Antiwar protests.

A Catholic news report on December 11 notes that the Vatican is reasserting its opposition to a war on Iraq:
www.cathnews.com/news/210/27.php

In an interview on 14 January, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad of the Russian Orthodox Church shared his conviction that "we can and should overcome the danger of the proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction only by peaceful diplomatic means in compliance with the international law and resolutions of the UN Security Council."
www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/ne301143.htm

Orthodox church leader Petros VII, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, wrote a letter to the President of the USA, George Bush on 2 January 2002, calling on him to find a peaceful solution rather than that of war:
www.orthodoxeurope.org/europaica/000006.php#4

The General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches issued a plea to US churches during a meeting of the board of directors of Church World Service, on which he serves, asking them to press for a peaceful, diplomatic resolution to the Iraq crisis and to "speak to your government to stop any military offensive".
www.ncccusa.org/news/02news90.html

The Conference of International Catholic Organizations issued a press release on the Iraqi-American conflict on 19 January. www.oic-ico.org/eng/c3.htm
Pax Christi International sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council on January 27.
www.paxchristi.net/body_index.html

The Jesuit magazine, America, describes war against Iraq in an editorial (God or Country?) as "…arrogant, unnecessary and foolish…Opposing the war is choosing both God and country."
http://www.americamagazine.org/gettextED.cfm?textID=2889&articleTypeID=3#

In a statement against the "shameful, immoral and illegal act of war", the Executive Board of the Latin American Council of Churches criticizes "those who invoke in vain the name of God trying to legitimize at any price acts which because of its perversion are against the God's will", and call on Christians and people of goodwill not to give up in their prayers, denunciations and non-violents actions to resist for life".
http://www.clai.org.ec/Docs/VOZ_PUBLICA/CLAI-Dec.Irak.htm

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines writes that, "…this US-led war of aggression has no moral justification. It goes against the grain of the Christian tenet of justice and the right of sovereign nations to chart their future."
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/iraqstatements.nsf/86515f8cb8324c8cc1256ccc00376b59/9ace95da1ca31226c1256cf30054117b?OpenDocument

Pope John Paul II has urged respect for international humanitarian law: "It should be clear by now that war used as an instrument of resolution of conflicts between states was rejected, even before the Charter of the United Nations, by the conscience of the majority of humanity, except in the case of defense against an aggressor." http://www.zenit.org/

Rev. Dr Keith Clements, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches stated, "We cannot both believe in Christ who 'is our Peace' (Ephesians 2:14), and believe in war as an accepted instrument of international policy."
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/iraqstatements.nsf/86515f8cb8324c8cc1256ccc00376b59/cb7445ef6afc748cc1256cf30040f85f?OpenDocument

The Christian Council of Ghana lamented that "billions of dollars that are being channelled to destroy human lives and property in the war could have been used to help alleviate suffering" http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=34597

The Right Rev. Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem has said: "I continue to believe that whoever thinks that they can bring about a new world order with the power of the gun will be defeated."
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/iraqstatements.nsf/86515f8cb8324c8cc1256ccc00376b59/90e1f83062699e00c1256cf300449c55?OpenDocument

The Christian Conference of Asia, representing "more than 100 churches in Asia, consisting of more than 55 million individual Christians, join the world community in expressing disapproval and condemnation of the war against Iraq. We believe that war is a crime against humanity."
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/iraqstatements.nsf/86515f8cb8324c8cc1256ccc00376b59/78de04cba2c46f7cc1256cf3005445ff?OpenDocument

The Anglican Bishops of Aotearoa New Zealand, and Polynesia and the Roman Catholic Bishops of New Zealand expressed their "dismay at the outbreak of an unnecessary and unjust war."
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/iraqstatements.nsf/86515f8cb8324c8cc1256ccc00376b59/0f9073bfc7a137e2c1256cf30041ab5a?OpenDocument

Many church leaders in the US have taken courageous stands against the war, such as Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society who said: "Nothing I understand about Jesus Christ leads me to believe that support of war and violence are necessary or tolerable actions for Christian people. Someday, Christians will have to face up to the choice between their faith in God and the Prince of Peace, and their willingness to participate in war. Why not today?" http://www.umc-gbcs.org/news/index.php?newsId=209

Police Stop Collecting Data on Protesters' Politics
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM


hen a series of large antiwar protests began nearly eight weeks ago, the New York Police Department started questioning hundreds of people arrested at the demonstrations about their prior political activity and recording the information in a database.

But yesterday, after the practice came to light, the Police Department said it would destroy the database, created with a debriefing form, and largely abandon the initiative, which civil libertarians and constitutional law experts said was deeply troubling.

"After a review, the department has decided to eliminate the use of the Demonstration Debriefing Form," Michael O'Looney, the department's chief spokesman, said in a statement. "Arrestees will no longer be asked questions pertaining to prior demonstration history, or school name. All information gathered since the form's inception on Feb. 15 has been destroyed."

Several constitutional scholars and civil libertarians said that the practice raised grave questions about whether asking people about their political affiliations or activity would have a severe chilling effect on protest and speech that are protected by the First Amendment.

Central to the practice was the debriefing form, which detectives used to record where the arrested protesters went to school, their membership in any organizations and their involvement in past protests.

Mr. O'Looney said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and his deputy commissioner for intelligence, David Cohen, a former top Central Intelligence Agency official, did not know the debriefing form was in use. Mr. Cohen oversees the Intelligence Division detectives who conducted the questioning sessions at 1 Police Plaza as the protesters waited for their arrests to be processed.

"When it was brought to their attention," Mr. O'Looney said, "they took a look at it, decided some of those questions were not critical to our needs and decided to end its use."

He would not comment on the constitutional issues raised by the questions or say who had developed the form. Mr. O'Looney said that no disciplinary action was being contemplated against those responsible for developing the practice.

"After a review, the department has decided to eliminate the use of the Demonstration Debriefing Form," Michael O'Looney, the department's chief spokesman, said in a statement. "Arrestees will no longer be asked questions pertaining to prior demonstration history, or school name. All information gathered since the form's inception on Feb. 15 has been destroyed."

Several constitutional scholars and civil libertarians said that the practice raised grave questions about whether asking people about their political affiliations or activity would have a severe chilling effect on protest and speech that are protected by the First Amendment.

ANTIWAR: MOVEMENT, OR CULT?

By MARK GOLDBLATT

April 10, 2003 -- THREE weeks into the Iraqi War, the cancerous Ba'athist regime has been destroyed, and the hunt for Saddam has become a bunker-buster version of the carnival game in which the chipmunk's head pops up through a hole in the board, and you clobber him with a mallet.
So much for the "quagmire."

You'd think the fact that the liberation of 22 million oppressed people was accomplished with minimal civilian casualties (indeed, minimal military casualties) would give pause to those who've been marching against the war.

It won't, of course. For the antiwar movement consists not of thinkers but of true believers; indeed, it's more akin to a religious cult than a political cause, hoist on tenets of faith rather than points of evidence - and, thus, in the final analysis, no more responsive to counterarguments than guys who stand on street corners in sandwich boards forecasting the end of the world next weekend . . . no, next weekend . . . no, next weekend.

As the Iraqi people rise up to cheer the American troops, the true believers will claim the scenes are staged. As chemical and biological weapons are uncovered, the true believers will claim they were planted. As an interim government is established, the true believers will claim it's a puppet for American interests. As the oil wealth of Iraq is translated into prosperity for the people, the true believers will claim American companies are hogging profits.

To view this as mere idiocy would be wrong. People who believe such things are, in reality, clinging to their faith, clinging to a set of beliefs that infuses their lives with meaning, that connects them to a higher purpose, that makes them feel a part of something larger than themselves.

It's a constant, uphill struggle to maintain this particular faith in light of the manifest truth that America is the most benevolent world power in the history of the planet. The antiwar movement, thus, should be ignored, or pitied, or even ridiculed, but not condemned too harshly.

Like the rest of us, true believers are entitled to their pursuit of happiness.

Mark Goldblatt teaches at SUNY'S Fashion Institute of Technology.

E-mail: [email protected]

Unsettled
Victory in the war is not victory in the argument about the war.
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2003, at 11:12 AM PT


So, we've won, or just about. There is no quagmire. Saddam is dead, or as good as, along with his sons. It was all fairly painless?-at least for most Americans sitting at home watching it on television. Those who opposed the war look like fools. They are thoroughly discredited and, if they happen to be Democratic presidential candidates (and who isn't these days?), they might as well withdraw and nurse their shame somewhere off the public stage. The debate over Gulf War II is as over as the war itself soon will be, and the anti's were defeated as thoroughly as Saddam Hussein.

Right? No, not at all.

To start with an obvious point that may get buried in the confetti of the victory parade, the debate was not about whether America would win a war against Iraq if we chose to start one. No sane person doubted that the mighty United States military machine could defeat and conquer a country with a tiny fraction of its population and an even tinier fraction of its wealth?-a country suffering from over a decade of economic strangulation by the rest of the world.

Oh, sure, there was a tepid public discussion of how long victory might take to achieve, in which pro's and anti's were represented across the spectrum of opinion. And the first law of journalistic dynamics?-The Story Has To Change?-inevitably produced a couple of comic days last week when the media and their rent-a-generals were peddling the Q-word. No doubt there are some unreflective peaceniks still mentally trapped in Vietnam, or grasping at any available argument, who are still talking quagmire. But the serious case against this war was never that we might actually lose it militarily.

The serious case involved questions that are still unresolved. Factual questions: Is there a connection between Iraq and the perpetrators of 9/11? Is that connection really bigger than that of all the countries we're not invading? Does Iraq really have or almost have weapons of mass destruction that threaten the United States? Predictive questions: What will toppling Saddam ultimately cost in dollars and in lives (American, Iraqi, others)? Will the result be a stable Iraq and a blossoming of democracy in the Middle East or something less attractive? How many young Muslims and others will be turned against the United States, and what will they do about it?

Political questions: Should we be doing this despite the opposition of most of our traditional allies? Without the approval of the United Nations? Moral questions: Is it justified to make "pre-emptive" war on nations that may threaten us in the future? When do internal human rights, or the lack of them, justify a war? Is there a policy about pre-emption and human rights that we are prepared to apply consistently? Does consistency matter? Even etiquette questions: Before Bush begins trying to create a civil society in Iraq, wouldn't it be nice if he apologized to Bill Clinton and Al Gore for all the nasty, dismissive things he said about "nation-building" in the 2000 campaign?

Some of these questions will be answered shortly, and some will be debated forever. This doesn't mean history will never render a judgment. History's judgment doesn't require unanimity or total certainty. But that judgment is not in yet. Supporters of this war who are in the mood for an ideological pogrom should chill out for a while, and opponents need not fold into permanent cringe position.

Of course opponents have been on the defensive since the day the fighting started, forced to repeat the mantra that we "oppose the war but support the troops." Critics mock this formula as psychologically implausible if not outright dishonest, but it's not even difficult or complicated. Most of the common reasons for opposing this war get more severe as the war grows longer. Above all is the cost in human lives, especially the lives of American soldiers. (And most American war opponents share with American war supporters?-with most human beings, for that matter?-an instinctively greater concern for the lives of fellow nationals, however illogical or deplorable that might be.) Unlike Vietnam, where opposition barely existed until the war had been going on for several years, this is a war in which calling for a pullout short of victory would be silly. So, once the war has started, no disingenuousness is required for opponents to hope for victory, the quicker the better.

What is an honest opponent of a war supposed to do? Since even the end of this war won't settle most of the important arguments about it, dropping all opposition at the beginning of the war would surely be more intellectually suspicious than maintaining your doubts while sincerely hoping for victory. Inevitably, more than one supporter of this war has taunted its opponents with Orwell's famous observation in 1942 that pacifists?-the few who opposed a military response to Hitler?-were "objectively pro-fascist." The suggestion is that opposing this war makes you objectively pro-Saddam. In an oddly less famous passage two years later, Orwell recanted that "objectively" formula and called it "dishonest." Which it is.

The psychological challenge of opposing a war like this after it has started isn't supporting the American troops, but hoping to be proven wrong. That, though, is the burden of pessimism on all subjects. As a skeptic, at the least, about Gulf War II, I do hope to be proven wrong. But it hasn't happened yet.