In Phoenix AZ. a 26-year-old mother stared down at her son who was dying of terminal leukemia. Although her heart was filled with sadness, she also had a strong feeling of determination. Like any parent she wanted her son to grow up and fulfill all his dreams. Now that was no longer possible.
The leukemia would see to that. But she still wanted her son'sdreams to come true. She took her son's hand and asked, "Billy, did youever think about what you wanted to be once you grew up? Did you ever dream and wish what you would do with your life?"
Mommy, I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up." Mom smiled back and said, "Let's see if we can make your wish come true."
Later that day she went to her local fire department in Phoenix, Arizona, where she met Fireman Bob, who had a heart as big as Phoenix.
She explained her son's final wish and asked if it might bepossible to give her six-year-old son a ride around the block on a fire engine.
Fireman Bob said, "Look, we can do better than that. If you'll have your son ready at seven o'clock Wednesday morning, we'll make him an honorary fireman for the whole day. He can come down to the fire station, eat with us, go out all the fire calls, the whole nineyards!
"And if you'll give us his sizes, we'll get a real fire uniform for him, with a real fire hat-not a toy one-with the emblem of the Phoenix Fire Department on it, and a yellow slicker like we wear and rubber boots. They're all manufactured right here in Phoenix, so we can get them fast."
Three days later Fireman Bob picked up Billy, dressed him in his fire uniform and escorted him from his hospital bed to the waiting hook and ladder truck. Billy got to sit on the back of the truck and help steer it back to the fire station. He was in heaven.
There were three fire calls in Phoenix that day and Billy got to go out on all three calls. He rode in the different fire engines, the paramedic's van, and even the fire chief's car. He was also videotaped for the local news program.
Having his dream come true, with all the love and attention that was lavished upon him, so deeply touched Billy that he lived three months longer than any doctor thought possible.
One night all of his vital signs began to drop dramatically and the head nurse, who believed in the hospice concept that no one should die alone, began to call the family members to the hospital.
Then she remembered the day Billy had spent as a fireman, so she called the Fire Chief and asked if it would be possible to send a fireman in uniform to the hospital to be with Billy as he made his transition.
The chief replied, "We can do better than that. We'll be there in five minutes. Will you please do me a favor? When you hear the sirens screaming and see the lights flashing, will you announce over the PA system that there is not a fire? It's just the fire department coming to see one of its finest members one more time. And will you open the window to his room?"
About five minutes later a hook and ladder truck arrived at the hospital and extended its ladder up to Billy's third floor open window.
16 firefighters climbed up the ladder into Billy's room. With his mother's permission, they hugged him and held him and told him how much they loved him.
With his dying breath, Billy looked up at the fire chief and said, Chief, am I really a fireman now?" Billy, you are, and the Head Chief, Jesus, is holding your hand," the chief said. With those words, Billy smiled and said, "I know, He's been holding my hand all day,and the angels have been singing." He closed his eyes one last time.
Answer: India. That's right: India, with nearly 150 million Muslims, is believed to have more Muslim citizens than Pakistan or Bangladesh, and is second only to Indonesia. Which brings up another question that I've been asking here in New Delhi: Why is it you don't hear about Indian Muslims ? who are a minority in this vast Hindu-dominated land ? blaming America for all their problems or wanting to fly suicide planes into the Indian Parliament?
Answer: Multi-ethnic, pluralistic, free-market democracy. To be sure, Indian Muslims have their frustrations, and have squared off over the years in violent clashes with Hindus, as has every other minority in India. But they live in a noisy, messy democracy, where opportunities and a political voice are open to them, and that makes a huge difference.
"I'll give you a quiz question: Which is the only large Muslim community to enjoy sustained democracy for the last 50 years? The Muslims of India," remarked M. J. Akbar, the Muslim editor of Asian Age, a national Indian English-language daily funded by non-Muslim Indians. "I am not going to exaggerate Muslim good fortune in India. There are tensions, economic discrimination and provocations, like the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya. But the fact is, the Indian Constitution is secular and provides a real opportunity for the economic advancement of any community that can offer talent. That's why a growing Muslim middle class here is moving up and, generally, doesn't manifest the strands of deep anger you find in many non-democratic Muslim states."
In other words, for all the talk about Islam and Islamic rage, the real issue is: Islam in what context? Where Islam is imbedded in authoritarian societies it tends to become the vehicle of angry protest, because religion and the mosque are the only places people can organize against autocratic leaders. And when those leaders are seen as being propped up by America, America also becomes the target of Muslim rage.
But where Islam is imbedded in a pluralistic, democratic society, it thrives like any other religion. Two of India's presidents have been Muslims; a Muslim woman sits on India's supreme court. The architect of India's missile program, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is a Muslim. Indian Muslims, including women, have been governors of many Indian states, and the wealthiest man in India, the info-tech whiz Azim Premji, is a Muslim. The other day the Indian Muslim film star and parliamentarian Shabana Azmi lashed out at the imam of New Delhi's biggest mosque. She criticized him for putting Islam in a bad light and suggested he go join the Taliban in Kandahar. In a democracy, liberal Muslims, particularly women, are not afraid to take on rigid mullahs.
Followed Bangladesh lately? It has almost as many Muslims as Pakistan. Over the last 10 years, though, without the world noticing, Bangladesh has had three democratic transfers of power, in two of which ? are you ready? - Muslim women were elected prime ministers. Result: All the economic and social indicators in Bangladesh have been pointing upward lately, and Bangladeshis are not preoccupied hating America. Meanwhile in Pakistan, trapped in the circle of bin Ladenism - military dictatorship, poverty and anti-modernist Islamic schools, all reinforcing each other ? the social indicators are all pointing down and hostility to America is rife.
Hello? Hello? There's a message here: It's democracy, stupid! Those who argue that we needn't press for democracy in Arab-Muslim states, and can rely on repressive regimes, have it all wrong. If we cut off every other avenue for non-revolutionary social change, pressure for change will burst out anyway - as Muslim rage and anti-Americanism.
If America wants to break the bin Laden circles across the Arab-Muslim world, then, "it needs to find role models that are succeeding as pluralistic, democratic, modernizing societies, like India ? which is constantly being challenged by religious extremists of all hues ? and support them," argues Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper.
So true. For Muslim societies to achieve their full potential today, democracy may not be sufficient, but it sure is necessary. And we, and they, fool ourselves to think otherwise.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
PHILADELPHIA - President Bush's executive order authorizing military commissions to try foreign nationals suspected of terrorism is a shocking imposition of martial law that goes well beyond any measure previously upheld by US courts.
Though championed on security grounds, it really relies for its dubious legal foundation on one of the ugliest themes in American jurisprudence: the denial that aliens are persons with rights.
The administration's plan is clearly intended to provide a mechanism by which Osama bin Laden could be quickly tried and executed by US military officials overseas, instead of turning him over to an international judicial tribunal for a prolonged public trial that might make him a martyr.
Whatever the wisdom of that grim policy, the order goes much further. It allows military officials within the United States to arrest aliens on mere suspicion of terrorism, without having to show probable cause; to try them entirely in secret; to use any evidence against them that military officials judge to have "probative value," even if it is mere hearsay or illegally obtained; to convict them on simple preponderance of such evidence, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt; to convict them by a vote of two-thirds of the military judges, without a requirement of unanimity, much less trial by jury; and to sentence them to death, without appeal to the civilian courts. This is a grotesque Magna Charta for a new Star Chamber.
Bush officials have defended the order by citing the US Supreme Court's approval of President Roosevelt's decision in World War II to have Nazi saboteurs, captured as they sought to smuggle explosives into Florida, tried and sentenced to death by a secret military tribunal.
But there are fundamental differences in the two cases. Congress had declared war on Germany, making Germans "alien enemies" as a matter of law. And these alien enemies were entering the country illegally, with illegal weapons. They were properly tried as foreign combatants engaged in acts of war.
Today, Congress has not declared war against any nation, nor was it even consulted about the administration's plan to impose martial law. The president bases his authority for this order only on his own previous executive order proclaiming a state of emergency. And these military courts can try not just persons legally recognized as "alien enemies," but also lawfully admitted, long-time resident aliens from countries at peace with the US. They can do so, moreover, on the basis of evidence far more flimsy than the government had against the Nazi agents. These steps go well beyond what the Supreme Court has endorsed.
It is true that during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln imposed martial law even in areas of the country far removed from actual combat. The Supreme Court, however, found those actions unconstitutional. The administration "distinguishes" that case because the defendant was a US citizen, and these measures apply only to foreign nationals.
That argument shows that the real basis on which the Bush officials seek to defend these measures is not the power to wage war. Again, we are not legally at war. They appeal instead to what are longstanding, albeit repugnant, judicial rulings holding that aliens have no meaningful rights that can restrain the US government. The logic is that aliens are guests, invited on terms that we can change. If they don't like what we're doing, they can leave. Or we can make them leave.
That analogy may have some appeal, but the decisions that wrote this reasoning into law do not. Judicial denials of rights to aliens originated in response to the US claim in the late 19th century that it could prevent the return to the US of formerly resident Chinese aliens to whom it had guaranteed the right to reentry. Legislators and courts defended this on racist grounds: People so different could be kept out regardless of their apparent rights.
The notion that noncitizens really had no meaningful rights was further underscored after the Spanish-American War, in which the residents of the new US colonies were deemed ineligible for constitutional protections. Again, the legislators and courts held they were too racially distinct and inferior to merit such guarantees.
That sort of racism is, fortunately, disavowed today. But the repugnant legal doctrines denying even basic rights to aliens remain. Hence Attorney General John Ashcroft believes he can reason in similar ways. He has declared that the people who would be tried in the new military courts do not "deserve" constitutional rights.
But perhaps the most admirable feature of the US Constitution is that it defines most of the fundamental rights it delineates as rights of "persons," not of citizens. "Persons," not citizens, are entitled to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, against losses of liberty without due process, against denials of equal protection. Persons can forfeit some of those liberties, but only as the result of governmental proceedings in which their constitutional rights are protected throughout. There are no provisions for executive officials to decide unilaterally, in advance of any proof of guilt, which people are and are not "persons" who "deserve" to have such rights.
There are no such provisions for a very good reason: The US began committed to the principle that all persons were endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that governments were created to secure these rights. The founders of this country had a name for executive officials who decided, on their own authority, that some persons actually had no claim to such inalienable rights. They called them tyrants.
So should our courts, and so should we, today.
- Rogers M. Smith is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Copyright © 2001 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
"Somebody said, 'What good will it do to kill Osama bin Laden?' I said, 'I don't know, let's find out.'" -Don Imus
"People are wondering what will happen to Afghanistan when we're finished fighting there. I'm sure there are plans to rebuild the country, and a lot of times with rebuilding comes a name change. These are some possible name changes the government has been mulling over: Halfghanistan, Pothole-istan, Jenniferanistan, Assbackwardstand, Bye-bye-Talibanistan, Ass-Kicked-istan." -Jay Leno
"President Bush very angry at members of Congress today ... Boy we have a strange country - military secrets all over TV, the only information we can't find out - who won an Emmy." -Jay Leno
"Last night the Taliban offered to release eight Westerners if the U.S. promised not to attack. The State Department declined but thanked the Taliban for the offer, saying it really felt good to laugh again." -Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update"
"Today President Bush urged all Americans to be patient with the war on terrorism. I think we're pretty patient. Election day took what, three months?" -Jay Leno
"People want to say there isn't racial profiling at the airport, but let's be honest. If you first name is Mohammed, and your last name isn't Ali, leave a little extra time." -Jay Leno
"The big question now is who will take power in Afghanistan once the Taliban is defeated. I was thinking, how about Al Gore? He's not doing anything, he needs a job, and he's already got the beard." -Jay Leno
"More and more news coming out about this Osama bin Laden guy. He's 6'5" and has 42 children. Or, as the NBA calls him, a rookie." -Jay Leno
"The Mirror interviewed one of Osama bin Laden's sons and said bin Laden has 42 children. That's going to happen when you sleep in a different cave every night." -Jay Leno
"In Pakistan anti-American protesters set a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on fire. The protesters mistakenly thought they were attacking high-ranking U.S. military official Colonel Sanders." -Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update"
"Security here in New York City is still very tight. Hookers in Time Square now are demanding two forms of fake ID." -David Letterman
"President Bush has urged people to get back to normal and today Congress announced that they are accepting bribes again." -Jay Leno
"Clinton and Dole are joining forces to raise $100 million in scholarship money for the families of the victims. But you know who also deserves a pat on the back, Elizabeth Dole. Her husband is on Viagra and he's gone on the road with Bill Clinton - that is one trusting woman." -Jay Leno
"It's a tough time to do humor, but it's not the only tough time. There have been other tough stretches in comedy. Remember a couple of years ago when President Clinton stopped dating for a couple of weeks?" -Jay Leno
"Now this really annoys me; all these people getting on the Internet and saying Nostradamus predicted this. If Nostradamus were alive today his name would be Miss Cleo and he'd be charging $2.99 a minute." -Jay Leno
"People are being much, much nicer to each other in New York. And I have to be honest, it's kind of weird. The other night at Shea Stadium, instead of yelling 'You suck!' at the Braves, Mets fans were yelling, 'Others are better than you!'" -Conan O'Brien
"This Osama bin Laden guy, spoiled rich kid worth $300M. I have three words for this guy: Anna Nicole Smith. We send her over there, she'll get his money, he'll be dead in a week." -Jay Leno
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the Land,
They're running like rabbits in Afghanistan,
Osama's been praying, he's down on his Knees,
He's hoping that Allah will hear all his Pleas.
He thought if he killed us that we'd fall and Shatter,
But all that he's done is just make us Madder.
We ain't yet forgotten our Marines in Beirut,
And we'll kick your butt, with one heavy Boot.
And yes we remember the USS Cole,
And the lives of our sailors that you bastards Stole.
You think you can rule us and cause us to Fear,
You'll soon get the answer if you live to Hear.
And we ain't forgotten your buddy Saddam,
And he ain't forgotten the sound of our Bombs.
You think that those mountains are somewhere to Hide.
They'll go down in history as the place where you Died.
Remember Khadhafi and his Line of Death?
He came very close, to his final Breath.
So come out and prove it, that you are a Man,
Cause our boys are coming and they have a Plan.
They are our fathers and they are our Sons,
And they sure do carry some mighty big Guns.
They would have stayed home with children and Wives,
Till you bastards came here and took all these Lives.
Osama I wrote this especially for You,
For air mail delivery by B-52.
You soon will be hearing a thud and a whistle,
Old Glory is coming, attached to a Missle.
I will not be sorry to see your ass Go.
It's Red, White, and Blue that is running this Show
Does Usama by way of his name, give us advice on what to do?
U ..United
S ..States of
A ..America
M ..Military
A ..Alliance
B ..Bring
I ..In
N ..Nukes
L ..Let
A ..Alliance
D ..Destroy
E ..Evil
N ..Now
"Oh, No!" he gasped as he surveyed the disaster before him. Never in his 40 years of life had he seen anything like it. How anyone could have survived he did not know.
He could only hope that somewhere amid the overwhelming destruction he would find his 16-year-old son. Only the slim hope of finding Danny kept him from turning and fleeing the scene. He took a deep breath and proceeded. Walking was virtually impossible with so many things strewn across his path. He moved ahead slowly.
"Danny! Danny!" he whispered to himself. He tripped and almost fell several times. He heard someone, or something, move. At least he thought he did. Perhaps, he was just hoping he did. He shook his head and felt his gut tighten.
He couldn't understand how this could have happened. There was some light but not enough to see very much. Something cold and wet brushed against his hand. He jerked it away.
In desperation, he took another step then cried out, "Danny!"
From a nearby pile of unidentified material, he heard his son. "Yes, Dad," he said, in a voice so weak it could hardly be heard.
"It's time to get up and get ready for school," the man sighed, "and, for heaven's sake, clean up this room."
(Gail S. Angel)
MEDFORD, N.J. - My mother waited days for her chance to share, by donating blood. Then she learned that much of the blood given would likely be of little use.
Many people would have said, "I've given enough." Not Mom. Not the woman who taught me that it isn't really giving if you're just doing it to make yourself feel good. She didn't have a million dollars to give and couldn't go out and haul away rubble in New York. So instead, she started performing random acts of kindness. She filled all the little gaps she saw.
When she heard that schoolchildren in my area and folks at her church were disappointed that stores had run out of red, white, and blue ribbon to wear, she got strands of each color and braided them into piles of little bracelets that she mailed to the school and handed out at church.
When she heard that hospitals needed baby blankets, a task dropped in the haste of seeing to the 9/11 woes, she sat and quilted.
When she was told that a local school was short on volunteers to read in the classrooms, she filled in.
My mom has never thought twice about what she'd get in return. She has not questioned what people would do with the blood she gave, ribbons she braided, or blankets she sewed. She never says, "I've given enough."
? Lisa Suhay is the author of a collection of life-lesson fables, 'Tell Me Another Story,' (Paraclete Press) and 'Dream Catchers.'
Embracing conversation
ESSEX JUNCTION, VT. - After Sept. 11, we were asked to support our country by going shopping. This seemed woefully lacking in imagination, and I began to wonder about our greater responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.
Would our community be able to speak about our different views and opinions? Would we be able to balance civil liberties with security? Would we know how our community should act during these uncertain times?
I picked up the phone and called the village manager, the high school principal, a minister, a police officer, the newspaper editor, a student, a parent, and others.
"What about providing opportunities for people to talk about all this stuff?" I asked.
They embraced my question.
I met recently with some of them for a pilot conversation, using a discussion guide from the Study Circle Resource Center, a nonprofit group that helps people work for community change.
The conversation was a refreshing oasis in a desert of uncertainty. My new friends demonstrated that it is possible during these uncertain times to disagree respectfully, to understand other viewpoints, to make wise recommendations about how to move forward.
This small group has good ideas about creating more opportunities for dialogue, such as asking neighborhood watch captains to organize discussion groups. Future workshops could bring in people from the local Muslim population or address emergency preparedness in the schools and in the community in general.
Our conversation wasn't as dramatic as rescuing someone from a collapsing building or sending a truckload of food to relief workers. In fact, I'm sure that on the day of our meeting, people all across the country came together to speak about issues of public concern.
Today, I'm struck by the fact that these kinds of conversations are still not possible in many parts of the world. So in that sense, the conversation that took place in my little town was far from ordinary.
? Susan McCormack is a communications consultant.
Revisiting history
WASHINGTON - September's events made me crave reading - but not books about terrorism, Arabs, and Islam. Instead, death and destruction drove me further into my current passion: the Founding Fathers. While reading their biographies one by one - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison - I am reminded that the tension between "what is" and "what can be" is a constant in every era.
I am also reading "The Gift of the Jews," by Thomas Cahill. He argues that the Jews were the first ancient people not to see time cyclically. Jews were the first to live in the present and believe that their behavior could affect the future. Jews, says Cahill, made the idea of a changed future possible.
I have no doubt that cultures can change for the better and that we can work together to make the world better. In fact, this is what that 225-year-old experiment of the United States stands for! This is what most of the Founding Fathers had in mind.
In recognition, I've created a nonprofit organization called the Center for Creative Change (CCC). With it, I reaffirm my goal to fight for constructive change on every front - personal, public, professional.
The CCC is starting where it can reach: If parents and children - people of all economic levels included - can learn basic skills such as constructive communication, compassionate listening, creative play, age-appropriate positive discipline, and conflict resolution, the next generations have a larger chance of creating a world that continues to change for the better.
? Nadine Epstein is a freelance writer and artist.
The myth of Cadmus
NEW YORK - A week after Sept. 11, I found myself struggling with a seemingly trivial decision: which Greek myth to read with my ninth graders. I'd planned to give them Cadmus, the story of a young man whose comrades are killed by a dragon. Cadmus kills the dragon, and its teeth become a murderous army.
I'd thought my students would enjoy the mayhem, but suddenly I wasn't sure. For days we had focused on the disaster - talking, reading the newspaper together, writing letters to the fire department and the mayor. One student even wrote to Osama bin Laden, promising revenge. Now, I thought it was time to reclaim some normalcy. So we read about Apollo and Daphne instead.
But if I thought I could insulate my students from violence, I was wrong. Day after day, the drumbeat resounded: anthrax around the corner, war around the globe. My students wrote stories modeled on the Greek myths. In one, black ants battled red ants, each tribe armed with poison gas.
In the myth of Cadmus, the dragon's-tooth soldiers go to war against each other. When only a handful are left, one calls to his brothers for peace. Then, together with Cadmus, they build a city. A week ago, I asked my students to read this story. As we discussed it, an idea surfaced: We must put an end to violence.
My students are fortunate. None is an orphan or a refugee. Still, violence has entered their lives. I can't shield them from it, but perhaps it is best not to try.
Perhaps the best I can do for them is give them stories, like Cadmus, in which we may recognize ourselves.
? Jamie Dycus teaches high school in Manhattan.
A shadow in mosaic
WASHINGTON - In the story of the Corinthian maid, a woman traces the shadow of her lover in the sand as he leaves for the sea, so she has an image of him in her memory.
We can do the same for the people in the World Trade Center twin towers. Using satellite imagery, we can determine the shadow cast by the WTC at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, and then fix the outline of the shadow on the streets and sidewalks on which it was cast.
The outline could be done with paint, mosaic, inlaid with steel recast from the building itself - any such media. The shadow of the structure would be there in the absence of the buildings and would physically embed in our hearts and minds the memories of the thousands of lost loved ones, as well as the monumental greatness of the human and physical structure.
? John F. Ptak is proprietor of J.F. Ptak Science Books.
Copyright © 2001 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Three guys, an Englishman, an Afghan and an American are out walking along the beach together one day. They come across a lantern and a genie pops out of it.
"I will give you each one wish, " says the genie.
The Englishman says, "I am a farmer, my dad was a farmer, and my son will also farm. I want the land to be forever fertile in England."
With a blink of the genie's eye, 'FOOM' - the land in England was forever made fertile for farming.
The Afghan was amazed, so he said, "I want a wall around Afghanistan, so that no one can come into our precious country."
Again, with a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' - there was a huge wall around Afghanistan.
The American asks, "I'm very curious. Please tell me more about this wall."
The Genie explains, "Well, it's about 150' high, 50' thick, and nothing can get in or out."
The American says, "Fill it up with water."
Friends,
Many of you might recall the "small print" at the bottom of the last peace ad announcement that said we would likely need to modify the text based on how events in Afghanistan are unfolding. We have done so, and have included the new text below. Subtle but important changes have been made.
For those of you who haven't signed on yet, or who haven't gotten around to calling or emailing your friends (just forward this message to your email list!), you have two more days to do so! FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE SIGNED ON TO THIS AD, YOU ARE ALL SET - YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIGN ON AGAIN!
Good news! Because we are doing our own graphic design this time (thanks to the generous pro bono services of graphic artist extraordinaire Lisa Stage), our deadline is actually a few days later than the date we previously announced.
THE NEW DEADLINE IS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6th at 12:00 PM.
To sign on as an endorser of this message, send us the following information:
1. Your name exactly as you would like it to appear in the ad (ex: "Prof. Maria Lopez, Ph.D." or "Rev. Jose R. Lugo") For couples, state whether you'd like your names listed together, and if so, how (ex: "Jane Doe and Sally Jones" or "Ann and Bill Harris").
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Please help us gather even more names than last time -- the only way this works is by people contacting their friends and associates. Let's send a message loud and clear that peace is a viable option!
Peace,
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Executive Director
Amazon Foundation
THIS IS THE TEXT OF THE AD THAT WILL APPEAR ON DECEMBER 9TH:
The U.S. Bombing of Afghanistan Has Created a Humanitarian Crisis of Epic Proportion.
The war in Afghanistan has been directly responsible for the interruption of vital humanitarian relief to a hungry, vulnerable and poorly sheltered Afghan population. Millions of people who already live in abject poverty - children, women and men - are now immersed in a bitterly cold winter. Because decision-makers failed to halt the bombing in order to allow the aid to continue, a much higher proportion of Afghanis now face the very real possibility of starvation and death. Limited aid has indeed reached people in need, but relief efforts are hampered by continuing hostilities, snow and cold weather, roads and other infrastructure ruined by bombs, and local lawlessness -- exacerbated by war -- which compromises the security of aid shipments. According to Oxfam International, a well known and trusted food relief confederation, 2.5 million people in Afghanistan have completely run out of food, while another three million are close to starvation.
Winter has come early to parts of [Afghanistan]. Snow has already begun to fall. In the central districts of Chagcharan and Taywara, it is the twin enemies - winter and the gun - that threaten starvation.
-- Oxfam International
November 21, 2001
We, the undersigned Southern Arizonans, call on the U.S. and the international community to shift resources away from the destruction of Afghanistan and toward removing the obstacles that prevent sufficient food from reaching those who need it. To protect basic human rights and to prevent an unimaginable humanitarian disaster, these efforts must be expanded now and continued through the reconstruction of Afghanistan's political and economic systems. We also call for the cessation of military hostilities and for the use of international tribunals to bring to justice those responsible for the September 11th attacks.
Tomorrow, December 10th, is International Human Rights Day.
Article 3 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of his/her family, including food, clothing, housing & medical care."
Join us for the International Human Rights Day Peace March and Rally
Monday, December 10th, 4:30pm
Old Main Foundation at the University of Arizona
Affiliations are for identification purposes only; endorsements herein represent the individual's opinion and not necessarily that of the organization.
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Stay tuned for our next ad: "If Not War, Then What?" American Friends Service Committee Arizona Area Program and Amazon Foundation A support organization of the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona
As someone who was actually prepared to listen to Attorney General John Ashcroft's defense of military tribunals and other security measures, I have to say that I was completely disgusted by his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. It was an arrogant, bullying performance that went a long way to substantiating the views of his harshest critics. Ashcroft declined to be drawn into any kind of substantive discussion of military tribunals or anything else. To fair question after fair question, his answer was essentially, "Don't you realize there are people trying to kill us?" He haughtily dismissed those of his former colleagues who dared to suggest they had some kind of standing to participate in a discussion with him. With his slurs against "Miranda rights," "flamboyant" defense attorneys, and "Osama TV," the country's top lawyer suggested that our entire system of criminal justice is an unworkable sham. Sen. Chuck Schumer was right to point out that the only part of the Constitution that seems to excite his sympathy is the Second Amendment.
But the very worst of it was the way that the attorney general cast defenders of civil liberties as witting or unwitting traitors. Ashcroft did this at the very outset, when he declared any skepticism about what he has done to be, in the infamous formulation, objectively pro-terrorist. "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this," he said. "Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."
To understand how ugly, disingenuous, and detached from reality these comments are, it is necessary to go through the AG's distortions phrase by phrase. First of all, the current loss of liberty, however tolerable or intolerable, amounts to something more than a "phantom." In the United States, wars have always meant a curtailment of civil liberties, usually in excess of any defensible necessity. The proper extent of this loss of liberty is an essential subject for democratic debate because we are not just a "peace-loving" people but liberty-loving ones as well.
To describe genuine concern about the loss of liberties as a scare "tactic" imputes ill motivation without any evidence to Ashcroft's legitimate critics on both the left and the right. And to claim that concern for constitutional rights is eroding national unity and resolve is especially twisted. National unity and resolve remain strong. But if there is any real threat to them at the moment, it comes from Ashcroft's excesses, not from the critics of those excesses. Indeed, to contend that it is somehow the defenders of civil liberties who threaten our national unity takes some chutzpah. It's the mugger blaming his victim for contributing to crime.
The same goes for Ashcroft's complaint about giving "ammunition to America's enemies" and "pause to America's friends." The best ammunition America's enemies have had since the war started is evidence that we don't take our own liberties completely seriously. With Ashcroft's help, these enemies can make the case that Arabs have no civil rights in the United States. And to be sure, our friends in several European countries have been given pause lately. But the source of their disquiet isn't bellyaching by the American Civil Liberties Union. It's Bush's executive order setting up military tribunals, an order that may conflict with international law.
As for "encouraging people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil," there's only one prominent person trying to intimidate legitimate critics into shutting up about actions they feel to be both wrong and deeply un-American at present. He is, unfortunately, the attorney general of the United States.
©2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Here is President Bush's justification for sending suspected terrorists to "military tribunals" rather than granting them the legal protections we normally grant people, whether Americans or foreigners: "Non-U.S. citizens who plan and/or commit mass murder are more than criminal suspects," the president says. "They are unlawful combatants who seek to destroy our country and our way of life."
Is the circularity of this logic so obvious that dwelling on it would be pedantic and obnoxious? Well, that's never stopped me before!
Everyone agrees that people who have in fact planned or committed mass murder are "more than criminal suspects." They are criminals, and thus lose various privileges we normally accord people - such as the privilege of not living in a prison. But the question is: How do we determine whether they have in fact planned and/or committed mass murder? Bush's answer - since they're guilty, we can skip the standard procedure for determining whether they're guilty- could bring real administrative efficiencies, but it involves logical problems that even I won't bother elaborating.
Alarmingly, this piece of logic didn't just slip out during Bush's off-the-cuff defense of military tribunals this week; he uttered it as part of last week's official, prepared statement in defense of them. The logic was presumably vetted by some of the finest legal minds in his administration. With minds like that, who needs gut instincts?
But the faulty judicial logic isn't what bothers me most about these "military tribunals" - courts that could operate in secret, among other eccentricities. It's the faulty geopolitical logic.
Since Sept. 11, many observers have credited President Bush with belatedly appreciating that the United States is part of Planet Earth. This erstwhile unilateralist, we're told, is now a blossoming multilateralist, increasingly aware of America's interdependence with other nations. And it's true that events have moved Bush toward enlightenment. But this secret-tribunal idea is among the evidence that they haven't moved him very far. To truly appreciate the interdependence of the modern world would be to accept two premises that call the secret-tribunal scheme into grave doubt.
First, and most obviously: If America wants to be treated in a certain way, it helps to treat other nations the same way. Do we want our citizens given a fair and open trial when they're accused of crimes abroad? Manifestly. We protested Peru's military "trial" of American Lori Berenson on terrorism charges. The Peruvian government obliged us by giving her a new trial in a civilian court, where she was convicted on a lesser charge and given a milder sentence. On what grounds would we protest the secret trial of an American citizen in the future if we're giving foreigners secret trials?
Second: In the modern world, what people think of the United States matters. As Sept. 11 and its aftermath suggested, technological evolution is moving us into an age when groups with intense grievances will have the capacity to wreak great violence. Being a much-hated nation will be increasingly unenviable. So, it matters that our treatment of foreigners be perceived as fair, and the first step toward this goal is to let our treatment of foreigners be perceived.
Of course, there are people on the streets of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who could never be convinced that America's jailing an Islamic terrorist is just. Some secret-tribunal enthusiasts would doubtless point to these people, arguing that convincing America-haters of America's goodness is a lost cause anyway - so, what have we got to lose? They'd be wrong on two counts.
First, converting America-haters to America-tolerators isn't the only goal. Preventing the conversion of America-tolerators into America-haters is equally important. And the more plausible the stories about American injustice, the more such conversions there will be.
Second, to act as if all America-haters are impervious to reason is simplistic and borderline racist. You heard the same type of muttering after the O.J. Simpson trial, when opinion polls showed that an astonishingly high percentage of American blacks considered Simpson innocent. Indeed, the parallels between the post-Simpson muttering and the post-9/11 muttering are close enough to warrant exploring.
In the Simpson case, the people most astonished by the number of blacks who thought Simpson innocent were mainly people who hadn't been paying attention. The handling of the case by police and prosecutors was hugely inept, a godsend to those inclined to think Simpson had been framed. (For example: The detective who took Simpson's blood sample at the precinct house didn't follow prescribed procedure to book it there as evidence. Inexplicably, he put the vial of blood in his car and drove it to the crime scene - exactly the place where investigators later said they'd found blood identified as Simpson's.)
Of course, given the diverse evidence of Simpson's guilt, you wouldn't seize on scattered signs of a frame-up had you not been suspicious of the justice system in the first place. Still, had there been no evidence of a frame-up, fewer blacks who were suspicious going into the trial would have been suspicious coming out. If you don't make stories of injustice plausible - by, say, holding your trials in secret - they'll have less valence. Besides, the suspicions that some blacks carried into that trial didn't take shape in a vacuum. The Los Angeles police (some of them, at least) were notoriously racist, and blacks across the country were familiar with the experience of being singled out for suspicion by police and private security guards.
The point of this little excursion isn't that whenever an ethnic group exhibits a psychology of oppression, it is justified. Typically there is a variety of grievances, ranging in legitimacy from very to not at all (ranging from, say, the complaint that the United States sponsored a coup in Iran that led to decades of brutal repression to the complaint that globalization is an American plot to rule the world).
The point, rather, is that a psychology of oppression is built up slowly, by a lot of little things, and it can be broken down only slowly, by a lot of little things. Some of these things we can't control, since some of the grievances won't bear any real correspondence to our behavior anyway. But some of them we can control - such as whether Muslims suspected of terrorism are tried behind closed doors and sentenced to death by a two-thirds vote of Army officers whose current assignment is to fight a war against terrorism.
President Bush was right when he said that the struggle against terrorism would be very long and would proceed on many fronts. Righter than he seems to realize.
Robert Wright, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
©2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
It's no longer just politically incorrect to criticize George W. Bush or anyone in his administration these days - now it's treason.
John Ashcroft, testifying before the Senate on Thursday, declared that those who challenge his wisdom "only aid terrorists" and will "give ammunition to America's enemies." Tough words. They make you wonder what the guy who's charged with helping us whip Al Qaeda is afraid of. The only prominent traitors in sight are the usual civil- liberties watchdogs and a milque- toast senator or two barely known beyond the Beltway and their own constituencies. Polls find the public squarely on the attorney general's side, and even the few pundits who knock him are ridiculed by their journalistic colleagues as hysterics so busy fussing about civil liberties that they forget "there's a war going on."
Well, with the smell of victory over the Taliban crowding out the scent of mass murder from the World Trade Center, the Ashcroft defenders have half a point: some people are indeed forgetting that a war is still going on. But it is not those questioning the administration who are slipping into this amnesia so much as those who rubber stamp its every whim.
While I wouldn't dare call it treason, it hardly serves the country to look the other way when the Ashcroft-Ridge-Thompson-Mineta team proves as inept at home as the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell-Rice team has proved adept abroad. In the Afghan aftermath, the home front is just as likely to be the next theater of war as Somalia or Iraq. Giving a free pass to Mr. Ashcroft and the other slackers in the Bush administration isn't patriotism ? it's complacency, which sometimes comes with a stiff price.
Just how deep that complacency runs could be seen on Monday, when Tom Ridge issued the administration's third urgent announcement to date of a heightened terror alert. Why even bother? His vague doomsday warning didn't lead every newscast and didn't rouse the public or even law enforcement. On ABC, John Miller reported that the three F.B.I. field offices he canvassed had neither been advised of the threat nor "told to batten down the hatches any more than they were." What's that about? Under Mr. Ashcroft's dictum, asking such follow-up questions is aiding and abetting the enemy. In any event, no one did.
Surely it's also treason to indulge in blunt talk about airline security. Norman Mineta, the transportation secretary, waited only one week after President Bush signed the security bill to abandon all hope of meeting its 60-day deadline for screening checked baggage for explosives. Nor did he call for any stopgap measures to help in the meantime (like enlisting the cosmetically deployed airport national guardsmen to do at least some such screening). Give Mr. Mineta credit for candor, but he might as well have just painted a big target on the back of the nation's commercial airline system as we segue from Ramadan into Christmas. Of course it would be un-American to say so.
I asked Allan Gerson, the George Washington University professor who co-wrote the new and definitive book on Pan Am Flight 103, "The Price of Terror," if our approach to airline security is still preposterous all these weeks after Sept. 11. His answer: "It's preposterous that we're stupid enough to fly. It's sick." On the vast majority of America's domestic flights, he noted, a suitcase containing a bomb (perhaps a bomb planted in an innocent passenger's bag while it lingered at a hotel's bell desk) can be checked curbside with little fear of detection as long as you give the correct answer to the skycap's two security questions while handing over a tip. Paul Hudson, executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, adds that even when the new law goes into effect (or is purported to go into effect), it polices only the country's airlines, not the 240,000 private, charter and corporate planes that terrorists can turn into missiles.
As for the screening of passengers, Mr. Mineta proudly said in answer to a question from Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes" last Sunday that he wanted to give the same level of scrutiny to a 70-year-old white woman from Vero Beach as he would to a young Muslim man from Jersey City. (And based on my own air security experiences, he's getting what he wants.) To use Mr. Gerson's language, it's sick that amid a Justice Department crackdown that indiscriminately (and often pointlessly) rounds up young men for questioning on the basis of their ethnicity, the administration is not practicing such profiling at the venue where the strongest case can be made for it ? the airports where 19 hijackers jump-started their crime. Such inconsistency of law enforcement is beyond the Keystone Kops ? it's absurdity worthy of the Marx Brothers.
That would make our attorney general the bumbling Chico of the outfit. But don't count me among those who quake that Mr. Ashcroft is shredding the Constitution. He does respect some rights, after all, like that of illegal immigrants and terrorists to buy guns in the U.S. without fear of government intrusion. And he just doesn't seem clever enough to undo the Bill of Rights, even with the president's backing. You have to have more command of the law than he does to subvert it.
Mr. Ashcroft said that he wouldn't release the names of the hundreds of people he's detained since Sept. 11 because the law forbade it, even though, as his own deputy later pointed out, the detainees have the right to publicize their names on their own through their family or counsel. His other excuse for keeping the names secret was to prevent Al Qaeda from learning if any of its operatives might be locked up, as if our enemy were not cunning enough to figure out on its own which members he might have apprehended (if any). Then, when he couldn't take the heat, he released some of the names anyway. Mr. Ashcroft doesn't even have the courage of his own wrong convictions.
What's more chilling than the potential threats to civil liberties posed by the emergency powers he is grabbing on behalf of the president are the immediate practical threats these quick-fix legal schemes pose to the war effort. The mere prospect of military tribunals is already hobbling our battle against Al Qaeda. Spain, which, unlike Mr. Ashcroft, has actually charged men said to have helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks, is balking at extraditing them to the U.S. if a military trial is in store. Floyd Abrams, the constitutional lawyer, says this could have a "multiplying effect" as other European Union countries with similarly valuable Al Qaeda quarry, like Germany and Britain, follow Spain's example, whether because of their aversion to military tribunals or to capital punishment.
While we bog down in negotiating these roadblocks, our lack of easy access to crucial suspects could slow our intelligence gathering. Meanwhile, says Mr. Abrams, "the practical effect could well be that we may not be able to try the people we want to try the most, and the countries that do try them could lose the case."
Mr. Ashcroft's detentions and roundups may backfire as well. Eight former F.B.I. officials, including a former director, William Webster, went on the record to The Washington Post to criticize the blanket arrests ? not because they compromise the Bill of Rights but because they defy law-enforcement common sense. By nabbing possible terrorists prematurely, the government loses the ability to track them as they implicate the rest of their cells. The F.B.I. veterans also scoffed at the attorney general's attempted 5,000 interviews of Middle Eastern men. Kenneth Walton, who established the bureau's first Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, said: "It's the Perry Mason school of law enforcement, where you get them in there and they confess. . . . It is ridiculous." Already early reports tell us that most of the invited interviewees aren't turning up anyway, and that those who do need only reply by rote to yes or no questions from a four-page script.
The attorney general keeps boasting that he is winning the war on terrorism at home and keeping us safe. But he provides no evidence to support his claim, even as there's much evidence that he's antagonizing his own troops (the F.B.I., local police departments) and wasting their finite time and resources on wild goose chases that have pumped up arrest numbers without yielding many (or any) terrorists.
If questioning our leaders' competence at a time of war is treason, take me to the nearest military tribunal. But the one thing we learned on that Tuesday morning, I had thought, is that it's better to raise these questions today than the morning after.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
Claim: An expletive-filled letter from "Saucy Jack" detailing conditions in Afghanistan was penned by a Marine serving there.
Just outside of Ab Gach, in the Northwest panhandle of Afghanistan between
Tajikstan and Pakistan.
November 11, 2001
Bizarre, It's fucking freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them goddamn scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement. It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin. I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit a bloody ear into his face and plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me. I'm a romantic.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, here's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shithole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those "tent cities of the walking dead" is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day. And let me tell you something else. I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of em, are Huns. Actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. Its what they do. Its ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families or for each other or for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Goddamn cavemen with AK 47's.
Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.
I'm freezing my cock off on this stupid fucking hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Judy and Bernie and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban "smart." They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is "cunning." The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart. They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil.
They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it. OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my Tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I'm getting good at it. Please tell my fellow Americans to turn off their TV sets and move on with their lives. The story line you are getting from CNN is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control.
The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here because you have no idea what we're doing and, really, you don't want to know. We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to do.
You wanna help? Buy some fucking stocks, America.
Saucy Jack
Origins: This letter purportedly written by a Marine serving in Afghanistan began circulating on the Internet at the end of November 2001. It has since been read over the air by a variety of radio hosts, which has helped to disseminate the piece to an even wider audience.
http://www.nationallampoon.com/MoDstyles/wwwaste/oblu/oblu.asp
This week we offer praise to the Almighty for victories over terrorism and especially for the curbing of terrorist attacks in the U.S. Pray with the President that all individuals, organizations and governments responsible for fomenting terror around the world will be brought to justice. As the last strongholds of the Taliban in Afghanistan are surrendered, pray for a safe and smooth transition of leadership to take place there-that just and good men and women will be placed in positions of leadership.
Pray for the families of the those in the military who are currently serving overseas, that God will comfort their hearts and reward them for the sacrifices they are making on our nation's behalf.
ADDITIONAL LEADERS TO PRAY FOR THIS WEEK:
Secretary of State: Colin Powell
Secretary of Labor: Elaine Chao
Secretary of Commerce: Don Evans
Secretary of the Treasury: Paul O'Neill