[Peace] Antiwar petition- please sign

[patton paul]

To sign this statement and lend your financial support to its
disemination, visit the website of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy
http://www.cpdweb.org/
prominent signers include Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and many others.
-Paul P.

WE OPPOSE
Both Saddam Hussein
and the U.S. War on Iraq
A call for a new, democratic U.S. foreign policy

We oppose the impending U.S.-led war on Iraq, which threatens to inflict
vast suffering and destruction, while exacerbating rather than resolving
threats to regional and global peace. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who
should be removed from power, both for the good of the Iraqi people and
for the security of neighboring countries. However, it is up to the Iraqi
people themselves to oust Saddam Hussein, dismantle his police state
regime, and democratize their country. People in the United States can be
of immense help in this effortnot by supporting military intervention, but
by building a strong peace movement and working to ensure that our
government pursues a consistently democratic and just foreign policy.

We do not believe that the goal of the approaching war against Iraq is to
bring democracy to the Iraqis, nor that it will produce this result.
Instead, the Bush Administrations aim is to expand and solidify U.S.
predominance in the Middle East, at the cost of tens of thousands of
civilian lives if necessary. This war is about U.S. political, military
and economic power, about seizing control of oilfields and about
strengthening the United States as the enforcer of an inhumane global
status quo. That is why we are opposed to war against Iraq, whether waged
unilaterally by Washington or by the UN Security Council, unaccountable to
the UN General Assembly and bullied and bribed into endorsing the war.

The U.S. military may have the ability to destroy Saddam Hussein, but the
United States cannot promote democracy in the Muslim world and peace in
the Middle East, nor can it deal with the threat posed to all of us by
terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda, and by weapons of mass destruction,
by pursuing its current policies. Indeed, the U.S. could address these
problems only by doing the opposite of what it is doing today  that is,
by:

    * Renouncing the use of military intervention to extend and
consolidate U.S. imperial power, and withdrawing U.S. troops from the
Middle East.
    * Ending its support for corrupt and authoritarian regimes, e.g. Saudi
Arabia, the Gulf states and Egypt.
    * Opposing, and ending U.S. complicity in, all forms of terrorism
worldwide  not just by Al Qaeda, Palestinian suicide bombers and Chechen
hostage takers, but also by Colombian paramilitaries, the Israeli military
in the Occupied Territories and Russian counterinsurgency forces in
Chechnya.
    * Ending the cruel sanctions on Iraq, which inflict massive harm on
the civilian population.
    * Supporting the right of national self-determination for all peoples
in the Middle East, including the Kurds, Palestinians and Israeli Jews.
Ending one-sided support for Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
    * Taking unilateral steps toward renouncing weapons of mass
destruction, including nuclear weapons, and vigorously promoting
international disarmament treaties.
    * Abandoning IMF/World Bank economic policies that bring mass misery
to people in large parts of the world. Initiating a major foreign aid
program directed at popular rather than corporate needs.

A U.S. government that carried out these policies would be in a position
to honestly and consistently foster democracy in the Middle East and
elsewhere. It could encourage democratic forces (not unrepresentative
cliques, but genuinely popular parties and movements) in Iraq, Iran and
Syria, as well as Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and
Turkey. Some of these forces exist today, others have yet to arise, but
all would flower if nurtured by a new U.S. foreign policy.

These initiatives, taken together, would constitute a truly democratic
foreign policy. Only such a policy could begin to reverse the mistrust and
outright hatred felt by so much of the worlds population toward the U.S.
At the same time, it would weaken the power of dictatorships and the
appeal of terrorism and reactionary religious fundamentalism. Though
nothing the United States can do would decisively undermine these elements
right away, over time a new U.S. foreign policy would drastically undercut
their power and influence.

The Administrations frantic and flagrantly dishonest efforts to portray
Saddam Hussein as an imminent military threat to people in this country
and to the inhabitants of other Middle Eastern countries lack credibility.
Saddam Hussein is a killer and serial aggressor who would doubtless like
nothing better than to wreak vengeance on the U.S. and to dominate the
Gulf Region. But there is no reason to believe he is suicidal or insane.
Considerable evidence suggests that Saddam Hussein is much weaker
militarily than he was before the Gulf War and that he is still some
distance from being able to manufacture nuclear weapons. But most
important, unlike Al Qaeda, he has a state and a position of power to
protect; he knows that any Iraqi act of aggression now against the U.S. or
his neighbors would bring about his total destruction. As even CIA
Director George Tenet has pointed out, it is precisely the certainty of a
war to the finish against his regime that would provide Saddam Hussein
with the incentive he now lacks to use whatever weapons he has against the
U.S. and its allies.

Weapons of mass destruction endanger us all and must be eliminated. But a
war against Iraq is not the answer. War threatens massive harm to Iraqi
civilians, will add to the ranks of terrorists throughout the Muslim
world, and will encourage international bullies to pursue further acts of
aggression. Everyone is legitimately concerned about terrorism; however,
the path to genuine security involves promoting democracy, social justice
and respect for the right of self-determination, along with disarmament,
weapons-free-zones, and inspections. Of all the countries in the world,
the United States possesses by far the most powerful arsenal of weapons of
mass destruction. If the U.S. were to initiate a democratic foreign policy
and take serious steps toward disarmament, it would be able to encourage
global disarmament as well as regional demilitarization in the Middle
East.

The Bush Administration has used the alleged Iraqi military danger to
justify an alarming new doctrine of preemptive war. In the National
Security Strategy, publicly released on September 20, 2002, the Bush
Administration asserted that the U.S. has the right to attack any country
that might be a potential threat, not merely in response to an act of
military aggression. Much of the world sees this doctrine for what it is:
the proclamation of an undisguised U.S. global imperium.

Ordinary Iraqis, and people everywhere, need to know that there is another
America, made up of those who both recognize the urgent need for
democratic change in the Middle East and reject our governments
militaristic and imperial foreign policy. By signing this statement we
declare our intention to work for a new democratic U.S. foreign policy.
That means helping to rein in the war-makers and building the most
powerful antiwar movement possible, and at the same time forging links of
solidarity and concrete support for democratic forces in Iraq and
throughout the Middle East.

We refuse to accept the inevitability of war on Iraq despite the enormous
military juggernaut that has been put in place, and we declare our
commitment to work with others in this country and abroad to avert it. And
if war should start, we will do all in our power to end it immediately.

__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-328-4064
homepage: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ppatton/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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