Write On: Letters to 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly

April 2, 2003
Issue 

Parents for Peace

I am writing as a parent who attended the student peace march on March 26th in Sydney.

Upon arriving at Town Hall I was horrified by the overbearing police presence which included sniffer dogs, lines of riot police and dozens of police horses. As the march progressed, I was further disgusted by the racist and sexist tactics used on the students and others attending the march by the police.

I was approached by many people from the public who where equally disgusted by the treatment the students received from the police, wondering what they could do about it and whether the police mass detention of 500 or so protestors outside PM John Howard's office was legal. At this point, I took on the role of an unofficial legal observer.

Despite this treatment, the students resolved to march again on April 2 to continue to speak out about the war, and they are asking for expressions of solidarity from the community.

Therefore, as a response to the heavy-handed, racist tactics used by police at Wednesday's rally, and as a pro-active move to support the students who are brave enough to continue to speak out against the ongoing war in Iraq, I am calling for more parents, teachers and anyone else interested to form a team. This team could work under the name of "Parents for Peace" or "Advocates for Activists" and would be there to monitor police behaviour and work alongside legal observers and designated rally marshals.

Anyone interested in taking on this role for the day, which is essentially about being advocates for youth activists, need no special skills other than to be able to be energetic and assertive with the police and be able to listen and observe and record information.

Anyone interested in taking on this role or wanting to discuss this further, contact me at <Mary.Carroll@uts.edu.au>

Mary Carroll
Chatswood NSW

Grannies for peace

On April 2, young people in Sydney will demonstrate against police advice. If each young person had a grannie with them the police might not be able to persecute them as harshly. Anyone aged over 50 opposed to the war is invited to join Grannies for Peace. Contact Marg at <mperrott@1earth.net>.

Marg Perrott
Wollongong

Real democracy

Real democracy is about the quality, not quantity, of voters. George Bush understood that when his family and friends fiddled the presidential elections, giving the people what they really needed, rather than what they misguidedly asked for.

Tony Blair and John Howard know it, brushing aside long-held treaties, international law and the UN to help George carpet-bomb Baghdad into freedom, as well as drafting new laws curtailing dangerous and archaic civil liberties.

They know it in Turkey, where parliament's pathetic acquiescence to overwhelming public inhospitability towards US troops looks to be overridden by a naturally exasperated military. They know it in Bulgaria, Spain, Italy et al, where leaders have cut attractive deals with our glorious Texan overlords despite massive demonstrations and diverse other indications of popular disapproval to the democracy-building exercise in the Gulf.

Only the Philippines, where outmoded constitutional rights have precluded a long-overdue deployment of US anti-terrorists, has shown a disappointing recalcitrance towards this global democratic upsurge.

The old mode of majority choice has shown its Achilles heel: the average voter is simply not as well-informed as the ruling elite, who have better education and contacts. Giving the masses any more than a glossy simulacrum of political power is not a mistake that will be repeated.

The institution of real democratic government in Iraq, best administered, of course, in this case by foreign military power, will indeed be a shining beacon for the Middle East. When it comes to making the right choice, democracy really means business this time.

Ben Hingley
Annandale NSW

Generous

The Federal government has allocated $17.5 million for humanitarian aid to Iraq. With cruise missiles a bargain at $1 million each, that would be enough to fund the bombing of Baghdad for almost a quarter of an hour.

Peter Baker
Lindisfarne Tas

Remember My Lai

Sunday, March 16, was the 35th anniversary of Operation Muscatine, north-east of Quang Ngai City, which, according to a hearty message of congratulation from William C Westmoreland, commander of US Forces, "dealt the enemy a heavy blow. Congratulations to officers and men of C-1-20 [Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry] for outstanding action".

We should remember the families of Song My (My Lai), from babies to great-grandmas, butchered like sheep in a supposedly successful and praiseworthy military action.

But this is not a time for recrimination against the United States, a country of great institutions and great people, set, like our own, amidst great flaws.

We should also remember the courage and sacrifice of a small group of young American servicemen who put their lives on the line that day to save a small number of the massacre survivors, and who met years of danger, harm and ridicule during the despotic and bloodthirsty Nixon-Kissinger era to expose the evil.

And we should try to remember all the words of Matthew 5:3-12, surely never heard at Dubya and Condoleezza's bloody awful prayer breakfasts.

I don't think Christ was muscular enough for them or their henchmen on that day.

Peter Woodforde
Melba ACT

Support for murder

Once again the Labor and Liberal parties are in full agreement. They are both fully supportive of the military in its war of aggression. As John Howard said in his address to the House of Representatives (March 18): "I ask that all Australians, regardless of whether they support our participation in the coalition, to show their support for those who have been ordered to undertake this mission."

Simon Crean agreed (March 20): "By following the decision of your government, you are acting in the service of Australia, and in the finest traditions of our armed forces. Our argument is with the government and its decision, not with the Australian Defence Forces."

This unconditional "support" for the "troops" in this war of aggression flies in the face of George W. Bush's pronouncement (March 18) to "all Iraqi military and civilian personnel" that to "destroy oil wells ... [or] use weapons of mass destruction ... will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defence to say, 'I was just following orders'."

It is on these grounds of individual responsibility that I hold every single soldier fighting in Iraq personally responsible for any murders they commit in this war of aggression.

Howard and Crean can argue that the "troops" are not responsible because they are being ordered to participate in this war. This relationship, one based on wages, means the state is buying their skills, labour time and moral convictions for the period of time that wages are being paid.

George Bush, quite by mistake, shows the flaw in this reasoning. What he refers to in his "war crimes" speech is the unalienable human ability to choose. If I am paid to throw a bomb amongst children, I will refuse. If I am ordered to throw a bomb amongst children, I will still refuse. If threatened with imprisonment if I don't throw a bomb amongst children, I will without hesitation refuse.

Crean does not believe this war to be legal and recognises it as a war of aggression but he still supports the troops. I believe we should all hold each of the 2000 Australian troops fighting in Iraq responsible for their actions. As much as this government is responsible for committing troops to this war of aggression, each individual soldier is responsible for choosing to fight it.

Jeff Payne
Kingston Tas
[Abridged.]

Good cop, bad cop

Good cop, bad cop is being played in Canberra by the ALP and the Coalition.

Acting on the supposition that John Howard will lose the next election because of the war in Iraq, the ALP is positioning itself to be the next little deputy sheriff for George Bush.

It is paying lip service to opposing the war in Iraq, thereby gaining brownie points with the electorate at large, while continuing its vitriolic demonising of North Korea, thereby gaining brown-nosing points with the United States.

Col Friel
Alawa NT

War is rape

I was arrested on March 20 for writing in red paint "The killing has started" and leaving hand marks on the two statues which adorn the walkway of the consulate.

I told the police it was water soluble paint and that I'd clean it myself, and I had to make a statement when the bombing started. But no, they only understand the show of power. I was taken to St Kilda police station and charged.

I look forward to my day in court where I will defend myself vigorously of the charges of defacing private property. And I hope there will be hundreds of women outside the court demonstrating against all wars, and painting red slogans of "War is Rape".

Reta Kaur
Women for Peace
Melbourne

Open letter to MPs

Dear members of Parliament,

During the Second World War, we made a promise to the East Timorese that we would never forget their sacrifice of 40,000 lives which helped us defend our country against the Japanese invasion.

For nearly 25 years following the Indonesian invasion of East Timor we, as a nation, ignored their plight. More than 300,000 East Timorese died during the invasion and subsequent repression. The Howard Government eventually played an important part in the struggle to liberate the East Timor.

Recently we ripped off some of their oil reserves. For a decade many of the 1600 East Timorese have been struggling to stay in Australia and both Labor and Liberal regimes have used every legal trick to prevent them being accepted as refugees.

I beg you to show some humanity and let the 1600 East Timorese stay.

Dr John Tomlinson
senior lecturer in social policy
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane

Maralinga still a mess

The ABC on March 26 quoted the Maralinga Tjarutja's legal adviser saying that the traditional owners' scientific advice is that the latest clean-up of the nuclear test site "is the best that could be achieved".

If that was the advice, then it was false. Deeper burial, encasement in concrete, or vitrification would all have been an improvement on the shallow burial of plutonium-contaminated debris at Maralinga.

Science minister Peter McGauran said in a March 25 media release that the clean-up has been of a "world-class standard". Rubbish! Shallow burial of plutonium wouldn't be tolerated in Britain — a point made by Dr Mike Costello, a member of the minister's own advisory committee.

Aspects of the clean-up have also been challenged by US geochemist Dale M Timmons, who was involved in the project for several years.

The other phase of the clean-up — the collection and burial of contaminated soil — was also botched. Because of inadequate dust suppression, thousands of tonnes of soil simply blew away.

As nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson said on ABC radio (August 2002): "What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn't be adopted on white-fellas' land."

Jim Green
Adelaide

Bully

After Iraq, there will be no holding back the biggest bully on the block. The US will go for the new leftist governments in Latin America — Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil — and, of course, Cuba. Remember they have tried 21 times to assassinate Fidel.

Why can't the US understand that though it is the third biggest country (only China and India are bigger), it is only one member of the 189 countries that make up the United Nations? If you join a club and don't like it, get out — but don't try to destroy the club.

Bully ex-president of Chile, Pinochet, must be laughing his head off — but he was spared because Chile doesn't have oil. He got away with 17 years of murder, torture and disappearances.

And have Bush, Blair and Co ever thought about the numbers of pregnant women, children and helpless animals that will all die horrible deaths as a result of this war?

Rosemary Evans
St Kilda Vic

For a citizens' war crimes tribunal

The "coalition of the killing" talks of a post-war Iraq and the new-order democracy it will impose. But this coalition, which has ridden roughshod over popular anti-war sentiment, manifest in ongoing worldwide protest, cannot make any claim to hold the moral high ground as champions of democracy.

The administration of US President George W Bush even subverted the electoral process itself to gain power. While it talks of "war crimes" committed by Iraq — and few would deny that Saddam's regime would be indicted on that charge — the coalition is not prepared to have its own behaviour subjected to like scrutiny.

One of the weaknesses often cited of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal that tried Nazi war criminals is that it was imposing the will of the victors on the vanquished. It did not consider, for example, the firebombing of German cities (Dresden , Hamburg ). Neither was the extensive firebombing of Japanese cities () and the eventual use of nuclear weapons considered by any international court.

The United States is not only the world leader in weapons of mass destruction, it is also the world leader in other terror "anti-personnel" weapons, the use of which is banned by international treaties. These weapons include a variety of fragmentation bombs like cluster bomb units (), or "ground-clearing" bombs like the so-called "Daisy Cutter" (), or the recently unveiled so-called "Mother Of All Bombs" — the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) — (, ) — all of which are a guarantee of civilian injury and death.

Despite all the negative exposure given to the use by the US of depleted uranium armour-piercing shells during the Gulf War — a guarantee of long-term environmental pollution — US military is reported to be using them again ().

Many of these anti-personnel weapons were also used by the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan. "We'll just go on bleeding them ... to the point of national disaster for generations", General Westmoreland said of the Vietnamese "enemies" of the US.

At a time when world governments were powerless to stop the US onslaught against the Vietnamese resistance fighters, a group of eminent European intellectuals gathered expert evidence and heard witnesses before the War Crimes Tribunal convened by British philosopher Bertrand Russell (). With no power to enforce its judgments, the tribunal nevertheless acted as a powerful moral counter to the propaganda of successive US Democrat and Republican administrations.

In the face of the current destruction and suffering, it has again become urgent that eminent personalities opposed to the war convene a new citizens' tribunal like that which considered the conduct of the US in the first Gulf War (see < http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/iraqgenocide/HighwaA href="yofDeath.html><yofDeath.html>).

Roy Garner
Leichhardt NSW

[Roy Garner was NSW secretary of the Friends of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation from 1968 to 1975 and a conscientious objector to conscription for the Vietnam war.]

Preventive war

US President George W Bush wants to do "Preventive War". Let's review a few examples:

1. In the US itself, the Confederacy in South Carolina in 1861 started a war to prevent the Lincoln government from halting the expansion of slavery. Result: The Lincoln government not only halted slavery from expanding, it stopped it altogether!

2. France began in 1870, a "preventive war" to prevent injury to the French Emperor's prestige, and to prevent German unity and growth. Result: Germany defeated France. Germany unified. Germany grew, annexed eastern French provinces! The French Emperor was ended, France became a republic!

3. World War I began in 1914, to prevent the decline of the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian monarchies and dynasties, including their decline as "Great Powers", and to prevent the decline of the British Empire! Result: The first three monarchies and dynasties not only lost prestige, they were abolished entirely! One monarch was shot dead, the two others fled! Austria-Hungary ceased to be a "Great Power", under one monarch. They became two distinct republics! Germany and Russia are now neither monarchies, nor "Great Powers". Britain no longer has an empire! The USA is the only meaningful "Great Power" left!

4. World War II began in 1939 to prevent Western democracies from stopping the expansion of the dictatorships of Nazism, Communism and Fascism in Europe, and of Japan throughout Asia, including ruling much of China. Result: All three dictatorships have ceased to exist! Japan does not rule Asia! China became Communist, rules itself and dwarfs Japan!

5. The Vietnam War began in the 1960s to prevent Vietnam from unifying as one country under Communism. Result: Vietnam was taken over by the Communists, and is now unified as one country.

Perhaps our President should check his history books!

Leroy J. Pletten
Sterling Heights Michigan USA

Cry out against this madness

It is the feeling of helplessness, mostly, that numbs.
Am I to cheer the Iraqi soldiers, now my country
Has declared war on them?
They have a right to defend themselves:
I cannot cheer those who attack them.

This is a war justified by the momentum created
In preparing for it, a war brought forward
In the fear the chance to have it might be lost,
That the moment might pass.

Everything we do to cry out against this madness
Is ignored.
What options do we have?

My friends are sending me petitions by email —
Hundreds of thousands of signatures were added overnight.
Others send me pro forma letters of protest, for me to direct
Like a scattergun to anyone who might have a say.
Millions march in demonstrations. People chain themselves
To the Prime Minister's Lodge; a huge No War sign
Appears high on the sails of the Opera House.
No-one who matters listens.
The war is pre-destined.
The United States has spoken.
This is their world, after all.

The people of Iraq are but collateral damage.
Not being American they can be attacked
With impunity.

The blood, now, will be on Australian hands.

There must be another way.

Keith McKenry

Ainslie ACT

Howard has blood on his hands!

In a few years time, when you are committed to the international court to answer the charges of war criminal you will not look any better than Milosevic is looking today. You are an accomplice to your boss George Bush in the killing and maiming of hundreds of Iraqi men women and children.

You are personally responsible for the death of dozens of Iraqi young men — many of them just teenagers — assassinated by Australian hands.

You are personally responsible to the God you pretend to follow for the dozens of Iraqi orphans created by Australian hands.

You are personally responsible for the hurt, the pain, the suffering of many Mothers, fathers, wives and children that will have to live the rest of their lives mourning for the loved ones killed by Australian soldiers on your whims. The whims of a murderous foreign dictator at the other side of their world.

You will not be able to erase all these deaths and suffering — inflicted on people that you have never met, people who never have done anything to you — from your mind for a long as you live and that will corrode you insides!

It is not right to kill other people, other human beings, just because they are wearing a military uniform and even less so when they are fighting to defend their country from an invasion organised by religious fanatics and multinational oil companies.

Bring the troops back before the list of your crimes gets any bigger!

Richard Greenwood

From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, April 2, 2003.
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