Iraq war – Page 4 – Engaging Peace

Honoring the Peace President

Posted on February 17, 2014February 16, 2014 by kathiemm

The birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln will be celebrated in various ways today and school children around the United States will celebrate a week’s vacation.

But we at Engaging Peace want to celebrate another American president, a man of character and honor who has worked tirelessly for peace and social justice: Jimmy Carter. He is a man of rare principle, whose message of peace and brotherhood has been matched by his deeds.

President Carter is a model of moral engagement.

He does not use euphemistic language when referring to aggression by America and its allies.

He chastised the Bush administration for using “lies and misrepresentations” to involve the U.S. in an unjust Iraq war, has urged the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison and an end to its human rights abuses, and has criticized the use of drones to murder terrorist suspects and to spy on Americans.

Moreover, he is not just a talker but a doer, a man of moral agency. As President, for example, Carter:

Brokered the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin
Signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, despite enormous criticism from war hawks who considered efforts to limit nuclear proliferation a “sell out.”

Post-Presidency, he has:

Established, with his wife Rosalyn, the Carter Center, a nongovernmental nonprofit organization devoted to advancing human rights
Served as a peace ambassador in many troubled parts of the world.

Not surprisingly, Carter has many vocal critics—members of the power elite, the military-industrial complex, the war profiteers, and idolizers of bullies who are terrified at the prospect of a man of peace being a role model for the American people.

Despite what those critics do to detract from Carter’s image and his quest for peace and social justice, he is a President who earned and continues to be worthy of his Nobel Peace Prize.

Kathie Malley-Morrison

Imagine an occupation of the U.S.

Posted on November 19, 2012November 27, 2012 by kathiemm

By guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Imagine that on September 11, 2001, instead of four airplanes used as missiles, massive air strikes had targeted numerous strategic sites in the U.S.

Over 50 aerial bomb drops — Stenciling boasting over 50 aerial bomb drops. Image in public domain.

Instead of attacks over a few hours on a single morning, consider the bombardments continuing unabated for three-and-a-half weeks, for the purpose of “shocking and awing” the American people.

Instead of nearly 3,000 dead, tens of thousands of Americans are murdered in the bombings. And in the aftermath, local police and fire departments responsible for aiding the ill and injured are rendered helpless by swarms of occupying soldiers who take control of American society.

Consider the scenario of our elected leaders then being kidnapped or simply made to disappear, and foreigners—most of whom do not speak English—declaring authority over the U.S. Our lives become ruled by a military occupation that lasts the next decade.

The occupation force responsible for our security comprises primarily young men and women ignorant of our society. Human rights violations become the norm.

During the course of this decade of occupation, the foreign military protects Texas oil fields, while the fabric of American society is destroyed.

Women’s rights are set back for decades, if not centuries.
American infrastructure deteriorates while the healthcare and educational systems are decimated.
An estimated 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 American citizens die
Nearly 5,000,000 Americans are displaced [opens in PDF] from their homes
Five million children lose one or both parents
Between one and two million widows are made
Electricity, potable water, and security are scarcities.

How would we feel about the people responsible for this calamity? How would we feel about the soldiers occupying our streets?

How do Iraqis feel about us?

Dahlia Wasfi

The pain of being brutally honest with myself (A Marine remembers, Part 8)

Posted on July 9, 2012July 8, 2012 by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi]

The more I thought about it, the more I felt like there was something about these experiences that the world needed to know.

Everyday at the barracks it was staring me in the face, and every night it replayed itself in my head. Bradley and the old man he shot, Brendan’s mother, Fallujah, the innocent Iraqis who never wanted any of this, all the drinking and drugs, and everyone who told us that we were heroes–all of their individual stories put together seemed to tell a much larger story.

I tried writing, but at first everything that I wrote didn’t seem to do justice to what actually happened. Like that feeling in my gut, my story could not be put into words. I could not seem to put my finger on the significance of it all.

After many years of writing and editing and starting over, I began to realize that the elusive feeling was the significance of my story. Over time I dug deeper into my own psyche, and over time I was able to handle the pain of being brutally honest with myself.

That period was the worst and the most necessary in my life. That tormenting, indescribable feeling set me down a path that led to where I am today. It was that feeling compounded with everything that had happened and everything that I was seeing daily. It all seemed so incredible and tragic.

I could not make sense of it, but I wanted to. So I set out looking for answers. The answers I found were far more troubling than that feeling ever was.

To understand the change that I experienced, you have to understand the world that I was a part of–the Marine Corps and how Marines see themselves. You also have to recognize my ordeal in Fallujah, and in the ghetto where I bought drugs, and on a long and difficult journey through my tormented mind as I tried to understand how it all happened.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition

Swept up in the violent hysteria (A Marine remembers, Part 7)

Posted on July 5, 2012July 31, 2012 by kathiemm

[A continuing series by guest author Ross Caputi]

I spent many nights on post or lying awake in bed, wrestling with my memories and trying to understand the links among them.

Bombing Fallujah — Second siege of Fallujah. Image in public domain

I remembered that it was because my command made me an unofficial translator that I spent more time in the villages and had more contact with Iraqis than most others. I heard their grievances and saw that we were not helping them.

I remembered that it was because my command hated me that they made me the captain’s radio operator for Fallujah, and because of that I was more isolated than most from the bloody, gory combat. I was able to witness what was happening with a clearer head than all the others who got swept up in the violent hysteria of those few weeks.

And because my command hated me and made me stand post at the barracks more than anyone else, I was there to witness the effect that Iraq had on all of us. I saw it every night when I was on duty.

Once everyone was good and drunk or stoned, the stories started to pour out of them. I listened as they told me about when they had pulled the trigger and wished they hadn’t, or had watched friends bleed to death in the street and weren’t able to go help them because they were pinned down by enemy fire.

I remembered the family man that we had arrested in the villages outside of Fallujah who was not presumed innocent until proven guilty, and who would not get a jury of his peers.

I remembered the family photos that clung to the bullet-riddled walls of the homes in Fallujah.

Ross Caputi, former Marine, founder of the Justice for Fallujah Project, and former president of the Boston University Anti-War Coalition