Come Clean on Water Boarding

By William Loren Katz
(420 words)
This Commentary is Unpublished

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, this country's chief legal officer, discussed the torture known as water boarding Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chair Patrick Leahy insisted that water boarding "has been recognized as torture for the last 500 years." Though it has been practiced since the Spanish Inquisition in the 1400s, Mukasey told Senators he is not sure it is really torture.

Taking a more direct approach, Senator Ted Kennedy asked Mukasey, "Would water boarding be torture if it was done to you?" ....

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William Loren Katz is the author of forty U.S. history books and has been affiliated with New York University since 1973. His website is WILLIAMLKATZ.COM

Open Letter from Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq

By Peggy Gish, Anita David, Michele Naar-Obed, and Cliff Kindy
(550 words)

This Commentary is Unpublished

An open letter to the United States Administration, United States Department of State and United States Defense Department:

As members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) presently living and working in the Kurdish north of Iraq, we have closely watched the news reports that detail the Turkish military invasions and bombings of Kurdish territory over the last five months, purportedly against PKK resistance. We note that the United States has provided intelligence or those attacks and has chosen to open Iraqi air space for those incursions.

We have had regular contact with the United Nations, the ICRC and
local Kurdish NGOs that have helped the casualties from those attacks. Those attacks killed at least three civilians and injured at least six. CPT has visited two of the families who had a member killed or injured. Additionally, reports indicate those bombings have damaged or destroyed homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals.

CPT visited mayors of communities to which some of the 600-800 displaced families, approximately 3000 individuals, fled for refuge.Those mayors shared photos and videos of the damages....

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For over twenty years, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has been an international organization of peace workers living in conflict areas around the world –from Colombia, Iraq, and the West Bank to the US–Mexico border. Peggy Gish, Anita David, Michele Naar-Obed, and Cliff Kindy are longstanding resident members of CPT in Iraq.

CPT http://www.cpt.org/

THE PEACE DIVIDEND, or PEACE = ECONOMIC POWER

by David Hazen

(529 words)

The cost of interpersonal violence in the USA added to the cost of US military involvement in violent conflict amounts to at least $1.1 trillion per year. If one percent of that were spent on prevention strategies and the benefits re-invested in continuing improvements to human security, how many years would it take to create a "peace dividend" of $1.1 trillion?

The 2005 Human Security Report: War and Peace in the 21st Century, published by Oxford University Press, shows that most forms of political violence have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War––and finds that the best explanation for this decline is the huge upsurge of conflict prevention, resolution and peace-building activities that were spearheaded by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Cold War.

Traditional security policy emphasizes military muscle. The proponents of human security have focused on preventive diplomacy, conflict management, post–conflict peace-building, building state capacity, and promoting equitable economic development.

There are strong similarities between the supportive strategies for promoting peace on the international scene to the strategies for prevention of interpersonal violence. Both are heavily dependent on communication and education, as well as on inclusion into economic markets ...

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David Hazen, MA in systematic design-planning, lives in Eugene, and is the Oregon State Coordinator for the campaign to establish a U.S. Department of Peace.

Just War, Inc.

by Tom H Hastings
(538 words)

Back in the day (an expression my undergraduate students sometimes use) we had an expression, It’s all Greek to me. Aristotle helped us define what that means vis-à-vis war. He taught that the only just war was one fought with non-Hellenes. To borrow from another set of expressions, Mighty white of him. As long as you are attacking, say, Persians, war is alright, but please, stop with the city-state swordplay between Athens and Sparta.

Fast-forward to the time of Jesus. He was not in favor of swordplay and even rejected that in self-defense. He took it another step and admonished his disciple who rose to defend Jesus in the Garden on the eve of Passover. The disciple cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest and then Jesus took it to the next level and healed the ear.

Yet in our “Christian nation” we still hold that the doctrine of the Just War is supreme. It was cited on the floor of Congress to justify voting for Gulf War I. Most Christian denominations expressly believe in this Aristotelian doctrine...

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Tom H. Hastings is director of PeaceVoice and a founder of Whitefeather Peace Community in Portland, Oregon. He teaches full-time in the Portland State University Conflict Resolution MA/MS program.

Nonviolent Action -- A More Ethical and Effective Alternative to War

(593 words)
by Randy Schutt

War is hell -- both for the soldiers who fight it and the civilians who live where it is fought. The Iraq war is a perfect example of the mess that military force can make of a country: directly killing thousands of innocent civilians, injuring tens of thousands more, and displacing and traumatizing millions, while destroying critical infrastructure -- such as roads, bridges, and electricity generation, water purification, and sewage treatment plants -- that makes a civilized life possible. Creating a civilized, democratic society out of the chaotic disaster that Iraq has become will be extremely difficult and take a very long time, even under the best circumstances.

But what is the alternative? In the last three decades, nonviolent action has demonstrated that it is very effective in overthrowing horribly repressive regimes. For example, nonviolent action toppled the apartheid regime in South Africa, deposed the dictatorships of Slobodan Milosevich in Yugoslavia, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and brought down the former Soviet Union and its communist satellite states (including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania). Overthrowing those regimes incurred relatively few casualties and wrought relatively little destruction. The nonviolent overthrow of these vicious regimes has mostly left these countries stronger, more civilized, and much more free and democratic.
...

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Randy Schutt is Vice-President of Cleveland Peace Action, a member
of the Cleveland Nonviolence Network, and the author of Inciting
Democracy: A Practical Proposal for Creating a Good Society.
http://www.vernalproject.org

Health care and the passing of the pig

by Lynn Porter

431 words

A while back a member of the Oregon state legislature said that legislators have been passing out business tax credits “like candy,” as an indirect way of rewarding their supporters. The tax burden has been shifted from business to individual taxpayers, who are no longer willing to carry it, and will reflexively vote against any tax increase that they have to pay.

State services, including health care, are falling apart for lack of revenue. More money will have to come from somewhere, and the only possible source is business.

Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson has said, “In 1973 the largest corporations doing business in Oregon paid 18 per cent of the state income tax, the other 82 per cent was paid by wage earners and small business. This year, 2005, the largest corporations — those with 75 shareholders or more — are paying five per cent.”

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Lynn Porter is an activist in Eugene, Oregon, working on peace, health care and environmental issues. His blog is at http://lynnporter.wordpress.com.

Supporting the Troops, Killing the Troops

by Dr. Craig Greenman

(400 words)

Seventeen years ago, just after the U.S. began its war with Iraq, I encountered a Vietnam veteran in jail. He cried, “If somebody asked me to kill my mother, I wouldn’t do it! I would not do it!” He stood there naked and threw his feces against the wall.

“Messiah” is a song about him. It goes like this:

I am the Messiah – I’ve come to save the world

Sometimes I think I’m Satan, ‘cause I killed that little girl

Jehovah, won’t you come down and set your poor boy free

I’m just an ever faithful, crazy Marine who fought for his country

The Marine was a “Messiah,” teaching us to end bad wars. His insanity would end other insanity. Far from making his sacrifice meaningless – as the hawks argued, even then – it would make it supremely meaningful: He would be the last soldier to go nuts for nothing.

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Dr. Craig Greenman is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire. He teaches Philosophy and Religious Studies.

A river basin is a terrible thing to waste

(504 words)

by Angela Crowley-Koch

Last night I attended my 20^th Hanford public comment meeting. This meeting was about bringing new nuclear waste to the Hanford nuclear reservation, the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere which sits on the Columbia River in Washington State.

The meeting was pretty similar to the 19 other Hanford meetings I’ve attended.

The conference room in a Troutdale hotel was overcrowded and unbearably hot. Despite the heat, most stayed three hours and half the attendees stayed for four. The Department of Energy (DOE) didn’t allow time for public Q & A, but after vocal cries of protest, they gave in and answered our questions about the proposal.

Then came the public comment period. ... (to view the unpublished full text exclusively, contact PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com)

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Angela Crowley-Koch is the Executive Director of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, a non-profit educational organization committed to the elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and the achievement of a healthy, just, and peaceful world for present and future generations. PSR is the US affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Crowley-Koch lives in NE Portland.

Destroying democracy whilst sprucing up Saddam

(464 words)

by Tom H Hastings

When I was an inmate in Wisconsin’s prison system I noted that not many of the inmates felt all that positive about society, the economy, or the government. This is hardly surprising. The Wisconsin prison system, like most of America’s prison systems from the Bureau of Prisons to states to counties and towns are based on retributive justice, not restorative justice. This helps account for high rates of recidivism. Why try to fit in if you’ve deepened your hatred of the system during your time sequestered?

The American military now reports that it has “detained” some 24,500 in Iraq as insurgents (no figures for those detained by Iraqi troops or police), up some 50 percent in the past few months, a manifestation of the surge. They also report, says a 25 August New York Times story, that the “detention system itself often serves as a breeding ground for the insurgency and a training opportunity for those who, after they are released, may attack Iraqi or American-led forces.”

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Tom H Hastings is director of PeaceVoice and a founder of Whitefeather Peace Community in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

A pax on both their houses: Congress and US

(549 words)

by Tom H Hastings

Meeting with US Senator Ron Wyden was instructive to a poor member of a public that wants peace. After years of trying to meet with him—including numerous lobbying visits and even an arrest in his office for simply quietly sitting to wait for him after the office closed for the day—I was finally able to meet the man in person. There were 10 of us, each representing a peace organization in Oregon. The meeting followed the senator’s town hall on Iraq held on the campus of Portland State University.

It was that meeting that made me fully realize why Americans have a benthic appreciation for Congress—some 18 percent of us think they are doing a decent job, according to a new Gallup Poll. This is the lowest rate of approval since Gallup began this measurement in 1974.

Ron Wyden opened his town hall by saying he was there to listen. ...(for your exlusive consideration of this piece, email PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com and request full text)

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Tom H Hastings is director of PeaceVoice and a founder of Whitefeather Peace Community in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.

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.

One Down . . .

(490 words)

by Michael Nagler

The retirement of Karl Rove from his position as advisor to the President has given progressives like myself additional hope that the destruction of our democratic values, our standing in the world, much of our wealth and many of our young men and women that President Bush has been able to undertake, seemingly without obstruction from anyone, may be losing its momentum at last, as all bad things eventually do.

Rove was a leading example of those who, in the words of Al Gore, have mounted the “Assault on Reason” we have been living through. This he was not because he was unique, in this world of ‘spin doctors’ and ‘fixers,’ but because of the degree to which he was able, as Bob Burnett has put it, “to employ his extraordinary propaganda talents in the service of a polarizing, destructive and unscrupulous targeting of his leader's political opponents.” In this, Burnett continues, “he has played a major role in the coarsening of American democracy.”

Unfortunately his departure, however welcome, ... (contact PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com to obtain exclusive consideration of this unpublished piece)

Michael N. Nagler

Prof. emeritus, UC Berkeley

"Misconceptions about nonviolence" by George Wolfe

"Misconceptions about nonviolence" by George Wolfe (word count: 547)

"As the war in Iraq continues into its fourth year, I receive an increasing number of opportunities to speak on the topic "nonviolence." While there are many people who laud the principle of nonviolence, the popular view holds that nonviolence cannot succeed if one of the parties involved in the conflict chooses to use violence. This assertion is incorrect and reflects an all too common misconception of the principles of nonviolence as developed by Adin Ballou, Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King."…

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George Wolfe is the Coordinator of Outreach Programs at the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Ball State University.

"Senator Snivel and the Pity Vote" by Prof. Tom Hastings

"Senator Snivel and the Pity Vote" by Prof. Tom Hastings (word count: 527)

"Listen! Gordon Smith is running. Can you hear the flip-flops? Gordon Smith is running for reelection in 2008. He began running with his December 2006 speech in which he, for the first time, publicly acknowledged his deep concern about the war in Iraq . By odd chance, this was just a month after the voters rejected the war in November, handing his party—the Republicans—their first major defeat at the polls in a decade. Cynics claimed that Smith's apparently heartfelt speech was a ploy to make the increasingly antiwar voters in Oregon feel sorry for him and cast a pity vote for him in 2008."...

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Tom H Hastings is director of PeaceVoice and a founder of Whitefeather Peace Community in Portland , Oregon.

"The more terrorists we kill, the more we create" by George Wolfe

"The more terrorists we kill, the more we create" by George Wolfe (word count: 407)

"An Associated Press article written by Charles J. Hanley ( January 22, 2006 ) suggested that targeting Al-Qaida leaders may actually provoke more terrorism. And most recently, lawmakers in Washington are starting to conclude that US military efforts in Iraq may be doing more to fuel the insurgency than quell it. This dilemma is explained by a concept in Peace Studies known as 'narcissistic injury'."…

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George Wolfe is the Coordinator of Outreach Programs at the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Ball State University.

"Why does the US paint Iran 's nuclear program as an effort to build a bomb?" by Barry Gan

"Why does the US paint Iran 's nuclear program as an effort to build a bomb?" by Barry Gan (word count: 567)

"A primary rule in negotiation is never to deduce an opponent's intentions from one's own fears, especially when those fears are irrational. Yet the United States government persists in painting Iran 's development of centrifuge technology as a sign that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon."…

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Barry L. Gan is the Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Nonviolence at St. Bonaventure University.