A Petition to Stop War
Special report: Terrorism in the US / The Guardian(2001/09/12)
A Message from Palestine
CALL TO ACTION FOR PEACE WITH JUSTICE
Nov. 3rd - TWW-PAC National Day of Action

A Petition to Stop War

As a result of the day of terror on Tuesday September 11 and that left the Twin Towers of New York and the Pentagon of Washington D.C. destroyed the United States may be about to declare war.
The New York Times stated that, because the attack it is not only against the U.S.A. but against all of civilization, ".. It is necessary to identify to the countries that support the terrorist movements because it is there that the true war will be directed."
The chief of the Arab newspaper Al-Quds, with headquarters in London, said that the Islamic terrorist Ussama Bin Laden had had noted three weeks ago that it planned to carry out "an important" attack against American interests.
Karen Huges, who advises President Bush, assured us at a press conference that the country has the means to guarantee national security.
What the U.S.A may feel compelled to do may result in very lamentable reprisals against the Islamic world.
However, the state of Alert that United States maintains, is not without good reason. The American people are very indignant and are requesting justice somehow... and a reprisal for their dead siblings.
Today we are in a point in imbalance in the world and are moving toward what may be the beginning of a THIRD WORLD WAR.
If your are against this possibility, the UN is gathering signatures to avoid this tragic world event. Please COPY this e-mail in a new message, sign at the end of the list, and send it to all the people that you know.
If you receive this list with more than 500 names signed, please send a copy of the message to:unicwash@unicwash.org
Even if you decide not to sign, please consider forwarding the petition on instead of eliminating it.

Special report: Terrorism in the US

Seumas Milne, Wednesday September 12 2001
The Guardian

Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible.
Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent.
Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world.
But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy.
As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has
rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages.
If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a Churchillian response.
It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming.
It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his mouth.
But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world.
All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker asked yesterday.
Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed.

message from Eyad el Sarraj, Director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Project

Horror in the U.S.

The world today is not the same as it was.
The incredible and horrific terrorist attacks on American targets in New York and Washington DC have shocked the world and alarmed people every where.
We Condemn the killing of innocent people in America and elsewhere. Attacks on civilians, threats against life and murder are crimes against humanity.
We, secure in our belief in the sanctity of life are abhorred by such acts of violence.
Arabs and Palestinians who continue to suffer the complex tragedy since their uprooting, and the Israeli state sponsored violence against them should only stand firm against terror even with the knowledge of the long standing support for Israel by successive American governments.
We absolutely reject the logic that horror and murder is the only way to change policies.
The anger due to American policies in the world and in our region should not blind us to see that those who were killed and wounded in these horrific carnages are our brothers and sisters in humanity. Their murder can never be justified.
For them and their families we extend our respect, and sympathy.

Dr. Eyad El Sarraj

CALL TO ACTION FOR PEACE WITH JUSTICE

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

WWW.NOWARCOLLECTIVE.COM CRISIS RESOURCE CENTER

Our government has stolen from us the time to grieve.
They have made it clear they want war -- on anyone, at any price, with seemingly no thought for the consequences.
Government officials speak openly of going after "high-value" targets such as capital cities in countries that "harbor" terrorists. There are calls for carpet-bombing a country of 25 million people. In a world where no objections are raised in the halls of power to such plans, our task is clear:
We must fight for the soul of our nation. We have no choice but to begin speaking out and organizing for peace as we grieve. The best way we can honor those who have died is to make sure no more innocents are killed, here or abroad.
If we win, there is the possibility of a new movement for peace, a new hope for justice. If we lose, the escalating cycle of hatred may usher in a new era of unending war.
Officials think they have the support of an angry, blood-thirsty public, and many in the United States are calling for vengeance. But there is also great fear, not just for our own safety but for what such a war will unleash in the world.
Military actions that kill civilians will also multiply tenfold the number of people willing to die to wreak havoc on the United States. We have already paid a terrible price. What will happen when we arouse further anger with a blatantly unjust and destructive retaliation?
Many, even in the peace movement, are saying, "Now is not the time to talk politics; the country needs time to heal."
Just the reverse is true: Now is the time, before it is too late.
We, the undersigned organizations, are calling for Sunday, September 23, to be a National Day of Action for Peace with Justice. We will call for a peace based not on terror and death but on recognition of our common humanity. In each locality, people concerned about the drive to destruction should gather in public, as close to 2 p.m. as possible.
We will gather -- in churches and in parks, in homes and universities, public squares, streets and living rooms -- with banners and signs, with black armbands and candles, in fear and in hope.
While a single gathering will not itself change policy, it signals the mood of the public and will help build a movement. September 23 will be not the end, but the beginning of more vigorous organizing for peace and a just world.
We have already seen spontaneous demonstrations of thousands of people across the country. There is new interest in the consequences of our foreign policy. People are listening.
Now is the time: For action. For organization. For change.
Organizations that want to sign on should write to worker-nowar@lists.tao.ca.

In Solidarity,
The Nowar Collective www.nowarcollective.com

Nov. 3rd - TWW-PAC National Day of Action

Vieques Support Campaign
http://palfrente.tripod.com
viequessc@hotmail.com

NO TO RACISM & IMPERIALIST WAR!
U.S. NAVY OUT OF VIEQUES & ALL OF PUERTO RICO!
NO MORE LOST LIVES!
THIRD WORLD WITHIN

November 3rd Call
National Day of Action
NO MORE LOST LIVES! NO MORE RACISM & NO MORE WAR

Call for November 3rd -National Day of Action
Put out by THIRD WORLD WITHIN -PEACE ACTION COALITION (TWW-PAC)

Many organizations have developed written statements following the tremendous loss of lives and events of September 11th. As we struggle to come to terms with a time of heightened violence in our communities, city, nation and world, Third World Within -Peace Action Coalition is putting out this call for NO MORE LOST LIVES.

ABOUT THIRD WORLD WITHIN -PEACE ACTION COALITION

Third World Within - Peace Action Coalition (TWW-PAC) was initiated by the NYC Coalition Against Police Brutality (CAPB), in the aftermath of September 11th. TWW-PAC consists of over 20 NYC-based organizations run by & for People of Color -many that have worked together against police violence, the prison industrial complex, racism, xenophobia, homophobia/transphobia,sexism and other issues.

ABOUT NOVEMBER 3RD -CALL FOR NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

NYC-based People of Color organizations are calling on organizations and individuals around the country who agree with our guiding principles (see below) to use November 3rd as a day for unified actions -calling for NO MORE LOST LIVES -NO MORE RACISM -and NO MORE WAR.
Because we see racial justice linked to every aspect of the aftermath of September 11th, we ask that all those organizing actions recognize the role and leadership of progressive formations of color in leading these struggles in the US. We also understand that different local/ community conditions will demand different types of actions. Please keep us informed if your organization/city are planning a November 3rd action.

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

In addition to letting the nation and world know that communities in New York City, most directly affected by the September 11 attacks are calling for peace, we hope that November 3 can be an opportunity for communities around the world to stand in solidarity with communities in New York resisting racism at home and militarism abroad. Please send your messages, statements, or letters of solidarity to Third World Within Peace Action Coalition at twwpeace@yahoo.com. These messages will be read out and distributed at the New York No More Lost Lives Event.
We will also collect them and send them to all participating organizations; and will try to have them placed on the nomorelostlives.org website.

TWW -PEACE ACTION COALITION'S GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The following summarizes Third World Within/Peace Action Coalition's concerns and analysis regarding September 11th and the aftermath:

Compassion and mourning for lives lost. We must demonstrate compassion for the tremendous loss of lives in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania from the events of September 11th. We must support families and communities -particularly immigrant, working class and people of color communities in NYC and Washington, DC. Relief must be made available to all who were injured or lost loved ones on September 11th, regardless of immigrant status, marital status (including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender families), national origin, and other factors that are used to discriminate.
Resisting racial/xenophobic backlash. We can not ignore the thousands of reported (and unreported) incidents of racial violence against people of color in the US, particularly those of/perceived to be of Arab, South Asian, Central Asian descent and/or of Muslim faith. Furthermore, racial profiling -along with surveillance,arbitrary arrest, incarceration and indefinite detention -have been re-accepted by mainstream America, as INS detention centers are being readied as modern-day internment camps. More lives are being lost in this climate of fear and hatred.
Safety and peace are not possible without racial and economic justice. We, Third World peoples within and outside of the US,have lived without safety and peace for years preceding September 11th. This is the time to redefine our collective understanding of safety and peace to ensure that it is shared amongst all, and includes freedom from all types of violence (including racial, economic and other forms) -not just physical violence. We recognize that many who were unsafe before September 11th continue to be under attack in these times -whether immigrants,communities of color, women, youth, poor and working-class people, LGBT peoples, or others who oppose institutionalized oppressions. Current government-sponsored attacks on civil liberties and increased criminalization/militarization of our communities will be felt most deeply by communities of color -which have historically borne the brunt of state violence. We believe that safety and peace will not be real until all of us are safe.
Solidarity in a call for peace with justice. We, as communities of color, see it as our obligation to hold the US government accountable for its actions, carried out in the name of people who reside in the US. We believe we must unite with other justice-loving people in this country, and stand in solidarity with those around the world calling for peace and an end to US-sponsored military and economic retaliation (past & present) against Third World nations and their peoples -No More Lost Lives! For all these reasons, TWW calls for an end to violence and NO MORE LOST LIVES. If we are serious about creating safety, it can only come about through peace and justice, not just for ourselves but also for the world community. More and more, our world is connected. It is crucial that the ties that bind us are fair and productive for all -not just a few.

Third World Within - Peace Action Coalition
E-mail: twwpeace@yahoo.com
Web: http://www.nomorelostlives.org

The V.S.C. is a member organization of
Third World Within - Peace Action Coalition

NO TO RACISM & IMPERIALIST WAR!
U.S. NAVY OUT OF VIEQUES & ALL OF PUERTO RICO!

Unite to fight racism and war. The Vieques Support Campaign invites you to a Peoples' Forum to dicuss the tragedy of September 11th and how the racist warmongerers are using this event as an excuse to kill and devastate millions of people. Blacks, Latin@s, Asians, Arabs and all poor & working people, suffering government abuse here at home, have no true interest fighting in this unjust and racist war.
The same military that has terrorized the people of Vieques with Naval bombing exercises, causing a cancer epidemic that has claimed the lives of many Puerto Ricans, is now killing innocent people in Afganistan.

Join us on Saturday, November 10th at 1 P.M.
NSA Community Center
1514 Townsend Ave. Bronx, New York
(Between 172nd St. & Mt. Eden)
Take the IRT # 4 Lexington Avenue Subway Train to Mt. Eden