War will imperil us all
We know what it is like to be attacked, to grieve and to feel anger. Every day we attend to the physical and emotional pains of the women in our communities who continue to suffer from the violence of war. We listen to the stories and work together with women to find ways to productively channel negative emotions. Women in Kosovo, still suffering from the symptoms of severe trauma, know what military responses do to innocent people and how long-lasting the consequences are.

Therefore we understand the urge for revenge is strong. And we know that it must not be given in to. We know that a violent response can only bring more violence. It does not bring justice. Instead it kills more innocent victims and gives birth to new holy avengers. It begins a new cycle and perpetuates more hate, more insecurity, more fear and ultimately more death amongst civilians. ...

We do not wish to have you see your young men go to war and lose their lives, like thousands of our sons, fathers and husbands did. ... We do not wish to have war on a country or countries full of innocent adults and children, who already suffer at the hands of their leaders and who themselves have committed no crimes. We know that bombs are not smart, we know they kill women, children and old people and we know only too well that it is mainly the women who bear the task of rebuilding societies torn apart by war. This is our work at present and it is very hard work. ...

American politicians and decision-makers, grieve for your dead, and find ways to protect the living! But we ask you not to put us and your citizens at more risk. What you are threatening to unleash is making us afraid for the world. Do not endanger the people of Asia, the Middle East and northern Africa. War will surely imperil us all and future generations also. Please remember your past and learn from ours, and work to leave a legacy of justice and peaceful construction, not of revenge, destruction and war.
-- Medica mondiale Kosovo, Women's Center, www.peacewomen.org

Patriotism and criticism
[A] byproduct of the patriotic fervor sweeping the nation has been a kind of muting of criticism against the U.S. leadership and a seemingly remarkable conversion experience undergone by many who just a few months ago were crying for an end to big government.

-- Oxfam, the British humanitarian organization, for example, was circulating a petition before the attacks calling on the U.S. to "put health before wealth" by supporting relaxation of international patent policies that Oxfam says make vital medicines too expensive for developing countries. Immediately after the Sept. 11 events, the language singling out the U.S. had been dropped. The group also canceled a news conference at which it had planned to denounce the U.S. for its patent stance.

-- The Sierra Club, the nation's largest environmental organization, removed the "W Watch" column from its Web site because it could be perceived as critical of President Bush. Another group, Friends of the Earth, let the one-year anniversary of its discovery of unauthorized genetically modified corn in the food supply pass without even a news release. "No one's interested in gene-altered corn right now," Mark Helm, a spokesperson for the organization, told reporters.

-- Two columnists for daily newspapers in Oregon and Texas were fired after writing opinion pieces critical of President Bush's leadership immediately after the attacks.

Many ask: While trying to avoid being perceived as unpatriotic, isn't this self-censorship and restraint on criticism dangerous in a democratic society?

"There will be those who will try to tell us that criticizing national policies in time of crisis is unpatriotic," Tom Cordaro, Pax Christ's national council chairperson, told NCR. "We have to keep in mind that statement William Fulbright, Democratic senator from Arkansas, made in the days of the civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam war demonstrations: 'Criticism is more than just a right; it is an act of patriotism -- a higher form, I believe, than the familiar ritual of national adulation.'"
-- Rich Heffern, National Catholic Reporter, 10/12/01

McCarthyist déjà vu
For the second time in my life -- at least -- a group that I belong to is being investigated by the FBI. The first was the Weavers. The Weavers were a recording industry phenomenon. In 1950 we recorded a couple of songs from our American/World folk music repertoire, Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" and (ironically) the Israeli "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" and sold millions of records for the almost-defunct record label. Folk music entered the mainstream, and the Weavers were stars.

By 1952 it was over. The record company dropped us, eager television producers stopped knocking on our door. The Weavers were on a private yet well-publicized roster of suspected entertainment industry reds. The FBI came a-calling.

This week, I just found out that Women in Black, another group of peace activists I belong to, is the subject of an FBI investigation. Women in Black is a loosely knit international network of women who vigil against violence, often silently, each group autonomous, each group focused on the particular problems of personal and state violence in its part of the world. Because my group is composed mostly of Jewish women, we focus on the Middle East, protesting the cycle of violence and revenge in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

The FBI is threatening my group with a Grand Jury investigation. Of what? That we publicly call the Israeli military's occupation of the mandated Palestine lands illegal? So does the World Court and the United Nations. That destroying hundreds of thousands of the Palestinians' olive and fruit trees, blocking roads and demolishing homes promotes hatred and terrorism in the Middle East? Even President Bush and Colin Powell have gotten around to saying so.

So what is to investigate? That some of us are in contact with activist Palestinian peace groups? This is bad? The Jewish Women in Black of Jerusalem have stood vigil every Friday for 13 years in protest against the Occupation; Muslim women from Palestinian peace groups stand with them at every opportunity. We praise and honor them, these Jewish and Arab women who endure hatred and frequent abuse from extremists on both sides for what they do.

We are not alone in our admiration. Jerusalem Women in Black is a nominee for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Bosnia Women in Black, now 10 years old. If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between groups who collude in hatred and terrorism, and peace activists who struggle in the full light of day against all forms of terrorism, we are in serious trouble. I have seen such trouble before. It was called McCarthyism. In the hysterical atmosphere of the early Cold War, anyone who had signed a peace petition, who had joined an organization opposing violence or racism or had tried to raise money for the refugee children of the Spanish Civil War, in other words who had advocated what was not popular at the time, was fair game. ... Today, in the wake of the worst hate crime of the millennium, a dragnet is out for "terrorists" and we are told that certain civil liberties may have to be curtailed for our own security. Which ones? I'm curious to know. The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech or of the press? The right of people peaceably to assemble? Suddenly déjà vu -- haven't I been here before?
-- Ronnie Gilbert

Who will benefit?
The decision to allow the detention of suspects for an indefinite period, alongside the move toward lifting restrictions imposed on the FBI and CIA, exemplifies how the emphasis on military solutions is already paving the way for an assault on civil liberties. But civil liberties are not the only rights at stake; economic and social rights are also in danger of being undermined as powerful corporations manipulate the situation to advance their avaricious objectives.

Who will benefit from the $40 billion anti-terrorism and recovery package -- to be taken from the "sacrosanct" Social Security surplus -- which lawmakers approved, without blinking, three days following the attack? This sum is, of course, in addition to the same $325 billion that the bloated military apparatus already gobbles up each year. Not unlike the Israeli government -- which recently passed its 2002 budget -- slashing all social spending while dramatically increasing the money allocated to infrastructure and military -- the U.S. Congress is now expected to circumscribe spending on health care, education and other social services, so as to confer billions on the military or, more precisely, on corporations like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. In a week in which the Dow Jones posted a 14.3 percent loss, its largest since the Depression, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon gained 10 percent and 37 percent, respectively.
-- Neve Gordon, In These Times, 10/29/01