Never Been More Proud to Be in a Courtroom

by Kathleen D. Kirwin, Esq.

     “As the father of a young son, I went to the White House     

      on March 19th to be a voice for Shahidullah."

                                            From the closing argument of Defendant Art Laffin in DC Superior Court

Last March 19th, these 19 people wanted to talk to their president. They had a grievance with him and they went to his house to address it. In the airing of the grievance, the Park Police of the District of Columbia arrested this group of people for all manner of disorderly-ness, nuisance, not acting in obeisance, and generally getting in the way of life as it is known outside the fence surrounding 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the group’s message would not be deterred and the arrest and trial of these 19 individuals brought to the public forum this week the voices of those who are, indeed, the actual victims of what it means to be unlawfully prosecuted, with the president of this nation acting as judge, jury and executioner.

Veterans in front of the White House on March 19.

On March 19, 2011, on what was the beginning of the ninth year of America’s criminal war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq, and well into the 10th year of this country’s annihilation of Afghanistan, the honored and honorable group Veterans For Peace, organized and led a day of protest at the White House. In all, the Park Police arrested 133 people that day for various and petty misdemeanors in alleged contravention of the Code of Federal Regulation. While drones and Apache helicopter gunships were busily raining down death from the skies above Afghanistan that day without fear or risk of prosecution for untold and innumerable violations of international law, the Park Police were assuring that not a picture-postcard moment was lost in front of the White House as they arrested those who might have momentarily interfered with that shameful snapshot of America.

Of the 133 who were arrested that day for even attempting to redress their grievances at the White House, only 19 actually went to trial to challenge and otherwise bring into the public consciousness the corrupt and psychotic use of the laws used to attempt to corral and silence them and their message. Greater still, 19 citizens took their cases to trial to witness and to say the words out loud in a court of law and on the public record which must never be stopped being said: STOP KILLING THEM.

The 19 Defendants in this matter represented themselves. Although three outstanding and dedicated attorneys acted as their advisors, it was the accused themselves who challenged the government of the District of Columbia on factual, legal, evidentiary, and moral grounds at every turn. They examined and cross-examined and did all the things a lawyer usually does at trial. They did not argue that they were above the law, only that the correct law needed to be applied…the law which obligated them to risk arrest and jail in the first instance in order to be a voice for the countless number of people whose lives, homes, jobs, and families this country has destroyed and continues to destroy to this day, far far above the law.

One of the Defendants, Art Laffin, prepared and gave one of the closing arguments at the end of the trial yesterday. He kindly provided me with a copy of it for this article so that the message that these selfless 19 people brought to the courtroom this week could be shared with others. In reciting his closing argument, Art’s humility, humanity, and gentle spirit put truth on the table for all to see and hear. As stated above, I was never more proud to be in a courtroom than I was yesterday.

Here are his words, in relevant part:

“Thank you Judge Canan for your patience in hearing our case. We come before you as a group rich in diversity from different walks of life, including seven veterans, among whom are several Vietnam combat veterans and a WWII veteran. It is truly a great honor for me to be associated with such a distinguished group of co-defendants, as well as our exceptional advisory counsel, Ann Wilcox, Debbie Anderson and Mark Goldstone.

Art Laffin

Our March 19 action at the White House, led by Veterans for Peace, is rooted in a long tradition of nonviolent dissent and resistance, dating back to biblical times and up through our own American history, including the abolitionist movement, the suffragist movement, the union movement, the civil rights movements, the anti-Vietnam war movement, and multiple other social justice movements. We act in the nonviolent tradition of people like Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez and Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker of which I am a member.

The evidence you have heard from defendants in our case is compelling. You have heard testimony regarding what we did at the White House on March 19, the beginning of 9th year of the US invasion of Iraq. The Gov’t has failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt that we violated the statutes of “failure to obey a lawful order” and “disorderly conduct.”

With respect to the “disorderly conduct–blocking passage charge,” each defense witness testified that they did not obstruct, block, or incommode anyone. Those of us on trial, never physically impeded or blocked any pedestrians, despite repeated claims by the government that we did so. As March 19 was a Saturday, it was not a work day. There was ample space for anyone wishing to walk on the sidewalk to do so. Lt. Lechance’s testimony supports this fact when he said that pedestrians could walk throughout the plaza in front of the White House. He also testified that the White House sidewalk was 35 feet wide and that the majority of people on the White House sidewalk were close to the White House fence. Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Wenk, Ms. Nichalson and Mr. Elliott, all testified that there was sufficient space on the WH sidewalk portion of the White House plaza for anyone else, apart from our group, who wished to be there.

The government repeatedly has claimed that we obstructed people. Lt. Lechance testified that the large crowd obstructed people. But he never said that he saw any defendant individually block or obstruct anyone. Moreover, the government has failed to produce any evidence regarding specific individuals who said they were obstructed by any of the defendants on the White House plaza.

With respect to the “failure to obey a lawful order” charge, you heard testimony that our actions were in accordance with the First Amendment to petition the government for a redress of grievances. You heard defense witnesses say that this was our sole purpose for being on the White House sidewalk.

With respect to our violating 36 CFR 7.96 (5) (E) (viii), the government has failed to prove the central element of this provision: that we defendants were stationary holding a sign when we were arrested. Both Lt. Lechance and Officer Crowley testified that they saw none of the defendants being stationary and holding sign prior to their arrest.

With respect to the defense assertion regarding the selective enforcement of regulations on the WH sidewalk, I want to reiterate that many of us on trial here have witnessed tour groups, school groups and other groups being stationary on the WH sidewalk with signs or banners and never even be approached by Park Police, let alone be threatened with arrest. I personally want to attest to the fact that several years ago, I was part of a group praying around a cross on Good Friday for one hour in the picture post card area on the WH sidewalk and we were not arrested.

I would now like to address the defense assertion that we acted lawfully on March 19 at the White House.

As was stated in our pre-trial motion by Mr. Duffee and opening statement by Mr. Barrows, and by defense witnesses, International laws and treaties which the U.S. signed, have been, and continues to be blatantly violated. The Nuremberg Principles, which the United States helped write, state that individuals have a duty to prevent crimes against humanity from occurring and that if people don’t act to prevent such crimes, they are actually complicit in them. Mr. Elliott just offered eloquent testimony in this regard. We, who are on trial today, along with many others, including our friends here in court to support us, refuse to be complicit in these crimes.

We acted lawfully, in accordance with International laws and treaties. International law is an integral part of U.S. constitutional & domestic law. Treaties and international executive agreements such as the UN Charter & Nuremberg Charter are “the supreme law of the land” under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution and are binding on every US court, including this one. When US government and military officials commit acts of aggression like in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, that clearly violate the U.S. Constitution, we, as citizens, have a duty and responsibility to address it. We emphasize that our intent on March 19 was not to commit a crime but to prevent a crime, to keep the law not break the law. Judge Canan, although you have ruled that International law is not a valid defense in this case, we ask you to please reconsider your position and reverse your ruling in light of all the evidence we have presented. What more evidence is needed to show the applicability of international law in this case than the testimony and closing statement we just heard from Mr. Adams (regarding atrocities he was ordered to carry out in Vietnam–actions he now knows were in violation of International humanitarian law).

As Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Wenk, Ms. Nichalson, and Mr. Elliott all testified, we have tried lobbying, writing letters, and signing petitions to end U.S. warmaking, including the use of private U.S. military contractors and mercenaries, but to no avail. This is especially true right now in Afghanistan. We acted on March 19 because there were no other political or legal alternatives available to us as the executive and legislative branches of government continue to wage war. We acted to prevent an imminent harm from occurring. People are dying now as a direct result of U.S. Drone attacks and other U.S. military actions just as they were dying at the time of our March 19 action. These people aren’t merely statistics– they have names and families. We seldom hear in the media who the innocent dead really are! For example, you heard Joan Nichalson testify that on March 1, 2011, U.S. military forces in a helicopter gunship, killed nine boys in Afghanistan as they collected firewood. But do we know their names? Do we know anything about them or their families? Do we, as society, even care? The youngest of the boys killed was named Shahidullah, son of Rahman–he was 7 years old, 7 years old! As the father of a young son, I went to the White House on March 19 to be a voice for Shahidullah.

Judge Canan, who will speak for the victims? What recourse do we, as citizens have, when people, even young children, are being killed indiscriminately, but to engage in nonviolent acts to seek redress such as we did. What recourse do we have when an estimated 2 million Iraqis have died over the last 20 years as direct result of US bombings, US-UN lead sanctions and US invasion. Seared into my soul is one victim of our sanctions-war policy, seven month-old Zahra-Ali, a tiny emaciated baby girl I met who was near death when I visited Iraq in 1998. According to the non-partisan organization, Just Foreign Policy, which draws on figures compiled by the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, the group Iraq Body Count and the British Polling Agency, Opinion Research Business, it is estimated that nearly 1.5 million Iraqis have died due to the US invasion of Iraq which began on March 19, 2003.

With respect to the US war in Afghanistan, according to Wikipedia, tens of thousands of Afghans have died since 2001 from displacement, starvation, disease, exposure, lack of medical treatment and lawlessness resulting from the war.

Finally, we acted in accordance with Divine and moral law which mandates people of faith and conscience to renounce all killing, to beat swords into plowshares and to abolish war.

Simply put, this a really a trial about State-sanctioned murder. We acted on March 19 to stop the US government from murdering people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. We acted to save lives. We implore you, Judge Canan, to take this truth to heart.

On March 19, our message on the White House plaza was clear for all to hear: end the wars, bring the war money home now and meet urgent human needs, and free imprisoned military whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning!

Judge Canan, for all these reasons we submit that we had a right to be on the White House sidewalk, that our actions were lawful, and that the police order to leave was not a lawful order, and thus we had no reason to comply with it. Thus, we should never have been arrested! (Regarding these matters we again ask you to consider the District Court of Appeals case of Striet et. al. and how it applies to this one).

In closing we ask: Where are the judges and the legal professionals when it comes to confronting the criminal acts of our government? Will we be here five years from now making the same plea? How many more people have to suffer and die before we end our government’s murderous warmaking? This is an historic moment. If justice and peace is to come for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, it will happen because judges like you spoke out and people from across the political spectrum took nonviolent action to petition our government to make this a reality.

St. Paul writes: “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” As you determine the outcome of this case, we appeal to you to act in the name of love, in the name of victims, in the name of truth and justice.

Judge Canan, you have legal ground to stand on in finding us not guilty. The time is now for justice and the law to meet and be clearly applied in this case. We appeal to your conscience to acquit us of all charges. We respectfully invite you, along with Prosecutor’s Barnett and Pierce, to join with us to work for the abolition of war and create a nonviolent world. Thank you very much for listening to me.”

Kathleen Kirwin is a trial attorney specializing in high-level civil rights and criminal cases and is currently based in Sarasota, Florida. She also practices international human rights and criminal law and has been an anti-war activist for the past 40 years.

Source:

http://thelegalrevolutionaryfront.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/never-been-more-proud-to-be-in-a-courtroom/



Related Story:
Guilty of "Failure to Obey"
http://catholicworkernews.blogspot.com/2011/10/guilty-of-failure-to-obey.html

I Woke Up One Morning and the War Was Over

by Mike Ferner

America’s war in Iraq is over.  The last U.S. troops will leave by year’s end, “with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.”  So sayeth President Obama.

A “sham of a mockery of a sham,” is what Groucho would call Obama’s announcement, and he would be right. 

For several reasons Mr. Marx would be much closer to the truth than Mr. Obama.

1.   Even with “all” troops pulled out…well…who knows about Special Forces since their presence in a country never seems to really equal a “troop presence.”  But even if all the “non-combat” combat troops leave and even if we don’t count the Marine Corps’ standard complement of guards at the world’s largest embassy, 5,000 armed mercenaries will remain indefinitely.  The State Department, not the War Department will be responsible for them, but a killer for hire is not likely to become a diplomat at the stroke of midnight on December 31.

2.  Summing up nearly a decade of butchery, Obama chooses to hide behind the worn-out “support the troops” smokescreen by saying the last troops will hold their heads high, proud of their success and the American people will be “united in our support for our troops.”  How many will question nine years of war and $800 billion, when placed in that context?

3.  In truth, if the administration actually got its way, we would never have heard this news.  Washington wanted to stay well beyond the end of this year but the people of Iraq, through their parliament, forced the U.S. to get (mostly) out of Iraq, by saying as of January 1, foreign troops will be prosecuted in Iraqi courts for crimes committed in their country.  Given our lengthy criminal record in Iraq, the only viable choice for Obama was to get out. 

Anybody who thinks the war will really be over has never been in one nor had a loved one in war.  The American War in Iraq will never end for over 4,000 families of U.S. troops killed, tens of thousands of wounded and their families and the hundreds – yes, hundreds of thousands of young men and women who will suffer the terror of PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury for the rest of their lives. 

Here is how one Iraq War vet, Matt Southworth puts it.  Matt now works for the Friends Committee on National Legislation and is on the Veterans For Peace board of directors.

“I lost my first friend to the U.S. war in Iraq by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in February 2004. I lost my most recent friend to the U.S. war in Iraq by suicide in September 2011. This war will never end for me. I will live with its scars and traumas from now until the end of my life whether I want to or not. This battle, for me and so many others, is life long.” 

Tragic indeed, but not quite on the order of magnitude for the millions who lived under our sanctions for 12 years and our bombs for nine years after that.  It is impossible to comprehend the suffering we bought in Iraq, so let’s not even guess at the number of killed, wounded and homeless Iraqis we’ve created. 

Instead, let’s contemplate the scale of devastation that would occur in our country if a similar war had been visited on us.  What would be the comparable impact?  Based on reports from UNICEF, the UN and studies carried out by Johns Hopkins University field researchers published in the British medical journal, Lancet, here are the figures as of five years ago. 

If you’re not already sitting, you may want to take a seat.

• In the former cities of Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia every single person is dead.
• In Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina and Colorado every single person is wounded.
• The entire populations of Ohio and New Jersey are homeless, surviving with friends, relatives or under bridges as they can.
• The entire populations of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky have fled to Canada or Mexico.
• Over the past three years, one in four U.S. doctors left the country.  Last year alone 3,000 doctors were kidnapped and 800 killed.

In short, nobody “out there” can come to save us. We are in hell.

4.  And finally, there is one way in which the U.S. peace movement must simply not allow this war to be over.  It’s spelled r-e-p-a-r-a-t-i-o-n-s.  We have to pay a full measure of reparations to repair what we have destroyed of Iraq’s agriculture and infrastructure and leave a sizable trust fund to at least partially deal with the deformities and childhood cancers caused by our depleted uranium munitions.

In so many places, like Nicaragua two decades ago for example, we terrorized whole populations, laid waste to their society, destroyed their currency…and then just walked away.  “That war is over,” we joyfully repeat after the President.  Another country has been given freedom and democracy.  We brush off the misery and stride forward to the next and the next and the…  We cannot let this happen again to our brothers and sisters in Iraq.

Maybe in Obama’s dreams; maybe in the minds of his spin doctors prattling on Sunday morning talk shows; maybe in the minds of pundits comfortably opining from New York and Washington.  Perhaps for them the American War in Iraq is over.  But not to the millions living it out in reality. 

Source:

http://warisacrime.org/content/i-woke-one-morning-and-war-was-over

Mike Ferner is a former Navy corpsman, acting director of Veterans for Peace and author of “Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports From Iraq.”

He can be contacted at:  mike@veteransforpeace.org

Challenging the Old Boys Network in the Vatican

by Bill Quigley

We never thought it would end up on a hard wooden bench inside a police station in Piazza Cavour.  Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois, young Erin Saiz Hannah of Women’s Ordination Conference in the US and Miriam Duignan from Womenpriests.org from the UK were sitting there when my wife and I arrived.  They were being detained by the Rome police.

It started when the Rome police spotted the three women in long white church liturgical garments robes, the man in a roman collar dressed all in black, and their supporters walking several blocks down the middle of Via della Conciliazione directly towards the Vatican, the headquarters of the institutional Roman Catholic Church and the Basilica of St. Peter.

The group sang Alleluias and carried a long purple banner Ordain Catholic Women, a big red and white banner proclaiming God is Calling Women To Be Priests” (in English and Italian), and a black and white Call to Action banner

The group wanted to deliver a petition, printed on pink paper, signed by more than 15,000 people who asked the Vatican not to expel Fr. Roy Bourgeois, 72, from the church for saying that women are called to be priests in the church.  Fr. Roy faces expulsion from his Catholic community, Maryknoll, for refusing to recant his belief that women can and should be allowed to become priests.  Bourgeois, a decorated Vietnam veteran, has been a faithful member of the Catholic missionary group, Maryknoll, for 44 years.  For twenty years, he has worked with School of Americas Watch in the US, a group of thousands who challenge the role of the US military in training human rights abusers among Latin American militaries.  Along with the petition was a list of hundreds of priests who asked that Fr. Roy not be expelled just for speaking out about a matter of conscience.

As the tour busses and other traffic veered around the marchers, pedestrians on the street cheered. The huge dome of St. Peter’s Basilica dominates the area which is thronged with pilgrims and tourists, and saturated with souvenir shops and vendors selling religious medals, holy cards, statues, refrigerator magnets, flags, and postcards.

The police presence quickly outnumbered the group and stopped them as they tried to enter Vatican Square. 

Protests were not allowed in the Vatican said the police.  But we are here to deliver a petition, the group responded.  But you are carrying signs said the police.  We can put the signs down responded the group.  But the women are dressed like priests and that is a protest the police insisted.  But we are legitimately ordained priests they told the authorities. 

After much back and forth with Vatican authorities the police said Fr. Roy could go into Vatican Square because he was a real priest.  When Fr. Roy insisted all the priests, men and women, should be allowed to enter, an undercover policeman violently grabbed the banners away from those peacefully holding them and the authorities arrested Fr. Roy, Erin Saiz Hannah who the police decided organized the event, and Miriam Duignan, who was acting as the translator.

Erin and Miriam were jammed into a police car and with lights flashing and sirens blasting were taken away.  Fr. Roy was taken away in another police car. 

After several hours’ detention inside the Rome police station, the three were released after they signed statements promising to return to Italy if the investigating magistrate decided to try them on the charges of protesting without a permit.  The banners were seized as evidence and not returned.

As the three were released from police custody to cheers from the rest of the group gathered outside the police station, the group insisted the petitions must still be delivered.  Ultimately they were delivered to high ranking church official who promised to consider them.

So, who were these people?

Three of women who marched alongside Fr. Roy in priestly garb are members of Roman Catholic Women Priests, an international group of more than a hundred ordained Catholic women priests, deacons and bishops from the US, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Latvia, Scotland, South Africa, and Switzerland.  Priests Ree Hudson from St. Louis, and Janice Sevre Duszynska a priest and Deacon Donna Rougeux of Kentucky marched.

The organizers of the march were Women’s Ordination Conference, Call to Action and the international Womenpriests.org.  Erin Saiz Hanna and Kate Conmy were there representing Women’s Ordination Conference, a group of thousands of Roman Catholics in the US who have been advocating for women priests since 1974.   Nicole Sotelo and others from Call to Action, a 25,000 member organization of Catholic lay people, religious, clergy and bishops working for justice inside and outside the Catholic Church, were present.  Therese Koturbash and Miriam Duignan from Canada and the UK represented Womenpriests.org a website in 26 languages with more than 1.5 million visitors annually.  Dorothy Irvin, a world renowned biblical scholar, theologian and archeologist shared historical and archeological support for the presence of women priests in the early church.  Others who needed to remain anonymous to retain their jobs joined is as well.


The group ended their Roman pilgrimage with a simple rooftop liturgy presided over by the women priests. Bread and wine were shared as people sang “Here I am, Lord.” In the background, the sun was setting both on the great dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and the men inside who think only they run the institutional church.

Bill Quigley is a law professor and human rights lawyer at Loyola University New Orleans and with the Center for Constitutional Rights.   

You can reach him at quigley77@gmail.com.

The Wrong Occupation

by Kathy Kelly

Kathy Kelly in Afghanistan with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

In Kabul, Afghanistan’s beleaguered capitol city, a young woman befriended me during December of 2010. She was eager to talk about her views, help us better understand the history of her country, and form lasting relationships. Now, she is too frightened to return a phone call from visiting westerners. The last time I saw her, during the spring of 2011, she was extremely anxious because, weeks earlier, U.S. Joint Special Operations Commandos (JSOC) had arrested her brother-in-law. The family has no idea how to find him. Once, someone working for the International Commission of the Red Cross called the family to say that he was still alive and in the custody of the International Security Assistance Forces, (ISAF). Numerous families in Afghanistan experience similar misery and fear after night raids that effectively “disappear” family members who are held incommunicado and sometimes turned over to Afghan National Police or the dreaded National Directorate of Security, (NDS).

An October 22, 2011 New York Times report about the findings of UN researchers who interviewed 324 Afghans detained by security forces, found that half of those who were in detention sites run by the NDS told of torture which included beatings, twisting of genitals, stress positions, suspension, and threatened sexual assault. Of the 324 interviewed, 89 had been handed over to the Afghan intelligence service or the police by U.S./NATO international military forces.

Even though high commanders in the ranks of the U.S. JSOC acknowledge that 50% of the time the night raids and drone attacks “get” the wrong person, (Washington Post, September 3, 2011), the U.S. war planners have steadily escalated reliance on these tactics.

Consider the killing of three brothers in the Nemati family who lived in the Sayyidabad village in Afghanistan’s Wardak province. Ismail, age 25, and Buranullah, age 23, had returned from their studies in Kabul to celebrate the start of Ramadan with their family in August of 2010. With their brother Faridullah, age 17, they went to the family guest room to study for exams. They were joined by their younger brother, Wahidullah, age 13.

An initial U.S. military press release on August 12th, 2010, indicated that U.S. forces had captured an important Taliban figure nearby and had taken fire from the Nemati home where they believed Taliban fighters were being hosted as guests. Indeed, two Taliban fighters had stopped at the home two days earlier, asking for food. Fearful of repercussions if they didn’t feed them, the family had given them food.

According to a report from McClatchy News, (August 20, 2010), the youngest brother, Wahidullah, said that American soldiers burst through the guest room door around 1:30 a.m. and started firing. As Buranullah and Faridullah lay bleeding to death, Ismail tried to speak with the soldiers in English. Wahidullah said Ismail was still alive as the assault force led him out of the room, but he wasn’t sure whether all three brothers had been hit during the initial shooting.

Photographs, which the family provided and the U.S. military verified, show three distinct bloodstains on the floor where the U.S. forces shot the brothers.

Later, U.S. military forces admitted that they had no evidence that the man they captured, nearby, was actually a Taliban fighter, and they weren’t able to produce a weapon in the Nemati family compound.

McClatchy News interviewed a friend of Ismail Nemati: "He was not Taliban," Omid Ali, 21, said in broken English about his school friend. "I want to say to President Obama: Afghanistan doesn't have hostility towards foreign forces, but, these mistakes, that is how they will be defeated in Afghanistan." Another student asked why the U.S. would kill innocent people and young people who are the future of the nation.

Our friend Hakim, coordinator of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, writing in the imagined voice of a 10 year old girl from Kandahar, sent us these lines, reflecting on 10 years of U.S./NATO warfare in Afghanistan:

Who says this must be so?

Who cares that this is so?

I shudder that the raids and bombs

have made us less than human.

I wish to go to our deserted schools

to understand why we are like this.

I used to dream of spaces,

blue skies and gentler people.

I heard mother through her burqa

pleading please ‘Stop!’

‘Stop the money. Stop the killing.

Stop.’

Another local explosion,

more international lies.

Our global problem is that

guns impose greater force

than common sense

or vision, which tells me

that my mother’s world is crashing.

If Afghans are ever to rebuild their world, we in the United States must stop afflicting them with U.S. strategies to control their resources, use their land for geopolitical influence, and perpetuate violence as a justification for maintaining 200 U.S./NATO forward operating bases, three major bases, an ever expanding U.S. Embassy designed to become the largest in the world, and three major prisons as well as an unspecified number of detention sites.

“Wars are always futile and counterproductive,” says Dr. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, a professor and peace activist in Minneapolis, MN. “We attack other people and they attack us back and then we pour money into our military, accelerating our financial decline.”

We’re living in an exciting and hope-charged time as people worldwide are stretching their wings, testing their capacities to confront greed and disparities in political power between haves and have-nots. Many have marched against the Afghan Occupation, against a dictatorship of night raids and shootings, disappearances and checkpoints, a dictatorship- never mind the fraudulently elected local government or how it won its scant power - of the ultimate "have" nation over a nation that has never had less. Protesters’ demands are criticized in the press as being vague and all-encompassing. But I hope the occupiers of town squares and plazas continue sensing and communicating the vastness of the problem while retaining their inspiring power to change it. Many who are led to protest in the U.S. may understandably want tax reform, better jobs, higher salaries and more lucrative "occupations" for people. But we have an opportunity to ask even more important questions by seeking work that is truly useful, as well as production of goods and services that won't serve military causes and won't be used for war, destruction, and bloodshed.

A statement from the Las Vegas Catholic Worker gathering, issued on the tenth anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, called on U.S. people to convert our war-based economy to one centered on serving the common good, alleviating poverty and protecting the environment. "As we hear the cry of the suffering and the poor of our country and world," the statement says, "we demand that all resources being squandered for weapons and war be instead spent to meet urgent human needs."

"Occupy Together" efforts proliferating across the world may yet help young friends in Afghanistan find reasons for hope. Innocent youngsters may not be forced to feel that their world is crashing.

Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Kathy Kelly's email is kathy@vcnv.org

Report from Haiti: Where’s the Money?

by Bill Quigley

Broken and collapsed buildings remain in every neighborhood.  Men pull oxcarts by hand through the street. Women carry 5 gallon plastic jugs of water on their heads, dipped from manhole covers in the street.  Hundreds of thousands remain in grey sheet and tarp covered shelters in big public parks, in between houses and in any small pocket of land.  Most of the people are unemployed or selling mangoes or food on the side of every main street.  This was Port au Prince during my visit with a human rights delegation of School of Americas Watch – more than a year and a half after the earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands and made two million homeless.

What I did not see this week were bulldozers scooping up the mountains of concrete remaining from last January’s earthquake.  No cranes lifting metal beams up to create new buildings.  No public works projects.  No housing developments.  No public food or public water distribution centers.

Everywhere I went, the people of Haiti asked, “Where is the money the world promised Haitians?” 

The world has moved on.  Witness the rows of padlocked public port o lets stand on the sidewalk outside Camp St. Anne.  The displacement camp covers a public park hard by the still hollow skeleton of the still devastated St. Anne church.  The place is crowded with babies, small children, women, men, and the elderly.  It smells of charcoal smoke, dust and humans. Sixty hundred fifty families live there without electricity, running water or security. 

I talked with several young women inside the camp of shelters, most about eight feet by eight feet made from old gray tarps, branches, leftover wood, and pieces of rusty tin.  When it rains, they stand up inside their leaky shelters and wait for it to stop.  In a path in front of one home, crisscrossed with clotheslines full of tiny children’s clothes, a group of women from the grassroots women’s group KOFAVIV told us Oxfam used to help administer the camp but quit in May.  When Oxfam left, the company that had been emptying the port o lets stopped getting paid and abandoned the toilets.  Some people padlocked them and now charge a couple of cents to use the toilets, money most residents don’t have.  There is no work to earn the money for pay for toilets.  The Red Cross has just visited the camp that morning telling them they would be evicted October 17.  Where will they go, we ask?  We have no idea they told us.  Jesus will provide, they told us.

Where has the money raised for Haiti gone?  What about the Red Cross?  What about the US government?  What about the money raised in France, Canada and across the world? What about the pledges to the UN?  Where is the money?  The people of Haiti continue to be plagued by the earthquake of more than 20 months ago.  They are our sisters and brothers.  They deserve answers.  They deserve help.

Bill Quigley is a law professor and human rights lawyer at Loyola University New Orleans and with the Center for Constitutional Rights.  He volunteers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and the Bureaux des Advocats in Port au Prince. You can reach him at quigley77@gmail.com.

  

Statement from National Catholic Worker Gathering, 2011

On the 10th Anniversary of the U.S. Bombing and Invasion of Afghanistan, Catholic Workers gathered in Las Vegas for a national gathering where they issued the following statement.

We Catholic Workers from around North America gather in Las Vegas on this 10th anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Afghanistan with the theme “From Empire to Servanthood.”   We renounce all war-making as a affront to the God of Creation and we reject the false gods and religion of Empire that dominate our national spirit. We call on our church and nation to join us in repenting for the violence the U.S. has inflicted, and make reparations to all of its victims at home and in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. At this critical point in history, when we face unending wars, nuclear perils, occupations, and economic collapse, when human life and creation itself has become so devalued and killing has become the norm; when greed, exploitation, racism and discrimination are at the heart of  social injustice; when our earth and environment is endangered as never before; we recommit ourselves to the God of creation that calls us to revere all life as sacred, and to resist the way of violence, oppression, and empire.

As we hear the cry of the suffering and the poor of our country and world, we demand that all resources being squandered for weapons and war be instead spent to meet urgent human needs.

As the U.S. government continues its immoral and illegal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its murderous drone attacks, especially in Pakistan, we recall the words of Dorothy Day regarding U.S. war-making during World War II:

"We are at war, a declared war, with Japan, Germany, and Italy. But still we can repeat Christ's words, each day, holding them close in our hearts, each month printing them in the paper... We will print the words of Christ who is with us always, even to the end of the world. "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you ...” In The Catholic Worker we will quote our Pope, our saints, our priests. We will go on printing the articles which remind us today that we are all called to be saints, that we are other Christs, reminding us of the priesthood of the laity...We are still pacifists. Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers."

Yes, we are still pacifists. In the name of Jesus who calls us to love unconditionally and  be peacemakers, we call on all followers of Jesus to embrace and practice the Gospel of Nonviolence. We urge our church leadership to break their silence and prophetically proclaim Christ's gospel by calling the entire nation to repent for the war crimes we have committed. We invite them and all followers of Jesus to join us in making the following appeal to the political, military and economic power structure of our nation:

• end all U.S. war-making and and military intervention throughout our world, especially in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.
• stop all drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.
• stop demonizing Arabs and Muslims.
• and the US backed Israeli occupation of Palestine and support self-determination for the Palestinians.
• disarm and abolish all conventional, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
• close and/or convert all nuclear and conventional weapons facilities, military bases, and military training centers like the SOA/WHINSEC.
• stop the U.S. militarization of space.
• convert our war-based economy to one centered on serving the common good, alleviating poverty and protecting the environment.
• initiate an equitable redistribution of the earth's resources.
• work to reverse global climate change and bring about environmental justice.
• cultivate respect for the health of the land that feeds us and honors the people that lived on it before us.
•  end the practice of torture.
• close the Guantanamo U.S. military prison, the Bagram prison in Afghanistan, all secret black sites and detention centers, and end indefinite detention.
• end all ROTC training programs at all levels in Catholic and public schools.
• and we must end the “war on the poor” at home by:  abolishing the death penalty, ending the practice of mass imprisonment, stopping prisons for profit, providing housing, jobs, adequate food and health care for ALL, taking down the wall on the US/Mexico boarder and insuring and protecting human rights of all immigrants.

Mindful of all political prisoners, including those Catholic Workers and other resisters imprisoned for acts of peacemaking, we commit ourselves to nonviolently resist all forms of state-sanctioned violence and oppression.  In our efforts to come out of and resist U.S. Empire we concluded our weekend gathering by doing nonviolent direct actions at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and at Creech AFB, a center of U.S. drone warfare. In solidarity with sisters and brothers around the world calling for an end to political repression, corporate domination and militarism, we seek to build a new society in the shell of the old. We commit ourselves to help create the Beloved Community where all God's people can live together in peace with justice.

Justice Obstructed at Bagram as at Guantanamo - Ten Years Is Too Long

by BrianTerrell

Despite ten years of occupation and untold millions of dollars spent on rebuilding Afghanistan’s broken judicial and criminal justice system, the Afghan courts are “still too weak,” the Washington Post reported on August 12, for the United States to relinquish its control over the Parwan Detention Center on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. On September 21, the same paper reported that the U.S. military is seeking contractors to significantly increase the capacity of the prison there.

Bagram

The number of Afghans detained at Bagram has tripled over the past three years to more than 2,600 and the new construction will raise the capacity to 5,500 prisoners. Capt. Kevin Aandahl, a spokesman for the U.S. task force that oversees detention operations in Afghanistan, told the Post that the expansion was necessary to “accommodate an increase in the number of suspected insurgents being detained as a result of intelligence-based counter- terrorism operations, which we conduct with our Afghan partners.”

Many of those held at Bagram have been there since the U.S. occupied the former Soviet air base in 2001, and some two thirds of prisoners there have not been charged with or convicted of any crime. Corruption is rampant in Afghan courts and among police there as it is in many other places but the major fear of the United States is not that the Afghan courts will not function according to their constitution and accepted norms of law, but that they will. In order for Afghanistan to take sovereignty over its own judiciary and prison system, the Afghans must first fix the “cracks of an undeveloped legal system” and adopt essential “reforms,” including adoption of the U.S. practice of detaining suspected insurgents indefinitely without trial.

Included among the “weaknesses” of Afghan law that the United States needs to see addressed is a guarantee that a prisoner in Afghanistan must be formally charged with a crime within three days or be released. To be convicted of a crime, Afghan law requires that evidence against a defendant be presented in open court and that hearsay evidence and evidence gained by torture be excluded. (How primitive is that!) Such protections exist, on paper at least, in most countries, and the U.S. Constitution guarantees these rights as well. A more mature and robust legal system such as our own, however, U.S. officials seem to suggest, can be counted on to set aside such protections to “deal with the demands of wartime criminal justice.”

Just as with the detainees held for these past ten years at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo in Cuba, few of those held at Bagram would be convicted in a fair trial. Most have been captured on the strength of tips by informers and other hearsay and with no forensic evidence. “Right now,” a senior U.S. official is quoted in a January 30, 2011 article published in the Guardian, “if we turned them over to the Afghans tomorrow, they'd be in a position, under their laws and their constitution, that they may be released.”

Brian Terrell participated in 2012 Witness Against Torture

While the number of prisoners held at Guantanamo is slowly decreasing, the number of those held at Bagram is skyrocketing, due to increased “intelligence-based counter- terrorism operations,” a euphemism for what are more accurately called night raids. The Open Society Foundations and The Liaison Office in Kabul released a report on September 19, “The Cost of Kill/Capture: Impact of the Night Raid Surge on Afghan Civilians.” In their Executive Summary, the reports’ authors state, “Nighttime kill and capture operations (“night raids”) by international military have been one of the most controversial tactics in Afghanistan. They are as valued by the international military as they are reviled by Afghan communities. Night raids have been associated with the death, injury, and detention of civilians, and have sparked enormous backlash among Afghan communities. The Afghan government and the Afghan public have repeatedly called for an end to night raids.”

This report cites a sharp escalation in raids that has “taken the battlefield more directly into Afghan homes sparking tremendous backlash among the Afghan population.” While civilians not directly participating in hostilities are supposed to be protected from such attacks by the Geneva Conventions, these raids are often “heavily (if not primarily) motivated by intelligence gathering.” One U.S. military officer responsible for authorizing night raids explained, “If you can’t get the guy you want, you get the guy who knows him.” Often in night raids, all male adolescent and adult members of a household or even of a whole village are bound and held, and techniques such as masked informants giving thumbs up or down, noting who has a beard or who lacks the calloused hands of a farmer, are used to decide who is taken to a U.S. base for further questioning. Such are the “intelligence-based counter- terrorism operations” that are taxing the capacity of the U.S. prison at Bagram.

After gutting its own constitution in the name of a “war on terror,” the United States is now adding to the injury and insult of a brutal occupation by demanding of the Afghan government that it pledge to be as lawless as the U.S., to continue our oppression of its people in our absence before we will give them sovereignty over their own judicial system.

Ten years ago this month the United States attacked and occupied Afghanistan and began a system of illegal and irrational detention at Bagram that on January 11, 2002, was exported to Guantanamo. Ten years is far too long. Our first concern needs be for those harmed by our nation’s policies, those who suffer torture and deprivation of liberty in places like Bagram and Guantanamo and their families and communities. We need be concerned as well for what happens to us, to our souls, to our schools, churches, to our nation, if we stand silent in the face of such crimes done in our name. It is time to rise up anew to say no to torture and call for the closure of Bagram and Guantanamo, accountability for the torturers, and justice for the victims of U.S. abuse.

Please consider joining human rights organizations, legal collectives, grassroots groups, and people of conscience in Washington on January 11, 2012 for a protest against U.S. detention policies, rallying to form a human chain from the White House to Congress and to demand real change — by far the biggest such demonstration since the "War on Terror" began.

Brian Terrell, brian@vcnv.org lives and works at the Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker Farm in Maloy, IA.  He is also an editor with Catholic Worker Journal.

Turning Guns Into Flower Pots and Creating the Beloved Community

Soldiers positioned around Azadi Square, Suleimaniya Iraq

by Michele Naar-Obed

In June, I returned home to the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker in Duluth MN after finishing another five-month stretch in the Kurdish North of Iraq working with the human rights, violence-reduction organization Christian Peacemaker Teams. This would end my sixth year of spending five months each year in the Middle East. It was a hard but inspiring five months. Like many others in the Middle East, the Iraqi Kurds had enough of corrupt foreign and domestic policies, poverty, and misappropriation of their resources. 

 A portion of the Peace Wall, positioned between the soldiers and the 

demonstrators, Suleimaniya Iraq

After 20 years of rule by two party leaders accused of nepotism and corruption, the people rose up. From February to April, thousands of Iraqi Kurds gathered daily in the cities of the Suleimaniya Province in their Azadi (freedom) Squares to voice their complaints and create their road map to peace. The commitment of the organizers to nonviolence was remarkable. Every day they faced government provocateurs and security forces, many of whom were trained by US forces in crowd and riot control, who were bent on turning these daily nonviolent demonstrations into violent chaos in order to take it down by force. Every day the organizers, many of whom were students and youth, trained through the lessons of Gandhi and M.L. King, found creative strategies to diffuse the tensions in the square and persevere with their plans to build their “beloved community.”

Scores of deaths, hundreds of injuries, and thousands of arrests later, the Kurdish security forces put the demonstrations to a temporary end. In the midst of fires, tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets and live ammunition the people cried out, “you broke the square but you can't break us”. They mourned their dead, visited their wounded and fought for the release of their imprisoned with the help from groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Christian Peacemaker Teams.

I spent 62 days in Azadi Square with these valiant nonviolent warriors and I will never forget them or the lessons they taught me about waging a campaign for freedom from oppressive and unjust rule. More than nonviolent resistance tactics,  the Kurds taught me how to maintain hope and vision in the face of death and despair. They know how to build relationships even with their enemies because they know that when it comes right down to it we all need each other. There were times when I literally saw guns melt in the face of love and right relationships. I don't say that flippantly nor am I trying to be overly dramatic.

I've found it really hard to adjust to life in the US after these experiences. I know our oppressive rule under the US empire is not only lethal to the majority of its own citizens but its lethality extends to most of the world.  I know that it is too big for any small group of us to take it down. There are no individual heroes, but together with the power of the Divine Force pulsing through us, we might be able to rope down the giant.

Like every empire that has gone down in the past, I also know that over time it will fall on its own. I hope to hasten the process in an effort to reduce the number of casualties. I applaud the Wall Street Occupiers and support their efforts. Their efforts are combined with all the efforts of nonviolent resistance that many of us in the Catholic Worker movement have participated in both past and present.

Combined with the efforts of dismantling oppressive systems are the works of building the new “beloved community”. This is the vision that Peter Maurin gave us and I saw it radiate throughout the Midwest Catholic Worker communities as they shared their ideas, their successes and their failures in creating the new community at this year's regional Catholic Worker gathering in Iowa. Like the vision of the Kurds, Peter's vision hasn't died in hopelessness and despair either.

So where am I in this circle of tearing down and building up? Where does the Divine Force want me? It's really the work of the Spirit and we are the vehicles out of which that work can be carried out. For now, I find myself called to the work of urban farming, of developing relationships between my city of Duluth and the city of Rania in Iraqi Kurdistan, of re-committing myself to the life of the Catholic Worker movement and of putting flesh on the bones of the “beloved community” in the face of the dragon. Greg, Rachel and I remain bound together as family and although we use our life skills differently, we remain committed to the common good. I guess until I hear differently, this is where I'll be. Thank you to all my sisters and brothers of the uprisings throughout the world for keeping hope alive and for counting me in the circle of life.

The circle of life: solider, peace wall, and demonstrators together.

Michele Naar-Obed, husband Greg and daughter Rachel live at the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker in Duluth MN

obedsinduluth@yahoo.com

Gandhi’s Lesson for Today

by Kathy Kelly

In a soon-to-be published book entitled Gandhi and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiments with Truth, Jim Douglass contrasts the deadly machinations of Gandhi's probable killers with Gandhi’s own incredible bravery and that of his followers, whose mantra during campaigns for independence expressed their absolute commitment to resist injustice openly, lovingly and fearlessly: with their whole lives. Their mantra was “Do or die.” (Flickr: Hiteshi)

By 1946, the longed-for independence of India had become a reality, but Gandhi was deeply dismayed by the slaughter taking place as Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs massacred each other. He determined to visit the villages most affected by the violence, beginning in the Noakhali region where the population included 1,800,000 Muslims and 400,000 Hindus. In this region, “the minority Hindus were landowners and professionals,” Douglass writes. “They had ignored grievances from Muslim workers who, incensed by tales of Hindus killing Muslims elsewhere, carried out vicious attacks.”

Gandhi and a handful of his friends fanned out, going singly to the Noakhali villages where savage butchery had taken place, and agreed to live alone, in the midst of the violence, and do their best to clean up the debris, rebuild homes and be of general service to the community.

Douglass focuses on the image of Gandhi walking 116 miles to visit 47 villages, forced to balance as precariously in travel as he had in his politics and his life: “Walking against a background of sky and vegetation, Gandhi could be seen crossing the shankos of Noakhali, narrow bamboo bridges held high on poles.” This trip, made at age 77, he undertook many parts of entirely alone: he and his followers were needed in too many places.

Ordinary people responded positively to the pilgrims who came into their villages. The experiment moved on to Bihar, Calcutta and eventually to New Delhi, attempting to combat the terrorism of both Hindu and Muslim ethnic violence. Eventually, in Delhi, he undertook a final fast for Hindu-Muslim unity. “I shall terminate the fast only when peace has returned to Delhi,” said Gandhi. “If peace is restored to Delhi it will have effect not only on the whole of India but also on Pakistan. When that happens, a Muslim will be able to walk around in the city all by himself.”

Gandhi’s assassins were plotting violence in secret, both against Gandhi and his vision of Muslim safety in the heart of India, even as Gandhi repeatedly risked all, employing his “truth force,” the astonishing power of truth, of transparency and nonviolence, that had liberated India. What relevance do Gandhi’s tactics of choice have in these times of night raids, drone warfare, and, as the new centerpiece of our foreign policy, a tightening net of abductions and assassinations aiming to cover the globe?

Gandhi the truth-teller died at the hands of his killers, some of whom, Jim Douglass alleges, walked away scot-free under cover of self-preserving lies. Gandhi’s assassins believed they were working for the betterment of a country which Gandhi had already moved mountains to liberate, uplift, and enrich, and which they proceeded to help destroy. I think of the United States’ tactic of seemingly universal war, to be waged indefinitely throughout a world, where no Muslim will be able to walk in safety if, according to perpetrators of Islamophobia, our nation is finally to prosper.

Consider the contrast between Gandhi’s precarious, defenseless efforts to reach his fellow humans, traveling alone and armed only with truth, and, in contrast, weigh U.S. reliance on a massive arsenal of weapons and armed warriors, costing the world $2 billion dollars per week in lost productivity.

Aged Gandhi walked alone into a nightmare of fear on those bamboo bridges, and his payment for it was death, but his path was one through sunlight that redeemed his country; while his scheming jingoistic killers devised a doom for India which is still bloodily unfolding. Many patriots claim to love the U.S., but the darkness and the blood will corrupt this love, will make us doom our country: our safety will not survive the determination to find it in arms, in numbers, and in the cover of night.

Gandhi’s solitary sunlit path, his path against the sky, was by far the less precarious. As we may learn through occupations of town squares across the U.S., truth, and only truth, can keep the balance.

Kathy Kelly is a life-long peace activist and co-coordinator for Voices for Creative Non-Violence.