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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Green Party of the
United States urges President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and
other American leaders to take seriously the plea from European heads of
state and other leaders around the world not to launch a massive,
indiscriminate strike against Afghanistan and perhaps other countries
that will cause civilian deaths in vengeance for the terrible
attacks launched against the United States on September 11. Instead, the
U.S. must seek international cooperation in bringing those who incited
and abetted this atrocity to justice and punishment according to
international law.
"The Green Party supports our nation's right to defend itself and
its people," said Robert Franklin, Treasurer of the Green Party of
the United States and a Texas Green. "But a massacre of civilians,
in vengeful retaliation, will put us at the same level as the
terrorists, will not eliminate the threat of the international network
that perpetrated the attacks, will erode international sympathy for the
U.S., and will encourage more people in Middle Eastern nations to join
or support violent extremists. The best way to convert people to
terrorism is to drop bombs on their families."
Greens have condemned the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon, and U.S. airlines, mourned with other Americans over the
tragic loss of life, and called for justice for the victims and
punishment for the terrorists and those who support them. But Greens
oppose the 'blank check' Congress gave President Bush to wage war
at his administration's sole discretion.
"Comparisons to the attack on Pearl Harbor are valid only to a
point," said Sarah Davidson, secretary of the Peace Issues
Committee of the Iowa Green Party. "Japan, as a nation state, was
an obvious, geographically defined enemy. The September 11 terrorists
apparently work as a secretive international network. France could not
defeat the Algerian guerrillas who fought for independence; the United
States' wrongful war in Vietnam caused millions of civilian deaths
but failed against the Viet Cong. Last week's attackers represent a
movement that will be even harder to crush, with its secret operatives
dispersed internationally. Bombs and other technological warfare will
slaughter the innocent, \ but will not defeat these criminals.
International investigation and cooperation will."
"There's a tendency, promoted by some warmongering op-ed columnists
and irresponsible national officials, to call the terrorists 'religious
fanatics,' 'evil,' with an unmotivated 'pathological hatred for
American freedom and prosperity' without further context, as if the
terrorists' attitudes and actions occurred in a historical vacuum,"
added Scott McLarty, a member of the D.C. Statehood Green Party and one
of two national media coordinators for the Greens. "Bin Laden and
his sympathizers don't call the U.S. 'Satan' because they're
insane, but because they believe that Islamic society is already under
attack by the U.S., and this is their fanatical
response."
Green Party 2
Greens warn that rash military strikes and a protracted war will result
in thousands, perhaps millions more civilian casualties, including many
Americans, leading to further attacks against the U.S. and other nations
and to possible destabilization of a region that includes Pakistan,
which owns nuclear weapons. The goal of U.S. policy, say Greens, must be
peace with justice: peace which preserves the human rights and
stability for all people in the Middle East, the U.S., and the rest of
the world, and justice for those who have suffered death, injury, and
loss.
Punishment for the terrorists and their supporters must be waged within
the Realpolitik of the Middle East: an ongoing 'war' and U.S.-imposed
sanctions that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis (perhaps a half million children); the need for an engaged
U.S.-sponsored peace policy aimed at resolving the Israel-Palestine
conflict in a way that's perceived as fair to both sides and that sets
out a 'road to peace' which recognizes both Israeli security and
Palestinian human rights and self-determination; and broad, popular
opposition in the Middle East to repressive regimes and transnational
corporate interests that violate fundamental norms of international law
and basic human rights.
This will take enormous political and moral courage," said Nancy
Allen, a member of the Maine Green Independent Party and also a national
media coordinator for the Greens. "But it's the only way
we'll achieve a resolution. The alternative is too horrible to
imagine."
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