Common Dreams

by Susan Van Haitsma 

On Earth Day, I contemplated the pre-dawn sky, looking for shooting stars.  The evening prior, my partner and I had scouted out a viewing spot adjoining a vacant lot just a few blocks from home.  Though we live in a central neighborhood, the clear air and waning moon offered favorable viewing conditions for the Lyrid meteor shower even from our urban vantage point.

In a warm climate, the transition between night and day is a time of rejuvenation for the earth, when ground water rises into plant stems, pushing them upward.  Planted in my camp chair, gazing upward, I thought I could feel the life force, too — the magnetism of the heavens pulling gently against the gravity that held me down and drew the meteors in.

The night was balmy, and the quiet was actually filled with sound: insects humming, a mockingbird singing his brilliant medley, our neighborhood screech owl trilling his single note.   There was some street traffic: a dumpster truck, a few cars and several bicycles that glided by.  Above, two planes passed the spot we were watching during the hour we were there.

My partner and I saw 6 meteors each.  The brightest was a burst of light with no visible trail. The others made brief but unmistakable dashes between the constellations.  We welcomed each silent flash with an exclamation.  Did the mockingbird and the owl see them, too?

Staring into space makes me think about time.  I want the planet to celebrate an uncountable number of future Earth Days.  But, the darkest hour reveals the starkest truth:  the primary obstacle to the earth’s longevity is the effect of my own species on our shared home. 

In a quiet moment of reflection in the film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore asks himself, in voiceover, about the barriers that keep human beings from living more sustainably.   It would have been the perfect opportunity to discuss the most inconvenient truth: our preoccupation with security is killing us.  The drive to keep ourselves “safe” has become the greatest threat to our existence.

Many indicators point to the US Department of Defense as the largest institutional polluter in the world.  Most tellingly, the US military is the world’s largest single oil purchaser and consumer.   If the invasion of Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan, was about US oil interests, then military occupation serves mainly to perpetuate the military, like a snake devouring its own tail, feeding and destroying itself at the same time.

War is not only ungreen, it discourages greenness.  I sometimes feel ridiculous sorting my recycling and installing low energy light bulbs while the massive pistons of the war machine keep pumping, consuming incalculable amounts of energy for every watt I try to conserve.       

On Earth Day eve, Al Gore said that we are now at a tipping point.  “This year, 2009, is the Gettysburg for the environment,” he said.  It’s interesting that he should use a war metaphor for his call to action.  The US Civil War caused untold environmental destruction along with its huge human death toll.  Both sides lose when home is a battlefield.  Now, home encompasses the globe.

We human beings can decide to abolish war.  The owl needs its prey, but we do not.  Our most basic, most elegant tools are at hand:  communication, education, international law, creative arts and sciences, nonviolent resistance.  When we are threatened, we have these tools, mightier than the sword, to protect ourselves.  In the process, we protect our descendants – and the owl, too.   

If the Obama Administration is urging us to look forward, then we must take the long view of the future.  The long view means valuing the history lesson along with the brain-storming session.  If we care what happens to our progeny ten generations from now, we’ve got to consider the trajectory from ten generations back as equally relevant.

The life of our planet must not be a flash in the pan, a brief streak of light in time’s expanse.   Our ancient Mother deserves a future of infinite history, and so do we, her youngest children.   To celebrate our common Mother’s Day, let’s give her bicycles, sustainable agriculture, windmills, solar panels, rain barrels.  Because it makes no sense to give her bicycles with one hand and bombs with the other, it’s time to acknowledge that the critical point we have reached is not a call to arms, it’s a call to lay them down. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. said it more directly when he told the United States that our choice was between nonviolence and non-existence.  This is our Montgomery moment, our Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  The planet can’t wait, and neither must we. 

By Susan Van Haitsma

An editorial published recently by the Austin American-Statesman  admonished readers to view a trial in Minnesota as a “cautionary tale for activists.”  Two men from Austin were charged with making explosives intended for use during the Republican National Convention last September.

Cautionary tales are important, and it’s fortunate that the explosives were never used.  I wholeheartedly agree with the editorial that using violence to effect change is counterproductive.  But this story, focusing only on these two “activists” (and, later, their former colleague-turned FBI informant) has given a false impression of what activism actually looked like at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The case of the men from Austin was the only front-page news (Sept. 9, 10, 11, 25 and Jan. 9, 27, 28, 31) published in the Austin American-Statesman about any aspect of the demonstrations at either convention.  The larger, unreported story was that an array of creative, nonviolent action was organized in Denver and St. Paul by committed people who had gathered there to exercise their First Amendment rights to assemble peacefully despite the restrictions placed on them.  People whose message was essentially, “it’s counterproductive to use violence (invasion, occupation, torture, war) to effect change” were muffled by the police and the press.

I followed news about the demonstrations at both conventions mostly through independent media reports and eye-witness accounts from friends who were there.  Events included parades, marches, permitted encampments, art displays, concerts, street theatre and public forums.  In Denver, a group of hundreds of young people led by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War marched peacefully for several miles to deliver a statement to Obama campaign officials at the convention site.  In St. Paul, a similar march was led by several hundred members of Veterans for Peace who had held their annual convention in St. Paul in order to coincide with the RNC.  A group formed by Voices for Creative Nonviolence walked 450 miles from Chicago to St. Paul during the month ahead of the convention to speak in towns along the way about the ongoing occupation of Iraq.  CodePink activists rode bicycles around the heavily barricaded convention sites to promote a “War is Not Green” message, and they used some spontaneous satire to dramatize corporate influence of politicians and to resist the provocative corralling of demonstrators by cordons of black-clad riot police and national guard troops.

If newspaper editors are serious about wanting young people to choose nonviolence, then they must do more than pounce on stories about young people who use violence.  They must report on the alternative.  Otherwise, part of the message young people get is that only violence warrants notice.  Jurors have debated the influence of the FBI informant in the RNC case.  Another discussion could reasonably ask whether the major media plays a role in “inducing” people to use violence by selling it so heavily in the news while downplaying or ignoring news about people who practice nonviolent resistance.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was rightly cited in the American-Statesman editorial as a powerful practitioner of nonviolence.  His resistance was active, not “passive,” as the editorial termed it.

At Austin’s MLK Day celebration, and also in our public high schools this year, the Nonmilitary Options for Youth group that I work with has used a “peace wheel of fortune” that we made as a peace education tool.  The wheel contains names and pictures of peacemakers past and present, including prominent figures like MLK and Gandhi, and others not as familiar.  Students spin the wheel and, for a prize, are asked to tell us something about the person on the wheel where it stops.  We are encouraged when we see how much students like the wheel, so we’re also saddened when we see how little they are being taught in school about even the most well-known nonviolent movements.  If young people know only that MLK “had a dream,” but don’t know what he did to achieve it, and if they have never heard of Gandhi or Cesar Chavez, then they have little idea of what nonviolent resistance actually entails:  the boycotts, labor strikes, fasts, sit-ins, teach-ins, mass marches, court cases, good faith negotiations and the long road made of many important steps.  Tools and strategies evolve over time and adapt to different situations because nonviolence is a living history.

Don’t miss out on this history as it is being lived.   Don’t cheat kids out of it.  In this time of hopefulness and reform, I’d like to see the mainstream media commit to report more than the cautionary tales, and to tell the stories of the many creative ways that people are using nonviolent methods to defend our freedoms and bring about positive change.  Do it because it will increase fairness and accuracy in reporting, and do it because it will save lives. 

by Susan Van Haitsma,
also posted at the makingpeace blog

On the eve of Veterans Day, four veterans of the Iraq war spoke on a panel at the University of Texas to offer a reality check to the jingoism surrounding most November 11th commemorations. Organized by the student group, CAMEO (Campus Antiwar Movement to End Occupations), the event was designed to echo the Winter Soldier model where veterans of the wars/occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan speak from their own experience about what is happening there. In the months since the first Winter Soldier hearings were held by Iraq Veterans Against the War near Washington DC in March (patterned after the historic hearings by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971), IVAW members have been speaking on regional and local panels across the country, giving Americans more opportunities to hear directly from veterans in their communities.

Are Americans listening? That is the question. The virtual media blackout in the main stream press has been at least partially offset by good reporting among independent and international media, and IVAW itself has accomplished its own publicity through effective web outreach and creative nonviolent direct action. Thanks to student groups like CAMEO and other community sponsorship, veterans’ stories are being aired, and the mainstream can’t claim ignorance. Truth has a way of finding the light of day.

The first of the four panelists to speak on Monday night was Hart Viges, one of my colleagues in the group, Nonmilitary Options for Youth. Hart has taken a strong interest in reaching out to young people who are in the position he was in when he felt the best thing he could do for his country was to take up arms on its behalf. Now, on his army shirt, he wears the Nonmilitary Options logo: a gun with its barrel twisted in a knot. “I’d rather talk to a high school kid than a politician any day,” he says, “because that politician isn’t going to join the military.”

Hart enlisted on Sept. 12, 2001 out of a deep sense of patriotic duty. He trained with the tough Army Airborne, hoping to jump into Iraq the hard way. Instead, he rolled into Iraq on the ground, conducting house raids and setting mortars for “soft targets.” He discovered that the mythical battleground was actually someone’s community. After one tour, Hart came to grips with his beliefs about war, crystallized by his experience of it, and he applied for a discharge as a conscientious objector. He was one of the lucky ones whose claim was approved, and he received an honorable discharge. Since then, Hart has been devoting much time to IVAW, Nonmilitary Options for Youth and the GI Rights Hotline as a telephone counselor. He has spoken widely in the US and abroad and was one of the veterans who testified at the Winter Soldier hearings in March. He also participates in a veterans therapy group at the VA, has taken some college courses and works full-time.

When he talks to high school students about his experience in Iraq, Hart encourages them to see not only the “ground zero effects” of war but also the larger picture, the system that perpetuates war. He talks about the tax dollars that fund it and the mindset that rationalizes it. Students listen because he has been there. “I know that my real tax dollars turn into real bullets that kill real people,” he says. “What I saw over there was a gross misdirection of resources and power.” When he shows students the pie chart showing the billions of federal tax dollars funneled into military spending – money that could easily pay all the college expenses of every college-aged person in the US – he asks them, “What would you rather have – two wars or a completely educated society?”

In some respects, Hart is continuing the mission he began when the Sept. 11th hijackingss spurred his instinct to protect his community with his life. Now, the community he wants to protect extends beyond the borders of one country and encompasses future generations. Instead of using a gun, he’s using his gifts.

Second panelist, Bryan Hannah has been stationed at Ft. Hood, TX and is in the discharge process after applying as a conscientious objector. He spoke primarily about the role of private contractors in the “war on terror,” and the exasperation he feels about the lack of accountability in so many aspects of the war, from the Bush Administration on down. He didn’t describe his own experiences in Iraq, but an excerpt from a blog he writes gives a clue to some of his feelings during a recent training exercise at Ft. Hood:

“I remember the first time I waited in line for my M-16 in basic. I was like a little kid at Christmas time. Now, as I stand here to the side, as everyone draws their weapons for the field, I feel like I’m not here. Seeing people fight to gain position in a line to get their weapons sooner than the next guy, I listen in from my own little world, hearing the mutters of anxious, motivated privates in chorus with the broken vets, loathing the cold black maiden that has broken families and destroyed lives. The ball and chain wrapped around their souls and anchored into a mired existence. Due to my Conscientious Objector packet, I don’t have to carry a weapon and it almost feels like I successfully kicked a habit, or that I might actually separate from the Army one day and begin to heal.”

Bryan also has written for the IVAW publication, “SIT-REP.” In their Memorial Day ’08 issue, he authored an article about soldiers who die of injuries sustained in Iraq whose deaths are not counted in official tallies. He asked, “What about the other casualties of war? The amputees, paraplegics, quadriplegics, people with brain damage and hearing loss, personalities that are permanently changed for the worse, marriages ruined (divorces among officers have risen 300% and enlisted people have a 200% higher divorce rate than before 2003), and children who are messed up by separation from their parents. Is this war worth it? Is any possible success worth the cost?”

Bryan closed his remarks on the panel by saying, “We have to remember that apathy is the dying side of freedom.” That’s a quote for the ages.

Mike Nordstrom, a US Marine, opened his portion of the panel discussion by informing his audience, “Today is the Marine Corps’ birthday: November 10, 1775.” Mike spoke about the difficulties that arise when one of “the few, the proud” is injured and faces the stigma associated with seeking treatment. Mike sustained physical and psychological injuries during his two tours in Iraq but was hesitant to check into the VA because he didn’t want to “take away resources” from vets with injuries that seemed worse than his. He also said that he felt embarrassed using the VA. It took pressure from his family and friends to finally get him in the door. Once there, he dealt with lots of paperwork and long waiting periods for appointments. Now, he meets regularly with a group of other vets at the VA and openly discusses the PTSD that he said is considered a “weakness issue” in the Marines.

Final panelist, Ronn Cantu, discussed in some detail the job he held during his last tour in Iraq as part of a human intelligence team. He feels he can finally speak openly about what he did in Iraq because he has just been discharged this month from the US Army. Ronn described the process he and others in his intelligence unit were ordered to use to “make a citizen into a detainee.” The process involved capitalizing on Iraqi grudges and loyalties and their desperate need for employment and cash. He spoke about the “dual sourced” intelligence they were supposed to gather to incriminate Iraqi men of military age (documenting two information sources for every suspect). “What makes an Iraqi want to turn in another Iraqi? Money and a lot of lying,” he said. Orders would come down to “speed things up,” meaning that higher-ups wanted more detainees, so they “cast the net” wider. He said that the more they had to speed it up, the less often they found the right people. So that numbers could increase, men of military age were rounded up and detained without cause. Ronn also said that he saw evidence of detained men having been beaten, but when he asked about it, he was told that if he didn’t witness the beating, there was nothing he could do about it.

Ronn had already served an enlistment in the army when he was inspired to re-enlist after hearing Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN arguing for an invasion of Iraq. “I bought it, hook, line and sinker,” he said. But, “after the life I took in my first deployment and the deceit in my second, I was done. I wouldn’t be a part of that anymore. I decided human beings weren’t made to treat each other like that.” Ronn did some writing from Iraq, began to speak out more publicly and filed a claim as a conscientious objector, but the military decided to use an administrative discharge. Ronn is relieved to be out, and plans to re-start his college career this spring. “As a 30 year-old, I don’t know how it will be going to school with 19 year-olds,” he says, but he is anxious to get to it. While he’s gathering intelligence in a new way, his classmates will have a lot to learn from him, too.

photos by Susan Van Haitsma

by Susan Van Haitsma
also posted at makingpeace

When Camilo Mejia walked into the auditorium of UT’s Garrison Hall where he was to speak last Thursday night, his first reaction was to shake his head at the large book-cover images of himself that were projected onto screens in front. He’s a humble guy, and self-promotion is not his leaning.

But, he’s on the Resisting Empire speaking tour with the new Haymarket Books publication of The Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia: An Iraq War Memoir, so he was in Austin to promote both the book and the mission of his fellow Iraq Veterans Against the War: immediate and unconditional withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq, adequate care for all veterans and reparations for Iraq.

With his youthful good looks, casual attire and backpack slung over his shoulder, Mejia could have been one of the many students in his audience. But, when he began to speak, his seriousness revealed a deeper level of experience. He invited the five other members of Iraq Veterans Against the War who were present to join him in the front and take questions from the crowd, creating an instant IVAW panel that personified the variety of membership within the rapidly growing organization.

As chair of the board of IVAW, Mejia reported that from 7 original members who organized the group in July 2004, IVAW membership has expanded to about 1400, including the most quickly growing contingent: active duty soldiers. One of the newest chapters formed at Ft. Hood this year.

Mejia stressed the importance of the camaraderie that he and other vets experience through their involvement with IVAW. The sense of shared purpose and belonging mirrors an aspect of military life they value. He also said that in his role with IVAW, he has learned a new sense of what leadership entails: “respect, communication and shared ideals,” rather than leadership based on fear and punishment that he was trained to demonstrate as an army staff sergeant.

Mejia’s primary message is that conscience, not combat, is the source of our freedom. When a soldier is in the midst of combat, it is very difficult to think about moral implications. “You’re under so much pressure; there’s so much fear, so much fatigue.” Soldiers can’t be expected to weigh right and wrong in the middle of a firefight. Drilled in reflexive fire training and armed with powerful weapons, they don’t have to get an order to kill civilians; they’re just thrown into situations where they do it. Mejia said that in the five months he was in Iraq, his unit killed 33 civilians. Only 3 were armed.

Mejia talked about following orders to abuse Iraqi prisoners. He describes this also in the new film, Soldiers of Conscience, a documentary that happened to air in Austin the same night that Mejia spoke here. While in Iraq, Mejia felt conflicted about what he was doing, but it wasn’t until he was home on a two week leave that he had the time and distance to really think about it. “Some people say, ‘once a soldier, always a soldier,’” he says in the film. “Well, once a human being, always a human being.”

Through his interviews, his appearances in documentaries like Soldiers of Conscience and The Ground Truth, his speaking tours and in his own incisive writing, Mejia has modeled what IVAW has been aiming to do as a group through the “Winter Soldier” hearings and panels. As he said in the concluding remarks of the initial Winter Soldier hearings held in March ’08 — now transcribed in a new book (also published by Haymarket Books), Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations,

“Iraq Veterans Against the War has become a source of stress to the military brass and to the government … We have become a dangerous group of people not because of our military training, but because we have dared to challenge the official story. We are dangerous because we have dared to share our experiences, to think for ourselves, to analyze and be critical, to follow our conscience, and because we have dared to go beyond patriotism to embrace humanity.”

Winter Soldier testimony from the March hearings can be seen on the IVAW website, and the book can be ordered there, too.

As terrible as it is to hear the testimonies of these veterans, it is even more terrible to have lived the stories, either as a soldier or as an Iraqi or Afghan civilian. As US Marine veteran Anthony Swofford writes in his foreword to Winter Soldier, “Do not turn away from these stories. They are yours, too.”

As I walked home from Mejia’s presentation, I passed the UT tower on which is inscribed the new testament passage, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I passed the Cesar Chavez statue that includes several Chavez quotes, such as “You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore,” and “You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride.”

We don’t turn away from civil rights stories, from freedom movement stories, because they are our stories. Veterans who are using their voices and actions to try to stop war are joining this proud legacy, exchanging weapons for the power of truth. The freedom they are gaining is ours, too.

photo courtesy of Camilo Mejia

by Susan Van Haitsma, also posted at makingpeace

When I attended the presentation at UT on Tuesday evening by Daniel Ellsberg, the concept of freedom of conscience was already on my mind. 

A few days prior, I had gone to a special commemoration of Gandhi’s birthday, where conscience was posed as a religious freedom issue by one of the speakers, a local war tax resister.  Souvenir bookmarks containing Gandhi quotes were distributed around the tables, and the one I happened to pick up read, “In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.”

Then, over the weekend, an inaugural conference was held in Austin, organized chiefly by the pastor and congregation of the Austin Mennonite Church.  The National Assembly to Honor Freedom of Conscience featured guest speakers Walter Wink (noted theologian and nonviolence trainer), Gene Stoltzfus (former director of Christian Peacemaker Teams) and Ann Wright, whose book, Dissent:  Voices of Conscience was published this year and includes a foreword by Daniel Ellsberg.  Conference panelists included conscientious objectors and GI resisters whose stories parallel those in Wright’s book.

Ann Wright spoke also at a book signing event at BookWoman on Monday, where matters of conscience, government, law, risk, family and the military were discussed by those present, including, again, several conscientious objectors.  The week seemed to come full circle with Ellsberg’s Austin appearance the following evening.

In conjunction with a UT conference planned for the coming weekend, Ellsberg was asked to compare what was happening in 1968 with what is happening now.  He packed a lot in – dates, names, places and people – while his primary message echoed what I had heard all week: truth can free us from war. 

Ellsberg did not talk much about the tragedies and tumult of 1968, but rather focused on what he saw and experienced as a government insider.   “1968 is a year I don’t like to relive,” he admitted.  He spent most of his time describing events leading up to that year, beginning with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 and the tangled web that was spun from it and later documented in the Pentagon Papers.  Ellsberg also recounted something about the less tangible factors that led to the escalation of the Indochina War – the human strengths and frailties of the political and military actors at that time, including him.

Ellsberg spoke with an intense clarity of memory, recounting the details of who said what when, what they probably meant and what they probably did or didn’t know at the time.  I sensed that in spite of the strange mix of pariah/hero status he attained following the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, he still is proud of the insider position he once held and perhaps even misses the feeling of closeness that resulted from being loyal to powerful people and knowing their secrets.  In fact, he said that being called a traitor is something he has never gotten used to.

In his talk, Ellsberg didn’t fully explain his inner change of heart, the private crisis of conscience that led him to shift from personal loyalty to the president and joint chiefs of staff to a more abstract loyalty to the Constitution and international law.  But, as he wrote in an article in Harpers in 2006 (quoted by UT’s Evan Carton during his introduction of Ellsberg),

“I had long prized my own identity as a keeper of the president’s secrets. In 1964 it never even occurred to me to break the many secrecy agreements I had signed, in the Marines, at the Rand Corporation, in the Pentagon. Although I already knew the Vietnam War was a mistake and based on lies, my loyalties then were to the secretary of defense and the president (and to my promises of secrecy, on which my own career as a president’s man depended). I’m not proud that it took me years of war to awaken to the higher loyalties owed by every government official to the rule of law, to our soldiers in harm’s way, to our fellow citizens, and, explicitly, to the Constitution, which every one of us had sworn an oath ‘to support and uphold.’  It took me that long to recognize that the secrecy agreements we had signed frequently conflicted with our oath to uphold the Constitution.”

More about the role of conscience in Ellsberg’s moral conflict can be found in a passage I read about ten years ago in Daniel Hallock’s collection of writings and interviews, Hell, Healing and Resistance: Veterans Speak. The book includes an interview with Ellsberg in which he recalls these pivotal personal events in 1968 and ’69:

“Now, two things affected my life at that point.  I’d been reading Gandhi since the spring of ’68, when I happened to meet people from the Quaker Action group at a conference in Princeton.  I had gone there to study counter-revolution, and they were there as nonviolent revolutionaries.  So I started reading MLK, Stride Toward Freedom, and Barbara Deming, who wrote an essay called Revolution and Equilibrium.  I read and reread many times a book by Joan Bondurant called The Conquest of Violence, on Gandhian thought, which converted me very strongly, very impressively.

Then, in late August 1969 I went to a conference of the War Resisters League – they were founded by World War I CO’s; Einstein was once their honorary president – and in the course of this conference I was induced to go to a vigil for somebody who was going to prison for draft resistance, which was a very unusual thing for me to be doing.  There I was, standing in the street outside the Philadelphia post office, passing out leaflets.  This was not the sort of thing the GSA Team did.  It seemed, you know, rather undignified – giving away your influence and your access in such a ridiculous way, just handing out leaflets like a bum.

Then, at the end of this conference, I met another young man, Randy Kehler, a Harvard college graduate who had gone on to Stanford but then stopped his studies to work for the War Resisters League.  He gave a talk and at the end he announced that he was also on his way to prison for refusal to cooperate with the draft.  And this came to me as a total shock.  It just hit me that it was a terrible thing for my country that the best he and so many others could do was go to prison.  I went to the men’s room and just sat on the floor and cried for about an hour and thought, ‘My country has come to this?  We’re eating our young.  We’re relying on them, to end the war and to fight the war?’  And I felt it was up to me.  I was older.  I was thirty-eight.  It was up to us older people to stop the war.”

Ellsberg realized his tool was information and his sacrifice was the loss of his insider position and a risk, like that of the draft resister, of imprisonment.  MLK’s April 4, 1967 admonition, “A time comes when silence is betrayal,” gained special meaning for him.

Ellsberg feels we are in a similarly critical time now.  It’s a time that calls for greater risk-taking.   He said that Obama, for example, could risk standing against an escalation of the Iraq war into Iran, Afghanistan or Pakistan.  Links ought to be made between the economic crisis and the war. “Can we afford to murder people at this cost indefinitely?” is the question we must ask, he says.  He pointed out that in the five years after 1968 – when the Indochina war had lost almost all popular support, four times as many bombs were dropped in Southeast Asia as were dropped prior to 1968.  He fears the same kind of enlargement of war could easily happen again.  “Power doesn’t learn from history,” he said.  “Power follows its own dictates; power doesn’t give up its power.”

Ellsberg concluded, “This country needs to advance in another direction.”   Directed by conscience and moved by the acts of conscience of others, people can change course.  His life is a case in point.  Truth can stand up to power, and a bum with a leaflet can change the course of history.

photo from Wall Street action by arts group, “The Critical Voice,”  Oct. 7, 08.  Photo courtesy of CodePink                            

By Susan Van Haitsma

September 21 is International Day of Peace, a day established by the General Assembly of the United Nations for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace within and among all nations and people.”    UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon  has urged all combatants to honor the day by standing down from battle.   “I call for a day of global ceasefire:  A 24-hour respite from the fear and insecurity that plague so many places,” he stated on this date last year.  “I urge all countries and all combatants to honor a cessation of hostilities.  I urge them to ponder the high price that we all pay because of conflict.  I urge them to vigorously pursue ways to make this temporary ceasefire permanent.”

What is peace?  Is it a temporary condition between periods of conflict?  A worthy but unattainable ideal?  Just a hope, or a dream?

Peace is not as elusive as that.  It has a future because it has a past and present.  Peace is not so much a goal as a process.  As the great nonviolent organizer, A.J. Muste famously said, “There is no way to peace.  Peace is the way.” 

Peace is not the absence of conflict — it’s a way through it.  Because we humans are always going to be in conflict in some form or another, making peace means actively addressing – not running from — conflict and injustice, while using nonviolent methods.  The choice is always available.   

Some forms of peacemaking are so common that most people do it just like breathing.  It’s the smile of affirmation, the word of encouragement, the humor that eases tension, the candid statement that clears the air.  It’s the community garden, the guitar lesson, the basketball game.   We make peace a hundred times a day because it’s the natural thing to do.

Peacemaking is also a discipline.  We can make conscious decisions to refrain from gossip or name-calling, learn how to apologize, let go of a grudge, and firmly and respectfully stand up to bullying.  Nonviolence, at its best, involves confronting an adversary while simultaneously preserving the adversary’s dignity. 

People using principled nonviolence catch courage from one another.  Like the father who forgives the man who murdered his daughter and then visits him in prison, the unarmed peace team that intercedes between armed militias, the former gang member who talks kids out of retaliatory violence, the soldier who refuses to return to war.      

Peacemaking is done spontaneously or may be strategically planned – and is often both.  Actions may be immediate responses to overt violence or symbolic acts that address root causes of injustice.  Methods include civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance and creative intervention.  Like the elderly woman who is first to crawl under the barricade, the young people who sit in the road to halt business as usual, the cellist who plays Bach in the middle of a besieged town square, the student who faces down the rolling tanks.      

The more we know about nonviolence, the more likely we are to use it.  If media reports about people who commit violence dominate the news at the same time that nonviolent actions are ignored or minimized, what message does this convey, especially to young people who want to be heard?

I’m not convinced that violence sells the news, but I do think that the news sells violence, and it doesn’t have to. 

I’d like to see what would happen if, even just for one day, like a Global Day of Ceasefire, all major media outlets around the world directed their journalists, photographers and videographers to document the ways people are choosing  active nonviolence in the face of conflict, terror and injustice.  Inspiration is contagious.   A temporary ceasefire could become permanent. 

 by Susan Van Haitsma (reposted from the makingpeace blog) 

It was good to talk yesterday with our local CodePink folks who were just back in Austin from St. Paul.  They described the full week of activities that took place surrounding the RNC, the barricaded ‘police state’ that made navigating the city a real challenge, the police (and national guard troops) who were sometimes pleasant and sometimes unnecessarily intimidating and provocative, often herding crowds of mostly young people into corralled areas where it was difficult or impossible to exit. 

Much has been made in the AAS of the two young men from Austin who are alleged to have been planning to use incendiary devices at the RNC.  It remains to be seen what happens in their cases and whether there was significant evidence that others had such violence in mind. 

The larger story is that the vast majority of the demonstrators were committed to using creative, nonviolent methods to draw attention to the issues that concern the majority of Americans about US policy, the current administration and the McCain/Palin campaign — and the mainstream press largely ignored it. 

Among the heroes in the story are the independent media – the writers, photographers and videographers who followed the action on the streets, even when they were targeted by the riot police along with the crowds.  Unlawful arrests of journalists at the RNC are being investigated after an outpouring of concern from readers, lawyers and other journalists around the country — but, again, not much mention from the established media about this breach of First Amendment freedoms. 

It’s interesting that many of those who call for harsh punishment of the two young men from Austin are also those who generally favor using violence to address violence.  These young men were apparently following the same line of thinking: “violence is the only language they understand.”

If you want young people to express themselves peacefully, then be good role models for doing so.  Don’t send hundreds of armed, masked, black-clad rambo-looking characters to provoke them.  Don’t feature only the stories of those who retaliate with violence.  I think the press has a responsibility to report the breadth and depth of the nonviolent ways people are rising up to reclaim their democratic ideals.  If nonviolent protest is not reported, that’s one more message to young people that only violent acts make the news.

photos taken at the RNC by Heidi Turpin and Fran Hanlon of Austin CodePink

I haven’t watched this much television since I was in grade school.  I became glued to the DNC coverage this week, both televised and on the net.  Of course, commentary about the proceedings abounded, from convention pundits and participants to bloggers on the scene and those watching from a distance.  I enjoyed the opportunity to hear and read what folks had to say.

The convention was filled with inspiring words and actions (both inside and outside the convention halls), and last night’s event, open to the public and held in the open air on the very anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, was exceptionally  moving and celebratory.

I appreciated hearing the concrete statements of concern and intent made by both Al Gore and Barack Obama in their cogent presentations.   Here are some reflections:

Last night and throughout the convention, great emphasis was placed on the issue of parenting, particularly on the role of the father in the family.   From Michelle Obama’s early reference to the strength of her own father’s influence on her life, to Barack Obama’s eagerness to be the kind of father that he didn’t have, to Joe Biden’s significant role as single dad to his sons when his wife and daughter were tragically killed … All these seemed to culminate in statements Barack Obama made last night, to great applause, when he stressed that the change Americans want will take more than money; change will require more  responsibility from each of us, especially in the areas of resource conservation and parenting.  “Individual and mutual responsibility,” he said.  “That’s the essence of America’s promise.”

After 8 years of the Bush Administration’s distinct lack of empathy in policy-making, I felt a huge sense of relief hearing a statesman stress that “I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper,” without contradicting the essence of the American ideal of self-determination and personal freedom of choice.  From his vantage point as a father and as a lawmaker and civil rights and women’s rights advocate, Obama repeated that “America’s promise” is the right for all children to become what they want to become, but not as isolated individuals, rather as valued parts of a whole that is interconnected and interdependent.

The bedrock amalgam of freedom and empathy is what underlies Obama’s platform planks –  equal rights to quality education and health care, shared efforts in becoming conservation-minded and energy independent, equal pay for equal work, the rights of workers to organize, and economic policies that support rather than undermine family life.

Precisely because of my agreement with these value-based policies, I disagree with several of Obama’s stated goals regarding national security and foreign relations.  My concerns are these:

·         Obama’s inclination to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan pursues a “more of the same” agenda that hasn’t succeeded in the “war on terror” either there or in Iraq.  Afghanistan is even more difficult in terms of terrain and cultural difference than Iraq, and so far, US military operations in Afghanistan have proven more harmful than helpful to the people there.  Regular reports of civilian casualties from US weapons, a burgeoning opium trade and the growing influence of warlords and religious extremism has occurred under US occupation, and it would seem to repeat the Bush Administration’s stubborn tendency to address a  problem by doing more of what isn’t working.  As an alternative approach, I think answers lie in exactly what Obama prescribes for our own country:  bolstering equal access to education and basic family necessities.  Along the lines of what Greg Mortenson (“Three Cups of Tea”) has been doing with school projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan, assistance in the area of education would do much more than military force  to not only improve living conditions, but to heal relations and remove underlying motives for terrorism. 

·         No mention was made by Barack Obama last night or by any leading party statesperson during the entire convention, as far as I could tell, of the huge problem of the privatization of the US military.  Comprising approximately equal numbers as US military personnel in Iraq, privately contracted mercenary and military support workers have undermined US relations with Iraq, have proven nearly impossible to hold accountable, have been extremely costly and have only provoked, in my opinion, further terrorism.  What does an Obama/Biden administration plan to do about the rise of the outsourced army?

·         Last night, Barack Obama condoned the notion of “taking out” Osama bin Laden.  Assassination is incompatible with US Constitutional and thus international law.  This kind of “tough talk” is exactly the kind of Bush Administration rhetoric that we must move away from, not emulate.  It’s also exactly the kind of rhetoric that has escalated the “war on terror” and has led to the general demonization of whole groups of people – which is completely counter to the direction a new civil rights-minded administration would want to go.  Osama bin Laden can be apprehended – alive – and charged and tried in accordance with international law – something the Bush Administration could have pursued 7 years ago, but chose a path motivated  by opportunism instead.

·         Obama promised to go through the federal budget “line by line” to cut excess spending and free up money to bolster the education and health care insurance plans he supports.  But, the biggest black hole for federal funds has been war spending.  Stop funding war and money will be there for the programs we need.

·         War is not green.  This was a primary message of those who marched and demonstrated outside the convention in Denver (and who plan to do the same in Minnesota this week).  It’s a serious point that is not being made by Al Gore or others in the Obama/Biden campaign.  War and war preparation cause great environmental degradation, both in the US and abroad.  The US military, no matter how much one might support its missions, must be acknowledged as one of the top polluters in the world.  Every decision to use military force rather than diplomacy must take this environmental cost into consideration.

I am enthusiastic about Barack Obama’s general emphasis on reaching out to other government leaders (such as Iran’s) and his tendency to seek dialogue, compromise and common ground.  I’m also buoyed by his insistence on fundamental equality, both as a matter of belief and also as a function of his own background and heritage.  He could bring this same guiding principle of equality to decisions regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia and other potential centers of conflict. 

That is, the principle of equality necessarily extends to all persons, everywhere in the world, not only Americans.  We may have an exceptional form of government, but we do not have an exceptional right to life.  Every human life is of equal value.  Every child in the world deserves the opportunity to live a meaningful life.  This truth, that Obama has expressed so eloquently, must guide US foreign policy as equally as it guides domestic policy.  As Bill Clinton said in his address to the convention, “The power of example is more important than the example of power.” 

I like the example we have seen so far in the ways Barack Obama and Joe Biden have led their own lives as integrated family men and committed public servants.  I wholeheartedly agree with the emphasis on the mix of individual and mutual responsibility that is being discussed in this campaign.  In fact, balancing our lives as individuals and also as members of communities is part of the global human condition.  We can take this opportunity to teach by example in the world, to be willing to admit our mistakes and to learn from our global neighbors whose earth, air, water and sun we share.  Equality is a truth we can choose to live.  Yes, we can.                       

by Susan Van Haitsma (cross-posted at her makingpeace blog at the Austin American-Statesman) 

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the greatest events in US history.  The anniversary, remembered mostly for King’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered to a quarter of a million people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, will surely be invoked by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention today.

On this day, I like to remember the primary organizer of the historic March on Washington, Bayard Rustin.  Rustin was known for his calm, meticulous, professional handling of the myriad logistics involved in getting people to and from the march in an orderly way via bus, plane, car and train from points far and near.  He also engineered security for the march, including arranging nonviolence training for security personnel, a crucial aspect given the great apprehension among government officials that violence would erupt during the event.  

The march, the largest single-day event of its kind in US history to that date, was a huge success and a major factor toward passage of the Civil Rights Act the following year. 

Bayard Rustin was not only a highly skilled organizer, he was a skilled and experienced nonviolence trainer whose influence in the US civil rights movement at crucial times, such as the early days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott when MLK became involved in the movement, was pivotal.  He also was a gay man who was hounded by the FBI and segregationists like Strom Thurmond, who sought to discredit Rustin in order to thwart the March on Washington. Other organizers of the march, including A. Philip Randolph, stood by Rustin, helping to prevent Thurmond’s attacks from gaining purchase.

It was good to hear US Rep. John Lewis interviewed last night at the DNC after Barack Obama had been officially nominated.  Lewis was one of the “Big Ten” who spoke along with King on that important day in 1963, and his speech was considered one of the more fiery of the day.  He asked people to “get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”

It is not complete, but there are still people working hard – both inside government and outside in the streets – for a nonviolent revolution of values declaring that freedom from injustice also means freedom from war. 

Photo from wikipedia

By Susan Van Haitsma

OpEdNews / CommonDreams

“Integrity,” according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, was the word most frequently accessed by their readers in 2005. This bit of news has interesting implications at this particular time when another I-word is topping the list of many discussions. The report also caught my eye because “integrity” is one of two words I’ve had on my mind lately. The second, because it appears so often in print these days, is “hero.”

The definition of “integrity” I find most meaningful comes directly from the word’s Latin root, “integer,” meaning “to make whole or complete,” an origin it shares with the word “entire.” A person of integrity strives to model a life of wholeness, to integrate the practice with the preachment, the ends with the means.

“Hero” has gone from meaning “god-like” or “demigod” to becoming a term more applicable to the everyday person. Acting with exceptional courage, strength, ability and charity in certain situations, anyone might be a hero. Heroism can come and go, and it can be confused with stardom. Paradoxically, heroes often eschew the pedestal and identify more and more throughout their lives with common people through shared struggle. Instead of aiming to be gods, heroes seek wholeness and integration.

Our most well known hero of the civil rights movement was very clear about the connection between integrating people and integrating the movement’s methods with its goals. In his 1963 book, “Strength to Love,” Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means.” The brief statement goes beyond making judgment calls about moral and immoral methods. It reveals a plainer truth that explains the movement’s commitment to nonviolence: means and ends cannot be separated. No matter what we think is right or wrong, the way we do something becomes part of the result.

Entering a local high school just before the holidays, I was pleased to see a peace sign among the seasonal decorations painted on the front doors. The image I noticed next, placed on a coffee table in the front office where I signed in, was an Army Of One recruiting display featuring a young soldier and the slogan, “Every generation has its heroes. This one is no different.”

Later that day, I heard presentations by two actual soldiers back from Iraq who indicated they didn’t feel like heroes. In fact, one of the young vets said that it hurt to be called a hero because it made him feel empty inside. “The loneliness of your self-sacrifice only grows,” he said. “I’ve been out of the Army a year and some change, but it hasn’t gotten any better. I don’t know how I can deal with this for 30 years. Talking about it helps, but I can’t ever get to specifics. Why would I tell my mom what a burning baby smells like?” His Army unit was one of the first to enter Iraq on March 20, 2003, and later he was transferred suddenly from field artillery to military police and assigned to Abu Ghraib. The divergence of ends and means, the lie that claims peace will result from war, can rend a soldier’s heart.

On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, my brother-in-law, a reserve officer in the US Air Force, is scheduled to be en route to Iraq. He and I are the same age, and as a 48 year-old professional in the medical field, he believes that part of his duty as an older reservist is to provide needed leadership to younger soldiers regardless of his personal views about the war. He volunteered to go. “I didn’t stay home and hide,” he explains.

We’ve talked about his reasons for going, and his motivation jibes with what I hear from other soldiers. It has to do with brotherhood and a desire to save your brothers from death. It’s a heroic impulse that I believe our government leaders intentionally exploit by creating a maelstrom of disaster that keeps drawing in more soldiers who want to save each other.

My brother-in-law, who I love dearly, knows that I support other ways to not stay home and hide that don’t involve carrying a gun. And when I ask what I should do to support him, he says I should continue to work against war, because “the civilian politicians are the ones who stick us in it.” He is entering the maelstrom, and the only way I can think to save him is to follow that advice.

Susan Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth in Austin, Texas and can be reached at jeffjweb@sbcglobal.net

By Susan Van Haitsma

CommonDreams / IndyMedia Austin

The message printed beneath the image of the stern drill sergeant on the US Marine Corps recruitment poster reads, “Just Think of Me as Your New Guidance Counselor.” The poster is displayed in the administrative area of my neighborhood high school on the office door of the two police officers assigned to the school. The police officer who put it there says that it is not a recruitment poster and that, because he is a Marine, he uses it as motivational for himself. Just down the hall are the school’s actual guidance counselors, and one of them expresses another view about the poster. Studying the image, she says quietly, “He doesn’t look like a guidance counselor. His eyes are steely. He doesn’t look like someone who would listen.”

Drill instructors are looking toward ever-younger audiences. Among those marching in Austin’s recent Veterans Day parade, I noticed a group of Junior ROTC students who appeared to be child soldiers. I spoke later with one of them, a 6th grader who is enrolled in the program at his public middle school. I asked him what he learns in his JROTC class. “We learn how to march, and, well, we learn everything,” he said. “Everything?” I asked. “We learn how to be in the army,” he replied. Like the strange, contrary slogan, “An Army of One,” the guidance being given to this youngster pretends to offer a world of possibility, but it boils down to one direction.

The week after Veterans Day, I had an opportunity to speak with US Army Staff Sergeant, Booker T. Newton during a demonstration at his recruiting station on National Stand Down Day. Joined by other activists, parents and veterans, several CodePink women and I, dressed in pink police uniforms, issued citations to the recruiters for morality violations related to their use of deceptive recruitment practices and their roles as accomplices to an immoral war.

When Sergeant Newton learned that I was involved with Nonmilitary Options for Youth, he wanted to know what kinds of options we suggest. He was asking, he said, because more young people than usual are failing the academic tests required for enlistment, and he wonders what is happening or not happening in Texas schools to prepare students for the future. Like another Booker T. of a century ago, he was genuinely concerned about the state of public education, and although we disagreed about the best course of action, we discovered some common ground. He had guided one young person to a local AmeriCorps program that we promote. “After that, he’ll join the Army,” he said. “Or use his education award to go directly to college,” I countered, and he did not object to that possibility.

Another recruiter at the station stressed to the assembled media that he was glad we were there, because we were exercising the freedoms that he believed he was defending through his role in the military. This is the standard and puzzling response often given by spokespersons of the military, an institution that suppresses the individual freedoms of its members. We tried to demonstrate that education – guiding one another to think critically – is a foundation upon which freedom depends.

Last week, the Texas Supreme Court sidestepped an important opportunity to guide the Texas legislature toward improving a public education system that, by some standards, ranks lowest in the country. A friend, writer and educator, Greg Moses has been analyzing the situation in recent articles. He quotes some straightforward language from the Texas constitution of 1875: “A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.” Moses concludes, “Into this succinct line of reasoning is packed a serious claim. Where there is no suitable education, there can be no real hope of preserving rights and liberties.”

The day before the Texas Supreme Court ruling that left school adequacy and equality issues unresolved, I was visiting a local high school to staff a literature table for Nonmilitary Options during the lunch periods. A fight broke out between two students in the hall near our table. My Air Force veteran colleague and I were the only older adults available at the moment the students began circling each other and putting up their fists. A crowd of students formed quickly around them. My colleague and I decided to place ourselves between the two young men and try to hold them apart. The only thing I could think to say as I held onto the shoulders of one of them was “It’s not worth it.” He would not make eye contact with me, but I sensed he would welcome a way out of the fight. Before long, school officials arrived, and a police officer grabbed the other young man, who resisted, was handcuffed and led away.

“Books Not Bombs, Conscience Not Combat,” stated the large poster above our table as a backdrop to the fight. But how can I fault those young men for doing exactly what their country guides them to do? They can see plainly enough that the USA jumps right into the ring with fists pounding when there is conflict. The president of their country clearly chooses bombs over books. Young people can see the ways that school officials promote the military at the same time that they punish students for fighting. During the course of our tabling, a teacher stopped by and told us about a recent all-faculty meeting where military recruiters gave a 20-minute power-point presentation offering assistance with discipline in the school.

Rather than more punishment and rigidity, I have to think that guidance, especially with teenagers, means trying our best to practice what we preach. Young people notice consistency. A role model who comes immediately to mind is a friend and colleague, Susan Quinlan, a former high school teacher who, along with a small group of volunteers at the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors in Oakland, California has developed a program called Alternatives to War through Education (AWE). Quinlan, a long-time war tax resister, is clear with students about her standpoint but encourages them to think for themselves and develop their own positions. Funny and creative, a natural in the classroom, she guides students through interactive exercises that help them explore and express their beliefs about killing and conscience. She also has begun an after-school class for students who are learning to organize events for their peers and facilitate presentations themselves.

Mainly, Quinlan asks questions and listens to the answers. She is accompanied in the classroom by military veterans and conscientious objectors whose very presence as former soldiers who changed their minds about war is enough to cause students to stop and take notice. Quinlan and the AWE program are much in demand. The evolving curriculum offers a form of guidance that expands the mind, allowing students to follow the twists and turns along the many paths where rights and liberties lead. Students whose views are sought and valued are bound to ask questions in return. Such as why a drill sergeant who orders strict conformity is billed as a protector of freedom, and why schools allow drill sergeants in their hallways in the first place.

——-

Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth and Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation. She can be reached at jeffjweb@sbcglobal.net. For more information about the Alternatives to War through Education (AWE) program, contact awe@objector.org

By Susan Van Haitsma

DissidentVoice

Jewel Johnson, a 79 year-old US Navy veteran, is happiest piloting a dry-land rig. His early fascination with trains led him to leave high school and work the railroad until he was drafted at age 18. After the war, he earned a GED and went on to study the ministry. He was ordained in the Methodist Church and served as pastor of Evangelical & Reformed and United Church of Christ congregations before his retirement. In the early 1990’s, Mary Johnson was diagnosed with cancer, and Jewel Johnson cared for his wife throughout her treatment. She survived.

To ease his mind during his wife’s illness, Johnson put himself to work. He took a riding mower and fashioned it into a miniature locomotive. Gradually he added cars. He painted them and called his train The Happy Day press. He painted messages on the sides of the cars – statements such as a quotation from Pope Paul VI, made at the United Nations in 1965: “War Never Again.” A carved white dove holding a wire olive branch served as the cab’s hood ornament. Johnson’s creation became known as the Peace Train.

This recent Veterans Day morning was not the first time that Johnson engineered his Peace Train up Congress Avenue toward the Texas State Capitol amid marching bands, vintage cars, girl and boy scout troops, Junior
ROTC units and various groups of uniformed vets. And it wasn’t the first time that other Veterans for Peace (VFP) members marched in the annual parade along with the Peace Train. The train was fitted with large placards that relayed to the crowd the mission of VFP, and about a dozen VFP members carried banners and distributed several hundred invitational pamphlets to onlookers and other vets in the parade. Mary Johnson, who is an associate VFP member, rode in the caboose to oversee the brakes. All along the route, the Peace Train and its Veterans for Peace crew were greeted by steady applause.

Somehow, a crowd that applauded veterans in a truck labeled, “Tin Can Sailors – Destroyer Veterans” also cheered a Navy vet driving a train declaring, “Pre-emptive Peace On All The Earth.” It’s true that the Peace
Train’s cargo elicited as many expressions of plain surprise as outright approval, but there were few frowns. Not many could resist the wave of the smiling engineer in his dapper conductor’s uniform or reject the hand-lettered messages: “Working to Make War Obsolete,” and “Justice For Veterans And Victims Of War.”

Jewel and Mary Johnson have long been active supporters of Veterans for Peace, and they also are members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the United Nations Association. They take part in local or national meetings of these organizations as well as their denominational gatherings. When he was in the Pacific just after the atomic bombing, Johnson was part of a patrol that went ashore at Hiroshima to pick up American prisoners of war. At one point while he was walking through what was left of the city, a Japanese citizen offered him a tangerine. It was a humane gesture in the midst of horror that he never forgot.

The Johnsons don’t stop with Veterans Day; they take the Peace Train to holiday parades in small towns all around Central Texas. Children love it and instinctively climb aboard. Having served as pastor in a small
Texas town, Johnson understands the population, while he firmly speaks his mind. He frequently writes letters to the editor of his newspaper, expressing frankly and respectfully his views on war from a Christian perspective. Where he and his train go, he proudly introduces himself as a Veteran for Peace. On the side of the Peace Train cab is lettered, “I Thought I Could.”

Jewel and Mary Johnson are diminutive, quiet people who act boldly and creatively. They know what war does and what it looks like. The Peace Train carries a sign reading, “Justice For All Victims Of Agent Orange
And Depleted Uranium.” The Johnsons know that their VFP chapter is named for a much beloved Vietnam veteran who died too young of liver cancer that was attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange. And they know that the youngest vet carrying the VFP banner ahead of the Peace Train this Veterans Day, their new chapter co-chair, risked DU exposure during his tour in Iraq. The Happy Day Express carries these burdens and displays them for all to see. Its crew knows that peace is a train that moves forward only when it is
powered by the engine of truth.

—–

Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth, Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation, and is an associate member of the Neil Bischoff Chapter 66 of Veterans for Peace.

DissidentVoice

By Susan Van Haitsma

Not one more death. Not one more dollar.

Dollars and death are connected in more ways than one. The old adage claims that death and taxes are the only certainties in life, but it is the connection between taxes and death that is the real certainty.

The grinding machinery of war needs fuel: soldiers and money. A majority of Americans indicate they want the machine to stop. Parents and students, veterans and military families are working together to withhold human resources from the war. Cindy Sheehan has movingly expressed the ways that one death has been one too many.

But what happens when the majority of Americans want war to stop, and the money to wage it keeps flowing in? Larger bonuses are used to lure enlistees, and more military services are performed by expensive contract labor. The machine rolls on.

What happens when wage earners get together and withhold their financial resources from the war? The amount of money diverted from death to life may be small in the face of the huge US military budget, but the challenge to the system is great. Somehow, when someone says, “Not with my money,” and backs it up with the open civil disobedience of war tax refusal, eyes open wider. “You can do that?” Yes, we can and do. WWII conscientious objector and civil rights Freedom Rider, Wally Nelson, carried his well-used sign, “Haven’t paid taxes since 1948,” up through his last demonstration at age 93. “Say yes to no,” he would say with a smile.

Wally Nelson’s widow, activist and writer, Juanita Nelson, was not the only octogenarian among the war tax resisters who met recently in Brooklyn, NY for a conference of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), a network of groups and individuals around the USA. Nor was Lincoln Rice of the Milwaukee Catholic Worker the only attendee in his 20’s. But, as we stretched ourselves into a human timeline according to the decade during which we began war tax refusal, the largest groupings were in the middle decades of the 1970’s and ‘80’s.

War tax resistance reached its peak of activity during the Indochina War, with several hundred thousand phone tax resisters and some 20,000 income tax resisters openly redirecting some or all of their federal taxes. A number of well-known figures publicly joined the ranks of war tax refusers, including Joan Baez in 1964 and a group of over 500 writers and editors by 1967. Long-time activist Brad Lyttle, on hand from Chicago for the recent Brooklyn conference, was the first coordinator of National War Tax Resistance (WTR) when it was formally launched in December, 1969 during a New York City press conference that included Allen Ginsberg and Pete
Seeger.

By 1972 there were 192 local WTR chapters across the country.

In 1975, WTR was laid down, and NWTRCC was formed seven years later in response to the growing military budget of the Reagan era. Currently, NWTRCC is comprised of some 40 affiliate groups with area contacts in as many states.

Most war tax resisters consider themselves conscientious objectors. One of Juanita and Wally Nelson’s public statements about their resistance read, “We hope our actions have some effect. But, in any case, simply in order to justify our humanity, we must persist in our attempt to make action serve belief.” Conscientious objection invites a paradox that has been expressed eloquently by soldiers-turned-conscientious objectors like Camilo Mejia and Kevin Benderman; taking an intensely personal, often lonely stand based on one’s conscience makes one feel more deeply connected to all humanity.

Connection with one another is an important aspect of the war tax resistance movement. Peter Goldberger, long-time lawyer advocate for war tax resisters, spoke during the Brooklyn conference to stress the value of the “big tent” of NWTRCC. He believes that the openness and transparency of a shared public witness offers a protective force. War tax resisters tend to be willing to discuss publicly what our society tends to consider private matters: personal income and expenses, financial assets, and our deepest moral and ethical beliefs about life and death.

One focus of the recent NWTRCC gathering involved outreach to young people. A young resister described the anxiety she felt early on about how she would plan for the next 40 to 50 years of life as a war tax resister. She found the prospect rather daunting. Older war tax resisters responded reassuringly that we can take things only one step at a time. Some resisters take the opportunity to reevaluate their situation every year, and many revise their method of refusal over time. In fact, many war tax resisters feel that one of the lessons learned is to live more by faith, trusting that each day’s needs will be met. It is a lesson that contradicts the value placed in this country on long-term personal security and financial investment.

War tax resisters have become active in the counter-recruitment movement. Juanita Nelson, who is invited into school classrooms, counsels us to be sure to talk to students about our war tax resistance. Even for students who are not yet confronted with paying taxes, she believes it is important to plant the seeds of resistance. “In a way, we cheat them if we don’t talk about it!” she says.

A joint effort of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Center on Conscience & War is the “I Will Not Kill” campaign, which educates young people about the concept of conscientious objection. The www.iwillnotkill.org web site features inspiring photographs of young people holding their I Will Not Kill pledge cards. At the close of the NWTRCC conference, we gathered for a photograph of our own: all ages standing behind a banner that read, “We Will Not Kill, And We Will Not Pay for Killing.” We stood under a tent that could grow big enough to hold every taxpayer whose dollars were not meant for death.

Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth and Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation, a NWTRCC affiliate (www.nwtrcc.org)

By Susan Van Haitsma

Every village has its cemetery, its collection of spirit inhabitants who invoke memories of village history and remind the living that death and remembrance of the dead are essential to the natural order of things in human society. But cemeteries usually are found on the edges of town, away from the goings-on of daily life.

The memorials of carefully arranged and named crosses, stars of David and crescents comprising ‘Arlington South’ in Camps Casey I and II are not relegated to the edges, but instead form the heart of the community that has sprung up near Crawford, Texas this month. Memorial crosses hug the three original tents of Camp Casey I and line the road leading to the camp. The field of crosses at Camp Casey II adjoins the large community tent and is the first thing visitors encounter as they approach from the road. In a reversal of the natural order of things, the dead represented by these memorials are society’s youngest adults. The doctrine of pre-emptive war forces members of a society to do the unthinkable: to sacrifice the lives of their young to protect their own.

After her address at Camp Casey II on Saturday, Cindy Sheehan stepped into the cheering audience to greet supporters. As she shook my partner’s hand, she studied the image on his T-shirt: a line of people with arms linked and the message, “Guns don’t protect people … people do.” She said, thoughtfully, “I like your shirt.”

One of the many gifts Cindy Sheehan and her energetic supporters have given the country this August is a living, breathing example of what an alternative to war looks like. It’s an alternative led and shaped by women with a message focused on children. Behind the stage under the big tent of Camp Casey II, the handmade cloth banner spanning exactly the width of the tent states in bold, pink, block letters: MOTHERS SAY NO TO WAR. During the rally on Saturday, a long banner held by about 25 persons in rotating crews in front of the crosses read in bold, blue letters: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME ALIVE. Many smaller signs displayed around the camp contained similar messages: “Hands off God’s hildren.” “Greed is not a lesson for our children.” “War leaves all children behind.”

The village that has grown at Camp Casey contains the essential elements of what is life-giving and life-sustaining: food, water, shelter, clothing (mostly T-shirts), health care, education, communications systems, spiritual direction, visual art, music and dance. It’s all there, sprouting from the earth, brought into being by hundreds of people pooling talents developed in their own communities around the country. People have come with children and pets, often staying longer than intended. “It felt so much like family, I couldn’t bear to leave,” said a friend who spent the night in her car with her daughter so they could stay an extra day.

The remarkable kitchen at Camp Casey II has served thousands of wholesome, delicious meals made by volunteers with donations of food. Marveling at the lunch served one weekday, a Codepink volunteer said, “I eat better here than I do at home!” Bottled water is delivered by the caseload and regular announcements remind older visitors especially to drink at least one bottle an hour during the heat of the day. A medical tent has been staffed with volunteer professionals. Trained counselors also have been available. A special tent has served as a chapel, hung with symbols representing a variety of faith traditions. Tables and chairs were rented to accommodate the crowds under the large tent, and on Saturday, every table contained a vase of fresh flowers.

This village has embraced all ages and abilities. Chartered busloads arriving at the camp from Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio on Saturday were greeted and cheered. Calls were frequently made from the stage requesting volunteers for various camp tasks, and people jumped up, ready to be of service. At one point, overflow volunteers who answered the call for an ice brigade formed a line behind the ice handlers and applauded.

Visitors listened to speakers, read materials and engaged in discussion. Nonviolence training was held. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) described experiences in Iraq that led them to speak out against the invasion and occupation. Said one young veteran from the Camp Casey stage as he surveyed Saturday’s crowd, “This is the single largest patriotic gathering I’ve seen in my life.”

If President Bush really wants freedom, democracy and compassion to spread around the world, he would do well to observe the phenomenon just outside his gate. Noble causes require noble means. The Camp Casey community has been characterized by good organization, flexibility, hospitality and an abiding sense of care.

At dusk on Saturday, taps were played in the field of crosses at Camp Casey II. Earlier, Joan Baez had sung ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’, concluding with the line, “I never died, said he.” The large canvas portrait of Casey Sheehan waved in the wind. From a field of crosses grew a village filled with life that has become its own answer to war. Guns don’t protect people … people do.

—-

Susan Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth in Austin, Texas

By Susan Van Haitsma

I always read with interest the columns of UT classics professor, Thomas Palaima. He and I have visited together concerning issues related to his course on war and violence studies. I appreciate his insight and experience.

Palaima’s American-Statesman commentary, “A grieving mother asks an impossible question,” (8-23-05) states that Gold Star mother, Cindy Sheehan and the hundreds of supporters who have traveled to Crawford, Texas to join her, are asking a question which “has no factual answer.” Palaima suggests that families of soldiers killed in Iraq must deal with their grief as all of us must when confronted by “death and severe trauma” in our lives. Palaima recounts several personal brushes with death in the context of accidents that he has survived, reminding us that there appear to be no satisfactory reasons why, in accidents, some die and others are spared.

But, soldiers who are killed in war do not die as a result of an accident. Most of the killing that is done in war is neither unexpected nor unintentional. The decision by US government leaders to invade and occupy Iraq involved certain knowledge that US soldiers and Iraqi civilians would be killed. US government leaders did not know how many persons would be killed or what their names would be, but they chose instruments of death as their method and knew that death would result. Somehow, leaders decided that the deadly human consequences would be worth the imagined gains of their cause. Sheehan and thousands of other ordinary Americans are asking President Bush and his administration to explain their cause and name those gains. If there are no factual answers to this straightforward question, US leaders are not leading.

Even if one thinks of the deaths of Iraqi civilians and US soldiers in Iraq as unfortunate accidents, what does that say about our culture of life? Most accidents assume a calculated risk – a gamble. Is a culture of life furthered by deciding that some lives are expendable? By willingly wagering the lives of the youngest adults in the US and the lives of young and old in Iraq, praying that certain family members and friends are not killed or injured, physically or mentally, whose lives are being traded for whose? What parents would give the lives of their children to protect their own?

As Sheehan has said many times, her son, Casey, was not ‘lost’ in war, he was killed. Killing does not happen accidentally. I appreciate the way she has often stated that her son was an “indispensable part” of her family. Love for our children is something we know deeply; it is the fiercest love of all. Our children are indispensable parts of our families and our larger communities. Why would we allow our 14 – 18 year-olds to be wooed by military recruiters? Why would we decide that our youngest adults should bear the brunt of war?

We would do well to listen closely to soldiers who are returning from Iraq. During the annual Veterans for Peace convention held August 4 –7 in Dallas, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) shared powerful testimony of their experiences in Iraq and their reasons for calling for withdrawal of troops. Said one member of IVAW from the stage during a plenary session, “When people tell me they are proud of what I did in Iraq, I say, “Well, I’m not. You don’t even know what I did over there.’”

Iraq war veteran and conscientious objector, Camilo Mejia, spoke candidly about the prison term he served for desertion when he refused to return to Iraq because of human rights violations he witnessed. He reported receiving support from other soldiers for his stand against the war, yet warned against the “culture of silence” within the military that discourages truth-telling about the costs of war.

From prison and since his release last February, Mejia has been an eloquent spokesperson for the rights of conscience. “By putting my weapon down,” he says, “ I chose to reassert myself as a human being.” He has helped mobilize support for other GI resisters, including Army Sgt. Kevin Benderman, who has recently begun a 15-month prison sentence for refusing to serve a second tour of duty in Iraq. Amnesty International has adopted Benderman as a prisoner of conscience.

Palaima suggests there is no human plan that explains why persons are killed in war. Veterans and family members of soldiers killed in Iraq are speaking out and suggesting otherwise.

Susan Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth and is an associate member of Veterans for Peace

By Susan Van Haitsma

Global Resistance Network / Dissident Voice

In the wake of the London bombings, reporters and commentators have referred to the deaths of innocents and have speculated about unstated motives of the unknown perpetrators. Reading these commentaries, I wonder who is guilty, who is innocent, and whether it is helpful to discuss the bombings using these dichotomies.

An Austin American-Statesman editorial responding to the bombings quoted President Bush’s statement, “The contrast couldn’t be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who’ve got such evil in their hearts that they will take the lives of innocent folks.”

News of the London attacks made headlines around the world and most victims have been identified. On the same day as the attacks and possibly every day for the last fifteen years, civilians have been killed in Iraq as a result of bombing, embargo, invasion and occupation. News accounts of Iraqi civilian deaths are underreported in the US media, and victims rarely are named. Disproportionate numbers of the dead have been children.

The American-Statesman editorial refers to the London bombing perpetrators via typographic error as “al terrorists” and claims “what the terrorist leaders want is the destruction of the Western way of life. Nothing less.” How do journalists know this? Is it certain that terrorist “leaders” planned the London bombings? And how would one define the “Western way
of life?”

The editorial not only ascribes motives but also predicts future strategies of an organization assumed responsible for the London bombings. “If all foreign troops left Iraq today, al Qaeda would make other demands.” Who actually speaks for al Qaeda, what demands are made and to whom are the demands directed?

The US and Britain vow to not appease terrorists who induce fear and attempt to pressure governments by killing civilians. Yet, for more than a decade before the invasion and occupation, Iraqi civilians were the objects of brutal economic sanctions and systematic bombing conducted by US and British forces — policies designed to pressure Iraqi leaders to accede to demands that kept changing. If one defines terrorism as targeting civilians through secretly planned and coordinated acts of violent retaliation with goals that are often unclear, then methods used by terrorists and methods used in the war against terror become indistinguishable.

Columnist Thomas Friedman calls Muslim leaders to account for the London bombings even while he states there is “no obvious target to retaliate against.” At the same time that Friedman warns the West about the dangers of “making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent,” he blames Muslims and suggests that an appropriate response to terrorism is to find something we can punch in the face,” as the US did in Afghanistan.

When US and British leaders know beyond doubt that bombing campaigns will kill civilians, where is the line between those who care about human rights and those who kill? Maintaining a distinction between civilians as targets and civilians as collateral damage is not possible. President Bush’s “contrast” between human beings who value life and those who plan death blurs to gray.

In a democratic society, who is responsible for government policies? In an undemocratic institution such as the US military, who is responsible for the actions of individual soldiers? As a US citizen, I theoretically help determine US policy. If policies have included killing civilians, am I guilty? Is a soldier who has killed civilians under orders innocent? If soldiers who kill are beset with post-traumatic stress, what does guilt or innocence mean then?

Friedman describes the British as “resilient, determined people.” I have heard the same words used to describe Iraqis. While I admire these attributes, I also want to stop and remember every human being who is killed as a result of terrorism and war. Whether civilians, soldiers or suicide bombers, I’d like to know their names, ages and something about the universe of possibility that is lost with each life that is stolen.

Though it may seem like a brave response, we cannot simply mourn and move on. Families of victims are not back to normal within a couple of days, and even if it is not acknowledged, neither are societies. I wonder how long war and terrorism could continue if we were able to set aside labels of guilt and innocence and learn the intentions and the hearts of every victim and perpetrator.

By Susan Van Haitsma

Global Resistance Network / IndyMedia Austin

The handmade sign posted in the front of the bus read, “Bell broken. Please call ‘next stop’.”

The book in my bag that morning happened to be the collection of essays, “Stop the Next War Now,” produced by CODEPINK. The coincidence brought to mind political cartoons showing an oblivious George W. Bush driving a vehicle labeled ‘USA’ or ‘Iraq liberation’ or ‘No Child Left Behind’ straight toward a cliff’s edge. Warning bells are not working. The system is broken and passengers have got to call out.

I had purchased the CODEPINK book when co-editor, Jodie Evans and founding member, Diane Wilson were in town during their book tour. They spoke about actions, arrests and travels that brought them closer to women in countries where the USA is at war now or threatening the next one. Describing with humor and candor the already legendary creativity distinguishing CODEPINK actions, Evans said, “If we’re going to be an alternative, let’s be somewhere people want to go.” Wilson, a fourth-generation Texas shrimper from the Gulf Coast whose gutsy environmental and anti-war activism has landed her in jail several times explained, “The only thing that stops you in an action is yourself.”

Riding the bus, staring at the “Bell broken” sign, I was thinking about an action planned for later that day in Austin by local CODEPINK people. It was to be a demonstration at an advertising firm that creates recruitment ads for the Air Force that feature young children. The protest was
timed for that evening because the ad agency was hosting a reception to announce a book project called, “The Amazing Faith of Texas,” an effort to promote religious tolerance and explore common ground by focusing on five core values shared by faith groups in the state. CODEPINK wanted to dramatize the contradictions inherent in celebrating Charity, Humility, Forgiveness, faith and Compassion while selling the military to children.

Reception goers and several lanes of drivers stuck in rush-hour traffic in front of the ad agency were greeted by about a dozen women, men and children carrying signs and dressed mostly in hot pink. Two CODEPINK women decided to risk arrest by entering the reception area and holding their banner near the podium where the agency’s president was scheduled to speak about the book project. Recalling Diane Wilson’s challenge, I decided to join them.

Turning the tables, the company president cited First Amendment rights, welcomed us, and invited us to stay and distribute fliers to the crowd. For one moment while a CODEPINK woman did a quick errand, the president offered to hold her end of the banner, which read, “How can we create peace when we profit from war?”

As part of the event, local religious leaders had been invited to offer brief reflections on each of the five shared aspects of faith. With the CODEPINK banner serving as the elephant in the room, none of the five speakers addressed in their prepared statements either the war or the militarism that feeds it.

But if the speakers that evening avoided the opportunity to talk about war in light of Charity, Humility, Compassion, Faith and Forgiveness, the women and men who contribute essays to “Stop the Next War Now” explore these themes with eloquence and directness. Contributors include journalists, teachers, politicians, businesswomen and artists. Many have experienced the effects of war firsthand.

“A Mother’s Plea,” by peace activist and educator, Nurit Peled-Elhanan opens with a dedication to a 13 year-old Palestinian girl, Iman El-Hamas. Peled-Elhanan’s only daughter, Smadar was killed at the same age by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

She writes, “Death has created a new identity for me and has given me a new voice. …This new identity and voice transcend nationalities, religions, and even time; the identity overshadows all other identities and the voice deafens all the other voices I have been given by life. My little girl was killed just because she was born Israeli, by a young man who felt hopeless to the point of murder and suicide just because he was born a Palestinian…. There she lies, alongside her murderer, whose blood is mingled with hers on Jerusalem’s stones …there they both lie, deceived …And they were both deceived because the world goes on living as if their blood had never been shed. Both are victims of so-called leaders who keep on playing their murderous games, using our children as their puppets and our grief as fuel to continue with their vindictive campaigns.”

“… I have come here to ask you: please help us save the children that are left to us. Help us make the world stop for a moment to look at the small body of Iman, pierced by twenty bullets, and at the twenty-first hole at her smooth temple and ask with us, Why does that streak of blood rip the petal of her cheek?”

These closing words of Peled-Elhanan’s appeal should have rung like bells in the hall in Austin where folks pondered a book about religious tolerance while tolerating military advertising to children. Attenders had to have noticed the two women in pink calling out, “Next stop. Stop the next war now.”

By Susan Van Haitsma

CommonDreams / InfoShopNews / DissidentVoice

Opening on Armed Forces Day at the Texas State History Museum in Austin was the IMAX production, “Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag.” To commemorate the occasion, the Air Force was on hand to take minds off what was happening on the ground in Iraq. The public was invited to cross into the blue.

Under a hot sun in the museum plaza, several Air Force officers idled around a bare table. They chatted mostly among themselves, as the heat and absence of much to see in the plaza discouraged museumgoers from lingering there. A few families arranged their children for photos in front of a 15-foot mini-jet replica and then headed quickly for shade. Occasionally, the officers changed the radio station that thumped from the blue and silver “Raptor Truck” parked behind them. One officer said that normally the media center in back of the customized SUV provided an interactive simulated flying mission designed for children.

As a museum official explained to me later, the simulation game was not interacting with children that day because it was broken, and the table was bare because the Air Force had been specifically instructed by the museum to not use the occasion for recruitment purposes.

I was pleased, having attended the event ready to hand reality-check fliers to kids who seemed wowed by military glitz. Maybe I could just go home. Stopping inside the museum for a drink of water, I saw a poster urging the public to “meet a real life fighter pilot” at a talk following one of the IMAX showings. I stayed.

To a room-full of family folks, about half of whom were young children, two fighter pilots, one retired and the other a Lieutenant Colonel who had appeared in the film as an Aggressor pilot, spoke and took questions. The older officer spoke first, describing his tour during the Vietnam War and explaining that Red Flag was developed as an intensive training program to address the high death ratio of pilots in Vietnam. The program aimed to make pilots better able to handle the complex communications input they receive during flying missions in order to be “better prepared to go to war.”

Someone asked if he’d ever been ejected from his jet during combat, and he recounted in detail such an occasion, the images from that event seared into his memory. “Basically,” he concluded, “what you’re trying to do is survive– do your mission and get home.”

The younger fighter pilot made no bones about his belief that he was defending freedom and democracy around the world through military force. In answer to questions that centered on the dazzling technical aspects of the F-15 as portrayed in the IMAX production, he stressed the vital importance of trust that develops between pilot and flight crew, and the precision necessary for their missions.

I asked the pilots why thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed during the shock-and-awe phase of the US invasion if bombs were so precise. The older pilot avoided my gaze. The younger pilot softened his voice so I would understand: “We could have just nuked them, but we try to make combat more humane.” Smiling, he hastened to add, “Maybe that sounds like a mixed message, but I never want to kill somebody.” He claimed that Iraqi forces inhabited schools and hospitals purposely to endanger civilians. Fighter pilots tried very hard, he said, “to just take out certain targets.” He defended to the core the actions of the US, which he called “a Christian nation, if you will.”

The red flags one would expect his comments to raise in that setting didn’t materialize. Instead, a young mother rose to thank the pilots for their brave service in defense of freedom. There was applause, and the officers stayed to sign autographs.

The IMAX production similarly blends fact and script. The story focuses on one pilot whose hero and mentor was his grandfather, a decorated fighter pilot during WWII. The film opens with a rich, orchestral soundtrack behind close-ups of framed photographs of the grandfather in wartime. “When I was a kid,” says the grown grandson in voice-over, “I thought he must have won the war all by himself.” Red Flag takes place at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and involves not only US F-15 fighters, but also German, Israeli, Canadian and British fighter jets and pilots.

According to the film, fighter pilots who survive their first 10 missions are likeliest to survive many more. So, exercises are designed to give pilots a 10-mission dose of practice in war games played out high above the desert, with pilots taking turns as good guys and bad guys. For their final practice mission, live ordnance is used to bomb “enemy” machinery on the ground. This climax of the film is replete with fiery slow motion explosions that show us everything except the gruesome, charred remains of people and neighborhoods blown apart in real life war.

Exiting the theatre, I heard an older man remark to his grandson, who was mimicking the explosions, “Wasn’t that great?” Despite the museum’s good intentions, the IMAX show is a recruitment tool, no question. And any medium that glorifies the technology of war while omitting its bloody consequences is fraudulent.

As though to address this omission, the film closes with a final voice-over by the young protagonist: “My grandfather said being a fighter pilot was the best job on earth. He also said that going to war was the worst thing he could imagine. I would have to say he was right on both counts.” Explain, if you will, grandfather and grandson, why you continue to do the best job of the worst thing you can imagine.

By Susan Van Haitsma

Global Resistance Network

I am a conscientious objector, though I am a middle-aged woman whose talents the military is not seeking. I wish the term was not so difficult to pronounce, nor so ostentatious, yet it is a label I wear to stand with persons I respect who have worn it despite disparagement and praise through wars past and present.

The outreach I do in local high schools with Nonmilitary Options for Youth includes giving away CO buttons as an education technique when we do our literature tabling. First of all, students like free stuff, especially if they can wear it or eat it. The buttons read “Conscientious Objector” around the big CO in the middle. We ask, when a student takes one, “Do you know what it means?” Well, um, let’s see – “conscious objector?” O.K., that’s a good place to start. You’re conscious -you’re aware. And you know what “objector” means, for sure. Yeah. So, you’re aware and you’re saying no to something. The student glances around at our other materials and suddenly their eyes light up. “I don’t like war, either! I don’t want to kill anybody!”

Sometimes students eagerly pin on their CO buttons and run right over to the recruiting tables to pick up some free stuff there, too. Even JROTC students have pinned CO buttons to their uniforms. It’s a disconnect that breaks my heart, but I cheer them on. The button states in black and white a core value I know resides in the human being beneath the uniform.

“Conscience” comes from a Latin word meaning, “to know something with oneself.” Each of us knows something about the value of human life. And because we are necessarily social beings, we also know that our lives are not entirely distinct from one another. Is there a spiritual tradition that does not, at its root, conclude that we are all one? When I watch groups of students walking down the hall, leaning together, joined at the hip, I think teenagers must know this better than anyone.

Many also recognize and reject the Bush administration’s illogic of defending life and freedom through the means of war. As one student wrote in a survey we conducted, “Adults are always telling us not to use violence to solve our problems, but it seems like the government is just a big hypocrite.” Concluded another, “I think we should handle things in a nonviolent grown-up way. We should be big enough to reach an agreement with our enemies and settle it like civilized human beings.”

Interestingly, the term, “Conscientious Objector” originally was used by Englishpersons who in 1898 swore moral opposition to a Compulsory Vaccination Act passed by Parliament. Later, men who objected for reasons of conscience to participate as armed combatants during WWI adopted the term, which has been defined in the context of war resistance ever since.

The symbolism of objecting to vaccination offers a useful analogy. As a vaccination subjects the body to small doses of a disease in order to inoculate the body against it, so, perhaps, does subjecting human beings to the dehumanizing preconditions of war desensitize us over time to the disease that war is.

Of course, when we discuss conscientious objection with students, we stress the legal definition of the term as defined by current US law. We explain that being a conscientious objector means objecting to participation in all war, not particular wars, and if they believe they are conscientious objectors, they should create files for themselves that contain evidence of their beliefs and statements from adults who can testify to their sincerity in case of a draft. We also want young people to know that they can cite moral or ethical principles, not only religious beliefs.

It’s important that students know the law, but in my heart of hearts, I rebel against the notion that we must prove to an authority that we are morally, ethically or religiously opposed to killing. We are born with an essential reverence for life woven into our DNA, and I don’t think there is a lawyer, draft board member or politician alive who could untangle it.

Soldiers are persons of conscience, too. And there are many who have developed a conscientious objection to war forged in the awful crucible of war itself. Soldiers on trial now for desertion, whose claims of conscientious objection have been denied by military authorities, are paying very high prices for their convictions.

I see a connection between the uniformed teenager with the CO button and the soldier serving a prison term for refusing to participate any longer in what he or she knows, firsthand, is unconscionable. What the teenager knows instinctively the soldier knows through hard experience, but it is the same undeniable truth of being aware that we are inseparable. As Army veteran, Camilo Mejia, wrote eloquently from jail following a court martial for refusing to return to duty in Iraq, “By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being.”

“What good is freedom if we are afraid to follow our conscience?” asked Mejia. ” What good is freedom if we are not able to live with our own actions? I am confined to a prison, but I feel, today more than ever, connected to all humanity.”

We suffer soldiers to experience fully the disease of war while most of us become inoculated to it a little at a time. Soldiers who experience the atrocity and then take a stand against it pay doubly.

On May 15, people around the world commemorate International Conscientious Objectors’ Day. I’d like to be able to give more than a pin and a pamphlet to every teenager whose bright eyes assure me that we are bound together by life itself.