[Sosfbay-discuss] Code Pink statement

[Roy]

I agree with this gentleman's assessment.

I'm surprised at Code Pink. Maybe on a first draft language like that 
may have gotten put in by someone who's a little bit mentally lazy and 
fell victim to the rhetoric of empire, but on a final draft? I haven't 
decided if that's a wee  bit scary or disheartening.

Peace

Roy


> While in general I agree with the Code Pink / Int'l women's call around 
> Iraq and think it will have a positive effect, I wonder about the 
> following:
> 
>  > Consideration of a temporary international peacekeeping force that is 
> truly multilateral and is not composed of any troops from countries that 
> participated in the occupation. <
> 
> Certainly there are other ways one can imagine -- a large presence of 
> unarmed women, for example, or armed Iraqi women -- instead of relying 
> on foreign nation states to send in armed troops ..... Shifting the 
> country of origin for the occupying army solves nothing.
> 
> Also,
> 
>  > Together, we will pressure our governments, the United Nations, the 
> Arab League, Nobel Peace Prize winners, religious leaders and others in 
> the international community to step forward to help negotiate a 
> political settlement. And in this era of divisive fundamentalisms ... <
> 
> It is not the job of governments, etc. to negotiate a political 
> settlement. That is the job of the Iraqi people themselves, for 
> themselves. And the defining feature of this era is NOT "divisive 
> fundamentalisms" -- unless one considers GREED FOR OIL AND EMPIRE to be 
> the divisive fundamentalist value underlying the colonization of Iraq. 
> This statement passes the burden for the war onto religious 
> fundamentalists, when the real culprit is unbridled capitalist 
> globalization and empire.
> 
> I would not sign the code pink statement ... Then again, I haven't been 
> asked.
> 
> *******************************
>