 April 2003
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE "Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes." Gen. Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State, June 12, 1982 "If a thousand [people] were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood." - Henry David Thoreau, during Mexican-American War of 1846-48 To all people of goodwill everywhere: We stand in profound opposition to our government's waging of full-scale war against Iraq. The reasons for our opposition, in brief, include the following: Massive aerial bombardment puts millions of vulnerable Iraqi civilians at risk of death and disease. This attack follows over a decade of continued bombings and repressive sanctions that have already killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Full-scale war greatly increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks against the US, its citizens, and those of any allies who join us. All-out war on Iraq needlessly puts at risk the lives and health of young men and women in the US military. The depleted uranium used in US munitions increases the risk of cancer for US soldiers as well as Iraqis, and it poisons the soil and water with radioactivity. Full-scale war, followed by long-term military occupation of Iraq, will cost tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars, thus further diverting resources from addressing the hunger, homelessness, unemployment, and other economic problems facing millions of American families. Pre-emptive war against Iraq violates international laws, including the Charter of the United Nations, which the US Constitution requires us to uphold. Furthermore, there are other, more peaceful and effective approaches to dealing with real threats posed by weapons of mass destruction in the possession of Iraq or other nations, including our own. Examples include diplomatic initiatives; steps toward multilateral disarmament; and economic and security incentives to encourage disarmament. We believe that every citizen of this country has a moral duty to speak out against, and avoid cooperation with, this escalated war against Iraq--and to encourage others to do the same. Refusal to pay taxes used to finance unjust wars, along with refusal by soldiers to fight in them, is a direct and potentially effective form of citizen noncooperation, and one that governments cannot ignore. War tax refusal has a long and honorable tradition among religious and secular opponents of war. The US government's ability to threaten and coerce other nations is a direct result of the unprecedented size of our military arsenal, which is far larger than that of all our allies and "enemies" combined. The maintenance of this arsenal depends upon the willingness of the American people, through their federal tax payments, to finance it. Refusal to pay all or a portion of one's federal taxes as a form of conscientious objection to war may involve personal risks. For that reason, material and moral support for war tax refuser --including organizing support committees, raising support funds, and providing legal defense--is an important form of war resistance in itself.
Therefore, we, the undersigned
individuals, believing that war tax refusal under the present
circumstances is fully justified on moral and ethical grounds,
publicly declare our encouragement of, and willingness to lend
support to, those persons of conscience who choose to take
this step. Partial list of signatories: Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, Joan Baez, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ, Noam Chomsky, Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Betsy Corner and Randy Kehler, Dave Dellinger and Elizabeth Peterson, Shelley and Jim Douglass, Daniel Ellsberg, Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, Elizabeth McAllister, Ched Myers, Grace Paley and Robert Nichols, Utah Phillips, Alden and Janet Poole, William Quigley, Lawrence Rosenwal, Suzanne and Brayton Shanley, Skip Schiel, Howard and Roslyn Zinn
Sign on by sending your signature,
printed name, address, phone number to: National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), Box 6512, Ithaca, NY 14851. Or
at www.WarResister.org/wtrcomplicity.htm Copies of the Appeal
and information about war tax resistance, is also available from
NWTRCC. 
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