STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS
Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment
May 2003
A Modesto Peace/Life Center Publication
Peace
Around
the Center
Peace
Camp offers a weekend of stimulation and renewal in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Twenty-one years ago we first gathered at Camp Peaceful Pines as a community
working for peace and justice. Over the years we have built many traditions
around talking, learning, singing, hiking, eating and relaxing together. The
mountain setting is incomparable and the relief from the Valley heat is welcome.
The night sky is awe-inspiring. The food and the community are wonderful.
If
you are a regular participant, we’re waiting for you. If you haven’t come
for a while, we’re waiting for you. If you are a newcomer, we’re waiting for
you. Please join us for the 2003 Peace Camp.
* + * + *
By MYRTLE OSNER
In March, Peace Center members and friends met at the Center to hear reports of the year’s activities and to elect a Board of Directors.
Elected to the Board are: John Lucas, John Frailing, David Rockwell, Jim Costello, Karen Lee, Michael Napp, Dan Onorato, Dr. Mimi Poinsett, Sasha Retford, Joe Tornberg, Nashat Odeh, and Tracey Herbeck. The new meeting time for the Board is the first Wednesday of the month at the Center, 720 13th St., at 7 pm. Meetings of the Board are open to anyone who wishes to attend. Decisions are made by consensus (a process requiring “substantial agreement” on issues.
We opened the meeting by remembering those long-time founders of the Center who have died during the year: Sam Tyson, Willie Weaver, Gordon and Helen Nutson, and Rudy Potochnik. Michael Matherly, Hardee Miller, Anne Nutson, and John Martin were also remembered. We gave thanks for their vision and persistence for all those years.
Reports were made for the many activities in which our Peace Center is involved. It actually makes quite an impressive array when you think about how much these dedicated people have put into the events to make them happen. While the Middle East vigils and marches are the most visible aspect of our work, the other activities form a network of community action and a support system that needs to be valued for its own sake.
Reports were made by the office volunteers, and the Financial Report was presented. Other reports were from the committees for Peace Essay Contest, Song Circle, which put on the John McCutcheon concert, the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration (co-sponsored by our Center), the Peace Camp held each June, the Harvest Supper, the June Pancake Breakfast, the outreach tables at many public events, the Committee for Peace in the Middle East, and the Stanislaus Connections staff (including auction proceeds to help defray the paper’s cost).
A big thank you to all the people who worked on these activities.
Persons concerned about peace are invited to the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, July 25-27, for the conference Healing the World, sponsored by The Pacific Network for Mission Education and 17 other groups.
This year’s gathering creates a new interfaith community to nurture conversation about peace and justice from many different faith traditions. For 87 years the Conference has been Protestants, so this is indeed a departure from old traditions.
The opportunity to build community across many faith traditions will come through workshops, meals, keynote speakers, worship, and music. There will be sharing the vision of peace and justice from all faiths.
Keynote speakers are Dr. Richard Madsen Professor of Sociology at UC San Diego, and Rita Semel, Ex. Vice Chair of the San Francisco Interfaith Council. Dr. Madsen has written many books promoting dialogue across different worldviews.
Dr. Semel’s pioneering leadership in the Bay Area emerged as Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma and the Peninsula.
Twenty workshops will be offered: among them Visions for Peace Among Religions, Native American Perspective, Story Telling and Dancing for Peace, Jewish Mystical Resources for Peace, and many others.
Registration info: Rev. Lisa Warner-Carey, 707/472-0491, 1601 Carrigan Lane, Ukiah CA 95482; www.pnme.info
The anti-war billboard on
Hwy. 99 north of Manteca at the Lathrop exit has been vandalized and cut down.
The vinyl was valued at $1,998.00. This destruction was reported to the San
Joaquin County Sheriff.
Whatever
may be our disagreement with the President's decision to abandon the U.N.
Security Council deliberations and go to war ago, each of us now needs to give
our wholehearted support to the individual U.S. soldiers, Marines and airmen
presently carrying out the President's orders in Iraq which were duly authorized
by Congress.
That
support, however, does not require the silencing of criticism of the policies
which have brought us to our current circumstances, nor discussion of the
decisions our country faces in the future.
There's
something unseemly about well-dressed generals and smiling television
commentators mourning each American casualty while gloating over the hundreds or
thousands of Iraqi soldiers killed by our missiles and bombs. This is not a war
among equals; it is a slaughter.
There
is no foxhole capable of protecting a man against a precision guided cruise
missile or the incredibly-devastating concussions of a string of one-ton monster
bombs dropped by B-52s from 30,000 feet.
In
ordering this particular kind of war, I believe our political leaders are
squandering the goodwill we have tried to develop in the Mideast and Islamic
Asia over the past several decades. Our military men and women will be the ones
who suffer from the loss of that goodwill, not simply in the attack on Baghdad
but in the years to follow. No embassy or foreign traveler can ever again feel
completely safe from the stealthy attack of one whose extended-family relatives
have died under massive U.S. aerial bombardment in Iraq.
The
President's use of the word "relentless" with respect to our bombing
campaign is as offensive to Arabs and Muslims outside Iraq as was his
characterization some months ago of Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and
Shatilla, as a "man of peace." Asking for $10 billion in funds or loan
guarantees for Israel in the same appropriation bill as for the Iraq war makes
it clear to all the world that it has been the threat to Israel from Saddam
Hussein which is a primary purpose of our assault on Iraq. We have finally taken
sides in an Israeli-Arab dispute, in what is rightfully perceived as a
U.S./Israel-Arab war.
The
word "terror" deserves re-examination. Terror is not just a word to
describe the tactics of Osama bin Laden on 9/11. The terror of people
relentlessly bombed by a superpower clearly capable of crushing them is as real
as that suffered by the victims of 9/11.
To
the British in 1775, the doughty farmers of Lexington and Concord were
"terrorists." To General Custer in 1862, Mosby's Confederate
cavalrymen, farming in Northern Virginia during the day but riding boldly
against Union generals at night, were "terrorists."
We
of Irish ancestry treasure a wonderful old fighting song of love and loyalty:
"Oh, the strangers came and tried to teach us their ways." People will
forever fight foreign invaders of their homeland who come to teach them
"their ways."
Can
anyone forget the televised picture of the naked little Vietnamese girl, her
clothes burned off her by our napalm, fleeing her burning village and the
immortal words of a U.S. officer: " We had to destroy the village of Ben
Suc in order to save it." That, too, was terror.
Yes,
we can and will prevail. 25 million Iraqis can't hope to win against 250 million
Americans, who are willing to use the "shock and awe" tactic of
overwhelming aerial bombardment against them, at little risk of American lives
in the process.
As
a former Marine, I have enormous pride in the courage and skills of the young
Marines who will shortly attack Baghdad.
But
who cannot respect the hopelessly outgunned Iraqi soldiers who are doomed to
death, or worse, being horribly maimed for life, by U.S. weapons against which
they are virtually defenseless. It's their country, not ours. They may hate
their leader but I suspect they will hate foreign invaders with even greater
intensity. They will fight in the streets of villages and cities, because that
is the terrain best suited for them to have a chance in one-on-one infantry
combat. To save American lives, our infantryman will need close air support in
Baghdad. Do we destroy Baghdad like Ben Suc in order to save it? Or do we save
American lives by falling back and attempting to starve out the inhabitants,
soldiers and civilians alike?
Either
way we lose the battle for world public opinion.
In
retrospect, after all wars, I suspect most of the actual combatants feel and
express respect for those on both sides who shared their hardships, as well as
contempt for those who profit by the war in which they fought.
If
the 20th century taught us one lesson, it is that modern war is an awful thing,
not to be chosen voluntarily save as the last of all possible alternatives.
For
our Commander-in-Chief to smile while discussing the havoc he has ordered to
befall Baghdad, is in itself a terrible suggestion to the world that he enjoys
his role as a combat commander wielding the most awesome firepower seen since
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nor have our great television commentators helped. With
few exceptions, they have thus far been little more than parrots dutifully
repeating the Pentagon's public affairs officers' canned handouts. The glib TV
inheritors of our priceless legacy of a free press have been almost shameless in
their rush to praise American efforts and denigrate those of the Iraqis. In
exercising their own great power I suspect they have created as many enemies for
America as has our unprecedented use of the most incredibly destructive weaponry
used since World War II.
Yes,
Saddam Hussein is an evil man. He was as bad in the long war he initiated
against Iran, thereafter receiving our secret assistance, as when he attacked
Kuwait and provoked Desert Storm. But he is not the only sadistic dictator who
has caused tragedy for his people while enjoying U.S. support. Unfortunately, we
have a long record of supporting dictators whom we thought, at the time, were
serving U.S. interests better than would their rebellious people.
A
former Marine Commandant, Smedley Butler, winner of two Medals of Honor in the
Caribbean wars of the early 1900s, once said something to the effect that while
he had always thought he had been fighting for freedom and justice for the
peasants, he realized in later life that he had been fighting for Standard Oil,
the United Fruit Company and Anaconda Copper. It has now become clear that
companies close to our President, our Vice President and the Chairman of our
Defense Policy Board stand to profit enormously from the prospective
"rebuilding" of Iraq. This will not, and should not accompany or
follow the sacrifice of American combat troops. Our leaders should disavow any
profit in Iraqi oil sales or reconstruction projects.
As
did the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord, I'm afraid our military forces of
2003 and hereafter can expect the modern equivalent of hundreds of outraged
common farmers sniping at our Marines from behind stone walls or their
equivalent in the great cradle of our civilization between the Tigris and the
Euphrates. We could pay a terrible price for our stated relentless determination
to force a regime change in Iraq by t he brute force of superior technology and
firepower.
We
may yet save countless American lives if we vacate the country after our
allegedly inevitable "victory" and invite the UN in to supervise the
rehabilitation of Iraq and the sale of its oil, perhaps with a peace-keeping
force made up from the other 20 Arab nations. We can't police the world alone.
We will need the UN and the continuing quest for world peace through world law
through the world institutions we have created.
PAUL
N. "PETE" MCCLOSKEY,JR.
The
author, a farmer and retired Marine Colonel, served in Korea, receiving two
Purple Hearts, the Navy Cross and the Silver Star , and as a Republican Member
of Congress from 1967 to 1982. His books include Truth and Untruth: Political
Deceit in America, and The Taking of Hill 610. March 27, 2003
(Edited
from a longer version)
www.agonist.org/
a leading “blog” site. Weblogs are personal journalistic web sites run by
individuals. The Agonist is one of the most comprehensive, a clearinghouse for
up to the minute news on Iraq and the Middle East from sources worldwide.
www.aljazeerah.info/
(English)
Compiled
by Michael Napp with Jim Costello
Waging peace is the next
step in Iraq. It is in everyone's best interest that the Bush administration
take steps now to protect Iraqi civilians.
The U.S. should ensure the
following: Civilian-Directed Relief and Reconstruction: The U.S. should turn
over the administration of humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Iraq to
civilian authorities. The United Nations not the U.S. military should play a
leadership role as soon as possible. Military involvement can compromise the
effective delivery of humanitarian aid and threaten the security of civilian aid
workers.
The U.S. also has a moral
obligation to pay for humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction in
Iraq. The $2.4 billion for relief and reconstruction efforts that Congress
recently allocated is not adequate.
ACTION:
Urge members of Congress to ensure that the U.S. turn over relief and
reconstruction to civilian authorities and provide adequate funding for
humanitarian aid.
By KEN SCHROEDER
Many
of us have been deeply affected by the Iraqi people’s suffering, by anxiety
for loved ones in the military and by the consequences of the war at home. The
following suggestions may help.
Take
action. Attend a peace vigil. Write a letter. Speak up. Do what fits for
you.
Seek
out the support of family and friends. Don’t let yourself become isolated.
Take
care of yourself. Exercise.
Calm
yourself with meditation, prayer, relaxation exercises, yoga or tai chi.
When
discussing the war, strive for dialogue and understanding.
