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Recent Stories
March 25, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
of Cairo
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on
the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
Gilad
Atzmon
Strategic Blunders by American Generals
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Stephen Banko
I Was a Soldier
Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch from
Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The Erosion
of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush:
A Draft Resolution
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March
26, 2003
The Days of the Militarists
Shock But Not
Awe
By DAVID KRIEGER
I
write with a heavy heart. Our cause has shifted from trying to prevent
a needless war to seeking to end an illegal war. The audacity of the
Bush administration takes one’s breath away.
The
United States is bombing Baghdad, engaged in its “shock and awe”
strategy. Shock yes, but there is no awe. To suggest awe reflects only
the arrogance of the Bush militarists. US attacks on Iraq are shocking
and awful.
Shocking
that we are at war in violation of international law and our Constitution.
Shocking that our government is committing aggressive warfare, which
is a crime.
Shocking
that a large majority of the US Congress has been so compliant and cowardly,
handing over their responsibility to declare war to the president. By
giving up their Constitutional powers, Congress is putting the future
of our Republic in jeopardy.
Shocking
that Bush has demonstrated contempt for the strongly held positions
of our allies, and hundreds of millions of their protesting citizens
throughout the world.
Shocking that Bush has shown such studied indifference to the millions
of Americans who have taken to the streets in protest of his war plans.
Shocking
that the United States has attacked Iraq in defiance of the United Nations
Security Council and with disregard for US obligations under the Charter
of the United Nations.
Shocking that the United States has acted in bad faith, having assured
the other members of the Security Council at the time of passage of
Resolution 1441 that it does not provide for an automatic recourse to
war. John Negroponte, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, assured
other members of the Security Council on the day that Resolution 1441
was passed: “Whatever violation there is, or is judged to exist,
will be dealt with in the Council, and the Council will have an opportunity
to consider the matter before any other action is taken.” What
he apparently meant was that the Security Council would have a chance
to endorse a US-led war against Iraq or be cast aside as irrelevant.
Now
we are faced with the challenge of ending this illegal war, and bringing
those who are committing war crimes to justice. This must not be only
victors’ justice, but justice that applies to all sides. As Bush
and Rumsfeld have emphasized, following superior orders will not be
a defense to the commission of war crimes. This should be so both for
the Iraqi leadership and for the American leadership.
The anger wells up at the hypocrisy and arrogance of the Bush administration.
The two most powerful statements that I have seen recently in opposition
to the war are Senator Byrd’s lamentation, “Today, I weep
for my country…” and the expression of bitterness of Michael
Waters-Bey, the bereft father of one of the US soldiers to die in a
helicopter crash returning to Kuwait from a mission in Iraq. Mr. Waters-Bey
said that he wanted to tell the president that “this was not your
son or daughter. That chair he sat in at Thanksgiving will be empty
forever.”
There
will be more killing and more deaths, more empty chairs. It is a time
of sadness, as our country is losing its credibility and honor throughout
the world. It is a time of tragedy that the militarists are having their
day. It is a time of shock, but far from a time of awe. We will find
a way back to decency, democracy and the rule of law. Until then, we
must continue to express our dissent and opposition to this war, to
policies of perpetual war, and to the diminishment of our democratic
rights. We must also find a way to hold the guilty accountable for their
crimes against peace and war crimes.
David
Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).
He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s
Future (Capra Press, 2003).
Today's Features
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
of Cairo
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why
Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on
the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gilad
Atzmon
Strategic Blunders by American Generals
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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