The Justice Not War Coalition condemns this unethical, illegal,hypocritical war – a war that makes this world a more dangerous place.
To kill thousands or tens of thousands of innocent people, mostlychildren, to drive millions of people from their homes, and to risk agrave humanitarian crisis in a nation already widely dependent on food aidis unconscionable. Jennifer Knowlton of the Justice Not War steering committee said, “While most of the world supports continued diplomacy and inspections,the Bush administration has chosen the immoral path of killing thousands of children and other innocent civilians.”
The Bush administration has failed to make a convincingcase for war. It has stooped to the use of bribery, spying, threats andmanufactured evidence. In spite of all of this, it has failed to gain thesupport of nine members of the U.N. Security Council. World opinionremains strongly in opposition to the Bush war.
The war is illegal because it is the responsibility of theU.N. Security Council to determine what actions shall be taken in responseto a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression (seeArticles 39 and 42 of the U.N. Charter). The only exception is in a caseof self-defense in response to an attack (Article 51). Yet Iraq has notattacked the United States, and not even the Bush administration hasargued that there is a threat of imminent attack.
In the United States, we believe in a system of checks andbalances. Yet when the United Nations fails to submit to the will of theBush administration, Bush suggests that the U.N. risks irrelevance. TheSupreme Court did not appoint Bush to the post of ruler of the world.
U.N. Resolution 1441, which was unanimously adopted by theSecurity Council, calls for Saddam Hussein to disarm. But for the Bushadministration to claim that it authorizes war is a bald-faced lie. AsKeir Starmer put it (The Guardian, March 17): “The argument that all thesecurity council members, including France and Russia, intended toauthorize the use of force when they voted for Resolution 1441 is hardlycompelling, and arguments that Resolution 1441 implicitly authorises theuse of force run into the same difficulty.”
The Bush administration appears to be grasping at straws. Bushhas claimed that war is authorized by resolutions 678 and 687, adopted bythe Security Council in the context of the first Gulf War. Yet 687 doesnot authorize the use of force, and 678 authorized the use of force onlyfor the purpose of restoring Kuwait’s sovereignty.
Not only is this war illegal, but for the Bush administration toinitiate an aggressive war on the basis of concerns about weapons of massdestruction is hypocritcal. Every five years since 1970, the United States hasrenewed its NPT commitment to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. Yet we stillhave nuclear weapons, thousands of which are on hair-trigger alert. TheBush administration is engaged in contingency planning for the use ofnuclear weapons against Iraq (which would be in violation of internatinoallaw, according to the World Court’s July 8, 1996 advisory opinion). TheBush administration has also increased funding for “biodefense,” whichincludes funding of research for biotech applications for bioweapons.This research is likely to launch a bioweapons arms race (see theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists — the September/October 1996 issue forcommentary on the World Court advisory opinion, and recent issues forcommentary on U.S. bioweapons research).
This war and the following military occupation of Iraq may lead toprolonged instability in Iraq, to a rise in anti-Americanism and increasedterrorist recruitment, to continued economic decline in the United Statesand to dramatically impaired diplomatic relations, in turn making it moredifficult to work with other nations to reduce terrorism and to addressother serious international problems.
The Bush administration’s $459 billion military budget, inaddition to the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars which will gotoward war on Iraq and the following military occupation, threatens tobreak the economy. The War Resisters League presents some comparisons: For$14,000 you can enroll two children in Head Start or buy a clusterbomb; for $46 million you can improve, repair and modernize 20 schoolsor support one hour of war in Iraq. At a time when schools are receivingdevastating cuts and people are being dropped from the Oregon HealthPlan, we must question the priorities of an administration set on war.
There is a road to peace, and to freedom from the scourge ofterrorism. Among other steps, this would require working together withother nations in an atmosphere of mutual respect, listening to thelegitimate concerns of people in the Middle East and around the world, andmeeting the U.N. target by allocating 1 percent of the U.S. GDP for foreign aidto address basic needs of people lacking food, clean water, shelter,medical care or opportunities for education. The United States currently allocates1/10th of 1 percent, and most of this goes to Israel and Egypt. In the words ofhistorian Howard Zinn:
“The modest nations of the world don’t face the threat ofterrorism. Let us pull back from being a military superpower and become ahumanitarian superpower.”
The Justice Not War Coalition is a community response to the events ofSept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent military actions. The coalitionsponsors and organizes activities including marches, rallies, teach-ins,conferences, planning meetings and peace vigils. When the coalition wasformed, it agreed to the following purposes: 1. Organize and promotecommunity action for global peace and justice; 2. Educate ourselves andour community about peaceful alternatives too war; 3. Resist suppressionof liberty in the name of security; 4. Speak out and act against policiesand actions that target people for their racial, ethnic, cultural and/orreligious identity.
Coalition members include: the Center for theAdvancement of Liberty, the Committee in Solidarity with the CentralAmerican People, the Community Alliance of Lane County/ProgressiveResponses, Community-wide Nonviolence Training, the Eugene Middle EastPeace Group, Eugene PeaceWorks, the Fair Trade Coalition, Faith in Action,the Independent Police Review Project, Inform Productions and Radio, LaneConversation Cafes, the Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee,Military Tax Resisters, Million Mom March, Neighborhhoods for Peace, theNonviolence Alliance, the Northwest Project of the Institute for PublicAccountability, Oregon PeaceWorks, the Pacific Green Party, Peace MonitorProgram and Training, the Socialist Party of Oregon — Lane County Chapter,Students for Peace, Urgent Carnival and Women’s Action for NewDirections.