Week on the War
The area has been abuzz this past couple of weeks, with folks braving the sometimes wet, sometimes bitterly cold New England weather to take to the streets and rally. The enthusiasm has been infectious, sometimes literally, was laid low by the flu after one rally in the rain, good to see people with so much spirit.
The last week saw a series of events called the Week on the War, timed appropriately enough to coincide with Veteran's Day. The week concluded with a silent march last Saturday to end the war occupation of Iraq. Rallies are typically boisterous, colourful events, the silence of this march only served to emphasise the gravitas of the protest. The week also featured a really thoughtful exhibit on the human cost of the war called Eyes Wide Open - rows and rows of military boots, a pair for every soldier killed in the war with a name tag attached, shoes of different shapes, sizes and hues symbolising the many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians slain to date in the name of "liberation", simple concept, yet one that is visually so effective.
On the sidelines of the Week on the War was a talk by Pakistani peace activist Prof. Zia Mian titled "Pakistan and India in the Nuclear Shadow". I've written before on the US military-industrial establishments Masters of War, this talk only served to re-inforce those impressions. De-classified documents apparently offer strong evidence that the US offered to arm India with nuclear weapons in the late '40s and again with the supposedly dovish JFK in the early '60s, but were repudiated both times by the strong pacifist Nehru. This time around Bush seems to have found a willing ally in Manmohan Singh's government, and under the recent US-India agreement, the US has agreed to sell India nuclear fuel. Of course, it is supposedly intended for "peaceful" purposes, but the onus of separating military from civilian use lies on India under this agreement. All of which basically means that the Bushies privately want to arm India, to develop India as a military counterweight to still-Red China. Of course, Mian Musharaff isn't going to take all these nuke sales to India lying down, so then the US would, grudgingly of course, (wink-wink) arm Pakistan, to keep its traditional South Asian ally happy, and thus begins yet another arms race.
I've ranted and raved against the Bush adminstration as much as anyone, yet they are not the only problem, the whole system rots. This military-industrial complex runs deep, much deeper than neo-con ideology. The US has been at war pretty much non-stop since World War II - Korea, Vietnam, any number of Latin American countries, Bosnia, the list is endless. Which is why I'm a little sceptical when Jimmy Carter writes in the Guardian of - ... our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened [link]
. I agree with everything else in that article, it's an interesting read coming from of the stature of Jimmy Carter, just think that the problem runs a lot deeper than this administration.
What is it going to take to effect real policy change? I have no definitive answers.. Indeed, at the end of Zia Mian's talk there was a really frail lady in the audience, who was questioning the effectiveness of talks in conference rooms when concerned folks should be trying to get people out on the streets. She ended by saying in this quavering "I think opposition without revolution is ineffective"
. So much spirit in someone probably of my grandmother's age has to be inspiring..
The last week saw a series of events called the Week on the War, timed appropriately enough to coincide with Veteran's Day. The week concluded with a silent march last Saturday to end the war occupation of Iraq. Rallies are typically boisterous, colourful events, the silence of this march only served to emphasise the gravitas of the protest. The week also featured a really thoughtful exhibit on the human cost of the war called Eyes Wide Open - rows and rows of military boots, a pair for every soldier killed in the war with a name tag attached, shoes of different shapes, sizes and hues symbolising the many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians slain to date in the name of "liberation", simple concept, yet one that is visually so effective.
On the sidelines of the Week on the War was a talk by Pakistani peace activist Prof. Zia Mian titled "Pakistan and India in the Nuclear Shadow". I've written before on the US military-industrial establishments Masters of War, this talk only served to re-inforce those impressions. De-classified documents apparently offer strong evidence that the US offered to arm India with nuclear weapons in the late '40s and again with the supposedly dovish JFK in the early '60s, but were repudiated both times by the strong pacifist Nehru. This time around Bush seems to have found a willing ally in Manmohan Singh's government, and under the recent US-India agreement, the US has agreed to sell India nuclear fuel. Of course, it is supposedly intended for "peaceful" purposes, but the onus of separating military from civilian use lies on India under this agreement. All of which basically means that the Bushies privately want to arm India, to develop India as a military counterweight to still-Red China. Of course, Mian Musharaff isn't going to take all these nuke sales to India lying down, so then the US would, grudgingly of course, (wink-wink) arm Pakistan, to keep its traditional South Asian ally happy, and thus begins yet another arms race.
I've ranted and raved against the Bush adminstration as much as anyone, yet they are not the only problem, the whole system rots. This military-industrial complex runs deep, much deeper than neo-con ideology. The US has been at war pretty much non-stop since World War II - Korea, Vietnam, any number of Latin American countries, Bosnia, the list is endless. Which is why I'm a little sceptical when Jimmy Carter writes in the Guardian of - ... our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened [link]
. I agree with everything else in that article, it's an interesting read coming from of the stature of Jimmy Carter, just think that the problem runs a lot deeper than this administration.
What is it going to take to effect real policy change? I have no definitive answers.. Indeed, at the end of Zia Mian's talk there was a really frail lady in the audience, who was questioning the effectiveness of talks in conference rooms when concerned folks should be trying to get people out on the streets. She ended by saying in this quavering "I think opposition without revolution is ineffective"
. So much spirit in someone probably of my grandmother's age has to be inspiring..