We won't deny our consciences
Prominent Americans have issued this statement on the war on terror
Thursday June 13 2002
The Guardian
Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when
their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new
measures of repression. The signers of this statement call on the
people of the US to resist the policies and overall political
direction that have emerged since September 11 and which pose grave
dangers to the people of the world.
We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their
own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We believe
that all persons detained or prosecuted by the US government should
have the same rights of due process. We believe that questioning,
criticism, and dissent must be valued and protected. We understand
that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought
for.
We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what
their own governments do - we must first of all oppose the injustice
that is done in our own name. Thus we call on all Americans to resist
the war and repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush
administration. It is unjust, immoral and illegitimate. We choose to
make common cause with the people of the world.
We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11. We too
mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the
terrible scenes of carnage - even as we recalled similar scenes in
Baghdad, Panama City and, a generation ago, Vietnam. We too joined the
anguished questioning of millions of Americans who asked why such a
thing could happen.
But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the
land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script
of "good v evil" that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated
media. They told us that asking why these terrible events had happened
verged on treason. There was to be no debate. There were by definition
no valid political or moral questions. The only possible answer was to
be war abroad and repression at home.
In our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from
Congress, not only attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and
its allies the right to rain down military force anywhere and
anytime. The brutal repercussions have been felt from the Philippines
to Palestine. The government now openly prepares to wage all-out war
on Iraq - a country which has no connection to the horror of September
11. What kind of world will this become if the US government has a
blank cheque to drop commandos, assassins, and bombs wherever it
wants?
In our name the government has created two classes of people within
the US: those to whom the basic rights of the US legal system are at
least promised, and those who now seem to have no rights at all. The
government rounded up more than 1,000 immigrants and detained them in
secret and indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and hundreds of
others still languish today in prison. For the first time in decades,
immigration procedures single out certain nationalities for unequal
treatment.
In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over
society. The president's spokesperson warns people to "watch what they
say". Dissident artists, intellectuals, and professors find their
views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The so-called Patriot Act -
along with a host of similar measures on the state level - gives
police sweeping new powers of search and seizure, supervised, if at
all, by secret proceedings before secret courts.
In our name, the executive has steadily usurped the roles and
functions of the other branches of government. Military tribunals with
lax rules of evidence and no right to appeal to the regular courts are
put in place by executive order. Groups are declared "terrorist" at
the stroke of a presidential pen.
We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they talk
of a war that will last a generation and when they speak of a new
domestic order. We are confronting a new openly imperial policy
towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures and
manipulates fear to curtail rights.
There is a deadly trajectory to the events of the past months that
must be seen for what it is and resisted. Too many times in history
people have waited until it was too late to resist. President Bush
has declared: "You're either with us or against us." Here is our
answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for all the American
people. We will not give up our right to question. We will not hand
over our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety. We say
not in our name. We refuse to be party to these wars and we repudiate
any inference that they are being waged in our name or for our
welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world suffering from
these policies; we will show our solidarity in word and deed.
We who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together to
rise to this challenge. We applaud and support the questioning and
protest now going on, even as we recognise the need for much, much
more to actually stop this juggernaut. We draw inspiration from the
Israeli reservists who, at great personal risk, declare "there is a
limit" and refuse to serve in the occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza.
We draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience from the
past of the US: from those who fought slavery with rebellions and the
underground railroad, to those who defied the Vietnam war by refusing
orders, resisting the draft, and standing in solidarity with
resisters. Let us not allow the watching world to despair of our
silence and our failure to act. Instead, let the world hear our
pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and repression and rally
others to do everything possible to stop it.
Contact:nionstatement@hotmail.com
From:
Michael Albert
Laurie Anderson
Edward Asner, actor
Russell Banks, writer
Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
Jessica Blank, actor/playwright
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
William Blum, author
Theresa Bonpane, executive director, Office of the Americas
Blase Bonpane, director, Office of the Americas
Fr Bob Bossie, SCJ
Leslie Cagan
Henry Chalfant,author/filmmaker
Bell Chevigny, writer
Paul Chevigny, professor of law, NYU
Noam Chomsky
Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College
Kia Corthron, playwright
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Ossie Davis
Mos Def
Carol Downer, board of directors, Chico (CA) Feminist Women's Health Centre
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor, California State University, Hayward
Eve Ensler
Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning
John Gillis, writer, professor of history, Rutgers
Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible
Suheir Hammad, writer
David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology, CUNY Graduate Centre
Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist
Erik Jensen, actor/playwright
Casey Kasem
Robin DG Kelly
Martin Luther King III, president, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Barbara Kingsolver
C Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Jodie Kliman, psychologist
Yuri Kochiyama, activist
Annisette & Thomas Koppel, singers/composers
Tony Kushner
James Lafferty, executive director, National Lawyers Guild/LA
Ray Laforest, Haiti Support Network
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun magazine
Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens Alliance
Staughton Lynd
Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for Food and Development
Policy/Food First
Malaquias Montoya, visual artist
Robert Nichols, writer
Rev E Randall Osburn, executive vice president, Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
Grace Paley
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter
Jerry Quickley, poet
Juan Gumez Quiones, historian, UCLA
Michael Ratner, president, Centre for Constitutional Rights
David Riker, filmmaker
Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup
Edward Said
John J Simon, writer, editor
Starhawk
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild/NY
Bob Stein, publisher
Gloria Steinem
Alice Walker
Naomi Wallace, playwright
Rev George Webber, president emeritus, NY Theological Seminary
Leonard Weinglass, attorney
John Edgar Wideman
Saul Williams, spoken word artist
Howard Zinn, historian
-- We are guilty of the grossest, and most narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the universe ... What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole Universe. - David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
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