Stop the war in Iran

The AFSC issued this statement  Saturday when the US launched it's war against Iran. You can take action by clicking here.

 Today the U.S. and Israel launched an unprovoked war of aggression on Iran, dropping bombs on cities across the country and calling for regime change. While the death toll is not known, at least 80 children were killed after a strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran. Iran responded by firing missiles at Israel and U.S. military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The Trump administration has said it will continue to bomb, and the death toll will surely continue to rise, with uncontrollable implications in the wider region. 

As a Quaker organization, we know that war is never the path to peace. We mourn the deaths of all the victims, and we hold their loved ones and communities in the Light. We call on the U.S. and people across the world to take immediate action to stop this from escalating into an endless and global war.

This war is immoral and illegal under both U.S. and international law. The justifications used by the Trump administration all center on blatant lies. Iran has no long-range missiles that can reach the U.S. Iran had not restarted nuclear weapons production and likely lacks the immediate capacity to do so. The Iranian government has repeatedly said that it has no interest in nuclear weapons and has been willing to negotiate despite repeated U.S. escalations. The Trump administration refused to negotiate in good faith and cannot use the inevitable “failure” of those negotiations as an excuse for war. According to U.S. law, the president must seek congressional approval before engaging in hostilities against another country. Congress is set to vote on a War Powers resolution in a matter of days. 

For years, the U.S. has been taking steps to increase the likelihood of nuclear war. The U.S. has let major nonproliferation treaties expire and is investing over $1 trillion in nuclear weapons over the next decade. The U.S. government is itself the greatest impediment to nuclear nonproliferation. 

President Trump says he wants regime change in Iran. History shows us that regime changes imposed by imperialist violence are devastating failures even on their own terms. Attempting this in Iran would almost certainly require a protracted war with U.S. troops on the ground and significant casualties.

The U.S. is also pointing to Iran’s human rights record as justification for these attacks. The killing of thousands of protesters by the Iranian government is horrific, but waging war against Iran will not bring peace or human rights. The U.S. government cannot claim the moral high ground while it disappears people at home, restricts political rights, and pursues a policy of murder and assassination in Latin America. The U.S. has no credibility to talk about human rights after more than two years of supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and unilateral attacks on neighboring countries. Last year alone, Israel bombed Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Qatar, and the occupied Palestinian territory. 

Congress must act immediately to assert its authority and stop further killing. Congress must also act to reverse the Trump administration’s imperialist “might makes right” foreign policy. Since December 2025, the U.S. has attacked Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran while also murdering alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific. All of these actions make the world less safe while undermining international law and key multilateral peacebuilding systems. The U.S.—not Iran—is currently the most significant threat to international peace and security. 

But we cannot leave this to Congress alone. People should make their voices heard. Call Congress, take to the streets, protest, and engage in acts of nonviolent resistance to make it clear that the U.S. public does not stand behind this war. This moment demands all of us.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.

Reflections on Gaza

(A photo I took there in 2015)

 In 2015, I was part of a delegation to Palestine, with stops in Israel in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

We visited Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, and East and West Jerusalem. And Gaza. That sounds like a lot, but everything is close there in terms of geography. In terms of Palestinian people’s ability to freely move around and between the West Bank and Gaza, not so much.

Obviously, that doesn’t make me an expert, but I saw things I wish I hadn’t seen and learned things I wish I didn’t know. Sometimes knowledge brings no joy. 

I’m not interested in picking any fights, justifying any atrocities, minimizing anyone’s suffering, or valuing some lives and deaths over others. But I can say some things about Gaza or what Gaza was with some confidence.

One, it has often been called an open-air prison. Don’t take my word for it—just google the term. In my experience that wasn’t far off the mark.

Two, it’s tiny. For comparison, one of our smaller counties is Wirt with around 235 square miles and a little over 5,000 people. Gaza is more than 1/3 smaller, at around 140 square miles, but it has—or had—2.3 million people, one of the world’s densest populations. In parts of it, you’d have a hard time shaking a stick without hitting someone. 

Three, it’s been under military blockade for 15 or so years. Everything was scarce, including safe drinking water, food, power, sanitation, and all the basics. At the time, people were trying to rebuild after the last conflict. Around then, the UN said it wouldn’t be livable by 2020. As for the accuracy of that prediction, I guess it’s a matter of definition. It’s definitely true now.

Four, the unemployment rate was around 50 percent before the war. I saw lots of people sitting at tables and hoping to sell things nobody would ever buy. Before this crisis, around 80 percent relied on aid from the UN.

Five, about half the population consists of children under 18 living in very adverse conditions. There’s lots of science about how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can lead to all kinds of problems down the road. 

Six, it wasn’t easy to get into and almost impossible for most residents to leave. I found the sense of claustrophobia overwhelming. 

Seven, I’m sure most people there were not connected with those wielding power. That’s true everywhere in the world and is especially true of the women and children who have made up the bulk of casualties.  A pre-war poll found that 44 percent of Gazans had no trust at all in the government and 23 percent had “not a lot of trust.” 

Eight, there are Christians there, representing Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, although church buildings have been damaged or demolished by bombings from recent or previous conflicts. Gaza’s only Christian hospital, once connected with Southern Baptists, was bombed in mid-October. It was the only that treated cancer.

Nine, it has one of the world’s highest literacy rates for men and women, above 97 percent, higher than ours. Gazans value higher education, although resources were slim and are now nonexistent. I remember talking with men and women university students about their love for English language writers like Dickens, Twain, and Hemingway. Reading and writing were their ways of dealing with the feeling of isolation from the world.

Ten, most people there are or are descended from people displaced from Israel. Many are or were still  living in refugee camps.

As a thought experiment, try closing your eyes and imagining a situation like this happening anywhere in the world.

One of the most striking things about the people was their refusal to be defined by their situation. More than once, members of the delegation teared up when seeing the conditions. “Why are you crying? We’re living our lives” was their typical response.

I’m sure many of the people I saw have been killed or injured and all have been displaced and are dealing with horrible conditions  of hunger, thirst, disease, lack of medical care, and trauma.

Watching this reminds me of the aftermath of 9/11, when people were understandably afraid and outraged. Unfortunately, the response by US leaders had disastrous consequences, including invading Iraq, which wasn’t involved in the attacks. The result was around 4,500 US military fatalities and 32,000 wounded. Well over 30,000 US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have committed suicide, a number that grows every day. The death toll for Iraqis is impossible to calculate, although it’s in the hundreds of thousands. The long-term cost will be around $2 trillion. And the situation in that part of the world still isn’t rosy.

The use of force is always unpredictable, with unintended consequences for all parties, as any glance at history shows from the days of the Iliad to our time. Violence tends to lead to more of a growing spiral than a cycle, with each act leading to a more severe reprisal. Who knows how many seeds of spiraling violence have been sown over the last few months- or who will reap that whirlwind?

No wonder that public opinion polls in the US and across the world show overwhelming support for de-escalation, massive humanitarian aid, and a ceasefire.

One thing seems clear to me: the longer this situation lasts, the worse the long-term outcomes are going to be. For everyone concerned.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

The thing with feathers

 A few weeks back, there were plenty of things I wanted to post about. The (now successful) UAW strike. A major win on child nutrition.  But after the terrible events of the last month, they seemed out of place and tone deaf and I couldn't think of any appropriate thing to say. 

A saying of the Buddha's kept running through my mind: "Better than a thousand empty words is one word that brings peace." Since the market seemed pretty saturated with empty words I paused.

Then I had a dream. 

Although the latest scientific research seems to suggest that dreams are the brain's way of processing memory and recent events, and some are clearly just plain static, I still think they can often bring deep insights from the unconscious. There's a reason that meaningful dreams occur throughout the Bible and many other sources, myths, and legends.

I don't go all the way with Freud or Jung...but I do go a good bit with both. This dream seemed to have something to say about the state of the world and I've shared it with several people.

It went like this:

I was in a city at war with a real life friend and comrade. No other context given. In the waking world, several years previously we were part of a delegation to the West Bank and Gaza that left a huge impression on us both. In the dream, we were part of the underground resistance to an unnamed invader.

In the beginning, we were running through battered streets, trying to avoid being killed or captured, we passed a beautiful bird that appeared to have been damaged by a vehicle crash or explosion. It seemed to be dead or dying. Since we were being pursued, we didn't have time to stop. Besides, we didn't know what else to do aside from making sure it was out of its misery.

After a number of encounters, we ran back the way we had come. To our surprise, the bird was on its feet and starting to flap it's wings. We looked at each other and said something like, "Holy ****, the bird might actually recover!"

I woke up and immediately this well knwon poem by Emily Dickinson came to mind: 

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

My takeaway: the thing with feathers really might recover. 

 

O little refugee camp of Bethlehem

I got back from the trip to Palestine and Israel Sunday, but haven't had much chance to blog since then. This time, I'd like to share some images from the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The camp was established in 1950 by refugees from Jerusalem and Hebron. According to the UN, there were around 4,700 residents there. The camp hasn't grown with the size of the population.

For the first few years, residents lived in tents, but gradually more substantial shelters were built. Sometimes people wonder why refugees stayed in the camps for so long. For one thing, there aren't a whole lot of places to go. For another, being a refugee or a lineal descendant of a refugee provides certain status and protections from the United Nations Relief and Work Agency.

Also, many people who live there dream of returning to their homes. Hence the frequency of the key symbolism.

Access to water and electricity is iffy. One way to spot a Palestinian home is the water tanks on the room. Sometimes the supply is cut for hours or days with no warning. And water is a big deal in that part of the world. One Palestinian father told our delegation that when his daughters are able to travel outside the area, they don't talk about scenery. Instead, they say "It was the best shower of my life."

The wall built by Israel around 2004 has made life, work, and mobility difficult, but at least it's a place for murals.

This is a particular sore spot for many Palestinians.

Narrow streets.

No comments necessary here.

This is a school for Palestinian girls. There are no windows on the side facing the wall. This is intended to keep out bullets.

One more anecdote. One man who had three daughters recently found out his wife is pregnant with a boy. Traditionally, this is an occasion for joy, but he says he prefers girls. Life is very dangerous for boys and young men, who can be swept up in arrests. Children as young as 12 can be tried and sentenced in military courts, albeit "juvenile" ones.

What Gaza could be

"But hell can endure for only a limited period, and life will begin again one day."--Albert Camus

I've been blogging about Gaza the last few days. I could do more, but there are other places to discuss while they are still fresh in mind. But I have some things to say before moving on.

First, as a West Virginian, I know that even the down and out places in the world aren't down and out all the time. There is joy as well as sorrow among the ashes. Or coal slurry. I don't want those who look at this blog to think of Gaza as only a smoking rubble or place under siege.

For one thing, I don't think I knew what feasting really was until our AFSC delegation came here. And damn...so that's what eating fish is meant to be.

When Gaza's--and this entire region's--season in hell ends (inshallah), it could actually be a destination resort.

It would take a lot for that to happen.The UN recently reported that without rapid remedial action, live will become "unliveable" by 2020.

When our delegation spoke with young people in AFSC's program there, many of us became emotional about their plight. One of the young people spoke up, saying something like "Why do you cry for us? Despite all this we are living our lives."

Despite all the death and destructon, I wouldn't bet against life here.

Scenes from Gaza

It's not easy get into Gaza these days. It requires a permit from the Israeli government. If you get that, there's a grueling checkpoint that involves inspections and questioning on the Israeli side, which can take a long time. Two other checkpoints follow, one by the Palestinian Authority and the other by Hamas.


Our AFSC delegation went to a high point of the city to observe damage.

There was plenty of it.

For a little background, check this earlier post.

Still, people are trying to rebuild.

Money and new materials are scarce since the Palestinians have no control of their borders.

Still people go about the business of life.

Young people in an AFSC program there work towards a better future despite incredible challenges.

I don't have any pictures to go with this, but one evening we met with a professor and his students who have published a book in English (that was translated into several other languages) called Gaza Talks Back. It was a great discussion, not only about the situation there but also about the power of writing and the love of language and literature. Particular favorite English speaking writers were Twain, Hemingway, and Dickens.

Not exactly what you might expect. But you can expect anything here.

Gaza on my mind, 1

This isn't the whole story.

I'm not sure I'm up for this post. Aside from the fact that it's really late Jerusalem time, visiting the Palestinian region of Gaza was one of the most intense experiences I've had. I may not be ready to write much about it, but here's a start.

A little preface. Gaza has been called an open air prison and that's not far from the mark, although parts of it are really beautiful and full of life.You may recall that armed conflict broke out most recently between Israel and Gaza in the summer of 2014. According to the UN, those 51 days of conflict resulted in 2,200 Palestinian and 71 Israeli deaths.

Of these fatalities, 1,492 Palestinian civilians of all ages were killed. Israel lost  a total of 71 people, 66 of whom were military losses. It's late and I'm so tired that I'm not sure about my math, but I think that's around 31 Palestinian deaths to 1 Israeli fatality, with the understanding that one death is too many.

According to the UN, "Israeli attacks striking residential buildings accounted for a significant number of civilian casualties, raising concerns about respect for the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack under international humanitarian law (IHL)."

More on how it looks now to come.

It's not all shrines

I've just gotten back from an overnight trip to Gaza and a day in Ramallah as part of an American Friends Service Committee to Israel and Palestine, but I'm not even ready to go there. The experiences were so intense I'll need some time to sort them out. Instead, I'd like to share some pictures from East Jerusalem. Yes, that would be the part that is mostly Palestinian, not counting settlements.

There's a bit of a contrast between the west and east sides of the city. Some differences may include things like a reliable supply of power and water and not having your house torn down.

Then there's this eight meter high security barrier wall that started to spring up in the first half of the 2000s.

Sometimes you need to read the fine print.

The nick of time

The Persistence of Time, Salvador Dali.

Thoreau's Walden rambles all over the place, but it continually challenges the reader by returning to the topic of time, especially that part of it which is happening right now:

As if you could kill time without damaging eternity.

I guess one could say that this is a main theme of the book. Here's just one sample:

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe the line

.

It sounds easy, but it's one of the hardest things to do.

GULF DISASTER. Here's Jim Wallis on the BP mess. And by the way, Halliburton's political donations are up these days. Could there be a connection?

YOU PROBABLY REALLY DON'T WANT TO LOOK at these pictures of animals caught in the spill.

NOT THE BEST PR MOVE. Here's a statement by the American Friends Service Committee on the attack by Israel on a ship bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. While we're at it, here's Kristof's NY Times op-ed on the subject.

PETS AND HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS. The way we deal with the former may not be bad for the latter.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WE COULD BE HEROES

The ancient Greek hero Theseus didn't take any bull from anybody. Here he is in a dust up with the minotaur.

Aside from news and links about current events, the theme at Goat Rope lately is Homer's The Odyssey. If this is your first visit, please click earlier posts. The series started Aug. 4.

Odysseus, the eponymous main character of the Odyssey, is one of many classical Greek heroes, although the word meant something different then than now. We tend to think of heroes as morally exemplary people who do good things. Think about the firefighters who died on 9/11.

For the ancient Greeks, a hero was someone who lived larger than life and whose deeds were remembered after their death. Many prominent heroes did as many or more bad things as good one. Oedipus, for example, was a hero. On the positive side, he solved the riddle of the Sphinx. But then there was that whole father killing/mother marrying/plague causing thing...

King Agamemnon in the Iliad was a hero--and a jerk who sacrificed his own daughter, caused a plague of his own, and enraged his best fighter Achilles at great cost to the Achaeans, as the Iliad recounts. Heracles and Theseus were heroes who did some good things, like killing the occasional monster, but some of their other deeds were not so nice.

Being a hero didn't save you from coming to a bad end, either. Jason of Golden Fleece fame had a miserable fate after dumping the witch Medea for a new model. Medea didn't go quietly, to say the least.

Still, Greek cities treasured the tombs of their local heroes and offered them sacrifices in the hopes that they would aid the home team when it needed it. There was a nice legend about the ghost of Theseus appearing at the battle of Marathon to help defend Athens from the Persian invasion.

The thing to remember is that Homer is not trying to prepare Sunday School lessons or political propaganda. He tells a story that shows the characters with warts and all. The message is not so much "be like them" as it is to learn from the story.

OH GOOD. Israel may be preparing to attack Iran. That should make everything just perfect.

GREEN DAY. Businesses are starting to get serious about sustainability, according to Newsweek.

MORE ON WAL-MART'S POLITICAL AMBITIONS here.

GOT KAFKA? Here's a review of a biography of the world's most realistic writer. And I'm not just saying that because I woke up as a giant bug today.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED