great religion performed a perfidious and barbaric act that decries acceptance at any level within the human community. But we must also remember that no one can deprive us of our freedoms lest we agree to give them up.

    We must reinvigorate the patriotism that has been exhibited by our citizens and the veterans among them who have provided in large part the small degree of stability that exists in an agitated world. We must also recall the fundamental tenets upon which our country was founded and the constant vigilance that is required to retain the liberties we cherish.

    As we readjust our national ethic in light of all the negative current events, we must resolve not to relinquish our basic freedoms to the acts of a craven minority that represents the worst aspirations of humanity. Nor should we forget that we are not well served by governmental dictums that tend to usurp the democratic characteristics of our open society to provide the appearance of security for political reasons.

    Terrorism is an ill-defined term. It represents the unknowns that comprise the fears and apprehensions that may take any form we allow our minds to dwell on. It is a word that has no rational boundaries and has no single target for engagement. Terrorist acts are designed to create chaos. They are designed to create fear, distrust, uncertainty and disruption in normal human activity. The ultimate targets of terrorist acts are human minds.

    The word “WAR” is entirely inappropriate to be used in context with the pursuit of terrorists and those who support them. Since these acts are acts of criminals, the action taken against them should be implemented in terms of international criminal law. Enforcement actions should be applied by established international law-enforcement agencies.

    To describe the action taken against terrorism as a war is unacceptable. War, as odious as it is, is bounded by recognized conventions of engagement, and is generally confined to limited geographical locations by combatants who have formally declared their hostile intent toward each other. Nationally sanctioned Armed Forces act as representatives for the political entities engaging in war and the participants are identifiable. Wars have recognizable beginnings and ends and, as stupid as it sounds, rules of acceptable conduct.

    Just as terrorism did not begin with the September attacks, it will not end as long as criminal elements exists in the guise of political or religious causes. Terrorism recognizes no conventions of humanity nor are they confined to any given geographical location. There is no way a conventional war can engage and end the acts of clandestine terrorism.

    When we empower terrorist acts by declaring them acts of war we elevate the acts to a level of acceptability that is consistent with our acceptance of the use of overt war in settling political disputes. When we do this we lose our sense of proportionality and this leads to wrong thinking. Then, a greater hazard exists in the concomitant extension of military war powers to any government when the more appropriate action would be to join into an international coalition of law-enforcement agencies dedicated to addressing the unique problems associated with terrorism.

    Anyone who believes that their personal security against terrorism is enhanced by the actions of a government exercising war powers is very badly mistaken. Personal security, in fact, is reduced in the so-called interests of national security. If personal freedoms of travel, of speech, and access are impinged in the name of providing security against terrorism, then the terrorists are achieving their purposes.

    What is needed at this time in history is a vision of how the variety of political and religious interests on the international scene can be coordinated to formulate a new approach for the problems generated by the radical, criminal international terrorist organizations. Of how the understanding of these acts, in context with the moral base of all humanity, will render them so universally unacceptable that they will no longer have the political impact to provoke overreaction by national leaders lacking vision to counter the terrorist phenomena.

    Religious philosophies abhor the acts used by terrorists in their names because they advocate, rather than violence, a broad vision for finding solutions to the stressful interactions among the members of the world community. This is stated succinctly in Proverbs found in the Old Testament: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

    In remembering the events of September 11th we must develop a vision for the future that will not spawn terrorism of any kind – foreign or domestic.

  • Statment Opposing Military Action in Iraq

    Thank you, Rep. Kucinich for inviting me to speak today. I do not believe that our world, our children, the people of the Middle East or the citizens of Israel will be safer by going to war against Iraq. I believe that going to war against Iraq would be a mistake. The cost would be heavy in lives lost, dollars wasted and it would squander the goodwill of our allies.

    The serious question is when will the human race work towards peace, rather than war. As citizens of the most educated and financially well-off country in history, when will we decide to put our strength and our energy and our creativity behind peace rather than destruction.

    It is true that Saddam Hussein is a dictator – he is a menace and the world would be better off without him. But, the world will also be better off if the United States works within the scope of international institutions instead of launching an unprovoked first-strike against Iraq. America’s greatest asset is our moral authority, not our military power. Attacking a sovereign country unprovoked forfeits that authority completely.

    A war with Iraq will cost between $100-250 billion. Just think what we could do with that amount of money if we decided to invest in humanity rather than military hardware.

    With $150 billion we could help developing countries in Africa by forgiving half of the continent’s debt, $112 billion would repair or rebuild all the public schools in the United States, and for only $12 million we could demine and replant the breadbasket of Afghanistan to help that nation recover from more than 20 years of continuous war.

    We owe it to our children to exercise the full range of diplomatic options in Iraq, so we can prevent a war that will cost thousands of lives, and give a boost to our real enemies – the terrorists who planned September 11.

    War represents a failure of national policy. It is a last resort. America’s strength is our commitment to moral action and a government based on the rule of law. That law must never be silent, and our moral sensibilities must never be intimidated by fear.
    Dated: September 19, 2002 10:00 AM Cannon Terrace

  • Local teacher heading to Iraq: Pacifist will study how war threats, embargoes affect schools

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    Fear is violence.

    It may not always bring physical wounds but inflicts harm just the same by paralyzing and isolating people, said Leah Wells, a Santa Paula teacher whose impending peace mission to Iraq makes her something of an expert in the matter.

    The 26-year-old pacifist said that if she allowed her journey to be detoured by the possibility of U.S. bombing, war and political coups — fears real enough that trip organizers are talking to the about half-dozen participants about the risks — she’d be on the wrong side of the battle.

    “Fear is the worst form of violence. It makes us step back from who we really are,” she said. “Life is inherently dangerous. Cave people knew that. You do what you do. You trust in the goodness of people.”

    On Thursday, Wells will take her trust and convictions on a journey aimed at studying how Iraq’s schools have been affected by war threats and 12 years of economic embargoes.

    She’ll go to Chicago, then to Jordan and finally, in a 15-hour drive, to Baghdad for about eight days in Iraq. The roundabout route is dictated by a travel sanction that means Wells and others in her group could face U.S. penalties including prison and fines — a possibility she alludes to briefly before moving on to another topic.

    The brevity may be linked to what she calls baby steps. She copes with her fears by looking at her trip as a series of moments to be taken one at a time. She’ll get on the plane, then deal with the next obstacle.

    Ask what her parents think, and Wells said they’re proud but “very, very afraid for me.”

    Ask again why she’s going.

    “Because it’s the right thing to do … because I believe really strongly in nonviolence,” she said.

    Wells, who grew up in a southern Illinois farming community, studied neuro-linguistics at Georgetown University. She got her start as peace educator about four years ago when she co-taught at a maximum-security juvenile prison near Washington, D.C. Now she works for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, teaching Solutions to Violence classes at three Ventura County high schools.

    At a continuation school in Santa Paula, students quote Gandhi and talk about ways to solve conflict in the world, school and home. The principal says Wells’ efforts were the reason there were no fights on campus last year.

    Her class is unusual. The students together make up their rules and goals. When a boy reading aloud from a pacifist essay about the Gulf War asks when he should stop, she tells him to keep going as long as he wants. When she’s in Iraq, the students may take turns leading the class.

    Wells said she does not advocate her opinions, but instead pushes the students to make their own conclusions. Some of the students think U.S. strikes against Iraq are defensible.

    “If Iraq is helping out the terrorists, they should pay consequences,” said a boy in a “Save the Planet” T-shirt.

    Another student thinks any bombing should be carefully planned to avoid civilian casualties. He calls Wells crazy for going to Iraq. She gets that a lot.

    “I feel pretty sane,” she said. “I think the people talking about war are the crazy ones.”

    She is traveling as part of a humanitarian group, Voices in the Wilderness. She joined it on a trip to Iraq last year. She saw poverty and suffering everywhere: Children playing next to canals of raw sewage; a mother watching her child die in a cancer ward that was woefully underequipped; markets displaying withered fruit so pitiful her next trip to a Ventura grocery store brought tears.

    Wells has heard schools are hurting, too. She’s been told some families will send only one child to school because they can only afford one pencil and one notebook.

    “I just want to see for myself,” she said.

    Wells doesn’t think the media covers the plight of the Iraqi people, instead fixating on Saddam Hussein and politics. She wants to collect stories and help Americans understand the inhumane impact of sanctions and threats of war on the way everyday people live.

    It’s not only a few of her students who disagree with her. She gets long, passionate e-mails from people who question her patriotism and understanding of the destruction perpetrated by Saddam. She answers them all, sometimes getting involved in long, intricate dialogues.

    Wells doesn’t support Saddam or anything connected to him. She wants the people to choose their own leader through nonviolent revolution.

    Suggest she’s idealistic, and she interprets it as a compliment. Ask about the feasibility of global peace, and she paraphrases words used by Martin Luther King Jr.:

    “The arc of the universe is long,” she said, “but it bends toward justice.”

  • Local Peace Mission Going to Baghdad

    Published in the Santa Barbara News Press

    Following her first trip to Iraq, Leah Wells returned to Santa Barbara and described how citizens of the Middle Eastern nation fared after more than a decade of international economic sanctions and embargo.

    “The people of Iraq are unable to purchase aspirin and vitamins,” she wrote shortly after the 10-day trip in July 2001. “I saw raw sewage flowing openly through the trash-lined streets and mixing with the drinking water supply. … I am convinced that if the American people know the real face of our economic and political policy toward Iraq, we would mobilize together to put an end to this.”

    More than a year later, the sanctions continue. Talk of a U.S. invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tops the news.

    And Ms. Wells, peace education coordinator at the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is headed back.

    During her upcoming second trip to Iraq, the 26-year-old Santa Paula resident, who teaches nonviolence classes in Ventura schools, will study how Iraqis, mostly schoolchildren and teachers, but also other citizens, are faring under threat of war.

    “My guess,” she said, “is that the everyday threat of war is psychological warfare.”

    As she prepared to leave, the national and international debate over Iraq continued. In recent weeks, President Bush has intensified his call for regime change. Iraq appeared to soften its stance Monday. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that nearly four years after weapons inspectors left the country, Iraq had unconditionally accepted their return.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has taken a firm stance against any new military action against Iraq, and has condemned sanctions against the nation.

    Ms. Wells’ delegation opposes the sanctions and a new war with Iraq on moral, religious and humanitarian grounds, according to the foundation. However, polls that show most Americans support military action.

    Floyd Brown, executive director of the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative group founded under the Reagan Administration, said he believes most people in Santa Barbara would consider the trip to Iraq an “almost treasonous” act that “provides aid and comfort to the enemy.”

    He noted that Mr. Hussein is condemned by many human rights groups, and said the criticism of the President is particularly objectionable while America stands under a threat of further terrorist strikes.

    “It just shows how out of step they are with most Americans, and most of Santa Barbara,” he said.

    The trip technically violates U.S. policies — the federal government officially bars Americans from traveling to Iraq, prohibitions similar to restrictions against travel to Cuba.

    “We consider Iraq a supporter of state-sponsored terrorism,” said Greg Sullivan, spokesman for the U.S. State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs bureau.Still, Americans who enter the country are unlikely to face punishment, Mr. Sullivan noted, unless it is proven that they somehow provided “material benefit” to the Iraqi government.

    “Conditions throughout Iraq remain unsettled and dangerous,” according to the latest U.S. State Department travel warning, issued in July 2001. “Foreigners present in Iraq have in the past been used as ‘human shields’ by the (Hussein) regime during periods of confrontation with the international community.”

    Ms. Wells will make the trip, which starts Thursday, as part of a seven-member “Iraq Peace Team” sponsored by the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness, anonprofit organization focused on ending sanctions against the nation of more than 22 million people.

    The group, with members in several states, will fly to Amman, Jordan, and later enter Iraq on the ground.

    Its first destination? The capital city of Baghdad.

    Much of the itinerary was still being worked out Monday, Ms. Wells said.

    “We’re not there to do big events,” she said. “We’re there to be quiet observers.”

    On the side, Ms. Wells said she hopes to visit at least one site rarely viewed by Westerners. “I’m Catholic, and I’m really interested in seeing where St. Matthew is buried,” she said.

    Once her delegation returns, “I’m hoping to publish as many articles as I can about the trip,” she said.
    *News-Press City Editor Andy Rose and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

  • Sort of a Treaty, But Not Really

    Sort of a Treaty, But Not Really

    Published in International Law and Editorial

    Nuclear weapons were the greatest threat to humanity’s future before 9/11, and remain the greatest threat after 9/11. They are the only weapons capable of destroying major cities and even ending human life on Earth. Given the dangers that these instruments of genocide pose to humanity, it is baffling why we’re not doing more to end this threat.

    I attribute the lack of action primarily to the myopic leadership in the United States, where the short-sightedness of U.S. political leadership on this issue is bipartisan. During its eight-year tenure, the Clinton administration made little progress to make good on the formal U.S. commitment in the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to undertake good-faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the nuclear-weapons states clarified their treaty commitments by pledging to pursue the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Promises also were made for “[t]he early entry into force and full implementation of START II and the conclusion of START III as soon as possible while preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and as a basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons.”

    Instead of fulfilling these promises, however, the newly installed Bush dministration announced its opposition to the ABM Treaty, and later withdrew from it. It then foisted a fraudulent Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) on the Russians, a treaty so problematic that it accomplishes little more than mislead the public into thinking that some progress is being made toward nuclear disarmament.

    SORT will lead only to the reduction of the number of actively deployed strategic (long-range) nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 by year 2012, with no timetable other than the endpoint and no procedures for verification. And the U.S. has announced that it will not be destroying most of the weapons taken off active deployment: It plans merely to place them on a shelf for retrieval in case they are deemed to be needed again in the future. The treaty has no effect on tactical (shorter-range) nuclear weapons.

    When this fraudulent treaty, which the U.S. Senate still must ratify, is combined with the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review presented to Congress earlier this year, the clear indication is that the U.S. is committed to keeping its nuclear arsenal, and to lowering the political and military thresholds of its possible use.

    The portions of the secret Nuclear Posture Review that were leaked to the press indicate that the U.S. is developing new, more usable nuclear weapons, as well as plans for their use against at least seven countries (Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia and China). This is hardly the stance of a country seeking to provide leadership toward fulfilling its NPT obligations to eliminate its nuclear weapons.

    Terrorism is the threat to injure or kill innocent people for political ends. The terrorist acts that targeted the United States on September 11 last year were despicable, and condemnable as crimes against humanity. But isn’t planning to use nuclear weapons, which would kill not 3,000 people but hundreds of thousands (in a small-scale use) to millions of people (in a larger scale use), terrorism too?

    It is past time for the United States and the other nuclear-weapons states to recognize their own terrorist threats against humanity. These states have existing obligations under international law to achieve the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals, including under the NPT and the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the nternational Court of Justice, which ruled that the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons would violate international law under nearly all conceivable circumstances.

    Fulfilling their international law obligations with respect to nuclear disarmament is also in the self-interest of these states. By eliminating nuclear weapons and strengthening non-proliferation regimes, these states would diminish the risk that such weapons would fall into the hands of terrorist groups, like those that targeted the United States last September.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Published in International Law and Editorial, September 15, 2002.

  • Text of President Bush’s speech to the United Nations

    Source: The Associated Press

    PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen: We meet one year and one day after a terrorist attack brought grief to my country, and to the citizens of many countries. Yesterday, we remembered the innocent lives taken that terrible morning. Today, we turn to the urgent duty of protecting other lives, without illusion and without fear.

    We have accomplished much in the last year – in Afghanistan and beyond. We have much yet to do – in Afghanistan and beyond. Many nations represent here have joined in the fight against global terror – and the people of the United States are grateful.

    The United Nations was born in the hope that survived a world war – the hope of a world moving toward justice, escaping old patterns of conflict and fear. The founding members resolved that the peace of the world must never again be destroyed by the will and wickedness of any man. We created a United Nations Security Council, so that – unlike the League of Nations – our deliberations would be more than talk, and our resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators, broken treaties and squandered lives, we dedicate ourselves to standards of human dignity shared by all, and to a system of security defended by all.

    Today, these standards, and this security, are challenged.

    Our commitment to human dignity is challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease. The suffering is great, and our responsibilities are clear. The United States is joining with the world to supply aid where it reaches people and lift up lives … to extend trade and the prosperity it brings … and to bring medical care where it is desperately needed.

    As a symbol of our commitment to human dignity, the United State will return to UNESCO. This organization has been reformed and America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance, and learning.

    Our common security is challenged by regional conflicts – ethnic and religious strife that is ancient but not inevitable. In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides. America stands committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living beside Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserve a government that serves their interests and listens to their voices. My nation will continue to encourage all parties to step up to their responsibilities as we seek a just and comprehensive settlement to the conflict.

    Above all, our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions. In the attacks on America a year ago, we saw the destructive intentions of our enemies. This threat hides within many nations, including my own. In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.

    In one place – in one regime – we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms … exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.

    Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime’s forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped – by the might of coalition forces, and the will of the United Nations.

    To suspend hostilities and to spare himself, Iraq’s dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear: to him, and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.

    He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge – by his deceptions, and by his cruelties – Saddam Hussein has made the case again himself.

    In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organization that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq’s government openly praised the attacks of September 11th. And al-Qaida terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq.

    This demand goes ignored. Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human rights found that Iraq continues to commit “extremely grave violations” of human rights and that the regime’s repression is “all pervasive.” Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating, burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands; children in the presence of their parents – all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.

    In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary-General’s high-level coordinator of this issue reported that Kuwaiti, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for – more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.

    In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded the Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organization that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq’s government openly praised the attacks of September 11th. And al-Qaida terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq.

    In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.

    From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

    United Nations inspections also reveal that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.

    And in 1995 – after four years of deception – Iraq finally admitted it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.

    Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its unclear program – weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials, and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq’s state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.

    Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that could inflict mass death throughout the region.

    In 1990, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime’s compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq’s people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and arms his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.

    In 1991, Iraq promised U.N. inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq’s commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading and harassing U.N. inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate fully with inspectors, “condemning” Iraq’s “serious violations” of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that demand in 1994 and twice more in 1996, “deploring” Iraq’s “clear violations” of its obligations. The Security Council renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing “flagrant violations” and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq’s behavior “totally unacceptable.” And in 1999, the demand was renewed yet again.

    As we meet today, it has been almost four years since the last U.N. inspectors set foot in Iraq – four years for the Iraqi regime to plan and build and test behind a cloak of secrecy.

    We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in the country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic and the facts lead to one conclusion. Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.

    Delegates to the General Assembly: We have been more than patient. We have tried sanctions. We have tried the carrot of “oil for food” and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbid, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.

    The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?

    The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the U.N. to be effective and respected and successful. We want the resolutions of the world’s most important multilateral body to be enforced. Right now these resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans and others – again as required by Security Council resolutions.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues – as required by the Security Council resolutions.

    If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

    If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis – a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty and internationally supervised elections.

    The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people, who have suffered for too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it and the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.

    We can harbor no illusions. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980, and Kuwait in 1990. He has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians and 40 Iraqi villages.

    My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council on a new resolution to meet our common challenge. If Iraq’s regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold Iraq to account. The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

    Events can turn in one of two ways.

    If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission. The regime will have new power to bully, dominate and conquer its neighbors, condemning the Middle East to more years of bloodshed and fear. The region will remain unstable, with little hope of freedom and isolated from the progress of our times. With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors.

    If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future. The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond. And we will show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time.

    Neither of these outcomes is certain. Both have been set before us. We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress. We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather. We must stand up for our security, and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. Delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand as well.

    Thank you.

  • Opposing the President’s Call for ‘Relentless War’

    Opposing the President’s Call for ‘Relentless War’

    In an article reflecting on the anniversary of September 11, President Bush wrote, in an instant, America was transformed from a nation at peace to a country at war. We were called to defend liberty against tyranny and terror. And we have answered that call with the might of our military and the spirit of a nation inspired by acts of heroism.

    I am in complete accord on two issues. Yes, there was a horrendous attack on two major structures that symbolize our country s economic and military power, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, costing thousands of innocent lives. And yes, there was genuine heroism shown by those who resisted the terrorist attacks and by the emergency workers who sacrificed selflessly for the victims of September 11.

    But was America, as Bush claims, instantly transformed from a nation at peace to a country at war? If it was transformed in this way, it is because this is the direction in which Bush and his advisors transformed it. Becoming a country at war meant to the Bush administration an opportunity to expand US military forces while constricting civil liberties for ordinary Americans. Starting with his candidacy, Bush has pressed for increasing funding for the military. The September 11 attacks, along with a frightened and compliant Congress and American public, provided the opportunity to do so.

    We responded to September 11 with the might of our military, which pummeled Afghanistan and attacked al Qaeda training camps, leading to a regime change in Afghanistan. But all of this military might has failed to apprehend Osama bin Laden, the individual purported to be responsible for the attacks. Has the use of this military might against Afghanistan truly made us any more secure?

    There are few signs that Americans are more secure now than they were before the terrorist attacks. Our airports and other potential targets remain penetratable by terrorists, and virtually nothing has been done to address the root causes of terrorism. Our policies on the Middle East have become less even-handed, and we no longer seem to have sufficient respect in the region to play the role of honest broker in a peace process. Our dependence on foreign oil has not diminished. We have been an obstacle to upholding and strengthening international law in virtually all areas.

    Bush and his military team have not spent much time addressing the reasons that the terrorists chose to attack symbols of American economic and military power. They have simply used the blunt instrument of military force to strike out at a regime viewed as dangerous. The United States under the Bush administration appears more like a helpless flailing giant than a country basing its responses on reason, law and morality. The Bush administration seems oblivious to the decent respect for the opinions of Mankind referred to by the founders of our nation in the Declaration of Independence.

    Our attacks against Afghanistan have resulted in the deaths and injuries of thousands of innocent Afghanis due to our high-altitude bombing. Our response to September 11 has probably killed more innocent Afghanis than the number of innocent persons who died in the terrorist attacks. But our President tells us we are a country at war, and dismisses the deaths of the innocent people we kill as collateral damage.

    This will be a long war, Mr. Bush tells the American people, and unprecedented challenges await us. It will be a long war because we are failing to take necessary steps to achieve peace. It will be a long war because we are led by an administration that has no vision of peace or of a better world for others. It has no vision and few resources for alleviating poverty, or for building schools instead of tanks. It has no vision of preserving the environment and natural resources for future generations because it is intently focused on goals that merely serve corporate interests. It has no vision of halting arms sales, an area where the US remains indisputably number one in the world. Nor does it have a vision of bringing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction under control. We are an empire and empires require double standards. Thus, this will be a long war.

    The concepts of war and defense have often been confused in the minds of Americans, and appear particularly confused in the minds of Bush and his advisors. Through most of our nation s history, we had a War Department, but in 1947 the name of this department was changed to the Department of Defense, one suspects largely for purposes of public relations. Commenting on this change, novelist Joseph Heller astutely observed that since switching the name to Department of Defense, we have never again been in danger of war, only of defense.

    Now we are in danger of perpetual war. The United States under the Bush administration is leading the world in exactly the wrong direction, away from international law and toward increasing reliance on military force. Although no connection has been found between Iraq and the terrorist acts of September 11, Bush and Cheney are eager to wage war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Hussein may have weapons of mass destruction. But other countries, including dictatorships, actually have weapons of mass destruction. Possession of weapons of mass destruction has never been the litmus test for launching a pre-emptive and aggressive war. If we considered the elimination of nuclear weapons truly important, perhaps we would model the behavior we seek for others.

    It is highly unlikely that Saddam Hussein would attempt to inflict injury on citizens of the United States even if he had weapons of mass destruction unless, of course, he was attacked by the United States. Such an attack would put American soldiers in harm s way of Hussein s arsenal, and give Hussein the right under international law to act in self-defense. This right would still not include using weapons of mass destruction, although he might still choose to use them illegally when confronted by overwhelming US force.

    Bush has called for our government to wage an effective and relentless war against terrorists. Perhaps we should think instead of waging peace against the terrorists, acting with such justice and decency in the world that we would again be viewed as a positive model.

    How does a country wage peace? There are some seeds of an answer in Bush’s advice to the American people: Overcome evil with acts of goodness. Love a neighbor. Reach out to somebody in need. Feed someone who is hungry, teach a child to read&. These were Bush s suggestions for what Americans can do to help in the war on terror. But imagine if these suggestions were followed by our country in our policies toward the rest of the world. What if America sought to overcome evil with acts of goodness, rather than military might? What if America reached out to people everywhere who were in need of food, shelter, health care and education?

    Americans must choose the direction they wish to take. If left to make the choice itself, the Bush administration will lead the United States into a potentially devastating war against Iraq, which will undoubtedly increase the already simmering hatred toward the United States in most of the poorer areas of the world. The only way that Mr. Bush can be derailed from the perpetual war he seeks to wage is if the American people make their voices heard so clearly and persistently that Congress will have no alternative but to stand up to the President and say No! If the American people choose to docilely follow Mr. Bush into war against Iraq, we should not be surprised when the next front of the war returns to America in the form of increased terrorism.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Wage Peace

    Wage Peace with your breath.

    Breathe in firemen and rubble,
    breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

    Breathe in terrorists
    and breathe out sleeping children and fresh mown fields.

    Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

    Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

    Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

    Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

    Make soup.

    Play music, memorize the words for thank you in 3 languages.

    Learn to knit, and make a hat.

    Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
    imagine grief
    as the outbreath of beauty
    or the gesture of fish.

    Swim for the other side.

    Wage peace.

    Never has the word seemed so fresh and precious:

    Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

    Act as if armistice has already arrived.
    Celebrate today.
    *Judyth Hill is a stand-up poet and teacher of poetry, living in amazing beauty, where the Rockies meet the Plains, in Northern New Mexico. Her six published books of poetry include Presence of Angels, Men Need Space, and her collection of poems of her land, Black Hollyhock, First Light, from La Alameda Press.

  • September 11 Remembrance Event at Moorpark College, CA

    Introduction

    Thank you very much for inviting me to share some thoughts with you today, the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of one year ago.

    Last September 11 I was scheduled to facilitate a nonviolence training for activists in Orange County. It was a strange day, preparing for teaching peace to a group of people trying to make sense of what happened earlier in the day. I taught my morning nonviolence class in Ventura to high school students, and then continued as planned with the nonviolence workshop. It was healing and purposeful that a group of thirty people could gather together to focus on peaceful dialogue in the midst of such an extraordinarily disturbing day.

    Today my thoughts are with my two very good friends, Ryan and Amber Amundson as they grieve over the loss of someone very special to them. Amber and Ryan are in their mid-twenties; Amber’s husband Craig, Ryan’s brother, was killed in the attack on the Pentagon last year. Last fall Amber told me of the creativity her two children inspired in her and of the support from her family to grieve in the most healthy way she could. She told me that it would be unconscionable for her to disrespect the memory of her husband by teaching her children that revenge and retribution suffice as acceptable responses for the terrorist attacks. Instead, she has chosen a peaceful path.

    I received an email from Ryan yesterday replying to one I’d sent of prayers and thoughts during this difficult time. He and Amber participated in a Walk for Peace from Washington, DC to New York last November. They were pioneers of the phrase “Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War” just like other family members who lost loved ones on September 11, they did not want the memory of Craig to be used as justification for more war making.

    In fact, they have been at the helm of a new organization, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group whose main message is one of peacemaking and reconciliation. In late September, Kelly Campbell, another relative of Craig Amundson will be speaking here in Ventura County.

    My thoughts are also with the families of the undocumented workers who lost their lives a year ago today and whose families are ineligible for reparations because their employers did not report them as employees.

    Aftermath of September 11

    In the year after the terrorist attacks, our country and indeed the world have seen many important changes some for the better, some for the worse. I think that there are some important questions to answer in looking at like who we are, how we see others, and how others see us.

    The following points outline a bit about who we are post-September 11:

    According to the American Psychological Association, reported post-traumatic stress disorder cases among young children have increased greatly, signifying that the attacks have left significant impressions.

    Hate crimes against people of color, especially those appearing to be of Arab or Middle Eastern descent, have increased greatly as reported by the Council on American Islamic Relations.

    The American Civil Liberties Union reports the attempts at eroding some of the freedoms and rights upheld in the US Constitution which have been met with resistance by courageous Judges throughout the country.

    The United States unilaterally backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June to the dismay of the international community, including the other partner to the treaty, Russia.

    Our government did not ratify in July the International Criminal Court which would help to bring to justice human rights abusers under an International tribunal including those who perpetrated the crimes against humanity on September 11.

    Attorney General John Ashcraft unilaterally restricted access to information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) last October.

    Nuclear reactors continue to be left as sitting ducks to future terrorist attacks despite agencies within our own government who have repeatedly warned about their vulnerability. In recent attempts at verifying their security, the nuclear power plants have contracted individuals contracted to attempt to infiltrate them. They have been successful on most occasions and even have been able to toss uranium components over security fences using lacrosse sticks.

    Finally, TIPS, a combined “America’s Most Wanted” and FBI scheme, has been birthed a plan to recruit 1 in 24 Americans as citizen spies giving leads to authorities on susptected terrorist activities inside the United States.

    So, in addressing the first question, “Who are we?” it seems like we are a wounded, fearful nation still recovering from a significant blow to our confidence and to our hearts one year ago. American people are good people I see evidence for that in my classroom every day. I see it in the random acts of kindness that people have become more prone to doing in the last year.

    However, I am afraid that our country is on a dangerous path of punitive, rather than restorative, justice in holding the architects of terror accountable. How can we deal with our enemies without emulating their tactics?

    What Would King Do?

    In the classes I teach on nonviolence and peacemaking, we study the lives and words of peacemakers throughout history to gain a new perspective on how we can deal with the various conflicts we encounter personally, locally and globally. In addressing the second question of how we view others, Martin Luther King, Jr. provides some timeless wisdom.

    Dr. King wrote a Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam which still rings true today.

    When he was writing, communism was the enemy. Today it is terrorism. I have replaced his word ‘communism’ with ‘terrorism’ in the following text to demonstrate the relevance of his words for us today:

    “This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against terrorism. War is not the answer. Terrorism will never be defeated by the use of nuclear weapons. We must not engage in negative anti-terrorism, but rather in a positive trust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against terrorism is to take offensive action on behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seeds of terrorism grow and develop.”

    Powerful words. We see the seeds of hate sown in poverty, insecurity, injustice and disparity of wealth. Generations of children in third world countries growing up in severe deprivation are potential terrorists if we take these words to heart. We must re-evaluate our priorities, our attitude toward corporate responsibility and our reliance on foreign oil if we are to prevent future terrorist attacks.

    Dr. King continues on to say in the essay against participation in the Vietnam War in perhaps his harshest criticism of US foreign policy: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” This admonition means that when we decrease funding for education, for social services, welfare and children, we are sowing seeds of hate in our own country as well. One-fourth of children in the United States live in poverty while our military budget soars out of control topping out at nearly $437 billion dollars.

    Dr. King has some gentler advice as well, though. In the essay entitled Loving Your Enemies, Dr. King outlines the reasons why we should pursue peacemaking rather than war making. He wrote,” Hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity.”

    So where has our war on terror led us? We have not caught Osama bin Laden, we have pursued an unrelenting military campaign against the people of Afghanistan, stranding millions of people throughout last winter in desperate conditions, and even having the audacity in July to mistakenly bomb a wedding party, killing dozens. We euphemize our lingo about the tools of war making to desensitize ourselves from the true effects of weapons.

    These are not endearing actions that the US has undertaken.

    We have called our war on terror perhaps the worst misnomer: a pursuit of justice. We are not talking about true justice, though. We are talking about a vengeful, hateful justice seeking retribution rather than reconciliation. Lanzo del Vasto, peacemaker extraordinaire, writes about how true justice lapses into false when we believe we have the right to render evil for evil and call the evil rendered good and just.

    Again, powerful words. We must carefully examine what our actions purvey about our values.

    In our war on terror, we have failed to recognize that the United States sponsors a terrorist training camp on our soil. November is a hallowed month for something called the School of the Americas, a military training school located at Ft. Benning, GA. In the wake of September 11, British journalist George Monbiot wrote a scalding report about the incongruence of our policies, stating candidly that terrorist training takes place here in the United States.

    The School of the Americas moved from Central America to Georgia in the early 1980’s. At this school, Latin American soldiers are trained in paramilitary combat, in counterinsurgency in being the military arm of the multinational corporations who enforce poverty and the structural adjustment programs laid down by the World Bank and the IMF. One November, some Jesuit priests in Central America, their housekeeper and her daughter were slaughtered by soldiers trained at the SOA. Two of the assassins who killed Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador were trained at the school as well.

    George Monbiot said poignantly that in the United States, the war on terror must start at home by closing the School of the Americas. Ventura County has a special role to play in this effort. Congressman Elton Gallegly has never voted to close the SOA. Every year as the vote is taken in Congress, the margin by which the bill fails gets smaller and smaller we are nearing the goal. We must work with Gallegly to convince him to vote on HR 1810 to close the SOA.

    How do others see us?

    I believe that we can answer the third question of “How do others see us” by examining our lust for war against Iraq.

    There are a few policy points on Iraq which I would like to address with here because the rhetoric has evolved so speedily in the war on terror.

    Let me begin by saying that Saddam Hussein is a brute and a bully and has ruled Iraq for more than 20 years, holding hostage a population of 23 million Iraqis who did not elect him. He has used chemical warfare against his own people. And he has demonstrated aggression in the Middle East in recent years.

    These facts, however, should not obscure other relevant components of why we should not unilaterally depose the infamous leader of the Ba’ath Party in a US-led war on Iraq.

    First and foremost, there is no link between Iraq and al Qaeda or any of the people associated with the egregious crimes of September 11.

    There is unquestionable hesitation and outright disapproval from the international community with respect to any new war with Iraq.

    And on that point, I’d like to say that the first Gulf War never ended. Just this past Thursday, the largest air assault in four years took place over southern Iraq, with US and British forces using more than 100 aircraft to mount an attack. Iraq has been getting bombed nearly every week since the 42-day Gulf War was declared over.

    And the economic sanctions are a form of warfare as well, killing more than 5,000 children under the age of 5 every month. One in eight children in Iraq never reach their first birthday. Prior to the Gulf War, the UN deemed Iraq an emerging first-world nation. It had eradicated all childhood diseases, provided free healthcare to the entire population and education up through university studies was completely free.

    So back to lack of international support. Europe does not support war on Iraq. Every Arab nation has made statements condemning an escalation of war against Iraq, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Few Middle Eastern countries want us to use their land, water or air space to fight this proposed war. And every Middle Eastern country sees an eminent intensification of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict should the United States decide to preemptively attack Iraq.

    Tomorrow, President Bush will make his case before the United Nations General Assembly. He has yet to offer credible evidence that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction capable of harming the US. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Iraq has not accessed any nuclear material to use in making weapons of mass destruction.

    Many people wonder about the weapons inspections. The most credible source on this issue is Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM weapons inspector for eight years. He was in charge of making certain that Iraq was in compliance with the UN disarmament resolution. He has stated time and time again that UNSCOM was extraordinarily effective in destroying all of Iraq’s weapons capabilities.

    Unfortunately, in 1998, the United Nations withdrew their weapons inspection team in anticipation of the December bombing which the US and UK led. They were not kicked out by Iraq, as is often reported.

    So what do we do about Iraq?

    The first thing that we do is acknowledge the face of human suffering in Iraq. Iraq is a country. Iraq is not Saddam Hussein. More than 23 million people live there, each with a story about how they have been affected by the sanctions and the Gulf War.

    We cannot ignore the real pain that has been virtually unreported for the past twelve years in Iraq. The sanctions, administered by the United Nations, essentially mean that Iraq has no tangible revenue. All of their oil sales go through the Sanctions Committee 661 they sell their oil through the UN and must petition for items to import. Many items are routinely denied: blood bags, x-ray film, and even a shipment of 1 million pencils were denied because they contain graphite which could be used in making weapons of mass destruction.

    People in America are suffering as well especially today as we remember the tragedy which happened a year ago. But we will not lessen our pain by inflicting pain on others we will only create more hurt, more loss, more sadness.

    There are a few things that surprised me about visiting Iraq nearly every person I met there believes in the good of the American people. They know that if we only knew of their pain, that we would do more to help them. But if we believe, as is reported in the mass media, that “they all hate us” then it makes it okay for us to hate them too, and even kill them first. But the catch is that they don’t all hate us.

    Arabs are magnanimous, beautiful, generous people. The hospitality I was granted there was beyond any I could have ever imagined.

    But still recognizing the human face of Iraqis is not enough. We must realize that an entire people cannot be deemed evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” If we seek to eradicate evil, we are in essence killing a bit of ourselves. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, says that the value of human dignity is that we are worth more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. These are powerful statements about humanity and forgiveness which are crucial to remember in times of inexplicable grief.

    They are powerful statements because they demonstrate faith in nonviolence.

    Many people wonder about what to do about Saddam Hussein, though.

    Iraq needs regime change, but that change must not happen through war. In a movement of sustained democratization, the Iraqi people should decide for themselves free from international pressure, who they want governing them. And the weapons inspectors must resume their important job and be allowed to thoroughly, efficiently and respectfully carry out their tasks.

    And this can be done nonviolently.

    Embracing nonviolence does not mean that you are a doormat. It does not mean that you are weak.

    Authors Jack DuVall and Peter Ackerman, who wrote “A Force More Powerful” which became a six-part documentary on nonviolent change, believe that Saddam Hussein can be toppled through nonviolent measures, as were Pinochet and Milosevic. They write in this month’s issue of Sojourner Magazine, “Strategic nonviolent action is not about being nice to your oppressor, much less having to rely on his niceness. It’s about dissolving the foundations of his power and forcing him out. It is possible in Iraq.”

    Why do we not see nonviolent change as legitimate, though? Why is it not considered a viable option? Perhaps because history is presented and written by the winners, and because war making is so profitable. Alfie Kohn wrote “while it is indisputable that wars have been fought, the fact that they seem to dominate our history may say more about how history is presented that about what actually happened.”

    Teaching Peace

    This leads me into my final point. The most proactive thing we can do as a country to combat hatred and intolerance is to teach peace. Every class should be a peace class. It should be a blend of nonviolent processes and content information. I teach a class in three high schools here called “Solutions to Violence” and it attempts to give students tangible tools for resolving conflicts as well as cluing them in to the fact that community service is expected of them, and it is rewarding. They must ask the difficult questions of how they can best use their talents to serve the world, their neighbors, their brothers and sisters in humanity.

    It is not a difficult class to teach. We read the literature of peace and discuss it. We examine our own hearts, minds and actions. We see how our actions affect others and how everything in life is interconnected; nothing exists in a void.

    Peace education is essential in an age of terrorism. We must learn to resolve our conflicts through nonviolent means. The purpose of education is to produce critically thinking, empathetic and other-serving individuals. We will keep encountering the same problems time and time again until we re-examine how history is presented, how education is carried out until we reinsert the nonviolent figures in our textbooks who have been systematically written out.

    We must teach our students to act based on their conscience. They must have the faith of children in all of humanity, seeing that we are all brothers and sisters. They must see the necessity of caring for nature as she supports all life on earth.

    Peace education makes room for healing and for compassion, so needed in our time.

    The nonviolence class here at Moorpark College must continue! It is crucial that we not let peace education be a casualty of the war on terrorism.

    I am reminded of the June Jordan quote: “We are the people we’ve been waiting for.” We must not delegate individual moral responsibility to another; our conscience is the most precious quality unique to human beings.

    Not only today on September 11, but every day it is up to us to be a voice for the voiceless, to show compassion and to go the extra mile and stretch our hearts to love just a little bit more.
    *Leah C. Wells serves as the Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA.