Dear Kate, I’m including our mailing below. (I had already sent it to Kate
Randall.)
In addition, please send me whatever the 24 religious organizations have
already agreed to.
The Jewish community begins Rosh Hashanah tomorrow (Weds) night,
and most rabbis are deeply engaged in that, and then all next week in
preparing for Yom Kippur beginning Friday evening. I have sent our lists
this letter, but it will be impossible this week and hard next week to get
action out of them.
Shalom, salaam, paz, peace! -- Arthur
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Ph.D., director, The Shalom Center
<http://www.theshalomcenter.org>
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Dear friends,
One of the metaphors of Rosh Hashanah is that we plead with God – which
means also with ourselves – to move from the throne of Punitive Justice to the
throne of Compassionate Repair.
Is this just a pleasant prayer, or do we mean it in the real world — the
world of bombs, chemical war, ailing schools and rotting sewers and
worsening hurricanes?
If moving to the right is violently destructive and moving to the left is disgustingly
immoral, then something is wrong with the box we are in.
Think out of the box, act out of the box.
That’s where the US is in regard to Syria: All the “official” choices -- from Do
Nothing to One Strike to Overthrow the Regime – are destructive to us, to the
Syrian people, to the US Constitution, and/or to international law.
So – think fresh.
Drop gas masks, not bombs.
That’s a metaphor.
Translate: use the power of the US in nonviolent, non-military, nonlethal ways to
counter Assad’s (or the rebels’) possible use of chemical weapons.
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If gas masks would not meet the need, drop antidotes to the nerve gas Sarin,
sending instructions in Arabic by radio and social media.
Test out what would happen if the US invited physicians to be parachuted
into Syria, as brave as the soldiers that some US politicians want to send.
Drop leaflets and broadcast radio and social-media messages denouncing the
use of chemical weaponry and offering amnesty and monetary rewards to
anyone in the military who comes forward with information on their use.
Bollix the Syrian military’s computer system just as the US bollixed the
Iranian nuclear-research system without killing anyone.
Ask the government of Iran to intervene with its ally Syria to demand a total
end to any use of chem-war, and offer Iran relaxation of US sanctions
against it if it does so.
(In Iran there is fierce opposition to chem-war because Saddam used it in
Iraq’s war against Iran, killing tens of thousands. The US, by the way,
uttered not a peep of criticism of Sadaam’s use of chem-war, because the US
government saw Iran as an enemy. Indeed, the US may have assisted
Saddam in using chem-war.)
Go to the UN Security Council as well as Congress for approval of such
nonlethal, nonviolent interventions.
And so on. Get it?
What is wrong with the box we are in?
What Obama was publicly proposing, “One Strike” to “punish” and “deter” chemwar, had a very risky flaw: It was essentially assuming "one-man chess.” Either the
OneStrike would accomplish nothing real -- a useless act -- or if it did hurt, it
might well push Assad into retaliating. If there were a response, a retaliatory attack
on US forces or assets or on Israel, etc., would the US then shrug and do nothing –
or would the US then re-retaliate? And then?
Meanwhile, the BBC is reporting that in fact, under pressure from hawkish
Senators, Obama is now actually planning much more than One Strike –
rather, an attack to “degrade,’ not only “deter,” Assad’s military, with the
intention of regime change.
And there are other reports that the actual text of the resolution that Obama
is asking Congress to approve is considerably broader than the One Strike he
has said he wants.
So we may after all be standing on our tiptoes at the very edge of the precipice
of still another immoral, illegal, unwinnable, self-destructive war.
If our own government pushes us over the edge of that precipice, the real losers
will be the American and Syrian peoples. There, even greater devastation. Here,
another wave of failure to meet the real and increasingly urgent civilian needs for
schools, bridges, solar and wind energy, firefghters, and much more. More deaths
and disasters from forest fires, floods, droughts. Another wave of justifying, in the
name of anti-terrorism, intrusive unconstitutional surveillance of practically
everyone; police infiltration of peaceful mosques and political activists; and
vigilante attacks on Muslims.
What to do? Call 202/224-3121 (the US Capitol) and ask for your Senators and
House member, one at a time. When you get each office, leave a message
vigorously opposing any resolution authorizing military force against Syria, and
pointing to nonviolent, nonlethal alternatuve ways of intervening.
Write a similar letter to your local newspaper.
Forward this letter to your friends and to listserves you are on.
Try to start a viral message:
Drop gas-masks, not bombs.
Remember: One of the metaphors of Rosh Hashanah is that we plead with
God – which means also with ourselves – to move from the throne of Punitive
Justice to the throne of Compassionate Repair.
If not now, when?
-- Arthur