Iowa Peace Network | Des Moines, IA

It may surprise many that a majority of US Troops travel through Ireland on the way to Iraq - in spite of Ireland's own constitution and tradition of neutrality and non-alignment.

This Indymedia Ireland/Revolt Video film documents the emergence of the Irish antiwar movement between 2002 and 2006 and of the broad popular opposition to the US military use of Ireland's civilian Shannon Airport in the build-up to, invasion of, and occupation of Iraq.

Per Herngren's online book: Per Herngren is active in the plowshares movement which nonviolently disarms weapons using hammers inspired by Mike 4:2-4. Beat the sword into plowshares. Mostly, he writes in Swedish, but here is some of his English texts on nonviolence. He has published one book in English on civil disobedience: Path of Resistance (Per Herngren, 1993, p 214, New Society Publishers, ISBN USA 0-86571-253-0)

Susan Crane:

Susan Crane <disarmnow@jonahhouse.org>,
Jonah House http://www.jonahhouse.org/

Five or Seventeen? March 19th, 2008

It jolts me to hear "fifth year anniversary" and "beginning of sixth
year of the war in Iraq" when we all know that the US never stopped
bombing Iraq since January of 1991. That's 17 years. Remember the
no-fly zones? Remember looking on page 12 in the papers and seeing a
one inch article about how "sheep were bombed yesterday in Iraq" or
some such "news"?

I'm reminded of Carolyn Forche's book of poetry: Against Forgetting.
In it she reminds us that Hitler asked his military cabinet before his
invasion of Poland in 1939: "Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?"

The media cultivates amnesia in us; the government requires such
mindlessness in us. And yet we have a responsibility as a peace
community to remember the nation that Iraq was before 1991: the water
systems, the electrical systems, the educational, medical and
agricultural systems that were, in some ways, more advanced than what
we have today in the states. We have a responsibility to remember the
carpet bombing that in 42 days systematically destroyed objects
"indispensable to the survival of the civilian population" which is
against the Geneva conventions. In those 42 days, Iraq was bombed to
a pre-industrial age and then, through sanctions, Iraqis were denied
trade, telecommunications, power, sanitation, water repairs, seed,
food, medical supplies and equipment.

And how many Iraqi people have been killed? Must be more than
1,000,000: a number too large to comprehend unless you're an Iraqi
mother or father or child who has lost a family member. And how many
Iraqi people have suffered? The stories of suffering are
heartbreaking: the terror of the bombs, soldiers breaking down doors,
poisoning from depleted uranium munitions... These stories could fill
all the books in the world.

And so we move forward and support all the nonviolent actions on
March 19: we're thankful for the work people have put into planning
many good and creative resistance actions but we must urge remembrance
of the many years our country has punished, bombed, poisoned and
killed people of Iraq and done all in its power to destroy their
country.

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