There are cer­tain moments when just about any­thing is pos­si­ble. Moments when peo­ple start ask­ing ques­tions they thought they knew the answers to. A skill­ful politi­cian will close down these moments to make their own agen­da seem all but inevitable. A strong move­ment will ask the ques­tions any­way and shout them out until answers are giv­en. Friends, it is time to shout.
Our gen­er­a­tion may well be defined by the wars we fight in the Mid­dle East and Asia but we will be just as defined by the wars we stop. There are a dozen coun­tries that could eas­i­ly erupt into vio­lence and pre­cip­i­tate an ever-larger glob­al war.

The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States has set forth a new doc­trine for a mil­i­tary might. War has been declared not on nations or even on spe­cif­ic ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions but instead on the slip­pery chimera of “ter­ror­ism.” A war on ter­ror can nev­er be won because ter­ror is always the bed­mate of polit­i­cal oppre­sion and where oppres­sion is left to grow ter­ror­ism will fester.

Rather than face the hard work of fix­ing prob­lems the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary hand threat­ens to crush all vio­lent dis­sent and rev­o­lu­tion. We are on the brink of his­to­ry now, where we could eas­i­ly slide into ever cra­zier cycles of ter­ror­ism between groups like Al Qaida’s and the U.S. military.

The Bush Doc­trine, if passed, would let the U.S. attack any coun­try it found hos­tile to it’s dom­i­nance and a threat to it’s ego. No cred­i­ble evi­dence of a renewed Iraqi threat has been pre­sent­ed, but then none is real­ly need­ed. Bush is ready to attack any­one inde­pen­dent of the Unit­ed States and that readi­ness increas­es with every drop of oil under its sands.

What Must Be Done

It is time to shout out about hypoc­ra­cy, to ask “why war,” “why now.” To ask who gets rich when oil flows get dis­rupt­ed. To ask whose approval rat­ings go up just because bul­lets are fly­ing. This war is not inevitable. And we must not acquience to it. We must shout out every day that this is NOT our war and that WE WILL STOP IT.

How? Over the next few weeks we need to con­tact Wash­ing­ton. I usu­al­ly smile indul­gent­ly about those who advo­cate writ­ing one’s con­gressper­son. But right now, it real­ly is need­ed and real­ly can make some changes. Politi­cians in Wash­ing­ton will do noth­ing unless the folks back home are mak­ing a stink. Call or fax Wash­ing­ton. Orga­nize speak­ers, hold signs at inter­sec­tions, give them a grass­roots out­cry which they can respond to.

The cur­rent arti­cles linked on the Non​vi​o​lence​.Org home­page are full of ideas and actions. Let’s get out there and stop this war. And let’s not be dis­cour­aged as the inevitable seems to start unfold­ing. It is time to stand for truth and time to mark our gen­er­a­tion. We must stop war and we must stop all cause of war. War is to stop today. War is to stop with us.