No Guns, No Bombs

By Kathy Kelly

(965 words)

Amman, Jordan

On August 14, 2007, CNN reported about an unusual school for teenagers, run by the U.S. Army in Iraq, calling it a “jailhouse school.”

Here is the transcript from CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr’s interview with First Lieutenant Rob Glenn:

“These are the latest U.S. weapons against the insurgency -- textbooks, classrooms and soccer fields. This video, provided by the military, shows where the U.S. is now holding daily classes for hundreds of Iraqi teenagers it has imprisoned for being a security risk.

1ST LT. ROB GLENN, U.S. ARMY: Juveniles in custody right now are nearly 800. That's 800 lives that we have an opportunity to impact.

STARR: That's a sharp increase from the 272 juveniles -- all boys aged 11 to 17 -- detained back in February, when the surge started.

U.S. commanders say as a result of the surge, insurgents have stepped up recruiting children to lay IEDs and act as lookouts for snipers, believing the U.S. troops will be reluctant to shoot them. The U.S. has one goal for the jailhouse school.

GLENN: We ensure that when they are released that they don't -- they pick up a book instead of an AK-47 or laying an IED. And that's what this really gets back to.”

The report didn’t mention what methods Lieutenant Glenn uses to reach the school’s “one goal.” Certainly, we must ask whether the children’s parents are allowed to visit them, and how long they’ll be detained, and whether or not their legal rights are addressed. What message is being taught to these students by imprisoning them?

But, Lieutenant Glenn’s “one goal,” to ensure that students pick up a book instead of an AK 47, that they choose books not bombs, merits special attention.

I wish this goal would be adopted by every military school and junior ROTC training facility in the United States.

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Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org)

Eisenhower’s Warning Ignored at Our Peril

by Peter N. Kirstein

Americans need to construe the Iraq War and the so-called “War Against Terrorism” as symptoms of a broader problem that afflicts America. That problem is militarism as a key component of our culture and ethos, and explains in part why the United States is unwilling to behave in a more responsible manner as a custodian of our planet. The obsession with national security, vital strategic interests and America’s global power projection have undermined the nation’s capacity to assume responsibility or even concern about the future of the world’s six billion people. American is driven merely by geopolitics fueled by adoration of its destructive power.

The United States, despite the warnings of President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address,

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Peter N. Kirstein is professor of history at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois.

GET TO WORK!

(1,350 words)
By Kathy Kelly

Amman, Jordan

“GET A JOB!” These three words are very familiar to activists bearing signs calling for an end to war, whether standing on street corners, walking along highways, holding vigils, or nonviolently occupying the offices of elected representatives. Listen to the activists, and you’ll often hear, “We’re doing our job. We’re trying.”

I’m convinced that our work must always have one foot placed in nonviolent resistance to the forces that design and wage wars, with the other foot standing among people who bear the physical and mental affliction caused by these forces. Today, I’m thinking especially about two young women who found themselves in nightmare circumstances because, in their view, they simply wanted to have a job.

When American troops invaded Iraq in 2003, Noor (not her name), was living with her aunt in a small town near Baghdad. The aunt received a minimal “retirement” salary from the former Iraqi government. As a young teenager, Noor had left her family to assist the aunt and to enter college there. She felt deep and strong attachments to people in her town, and she loved her aunt intensely. After graduating, still living with her aunt, Noor didn’t want to become a burden to her parents who were already being supported by her brothers. She wanted to earn money and a measure of independence. When a neighbor suggested she come with him to the place where he worked, she was surprised by how easily she had become employed, working to inspect the handbags and purses of people entering the workplace of a large American contractor. Initially, when troops began occupying her town, residents could walk the streets without much anxiety. Working for an American company didn’t seem to carry grave danger. ...

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Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) which is organizing “The Occupation Project.” a campaign of nonviolent resistance to U.S. funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more information about support for Iraqis who have fled to Jordan, see http://www.electroniciraq.net/news/abouttheproject/Direct_Aid_Initiative.shtml

She Stands At Every Door

(910 words)

By Kathy Kelly
Amman, Jordan
At a small, informal school in the basement of a church in Amman, many strings of colorful paper cranes bedeck walls and windows. The school serves children whose families have fled Iraq. Older children who come to the school understand the significance of the crane birds. Claudia Lefko, of Northampton, MA, who helped initiate the school, told them Sadako’s story.

The Japanese child survived the bombing of Hiroshima, but suffered from radiation sickness. In a Japanese hospital, she wanted to fold 1,000 origami crane birds, believing that by doing so she could be granted a special wish: hers was that no other child would ever suffer as she did. Sadako died before completing the task she’d set for herself, but Japanese children then folded many thousands more cranes, and the story has been told for decades in innumerable places, making the delicate paper cranes a symbol for peace throughout the world. Today, August 6, children who’ve recently joined the informal school in Ammam will learn Sadako’s story.
Having survived war, death threats, and displacement, they may be particularly aware of the enormous challenge represented by Sadako’s wish. ###
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Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org