[Peace] NY times piece on Halabja

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

I was on phone waiting to come on during Amy's show with Assif, Karen, and 
Chris. We ran out of time so we will continue this next week. Chris Busby's 
new report which I have read and discussed with our other team members and 
that was part of our lecture series this week is critical. Assif's findings 
of DU health effects in Afghanistan is significant. We are increasing 
pressure in administration to ban DU.  I was also with Steven Pelletiere at 
St. Bonaventure University as one of speakers for visiting scholars program. 
Steve's talk was: "The Persian Gulf on the Brink"  and mine:  "American 
Soldiers in Iraq: The New Warfare". We spent two days together teaching 
class, discussing events, and giving our primary invited talks.  Steve and I 
discussed this incident from each of our perspectives based on our actual 
responsibilities during Gulf War I and since.  Maybe someday we will all sit 
down to discuss this and other incidents. But it will not be done in a few 
minutes.  We were also successful (my Bloomington pantagraph guest editorial 
1/19/03) in getting USMC unit in Peoria to turn in their faulty gas masks and 
delay / cancel deployment until they were replaced.  

I just returned from a one week speaking tour with a focus on stopping this 
upcoming war.  I started at University of Ohio, Columbus for "Ladies in Black 
Vigil", 1/24; two talks at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, evening of 
1/25 and morning of 1/26; Cleveland combined faiths on evening of  1/26; 
class for combined classes at Cleveland Catholic Girls high school at 9:30 on 
1/27 followed by a meeting with Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper editorial 
board followed by talk at University of Akron at 2 pm then on to Convent of 
Franciscan Sisters, Catholic Commission, Akron, Ohio.  I then drove to 
University of Buffalo, Buffalo NY to give a talk. listen to State of Union, 
and then participate/ lead Univ of Buffalo's  G.W.'s State of Union speech 
analysis.  On 1/29 and 1/30 I was visiting scholar at Saint Bonaventure 
Catholic University, I was guest lecturer for Catholic Theology and Ethics 
class (Father Judd) with focus on Just War and a combined class on geography 
and history. I gave an invited talk on 1/30 as 2nd part of series "Iraq on 
the Brink" with Steven Pelletiere, Army War College and CIA.  I then returned 
to university of Ohio last night for "Ladies in Black Vigil" (about 40 showed 
up on campus)  and an a video interview with a history professor. This week 
was an excellent experience as I met many individuals of all faiths, 
professions,  and occupations who are striving for peace. The Canadian 
Broadcasting Company sent an investigative reporter/videographer along with 
me/us during the speaking tour  for a story "On the Road with Dr. Rokke" that 
will be broadcast in Canada on CBC's National magazine.  It was set for today 
but Shuttle crash altered line up.  This is a follow up to a previous story 
we did with CBC called the "The Silver Bullet'.  As to News Gazette, John is 
on his own, but Tom Kacich wrote a great piece based on our discussions in 
Jan 26 edition on page B-3. our team has many more stories coming out to stop 
this war all over our nation, Canada, Europe, and Japan.   
But we sure need more help. 

In peace,

doug 
643-6205