Friends,
The ramp-up to an attack upon Iran by Bush, Cheney and their "enablers" in Congress and elsewhere continues unabated, so it seems. It appears that Cheney, even more than Bush, wants to attack Iran. That is becoming clear due to mounting evidence presented by a cadre of courageous investigative journalists and analysts willing to break away from "mainstream" media reporting -- such as Seymour Hersh, Chalmers Johnson, Jim Lobe, Gareth Porter, Scott Ritter, Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Scott Horton, Steven Zunes, Ray McGovern, Phyllis Bennis, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Paul Loeb, Marjorie Cohn, and a number of others.
It seems quite clear to many thoughtful analysts that an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran would violate both U.S. and international law, and would lead to a series of events that would cascade into World War III. Most of us believe there simply is no justification for such an attack -- it would be immoral and unjust, and it would lead to unending and escalating violence and destruction that would spread to more and more countries. They did it all before -- in Iraq -- but attempting to do it again, in Iran, would certainly have catastrophic consequences. Bush/Cheney simply have no idea...
I'll admit that I've been involved heretofore, as I suspect you have too, in debates about the efficacy of impeaching Bush and Cheney, for the numerous impeachable crimes they have already committed, before they do any additional damage to our country and the world.
But now I think it's worth discussing an even more compelling and practical use of our energies at this critical juncture in history: The following is a short and compelling article by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith about our current ominous situation, and about how the military might be enlisted to stop an attack upon Iran, which a friend of mine put me on to recently:
How the Military Can Stop an Iran Attack -- 10/9/07
Here are the last three paragraphs of the article which I have excerpted to whet your appetite to read the whole thing -- and I must say, it's quite the challenge for traditional "peaceniks" !
"Such an approach puts the problem of civilian control of the military in a different light. The purpose of civilian control, after all, is not to subject the military to the dictatorial control of one man who may, at the least, express the foolishness and frailty that all flesh is heir to. The purpose is to subject the military to the control of democratic governance, which is to say of an informed public and its representatives.
"What contribution can the peace movement make to this process? We can cover military officials' backs when they speak out--no one is better placed than the peace movement to defend them against Bushite charges of defying civilian control. We can help open a forum for military officers to speak out. Many retired officers have spoken out publicly on the folly of the war in Iraq. We can use our venues in universities and communities to invite them to speak out even more forcefully on the folly of an attack on Iran. We can place ads pointing out military resistance to an attack on Iran and featuring warnings of its possible consequences from past and present military officials. And we can encourage lawmakers to reach out to military officials and offer to give them cover and a forum to speak out. Says petition initiator Marcy Winograd, "I'd like to see peace activists and soldiers sit down, break bread, march together, testify together and forge a powerful union to end the next war before the bloodletting begins."
"The peace movement leaders who appealed to the military had to break through the conventional presumption that the brass were their enemies in all situations. Such an unlikely alliance could be a starting point for a nonviolent response to the Bush Administration's pursuit of a permanent state of war."
Am I up for that sort of challenge? Are you?
In addition, for the sake of discussion -- and perhaps an even more compelling question some readers here -- what/who have you found to be your best model(s) for authentic peacemaking within your sphere of relationships and local endeavors? In other words, who and how are we deploying "spiritual resources" for effective resistance -- standing in the way of this hell-bent drive toward unfettered warfare?
Is it not time to discuss what shape the modern "Confessing Church" movement -- which Dietrich Bonhoeffer initiated during the Third Reich's rise to power in Germany -- is (or ought to be) taking?
Peace!
Clair
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