Why We Oppose This War

 a statement from the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network (CABN), a
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered liberation
organization


 Every sane person is repulsed by the events of September
11th. Following these killings, various leaders began
channeling the public's understandable grief and rage in
directions that can only serve to multiply the injustices
already committed, most transparently with Jerry Falwell's
and Pat Robertson's scapegoating of gays, feminists, Pagans,
the ACLU and others.

 Falwell and Robertson were far from alone in manipulating
this tragedy for political ends, they were simply the most
clumsy.  In response to these moves, the Chicago
Anti-Bashing Network (CABN) coordinating committee endorsed
protests including demands that some might see as outside
the normal scope of our work:

 1) No to war
      2) Stop racist attacks  
          3) Defend civil liberties

 Given that CABN was formed in response to violence against
gay people, we would hope that opposing the racist attacks
on Arab Americans and Muslims also would be second nature to
all who support us.

 Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered (LGBT) people
know all too well what it's like to be harassed and
physically attacked by perfect strangers, simply for being
who we are.  We know what it's like to be singled out as a
group for legislative discrimination.  We know what it's
like to have our religious institutions attacked by bigots,
as demonstrated by the many arson attacks on the
predominately-gay Metropolitan Community Churches since
their formation.  We know what it's like to be vilified by
leading politicians and clergy, who through their hate,
encourage this violence against us.

 But opposed to all this, we also know what it means to
receive active solidarity from other communities and how
that solidarity strengthens and heals us.  We remember when
many thousands of people came out into the streets with us
to protest Matthew Shepard's murder.  We remember that we
were stronger not just due to the thousands of LGBT people
out there with us, but from the thousands of non-gay people
out there too.  And some of us remember our vows at the
time, to respond with similar solidarity when other
communities were attacked.

 Make no mistake about it, Arab Americans, Muslims, and
those perceived to be such are under daily physical attack
by racists all across the country.  At least four people
have been killed in anti-Arab/Muslim hate murders since
September 11.  In Chicago, an Assyrian church on the north
side was firebombed, causing $200,000 damage, and in
Bridgeview, two patriotic rallies turned into anti-Muslim
hate mobs that marched on a local mosque.

 ... And these hate attacks are not simply a "domestic
problem."  Some who support a war abroad believe that the
attacks on Arabs and Muslims in the US can be separated out
from the issue of a US military attack.  But racially-based
vilification of "the enemy" has always been part of the
run-up to every large, modern war, with physical attacks on
innocent US residents invariably following in its wake.  The
experience in World War II, with its racist vilification of
Japanese abroad and concentration camps at home, is the most
blatant example.

 If one truly opposes attacks on innocent Arabs and Muslims,
it shouldn't matter if they live in the US or abroad.  CABN
opposes the drive towards war because many thousands of
innocents abroad will almost invariably suffer and be killed
as a result of US military action.  The US "surgical strike"
aimed at capturing Manuel Noriega, for example, resulted in
several thousand deaths in Panama City.  The last US
retaliation against Osama bin Laden, by President Clinton,
killed innocents by destroying a Sudanese pharmaceutical
plant.

 Not only does war represent an almost invariably
ineffectual way of bringing the actual perpetrators of
terror attacks to justice, but by inflicting terror on
blameless civilians, it helps generate new generations of
terrorists.  Israeli retaliation against Palestinian suicide
bombers, for example, has made the conflict there endemic.
While terrorism committed by isolated, deranged individuals
might be prevented by better mental health provisions and
other social services, endemic terrorism has different
roots.  Whether in Palestine, Northern Ireland or apartheid
South Africa, until the legitimate grievances of subject
populations are addressed, some portions of the aggrieved
population will be attracted to terrorism as a "solution."

 The US is hated by many in large areas of the world.  For a
clue as to why this is so, Chicagoans should just imagine
how we would feel if each year's Air and Water Show featured
fighter jets dropping real bombs on our city. How would most
Chicagoans be expected to feel about the nation which flew
those jets and which provided the military hardware,
regardless of how outrageous the provocation for those
attacks?  That is a clue as to why many residents of cities
such as Baghdad, Tripoli and Bethlehem are angry at the US,
a sentiment that another US attack will only inflame.  This
is the soil for Osama bin Laden's recruitment of future
terrorists.

 The US has been in an undeclared war against much of the
world since World War II. In literally dozens of countries
during the past century, the US invaded, dropped bombs on,
and assassinated heads of government.  In Iraq alone,
500,000 children have died in the last 10 years due to
US-led sanctions preventing the importation of water
treatment equipment and other provisions to stop preventable
diseases. In 1978, the Afghan government instituted reforms
for women including the franchise, participation in public
life, and not having to enshroud themselves.  This was the
government overthrown by the CIA and their hired thugs,
including Osama bin Laden.

 Resentment at the US also comes from anger at some of the
leaders the US supports - the Saudi Arabian regime, for
example, which hangs gays, chops off the hands of alleged
thieves, and suppresses the civil rights of women in a score
of ways.  It's a cruel irony that each of the US's most
recent "No. 1 enemies" - Osama bin Laden, Sadam Hussein, and
Manuel Noriega - were former close US allies, and vicious
thugs while they were. Sadam Hussein, for example, gassed
thousands of Kurds while then-President George Bush kept
silent.  While US Presidents compared each of these tyrants
to Adolph Hitler, they neglect to mention that they were
"our" Hitlers while committing some of their most atrocious
crimes.

 During each major US war, politicians moved to suppress
civil liberties at home. The Vietnam War, for example, saw
the FBI's COINTELPRO program to infiltrate and destroy a
wide range of legal protest organizations. On September
12th, the Chicago Police Department's Thomas Needham already
was boasting in the Sun-Times that the CPD had the legal
machinery to spy on "hate" groups (as defined by the
police), whether or not they were suspected of illegal
activity. On a national level, liberal Democratic Senator
Diane Feinstein proposed halting enrollment of all non-US
students at universities and technical colleges, a proposal
which, while standing little chance of passage, serves to
heighten the scapegoating of "foreigners."

 Since September 11th, US politicians have talked of
imitating Israeli security methods to prevent future
terrorist attacks.  But let's look at what we're being asked
to imitate. Israel is one of the few nations in the world
which admits to using torture as an accepted interrogation
technique. Assassination of suspected terrorists - forget
due process - is government policy.  But despite security
measures far more stringent than in the United States,
terrorism is a daily reality in Israel. Clampdowns on civil
liberties and tight security has simply shifted the objects
of terror onto "softer" targets like department stores and
night clubs, as opposed to well-protected government
buildings. September 11th scarred the lives of many
thousands beyond the immediate victims themselves.  But
let's not compound this horror with measures that will
multiply those victims many times over.

No to war  / Stop racist attacks  / Defend civil liberties