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4/20/2003
What do YOU call a Government that Oppresses its Indigenous Peoples ??
Support the "Piestewa Peace Process" Let's Keep "The Right Thing" going ! "There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come." Let's build on the momentum of the all-too-rare recent dose of wisdom that changed "Squaw Peak" to "Piestewa Peak" in Phoenix, AZ. Let's call upon all of our State and Federal elected officials to do an across-the-map "Replace All" of "Piestewa" for "Squaw" Think of the possibilities for healing.... hmmmm.... U.S. Senate U.S. House of Representatives 
View Larger Image "Homeland Security Fighting Terrorism Since 1492" >> Get it now online.... 4/19/2003
Arab News SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank You, America Dr. Samia Al-Amoudi/Al-Madinah Published on Sunday, April 20, 2003 I have never felt so happy and pleased with America. Indeed, it has been the first time since I began understanding what was happening around me that I have felt like this toward that country. I grew up with people around me adoring everything American — from the T-shirt to the food. I saw them glorify America’s values, sciences, freedom and way of life. The sole dream for them was to travel to America to study and then settle there and live like an American. I am happy that America has at last let its mask slip and now we can see what lies behind it. It seems that America was not what it wanted us to think or what we thought it was. Today, I say “Thank you, America” because it has shown the entire world and not only the Saudis, Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese and others, what it really stands for. Even America’s cousins, the Europeans, woke up to find themselves dealing with an America which they did not know and which was unfamiliar to them. The credit for what we have learned must be given to modern information technology. Sitting in our homes we have been able to see how the Security Council functions and how summit conferences are run — all of this through live television coverage. Through the same television, we have also been able to see America’s barbarity, the massacres it commits and apparently condones against those it imagines to be its enemies. We have all heard and read a great deal about occupation and colonization. Today, we can see it with our naked eyes. We see how the American soldiers treat Iraqi civilians and how insensitive they are to the feelings and traditions of Islam and Muslims. In the past, colonizers used to enter a country, occupy it and then start directing its affairs by sending their soldiers into the streets to maintain order. This American colonization is different, however. Like the sexual freedom so common in the United States where every one is free to do what they like — no matter what and with no consideration whatsoever for religious or human values — the Americans have brought this kind of freedom to Iraq. A country of millions has been left without administration or any kind of government. America, the great nation which possesses the most advanced technologies and is capable of making the most unimaginable of plans, entered and occupied Iraq but forgot to prepare itself for what might happen next. It forgot to plan for any kind of provisional administration to run the country but was very keen to occupy and carefully guard those government institutions which concerned it and that are the reason behind its occupation — the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum and the country’s oil fields. The rest of the country is of no importance and has thus been left to enjoy American freedom and democracy; the looting, burning and systematic destruction of Iraq. Today it is Iraq. Tomorrow Syria? Who will be next? Arab News From the Local Press 20 April 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2003 ArabNews All Rights Reserved. Marin Independent Journal April 19, 2003 Anti-war activists speak in Marin By Beth Ashley IJ senior feature writer Thursday, April 17, 2003 - DANIEL ELLSBERG, outspoken anti-war activist who will lecture here April 28, is convinced that America's next military target is Syria, though he says the reasons for such an attack would obviously be spurious. "Saddam has moved his biological weapons to Syria?" Ellsberg snorts in a phone interview from Brattleboro, Vermont. "Why would he do that?" - supporting a country ruled by a rival Baathist party which has opposed Iraqi policies in the past. And why would Syria want them, when the recent U.S. attack made it clear that "this is a good time to get rid of biological weapons?" After Syria, Ellsberg predicts, the U.S. will move into Iran. When the Bush administration says there are no plans for further aggresssion, "that's an obvious lie," he says. Ellsberg - an ex-Marine best known for making public the government's super-secret Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War - will join David Harris of Mill Valley, a high profile Vietnam War protester, onstage at Olney Hall, College of Marin, at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 28, for a forum titled "Voices of Conscience: Reclaiming American Democracy Through Awareness and Action." Belva Davis of KQED-TV's "This Week in California" will moderate. Sponsored by the college, the Vanguard Foundation and the ad hoc citizens' Ruth Group, the forum is intended to help participants sort out the mixed messages of today's political debate and to find a focus for their concerns. "I want to grapple with how we can break the current war juggernaut," says Harris. "How can we harness the power of the millions of (people), locally and globally, who want to find peaceful solutions to the world's political problems?" Ellsberg says rallying the opposition will be an uphill battle, thanks to the Bush administration's success in controlling media reports on the war and its rationale. Hitler's Joseph Goebbels would have envied the administration's propaganda machine, Ellsberg says. For instance, he points out, the administration convinced 70 percent of the American public that there was a linkage between Saddam Hussein and events of 9/11, despite open testimony by the CIA's George Tenet that his agency had found no such linkage. Bush and his supporters persuaded the American public that war was necessary to keep Saddam from using weapons of mass destruction, which Secretary of State Colin Powell, for instance, said we had proof he possessed. Yet none have been found, and none were used, even when the administration insisted he would use them in a last-ditch effort to defend Baghdad. "A lot of people who opposed the war think Bush will now transport (such weapons) to Iraq and then 'find' them," says Ellsberg. "But I don't think he's going to bother. So he doesn't find any, so what - 'I guess they went to Syria.' What's the evidence they went to Syria? 'You didn't ask for evidence before.' "He's going to count on the public losing interest." Ellsberg says most Americans believe the war was a great success, "even if you didn't find Saddam, even if you didn't find weapons of mass destruction. The war wasn't about weapons of mass destruction anyway - it was so blatantly about two things - oil and Israel." Many anti-war protesters today feel a sense of failure, Ellsberg says, but he insists they shouldn't. Although they were a minority in the United States, they were linked with "16 million who marched throughout the world." They had allies in the United Nations Security Council, France, Russia, Germany and in the British Labor Party "who couldn't put a leash on their prime minister." United Nations opposition succeeded in depriving the administration of the cloak of legitimacy in launching a pre-emptive war, he says. United Nations opposition preserved the concept that pre-emptive war "is a crime against peace." For that crime, in Ellsberg's eyes, Bush is "clearly indictable." By directing the attention of the world to Iraq, the opposition "did keep the military on its toes" about willy-nilly targeting of population centers and did, to an extent, hold down mass destruction. Ellsberg says he is "unreservedly happy" that the fighting is over and that the casualties were no greater than they were. "I did not want egg on the face of Rumsfeld in the form of more blood." But he says the war has dug a hole for the United States that will take a long time to dig out of. He questions why the American public feels safer now than before the war, which further enraged one billion Muslims who already hate us. "The world has become dangerous in a way it never was before," he says, and becomes more so "with every arrogant piece of imperialism, every arrogant thing our leaders say, which is almost every word that comes out of their mouths." Ellsberg's advice to concerned citizens - including those who favored the war - is to seek out other opinions than those in the mainstream media, particularly in such websites as buzzflash.com, antiwar.com and commondreams.org, or in newspapers like the Boston Globe, the St. Louis Post Dispatch or the Los Angeles Times. "We all speak the same language," he says. "We should engage in dialogue on as calm and rational a level as possible. Rhetoric is not very helpful." At the April 28 forum, Harris will also urge calm. "We need to take a step outside the frenzy of the last six months to assess where we are in regard to the larger policies that have driven this war. What are the implications for democracy and for us as individual citizens? What can we do to make sure we can continue to be a democracy and to reclaim the democracy we have lost?" he says. Ellsberg says concerned Americans 'should listen to the people of Europe and the rest of the world - maybe they have some ideas about how we can get out of this hole." "We should be linking arms with our counterparts all over the world - joining consciously with a worldwide movement for peace that is stronger and wider than ever. "We are not the engine of the worldwide movement, but we can be part of it," he says. Ellsberg, who lived in Mill Valley in the mid-1970s, now lives in Kensington, but has been traveling widely recently while promoting his new book, "Secrets." Harris is the author of eight books and is at work on a ninth, an account of the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-80. IF YOU GO "Voices of Conscience: Reclaiming American Democracy Through Awareness and Action," Monday, April 28, 7:30 p.m., Olney Hall, College of Marin, sponsored by the Ruth Group of Marin County, the college and the Vanguard Foundation. Tickets are $8 adults, $5 students and seniors over 65. For reservations, call College of Marin box office, 485-9385. Contact Beth Ashley at bashley@marinij.com. 3/21/2003
3/04/2003
Dear friend, I'm hoping you can join us on an emergency petition from citizens around the world to the U.N. Security Council. The petition's going to be delivered to the 15 member states of the Security Council on THURSDAY, MARCH 6. If hundreds of thousands of us sign, it could be an enormously important and powerful message -- people from all over the world joining in a single call for a peaceful solution. But we really need everyone who agrees to sign up today. You can do so easily and quickly at: http://www.moveon.org/emergency/ The stakes couldn't really be much higher. A war with Iraq could kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and inflame the Middle East. According to current plans, it would require an American occupation of the country for years to come. And it could escalate in ways that are horrifying to imagine. We can stop this tragedy from unfolding. But we need to speak together, and we need to do so now. Let's show the Security Council what world citizens think. Thank you. The H2Hnet BLOG Team 3/03/2003
3/01/2003
War is not inevitable! Join an Interfaith Prayer Service Against Poverty and War Grace Cathedral, Sunday March 2, 2003 San Francisco, California @ Taylor 3:00 p.m. Interfaith Prayer Service For more info, click here or visit http://www.workingassets.com/interfaith. Featuring, among others: Bishop Beverly Shamana Calif.-Nevada Conference, United Methodist Church Rabbi Stephen Pearce Congregation Emanu-El Omar Ahmad Council on American Islamic Relations Jonah Edelman Stand for Children Robert Edgar National Council of Churches Please come wherever you are on your journey of faith. Come with your own congregation, come with a neighbor, come alone and join with thousands of others searching for ways to achieve social justice and prevent war. This free public event will highlight the real connections between our ongoing rush to war and our neglect of domestic programs that result in economic hardship across the United States and the world. We will advocate for peaceful solutions to the conflict with Iraq; especially ones that do not aggravate poverty in the United States and worldwide. We need your help to get the word out. Please let your friends, family and neighbors know about the Interfaith Prayer Service for Peace. For more information on how to participate, including how to volunteer, please visit http://www.workingassets.com/interfaith or call the San Francisco Interfaith Center at 415/495-1709. Sponsored by Working Assets, Grace Cathedral, the United Religions Initiative, the San Francisco Interfaith Council, the California Council of Churches/California Church IMPACT, and the National Council of Churches. Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences by US Senator Robert Byrd Senate Floor Speech - Wednesday, February 12, 2003 To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war. Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war. And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world. This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption -- the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future -- is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter. And it is being tested at a time of world-wide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our -- or some other nation's -- hit list. High level Administration figures recently refused to take nuclear weapons off of the table when discussing a possible attack against Iraq. What could be more destabilizing and unwise than this type of uncertainty, particularly in a world where globalism has tied the vital economic and security interests of many nations so closely together? There are huge cracks emerging in our time-honored alliances, and U.S. intentions are suddenly subject to damaging worldwide speculation. Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11. Here at home, people are warned of imminent terrorist attacks with little guidance as to when or where such attacks might occur. Family members are being called to active military duty, with no idea of the duration of their stay or what horrors they may face. Communities are being left with less than adequate police and fire protection. Other essential services are also short-staffed. The mood of the nation is grim. The economy is stumbling. Fuel prices are rising and may soon spike higher. This Administration, now in power for a little over two years, must be judged on its record. I believe that that record is dismal. In that scant two years, this Administration has squandered a large projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion over the next decade and taken us to projected deficits as far as the eye can see. This Administration's domestic policy has put many of our states in dire financial condition, under funding scores of essential programs for our people. This Administration has fostered policies which have slowed economic growth. This Administration has ignored urgent matters such as the crisis in health care for our elderly. This Administration has been slow to provide adequate funding for homeland security. This Administration has been reluctant to better protect our long and porous borders. In foreign policy, this Administration has failed to find Osama bin Laden. In fact, just yesterday we heard from him again marshaling his forces and urging them to kill. This Administration has split traditional alliances, possibly crippling, for all time, International order-keeping entities like the United Nations and NATO. This Administration has called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as well-intentioned, peacekeeper. This Administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labeling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come. Calling heads of state pygmies, labeling whole countries as evil, denigrating powerful European allies as irrelevant -- these types of crude insensitivities can do our great nation no good. We may have massive military might, but we cannot fight a global war on terrorism alone. We need the cooperation and friendship of our time-honored allies as well as the newer found friends whom we can attract with our wealth. Our awesome military machine will do us little good if we suffer another devastating attack on our homeland which severely damages our economy. Our military manpower is already stretched thin and we will need the augmenting support of those nations who can supply troop strength, not just sign letters cheering us on. The war in Afghanistan has cost us $37 billion so far, yet there is evidence that terrorism may already be starting to regain its hold in that region. We have not found bin Laden, and unless we secure the peace in Afghanistan, the dark dens of terrorism may yet again flourish in that remote and devastated land. Pakistan as well is at risk of destabilizing forces. This Administration has not finished the first war against terrorism and yet it is eager to embark on another conflict with perils much greater than those in Afghanistan. Is our attention span that short? Have we not learned that after winning the war one must always secure the peace? And yet we hear little about the aftermath of war in Iraq. In the absence of plans, speculation abroad is rife. Will we seize Iraq's oil fields, becoming an occupying power which controls the price and supply of that nation's oil for the foreseeable future? To whom do we propose to hand the reigns of power after Saddam Hussein? Will our war inflame the Muslim world resulting in devastating attacks on Israel? Will Israel retaliate with its own nuclear arsenal? Will the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian governments be toppled by radicals, bolstered by Iran which has much closer ties to terrorism than Iraq? Could a disruption of the world's oil supply lead to a world-wide recession? Has our senselessly bellicose language and our callous disregard of the interests and opinions of other nations increased the global race to join the nuclear club and made proliferation an even more lucrative practice for nations which need the income? In only the space of two short years this reckless and arrogant Administration has initiated policies which may reap disastrous consequences for years. One can understand the anger and shock of any President after the savage attacks of September 11. One can appreciate the frustration of having only a shadow to chase and an amorphous, fleeting enemy on which it is nearly impossible to exact retribution. But to turn one's frustration and anger into the kind of extremely destabilizing and dangerous foreign policy debacle that the world is currently witnessing is inexcusable from any Administration charged with the awesome power and responsibility of guiding the destiny of the greatest superpower on the planet. Frankly many of the pronouncements made by this Administration are outrageous. There is no other word. Yet this chamber is hauntingly silent. On what is possibly the eve of horrific infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq -- a population, I might add, of which over 50% is under age 15 -- this chamber is silent. On what is possibly only days before we send thousands of our own citizens to face unimagined horrors of chemical and biological warfare - this chamber is silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our attack on Iraq, it is business as usual in the United States Senate. We are truly "sleepwalking through history." In my heart of hearts I pray that this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings. To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is "in the highest moral traditions of our country". This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time. Published on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 by CommonDreams.org U.S. Senate Greetings and Blessings !!!! Welcome to The Human2Human Network World Peace BLOG !! 
Watch the video! The 2000 Today version of "One Love", Featuring - Gipsy Kings with Ziggy Marley, Tsidii Le Loka, and the Boys Choir of Harlem (Windows Media) We will begin our journey with United for Peace and Justice and Not In Our Name and go from there.... 
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