STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS
Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment
September 2003
A Modesto Peace/Life Center Publication
Peace
SAVE
THESE
DATES!
Saturday,
Sept. 13: Annual Auction and Fundraiser to
support Connections. At the home of Robert Rudholm and Jeff Schweiker. See ad on
the front page.
Sunday,
September 28: End
Occupation Protest, Delores Park, San Francisco. See ad, this issue. Peace
Center will provide bus transportation.
Saturday,
October 25: Harvest
Supper, to benefit the Peace Essay Contest, now in its eighteenth year. A
feast complete with homemade pies. Tickets will be available.
December 5:
Deadline to submit essays for the Peace
Essay Contest. Schools will receive notice from the County Education
Office. Get your kids thinking about the subject NOW. Teachers, plan for your
class to participate.
Wednesday,
January 14, 2004: Noted peace and
justice folksinger John McCutcheon, a
benefit concert for the Peace Life
Center, at Modesto Church of the Brethren. Sponsored by our own Song Circle.
Saturday,
January 24, 2004: Martin
Luther King Jr. Commemoration, sponsored by the Peace Life Center, City of
Modesto, MJC and others. Coup of the year: Cornell West, eminent professor of
religion and author of many books relating to African American themes.
Bonding
beneath the pines
By
JOHN MOREARTY
83 peace people celebrated
summer together, high in a mountain valley the last weekend in June. It was the
Modesto Peace/Life Center’s 21st year at Camp Peaceful Pines below Sonora
Pass, and we were a rainbow: elders, adults, teenagers and little kids, church
folk and atheists, white black brown and golden-hued, teachers, techies, toilers
and stay at home moms.
I arrived in time for
Friday supper. After signing up for chores, we formed a circle outside the
dining hall and introduced ourselves: mostly Stanislaus, but a bunch from
Sonora, and pilgrims from Patterson, Stockton, Arcata, Vietnam and Malaya. We
sang a song (no prayers, out loud at least) and filed inside to a long buffet
table laden with big green salads and fruit salads, oven-browned potatoes,
lightly cooked veggies, and roasted chicken breasts slathered with pesto and
pecans. Yum! Good coffee, decaf and herbal tea, all brewed with real water from
the camp well. Halfway through a chatty dinner, I knew my $55 had been well
spent.
The Modesto peace group
believes in building community. Years ago, they asked the Berrigan brothers how
to strengthen their local peace movement, and were told: Build community! Build
community! They’ve taken the advice mightily to heart; in addition to the
annual peace camp, they hold regular potlucks, an annual Harvest Dinner, and a
monthly song circle. They hold an annual peace essay contest in the schools,
with a thousand entries. They sponsor an annual Martin Luther King lecturer,
this year, Dr. Mae Jemison. The last two Januarys, they sponsored a concert by
the great movement folk singer John McCutcheon; this year, the hall was packed,
and we came away spirits lifted and singing. (He will return in January 2004.)
Back to Peace Camp: There
was a evening marshmallow campfire sing with several guitarists and goofy kid
songs, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. As dark came, an enthusiastic astronomy
teacher led us out to a little dell (turn off your flashlights, let your eyes
adjust) and told star stories from modern astrophysics, Cherokees and
Babylonians. I stayed out so late the generator had been turned off, and I got
lost in the woods! But I eventually found the clean airy cabin, and a very
comfortable bunk by the window. I woke in early dawn, to birdsong and fragrance
of pines.
After a mighty hiker’s
breakfast and chores, the more vigorous packed lunch and hiked off to a warm
swimming lake, kids played ping-pong, and sluggards sat in the shade and
workshopped about diversity, a subject potentially dull as dirt, but brilliantly
led by Lorrie Freitas, a skillful, low-key professional counselor who gave not a
single sermon. Then a little workshop from Dolores Chavez about Thich Nhat
Hanh’s peace meditation: Meditate on those who enrage you, till you come to
compassion.
After lunch, a dozen of us
watched a great Dennis Kucinich campaign tape, plus my documentary of his May
visit to Stockton. Then I slept for an hour in the shady cabin, woke up and
hiked with new friends from Sonora a mile or so up a wonderful wildflower
canyon, above a rushing river. I learned from Sam about hard drives and CD
burners.
After another supper feast,
we gathered for the Talent/No Talent Show, and it was. Toddlers sang,
eight-year-old girls did Hawaiian dancing, one kid drummed on a tin can and
another played his silver flute. A teacher read us the marvelous book, The
Table Where Rich People Sit. A father and son, cunningly wrapped in shawls
and blankets to look like a guy with short legs and arms, pantomimed
toothbrushing, shaving and eating an apple while the rest of us howled.
Sunday morning it still
wasn’t over! A bunch of us walked through the woods up to Sunrise Rock. Some
guy played a Japanese bamboo flute while others meditated in glory. And still
there was breakfast and, after that, while kids played more ping-pong and
splashed in the creek and climbed the non-totem pole, adults circled for
closure. Dan Onorato gave a wonderful overview of the peace movement: On
September 11, 1906 in Johannesburg, South Africa, he told us, Gandhi rallied 300
people in a hall to pledge resistance against the British Empire.
We shared memories of those
who have gone before: Bob Green, Wilbur Hubbell, Joyce Battilana, Jim Higgs, Sam
Tyson, Willie Weaver, Jean Enero, Michael Matherly, Hardee Miller, others. And
we swapped wisdom. What’s it gonna take to bring about peace and justice in
the world? One voice called out, Patience. Another responded, Impatience! Learn
to say no. Learn to say yes!
And someone said, Get away
to the woods from time to time, breathe clean air, and have a good time
together.
I sure did. Were going back
next year.
The Modesto Peace Camp
happens every year, the final weekend in June. It costs $55 for adults, less for
kids. Non-Modesto folks are welcomed enthusiastically. Info and registration:
Modesto Peace Life Center, P.O. Box 134, Modesto, CA 95353-0134. Phone (209)
529-5750. You can also subscribe to their excellent newspaper, called (like ours
in San Joaquin County) Connections.
The
Pentagon has some explaining to do
By
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI
After
eight years of Bill Clinton, many military officers breathed a sigh of relief
when George W. Bush was named president. I was in that plurality. At one
time,
I would have believed the administration's accusations of anti-Americanism
against anyone who questioned the integrity and good faith of President Bush,
Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
However,
while working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA
and SP) in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about
post-war Iraq were made.
Those
observations changed everything.
What
I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one
is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of "intelligence" found
sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been
distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the
process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I can identify three
prevailing themes.
Functional
isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military
professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key
areas of interest to Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq and to a lesser extent,
Saudi Arabia.
When
The New York Times broke the story last summer of Richard Perle's invitation to
Laurent Muraviec to brief the Defense Policy Board on Saudi Arabia as the next
enemy of the United States, this briefing was news to the Saudi desk officer. He
even had some difficulty getting a copy of it, while receiving assignments
related to it.
In
terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political
appointees, in the case of Israel a desk officer appointee from the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, and in the case of Iraq, Abe Shulsky and several
other appointees. These personnel may be exceptionally qualified; Shulsky
authored a 1993 textbook Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of
Intelligence. But the human resource depth made possible through broad-based
teamwork with the professional policy and intelligence corps was never
established, and apparently never wanted by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld
organization.
Cross-agency
cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the
Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the
American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush
administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected
to congregate, and that an overwhelming number of these appointees have such
organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is
the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various
agencies in particular the State
Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.
Within
the Central Intelligence Agency, it was less clear to me who the appointees
were, if any. This might explain the level of interest in the CIA taken by the
Office of the Vice President. In any case, I personally witnessed several cases
of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the
National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed
through a different channel. This cliquishness is cause for amusement in such
movies as Never Been Kissed or The Hot Chick. In the development and
implementation of war planning it is neither amusing nor
beneficial
for American security because opposing points of view and information that don’t "fit" aren't
considered.
Groupthink.
Defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often
characterized
by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view,"
groupthink was, and probably remains, the predominant characteristic of Pentagon
Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of
opinion into a kind of accepted "fact," and uncritical acceptance of
extremely narrow and isolated points of view.
The
result of groupthink has been extensively studied in the history of American
foreign policy, and it will have a prominent role when the history of the Bush
administration is written. Groupthink, in this most recent case leading to
invasion and occupation of Iraq, will be found, I believe, to have caused a
subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through
deceit of a large segment of the Congress.
I
am now retired. Shortly before my retirement I was allowed to return to my
primary office of assignment, having served in NESA as a desk officer backfill
for 10 months. The transfer was something I had sought, but my wish was granted
only after I made a particular comment to my superior, in response to my reading
of a February Secretary of State cable answering a long list of questions from a
Middle Eastern country regarding U.S. planning for the aftermath in Iraq. The
answers had been heavily crafted by the Pentagon, and to me, they were
remarkably inadequate, given the late stage of the game. I suggested to my boss
that if this was as good as it got, some folks on the Pentagon's E-ring may be
sitting beside Saddam Hussein in the war crimes tribunals.
Saddam
is not yet sitting before a war crimes tribunal. Nor have the key
decision-makers
in the Pentagon been forced to account for the odd set of circumstances that
placed us as a long-term occupying force in the world's nastiest rat's nest,
without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and
without an exit plan. Neither may ever be required to answer their accusers,
thanks to this administration's military as well as publicity machine, and the
disgraceful political compromises already made by most of the Congress.
Ironically, only Saddam Hussein, buried under tons of rubble or in hiding, has a
good excuse.
Kwiatkowski
is a recently retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent most of her final
three years of military service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's
Under Secretariat for Policy.
From:
www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/2023830
From the Houston Chronicle, Aug. 3, 2003.
Reprinted
with permission
A
Different Future
From
time to time, Connections will highlight organizations of Israelis and
Palestinians attempting to work together for peace non-violently.
There are three voices in
the Israeli and Palestinian communities today, but the world hears only two:
the angry voice of Palestinians filled with hate and violence toward Israelis,
and the angry voice of Israelis filled with hate and violence toward
Palestinians. We do not hear the third voice, that of Israelis and Palestinians
working together for peace. This third voice is saying it is possible and
necessary to reach out to one another as fellow human beings despite deep
personal losses and pain.
The first two voices fill
the airwaves and newspapers with images of hostility and confrontation that are
demoralizing and self-perpetuating. The "underheard" third voice has
not had the same access to communication resources. It is often overwhelmed on
the battlefield of ideas, and suppressed by fear and intimidation in its own
communities. It must be fully present, however, if discussions about peace are
to be successful. Moreover, the status of this alternative voice must be
enhanced in its own communities to help those communities reduce the violence
that originates from within them.
Why do we not hear this
third voice? Is it because it is not significant? Is it so small that it does
not deserve to be heard? No. There is ample evidence that a true,
powerfully-felt alternative exists, created by individuals of enormous goodwill
and courage. Our efforts have identified many organizations in which
Palestinians and Israelis are working together for peace. For example:
The Interreligous
Coordinating Council in Israel, The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement
between People, and the Israel Interfaith Association , which convene
discussion groups of Israelis and Palestinians.
The Middle East
Children's Association, which brings Palestinian and Israeli teachers
together to develop curricula that increase understanding of one another's
history and culture
The Bereaved Families
Forum , through which nearly 400 bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families
are working together to stop the violence
Polls provide strong evidence that the spirit behind these efforts is felt throughout the two communities. A survey commissioned by Search for Common Ground ( www.sfcg.org/
) found that:a strong majority (62%)
of Palestinians think that a new approach is needed in the intifada.
overwhelming majorities
(73-92%) approve of using various new methods of nonviolent action; 56% feel
that violence that hurts women and children is inconsistent with the true
moral character of the Palestinian people.
an overwhelming majority
(78%) of Israelis feel the Palestinians have a legitimate right to seek a
Palestinian state through nonviolent means; 56% think the Palestinians have a
similar right to oppose the building of settlements; about two-thirds feel the
Israeli government should not try to stop Palestinians from organizing large
nonviolent demonstrations.
A Different Future is an
interfaith, international Non-governmental Organization of religious leaders,
scholars, communications experts, artists and philanthropists. We aim to use
our collective expertise to strengthen the voice of Palestinians and Israelis
whose actions demonstrate that it is possible for their peoples to live and
work side by side.
Some existing
organizations use mass communication to promote peace in the Middle East. For
example, Search for Common Ground makes television documentaries and soap
operas that depict constructive interactions among people of different
ethnicities; Sesame Workshop uses television to acquaint children in the
Middle East with neighboring ethnic groups; MEND is a Palestinian organization
that uses innovative media techniques to teach about democracy and
non-violence.
A Different Future has
brought together people with the expertise necessary for the proposed campaign
of ideas. These include some of the world's foremost scholars of the
communities and conflicts in the region, internationally recognized religious
leaders of the three Abrahamic faiths [Islam, Judaism, Christianity], senior
executives of communications companies with extensive experience in the
formulation and international implementation of social action campaigns,
members of the entertainment community, and the experience and assistance of
the communications division of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Response to our
initiative by other organizations has been very positive. Robert Rosenberg,
director of Ariga, put it to us simply: "Just having Israelis and
Palestinians face the camera to say 'We want peace. Join us' would do a lot to
get the message across to both sides that on both sides, people do want
peace."
We must put the voice of
mutual respect on equal footing with its adversaries; with our future in the
balance, to do otherwise would be an abdication of the responsibility that
every generation since Abraham has recognized towards its children and the
future. Our objective is to give this underheard third voice prominence in the
public space of ideas. Then, individuals will more confidently express their
beliefs that peaceful resolution of even deep conflicts is preferable and
possible, soldiers will more reluctantly deploy their force, and diplomats
will work in an atmosphere more conducive to trust.
From: www.adifferentfuture.org/index.php
Non-violence, which is a quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
