Does Anyone Ever Listen to the People?

   

Play the above song for peace!

Who will history judge as the instigator of the war that may come in Syria? There will be many versions to the answer.
by Charlie Leck

If America sends a number of missiles crashing down on Syria, will our nation be considered the instigator of a war? Or, did Syrian citizens begin the war when they revolted against the nation’s current leadership. Or was it Assad who began the war by so seriously mistreating his people? I can only imagine there will be different answers for different people.

I don’t want no war no more!
Honest to God, we’re a people tired – we Americans – of the price, the energy and the human life that is expended on war. We are tired! Exhausted!

Aren’t there other ways! Can’t brilliant and talented people find other ways to solve such problems?

Who is this Assad guy – this Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria? In an interview with Le Figaro yesterday, President Assad said this of President Obama: “For us, a strong man prevents rather than starts a war… Obama is weak because he is facing pressure from within the United States.”

Assad denies being responsible for the gassing of his own people. He declares that his fight is against al-Qaeda.

“We are fighting terrorists… They are not interested in reform or in politics. The only way to deal with them is to annihilate them.”

America talks now of sending new and advanced weapons to the rebels – the Free Syrian Army.

Where is the truth? The tired people want to know! Will we be arming al-Qaeda? Isn’t it permissible to ask? Does John McCain know the answer? Does President Obama? Does Francois Hollande?

Dump it in the lap of the United Nations and demand that they do something! Do something or disband as a fake! Where is the thinking of the Nonviolent Peace Force? Bring this organization in to sit down with rebels and the President of Syria for talks.

We – the people – we don’t want no war no more? Does anyone ever listen to the people?

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WMD

Here we go again! We’re takin’ the show on the road again! Getting’ our feet wet again! All for the ol’ WMD...  I’ll get serious. War rides upon the wind again!
by Charlie Leck

I want to believe Secretary of State John Kerry. I think I do believe him. He is an honest and honorable man. However, I believed Colin Powell as well. And, I remember the night that the planes flew over Bagdad, raining down terror and destruction, and began our horrible war against Iraq. In the coming months the air cleared and certainties became less certain and then less and less certain; and finally they became not only uncertain but untrue. Colin Powell did not lie. He is too good a man to do that. He was fed erroneous and misleading information, however.

It has turned out, in the eyes and minds of most reasonable people, that our invasion of Iraq was one of the most serious foreign policy mistakes ever made by our nation.

It now seems certain that America will take military action against Syria. The promise is that it will be very limited. We claim that it will be supported by our allies. Yet, the British parliament has denied permission for Prime Minister David Cameron to get involved. France is cool. Germany is silent. Russian is angry!

You are watching the news as intensely as I. There is no need for me to get analytical here. I write only to express my trepidations and fears.

Isn’t there some way to pressure the leaders of the government of Syria that would not require military actions? Must there always be violence? Why doesn’t the United Nations function more successfully? Must there always be madness? Why aren’t we involving the Nonviolent Peaceforce?

Secretary of State Kerry gave clear reasons for our coming attack. The Syrian government crossed a red line that had been drawn for it by our president. It was clear that Kerry was telling us that we, as a government, cannot let that happen. If we let it happen here, then we would be forced to let it happen anywhere.

Oh, my! The madness of it all!

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War in a Time of Cholera

Why doesn’t a nation feel it more? Why does it seem so comfortable and normal at home while the troops are always in harm’s way?
by Charlie Leck

During World War II, people thought about and talked about the war every single day. When you sat down to dinner in the evening, your family said grace and prayed for the boys at war.

I was just a little boy, yet I remember the mood and the atmosphere. Sure, life went on. People had jobs that had to be done. Kids had to go to school. Children had to be cared for and watched over. There were still dances and movies and ballgames. Yet, the war pervaded every moment of every day. On the East Coast, we went through regular air-raid drills and had black-out exercises, when all the lights in the community would go off, and we'd spend time in utter darkness.

Starting in Korea, that seemed to change. I don’t know why. I won’t pretend I do. It just changed. It was that way in Vietnam, too. Maybe it’s because these weren’t real wars. What was it they called the war in Korea, a police action?

Congress didn’t declare war in Korea and it didn't declare war on Vietnam. It didn’t declare war on Iraq or Afghanistan either.

But, folks, there’s a war going on -- two wars actually. Real young men and women are going to those wars. Some are dying. Others are coming home severely damaged. Their lives are being disrupted and, perhaps, that disruption will last forever for them.

Why don’t I feel it? Why don’t I hang near the radio, as my parents did, waiting for some announcement of victory on the battlefield? For some movement up Hill J409? The placement of our flag atop some mountain?

Again, as I said a few paragraphs ago, I’m not going to guess. I don’t know; yet I keep thinking about it and wonder why we don’t understand that it is some perverse entanglement of the Industrial-Military Complex. Remember, President Eisenhower warned us against it? Is it possible that war keeps the economy moving? And now, in this terrible time of unemployment and economic catastrophe for so many people, we pour more billions into the machinery of war.

In a remarkable article in yesterday’s (13 Feb 2010) NY Times, C.J. Chivers takes his readers into an intense battlefield movement by U.S. Troops in Afghanistan: Afghan Attack Gives Marines a Taste of War. It is an extremely well done piece that enables you to feel the war and the fears of the men and women who fight it.

“The Taliban let the Marines walk into an open field and approach a tall stand of dried grass. Then they opened fire in a hasty ambush. The Marines dropped. They fired back, exposed. Gunfire rose to a crescendo.

"Corporal Drake shouted over the noise to the team in front, 'You got everyone?' He shouted to the team behind him, which was pressed flat in the field. 'Everyone O.K.?'

The Taliban firing subsided. 'We’re moving!' the corporal shouted. The patrol stood and sprinted toward the withdrawing Taliban, and then ran across irrigation dikes and poppy fields and entered the compound that had been struck.”

Maybe all of us back home should be forced to read such stuff every day. I don’t want to forget there is a war going on; yet, I need to remind myself that these guys are fighting so we can be free and go on with our lives. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem fair.

I keep thinking that we would push the war to an end if we felt the pain more. We should be forced to pay war taxes as long as the boys are away fighting. The war should be paid for in cold, hard cash pulled from every citizen's pocket. We should all do some kind of volunteer work to assist in the war effort. We should gather in a park each month to hear the names of the dead read off to us one by one; and then we should pray God their souls to keep.

It seems so wrong to have American young people off dying and getting seriously mangled and injured while we just go on dining out, going to the theater and playing in the backyard with the dog.

I’ve just finished reading a couple of enormous works about the Civil War. It was the ugliest, costliest and most painful war in our history. More men died there than in all our other wars combined. Yet, while troops were falling in and around Richmond, near Gettysburg and all through the south to Atlanta, Mobile and Vicksburg, life went on peacefully in Minnesota and Illinois and Vermont.

War is perverse! It seems we should be bright enough to figure out ways to avoid it. Yet, human beings are vain, covetous and cruel, and they send young people off to fight old people’s wars. Old people should go fight their own wars and the young should be allowed to grow and mature in a healthy, sane environment.

War is too easy in America. We went to Vietnam too easily. We sprang upon Granada for absurd and scandalous reasons. We created a big lie so we could invade Iraq. Now we are entangled in Afghanistan, trying to stay on mission and putting young people’s lives at risk each and every day.

War is a disease in our land. It is too quickly the answer when there might be other approaches. I’m no peacenik and I’m not a pacifist, but I know there may often be other answers when the wolves are crying “war.”

If you have sympathy for my words, you are likely familiar with the Non-Violent Peace Force; and if you are not, you should be. I’m a member and I like what they do.

Nonviolent Peaceforce

Mel Duncan, Minneapolis, is the founder of Nonviolent Peaceforce

Give Peace a Chance
by Charlie Leck

Tuesday evening we were the guests of friends who are significant supporters of the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP). I’m embarrassed to admit that I had not even heard of NP before that evening. I came away from the organization’s little fund-raiser quite impressed. In addition to making a small contribution, I determined that I would try to spread the word about them.

[Be sure to visit the web site of Nonviolent Peaceforce!]

I find it difficult to believe how quickly America has been drawn into several wars in my lifetime that could likely have been solved much more easily, inexpensively and civilly through peaceful measures – it’s true of Korea, Vietnam, Granada and, now, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Paranoia is one of the great problems of the American psyche. We were irrationally threatened by communism and those fears catapulted us into both Korea and Vietnam. This is certainly true in the case of Vietnam, where our adoption of the “domino theory” at that time was totally unfounded.

Our nation continues to reveal its paranoia when it comes to terrorism and that plays right into the hands of the terrorist, who seeks to strike fear into our hearts, and therefore succeeds in his mission.

The idea, which eventually gave birth to NP, was born among a group of participants at the 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace and then became a reality when it was first convened in 2002 in Surajkund, India.

“Nonviolent Peaceforce is a non-profit organisation dedicated to creating an international peaceforce of civilians trained in nonviolent strategies.

Nonviolent Peaceforce responds to requests for help anywhere in the world, using proven methods of nonviolence to protect human rights, deter violence and help create space for local peacemakers to carry out their work. The need is great: it has been estimated that as few as 1,000 people trained in nonviolence could have prevented the violence and genocide that devastated Yugoslavia in 1998. [This emphasis is not in the original.]

Nonviolent Peaceforce represents the hope of many people for an alternative to massive military intervention. It is a key component in the development of a strategic, cohesive, nonviolent response to brutality and threats of genocidal violence.”

I put part of the above quotation in bold type because it strikes me as extraordinary. I intend to soon ask what sort of strategy could have been used in my ancestor’s homeland to accomplish this. In essence, the answer to that question would explain more to us about NP and what it is than any of their statements that I include here.

On first glimpse, I am impressed – impressed enough to put my name on the dotted-line and list myself as a member.

Though the work of NP is to foster nonviolence, danger constantly lurks for their workers. One of the organization’s trained peace-makers, Umar Jaleel, was recently abducted in the Philippines and work goes on to secure his release. A press release about that abduction tells us a great deal about the philosophy and heart of NP.

While we cannot begin to address all of the misinformation contained in media reports, we wish to clarify four important points:

1. Mr. Umar Jaleel is a International civilian peacekeeper working in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, not a “Muslim religious preacher.”

2. Nonviolent Peaceforce does not pay ransom.

3. Nonviolent Peaceforce relies on nonviolent activities. We do not use armed body guards.

4. The motive for his abduction is not known, nor is the affiliation, if any, or identity of his captors.

Mr. Umar Jaleel is an experienced peaceworker who has been involved in resolving community disputes among communities in Sri Lanka prior to being deployed to the
Philippines.

He is a learned man speaking 6 languages who was hired by Nonviolent Peaceforce in 2004 to support our work with vulnerable families affected by armed conflict in the Trincomalee district of Sri Lanka. Jaleel was working specifically with Peace Committees, religious leaders, local government officials and merchants to build capacities for resolving local conflicts and mitigating or preventing violence against civilians. He is a well-respected member of our team and the peace worker community.

As one of Nonviolent Peaceforce’s most experienced national staff in Sri Lanka, Jaleel was asked, in 2008, to become one of NP’s international fieldworkers for our Mindanao project in the Philippines. He is the third Sri Lankan to be deployed by Nonviolent Peaceforce to the Philippines, where he is working to improve Muslim-Christian relations and support local peace organizations and structures of peace to
consolidate the peace processes. His efforts assist to maintain a fragile ceasefire between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and various armed groups on the island of Basilan.

Nonviolent Peaceforce maintains excellent relations with the government of the Philippines, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the national police, local community and religious leaders, local and national NGOs in the Philippines and the various armed groups. Many of these armed groups are in negotiation with the government and are accepted by the government, as legitimate parties to the conflict. As a Sri Lankan peaceworker and a Muslim, Jaleel is widely admired and respected in the area of Basilan, where he is working. Though shocked at the news, Nonviolent Peaceforce is confident that he will be released unharmed, through the strong relationships with local communities and religious leaders who are extremely supportive of Nonviolent Peaceforce’s work there. Since this terrible incident, our friends are working tirelessly to secure Jaleel’s release.

An Incident Management Team headed by Nonviolent Peaceforce Mindanao country director Atif Hameed is coordinating the return effort in Mindanao. A Crisis Management Team headed by NP executive director Mel Duncan is coordinating the effort for wider NP.

In the coming weeks I’ll tell you more about NP and how they work. In the meantime, you might enjoy looking into the organization.

“Give peace a chance!”
Those extraordinary words were drummed into my heart and soul when I was a young man. The nation’s of the world need them drummed into their own hearts and souls.