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December 6, 2001
Sam and
Leila Bahour
The
Psychology of a Suicide Attacker
December 5, 2001
Edward Hammond
The Only
Real Way to
Prevent Biowarfare
Harvey
Wasserman
Atomic
Treason in the House
Carl Estabrook
America's
Israel
Don Williams
Questions
Barbara Walters Didn't Ask George Bush
Cockburn/St. Clair
Liberals
Hail War as
Return of Big Government
Robert
Fisk
The
Last Colonial War?
Bahour/Dahan
It's About
the Occupation
December 4, 2001
Dave Marsh
A
Plea for Byron Parker
Rep. Ron Paul
Keep Your
Eye on the Target
Susan
Herman
Ashcroft
and the Patriot Act
Tariq Ali
The Afghan
King and the Nazis
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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by Cockburn
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December
6, 2001
Hampshire College Condemns
War in All-Community Vote
CounterPunch Wire
AMHERST, MA
The students, faculty, and staff of Hampshire
College have voted to condemn the "War on Terrorism"
and propose alternative solutions. The vote, which was won by
a margin of 693-121 (with 11 abstaining or ambiguous votes),
is believed to the first such decision by a college community
in the United States. (A majority of the students, faculty, and
staff participated in the vote.)
"Our community has spoken,"
said Michael Sherrard, an organizer with Hampshire Students for
a Peaceful Response, which sponsored the vote and authored the
anti-war resolution. "We refuse to fall into silent support
for an unjust war that kills innocents overseas, and threatens
our safety and civil liberties at home."
However, organizers were quick to defend
the right to free expression of those who disagreed with the
vote.
"As a diverse community of strong
individuals, there are some at Hampshire who do not support our
views. Even if they are in the minority, their opinions, and
rights to free expression, must be respected. We wish that politicians
and the media would extend the same respect to those of us who
oppose this unjust war, or who happen to bear the same skin tone
as Osama bin Laden," said Donald Jackson, also a member
of Students for a Peaceful Response.
Hampshire has a precedent for trend-setting
political statements. In the early 70s, students voted for the
impeachment of President Nixon. The college was also the first
to decide to divest from apartheid South Africa. With this vote,
organizers hope to make a similarly strong public statement,
and build a movement which can similarly change the course of
U.S. foreign policy.
Students for a Peaceful Response is a
multi-campus coalition in Western Massachusetts formed in the
wake of September 11, and active in the growing nation-wide student
movement against the war. It is organized around six points of
unity: mourning for the victims of the September 11 tragedies;
a call for the peaceful pursuit of justice, rather than war and
militarism; condemnation of religious, racial, and ethnic scapegoating
and bigotry; opposition to the curtailment of civil liberties;
desire to provoke discussion of the root causes of terrorism;
and recognition of global justice as the condition for a true
and lasting peace.
Full text of the statement approved by
the community:
The tragic day of September 11, and the
days following, have been a time of profound suffering for people
everywhere: firefighters in New York, secretaries in Washington
D.C., and farmers in Afghanistan. One indiscriminate act of violence
has been followed by another, a pattern seriously endangering
the prospects for a just and peaceful world. In such a time of
loss, we must ask ourselves - is there a path out of this escalating
cycle of violence? Yes, we can respond to the tragedy of September
11 as a crime against humanity, carried out by individuals, not
as an act of warfare for which a nation must be held responsible.
This path would proceed within a framework of genuine international
cooperation and be designed to bring to justice those guilty
of the crime - without destroying the lives of innocent millions.
It would employ the proven tools of transparent and conclusive
investigations, diplomatic and police efforts, and fair courts
of law to achieve its goal. At home, we can meet the immediate
need for effective security through common-sense solutions that
apply fairly to everyone, while preserving our hard-won civil
liberties.
Instead, the Bush administration has
embarked upon a very different path--with disastrous consequences:
The death toll of innocent Afghan civilians
killed by inevitably imprecise bombing is mounting.
The U.S. military campaign has made it
impossible for international relief organizations to deliver
the food aid necessary to prevent the starvation of millions
of Afghan civilians in the winter now beginning. The token and
scattered aid efforts of the United States have been roundly
criticized as insufficient, or even counterproductive, by such
organizations. A massive humanitarian crisis remains.
While the Northern Alliance has forced
the Taliban from power (certainly a welcome development), they
too possess a disturbing record of human-rights violations, especially
against women and political dissidents.
The current suffering in Afghanistan
will only deepen the conditions of loss and desperation which
foster international terrorism. Even the CIA has stated that
strikes against Afghanistan are "100% certain" to lead
to terrorist reprisals.
The recent "U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T."
Act infringes upon everyone's First and Fourth Amendment freedoms.
Rights to privacy, speech, and association remain as critical
as ever and are, if anything, more so in times of trial.
The proposed "economic stimulus"
package provides billions of dollars in corporate giveaways and
tax breaks, but almost nothing for laid-off workers and poor
communities most at risk.
Both at home and abroad, the "War
on Terrorism" is symptomatic of the racism of American society,
in its disregard for the lives of people of color overseas, encouragement
of racial, ethnic, and religious scapegoating and violence, and
practice of law enforcement "profiling."
New legislative and law enforcement initiatives
threaten specifically the rights of non-citizens, through indefinite
detentions without indictment, military tribunals, arbitrary
deportation, and unfair targeting of international students.
For all of these reasons, and many more,
we, the students, faculty, and staff of Hampshire College, have
no choice but to condemn the current "War on Terrorism,"
and demand that it not be expanded to Iraq or any other countries.
We call for the resumption of effective independent humanitarian
aid in Afghanistan, and the immediate halt to the U.S. military
action that prevents it. We call for a U.N.-led effort to establish
in Afghanistan a democratic and multi-ethnic government, respectful
of the rights of women. Furthermore, we demand that the Hampshire
administration join us in resisting any arbitrary and unfair
law-enforcement invasion of our own community, especially efforts
targeting international students and campus activists.
Finally, military action will never put
an end to international terrorism, which often stems from forces
that have previously received the support of the American government.
In its place, we must, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
"rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter - but beautiful
- struggle for a new world," a world where hunger, war,
and economic injustice, the root causes of terrorism, are eliminated.
This way alone leads to safety, security, and lasting peace.
Thus, we commit the full resources and energies of our community
to this endeavor, and challenge our colleagues at schools around
the country, and all over the world, to do the same.
For more
Information Contact:
Michael Sherrard
msherrard@hampshire.edu
Kai Newkirk
rivendelldream@hotmail.com
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