| November 14, 2002 | ||
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STATEMENT OF DECLARATION FOR GOING TO IRAQ In December, I will travel to Iraq and stand with her people against the threat of a United States military attack. As a member of the Iraq Peace Team, I will work with Iraqi mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, students, writers, painters, unemployed government officials, the poor, the homeless, the sick, musicians, shopkeepers, hustlers, and poets to spread the word about the devastating effects the sanctions have brought to Iraq and the further turmoil a military campaign will bring to the Iraqi people. But not only the Iraqi people. The campaign will affect Americans too. A war against Iraq is hailed by the United States government as part of a larger offensive against terrorism, which is being waged both locally and globally and with striking similarities. There is still no credible evidence linking Iraq with the al Qaeda terrorist organization. Yet the US government is willing to wage war against a country already decimated by the gulf war and the crippling US led, United Nations sanctions, in order to prevent terrorism. In the US, citizens are being arrested with no credible evidence linking them with terrorist groups. Yet the US government is willing to detain them indefinitely without due process or redress from our legal system, in order avert terrorism. American soldiers are being sent into a war to risk their lives to fight against—not a real terrorist threat like al Qaeda—but the specter of terrorism. As part of the war against terrorism at home, American citizens are being asked to give up their civil liberties, including their right to dissent and question the politics driving this military campaign, so they may live free but blind, led by the phantom of liberty. Both here and abroad, the US government is using the specter of terrorism to extend its powers in the name of justice. But the will to power is not the same as the will to justice. The specters and phantoms that serve to keep Americans in a twilight of terror, fear, and tragedy must be exposed to the daylight of both reason and hope. I oppose any military campaign against Iraq because it does not serve justice, here or abroad. It only serves those who believe that the use of weapons designed to kill as many innocent lives as possible—in other words, terrorism—is the only legitimate form of diplomacy left. This policy of terror is neither right nor self evident. I oppose this policy in all of its manifestations, and this is why I am a part of the growing (and global) anti-war movement. It is also why I am going to Iraq. |
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