Love, Struggle & Resistance

     Lest anyone continue to harbor any doubts, the fact that oil is the paramount issue motivating the U.S.’s adventurism in the Middle East was brought home again today by the headline, “Iraqi Leader Fears Ouster Over Oil Money.”  See, AP Story.  As this story recounts, Iraq’s current Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki — the U.S.’s friend and ally in the Middle East who the U.S. indeed helped to install — is fearful that if his government does not pass an oil law which the U.S. has been pushing for some time, the U.S. will withdraw support from him and bring another leader to power.  According to the story, Maliki’s fears are well-grounded, based as they are on explicit statements made to him by U.S. officials who told him that ”continued White House support depended on positive action on all the benchmarks especitally the oil law . . . .”   What the story fails to explain is why so many Iraqis, including all five union federations, find this “oil law” so objectionable.

     As a wonderful NY Times Op-ed piece by Antonia Juhasz explains, this oil law being foisted upon Iraq by the United States would ”transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies” to one in which two-thirds (2/3) of Iraq’s oil fields would be open to control by private, foreign interests.  See, Op-ed.  As Juhasz notes, this law is in full keeping with the March, 2001 recommendations of the National Energy Policy Development Group, which included executives from the U.S.’s largest energy companies, urging the U.S. to support initiatives by Middle East countries “‘to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.’”  The U.S., which invaded Iraq in 2003 in order to advance such policies, now appears, not surprisingly (though quite cynically) willing to effect the overthrow of the very government it helped to bring about in Iraq, and which it holds up as a beacon of burgeoning democracy in the Middle East, if that government is unwilling or unable to bring these policies to fruition. 

     So much for the U.S.’s feigned concern for democracy in the Middle East.  But, most of us never believed democracy had anything to do with it in the first place.  As writer Eduardo Galeano explained, the reasons the U.S. is now in Iraq can be summed up in three words:  “petroleo, petroleo, petroleo” (oil, oil, oil).        

     The cause of peace in the Middle East was dealt a great blow yesterday by the decision of the House Democrats – out of their usual combination of cowardice, pandering and actual support for U.S. aggression — to refrain from passing a measure to limit President Bush’s authority to militarily attack Iran.  See, AP Story.   As AP explains, ”[t]he Iran-related proposal stemmed from a desire to make sure Bush did not launch an attack without going to Congress for approval . . . .”   However, the Democrats backed away from such a measure, with some conservative Democratic lawmakers arguing that this would “take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool [in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program] that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran.”  Or, as Congressman Gary Ackerman of New York claimed, he didn’t think it was “a very wise idea to take things off the table if you’re trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize it in a civilized way.” 

     These arguments simply miss the point in obvious ways.  First of all, there are certain ”tools” which should never be on the table in negotiating with any party (whether it be an individual or another nation) because such “tools,” and even their threatend use, are morally unacceptable.  To take an easy case, there is a shared understanding among most ”civilized” nations (to borrow the term from Congressman Ackerman) that torture is not an unacceptable “tool” to be used against individuals.  It is equally understood that the mere threat of torture, which itself can amount to torture, is unacceptable.  Therefore, Congress should never approve the use of torture as a “tool” in any negotiations.  (Of couse, Congress appeared to have done just that when it passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, possibly removing the U.S. from the list of “civilized” nations, but more on that at another time).   

     In the case of Iran, what appears ”to be on the table” is a massive U.S. air campaign against hundreds of targets in that country — targets in and around large civilian populations.   In the view of most “civilized” people, such a “tool” is simply not acceptable, especially in the instant case in which Iran poses no imminent threat of harm to either the U.S. or its neighbors.  Indeed, it is well-accepted, even by U.S. intelligence experts, that, even assuming that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability – an intention which Iran vigorously denies and against which the Supreme Leader of Iran has issued a fatawah — it is at least 5 to 10 years away from having such capability.   Under these circumstances, a military attack upon Iran – especially given the very real prospect of a greater, world-wide conflagration emanating from such an attack – would be both immoral and contrary to well-established international law forbidding unprovoked military actions.  And indeed, even the threat of such a an attack, which foreseeably inspires fear, and yes, terror, in the civilian population of Iran, is also inappropriate.  For these reasons, this particular “tool” should be absolutely taken off the table by Congress.  

     In addition, the Democrats’ arguments assume that the Bush Administration is merely using the threat of military attack against Iran as a mere bargaining chip with that country  Yet, there are signs which point to the conclusion that, in fact, the Bush Administration’s real aim is to militarily attack Iran so as to effect “regime change” in, or a partition of, that country and that the nuclear issue, as well as the claims about Iran’s alleged ”interference” in Iraq, are mere pretexts for such military intervention.  In short, a military attack upon Iran is not merely something being threatened as a means to achieve a good outcome in negotiations with Iran.  Rather, such a military attack appears to be the end itself.  If this is the case, then this ”tool” should be withdrawn from the Bush Administration, for it is not in fact being used for the negotiating purposes the Democrats believe (or at least claim they believe) it is being used for.       

     In the same vein, it appears that the Bush Administration, by putting two, and soon possibly four, air craft carriers in the small Straits of Hormuz; approving the capture and killing of Iranian nationals in Iraq suspected of supporting insurgents; and its active support for armed ethnic groups to engage in violent attacks against Iranian government forces, is setting up the very real possibility that the “tool” of a military attack will be used regardless of intention.  That is, the Administration is setting up the real possibility of an “accidental” war with Iran — an outcome which presumably the Democratic Congress would rightly oppose.  By engaging in such provocative conduct, moreover, the Bush Administration is proving itself to be a far greater threat than Iran to peace and stability in the Middle East.  It is this very threat being posed by the Bush Administration which Congress should act affirmatively to halt. 

     For the foregoing reasons, those opposed to any attack upon Iran should contact their Congressional representatives right away to urge them to reverse course and to adopt a measure which makes it clear that the Bush Administration has no authority to unilaterally commence a military assault against Iran.     

Despite all of its rhetoric about its “war on terror” and the need to improve “homeland security,” the Bush Administration is acting in ways which affirmatively undermine the security of the homeland and actually increase global terrorism. Indeed, instead of being at war with terror, the Administration appears more at war with every-day citizens voth here and abroad.

The most striking example of this is the recent revelation that the U.S. is now funding and actively supporting and encouraging terrorist groups — yes, groups which the U.S. State Department has officially designated as “terrorist” — in the Middle East. Thus, in a story from February 25, entitled, “U.S. Funds Terror Groups To Sow Chaos In Iran,” the Sunday Telegraph of London reports that the CIA is actively “helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic miniority groups clustered in Iran’s border regions.” See, Sunday Telegraph Article. As a result, the article points out, “[i]in the past year there has been a wave of unrest . . . with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.” The article notes that “[s]uch a policy is fraught with risk,” with a great likelihood that these groups, such as the “Bridgade of God” and the “Mujahdeen-e Khalq” (”MEK”), will “turn against Washington after taking the money.” Indeed, one need look only at the U.S. experience in Afghanistan during the 1980’s where it chose to organize, fund and support the Mujahdeen to attack the Soviets there. This policy would later come back to haunt us when the leader of one of the Mujahdeen factions, Osama bin Laden, led attacks against the U.S. homeland on September 11, 2001. Apparently, we haven’t learned the lessons of September 11 as George Bush so often likes to claim.

In his article of this week entitled, “The Redirection,” Seymour Hersh similarly points out in a detailed article that the U.S. has chosen to ally itself with violent Sunni groups in both Iran and Lebanon in order to attack the Iraninan government and Hezbollah, respectively. See, Hersh article. As Hersh succintly puts it, “[a] by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.” (I also note that, for the past 7 years, the U.S. has sent over $4 billion in assistance to the Colombian military, a military which, as the State Department also concedes, is actively supporting the AUC paramilitary group in Colombia — another group the U.S. has designated as “terrorist.”).

In short, the U.S. government is spending the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people in order to militarily support the very same elements which attacked the U.S. on September 11 and which continue to pose a threat to the U.S. today. In addition, it is well-accepted by national security and terrorism experts that the U.S. war in Iraq has only spawned more terrorist groups and increased the risk that the U.S. will be attacked.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is now asking Congress for almost $700 billion in additional monies for the military for such adventures in the Middle East which are only increasing our risk of being subject to a terrorist attack. At the same time, the most recent U.S. census figures show that poverty in the U.S., which is being exasperated by the Bush Administration’s decision to defund social programs in order to fund the military, is at a 32-year high. See, McClatchy Article. These census figures show that 16 million Americans now live in “deep or severe poverty,” with only a small percentage of these individuals receiving any form of public assistance. Meanwhile, as this article also notes, corporate profits have continued to expand at record levels, while wage rates and job growth have “lagged behind.”

In short, all evidence points to the fact that the current U.S. government is acting in ways which are undermining both the safety and well-being of the American people while it utilizes the vast majority of their tax monies to undermine security and stability in the Middle East. This situation is simply deplorable, and one which, in a society with a more independent and critical press, might lead to mass revolts and possibly revolution. Yet, with a compliant press which largely obscures this reality, we experience relative calm in this country with millions suffering in silence. Those of us who are aware of this reality must speak out, and, in the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, serve as a “voice of the voiceless.”

     The AP reports today that the U.S., along with Russia and China, “snubbed” a conference of 49 nations in which 46 of them adopted a declaration banning cluster bombs.  See, Story.  The declaration explains that these bombs kill and maim for many years after the conflicts in which they are used are over, and present an ”unacceptable harm” to civilians, especially children.  As AP explains, these bombs have recently been used (by the United States) in Iraq, Kosova and Afghanistan and that ”[a]s many as 60 percent of the victims” have been are children. 

     In addition, the story reports that “[t]he UN estimated that Israel dropped as many as one million [U.S.-made] bomblets in southern Lebanon during last year’s war with Hezbollah, with as many as 40 percent failing to explode on impact,” meaning that around 400,000 of these bomblets are left lying around for unsuspecting civilians, many times children, to pick up and set off.  As the AP reports, “[c]hildren can be attracted to the unexploded bombs by their small size, shape and bright colors.”  In the law, we would call this an “attractive nuisance.”  Noam Chomsky recently explained in an interview that the cluster bombs were dropped in Southern Lebanon after the ceasefire agreement ending the war was signed, and that this bombing campaign therefore served no military purpose.   Chomsky also reports that officials from the UN sent to try to rid the area of these cluster bombs related that they had never seen this type of saturation of cluster bombs before; that this was indeed unprecedented.  And, many Lebanese children will pay the price for this with their lives.

     That the U.S. will not support the ban on these bombs, just as it has not supported the ban on landmines, is inexcusable.  These “antipersonnel” devices are, as the name indicates, designed for one purpose — to maim and kill people; they can’t be used for anything else.  And, the vast majority of the victims of these devices are civilians, mostly children.   Given the requirements of the Geneva Conventions that warring parties take care to protect innocent civilians during armed conflicts, these weapons run afoul of these Conventions and their use can only be described as criminal.  Indeed, it is unclear what military purpose these devices serve except to terrorize civilian populations, a purpose which the U.S. should, if one accepts that it is engaged on a “war on terror,” should oppose.  

      So, why is the U.S. opposed to banning such weapons?  It appears likely that the U.S. does not support the ban on these barbaric weapons, though they pose such a danger to children, because U.S. companies make a hefty profit from their production.  The U.S. is the largest known manufacturer of cluster bombs in the world.  And, according to a special report of Democracy Now, the two largest manufacturers of these bombs in the United States are the Textron Systems Corporation in Willmington, Massachusetts and Alliant Techsystems, Inc. in Edina, Minnesota.   As for landmines, there is a veritable laundry list of companies which contribute to their manufacture.  This list can be found at the following Human Rights Watch weblink:  Landmine List.

     To maim and kill civilians ostensibly to advance military interests is bad enough, but to kill for profit is the biggest crime of all.   I would urge those reading this article to write to the companies linked to and listed above in order to express your opposition to their continued production of these antipersonnel devices.  I also urge you to write to your Congressional representatives to urge them to support on a ban on these instruments of war.  

     Finally, apropos of this discussion, I leave you with these wise words of President Eisenhower which he gave in his January 17, 1961 farewell address to the nation.  In this speech, he describes his fear of the growing “military-industrial complex” in the U.S.:

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Let us heed these words.

     While the term “genocide” is bandied about more than it should be, I think it is safe to say that the U.S. is currently involved in a campaign of genocide in the Middle East — a campaign in which it has been involved almost seamlessly for decades.  

      Very recently, Edward Herman explained how the U.S. is using Salvadoran-like “death squads” along with major air assaults on cities like Fallujah, to subdue the population in Iraq, leading Herman to conclude that the U.S. is involved in a campaign of genocide in Iraq.  See, Herman, “The Genocide Option.”  Herman, citing the recent Lancet report, notes that it has been estimated that approximately 655,000 civilians have been killed as a direct consequence of the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq.   Similarly, Adam Hochschild, the author of “King Leopold’s Ghost” — a book about the Belgian plundering of the Congo –has also come to the conclusion that the U.S. is involved in genocide acts in Iraq.   Hear Mr. Hochschild Interview.   As Hoschschild explains, the U.S. is fomenting and fueling the Sunni/Shi’a conflict in Iraq by supporting both sides of this conflict while at the same time attacking both sides of the conflict, with the result being the depopulation of significant swaths of the country.  Hoschild explains that the conduct of the U.S. in Iraq is much like that of the Belgians in the Congo a century ago, with the Belgians attempting to subdue the Congo, through violent means, in order to gain control over its rubber supplies, and the U.S. attempting to do the very same in Iraq to take control of its oil.

      What Hoschild is describing here is reminiscent of exactly what the U.S. has been doing in the Middle East since at least 1980 when it encouraged Iraq to invade Iran with the intent of destroying the new government there which had recently overthrown the U.S.-installed Shaw of Iran — a brutal dictator which the U.S. had supported since 1953.  The U.S. supported Iraq (dominated by the Sunnis at the time) through its war with Iran (dominated by the Shi’a) until the war’s end in 1988.  Specifically, the U.S. gave substantial military support to Iraq, including chemcial weapons which Saddam Hussein used not only against Iran but also against Iraq’s own Kurdish population.  Meanwhile, after the U.S. Congress cut off aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, the Reagan Administration, in 1986 – even as the Iraq-Iran war was raging – covertly sold weapons to Iran in return for cash which it turned around to secretly assist the Contras.  In short, the U.S., aiding both sides of the Iran-Iraq conflict, materially assisted in the killing of Sunnis, Shi’a and Kurds alike during this time period.

      In 1991, shortly after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S., as we all know, invaded Iraq with the ostensible purpose of driving Iraq from Kuwait.  Of course, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was given the green light to carry out this invasion by the United States.  To wit, in response to Hussein’s query to U.S. Ambassador Glaspie as to how the U.S. would react to such an invasion, Glaspie responded, ”We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.”  Nonetheless, the U.S. attacked Iraq shortly after it invaded Kuwait.  The U.S. attack focused largely on massive air strikes on civilian targets, including hospitals, water treatment facilities, electric generating plants and other infrastructure, which led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis at the time of the invasion as well as for years to come.  And, as many will recall, at war’s end, the U.S. encouraged both disaffected Kurds and Shi’a to rise up against Saddam Hussein, only to withhold support once they did so.   The result was the predictable slaughter of many innocent Kurds and Shi’a by Hussein.  

     The U.S., under President Clinton, followed up this first Gulf War with economic sanctions which resulted in the deaths of potentially one million Iraqis, including 500,000 children.  When asked about the deaths of so many children as a result of these sanctions, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright callously responded, “It was worth it.” 

      Similarly, just this past summer, the U.S. supported the Israeli attack against Lebanon, even supplying Israel with emergency armaments during the course of this war.  As Noam Chomsky points out in a recent interview, Israel, with U.S. approval, “saturated much of the south [of Lebanon] with [U.S.-made] cluster bombs” right after the ceasefire ending the war was signed.  See, Chomsky Interview.  As Chomsky notes, these anti-personnel bombs were dropped at what UN de-mining groups have described as an unprecedented scale.  Chomsky notes that “[i]t’s much worse than any other place they’ve worked:  Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, anywhere.  There are supposed to be about one million bomblets left there.  A large percentage of them don’t explode until you pick them up, a child picks them up, or a farmer hits it with a hoe or something.  So what it does basically is make the south uninhabitable . . . .”  While Chomsky believes there was no military purpose to be served in this post-ceasefire bombing campaign, at least with regard to Israel’s then conflict with Hezbollah, he cited others as surmising that it may have been related to a desire to create a no-man’s land in Southern Lebanon to insulate Israel from any attack by Hezbollah should Israel and/or the U.S. decide to attack Iran.  In short, there is some reason to believe that this was part of laying the groundwork for such an attack upon Iran, which brings us to the next and potentially biggest war crime in the making.

       As the U.S. continues to wage its second deadly war in Iraq today, it is, at the very same time, fomenting ethnic strife in Iran, also with violent consequences.  As Seymour Hersh, in his April, 2006 article entitled, “The Iran Plan,” explained, U.S. troops operating in Iran have been working with various ethnic groups in Iran with the express intent to “‘encourage ethnic tensions’ and undermine the regime.”   Then, just last week, two bombs were set off in southeastern Iran in three days, apparently by a Sunni group known as Jundallah, killing at least 11 individuals.  Iran has accused the U.S. and British of supporting this group in attacking government forces.  At the same time, the BBC has reported that the U.S. is planning a major bombing campaign against Iran in the near future.  See, BBC Report. 

     The point of this laundry list of past, present and future crimes is this:  the U.S. is engaged in terrible acts in the Middle East amounting to genocide — acts which people of conscience in this country simply cannot tolerate, and the U.S. appears poised to engage in even greater crimes in Iran.  The time for silent complicity in these crimes is long past.   The question is, what is one to do to oppose the U.S. government in this conduct.  Recently, in an interview on Democracy Now, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, when asked what he will do if the U.S. attacks Iran, responded, “Stop paying my taxes.”  I think this is a good idea, but I think one should not wait for the invasion before one withholds his/her support for the U.S. war effort in this way.  I also think that disrupting both the operation of government and commerce through peaceful acts of civil disobedience is also in order.  Travelling to Iran, for example with delegations such those being organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, to show solidarity with the Iranian people and to demonstrate opposition to any attack upon them is also important.   Personally, I’m having trouble concentrating on anything else, including my daily life, these days because of my preoccupation with these horrible events (especially with the apparently impending U.S. attack on Iran).  This may be just as well, for, in any case, there is no time or opportunity left for business as usual.     

     As AP reported this morning, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told Congress yesterday that she does not remember seeing a 2003 written proposal by Iran to engage in comprehensive discussions with the U.S. to solve key problems in the Middle East.  See, AP Story.   As AP also reports, Rice’s testimony yesterday contradicted statements she made to NPR in June of 2006, in which she did acknowledge knowing of this overture.  As AP reports, Iran had offered to engage in constructive discussions with the U.S. Over “its disputed nuclear program, support for militant groups that the United States labels terrorists and the acceptance of Israel.”  Further, and very significant to the current claims about Iran’s role in Iraq, Iran had proposed “active Iranian support for Iraqi stabilization.”

     Condoleeza Rice, while claiming that she does not remember seeing this proposal, does acknowledge that it represents a significant overture.  As she stated to Congress yesterday, she certainly would have taken notice if Iran were saying “‘We’re ready to recognize Israel.’”  Rice further acknowledged that, regardless of whether or not she actually saw the written document from Iran,  she was told by a number of sources that, indeed, Iran was making this overture to the United States.   In short, she admits that she was aware of this significant outreach by the Iranians to the U.S. in 2003, just as the U.S. war in Iraq was beginning.  However, she also admits that neither she nor anyone else in the Bush Administration did anything to follow up on the Iranian offer. 

     The Administration’s failure to respond to this overture prompted former NSC aide Flynt Leverett, who did see the Iranian fax in 2003, to say that “[t]his administration, out of some combination of ideological blindness and incompetency couldn’t be bothered to explore whether this opportunity was as serious as it looked on paper.”  

      One could only wish that the Bush Administration were hamstrung by mere “ideological blindness” and “incompetency.”  However, the facts point to a more nefarious reason for the U.S.’s refusal to respond to Iran.  To wit, the fact that the Bush Administration ignored such a significant overture back in 2003 — an overture which, if followed up by the U.S., could have led to at least some level of peace and stability in the Middle East — combined with the fact that the Bush Administration continues its refusal to talk to Iran even in direct contravention of the advice given by the Iraq Study Group; that it continues to grasp at any pretext, however poorly supported by evidence, that Iran is stirring up trouble in Iraq; and the fact that the U.S. now, through Rice, insists on downplaying and even denying knowledge of Iran’s extension of the olive branch, leads to one and only one conclusion:  that the Bush Administration is not really interested in peace with Iran or even with peace and stability in the Middle East. 

      Rather, the Bush Administration is more interested in clinging to pretexts for its own expansionist and “colonial” goals (a term recently used by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to describe the U.S.’s war in Iraq) in the Middle East.   That is to say, the U.S. is actively thwarting opportunities for peace with its ostensible adversaries in the Middle East, including Iran — just as it had actively undermined all avenues of peacefully resolving its differences with Iraq in the run-up to war with that country – because a detente would necessarily prevent the U.S. from being able to exert its will (e.g., to gain control over Middle East oil supplies) through force.   In short, the Bush Administration is bent upon war in the Middle East to serve its ends, and peace is therefore viewed as an inherent obstacle.    If this assessment is correct, it is the United States which currently represents the major threat to peace and stability in the Middle East.  And, the American citizenry must actively work to oppose the U.S.’s violent aims lest we be complict in them. 

       As Ehren Watada stands trial for his refusal, on moral grounds, to be deployed to Iraq, I am reminded of the final speech of Archbishop Oscar Romero.  Romero, who is being considered for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church, concluded his last address before his assassination by stating:  

“I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.”

     As Romero so passionately instructed, it is the obligation of people of conscience –civilians and military personnel alike — to disobey immoral directives.  The right to conscientious objection is enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as well as Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), both of which the US has ratified.  And, Amnesty International has indeed announced that a guilty verdict against Watada would be a violation of these internationally recognized rights to conscientious objection.

      As the Bush Administration continues to propel this country toward an ever-expanding war in the Middle East, all of us are called upon to resist.  It is becoming more evident by the day that the U.S. is being led by a cabal of ideologues whose grasp on reality is at best tenuous and who are bent upon trying to remold the world, especially the Middle East, through violent means.  See, e.g., “Bush’s Iran Madness” (Salon).  The Bush Administration, by leading this country into the disastrous war in Iraq based upon deceptions, and by now threatening to lead us into an even greater and more disastrous conflict, has forfeited any claim to moral legitimacy and authority which it might have once held by virtue of the fact that it was ostensibly voted into office.  

     The only way I see that a greater war in the Middle East can be averted is through massive resistance by U.S. military personnel as well as by the U.S. citizenry, the consent of which is necessary to permit such a war to go forward.  During the early part of the 20th Century, Eugene V. Debs and other activists called upon U.S. military personnel to refuse to fight in the massive act of carnage known as World War I.  As a consequence, Debs served time in prison under for “sedition.”  As Debs implored at the time, “Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves.   . . .  Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.”   I cannot add anything to those words except to say that I believe we are at a crossroads of history.  The small acts of resistance we do today, and hopefully everyday, may make the difference between survival and extinction.  So, resist!

     Yesterday, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, in hearings before the Senate, stated what many of us already know — that “[t]he war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity” which was “[u]ndertaken under false assumptions  . . . .”  Brzezinski predicted that “the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.”  

     As Brzezinski rightly notes, “[a] mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and expanding war is already being articulated” by the Bush Administration.  Brzezinski believes that this move towards an “expanding war” must be stopped, but that it can only be stopped if we step back from our present foreign policy which is “reminiscent of colonial tutelage.”  And, “[i]t is time for the Congress to assert itself” to ensure such a change of course.

     Such words must be heeded.  Brzezinski is a credible figure to sound such an alarm against a foreign policy gone wrong and heading in an even worse direction.  As Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Brzezinski, a hawkish Cold War warrior, was admittedly the author of the U.S. policy of arming and training the Mujahedin in Afghanistan –one faction of which was led by none other than Osama bin Ladin – and encouraging the Mujahedin offensive against the pro-Soviet Afghan government.  Brzezinski later bragged that this was a pre-meditated means to draw the Soviet Union into an invasion of Afghanistan, and, consequently, into its own Vietnam War.  Brzezinski characterized this policy as leading the Soviets into the “Afghan trap.”  Brzezinski was successful in this project, with terrible consequences for the Afghans, the Soviets and the world at large which continues to feel the effects of the U.S’s arming and promotion of Islamic extremists who plague us to this day.  In short, while Brzezinski successfully led the Soviets into an inscrutable trap in the Middle East, we fell into the trap with them.  Quite possibly, Brzezinski, and Carter as well, are now haunted by this fact.   

     Congress should act on these warnings of Brzezinski and take immediate measures, including passage of House Resolution 33, “The Iran War Powers” Resolution, to prevent the Bush Administration from taking the U.S. into an even greater “trap” than it has already fallen into in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

     I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I heard an uncharacteristic NPR, via Steve Inskeep, call the U.S. State Department out on its claims that Iran is supporting insurgents in Iraq.  Inskeep, who had interviewed Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns the day before (Feb. 1), recounted his conversation in which Burns gave a tantalizing answer to Inskeep’s question about whether the U.S. was investigating whether Iran played some role in the killing of five U.S. servicemen in Karbala, Iraq on January 20.   Burns, while refusing to answer the question directly, gave the clear impression that Iran was a target of such an investigation.   Today, Inskeep noted that the Bush Administration had been scheduled yesterday to release a report which purported to show that Iran has been supporting such attacks in Iraq.  However, as Inskeep very pointedly noted, the release of this report has been delayed due to “lack of evidence” at this time.   Inskeep made it clear by the tone of this statement that he was not going to played by Burns, a refreshing change from the press’s usual deference to power. 

     In addition, just this morning, AP reported that Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, himself had to admit that “he has not seen any credible proof yet that any Iranians were involved in the ambush last week in Karbala that left five soldiers dead.”

     Meanwhile, France President Jaque Chirac tried to backpeddle from his prior statement that even if Iran eventually developed one or two nuclear weapons, it nonetheless would not pose much a threat to its neighbors.  As Chirac had opinied, quite rationally, given the overwhelming nuclear weapons capacity of both Israel and the U.S., Tehran would be “razed to the ground” if it dared launch a nuclear weapon.   Therefore, Chirac reasoned, Iran would be effectively deterred from ever using a nuclear weapon.  Of course, such an observation is only logical.  However, Chirac, who is marching lock-step with the U.S. in its policy against Iran, recanted his truthful observations.  Chirac retracted these statements, not on the basis that he believed they were somehow false, but rather, on the basis that he did not know he had been speaking on the record at the time he made them.  As Jason Robards, playing Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, said in “All The President’s Men,” that’s what we call a “non-denial denial.”        

     As I cast about today for something to say, attempting to fight off the gloom I feel at the prospect of our nation hurling almost inexhorably toward a disastrous war with Iran (See, AP Story, “U.S.-Iran tensions could trigger war”), I pass along the wisdom of another, much wiser than mysef:  W. Somerset Maugham.  I thought it was apropos to focus on Maugham’s view of life’s meaning as illustrated through the metaphor of one of Iran’s most famous artistic contributions – the Persian rug. 

     In Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, the protagonist, Philip, is given a small piece of Persian rug by his wise, but troubled, friend, Cronshaw, who tells Philip that he can find the meaning of life therein.  It takes Phillip most of the book, and a number of heartaches, to understand what Cronshaw was trying to tell him.  This is the realization at which he arrives:

“. . .  the same uprush of fancy which had shown him with all the force of mathematical demonstration that life had no meaning, brought with it another idea; and that was why Cronshaw, he imagined, had given him the Persian rug.  As the weaver elaborated his pattern for no end but the pleasure of his aesthetic sense, so might a man live his life, or if one was forced to believe that his actions were outside his choosing, so might a man look at his life, that it made a pattern.   . . .  Out of the manifold events of his life, his deeds, his feelings, his thoughts, he might make a design, regular, elaborate, complicated or beautiful; and though it might be no more than an illusion that he had the power of selection, though it might be no more a fantastic legerdemain in which appearances were interwoven with moonbeams, that did not matter: it seemed, and so to him it was.  In the vast warp of life (a river arising from no spring and flowing endlessly to no sea), with the background to his fancies that there was no meaning and that nothing was important, a man might get a personal satisfaction in selecting the various strands that worked out the pattern.  There was one pattern, the most obvious, perfect, and beautiful, in which a man was born, grew to manhood, married, produced children, toiled for his bread, and died; but there were others, intricate and wonderful, in which happiness did not enter and in which success was not attempted; and in them might be discovered a more troubling grace.  Some lives . . . , such as Cronshaw’s offered a pattern which was difficult to follow:  the point of view had to be shifted and old standards had to be altered before one could understand that such a life was its own justification.  Philip thought that in throwing over the desire for happiness he was casting aside the last of his illusions.  His life had seemed to gather strength as he realized that it might be measured by something else.  Happiness mattered as little as pain.  They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design.   . . .   Whatever happened to him now would be more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would rejoice in its completion.  It would be a work of art, and it would be none the less beautiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be.  Philip was happy.”

        At times like these when I feel powerless in the face of forces much larger than myself, this passage gives me great solace.  In short, what matters in life is not the successes you have, but that you have lived life to its fullest, according to your conscience; enjoying life in all of its complexities, its disappointments as well its joys.  At this moment in time, I personally believe that finding creative ways to protest and oppose our nation’s march to war, and finding common cause with the innocents our nation is attacking and threatening to attack, is the most noble and beautiful way to live out the lives we have.  Quite possibly, acts of opposition now, however small, may make a difference in preventing catastrophe, or at least softening the blow.  And, even if we fail, we can take some comfort in the fact that we tried; that we lived a life with a higher purpose than our own, mere self-interest.  Such a life would be a work of art worth leaving to the world.