[Peace] Re: [Aware] Can you help?

[Morton K. Brussel]

I am against the war on terrorism because it is a phony war, open  
ended, and an excuse for grossly compromising our civil rights and,  
indeed, the fundamental principles of liberty and justice of our  
nation. It has spawned the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act  
(destroying habeus corpus!), engendered sending people to Guantanamo  
and elsewhere (rendition) to be tortured and incarcerated without any  
reasonable judicial recourse--left to decay in black holes like in  
the middle ages. Our very privacy is now in the hands of  
irresponsible federal agents because of this supposed war.

And most heinous of all, the "war" has led "us" to invade a nation  
posing no threat to us, no relation to 9/11 (despite claims by the  
administration to the contrary), destroying that nation (Iraq),  
causing 100's of thousands of deaths---Iraqis, U.S military and their  
mercenaries. This terror war  has led us to terrorize, increased  
terrorism, not eliminated it. It is an open ended invitation to  
autocracy, to facism, to undermining of our republic.

This war has created a horrible civil conflict in Iraq, and a crisis  
here at home, turning all those of the wrong origin or appearance  
into suspects subject to unjustified harassment.

Our liberties are directly threatened because of the fears engendered  
in our population by this so-called war. A war is usually understood  
to be between states, the the war on terror is a vague kind of thing,  
where anyone you don't like is subject to be called terrorists, and  
killed. If there are dangerous people in the world, police actions  
should be used to search them out, not indiscriminate bombing of  
populations and their inevitable innocent casualties.

We didn't bomb Oklahoma City…We went after Timothy McVeigh…

The elimination of terrorism must start with our government. Let it  
stop terrorizing others with its military, its CIA,  its paid  
mercenaries, and start helping the underprivileged and unfed of the  
world. Let us renounce war/violence as a method of settling  
differences. Terrorists often have legitimate grievances and a sense  
that those grievances cannot be overcome against an all powerful  
entity---us--- except by violence. If we behave better in the world,  
terrorism will abate; that is sure. It has been noted that the 9/11  
terrorists didn't bother Sweden.

I could go on. This "war on/of? terror" is compromising the very  
infrastructure of our nation. Education, roads, health, environment  
could all use the billions wasted on bombs and the military in  
pursuit of an amorphous "war". . A few benefit from the billions  
passed around to the corporations for their war aid, but most don't.

Yes, 9/11 did happen, a terrorist event, but you may not realize that  
our own government was complicit in this event in that we trained the  
Mujahadin in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, and what do you know,  
they turned against us. And no one has yet explained who was  
responsible for the anthrax scare early on. Our amazing FBI is  
clueless? Amazing, and suspicious.

Terrorism can be met with good police actions without terrorizing  
others and destroying the basis of our republic.

Enough.

---mkb


On Jan 29, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Gilbert Langdon wrote:

> Can you help me understand why you are against the war on terroism?  
> I came to see your protest the war movement on saturday 27. I  
> watched and read some of the signs and I am not sure what to  
> believe. On sept.11 2001 radical Islamists killed a lot of  
> americans. Why should we not try to keep them from doing it again?  
> I hope you can tell me. Thank you for your time.    sincerly  
> Virginia Langdon.
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