The following is mirrored from its source at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,737060,00.html
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We won't deny our consciences
Prominent Americans have issued this statement on the war on terror
14 June 2002
The Guardian
Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing
when their government declared a war without limit and instituted
stark new measures of repression.
The signers of this statement call on the people of the US to
resist the policies and overall political direction that have
emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to
the people of the world.
We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine
their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We
believe that all persons detained or prosecuted by the US
government should have the same rights of due process. We believe
that questioning, criticism, and dissent must be valued and
protected. We understand that such rights and values are always
contested and must be fought for.
We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for
what their own governments do -- we must first of all oppose the
injustice that is done in our own name. Thus we call on all
Americans to resist the war and repression that has been loosed on
the world by the Bush administration. It is unjust, immoral, and
illegitimate. We choose to make common cause with the people of
the world.
We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11. We
too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at
the terrible scenes of carnage -- even as we recalled similar
scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and, a generation ago, Vietnam. We
too joined the anguished questioning of millions of Americans who
asked why such a thing could happen.
But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the
land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic
script of "good v evil" that was taken up by a pliant and
intimidated media. They told us that asking why these terrible
events had happened verged on treason. There was to be no debate.
There were by definition no valid political or moral questions.
The only possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at
home.
In our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from
Congress, not only attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself
and its allies the right to rain down military force anywhere and
anytime. The brutal repercussions have been felt from the
Philippines to Palestine, where Israeli tanks and bulldozers have
left a terrible trail of death and destruction. The government now
openly prepares to wage all-out war on Iraq -- a country which has
no connection to the horror of September 11. What kind of world
will this become if the US government has a blank check to drop
commandos, assassins, and bombs wherever it wants?
In our name, within the US, the government has created two classes
of people: those to whom the basic rights of the US legal system
are at least promised, and those who now seem to have no rights at
all. The government rounded up over 1,000 immigrants and detained
them in secret and indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and
hundreds of others still languish today in prison. This smacks of
the infamous concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in the
second world war. For the first time in decades, immigration
procedures single out certain nationalities for unequal treatment.
In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression
over society. The President's spokesperson warns people to "watch
what they say". Dissident artists, intellectuals, and professors
find their views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The
so-called Patriot Act -- along with a host of similar measures on
the state level -- gives police sweeping new powers of search and
seizure, supervised if at all, by secret proceedings before secret
courts.
In our name, the executive has steadily usurped the roles and
functions of the other branches of government. Military tribunals
with lax rules of evidence and no right to appeal to the regular
courts are put in place by executive order. Groups are declared
"terrorist" at the stroke of a presidential pen.
We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they
talk of a war that will last a generation and when they speak of a
new domestic order. We are confronting a new openly imperial
policy towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures
and manipulates fear to curtail rights.
There is a deadly trajectory to the events of the past months that
must be seen for what it is and resisted. Too many times in
history people have waited until it was too late to resist.
President Bush has declared: "You're either with us or against
us." Here is our answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for all
the American people. We will not give up our right to question. We
will not hand over our consciences in return for a hollow promise
of safety. We say not in our name. We refuse to be party to these
wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being waged in
our name or for our welfare. We extend a hand to those around the
world suffering from these policies; we will show our solidarity
in word and deed.
We who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together
to rise to this challenge. We applaud and support the questioning
and protest now going on, even as we recognise the need for much,
much more to actually stop this juggernaut. We draw inspiration
from the Israeli reservists who, at great personal risk, declare
"there is a limit" and refuse to serve in the occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza.
We also draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience
from the past of the US: from those who fought slavery with
rebellions and the underground railroad, to those who defied the
Vietnam war by refusing orders, resisting the draft, and standing
in solidarity with resisters.
Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our
silence and our failure to act. Instead, let the world hear our
pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and repression and
rally others to do everything possible to stop it.
From:
Michael Albert
Laurie Anderson
Edward Asner, actor
Russell Banks, writer
Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
Jessica Blank, actor/playwright
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
William Blum, author
Theresa Bonpane, executive director, Office of the Americas
Blase Bonpane, director, Office of the Americas
Fr Bob Bossie, SCJ
Leslie Cagan
Henry Chalfant,author/filmmaker
Bell Chevigny, writer
Paul Chevigny, professor of law, NYU
Noam Chomsky
Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College
Kia Corthron, playwright
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Ossie Davis
Mos Def
Carol Downer, board of directors, Chico (CA) Feminist Women's
Health Centre
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor, California State University,
Hayward
Eve Ensler
Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning
John Gillis, writer, professor of history, Rutgers
Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible
Suheir Hammad, writer
David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology, CUNY
Graduate Centre
Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist
Erik Jensen, actor/playwright
Casey Kasem
Robin DG Kelly
Martin Luther King III, president, Southern Christian Leadership
Conference
Barbara Kingsolver
C Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Jodie Kliman, psychologist
Yuri Kochiyama, activist
Annisette & Thomas Koppel, singers/composers
Tony Kushner
James Lafferty, executive director, National Lawyers Guild/LA
Ray Laforest, Haiti Support Network
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun magazine
Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens Alliance
Staughton Lynd
Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for Food and Development
Policy/Food First
Malaquias Montoya, visual artist
Robert Nichols, writer
Rev E Randall Osburn, executive vice president, Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
Grace Paley
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter
Jerry Quickley, poet
Juan Gumez Quiones, historian, UCLA
Michael Ratner, president, Centre for Constitutional Rights
David Riker, filmmaker
Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup
Edward Said
John J Simon, writer, editor
Starhawk
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild/NY
Bob Stein, publisher
Gloria Steinem
Alice Walker
Naomi Wallace, playwright
Rev George Webber, president emeritus, NY Theological Seminary
Leonard Weinglass, attorney
John Edgar Wideman
Saul Williams, spoken word artist
Howard Zinn, historian
Contact the Not In Our Name statement
nionstatement@hotmail.com
© 2002 The Guardian
Reprinted for Fair Use Only.