Yearly Archives ⇒ 1998

Why We Mourn and Protest

December 19, 1998
· Martin Kelley

Many of the this week’s crit­ics of the Non­vi­o­lence Web are insist­ing that the U.S. needs to bomb Iraq in order to secure a future world of peace: “Are you an idiot? We need­ed to bomb them. 

Oth­er­wise, many more INNOCENT will even­tu­al­ly die at the hands of Sad­dam Hus­sein. Some­times force is nec­es­sary in order to pre­vent much greater vio­lence later.”

This is the log­ic that has brought us to most vio­lent cen­tu­ry in human exis­tence. War is always fought for peace. Acts of vio­lence are always jus­ti­fied with the argu­ment that they’re pre­vent­ing acts of vio­lence lat­er. We kill for peace. And they kill for peace. And as the death count ris­es we build even big­ger and smarter bombs. And they build even big­ger and smarter bombs.

The million-dollar cruise mis­siles going into Iraq aren’t go to hurt Sad­dam Hus­sein. He’s safe­ly ensconced in one of his pres­i­den­tial palaces watch­ing CNN (mean­while, Pres­i­dent Clin­ton sits in the White House watch­ing CNN as well). All the cruise mis­siles in the U.S. Navy won’t bring Hus­sein from power.

It is the peo­ple of Iraq who feel the sting of these bomb­ings. Just as it is them who have born the brunt of eight years of bru­tal sanc­tions. It is the moth­ers who suf­fer as they watch their chil­dren die because even the most basic med­ical sup­plies are non-existent. It is the lit­tle ones them­selves suf­fer­ing as yet anoth­er wave of bombs come rain­ing down on their world from that abstract enti­ty called the “U.S.”

Amer­i­can pol­i­cy is wrong pre­cise­ly because we are at war not with Sad­dam Hus­sein, but with the peo­ple of Iraq-the cit­i­zens, the poor and meek, the down­trod­den and hurting.

The nation of Iraq will always have the tech­ni­cal know-how to build weapons of mass destruc­tion. Because the fact is that we live in a world where every indus­tri­al­ized nation with a cou­ple of smart chem­istry Ph.D.‘s can build these bombs. India and Pak­istan just a few months ago set off nuclear weapons, we know Israel has a stock­pile. We can’t just bomb every coun­try with a weapon of mass destruc­tion or with the capac­i­ty to pro­duce such a weapon.

We need to build a world of real peace, of peace between nations built on the rule of law, yes, but also on rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. We need for­eign pol­i­cy that rec­og­nizes that it is the rulers and the poli­cies of oth­er nations with which we dis­agree. That rec­og­nizes that it is wrong to ever con­demn a whole peo­ple for the excess­es of their leaders.

A num­ber of U.S. peace groups have called for today to be a day of Nation­al Mourn­ing and Protest. Let us gath­er to remem­ber that we stand togeth­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those suf­fer­ing in Iraq. Let us vig­il qui­et­ly and then yell out loud­ly that war to end war is wrong.

End the Sanc­tions. Stop the Bomb­ing. Declare peace with the Iraqi People.

No More Coincidences: Big Bill’s Zipper Strikes Again

December 16, 1998
· Martin Kelley

Back in Feb­ru­ary, I con­clud­ed my “Stop the Zip­per War Before it Starts” with the following:

Noth­ing’s real­ly changed now except U.S. polit­i­cal inter­ests. Hus­sein is still a tyrant. He’s still stock­pil­ing chem­i­cal weapons. Why are U.S. polit­i­cal inter­ests dif­fer­ent now? Why does Bill Clin­ton want U.S. media atten­tion focused on Iraq? Look no fur­ther than Big Bil­l’s zip­per. Stop the next war before it starts. Abol­ish every­one’s weapons of mass destruc­tion and let’s get a Pres­i­dent who does­n’t need a war to clear his name.

I put this at the bot­tom of the piece because then the idea that Clin­ton might have done this was still way out there.

Since then most every major turn­ing point in the Pres­i­den­t’s scan­dals has been echoed by mil­i­tary maneuverings.

On August 17th Clin­ton gave a tele­vised address which was wide­ly crit­i­cized as being “too lit­tle, too late” and non-repentant enough. Pub­lic opin­ion turned sharply against him. Three days lat­er Big Bill sent 100 cruise mis­siles into Afghanistan and Sudan in order to assas­si­nate Osama bin Laden, the pre­vi­ous­ly unknown arch­en­e­my of the Unit­ed States.

And now, on the after­noon before the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was sched­uled to begin pro­ceed­ings on his Impeach­ment, Clin­ton has ordered an attack on Iraq. Con­gress will of course delay the vote. Rumors are that this new bomb­ing cam­paign might last more than a few days, and come Jan­u­ary’s new Con­gres­sion­al term there will be five less Republicans.

Each time these coin­ci­dences hap­pen, a few pun­dits that mut­ter about “Wag the Dog” sce­nar­ios before assur­ing the audi­ence that Clin­ton would nev­er do that. Every­one talks about coin­ci­dence and then moves on.

But coin­ci­dence has been Clin­ton’s friend through­out his scan­dals. Remem­ber the long-lost White­wa­ter doc­u­ments that mys­te­ri­ous­ly appeared on Hillary Clin­ton’s coffee-table when inves­ti­ga­tors were threat­en­ing to issue here a sub­poe­na? Remem­ber the job offers that Clin­ton cronies arranged for key wit­ness­es just before they either recant­ed their sto­ries or lied under oath? All of Clin­ton’s scan­dals have been of the “who cares” variety-shady land deal­ings twen­ty years ago in Arkansas, his hav­ing sex with an intern in the Oval Office. They dis­played a lack of judg­ment and char­ac­ter, but were not Impeach­able. But his scan­dals have grown and tak­en a life of their own as Clin­ton and his wife have been vis­it­ed by an ever-growing amount of coincidences.

Enough is enough. How much more are we to believe? As I write this the mis­siles are scream­ing over Bagh­dad and Iraqis are dying hor­ri­ble deaths. This is real. This is not some polit­i­cal game. It is time for Amer­i­cans to stop deny­ing that these coin­ci­dences are real­ly coincidental.

It is time to demand Clin­ton’s resignation.

And if he refus­es, then it is time to sub­poe­na White House records on the last year of mil­i­tary actions. If they show that Clin­ton has mur­dered in his des­per­ate attempt to save his Pres­i­den­cy, then it is time not only to impeach him but to put him into jail.

Hussein Backs off, Clinton Whines

November 14, 1998
· Martin Kelley

Sddam Hus­sein has just backed off. He’s agreed to a diplo­mat­ic solu­tion and has agreed to let Unit­ed Nations weapon inspec­tors back in.

U.S. offi­cials said that they were about to attack Sat­ur­day night, Nov. 14, when Hus­sein agreed to the inspec­tions. One Pen­ta­gon offi­cial is quot­ed as say­ing “It was almost as if he knew,” which is a ridicu­lous state­ment con­sid­er­ing that rumors of an immi­nent attack were cir­cling the inter­net and news sites all week­end. Of course Hus­sein knew, we all did.

This should be cause for rejoic­ing. Blood won’t have to be shed, diplo­ma­cy (notably France and Rus­si­a’s) have saved the day again, and the U.N. teams can go back to work.

But U.S. admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials are upset. They want­ed a war. They’re double-guessing their tim­ing, wish­ing they had bombed him ear­li­er this week. They’re imply­ing that they might bomb Bagh­dad any­way. They’re whin­ing that now they have to once again work with the U.N. and with Iraqi officials.

Why is the Admin­is­tra­tion so upset? It’s because they have no real pol­i­cy in the Gulf. Ear­li­er this week they admit­ted that they did­n’t know what they would do after the attack. Here they were send­ing war­ships and per­son­nel into the Gulf and they had no long- or mid-term vision for what these peo­ple were going to do after the first hun­dred cruise mis­siles went off. U.S. pol­i­cy is once more stuck in the same mud­dle its been in since mid-1991.

Clin­ton wish­es Hus­sein would just dis­ap­pear. That his mil­i­tary would launch a coup and dri­ve him from pow­er. That a cruise mis­sile would hit and kill him. They wish that Iraqi mil­i­tary know-how would dis­ap­pear. But none of this is like­ly to hap­pen. In the real world, high-tech U.S. mis­siles can’t do very much. The real world requires diplo­ma­cy, nego­ti­at­ing with peo­ple you don’t trust, de-escalating rhetoric. These are skills that the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion needs to develop.

It is time for the U.S. to stop whin­ing when diplo­ma­cy works. And it is time for a U.S. to devel­op a real­is­tic pol­i­cy for build­ing a last­ing peace in the Gulf.

President Clinton Overturns Assassination Ban

November 14, 1998
· Martin Kelley

Today’s Times has an arti­cle that the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion real­ly was try­ing to kill Osama bin Laden in August’s cruise mis­sile attack against Afghanistan. This flat-out con­tra­dicts months of assur­ances that this was not a U.S. goal.

But even more wor­ri­some is that Pres­i­den­tial lawyers have con­clud­ed that this sort of polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tion attempt does­n’t fall under the 1975 Exec­u­tive Order ban­ning polit­i­cal mur­der. The same Pres­i­dent who says sex isn’t sex is now say­ing that assas­si­na­tion isn’t assas­si­na­tion. He’s once again split­ting legal hairs and lying to the Amer­i­can peo­ple when caught.

Who Clin­ton sleeps with is his business.

But who he tries to assas­si­nate is the busi­ness of all of us. And it’s our busi­ness when he breaks U.S. law to do so. And our busi­ness when his Admin­is­tra­tion goes on a con­cert­ed, coor­di­nat­ed cam­paign to lie about a mil­i­tary mission’s goals. The bomb­ings ratch­eted up the anti‑U.S. anger in the world. It vio­lat­ed the sov­er­eign­ty of two nations. It cost over a hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars. The Unit­ed States is a democ­ra­cy and the peo­ple need to be involved in mak­ing such far-reaching deci­sions. We need to be ful­ly informed.

The Pres­i­dent must be held account­able to U.S. law. And he must be told that cre­ative legal def­i­n­i­tions aren’t accept­able in a democracy. 

A Terrorist Bombing by Any Other Name

August 20, 1998
· Martin Kelley

What if in the weeks fol­low­ing the bomb­ing of the fed­er­al cour­t­house in Okla­homa City, the FBI had launched dozens of cruise mis­siles at the Michi­gan town where Tim­o­thy McVeigh had built his bomb? What if it had done so even when evi­dence was still mea­ger, when accounts were still con­tra­dic­to­ry? What if it did so with­out look­ing for less dra­mat­ic ways of serv­ing jus­tice? What if the mis­siles just killed and enraged more innocents?

Ear­li­er today the Unit­ed States attacked two nations accused of har­bor­ing the ter­ror­ist team respon­si­ble for the recent bomb­ings in East Africa. Telling the world that “our tar­get was ter­ror,” U.S. naval ships fired seventy-five to one hun­dred cruise mis­siles into a busy urban neigh­bor­hood of the Sudanese cap­i­tal of Khar­toum, a city of 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple, and at a lightly-populated tar­get in Afghanistan.

It is a sol­id prin­ci­ple of both inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy and non­vi­o­lent action that the more peace­ful options are exhaust­ed first. No sig­nif­i­cant diplo­mat­ic efforts have been made with the Tal­iban gov­ern­ment in Afghanistan to extra­dite reput­ed ring­leader Osama bin Laden. No Unit­ed Nations res­o­lu­tions have been passed for inspec­tion of the reput­ed chem­i­cal weapons fac­to­ry in Sudan (local offi­cials say it’s a fac­to­ry for med­ical drugs).

If the chem­i­cal plant had been in a Euro­pean cap­i­tal, it is all but cer­tain that the U.S. would not have fired dozens of cruise mis­siles with scant evi­dence and no pre­lim­i­nary diplo­mat­ic effort. But Khar­toum is the cap­i­tal of a mil­i­tar­i­ly weak African nation. While Clin­ton claims to be sad­dened at all the African lives lost in the bomb­ing at the embassy in Kenya, yet he has lit­tle regard for the lives of Africans in the neigh­bor­ing Sudan.

Jus­tice takes time. It needs the care­ful weigh­ing of evi­dence by neu­tral par­ties. It took over a year for inves­ti­ga­tors to col­lect the evi­dence sur­round­ing the Okla­homa City bomb­ing and for Tim­o­thy McVeigh to be con­vict­ed of the crime. But while jus­tice might take time, pol­i­tics requires imme­di­a­cy, dra­ma. Clin­ton is a politi­cian and he knows that tough mil­i­tary adven­tures against pip-squeak coun­tries is the fastest way to ral­ly bipar­ti­san domes­tic sup­port in times of trou­ble. Con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians have stopped the ever-louder calls for his impeach­ment over the sex and per­jury scan­dal to ral­ly behind him and mut­ter the famil­iar impe­ri­al­is­tic clichés about pol­i­tics stop­ping at the water’s edge. But it is time to stop play­ing pol­i­tics with Third World lives.

“Our tar­get was ter­ror” said Pres­i­dent Clin­ton, but so was his solu­tion. The only way Amer­i­ca knows to respond to two bombs is to set off seventy-five bombs. The only way it know to avenge the death of hun­dreds of inno­cent Africans is by threat­en­ing the lives of hun­dreds of oth­er Africans. Ter­ror­ist bomb­ing by any oth­er deliv­ery method is just as dead­ly and it is just as dis­rup­tive to inter­na­tion­al world order.

As cit­i­zens, Amer­i­cans have grown too com­pla­cent about these mis­sile launch­es against unarmed cities. These attacks have become too famil­iar a part of U.S. pol­i­cy. Too few ques­tions are asked, either imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the bomb­ing or in the years after­ward. Ter­ror­ist mis­siles are not effec­tive means of appre­hend­ing crim­i­nals or serv­ing jus­tice. Ear­ly reports from Afghanistan are that bin Laden is safe and con­tin­u­ing to plan fur­ther attacks against Amer­i­cans. In the last decade, mis­sile attacks have been used against Libya, Lebanon and Iraq but in no case have they dam­aged the ene­my and have in fact only strength­ened the anger and the resolve of their supporters.

As before, the mis­siles were launched by com­put­er from ships hun­dreds of miles away. We nev­er see the smoke and the fire, we nev­er smell the blood, we nev­er see the ter­ror in the eyes of the chil­dren. Chil­dren whose night­mares will now fea­tured scream­ing mis­siles from unseen ter­ror­ists known only as Amer­i­cans. Chil­dren whose dreams will be the taste of revenge.

Osama bin Laden has won. He won by pro­vok­ing the U.S. to shun it’s ideals of democ­ra­cy and jus­tice to wal­low with him in the mud of orga­nized inter­na­tion­al ter­ror. Two hun­dred and fifty mil­lion Amer­i­cans have now joined bin Laden’s cru­sade to avenge ter­ror­ist vio­lence with more ter­rror­ist vio­lence. It is time to stop all ter­ror, it is time to speak out against all violence.

Two More Nuclear Cowboys

June 5, 1998
· Martin Kelley

For the last fifty years, Amer­i­ca has swag­gered around the globe like a par­o­dy of one of it’s Hol­ly­wood West­erns. Like John Wayne car­ry­ing his six-shooter down the Main Street of Dodge City, Amer­i­ca has strut­ted around the world, tak­ing nuclear weapons wher­ev­er it want­ed it’s way, from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Gulf of Pana­ma to the Gulf of Persia.

Well, the oth­er cow­boys in town have got­ten the mes­sage. To be some­one in the nuclear age means you need to car­ry your own six-shooter. In the last few weeks, India and Pak­istan have offi­cial­ly joined the nuclear cow­boys by set­ting off nuclear weapons. Dodge City’s just become a lit­tle tougher.

Inter­na­tion­al out­rage against India and Pak­istan is a lit­tle strange. No one’s real­ly doubt­ed they had nuclear capac­i­ty. Like Israel, it’s long been known they have nuclear weapons. The dif­fer­ence between them and the more estab­lished nuclear pow­ers is sim­ply the log­ic that says it’s okay for some coun­tries to have nuclear weapons but not oth­ers. Like all double-standards, it was just a mat­ter of time till the this one fell to its own hypocrisy.

The debut of two new nuclear cow­boys has brought into sharp relief the real work of our age: full nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. The real Dodge City, Kansas long ago out­grew it’s gun­slingers. The only John Wayne’s who stomp down its Main Street these days do so for the tourist cam­eras. It’s a qui­et Mid­west­ern town full of shop­ping malls, drug stores, and fast food restau­rants. There’s no need for tough sher­iffs, show­downs, or six-shooters.

The Wild West is long gone, rel­e­gat­ed to the movie screens and cut­sey gift shops. It’s time to close the door on the nuclear age too. Time to pack in the six-shooters and learn to live togeth­er under inter­na­tion­al law. Lets leave nuclear brinks­man­ship to Hol­ly­wood screen­writ­ers and let the real world live in peace.

John Sayles Looks at “Men with Guns”

May 1, 1998
· Martin Kelley

John Sayles is one of the most tal­ent­ed inde­pen­dent direc­tors film­ing today. In movies such as “Broth­er from Anoth­er Plan­et,” “Mate­wan” and “Lone Star,” he’s told sto­ries about every­day peo­ple as they live their lives, try to build bet­ter worlds and find them­selves caught in their human frailty. His lat­est movie, “Men with Guns,” fol­lows a wealthy but dying city doc­tor as he search­es the inte­ri­or of his coun­try for the stu­dents he had trained to treat the indige­nous poor. Like Dorothy fol­low­ing the yel­low brick road, he col­lects a car­a­van of lost souls along the way and learns what his igno­rance has wrought, both per­son­al­ly and for the life of his country.

The tale is set in an anony­mous Latin Amer­i­can coun­try and the ambi­gu­i­ty serves its pur­pose well. This is not the sto­ry of a par­tic­u­lar set of abus­es or a spe­cif­ic gov­ern­ment or army. It is a tale of what hap­pens when cap­i­tal­ism, mil­i­tary rule, rhetoric and human fal­li­bil­i­ty come togeth­er. It is a sto­ry of what hap­pens when good peo­ple refuse to con­front atroc­i­ties being com­mit­ted in their name and instead opt for a will­ing naiveté.

In inter­views, Sayles said he got the image of “men with guns” when he imag­ined the lot of Viet­nam’s “rice peo­ple”, politically-simple peas­ants who went on har­vest­ing rice for hun­dreds of years as a suc­ces­sion of “men with guns” came through in waves of ter­ror. It did­n’t so much mat­ter if the armies were Chi­nese, French, Amer­i­can or from North Viet­nam: all men with guns rule with what seems an arbi­trary bru­tal­i­ty. The most that the locals can do is stay out of the way.

At it’s heart, “Men with Guns” is a paci­fist and anar­chist movie, though assign­ing such labels dimin­ish­es the work and threat­ens to turn Sayles into anoth­er man­i­festo writer. He’s too inter­est­ing for that and uses story-telling to show us the world and how it works. Ulti­mate­ly, the movie blames every­one for their role in the ter­ror – the sol­diers, the rebels, the priests and our good-hearted but naive doc­tor. But Sayles also absolves them and pulls them from their car­i­ca­tures as he shows us the larg­er forces that drove them to their roles.

Last Fri­day, Bish­op Juan Ger­ar­di Coned­era, a lead­ing human rights activist in Guatemala, pub­lished a scathing report doc­u­ment­ing abus­es from Guatemala’s 36-year civ­il war; two days lat­er he was mur­dered in his own home by unknown assas­sins. The real-world mod­el for Sayles’ doc­tor was Guatemalan and it’s hard not to see Con­der­a’s mur­der as anoth­er inci­dent of bru­tal­i­ty by men with guns, fig­u­ra­tive­ly if not lit­er­al­ly (his mur­der­er report­ed­ly used a cin­der block). See­ing John Sayles’ lat­est movie would be a fit­ting trib­ute to Con­der­a’s work and that of oth­ers strug­gling for jus­tice in the world.

Ohio Protests Open National Debate on War

February 19, 1998
· Martin Kelley

Pro­test­ers in Colum­bus, Ohio upset a pro-war pro­gram with top Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials Wednes­day after­noon, ask­ing them tough ques­tions at a live CNN “Town Hall” meet­ing and giv­ing the anti­war move­ment its first seri­ous nation­al publicity.

Sec­re­tary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Sec­re­tary William S. Cohen were in Colum­bus to gain pop­u­lar sup­port for the war and to build the myth of a nation­al con­sen­sus for a U.S. attack on Iraq. They were both sur­prised and embar­rassed by the jeers and tough ques­tions they received from audi­ence mem­bers. Some audi­ence mem­bers held up signs and chant­ed “We Don’t Want Your Racist War” while one ques­tion­er asked why the U.S. was­n’t con­sid­er­ing force against oth­er coun­tries vio­lat­ing human rights such as Indone­sia in it’s slaugh­ter of East Tim­o­rese (when Albright start­ed hem­ming and haw­ing, her accuser shot back “You’re not answer­ing my ques­tion, Madame Albright.”)

The Colum­bus dis­senters are the top sto­ry in the major news­pa­pers and media pun­dits are start­ing to pub­licly doubt polls show­ing over­whelm­ing sup­port for mil­i­tary action.

Sam­ple Let­ter to Media

To the Editors,

With today’s sto­ry about an Ohio audi­ence jeer­ing Sec­re­tary of State Madeleine Albright, it’s time for MS-NBC to give some cov­er­age to the groundswell of grass­roots oppo­si­tion to anoth­er Gulf War. If you had been mon­i­tor­ing the “Iraq Cri­sis Anti­war Home­page,” the events in Colum­bus would not have been a sur­prise. In fact, 82 oth­er demon­stra­tions are cur­rent­ly list­ed here.

In addi­tion to events list­ings, the Anti­war Home­page has analy­sis, action alerts, ideas for orga­niz­ing and links to major non­vi­o­lence groups. A project of the Non­vi­o­lence Web, home to dozens of U.S.-based peace groups, it is a cen­tral source for anti­war organizing.

Please con­sid­er pro­fil­ing all the great work being done around the coun­try to stop anoth­er sense­less war.

In peace,
Mar­tin Kelley
Non­vi­o­lence Web

Reporters vis­it­ing the “Iraq Cri­sis Anti­war Home­page” would not have been sur­prised by the turnout in Colum­bus. A huge grass­roots anti­war move­ment has grown in the past month. The Non­vi­o­lence Web’s email box is being flood­ed with great state­ments, let­ters to Clin­ton, action ideas and just plain wor­ry about anoth­er war. The Anti­war Home­page’s list of upcom­ing protests spans the world, list­ing the Colum­bus event along with over sev­en­ty others.

But lit­tle of this orga­niz­ing has got­ten the nation­al media. Most of the online media have put togeth­er sec­tions promis­ing “com­plete cov­er­age,” and sport­ing bravu­ra titles like “Show­down with Sad­dam.” But look at the cov­er­age and you’ll see only fluff pieces about the brave boys on the air­craft car­ri­ers or furrow-browed analy­sis of U.N. Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Kofi Annan’s doomed search for a diplo­mat­ic settlement.

fter Ohio, the nation­al media will have to start rec­og­niz­ing the wide­spread dis­sent among Amer­i­cans. Some progress is being made. YAHOO, the most pop­u­lar site on the net, has list­ed the Anti­war Home­page in its list of Iraq Cri­sis resources. And a top news orga­ni­za­tion is work­ing on a pro­file of the Non­vi­o­lence Web to appear with­in a few days (keep­ing look­ing for an announcement).

But we must all do more. Write and email the nation­al media to include cov­er­age of anti­war actions. Demand that a link to the Iraq Cri­sis Anti­war Home­page be includ­ed in their “Com­plete Cov­er­age” of the cri­sis. A sam­ple let­ter to MS-NBC is includ­ed here, but please write your own and show them that dis­sent has spread past the Colum­bus audi­to­ri­um and is fol­low­ing them across the internet!