When Bonnie Greer returned to America to talk to the people she grew up with, she came across a different set of attitudes towards the events of 11 September
by Bonnie Greer

African America knows something about the ugly face America presents to the world. To friends here in Britain I always say that if you don't like American foreign policy, try American domestic policy. Try being an American citizen with the full backing of the constitution yet by word and deed having to feel like an outsider.

It took me years in Britain to adjust to being called 'American' and 'Yank'. I had never felt like one in the land of my birth. Yet to hear intelligent people condemn America, even say it got what was coming to it on 11 September, makes me want to yell 'Which America are you talking about? Not mine!'

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by Medea Benjamin

For 20 years, I have traveled the world, first as a U.N. relief worker and now as a human-rights activist. I've witnessed famine in Africa and visited burned-out villages in Central America. I have seen people dying of starvation and people dying from the wounds of war.

But having just returned from Afghanistan, I now believe that few places are as absolutely horrific. Twenty-three years of war, coupled with three years of severe drought, have left a destitute and traumatized population.

The U.S. bombing campaign, while helping to defeat the oppressive Taliban regime, has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in two ways.

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by Fatma Antar and Leslie Brett

We are part of a group of Jews and Muslims who agreed weeks ago to talk about peace when events made our discussion all the more urgent.

The days before our meeting had brought three more suicide bombings in Israel - more deaths, more injuries, more grieving and the certainty of more retaliatory actions and collective punishment by the Israeli government. The escalation we all feared was unfolding by the hour.

The meeting was convened by Jews for Peace in the Middle East, a group of Hartford-area Jews who feel called by conscience to speak out, as Jews, against policies of the Israeli government that undermine the cause of peace and contradict Jewish principles of justice. Some Muslims joined our meetings. As Muslims and Jews, we were meeting together because we wanted to hear and learn from each other, and because we refuse to be enemies.

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by Bill C. Davis

Last night, in New York City, Ramsey Clark, former attorney general under the Johnson administration, was speaking to a group of peace advocates. In opening comments to a group of four hundred, the moderator of the event asserted that George Bush’s war on terrorism will spread to Somalia, Sudan and very likely Iraq. One man in the packed house started clapping – his clapping was not an awkward miscalculation. He was letting the crowd know he would applaud a war in Iraq. The crowd let him know they were opposed to an expanding war. He yelled out – “Four thousand dead Americans.” A woman in the audience retorted – “A million and a half Iraqis dead.” The man shot back, “Sounds good to me.” He was escorted out of the meeting but not out of the country

The same mindset we are horrified by when it comes from an undisclosed location in a dimly lit room in Afghanistan was in the middle of a brightly lit room in a church in Manhattan. Ultimately all activism needs to be directed at the mindset itself. The belief that violence will solve the problem – the worship of the military – the fetish attachment to weapons because they are believed to be instruments of justice – the need to kill to resolve a conflict or promote an agenda – that thinking is the enemy. The parades after the Gulf War as seen in the Middle East must have appeared to be brutal jubilation. During the Gulf War there was the media adoration of the weapons and male correspondents reporting the war. “Scud studs” was an actual segment on a popular prime time quasi-news program. I wonder how that played to citizens of the Middle East. Did it seem a bit frivolous – callow – insensitive – unabashed - cruel?

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by William Pfaff

PARIS - President George W. Bush's denunciation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is a crucial step in this administration's foreign policy.

That policy began in aggressive unilateralism, sought multilateral support after Sept. 11, but has now reaffirmed its determination to go back to the road of sovereign and solitary action - with others to follow or not, as they like, and be rewarded or sanctioned accordingly.

Those who thought the administration's reaction to the terrorist attacks was a fundamental redirection of policy were mistaken.

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by Glen Johnson

WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena exploring abuses in the Boston FBI office, prompting the chairman of a House committee to lambaste his fellow Republicans and triggering what one congressman said is the start of ''a constitutional confrontation.''

''We've got a dictatorial president and a Justice Department that does not want Congress involved... Your guy's acting like he's king, '' GOP Representative Dan Burton of Indiana (left) tells Carl Thorsen, a deputy assistant attorney general. (AP photo)

''You tell the president there's going to be war between the president and this committee,'' Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who heads the House Government Reform Committee, told a Justice Department official during what was supposed to be a routine prehearing handshake.

''His dad was at a 90 percent approval rating and he lost, and the same thing can happen to him,'' Burton added, jabbing his finger and glaring at Carl Thorsen, a deputy assistant attorney general who was attempting to introduce a superior who was testifying.

''We've got a dictatorial president and a Justice Department that does not want Congress involved. ... Your guy's acting like he's king.''

The searing tone continued for more than four hours from Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. All objected to the order Bush signed Wednesday and made public yesterday. It claimed executive privilege in refusing to hand over prosecutors' memos in criminal cases, including an investigation of campaign-finance abuses, saying doing so ''would be contrary to the national interest.

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