by Bruce Ramsey January 10, 2012 The Seattle Times
The federal case against Bert Sacks, the Seattle activist fined for violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, was dismissed Dec. 28—and Sacks is not too happy about it.
Sacks wanted a jury trial. He wanted to argue in public court that in the 1990s the U.S. government had committed an act of terrorism by destroying Iraq’s water purification plants during the first Gulf War and using economic sanctions to block their repair. Sacks cited UNICEF and other sources that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children had died from the effects of unclean water and no medicine. In Sacks’ view, they had been killed by the United States as surely as if our government had bombed them.
In 2004, in the days after the tsunami spread its wide, heavy body
over Indonesia and Thailand and Sri Lanka and India,
crushing homes, hospitals, schools,
videos of the wave were posted online and shared electronically.
Accustomed to viewing explosions, raging waters, hurricane winds,
some people who watched
from the dry comfort of their homes or offices were disappointed.
The wave didn’t impress.
They would have been even more disappointed
had they followed the wave
as it moved through deep ocean waters,
only the crown of its head visible.
People failed to recognize its unity and dimensions,
how it had leapt from the sea floor,
gathered itself from so many individual particles of water,
and traveled hundreds of miles
remaining intact,
how its legs extended deep into the ocean.
They say she cries tears of oil, and that occasionally there is a hint of a smile on her face. The story has it that the statue is owned by a Muslim woman in Windsor, Canada.
When the statue began to shed tears, it created such a furor in the town with crowds thronging to see her, that the statue was transferred to a little church. I was taken to see her just a few days ago by an Armenian Iraqi family I was visiting in Canada. The church was open and we were the only visitors. Almost life sized, Mary was indeed smiling down on us. We saw no trace of tears, though her eyes were large and luminous and it was easy to imagine her weeping. The thought that went through my mind was that Mary only cries when we stop crying. Crying for the ongoing suffering due to our wars, for families uprooted and separated from their loved ones, for families still burying their dead and trying themselves to escape the ongoing violence and killing in Iraq.
Joshua: Do you see this kind of idea being maybe even able to prevent future wars? Because, I think, one of the problems is that we don’t know each other. And if we are able to know each other, we realize that there is no reason to fight.
Firas: Yeah, you’re right. That’s what exactly happen. And people, the children, they are not children. They are going to lead the world after us. And we need to prepare all our children, your children and our children, prepare them to lead the world better than now.
You do not know me. Why should you? Or maybe you should have known me and the many other UN officials who struggled in Iraq when you prepared your Iraq policy. Reading the Iraq details of your “journey”, as told in your memoir, has confirmed my fears. You tell a story of a leader, but not of a statesman. You could have, at least belatedly, set the record straight. Instead you repeat all the arguments we have heard before, such as why sanctions had to be the way they were; why the fear of Saddam Hussein outweighed the fear of crossing the line between concern for people and power politics; why Iraq ended up as a human garbage can. You preferred to latch on to Bill Clinton’s 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and George W Bush’s determination to implement it.
The Bomb and the Drone: Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan
Even though August 6th and 9th are past, the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki belong always before us. The agony of those two cities must remain our dark beacon.
Hiroshima/Nagasaki wasn’t so much about targets as about audiences. We sacrificed a couple hundred thousand harmless, unarmed, undefended human beings to make a point. That spectacle wasn’t so much for Japan as for the Soviet Union and the world at large.
Thanks to the U.S. head start on nuclear technology – vividly showcased at Hiroshima/Nagasaki – for 65 years the U.S. has been able to hold the planet hostage. It’s been able to deploy nuclear blackmail to further its hegemonic design.
Just a half an hour ago I got an email from a doctor friend in Baghdad whom I wrote just last night asking about their well-being. ” …we are always thinking that being not alone is a grace. We are passing hard times….the hot summer is not hotter than the fire inside our hearts from the chaos we are living and the tragic stories we are witnessing everyday.”
The other day an article caught my attention while I was at the internet shop I frequent—“In Baghdad Ruins, Remains of a Cultural Bridge.” (NY Times, May 21, 2010, Anthony Shadid) I printed the article out to take back to my room.
But Will D.C. Rally Spark Groundswell? by Eli Saslow October 7, 2009 Washington Post View picture gallerySarah L. Voisin-The Washington Post
The protesters convened for a final planning meeting, already triumphant, convinced that nine months of preparation was about to pay off. Antiwar organizers who had come to Washington from 27 states exchanged hugs inside a Columbia Heights convention hall and modeled their protest costumes: orange jumpsuits, “death masks,” shackles and T-shirts depicting bloody Afghan children. Then Pete Perry, the event organizer, stood up to deliver a welcome speech.
“This is a great moment for our movement,” he said. “We are continuing an incredible tradition.”
It was a scene repeated countless times during the Bush years:
A few hundred people massed on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, wearing orange jumpsuits and hoods, holding photos of wounded children or carrying coffins. They chanted antiwar slogans, acted out waterboarding and pretended to die on the sidewalk. Those who refused orders to leave the area - including ubiquitous activist Cindy Sheehan - were arrested.
But the remarkable thing about this familiar antiwar demonstration is that it occurred Monday, and the target was not George W. Bush but the White House’s current occupant. Protesters’ signs carried Obama-specific barbs: “Change? What Change?” “The Audacity of War Crimes.” “Yes We Can: U.S. Out of Afghanistan.”
