Time to move beyond war
Yesterday a group of 100 prominent Canadians issued a statement condemning an attack on Iraq as immoral. Amongst those authors are such notables as David Suzuki, Bruce Cockburn, Buffy Sainte Marie, Pierre Burton, Margaret Atwood and Robert Bateman. Below is the text of their statement.
We, the undersigned, are deeply alarmed that the most powerful nations in the world continue to rely on military force to achieve their global political and economic goals — while eroding the standard of living, the environment, and the security of people throughout the world.
We are united in the belief that a military attack on Iraq at this juncture would be profoundly immoral, and would almost certainly result in a destabilizing repercussions that would endanger the whole world.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis have died as a result of shortages of food and medicine under sanctions. Iraq’s water and sewage treatment facilities, destroyed during the Gulf War, have not yet been restored due to sanctions — resulting in an epidemic of water-borne diseases throughout the country.
In August 1999, UNICEF confirmed 500,000 children, mainly under the age of five years, had died under sanctions, and that a further 25 per cent of all Iraqi children suffer from chronic and acute malnutrition.
Military action would first and foremost affect the long-suffering civilian population of Iraq. It would constitute an unprovoked act of aggression and would present the very real danger of igniting a larger conflict far beyond the borders of Iraq.
No connection has been confirmed between Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Furthermore, no convincing evidence has been produced that Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction, or that it has plans to threaten to use, or to use, such weapons in the near future.
The world cannot be made safe from weapons of mass destruction by countries that possess vast arsenals of such weaponry, bombing other nations for allegedly pursuing the same weaponry.
Global peace and security can only be achieved by entering into negotiated and verifiable agreements to rid the world of all weapons of mass destruction. Bombing sites that could contain nuclear, chemical or biological weapons should be unthinkable, as it would hold the potential for a global human and environmental catastrophe.
We urge the Canadian government and the people of Canada to do everything in their power to oppose military action against Iraq and to seek peaceful means to resolve outstanding issues.
Peace can only be built upon a foundation of diplomacy and justice. We must work to uphold international law and to safeguard human rights, the environment, and global human security. Then, and only then, can the world move beyond terrorism and war
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Comments
Comment from The Dynamic Driveler
Time: 10/6/2002, 12:26 pm
No it is ignorant, racist, homophobic, war mongers such as yourself, who put their rationality aside to blindly follow the manipulations of the likes of Sharon and Bush, who think that any support for the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples in the middle east is an attack on Israel (instead of its leaders)that scare me.
The path that Sharon (the butcher of Qibya) is currently taking can only lead to an escalation of the tensions in the middle easdt and the creation of yet more terrorist acts on both sides. Apparantly something you are in favour of. The path that Bush is following is likely the worst possible path he could take. An invasion of Iraq will create a vastly more fertile recruiting ground for the likes of Al Queda than they have ever had in the past. Iraq has NEVER been a democracy. Democracy is virtually a foreign concept in that culture. Attempting to foist democracy on the Iraqi people will lead to chaos and streets running with blood. Bringing democracy to Iraq will lead to the formation of a free Kurdish state, Kurdistan. Do you, with the apparantly few operation grey cells you have, think for one second that Turkey and Iran will sit by and let that happen? A free state of Kurdistan would result in even more unrest by the Kurds in those countries and the subsequent violent repression of that unrest. If the US takes unilateral or near unilateral action in Iraq then it will be giving tacit consent to other countries to conduct similar unilateral actions. If a free state of Kurdistan is established the Turks will invade it and make Saddam’s massacre of the Kurds look like a sunday tea party by comparison.
Your ignorance of world politics is appalling. It is very much people like you that scare me.
Comment from Sander
Time: 2/10/2003, 3:43 am
Has anybody forgotten that the US since Bush ignores Kyoto, means does not want to comply to bringing down greenhouse enhancing gas emissions and other industrial pollution. The US also does not want a ban on landmines that till this day kills or handycaps children and adults alike in former Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea and in many parts of Africa. Do you still believe that this looming war is for the best of the Middle-East or even for the best of the entire World? No, it is only for the ‘best of the West’!
It’s about time that people in the west realise that their way of living is at the expense of others! You creditcard loving, burger smacking, coke lurking, gasoline guzzling Americans have no idea what your consumption crazyness does to our world! Of course your ‘president’ is just protecting your freedom, your so-called democracy, with the most interesting choice not between president candidates but between Mac Donalds and Burger King. Junior just tries to make sure the gas keeps on flowing for a nice price, that is fair when sales of SUVs are doing so well in a country where unemployment is on the rise. He is going to protect your ‘decent standard of living’ with a pre-emptive strike (read WAR!) on Iraq, with a reported and expected death toll among citizens of the capitol from 100 000-600 000, men, women and children. That is worse than Saddam in his heydays, and according to UK ally, this is only the beginning, the people of North Korea, Iran, Syria will share the same fate! While the respective leaders of those countries make sure they will be OK after war with the US. It may still be the sickest 1 april joke but I am afraid your WTC shocked nation is death serious planning this war, despite all concerns of other UN members.
I truly find the US is the scariest nation on earth, a paranoid country armed till the teeth with Weapons of Mass Destruction and with multiple warheads in the Whitehouse ready to destroy some more human lives regardless of whether they are guilty or not. The US has shown they are not working towards a better place for all, and therefore US action against Iraq (=NOT Saddam!) should be stopped, at the same time a UN led coalition force could support the end of Saddams regime with help of the Iraqi opposition.
Let me finish by saying that in the case of an US led attack on Iraq the majority of men, women and children that end up dead as ‘collateral damage’ are NOT guilty, and the planners in the White House have not presented any good reason for the loss of so many innocent lives!
Comment from ruth carter
Time: 10/6/2002, 11:46 am
I disagree with you, people like you are starting to scare me. my biggest fear is with svend robinson, the biggest anti semite since mackenzie king was pm, and then some.
I use to really like Buffy st marie, and especially Margrette atwood, a canadian treasure, but now your true colors are starting to emerge. You support both teenage and national terrorism, you are anti semites and anti american, and may i add for the record, anti kurdish.
You scare me. Canada will never be what it was, thats gone forever, artist like you guys and sven robinson(burn in hell and die of aids) have taken away something. You helped give canada an identity now your tearing it down.
you can all burn in hell for all I care.