Tag Archives ⇒ Pakistan

Snipers shoot democracy yet again: the assasination of Benazir Bhutto

December 27, 2007
· Martin Kelley

The bul­lets and bombs have final­ly found their mark. It is no sur­prise to learn of yet anoth­er assas­i­na­tion attempt against Pak­istani oppo­si­tion leader Benazir Bhut­to. Details are still sketchy and con­flict­ing but the only thing we real­ly need to know is that this attempt was suc­cess­ful and that Bhut­to is dead less than two weeks before Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions that might well have brought her into pow­er for the third time.

Pak­istan is a coun­try who’s top gov­ern­ment sci­en­tist export­ed atom­ic bomb-making across the world for decades. It still hosts Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan’s Tal­iban are still more-or-less head­quar­tered in its West­ern provinces. The stand­off with India has spawned war after war over the decade, now nuclear-enabled should either coun­try get so embold­ened. Bil­lions of dol­lars of Unit­ed States mon­ey has left Wash­ing­ton for Islam­abad since 9/11 and a pop­u­lar politi­cian can’t even cam­paign there with­out dead­ly assas­si­na­tion attempts. Pak­istan is one of the world’s hot spots, a nexus of ter­ror­ism, nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion, reli­gious extrem­ism. It is a very sad day today indeed.

Pacifism and the Congo Dilemma

August 25, 2003
· Martin Kelley

From the War Resisters League’s Judith Mahoney Paster­nak, “an hon­est look at the chal­lenge paci­fism faces in places like the Congo”:www.warresisters.org/nva0703‑1.htm:
bq. There are those who chal­lenge the paci­fist posi­tion with such ques­tions as, “A man with a gun is aim­ing it at your moth­er. You have a gun in your hand. What non­vi­o­lent action do you take?” Our usu­al answer is, “I’m a paci­fist. I don’t have a gun in my hand. Next ques­tion.” But at least once in every gen­er­a­tion — more fre­quent­ly, alas, in these violence-ridden years — the chal­lenge is a hard­er one to shrug off with a flip answer.
The answer of course is to stop wars before they start, by stop­ping the arms trade, the dic­ta­tor­ships, and the crush­ing eco­nom­ic reforms demand­ed by West­ern banks _before_ these forces all com­bine and erupt into war. Paster­nak out­lines four parts to a blue­print that could end much of the vio­lence in the Congo.
I’ve always been impressed that the folks at War Resisters are will­ing to talk about the lim­its of non­vi­o­lence (see David McReynolds seven-part “Phi­los­o­phy of Nonviolence”:www.nonviolence.org/issues/philosophy-nonviolence.php). While war is nev­er the only option (and arguably nev­er the best one), it’s much more effec­tive to stop wars ten years before the bul­lets start fly­ing. In each of the wars the U.S. has fought recent­ly, we can see past U.S. poli­cies set­ting up the con­flict ten, twen­ty and thir­ty years ago.
The largest peace march­es in the world can rarely pre­vent a war once the troops ships have set sail. If U.S. pol­i­cy and aid had­n’t sup­port­ed the “wrong” side in Iraq and Afghanistan twen­ty years ago, I don’t think we would have fought these cur­rent wars. Paci­fists and their kin need to start ask­ing the tough ques­tions about the cur­rent repres­sive regimes the U.S. is sup­port­ing – places like Sau­di Ara­bia and Pak­istan – and we need to demand that build­ing democ­ra­cy is our coun­try’s num­ber one goal in the Iraq and Afghanistan occu­pa­tions (yes, pri­or­i­tize it _over_ secu­ri­ty, so that we “don’t replace Sad­dam Hus­sein with equal­ly repres­sive thugs”:www.nonviolence.org/articles/000130.php.

Tough Time to Love War(Making)

January 23, 2003
· Martin Kelley

This just isn’t a good time to be George W. Bush. Unit­ed Nations inspec­tors comb­ing Iraq for weapons of mass destruc­tion have come up emp­ty hand­ed. Sad­dam Hus­sein has allow­ing them rel­a­tive­ly unfet­tered access but all they’ve uncov­ered is a few unused shells.

Bush is noth­ing if not per­sis­tent when it comes to per­ceived world bad guys. Just yes­ter­day he told an audi­ence in St. Louis that Hus­sein is “a dan­ger­ous, dan­ger­ous man with dan­ger­ous, dan­ger­ous weapons.” Despite the repeat­ed use dan­ger­ous, the rest of the world is uncon­vinced. Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Ger­hard Schroder still talks about “peace­ful solu­tions” and Ger­many and France is putting the brakes on war in the U.N. Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, wait­ing for evi­dence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruc­tion to turn up.

It must frus­trate our pres­i­dent to see that all these years of mil­i­tary sanc­tions against Iraq have been work­ing. All the evi­dence uncov­ered by the U.N. inspec­tors prove that we can “win with­out war,” as one cur­rent slo­gan goes, and that we have in fact been win­ning. We’ve kept Sad­dam Hus­sein from rebuild­ing his mil­i­tary after the Gulf War. U.S. iso­la­tion of Iraq has been suc­cess­ful despite its numer­ous flaws. Sad­dam is not a threat.

Which brings us to real threats and to North Korea. Pres­i­dent Bush and his team of war mon­ger­ers have been so busy look­ing at Iraq that they’ve giv­en North Korea just spo­radic atten­tion. Recently-declassified reports show that the U.S. Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency has known much more about North Korea’s nuclear bomb mak­ing over the last dozen years than anyone’s been admitting.

The C.I.A. has known that North Korea and Pak­istan have been trad­ing nuclear secrets. Pak­istan has been show­ing its ally of con­ve­nience how to build the cen­trifuges that process weapons-grade ura­ni­um. North Korea in return has pro­vid­ed the mis­sile tech­nol­o­gy that gives Pak­istan the nuclear reach to destroy arch-rival India. Now that we know Pres­i­dent Bush knew all about this his­to­ry of what we might call “dan­ger­ous, dan­ger­ous” tech­nol­o­gy trade, why did he cozy up to Pak­istan fol­low­ing Sep­tem­ber 11th? He so want­ed wars with Afghanistan and Iraq that he nor­mal­ized rela­tions with a coun­try far more dan­ger­ous. If a Pak­istani or North Kore­an nuclear weapon goes off in New York City it will kill a whole lot more peo­ple than Osama bin Laden’s four hijacked air­planes. What hap­pened on Sep­tem­ber 11th was ter­ri­ble but it’s noth­ing com­pared to what a ene­my with resources could do.

There are real threats to world peace, far more “dan­ger­ous, dan­ger­ous” than Iraq. The Unit­ed States needs to drop its president’s obses­sions and look square­ly at the world and who we’re allied with. And when we reset our poli­cies we wqcan use Iraq as our mod­el. For as the U.N. inspec­tors have proven, we can cre­ate peace through diplo­ma­cy and we can iso­late trou­ble­mak­ers through smart sanctions.

What a tough les­son for U.S. lead­ers bent on war. 

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.

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.

Stop the Zipper War Before It Starts

January 30, 1998
· Martin Kelley

Why is Pres­i­dent Clin­ton talk­ing about a reprise of the 1991 Per­sian Gulf War?

We’re told it’s because U.N. inspec­tors believe that Iraq has hid­den “weapons of mass destruc­tion.” But of course so does the Unit­ed States. And Britain, France, Rus­sia, the Ukraine, Chi­na, India and Pak­istan. Iraq does­n’t even hold a region­al monop­oly, as Israel cer­tain­ly has atom­ic weapons atop U.S.-designed rock­ets aimed this very moment at Hus­sein’s Bagh­dad palaces.

Insanely-destructive weapons are a fact of life in the fin-de-Millennium. There’s already plen­ty of coun­tries with atom­ic weapons and the mis­sile sys­tems to lob them into neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. Hus­sein prob­a­bly does­n’t have them, and the weapons U.N. inspec­tors are wor­ried about are chem­i­cal. This is the “poor man’s atom­ic bomb,” a way to play at the lev­el of nuclear diplo­ma­cy with­out the expens­es of a nuclear program.

Clin­ton seems obliv­i­ous to the irony of oppos­ing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruc­tion with our own. The air­craft car­ri­ers and bat­tle fleets that have been sent into the Gulf in recent weeks are loaded with tac­ti­cal nuclear missiles.

If the pos­ses­sion of weapons of mass destruc­tion is wrong for Iraq, then it is wrong for every­one. It is time to abol­ish all weapons pro­grams and to build real world peace along lines of cooperation.

He’s our Bully

Most Amer­i­cans, on hear­ing a call to let Hus­sein be, will react with dis­be­lief. Con­di­tioned to think of him as our mod­ern Hitler, any­one oppos­ing a new Gulf War must be crazy, some­one unfa­mil­iar with the his­to­ry of the appease­ment of Hitler pri­or to World War II that allowed him to build his mil­i­tary to the fright­en­ing lev­els of 1939.

But Amer­i­cans have alas not been told too much of more recent his­to­ry. Sad­dam Hus­sein is our cre­ation, he’s our bul­ly. It start­ed with Iran. Obsessed with glob­al mil­i­tary con­trol, the U.S. gov­ern­ment start­ed arm­ing region­al super­pow­ers. We gave our cho­sen coun­tries weapons and mon­ey to bul­ly around their neigh­bors and we looked the oth­er way at human rights abus­es. We cre­at­ed and strength­ened dic­ta­tors around the world, includ­ing the Shah of Iran. A rev­o­lu­tion final­ly threw him out of pow­er and ush­ered in a gov­ern­ment under­stand­able hos­tile to the Unit­ed States.

Rather than take this devel­op­ment to mean that the region­al super­pow­er con­cept was a bad idea, the U.S. just chose anoth­er region­al super­pow­er: Iraq. We looked the oth­er way when the two got into a war, and start­ed build­ing up Iraq’s mil­i­tary arse­nal, giv­ing him the planes and mil­i­tary equip­ment we had giv­en Iran. This was a bloody, crazy war, where huge casu­al­ties would be racked up only to move the front a few miles, an advance that would be nul­li­fied when the oth­er army attacked with the same lev­el of casu­al­ties. The Unit­ed States sup­port­ed that war. Inter­na­tion­al human rights activists kept pub­li­ciz­ing the abus­es with­in Iraq, and denounc­ing him for use of chem­i­cal weapons. They got lit­tle media atten­tion because it was not in U.S. polit­i­cal inter­ests to fight Hussein.

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.