November 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

From the editor's desk

The Peacework headline of March 1998 read "War Clouds Over Iraq." An American president bent on political capital was deeply disappointed that, back then, global diplomacy prevented him from playing war games with live bullets in Mesopotamia. Another Peacework soundbite from the '90s, an account from a traveler in the Holy Land quotes a Palestinian father: "In the end, your children will have to live with our children."

In an eerie echo, a forwarded message we received this September quotes a letter from a man under curfew in Ramallah: "As we ration our supplies and try to fill the long days, Areen asked me a question while I was sitting on our outdoor verandah staring at the Pesgot settlement (where my family has land that was confiscated).  She asked, 'Dad, do the settler kids go to school when we are under curfew?'  I explained that they did, knowing that the Israeli media machine will one day say, see they teach their kids to hate us!

"My wife is worried. She says it looks like this is as bad as it can get--no school, no supplies, no work...  I tell her to be thankful; we still have running water and electricity.  I wonder what Sharon and Peres will tell their people after Arafat is long gone and we still demand our freedom and an end to occupation...more importantly, I wonder when the Israeli public will stop believing their myths."

We start out Peacework this month with letters from three visitors in Iraq, testifying of course to the suffering of a people after 20 years of war and 12 years under draconian sanctions, but testifying as well to the resilience of the human spirit.

History, if there is a history 100 years hence, will record Americans as a nation of extraordinarily slow learners. To be sure there were well over 100,000 people in Washington, DC yesterday to say "stop this." Organizers saw massive and robust lobbying pressure preceding the Congressional vote on the War Powers resolution, and saw great political courage on the part of a number of legislators. But faced with imminent catastrophic war, a lot of us watched the Angels play the Giants last night.

Stephen Zunes and Mark Danner provide this Peacework with thoughtful analysis of the thin logic and the appalling ambitions of the present Administration. William Hartung, veteran weapons analyst, explains where the real threat to global security actually lies. Meanwhile, an excerpt from an article by Arundhati Roy, despite the grim prognosis, holds out a glimmer of hope.

As occupation and suicide bombings continue across Palestine and Israel, we bring you several pieces that shed light on motives and consequences. We're talking resources here, and what Jeff Halper has defined as the Matrix of Control, not some Tolkeinian 'war on terror,' however well that plays on the big screen. The same competition for land and water and for scarce and valuable commodities is played out on every continent on earth, with key players such as indigenous communities in Latin America, Bushmen in Botswana, and, unlikely as it sounds to American ears, municipal water authorities in rural New Hampshire. Does it echo in discos in Bali and theaters in Moscow?

Waking up in the morning, venturing out the door, is becoming risky business; times are out of joint. Will we get safer if they sniff my suitcase at the airport and put up missile shields and lock down the inner city and send G.I.s to Mindanao and Uzbekistan? It's a continuum, says Dustin Washington, and it's on its way to dismantling constitutional government in this country. Want to talk about it? Think twice. Worry too loudly and you're likely to get called names--'anti-Semitic' is one currently being bandied about. Our colleague Rachael Kamel has taken a thoughtful look at that. We hope the excerpt of Amiri Baraka's poem (when we first met him on college reading lists, he called himself LeRoi Jones) will lead you to hunt down the original.

Paul Wellstone, rumpled college professor and '60s radical who won a quixotic campaign for a senate seat 12 years ago, took a stand against US war on Iraq last month while he was in the midst of a difficult fight for reelection, with an independent legislative branch at stake, and whether there will be any brake on the Bush Administration's drive toward empire. Wellstone stuck by an idealism that led him to vote his conscience in the faith that an aroused citizenry would hear the voice of reason and justice. We join in mourning him; we can honor him by carrying on his work.

Presente.

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