JustPeace#37

Hot News

• 
  Say No to Terrorism — Including State Terrorism
  
  was Keith Locke’s message to the Government on 15 September. The Greens called on the Government to summon the Israeli representative to the Beehive to express New Zealand’s indignation at Israel’s threat to murder Yasser Arafat.

  “We must tell Israel quite bluntly that civilised society rejects political murder,” said Keith .

  “State terrorism of this sort is no more acceptable than the terrorist actions of suicide bombers. New Zealand, in cooperation with other nations, has to convince Israel to withdraw its ‘fatwa’ against the Palestine leader.” Read
  
  Keith’s release
  
  .

• 
  International Peace Rests on International Justice
  
  was the message from Green Co-Leader Rod Donald on 16 September. He was speaking in an urgent Parliamentary debate on the collapse of talks at the World Trade Organisation 5th Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. He began:

  ‘The Labour Government must accept its share of responsibility for the collapse of the Cancun World Trade Organization meeting yesterday. Labour could have rediscovered its internationalist roots. Labour could have acted on its claimed commitment to social justice and democracy. It did not.” Read
  
  the rest of Rod’s speech
  
  .

Hot Action

• 
  International Day of Peace — Sunday, September 21
  
  . In 2001 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution naming 21 September as the permanent date of the International Day of Peace, declaring that ‘the International Day of Peace shall henceforth be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day”. There are a number of international and local initiatives for the Day — you can check them out via the
  
  Peace Movement Aotearoa site
  
  .

• 
  Auckland, Wednesday, September 24, 7:30 p.m
  
  , St Columba Centre, 40 Vermont Street, Ponsonby – Time to Act for West Papua! screening of ‘The Act of Free Choice’, followed by discussion about the next steps in the Aotearoa Free West Papua campaign, recent documentary footage about the Timika Freeport mine murders.
• 
  Hamilton, Wednesday, September 24, 10 a.m. — 2 p.m
  
  , Hamilton City Council Reception Lounge, The Plaza. Children’s Peace Fair – Kids Helping Kids, stalls with preloved toys, swap cards, crafts, gifts, candies; children under 12 years in charge of own stall. $10 registration fee in aid of Save the Children Fund – Iraq, pre-booking of stalls essential. Organised by Hamilton Peace Movement.
• 
  Wellington, Tuesday, September 30, 12 Noon
  
  , Parliament Grounds – Rally for Mordechai Vanunu – who has been imprisoned for 17 years (including eleven and a half years in solitary confinement) for blowing the whistle on Israel’s nuclear weapons programme.
• 
  Christchurch, Tuesday, September 23, 7:30 p.m
  
  , WEA. 59 Gloucester St. – ‘New Nuclear War Threats’, a public lecture by Larry Ross, NZ Nuclear-Free Peacemaking Association.

Hot Analysis

• 
  Mis-Leading People Again — George W. Bush’s 7 September speech
  
  , intended to convince the American public to dig even deeper into their pockets and provide a further $87 billion towards occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, has been critiqued by Stephen Zunes, associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He provides a line by line critique of the most misleading statements. Some highlights are given below, and the full paper can be found at
  
  Foreign Policy in Focus
  

  ‘President George W. Bush’s nationally broadcast speech Sunday evening once again was designed to mislead Congress and the American public into supporting his administration’s policies in Iraq. Despite record deficits and draconian cutbacks in government support for health care, housing, education, the environment, and public transportation, the president is asking the American taxpayer to spend an additional $87 billion to support his invasion and occupation of Iraq…

  
  
  “And we acted in Iraq, where the former regime sponsored terror…”
  
  

  The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein indeed had sponsored terror over its nearly one-quarter of a century in power. However, according to both U.S. government agencies and independent researchers, Iraqi support for terrorism primarily took place in the 1980s, when Washington was quietly supporting the regime, and had dropped off dramatically since then. No significant Iraqi links have been found to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups that currently threaten the United States…

  
  
  “…possessed and used weapons of mass destruction,… ”
  
  

  Iraq did use weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s, when the regime was being supported by the U.S. government, but not since then.
  
  It also appears that virtually all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were destroyed or otherwise made unusable some time between five and eight years ago. Neither the United Nations nor the Bush administration has been able to show any evidence that Iraq possessed such weapons in more recent years…

  
  
  “We have carried the fight to the enemy. We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its power. ”
  
  

  If one wants to find a geographic center of the terrorist threat, it is U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, from which most of the al Qaeda leadership, sixteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, and most of the group’s financial support comes. By contrast, none of al Qaeda’s leadership, none of the 9/11 hijackers, and none of the money trail appear to have come from Iraq…

  
  
  “Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. ”
  
  

  The U.S. invasion of Iraq was justified primarily on the grounds that Iraq supposedly possessed chemical and biological weapons and had an active nuclear weapons program. Only now, as it is becoming apparent that Iraq did not have such weapons or weapons programs after all, is the Bush administration suddenly claiming that the reason for the United States to take over the country is that Iraq is now “the central front” of the “war on terror.”

  
  
  “And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.”
  
  

  It is absurd to believe that those Iraqis and Afghanis currently fighting U.S. occupation forces in their own countries actually want to somehow sneak into the United States to fight Americans here. Indeed, no Afghans or Iraqis are known to have ever committed an act of terrorism against Americans on American soil.

  The president’s statement is essentially a retread of the line used by supporters of the Vietnam War that “If we don’t fight them over there, we will have to fight them here.” However, more than 28 years after the Communist victory in Vietnam, we have yet to fight the Vietnamese in our streets and there is no indication that we ever will. The Iraqis and Afghans, as were the Vietnamese, are fighting Americans because U.S. troops are in their country and, like the Vietnamese, will stop fighting Americans once U.S. troops leave their country.’
  
  JustPeace was produced by Christine Dann, Tim Hannah and Keith Locke, MP

  If you have feedback on the content of JustPeace, or news items, please
  
  
  christine [dot] dann
  
  [at]
  
  clear [dot] net [dot] nz
  
  >email Christine Dann
  
  .

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