Fifth Anniversary of September 11
• Salute to All Those Standing Up for Rights! Build Resistance to U.S. Imperialism! • Salute the Struggle of the Peoples of the World to Affirm Themselves! All for One and One for All!
Can Americans Trust the Government to Protect Them?
• Government Responsibility & Lessons from the World Trade Center Ground Zero and the Aftermath of Katrina
Building Resistance to U.S. Aggression and War
• Thousands Demonstrate Against War and Repression
• Demonstrate Against Bush: Action Against Iraq War Affirms Right to Protest • Declaration of Peace: Take Action to End the U.S. War in Iraq!
• Declare Peace with CodePink in Washington, DC e
• Hundreds of Military Veterans Stand Up for Lt. Watada
• A Travesty of Justice: Stop The Court-Martial of Lt. Watada -September 11, 2006
• Fact-Finding & Solidarity Delegation in Lebanon
Fifth Anniversary of September 11
Salute to All Those Standing Up for Rights!
Build Resistance to U.S. Imperialism!
On this fifth anniversary of September 11, the peoples of the world are rising up against the U.S. war of terrorism and affirming their rights — to sovereignty, to dissent and resist, to decide their future. While President George W. Bush is again proclaiming that wars and repression are “progress,” the peoples here and worldwide are stepping up their organized resistance and taking up for solution creating another world that favors the peoples. We salute all the peoples here and worldwide waging battles for their rights, as each and every one contributes to the forward march of humanity. We salute the resistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine and the resistance of the peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America. We salute the Arabs and Muslims, immigrants and minorities, Katrina survivors, all the workers, women and youth of the United States, taking their stands against war, against collective punishment and racial profiling, against the brutality and impunity of the ruling circles on every front. The five years since 9/11 have shown that it is U.S. imperialism that is blocking the forward march of humanity and that all those rising in resistance to U.S. imperialism are hammering away at this block and contributing to this forward march. Let us together strengthen this resistance!
President George W. Bush has spent the past week emphasizing that the U.S. will continue to act as the defender of the imperialist system worldwide. Speaking before the Military Officers Association, he said, “We’re on the offensive and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed.” The “threat,” is that of “radical extremism” of any kind, and any who support it. The battle, Bush said, is not only a military one, but one of “defeating the terrorists on the battlefield, and defeating their hateful ideology in the battles of ideas.” Bush is expressing the fear of the ruling circles that the peoples are rejecting the outlook of the ruling circles and striving to forge their own independent political thought. Thus on this fifth anniversary, the government is openly targeting thinking that opposes the government, equating it as that of foreign terrorists.
Bush attempts to paint the anti-war movement in the U.S. as the product of a media campaign by Osama Bin Laden to “create a wedge between the American people and their government,” and create “pressure from the American people on the American government to stop their campaign against Afghanistan.” Support for resistance in Palestine and Lebanon are also branded as the ideas of the enemy.
The content of this attack by the ruling circles is in part to put the anti-war movement in the U.S. on the defensive, to try and force it to distance itself from the resistance movements, and from the anti-imperialist stands of the peoples worldwide. The movements being targeted, in Iraq, Lebanon, and more broadly in Iran and the Islamic countries, are anti-imperialist in character. The U.S. ruling circles are striving to block the further development of this anti-imperialist stand in the U.S. by branding it as the ideas of “foreign terrorists” and criminalizing any thinking that does not conform to the dictates of the government. Political thought, discourse, expression of ideas, discussion to work out problems and implement solutions, all are to be eliminated.
The imperialists fear the fierce struggles of the people to arm themselves with their own politics serving their interests as a crucial part of their struggle for another world. Let all stand as one to oppose this effort to disarm and disorient the anti-war movement and divide Americans from the world’s people. Let us fight for our own politics that serve our interests and unite against U.S. imperialism.
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Salute the Struggle of the Peoples of the World to Affirm Themselves! All for One and One for All!
The barrage of disinformation by the monopoly-owned media and the official circles in the U.S. and Canada surrounding the 5th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States is directed at eclipsing the crucial role played by the resistance of the working class and peoples of the world. The peoples are resisting the criminal wars of aggression and state terror unleashed by the U.S. at home and abroad. They are likewise resisting the state terror of various other countries such as Britain and Canada that also cannot deal with the crisis in which their own systems and the world arrangement of states are mired.
Instead of stepping aside, the reactionary states are trying to save themselves by imposing their hegemony and through wreaking revenge on the peoples of the world and those within their own societies. The 9/11 disinformation is aimed at making sure there is no coherence, that people cannot think, and that organized opposition to the wrecking which is taking place is smashed. The imperialists know full well that only an organized resistance and plan to bring in an alternative can turn things around in favor of the peoples of the world.
On this occasion, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) salutes the Canadian working people and youth who have not permitted themselves to become overwhelmed by the atrocities committed by the imperialists day in and day out. We salute the people of Arab origin and Muslim faith who have been made specific targets of attack. Their opposition to unacceptable state-organized attacks and misconduct stands second to none and has contributed to maintaining a semblance of sanity within the situation.
CPC(M-L) salutes the peoples of all countries who are contributing to opening a path to progress for their societies and are working to create the other world that is possible and which must be brought into being to save the natural and social environment, a natural and social environment humankind requires to survive and flourish. In this regard, the contributions made by the Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghani and Lebanese peoples are exemplary. Their resistance and sacrifice have not permitted the Anglo-American imperialists, with the criminal U.S. warmongers at the head, to achieve their aims. The peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are also playing a crucial role to make sure the disasters the imperialists are creating do not prevail and that the peoples can forge their own path to development.
On this occasion, we would like to express our appreciation for the struggle of the working class and people of the United States and all their fighting organizations. Their struggle in defence of rights and against unjust wars and the anti-social offensive are decisive in keeping in check the monsters given rise to by the U.S. ruling class.
It is not for nothing that just prior to the 5th anniversary of 9/11, following a meeting with his economic team at Camp David and flanked by a host of advisers including the secretaries of labour, commerce and the Treasury, U.S. President George W. Bush announced to the country, “Things are good for American workers.” The U.S. ruling elite has earned utter contempt for their insistence on describing life as the virtual reality they would like it to be, in this case to line up the U.S. working class behind U.S. imperialist interests at home and abroad. Conditions for U.S. workers are real, vital and difficult; they are defending themselves and struggling to find their bearings. The U.S. working class represents an important integral section of humanity resisting and affirming its dignity against the onslaught of U.S. finance capital, which is imposing wars of aggression, barbarity and new anti-social arrangements on the country and the world.
The imposition of those arrangements since 9/11 has intensified already dangerous contradictions within the U.S. ruling circles and among competing sections of international finance capital, and has led to open class warfare between monopoly capital and the U.S. working class. Bush hopes in vain to declare out of existence or hide those contradictions and class struggle with his trite statement that “Things are good for American workers.” He says this as blithely as his wars stand for peace, his torture for democracy, his police state for security.
The death of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt social contract, the 9/11 attack and the anti-people arrangements being forced on the entire world by U.S. imperialism have aroused a growing resistance movement within the U.S. itself. We saw it immediately in the heroic response of New York firefighters, rank-and-file police and other first responders and their colleagues from various cities who sacrificed life and limb to save people affected by the 9/11 attacks. We saw it in the courage and fraternal warmth of Canadians who on 9/11 in the midst of massive disinformation and confusion welcomed passengers on U.S.-bound planes to their homes. We saw it in the immediate broad mobilization of people against war and occupation even before the sinister aim of the U.S. government’s “war on terror” was exposed in the lies and “shock and awe” of the invasion of Iraq.
We saw it with the longshoremen on the Pacific coast who courted “enemy combatant” status to defend their rights. We saw it this past year culminating on May 1 with the unprecedented mobilization of millions of immigrant workers, so-called undocumented workers and their supporters in cities and towns throughout the land denouncing the attacks on their right to be and their right to earn a U.S. standard livelihood and rejecting the civil death that awaits a widening section of the U.S. population.
We see it in the courage and determination of the Hurricane Katrina survivors and rank-and-file first responders from across the U.S. and even abroad who have resolved to rebuild their lives and affirm their dignity despite the natural and social ruin wrought by the failure of the U.S. state.
We see it in the youth who refuse to succumb to the pressure and jingoism to join the U.S. military, and in their mothers, their families and all those who actively oppose military recruitment or have expressed their conscience by deserting or refusing service. We see it from within the U.S. armed forces in those who bravely disobey unjust orders to wage war and torture for U.S. imperialism.
We see it in the deep concern and countless discussions over the fundamental direction of the United States — downhill to a bankrupt economy and either military dictatorship or police state, or forward to new pro-social arrangements and an anti-war government.
On this 5th anniversary of 9/11, CPC(M-L) salutes the working and oppressed peoples of all countries whose resistance and concrete actions are building a pro-social anti-war reality as they strive to affirm their dignity and rights.
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Can Americans Trust the Government to Protect Them?
Government Responsibility & Lessons from the World Trade Center Ground Zero and the Aftermath of Katrina
In post-Katrina America, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) became a four-letter word for ineptness — fueling mistrust of government. Millions of Americans asked, “Can we trust the government to protect us?” This question is now directed at the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by thousands of first responders and volunteers who in September 2001 worked at “ground zero” at the World Trade Center in New York City. Cate Jenkins, a scientist for the EPA, says her agency lied about the WTC site when it claimed the air at ground zero was safe to breathe in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. EPA is accused of a cover-up.
On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, thousands of workers are sick and several have already died from what doctors believe are the effects of breathing the air at ground zero. Just this past week, Mount Sinai Medical Center released findings from the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, the largest multi-center clinical program providing medical screening examinations for the workers and volunteers who worked at ground zero and other sites following the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11. Specific findings included:
• Almost 70 percent of World Trade Center responders had a new or worsened respiratory symptom that developed during or after their time working at the WTC.
• Among the responders who were asymptomatic before 9/11, 61 percent developed respiratory symptoms while working at the WTC.
• Close to 60 percent still had a new or worsened respiratory symptom at the time of their examination.
• One third had abnormal pulmonary function tests, much higher than expected.
• Severe respiratory conditions including pneumonia were significantly more common in the six months after 9/11 than in six months prior.
An estimated 40,000 rescue and recovery workers were exposed to caustic dust and airborne toxic pollutants following 9/11. The report concludes that continuing long term medical monitoring of responders will be needed to track the persistence of the abnormalities discovered in the study and to identify late effects, including possible malignancies.
Eleven months after Hurricane Katrina struck, the federal EPA issued its final sediment report giving New Orleans and surrounding communities a clean bill of health. EPA deemed New Orleans safe. Government officials concluded that Katrina did not cause any appreciable contamination that was not already there. The agency pledged to monitor “pockets of contamination” and toxic “hot spots.”
Although EPA tests confirmed widespread lead in the soil — a pre-storm problem in 40 percent of New Orleans — the agency dismissed residents’ calls to address this problem as outside of its mission. Federal and state officials see no need to scrape up the three million cubic yards of mud left by Katrina. The sole EPA recommendation for soil removal include soil near the million-gallon Murphy Oil spill in St. Bernard Parish and a 6-foot by 6-foot plot in Audubon Park — where lead contamination was found near a playground that did not flood.
This is not the first time government officials have assured New Orleans residents that their contaminated neighborhood was safe. EPA officials assured the Agricultural Street community residents that their neighborhood was safe after the “clean-up” in 2001. The community was built in the early 1980s on top of the Agricultural Street Landfill site. The 95-acre site was used as a municipal landfill (that included debris from Hurricane Betsy in 1965) for more than 50 years prior to being developed for residential and light commercial use. It closed in 1966.
In 1993, the EPA found metals, pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in surface and subsurface soils in the area during environmental studies. The EPA added the Agricultural Street Landfill, as a Superfund site in 1994. Residents immediately pushed for a property buy-out and relocation. But the EPA disagreed, and ordered a $20 million “clean-up,” which began in 1998 and was completed in 2001.
Concerned Citizens of Agriculture Street Landfill did not trust EPA’s “clean-up” and filed a class-action lawsuit against the city of New Orleans for damages and relocations costs. In January this year, after thirteen years of litigation, Seventh District Court Judge Nadine Ramsey ruled in favor of the residents, describing them as poor minority citizens who were “promised the American dream of first-time homeownership,” though the dream “turned out to be a nightmare.”
Today, a dozen or so FEMA trailers now house Katrina survivors in the contaminated neighborhood — where the EPA announced in April 2006 it had found the carcinogen benzoapyrene at levels almost 50 times the health screening level. No decision has been made to cleanup the contamination found near the old Agriculture Street Landfill.
Independent tests conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have also found dangerously high airborne mold levels inside and outside of homes, especially in the New Orleans neighborhoods that flooded. Such high concentration of mold spores is likely to be a significant respiratory hazard. Unfortunately, federal agencies, including the EPA, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have not monitored mold levels in areas that flooded, and have not helped residents cope with the mold problem.
A broad coalition of scientists, health experts, environmentalists, and local residents view EPA’s post-Katrina decision to simply monitor–rather than clean up the contamination–as a missed opportunity. It appears that few lessons were learned from Katrina–the single most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history. It’s business as usual. Residents need a clean up, not a cover-up. A year after Katrina, government inaction is allowing another unethical and immoral “human experiment” to unfold before our eyes.
Robert D. Bullard is the director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University and co-author of In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster and Race After Katrina (Russell Sage Foundation 2006).
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Building Resistance to U.S. Aggression and War
Thousands Demonstrate Against War and Repression
Thousands of Americans from all walks of life marked the fifth anniversary of September 11 by participating in actions across the country to express strong opposition to all the crimes being committed by the Bush administration at home and abroad and to demand a world that affirms the rights of all and provides real security for everyone.
Numerous organizations, including many religious, community, political and anti-war groups participated in vigils, meetings, marches, and protests at congressional offices, the White House and elsewhere. All regions of the country were represented, including Alabama and Florida, Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Arizona, California and many others. As the press release from one of the 9/11 calls for action put it, participants “called on the U.S. government to end the conflict in Iraq, invest in development and diplomacy to build world stability and prevent future conflicts, and stop erosion of constitutional rights and liberties that threaten the very roots of democracy here at home.
As well, on-going actions by people involved in supporting anti-war candidates, working to impeach Bush, building Camp Democracy in Washington, DC which involves a broad front of many orgaizations, and many others marked Spetember 11 with their stands to step up the fight against Bush reaction.
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Action Against Iraq War Affirms Right to Protest
On Tuesday, September 19, President Bush will be speaking at the United Nations as part of an election-year public relations push on his disastrous Iraq War.
The New York City Police Department has refused to grant a permit to United for Peace and Justice to march anywhere near the United Nations. Based on feedback from our member groups and supporters, we have come to a decision: We are marching anyway. Permit or no permit, we will stand up against this immoral war and for our right to dissent.
While the Bush administration has pursued its belligerent policy of preemptive war abroad, attacking a country that posed no danger to us, our Constitutional rights have been steadily eroded here at home, with peaceful protesters treated as security threats. In New York City, the NYPD and other agencies have systematically declared one location after another off-limits to protest — no rallies in most of Central Park, no marches on Fifth Avenue, no pickets in Times Square, and so on endlessly. The NYPD said no to every alternative we put on the table and simply refused to give us a permit for a reasonable location for our march next Tuesday.
Enough is enough. We are marching — marching to demand that the troops come home now, and to assert our right to peaceful protest. Marching without a permit amounts to nonviolent civil disobedience, and those of us who participate in the march on Tuesday will place ourselves at risk of arrest.
We also know and respect the fact that many people cannot participate in an activity that does not have a permit. And so we are seeking a permit for a rally starting at 8:30am in Herald Square, one of the busiest locations in Manhattan. This will enable anyone who wishes to protest the war and the restriction of our civil liberties to join us without risking arrest.
There are important details to work out, but this we know for certain: we will not be silenced, we will call for an immediate end to the war in Iraq, and we will be on the streets of New York City on Tuesday, September 19!
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Declaration of Peace
The Declaration of Peace is a nationwide campaign to establish by September 21, 2006 a concrete and rapid plan for peace in Iraq, including:
• Bring the troops home now and closure of bases
• A peace process for security, reconstruction, and reconciliation
• Shift from funding for war to meeting human needs worldwide
People across the United States are signing the Declaration of Peace pledge, a commitment to take action if this plan for peace is not created and activated by Congress by September 21, the International Day of Peace.
From September 21-28, just days before Congress adjourns for the fall elections, declaration signers will withdraw their consent from this war and support a comprehensive peace process by taking part in nonviolent action, marches, rallies, demonstrations, interfaith services, candlelight vigils and other creative ways to declare peace at the U.S. Capitol and in cities and towns across the U.S..
Yes! I join with the majority of U.S. citizens, the people of Iraq, and people around the world in calling for a comprehensive end to the U.S. war in Iraq.
I solemnly pledge to:
• Call on the Bush administration and Congress to immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, with no future redeployments
• Urge my Congressional representatives to adopt a “bring the troops home now” position, and to establish a concrete, comprehensive withdrawal plan no later than September 21, 2006, International Peace Day, just days before Congress adjourns
• Participate in marches, rallies, demonstrations, and other peaceful strategies to establish this plan
• Engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, as conscience leads me, if this plan for a comprehensive withdrawal is not established and activated no later than September 21, 2006.
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Declare Peace with CodePink in Washington, DC
Join CodePink in our nation’s capital for a week of actions to end the occupation of Iraq! CodePink and the National Organization of Women (NOW) will have a women’s day at Camp Democracy, and then we’ll join activists from around the country for actions on International Peace Day, September 21, and throughout the week. CodePink is a part of the Declaration of Peace campaign to end the occupation and help rebuild Iraq.
Wednesday, September 20
Women’s Day at Camp Democracy
All day starting at 8:30am, 15th and Constitution, NW.
CodePink has joined forces with NOW to present a day packed with activities highlighting women’s call for peace, including Medea Bejamin, Kim Gandy, Howard Zinn and others. The day will include workshops on CodePink organizing and NOW activism, and panels on Iraq, women and violence, and more! We will offer several nonviolent direct action trainings for those considering such action in DC during the week. The day will also include a brown bag lunch with an update on the situation for the women of Juarez by the Mexico Solidarity Network. You will not want to miss these incredible trainings and discussions in the heart of our nation’s capital.
Evening: March from the White House to the E Street theater for the premier of U.S. vs. John Lennon.
Thursday, September 21
International Day of Peace
9:30am: Troops Home Fast Break-fast: Join us to break the Fast in Lafayette Park with a meal cooked by Food Not Bombs. We’ll celebrate and conclude our powerful 3-month long Troops Home Fast campaign and move into the Declaration of Peace week of action. Many of us will commit to continue the fast by fasting one day a week, or abstaining from driving for one day a week, increasing our awareness and solidarity with those suffering from war.
11am: Declaration of Peace Press Conference Launch outside the White House
Afternoon: Action at the White House
Evening: National candlelight peace vigil outside the White House with Declaration of Peace activists
6pm - 9pm: Grassroots Mobilization Training House Parties in the Greater DC Area. Learn valuable organizing skills and meet like-minded neighbors at the CodePink-cosponsored Center for Progressive Leadership house parties.
Friday, September 22
Hug-In Action
In solidarity with the Declaration of Peace’s call for local nonviolent resistance on September 22, we will be going to our Congresspeople’s offices for a “hug-in” to remind them that arms are for hugging, not for war!
Saturday, September 23
Give Peace a Vote Outreach Day
We will visit some of DC’s main tourist attractions and talk with people from around the country about why it’s important to pledge to vote for peace candidates this election season. Wear your most creative pink clothing and join us for a day out on the town as we collect peace pledges at museums and other public venues! Meeting location TBA.
September 26 - September 27
Direct Action
The Declaration of Peace coalition and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance are coordinating two national days of civil resistance in DC in the Senate and House offices. To find out more information about these actions, including nonviolence trainings being offered in DC, please visit the Declaration of Peace website
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Hundreds of Military Veterans Stand Up for Lt. Watada
At the recent Veterans for Peace National Convention in Seattle, Lt. Ehren Watada gave the following speech, calling for soldiers to stop fighting the unjust and illegal U.S. wars. It was met with a powerful, standing ovation from the veterans.
Lt. Ehren Watada is facing court martial for refusing to participate in the war crimes against the people of Iraq. Watada joins many other soldiers have refused and are publically speaking out. He is the first commissioned officer to do so. In refusing to deploy, Watada said, “As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must refuse that order.”
When Watada took the stage at the Convention to speak, more than 50 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War filed in behind him. Below we reprint excerpts from his speech. The full speech is available at couragetoresist.org
Lt. Watada: To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.
I stand before you today, not as an expert — not as one who pretends to have all the answers. I am simply an American and a servant of the American people. My humble opinions today are just that. I realize that you may not agree with everything I have to say. However, I did not choose to be a leader for popularity. I did it to serve and make better the soldiers of this country. And I swore to carry out this charge honorably under the rule of law.
Today, I speak with you about a radical idea. It is one born from the very concept of the American soldier (or service member). It became instrumental in ending the Vietnam War — but it has been long since forgotten. The idea is this: that to stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.
Now it is not an easy task for the soldier. For he or she must be aware that they are being used for ill gain. They must hold themselves responsible for individual action. They must remember duty to the Constitution and the people supersedes the ideologies of their leadership. The soldier must be willing to face ostracism by their peers, worry over the survival of their families, and of course the loss of personal freedom. They must know that resisting an authoritarian government at home is equally important to fighting a foreign aggressor on the battlefield. Finally, those wearing the uniform must know beyond any shadow of a doubt that by refusing immoral and illegal orders they will be supported by the people not with mere words but by action.
The American soldier must rise above the socialization that tells them authority should always be obeyed without question. Rank should be respected but never blindly followed. Awareness of the history of atrocities and destruction committed in the name of America — either through direct military intervention or by proxy war — is crucial. They must realize that this is a war not out of self defense but by choice, for profit and imperialistic domination. WMD, ties to Al Qaeda, and ties to 9/11 never existed and never will. The soldier must know that our narrowly and questionably elected officials intentionally manipulated the evidence presented to Congress, the public, and the world to make the case for war. They must know that neither Congress nor this administration has the authority to violate the prohibition against pre-emptive war — an American law that still stands today. This same administration uses us for rampant violations of time-tested laws banning torture and degradation of prisoners of war. Though the American soldier wants to do right, the illegitimacy of the occupation itself, the policies of this administration, and rules of engagement of desperate field commanders will ultimately force them to be party to war crimes. They must know some of these facts, if not all, in order to act. […]
The oath we take swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people. Enlisting in the military does not relinquish one’s right to seek the truth — neither does it excuse one from rational thought nor the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. “I was only following orders” is never an excuse.
The Nuremburg Trials showed America and the world that citizenry as well as soldiers have the unrelinquishable obligation to refuse complicity in war crimes perpetrated by their government. Widespread torture and inhumane treatment of detainees is a war crime. A war of aggression born through an unofficial policy of prevention is a crime against the peace. An occupation violating the very essence of international humanitarian law and sovereignty is a crime against humanity. These crimes are funded by our tax dollars. Should citizens choose to remain silent through self-imposed ignorance or choice, it makes them as culpable as the soldier in these crimes. […]
The military, and especially the Army, is an institution of fraternity and close-knit camaraderie. Peer pressure exists to ensure cohesiveness but it stamps out individualism and individual thought. The idea of brotherhood is difficult to pull away from if the alternative is loneliness and isolation. If we want soldiers to choose the right but difficult path — they must know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they will be supported by Americans. To support the troops who resist, you must make your voices heard. If they see thousands supporting me, they will know. I have heard your support, as has Suzanne Swift, and Ricky Clousing — but many others have not. Increasingly, more soldiers are questioning what they are being asked to do. Yet, the majority lack awareness to the truth that is buried beneath the headlines. Many more see no alternative but to obey. We must show open-minded soldiers a choice and we must give them courage to act.
Three weeks ago, Sgt. Hernandez from the 172nd Stryker Brigade was killed, leaving behind a wife and two children. In an interview, his wife said he sacrificed his life so that his family could survive. I’m sure Sgt. Hernandez cherished the camaraderie of his brothers, but given a choice, I doubt he would put himself in a position to leave his family husbandless and fatherless. Yet that’s the point, you see. People like Sgt. Hernandez don’t have a choice. The choices are to fight in Iraq or let your family starve. Many soldiers don’t refuse this war en mass because, like all of us, they value their families over their own lives and perhaps their conscience. Who would willingly spend years in prison for principle and morality while denying their family sustenance?
I tell this to you because you must know that to stop this war, for the soldiers to stop fighting it, they must have the unconditional support of the people. I have seen this support with my own eyes. For me it was a leap of faith. For other soldiers, they do not have that luxury. They must know it and you must show it to them. Convince them that no matter how long they sit in prison, no matter how long this country takes to right itself, their families will have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, opportunities and education. This is a daunting task. It requires the sacrifice of all of us. […] By supporting those who can truly stop it; let them know that resistance to participate in an illegal war is not futile and not without a future.
I have broken no law but the code of silence and unquestioning loyalty. If I am guilty of any crime, it is that I learned too much and cared too deeply for the meaningless loss of my fellow soldiers and my fellow human beings. If I am to be punished it should be for following the rule of law over the immoral orders of one man. If I am to be punished it should be for not acting sooner. […] The time to fight back is now — the time to stand up and be counted is today.
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Stop The Court-Martial of Lt. Watada
Someone should file a suit against the U.S. Army for plagiarizing George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Orwellian irony hangs over the pending court-martial of Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. The Army is seeking to imprison the Hawaiian soldier of conscience, not for lying, but for telling the truth; not for violating the law, but for upholding it. Watada refuses to carry out illegal orders, to participate in crimes against peace.
Recently the Army charged Watada with “missing movement,” use of “contemptuous words for the President,” and “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” It’s true Watada openly denounced the invasion of Iraq. He claimed in public what most of the world already knows — that President Bush manufactured the case for war, that he lied to our troops. That’s not really news. But Watada believes that no American soldier should take a life, or give up a life, for a lie. There are many kinds of betrayal in human affairs — theft, adultery, embezzlement. But in the affairs of state, there is no greater disloyalty than to send young men and women to their death on the basis of fraud.
The U.S. Army is putting the wrong person on trial. In a world of logic and common sense, the truth of a claim is a legitimate defense against the charge of libel. Not in Orwell’s Army, where lying for the President has become a patriotic duty. Just quoting the Geneva Conventions about collective reprisals or the use of indiscriminate weapons can get you busted.
And to date the Army has yet to court-martial a single commander, or any high level personnel (of which there were many), involved in the torture system at Abu Ghraib. This is the same Army that court-martialed Camilo Mejia for disassociating himself from the degradation at Abu Ghraib. Even before the scandal broke, Mejia filed written complaints, protested atrocities that he witnessed, only to be imprisoned for nine months for speaking truth to power.
The court-martial of Watada is simply the Army’s latest Catch-22. And the ethos of contempt for international law, combined with the punishment of those who show respect for it, are two phases of one policy that is destroying the morale of American troops.
A Constitutional Crisis
The Watada story is gaining international attention. The pending trial, where the the highly respected, undaunted officer intends to confront the illegality of the war, could be a turning point in American jurisprudence, a test of its integrity. All the major legal issues of an imperial occupation — the fraudulent basis for the war; the absence of a formal declaration from Congress (which has no Constitutional authority to transfer its war-declaring responsibility to the executive branch); the systematic nature of U.S. war crimes in Iraq; the flagrant violation of international treaties — are coming to a head in this historic battle between a soldier of conscience and a desperate, vulnerable military Goliath.
A movement to halt the court-martial of Watada, energized by Courage to Resist, CodePink, Iraqi Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, and others is growing. Watada is becoming a Rosa Parks of the U.S. Army. On August 22 Investigating Officer Lieutenant Colonel Mark Keith disregarded the testimony of Watada’s attorneys regarding the illegality of the war. Keith recommended a general court-martial of Watada on all charges. His ruling is an open attack on a soldier’s right of political speech, a right integral to the right to vote.
The colonel’s ruling rests on two fallacious claims: first, that international laws and treaties are irrelevant to Watada’s refusal to follow an order; and second, that the legal issues raised by the defense “are political questions and not within the purview of a court-martial.” Keith was insistent: “The defense argument regarding the war is a political question and therefore irrelevant.” The entire case turns on the “political question,” which is legalese for suppressing any challenge to presidential abuse of power.
War is not a “political question”
The political question doctrine, as lawyers call it, lies at the very center of the constitutional crisis over imperial war, an emerging contest between constitutionalism and judicial realpolitik.
Col. Keith’s political question gambit is unfair. Watada never raised political issues in court. He does not base his defense on political interpretations of the occupation. By his refusal to participate in the occupation in Iraq, Watada is challenging the legality, not the political wisdom, of the killing of 100,000 Iraqis who never attacked or threatened the U.S.
It may be true that the U.S. is over-extended, that invasion creates blow back; that unilateral actions alienate allies, that war debts boomerang on the economy. These are political positions, to be sure. But they are not part of Watada’s defense.
The use of cluster bombs in populated areas, where kids are killed and maimed; collective reprisals against entire cities and populations like Fallujah; systematic use of torture to gather information; violation of the sovereignty of states — war crimes of Army commanders are not political decisions. They are matters of law and morality, and all of them are subject to judicial review, if not public defiance. Will American judges uphold international law, or will they ignore it? That is the real question in the Watada case.
It is true that the invasion of Iraq is a direct result of political calculations in Washington. That is precisely the point, why the legality of the war is central to Watada’s case. The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), the Nuremberg Tribunal, and the U.N. Charter all prohibit war “as an instrument of politics.” A war for mere political ends is not a war of self-defense. […]
Under the Constitution, under the enlistment contract as well, soldiers have a right — they even have a duty — to disobey illegal orders. The legality of Watada’s orders to participate in a preemptive war is the central issue of the trial.
No American soldier has any obligation to participate in military aggression, in crimes against peace, or any operations that violate the Geneva Conventions. Under constitutional government, the authority of military command derives, not from the Commander-in-Chief, but from the rule of law itself.
There are only two conditions in which a war is legal under international law: when force is authorized by the Security Council of the United Nations [consistent with the UN Charter], or when the use of force is an act of national self-defense and survival. Nor is “self-defense” some vague, ambiguous concept. It refers to defense from an armed attack, actual or demonstrably imminent, so that there is no alternative but to respond in force. Apart from these conditions, war is an act of aggression. The Nuremberg Conventions prohibit war “as an instrument of policy.” International law prohibits all “wars of choice.”
The suffering people of Iraq are being killed in their own streets, their own homes, their own mosques, primarily by foreign invaders. The occupation of Iraq is flagrantly illegal. It meets none of the conditions for a legal war.
There is a popular tendency among lawyers to sneer at international law, as if it were passé. But the Constitution is clear and unambiguous: Article VI states: “All Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby.”
In a celebrated case (The Paquete Habana) in 1900, the Supreme Court ruled: “International law is part of the law of the United States and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for determination.”
There is no exception for the military, no wall between domestic and international law. The “Law of Land Warfare,” the U.S. Army Field Manual states: “Treaties relating to the law of war have a force equal to that of laws enacted by Congress. Their provisions must be observed by both military and civilian personnel with the same strict regard for both the letter and spirit of the law which is required with respect to the Constitution and statues...” As Alexander Hamilton put it in a warning against attempts to mute the enforcement of treaties: “It is a contradiction to call a thing a law which is not binding.”
Lt. Watada is not fighting for himself alone. He is fighting on behalf of all American soldiers who deserve protection of the Geneva Conventions, international law, and the Constitution itself. With active support from his father and stepmother, he is defending a soldier’s right to political speech, the right to participate in the electoral process.
The Watada court-martial should be canceled. It is time to prosecute the real criminals, not the vindicators of the social contract on which the dignity and legitimacy of military service itself depends.
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Fact-Finding & Solidarity Delegation in Lebanon
Today, a fact-finding delegation organized by Ramsey Clark and the Campaign for Accountability arrived in Beirut, Lebanon. The delegation will be visiting the devastated country throughout the coming week and filing daily reports.
This fact-finding and solidarity delegation is the next step after the very successful August 30 opening session of the Campaign for Accountability. This meeting, held at the UN Church Center in NYC, drew more than 250 people for a program that included eyewitness and expert testimony, video, and written evidence. For an initial report and to download some of the materials from the meeting, go to PeopleJudgeBush.org.
The delegation is planning to head to southern Lebanon tomorrow, to view some of the areas hit hardest by the U.S.-Israeli attacks. It is vital that the people of the U.S. let the people of Lebanon know that we do not support the brutal foreign policy of George W. Bush. This delegation is a concrete way to demonstrate our solidarity with the people of Lebanon, and with all of the people of the region who struggle against U.S.-Israeli oppression and occupation.
The delegation will also be meeting with political leaders and community organizers in Lebanon. We cannot leave it to the State Department to decide what voices can be heard, and we cannot allow them to criminalize as “terrorists” anyone who defies Bush’s plans for a “New Middle East.”
The delegation will be filing daily written reports, as well as photos and audio interviews. For updates, see the Eyewitness Lebanon blog at http://eyewitnesslebanon.blogspot.com.
We need your help to continue to build this Campaign for Accountability. With the materials gathered by the delegation and assembled in the initial forum of the Campaign for Accountability, we plan to assist and organize meetings, teach-ins, and forums across the U.S. We need your help to do this. Please contact us if you are interested in organizing a local meeting.
Report from Lebanon
Day 1: Leilani Dowell
“The Lebanese people are not against the people of the United States. We know the difference between the people of the U.S. and its government, and it is its terrorist government that we are against.”
We arrived in Beirut, Lebanon today after flying into Amman, Jordan yesterday — where the first signs as we walked into the terminal in Amman were those of greeters waiting to receive people off our flight from DynCorp and Black Water — the same mercenary corporations that the rich hired in New Orleans to protect their property after Katrina. These free-lance mercenaries were most likely headed to Iraq.
Today, we went to the neighborhood of Haret el Hreik in South Beirut, a large Shiite community, where Hizbollah has strong support and Hizbollah television station Al Manar was housed. Israel razed the station in their first days of bombing, as well as most of the neighborhood of seven or eight story apartment buildings, to the ground. Huge craters were all that remain of many buildings — craters created not by the excavation of the debris, but by the magnitude and force of the bombs dropped.
The woman we are staying with told us that Israeli planes dropped flyers telling the people to flee their homes before the bombing began. When we asked her whether she had copies of the flyer, she said no — like others, she was too afraid to leave the house because Israel was randomly targeting people on the street.
Under a rain of thousands of bombs targeting hundreds of buildings, people fled the neighborhood. Today we could see men, women and children returning to the area to sort through the rubble for anything they could find that remained of their homes. The destruction is devastating in a way that I can’t even put into words.
And yet the work of cleaning out the debris — a monumental task — has already been undertaken by Hizbollah. The resistance movement has crews in the area, loading debris onto trucks and cleaning out shattered apartments. We watched several workers carefully removing furniture from an apartment on the fifth floor of a ruined building, as a service to the family that resided there. And with all this work going on, workers today had hosed down a large area and were setting up plastic lawn chairs and speakers for a religious event they were having tonight—we were told that Hizbollah organized it so that the neighborhood could feel like it was getting back to its life.
On our way, we passed one of the many highway overpasses that had been bombed during the Israeli assault. While traffic was definitely slower because of the damage, what we noticed was that the area beneath the break had already been cleaned, and people were sitting around it leisurely, even selling their wares to cars that passed by. The images of a trip I took to New Orleans after Katrina came to my mind over and over today — where, in the same amount of time, nothing had been done to restore the area for the people who lived there; and where, I know, one year later, little-to-nothing has been done.
We were able to talk to some of the workers and neighborhood residents. What struck me the most about our conversations is that every single person told us, “The Lebanese people are not against the people of the United States. We know the difference between the people of the U.S. and its government, and it is its terrorist government that we are against.”
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