Should we give peace a chance?

Representatives of the local political spectrum discuss the validity of the US military response and non-military alternatives

By Noah Bruce

JACK BUSSELL: “Our export of democracy is normally at the point of a gun.”

Since the terrorist attacks, the US has been in engaged in a prolonged, intense, political conversation. For many Americans under 30, the past two months have marked the first time a conversation over a mug of beer would more likely focus on US foreign policy rather than the romantic endeavors of characters on 90210 or Friends.

While the media has added its own commentary with continual coverage of post-September 11 events — the bombing campaign in Afghanistan; the stories of the victims, the firemen, and the cleanup; the horror of the Anthrax letters — there has been precious little coverage of public debate. What, for instance, do Maine leaders think of the US bombing campaign? What do they think were the reasons the terrorists attacked us? Do they think US foreign policy should be changed?

Perhaps there has been little debate amongst our public leaders because there is little disagreement among them. The “Authorization for Use of Military Force” passed 420-1 in the House of Representatives. Polls tell us 90 percent of Americans support the military actions. Still, the Phoenix wanted to hear from local leaders, particularly those who help make up the 10 percent who believe there are alternative ways to respond to the terrorist attacks.

In Portland, a small but steady anti-violence voice has been heard. On Monday nights, peace activists hold vigils in Monument Square. There was a peace rally on October 12 on the University of Southern Maine Campus. The bombing campaign was denounced at the “Road to Nuclear Abolition” conference held on October 13 also at USM.

While it is easy to discern the activists’ opposition to the bombing campaign from their placards, their suggestions for US response are not so readily apparent. It is obvious they oppose war, but what, we wanted to know, do they suggest the US do to respond to the attacks and defend against future threats?

In order to understand and make public the peace activists’ stance, and to hear from local leaders who support the bombing campaign, the Phoenix held a roundtable discussion.

Invited to the table were a Jack Bussell, a board member of the Maine Veterans for Peace, one of the several vocal peace groups in the area; State Representative Kevin Glynn (R-South Portland); State Senator Anne Rand (D-Portland); and Ben Meiklejohn, the co-chair of the Maine Green Party Steering Committee, and a candidate for Portland School Board. Unfortunately, Ms. Rand could not attend.

However, the three participants spent a lively hour debating the causes of the terrorist attacks and the validity of the response.

 

Phoenix: The first question I want to ask is for Representative Glynn: Is the bombing of Afghanistan justified?

Glynn: I think yes, absolutely; I do think it’s justified. I think it came with due warning and ample cause. It was an absolutely horrific event that the country lived through and many people in the country wanted to see that what was done wasn’t tolerated.

Meiklejohn: Strategically speaking, I don’t know, but from a populist point of view it seems like the bombing was necessary or justifiable in the sense that there was a feeling the public needed some sort of resolution and the government saw this as the most immediate way to bring it to the public. I don’t know strategically speaking if it was necessary or not, and I suspect there could be alternate ways to bring resolution to this tragedy to all people. But of course this is an easy way from a presidential point of view, a governmental point of view, to immediately address concerns about whether anything is going to be done about this.

Bussell: If you remember, the Taliban offered to turn bin Laden over to us if we furnished proof, and this has been reissued and both times it has been rejected. The first thing we do is reach for our guns. This is frontier justice. There are close to one and a half to two million people on the verge of starvation in Afghanistan, and what they did not need at this point was a bombing campaign. This was a criminal act, and they should be brought to justice. There are other venues for bringing in this individual or this organization to justice in front of the world.

Glynn: President Bush was very clear with his address to Congress and a lot of people in Congress were very clear that we are not going to make a distinction between terrorists and those that harbor terrorists. The Taliban government has been harboring terrorists. They have been building terrorist training camps. I think the most appropriate thing we can do as a nation to protect ourselves is to make sure that the threat is gone. Bush offered several times to talk about ways that Bin Laden could be turned over, [but he was clear] we weren’t going to have terrorists, and we were not going to have terrorist training camps and we were not going to allow terrorists who bombed our nation to stay at large.

 

Phoenix: Would either of you like to respond to what Mr. Bussell said about the lack of proof, that the Taliban said they would turn over Bin Laden if we showed them proof but we did not do that?

Glynn: I think there has been more than ample proof, and we have had, I think, one of the most extensive criminal investigations that has ever taken place. We’ve had thousands of people from the government investigating everything from those who boarded the planes here in Portland, Maine to bin Laden himself. We’ve been working with foreign nations on it. I think the proof is clear. These terrorists activities are going on. This is not just about bin Laden. It’s about the terrorist networks, and I think the government has been very clear on the broadness of the scope. It’s important to take out all the networks. It’s not just one guy, but the governments that support that activity and the private people that are funding this.

Meiklejohn: I wouldn’t mind commenting on proof. It may be that we have collected enough evidence beyond any doubt [to know] who the perpetrators are. It could be. It could not be. I don’t think any of us as American citizens could claim that the evidence is clear because we haven’t see it. All we’ve been told from the media is that the president and Congress say the evidence is there. We haven’t seen pictures. We haven’t seen enough of the case. I’m not arguing that the evidence is not there. It could very well be there. It’s a difficult situation: In the interest of national security of course they don’t want to release all the information that would prove their case . . .

Bussell: Once again, national interests are being defined by politicians who have the “you can trust us” syndrome that got us into an awful lot of problems previous to this. Ben talks about national interests, and yet he’s speaking as a Green this evening, and one of the Green values is non-violence, and nowhere have I seen anyone want to talk about sitting down and asking the Taliban.

Yes they are supportive of the terrorist groups, but in the ’80s we funded the Mujahadeen, bin Laden, and all the others. We built the camps, Afghanistan didn’t build the camps. We built the camps. The CIA did, and this is a matter of public record.

In the ’80s we were supporting the groups we’re now against. I don’t want to get into this thing where if you’re not with us you’re a terrorist. This is most definitely a criminal act and it has to be dealt with. I and Vets for Peace think there is a much easier, and different, and less confrontational way to handle this.

 

Phoenix: Which is to pursue it through the criminal justice route?

Bussell: Through the United Nations. The United Nations is a world body set up by all the nations currently on the globe. They have things in place. There’s international trials going on now for Kosovo and Bosnia.

 

Phoenix: Does the UN have the power to bring those who helped the terrorists to justice? Is that, in your opinion feasible?

Bussell: Oh, definitely they do. It’s international law. There is a body of law that deals with crimes against humanity. Everything from nuclear weapons to “I was only following orders,” things that were set down in the Nuremberg Principles.

So there are procedures set up and just like in the Gulf War where we did not follow the procedures, where we jumped from this line in the sand type of thing to actual bombings by the first and second largest armies in the world, and yet these guys had just come out of eight years of intensive warfare. They were tired, they were poor and they just wanted to go home. And we ran right into this frontier type of justice. There are just some other ways to deal with this criminal type of situation besides going in and bombing.

Glynn: President Bush made a statement that I thought was right on target in response to the point you brought up. He said “terrorists try to operate in the shadows. They try to hide, but we’re going to shine the light of justice on them. We’ll list their names, we’ll publicize their pictures, we’ll rob them of their secrecy. Terrorism has a face and today were going to expose it for the world to see” . . .

Bussell: . . . I agree completely with you Kevin, that we ought to shine lights on this, but when you start shining lights you are going to have to shine a very big and very bright light into all the things that have gone on. In the ’80s, when we were supporting the Mujahadeen and when we sent Anthrax in ’86 and ’87 to Iraq. Is that the stuff that is coming back to us today? Where are these lights? I certainly agree with that statement we should shine light.

 

Phoenix: I want to ask [Mr. Bussell] a question about your suggestion that we pursue this through UN criminal justice means. It seems to me that it would perhaps work to bring to justice those who perpetrated this terrorist event, but what about preventing further terrorism?

Bussell: To me, prevention is to take away the reasons these people have for doing the things that they do. They are certainly dedicated, and they have some valid objections to the way we and the West have utilized what I call the arrogance of power. We could go to the Taliban and say “What do you want from us? We’re going to give you the proof and you are going to give us bin Laden. What do you want from us in order for you to shut down every terrorist camp in Afghanistan?” This has not been done. It may be they will just say, “Feed us.”

 

Phoenix: I want to ask a question regarding that, to you Mr. Meiklejohn. I seems Mr. Bussell believes that the terrorists attacked us [in response to] US foreign policy, because they’re angry about things like the Shah of Iran, and the Gulf War, and [our position on] Israeli-Palestinian relations ect. That’s directly contrary to what President Bush said in his speech before Congress when he basically laid out his belief that the terrorists hate us because they oppose freedom and democracy. Two very different reasons. I’d like to hear what you think. Is it one? Is it the other? Or is it both?

Meiklejohn: I think you’ve struck at the heart of this. We are now challenged to think very deeply about the meaning of freedom and democracy. And it is not unpatriotic to question and even dissent from the previous policies of our government, a government which is out of the control of the people. Every American has heard of military incursions in the past 30, 40, even 50 years, destroying democracies and putting in fascist regimes for American interests whether it be oil or mining rights . . .

If the hatred of these policies is so strong that it turns into a hatred of America in general, ironically it could be the oppression of people elsewhere in the world that have no access to freedom and democracy that angers them because we represent freedom and democracy. I don’t want to get into the blame game. It’s not my fault, or Jack’s fault, or your fault, no one in this room is responsible for the hatred or anger or discontent in the world . . .

 

Phoenix: I want to ask Representative Glynn what you think about the question of why they attacked us.

Glynn: I think it’s a little bit of both. I think the foreign policy we’ve had in this country is very much threatening to tyrannical governments like the Taliban, and of course it is our freedoms in America, our way of life that also was attacked, and I think President Bush was right. I think it spills over into our past foreign policies like not supporting dictatorships. Going into other nations and encouraging democracies and spreading the good word that we’ve had in our United States and how this, the greatest country on Earth, is operated.

 

Phoenix: Do you mean to say in the past we have supported dictatorships and we should not, or are you saying we. . .

Glynn: We’ve encouraged democracies, and I think that a lot of countries are threatened by that and countries under a tyrannical rule like Afghanistan are threatened by the idea of a democracy because how they got where they are right now is through a military coup.

Meiklejohn: That may be true, but we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to countries where we have influenced the government in a way that is detrimental to the people . . . like in Panama and other Central American countries. His point might be true, but there are instances where our foreign policies are not innocent and sincere in support for the cause of freedom.

Bussell: Our export of democracy is normally at the point of a gun. In the case of the Shah there was a locally elected government in Iran. It started to nationalize the oil companies, which got Exxon and Shell and everybody else very upset. So we engineered a coup. Allende in Chile: Allende was elected by the people and Kissinger has a very good quote, and I don’t have it verbatim here, but when he engineered the coup down there he was reminded that the Chilean people elected Allende, and he said, “What do Chilean people know about democracy?” . . .

 

“ZEN” BEN MEIKLEJOHN: “We’ve abdicated our constitutional authority for how war is created.”

Phoenix: I want to get back to our response [to the terrorism]. We’re obviously reacting to the terrorism as if it was an act of war, despite Mr. Bussell’s suggestion that we should respond as if it was an international crime. How do you differentiate a crime from an act of war? Why did we not call the Oklahoma bombing an act of war?

Meiklejohn: I’d like to comment on that. The Green Party of the US has released an official statement to this extent. I know that the Greens and many people are concerned about this, and I’m concerned about this. All the actions aside, the very use of the word war and the confusion that we’re creating internationally and within our own country about what we plan to accomplish, how long it’s going to last, and what we’re doing. Because war is supposed to be authorized by congress. So here we have a non-official declaration of war, yet the president says we’re in a state of war. Everybody is saying “this war,” “We’re going to war,” “This is a war” “Were going to go till we win the war.” We’ve abdicated our constitutional authority for how war is created . . .

The US position is: we’re going after all terrorists anywhere. I’m concerned about a blank check. The Green party has called it a blank check to go to war against anyone at anytime. Where do we go? Chile? Northern Ireland? The language coming out of our country is concerning humanity around the world.

 

Phoenix: I think you raise a good point with the fact that war was not declared. Representative Glynn, do you have any thoughts on that?

Glynn: Well, it’s a war against terrorism not a war against a particular nation . . . I think the president and Congress have been very clear. There was mention of a blank check. Originally there was, but President Bush said “no,” he wanted a set dollar figure, and he put the figure out and Congress raised it, and they debated it, and it has a defined dollar figure, and additionally I think it has a defined outcome.

I have a Pentagon briefing paper put out October 8 on the War against Terrorism. It says our current military operation is focused on achieving several major outcomes. It makes clear that harboring terrorists carries a price, it includes humanitarian relief to the oppressed, acquiring intelligence to facilitate further operations, developing relations with opposition groups within Afghanistan, and altering the military balance by denying Taliban offensive systems. It’s narrow in scope and well defined.

As far as it not being a war, more people died in the attacks than in Pearl Harbor. It is a war on terrorism not a war against a people. That’s how I differentiate an undeclared war from a declared war. As far as differentiating between a criminal act and an act of war, there is no question in my mind these people are criminals.

 

Phoenix: So, it’s a crime, not an act of war?

Glynn: It’s a crime and an act of war.

Meiklejohn: It’s a hate crime, the biggest hate crime ever pulled off.

Bussell: As far as the comment that there were more casualties in the attack than in Pearl Harbor, the children that die in Iraq in 2 months exceeds the figure of those that died in the US, and I am in no way saying that children of Iraq are any more important than the innocent people who died in America. But over one million children have died in Iraq because of our sanctions, which are as against international law as terrorism is! Who are you going to bomb?

Glynn: Can I respond to that? This is not bombing of children in the way you’ve painted it, in my opinion, at all. In fact, what I’m seeing is probably one of the greatest examples of humanitarianism I have ever seen. You’ve got President Bush announcing $320 million in additional aid to meet the needs of the Afghans. President Bush set off a fund raising program last week. It’s called “The American Fund for Afghan Children.” He has targeted more than 10 million children suffering in Afghanistan as part of this targeted relief, and school kids across the country have been challenged to give a dollar or whatever they can to the relief effort. . .

You’d never see this type of reaction from another country as swift and as defined as you have from the US. On one hand we are attacking terrorists and training camps, and at the same time dropping food and medicine and a full aid package towards them. What other country would have these two things at the same time? I think the US is a country with a conscience.

You see all over as you’re driving around big signs saying “God bless America,” and you ask yourself “why has God blessed America,” and why God in my opinion has blessed America is because of our humanitarianism. . .

Meiklejohn: I still want to argue that the whole operation is not as clearly defined as claimed by the Pentagon or others because recently the US has said that we may be expanding this to other countries, and I have great concerns about this because it’s an Islamic country here, another Islamic country there, going in bombing places. We could accomplish a lot of this with diplomacy.

We’ve seen dictators who were once considered evil and terrorists like Castro or Qadafi who one way or another have been reduced to ineffectual or non-threatening leaders of their own countries. Their influence or threat to us has been severely minimized. Even Saddam Hussein perhaps could be reduced by policies that don’t involve bombing.

 

Phoenix: We do have policies against Iraq that are not bombing Iraq, which Mr. Bussell mentioned, which some people feel are very disruptive.

You [Mr. Meiklejohn] seem to be interested in the word war and its connotations. I wanted to ask you if you think it’s appropriate for Mr. Bush to call our enemies “evil.”

Meiklejohn: Evil is such a loaded word. It has moral and religious connotations. Sure, evil does exist. The [terrorist] acts are evil. All acts of violence are evil. The backlash against Arab-Americans and Muslims that occurred in the first week, there were even some deaths around the country. That’s evil, too. Evil and good, if you want to get into trying to define them, exist around the world. They exist in all communities and all societies. Maybe that’s the purpose of laws.

Bussell: Are you talking about evil now?

 

Phoenix: I’m talking about the word evil.

Bussell: Evil speaks for itself . . . I consider bin Laden to be evil, but I also consider Kissinger And Elliot Abrams to be evil. Abrams wiped out the village of El Mazote. 400 or 500 people died because of his policies. He has now been appointed to a position in the Bush administration. That’s evil. Ben said right: [evil is] a very, very loaded word and it has religious connotations. I’m not going to get into the semantics because you’d have to define evil. Because what these people who were willing to give their lives for what they believed in, their deeds we consider to be evil, they obviously do not consider them to be evil. They pray to Allah, we pray to God, it’s the same.

Glynn: I think that one of the purposes of a leader of a nation is to communicate with us and take complex issues and simplify them in basic terms so we understand what they see and judge for ourselves whether they’re doing the right things or the wrong things in office. For the president to call these acts evil is right on target. How do you describe murdering 7000 civilians? Evil doesn’t seem to go far enough for me . . .

 

Phoenix: Mr. Bussell, it struck me when you said “We pray to God, they pray to Allah” that it seems you feel that — I’m not talking about Muslims here I’m talking about the extreme form . . .

Bussell: Fundamentalists.

 

Phoenix: Yes, the fundamentalist religion that breeds terrorism. It seems you think we should negotiate with them.

Bussell: I didn’t say negotiate with them.

 

KEVIN GLYNN: “In my opinion, God has blessed America because of our humanitarianism.”

Phoenix: Earlier you said we should talk to them and perhaps the Taliban just wants food.

Bussell: Talk to them, talk to the government. You’re probably not going to find — whose door do you knock on to find Mr. Terrorist and discuss it with him? What I’m saying is you have to get into the root causes. What causes terrorism? Once you find that out you can talk. Afghanistan is on the verge of massive starvation. There is massive dislocation in the country. Arundhati Roy, an Indian writer for the Guardian, talks about these people, who, while waiting to starve to death are bombed to death. We could go in and ask what will alleviate this problem with the Afghanis . . .

What’s wrong with going in there, saying “OK what do you want?” Maybe their requests will be unacceptable. We haven’t even asked.

 

Phoenix: You’re suggesting some sort of negotiations?

Bussell: Absolutely. We should give this to the UN, as I said, they have the international tribunals, international courts of criminal justice in the Hague, the Nuremberg Principles. They have all these international treaties that will deal with these things. We have been remiss for years and years in not paying our dues to the UN. When it comes down to it, we’ve only paid a portion of our dues.

 

Phoenix: It seems the speaking with and the dealing with root causes is important in the long term, but it seems that there is a terrorist threat right now, tomorrow, or soon. What do you suggest to deal with that in addition to the wise course of dealing with the long term root causes?

Bussell: Well I throw this question back to you. Do you think the bombing program at this point is going to solve the terrorist program?

Glynn: First of all, I didn’t hear anybody saying that bombing the training camps was in itself a solution, but it was a means of bringing us closer to a resolution. This is just part one of a very long approach which is going to be used to combat terrorism and make them no longer a threat to Americans. I just don’t see it as an end all. In fact, everybody’s been saying the opposite. It’s a portion of the solution.

When you’re saying negotiate, the Taliban didn’t negotiate when they killed 7000 people. They didn’t come to the table and say “let’s talk.” They killed people, and they killed civilian citizens that had absolutely nothing to do with what was going on.

Bussell: I couldn’t agree with you more.

Glynn: So, what’s the difference between these murderers and any other group of murderers, maybe in this country? If you murder someone you will be stalked down, and you will be brought to justice and you will be tried.

Bussell: And you think an F-16 is going to stalk down bin Laden, or a Tomahawk missile is going to bring bin Laden or the terrorists to justice? We’re talking about revenge. We’re not talking justice. We’re talking revenge for these murders.

 

Phoenix: I’d like to hear what Mr. Meiklejohn has to say.

Meiklejohn: I just think we’ve got our emphasis a little bit off. Regardless of whether there is or isn’t military action, the emphasis should be on three prongs: billions of dollars on domestic security, billions of dollars on intelligence, and diplomacy, lots of diplomacy. Even if the military is in there, and I’m not saying I support military action. Even if it is a component, it should not be the component that is prioritized and emphasized as it is now.

We do need to look at our foreign polices, but we do not need to blame ourselves and say, “What we’ve done is bad. We’ve caused it to ourselves.” That doesn’t do any good . . . But, as citizens, we do need to prioritize the interests of our foreign policy actions, and our foreign policies have not been all innocent. We need to make sure our foreign policy pursues and fosters democracy and freedom around the world before anything else, even if we lose a little oil, or we lose mining rights. Our foreign policy seems to be based on our access to natural resources. Globally that seems to be the primary interest that steers our foreign policy. We all need to participate in turning our government in [the correct] direction.

 

Phoenix: I want to ask Representative Glynn a question because he said earlier that our foreign policy was guided by the goal of promotion of democracy. . .

Meiklejohn: I think it has been, but not always.

 

Phoenix: Do you think our foreign policy should be changed in light . . .

Glynn: Always. We’re on an evolution of improvement. Look how far we’ve come in 50 years. Think how far we’ll go in 50 years as a country. Talking about, discussing, questioning the direction our country is taking is what has taken us this far and what is going to take us to the next level.

 

Phoenix: What is the next level?

Glynn: The next level obviously is world peace. That’s what everybody wants.

Bussell: . . . One thing I want to address with Ben is this money. 50 cents of every tax dollar goes to defense, to defend us. Did it? You can’t defend against this type of thing. It’s moral, not military. It is hope, not hatred. And it is redemption, not retribution.

Meiklejohn: When I said billions of dollars in domestic security I did not mean military.

Bussell: OK. You mean education and healthcare and . . .

Phoenix: Airline security?
Meiklejohn: Yeah. Marshals on every plane. Border control. You can get into all kinds of domestic security measures that aren’t military.

 

Phoenix: I’ve run out of questions. Are there other issues you wanted to address, things that we already talked about that you wanted to make more clear?

Bussell: I would like to make one quick statement in ending. Two things, and both biblical. One is St. Paul’s letter to the Romans where he says “Christ, vengeance is mine.” And then goes on to talk about peace. He talks about vengeance being the Lord’s. Second is Isaiah 2:4, which we’re very involved with with the Plowshares Group: “Turn your swords into ploughshares, and your spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not pick up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” It is very simple. Peace is the answer. War is not the answer. A reply to an act of terrorism, to a criminal act, by another criminal act does not make sense. Two negatives don’t make a right.

Meiklejohn: I guess I’d just like to emphasize a couple points I’ve already made. I ask the president and our nation’s leaders to stop characterizing this as war and to stop perpetuating the language and mindset of war, which will only inflame the tensions around the world to nobody’s benefit. But I ask the president and our leaders not to continue to go about this as an open-ended thing that will take decades and centuries with military actions around the world. We need to have an international dialogue about it.

This is the opportunity for us as Americans to deeply reflect on the freedom and democracy we cherish and act on our love of this lifestyle to participate in democracy. Not just voting, but writing letters to politicians. That’s the best way we can achieve a democracy that reflects what people really want . . . The true patriots are the ones who question authority and communicate their concerns to their government officials.

Glynn: The president has sought to pursue the terrorist network on several fronts. He pursued it diplomatically, he pursued it economically, and as promised, they are being pursued with the military.

This is a landmark time in the nation. I can’t remember a time in politics when I saw Democrats and Republicans coming to the table, agreeing to the level they are agreeing . . . which says this issue is so vital to our nation, and it is bigger than any one person or political party. It is the safety of Americans and our ability to travel freely in our nation and abroad. Seeing so many people come to the table and agree and feel we’re doing the right thing can’t help but make me feel that our nation is on target with our war on terrorism.

The part that makes me feel the best about our efforts is the humanitarian aid that we are sending. The statement we’re making to the world is our problem is with the terrorists, it’s not against a people, it’s not against a government. It’s against the crimes and the acts, and we’re going to bring the perpetrators to justice. n

Noah Bruce can be reached at nbruce@phx.com.