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NEWS & LETTERS, MAY 2003
Nationwide opposition to war on Iraq
New York
Over 100 protesters gathered in front of the New York
offices of the Carlyle Group investment fund (of which George Bush senior is a
member) in midtown Manhattan April 7, as part of a national day of direct action
targeting war profiteers. The action was barely attempted when police,
outnumbering activists two to one, descended on the demonstrators. Several eyewitnesses who eyewitnesses had no intention
of disobeying any laws, reported being penned into an area across the
street. Some were asked to disperse or be arrested, but many were
not. Some who claimed not to be doing anything other than standing on the
sidewalk, observing, were taken in on the thinnest of pretenses. All in
all observers claimed over 100 arrests were made. The outcome of the April 7 action contrasts sharply with
the mood and success of a similar action that took place on March 27 in front of
the GE building in Rockefeller Center, and shows what has changed in light of
apparent news emanating from Baghdad this past week. Along with violent
measures, such as the rubber bullets and shock grenades used against protesters
in Oakland demonstrations, such "pre-emptive strikes" and
zero-tolerance policies on the part of the police seem to have as their target
the momentum of the anti-war movement itself. These tactics may continue, and become typical in the
U.S., if the movement fails to strengthen itself by rethinking its tactics and
its strategy, and broadening its message for the challenges that lay ahead as
the U.S. threatens to intervene in other countries. --Anti-war protester * * * West Lafayette, Ind.
Some students and local residents gathered together for
a two-week campout on the "memorial mall" lawn at Purdue University
recently, in protest of the war with Iraq. Chain-fasting, pamphlet distributing,
drumming, and a wealth of conversation and fun pervaded the scene. The threats
of violence, drunken insults of passers-by at all hours, and the rather
disturbing amount of ignorance displayed by the many were not enough to break
the spirit of the few who believed and continue to believe in a cause. The hope
has remained that a much more just and humane world may come--one that is
radically different than the vision of the Bush administration and the clutches
of the invisible hand made visible with military force. As a student concerned about the future of the world, I
have been stunned by this experience which may be a microcosm of America. This
representation of the greater whole both terrifies me and gives me hope. Dissent
is unwanted as consent is produced and it seems that many Americans are simply
willing to give, as someone angry at us protesters said, "absolute blind
faith in my government." Obviously, "blind faith" is a problem in
itself, but perhaps just as troubling is the use of the word "my"
here. The fact that many seem to believe that the government is truly theirs and
not that of the wealthy and privileged is disturbing. On the other hand, there are some people out there (and
they are everywhere) who believe in peace, true progress of humanity, and the
fostering of mutually affirming relations with others in interpersonal and
international relations. With Saddam gone, the potential of mutual affirming
relations with the Iraqi people is there, that is, if this government was truly
ours. But it is not, and the Iraqi people will continue their suffering, this
time because of American and British brands of
oppression.
--Purdue U. student * * * Flyer by the Marxist-Humanist Network at Purdue University
"Neither Bush Nor Saddam: For a Humanist
World" All too often one hears the anti-war movement
characterized as "sympathetic to Saddam," as if protesters against
this war were morally relativistic and absolutely blind to the nature of the
Hussein regime. All along, we Marxist-Humanists have condemned the
Hussein regime for its crimes against humanity, yet do not believe that the
current war is at all justified for many reasons. Specifically, we single out
its genocidal use of poison gas against Iraq's Kurdish minority. This took place
in 1988, at a time when Iraq was a quasi-ally of the U.S. Recently, as the
regime crumbled, the Iraqi people have come out into the streets, attacking
symbols of the dictatorship and revealing as never before the full story of its
foul prisons and torture chambers. We support the aspirations of the Iraqi
people to be free of all forms of oppression, whether from the Saddam Hussein
regime, from other internal conservative forces such as religious
fundamentalism, and from the attempt by the U.S. and Britain to incorporate Iraq
into their version of globalized capitalism. World opinion is against this U.S.-led invasion because
the world sees that the current administration is driven by a desire for
unchecked American power around the globe. The world sees that the Bush
administration has taken to defining so-called threats to America under the
guise of fighting terrorism and launching pre-emptive strikes, bringing terror
in the form of "collateral damage" to innocent Iraqi
civilians.
The Bush administration has provided no viable evidence
of a link between the Hussein regime and Al-Qaeda. In fact, they fabricated
evidence and lied directly to the UN and the world. Colin Powell's presentation
to the UN outlining the "threat" posed by Iraq contained British
intelligence that had been plagarized, forged documents seeking to establish
that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger, and much other information that
had been denounced by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as untrue. Such
supposed links between Hussein and Osama bin Laden contradict the reality of the
relationship between Hussein and Islamic fundamentalism... The claim that the Iraqi people will experience
democracy and liberty is dubious and it seems contradictory to impose democracy
from outside. Democracy is not forced, it is chosen. --April 12, 2003 * * * San Francisco Bay Area
Anti-war civil disobedience [caption: Protesters block access to Chevron Texaco in
San Ramon, Cal. on April 14 just before they were arrested en masse.] |
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