[Peace] IDF Opposes U.S. Military Retaliation in the Middle East

[Jeff Machota]

IDF Opposes U.S. Military Retaliation in the Middle East
By Jennifer Lee, Jeff Machota, Tara McCauley

The drastic turn of national events this month has left all of us
feeling deeply saddened and frustrated. We at the Illinois Disciples
Foundation (IDF) sympathize with the victims of the recent attacks
and plane crashes in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. We
can only imagine the pain and confusion that their families must be
feeling. However, we must also turn our thoughts to the current and
future victims of terrorism in the  Middle East, and to Arab, Arab
American, and Muslim victims of harassment here in the U.S., who seem
to be forgotten in our national discussions of mourning and
injustice. People in the Middle East have been victims of U.S.
foreign policy for decades, on a much larger scale than the recent
attacks in the U.S., and we do not want that fact to be lost. We are
deeply troubled by the Bush administration's plans of military
retaliation in Afghanistan in response to the attacks, and think of
the terror that such retaliation will bring for Afghani civilians, as
well as Afghani and U.S. soldiers.

As a peace with justice organization, the IDF has supported victims
of U.S. policies for decades. During the civil rights movement, the
IDF was involved in voter registration drives in the south, and in
supporting civil rights workers who were persecuted in their struggle
for justice. These civil rights workers were given support from the
U.S. government only reluctantly, and only after decades of struggle.
During the Vietnam War, the IDF worked to stop the slaughter of
Vietnamese people and the deaths of U.S. soldiers - all victims of a
flawed U.S. foreign policy. The government's just-ifications for
killing the Vietnamese, the jingoism (extreme, arrogant nationalism,
characterized by a belligerent foriegn policy) that characterized the
country in the early stages of the conflict, and the racism against
anyone of Asian decent are echoed in the language used currently on a
national level in the discussions of the coming conflict. In the
eighties, the IDF housed victims of oppression in Central America -
victims who did not receive refuge from the U.S. government, and in
fact who were victimized by terrorism in their own countries that was
supported by the U.S. government. In the nineties, the IDF supported
(and continues to support) the right of the Palestinian people to
their own land and to live free from persecution. Also during that
decade, we organized to stop the deaths of Iraqi citizens who were
victims of U.S. foreign policy, and who the U.S. continues to force
into starvation today through economic sanctions. Today, we know that
the U.S. government is guilty of terrorism in Colombia. The corrupt
military in Colombia has U.S. financial and military cooperation. We
are saddened to hear the echoes of these gruesome and destructive
conflicts in the rhetoric of the government and people on the streets
today. We hear the hypocracy in Bush's labeling of the Middle East as
"uncivilized," when it was Bush's father, as director of the CIA, who
trained Bin Laden in terrorist techniques. The U.S. only labeles such
tactics as "uncivilized" when they stop serving its interests.

As our mission states and our work demonstrates, we continue to
oppose the use of naked aggression against innocent people. We mourn
the loss of the workers, international citizens and "everyday" people
who lost their lives in the recent attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. We also grieve for those who have been persecuted
because of racism and jingoism in the U.S. - specifically, Muslim,
Arab, and Arab American people.

At the same time that we mourn for these current victims, we think of
the future victims of U.S. aggression. We do not want to see another
person killed or maimed as a result of unjust U.S. foreign policies.
We oppose the use of force in the Middle East that the U.S. Congress
has approved, and that Bush will surely carry out. The pain caused by
the recent attacks on the U.S. does not give Bush license to
retaliate against an entire people, especially people who had no
involvement in the attack. A military response is not the answer, it
will only multiply the numbers of innocent people who are dead.
Rather than military action, the U.S. government can assure the
safety of innocent people in our country by enacting humane and
socially just foreign policies. A step in this direction would be to
close the School of the Americas (a U.S. military training institute
on terrorist activity), and to end their support for inhumane
leaders, such as those the U.S. has backed in Iraq, Colombia,
Guatemala, El Salvador, and countless other countries. The Bush
administration could act justly by ending the embargoes on Cuba and
Iraq that have led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people, and
by stopping funding to Israel for the slaughter of the indigenous
Palestinian people.

As we write this article, we fear that the uncritical patriotism that
seems to characterize much of the national mood is slipping over into
jingoism, and is leading us to another war. We see misguided hate
replacing the sorrow felt for the victims of the recent attack and
are astounded by the talk of sacrificing U.S. residents' civil
liberties for a sense of false internal security.

We ask that people take a deep breath and look critically at the
plans of the Bush administration. When you take a close critical
look, you will see the cruelty, imperialism, and dehumanization that
lie behind its plans. We are hopeful that people of conscience will
stand with us in our opposition to a conflict in Afghanistan, and
thereby stand with us in our struggle for peace with justice.