The World Can't Wait

The War on Terror is harming women and girls around the world. If you want to read about (yet another reason!) why the so-called War on Terror is a very bad idea, check out this article by the Women’s Human Rights Net – a Web site published by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.

The U.S. won’t stop…until we’ve killed thousands of people, violated the rights of all American citizens, spent all of our nation’s money and made everyone in the world loathe and distrust us. THAT is supposed to make our country stronger and “safer”?!

Very unfortunately, this week during President Bush’s weekly address, he vowed that the US government “will remain on the offense”, continuing to launch attacks “until terrorism is defeated”. Poor George. What he does not understand is that his war is creating more terrorism, locking us into a deadly and costly vicious cycle.

According to the 10-2-06 podcast from Democracy Now, the Iraq war now costs our country $2 billion per week. Just imagine what our nation’s public school system could do with that kind of money! Or sustainable fuel research or the healthcare system, for that matter.

The War on Terror also creates an enormous amount of fear and distrust around the world. The U.S. goes so far as to justify violating American citizens’ freedoms in order to make the country “safer”. Wiretapping and the death of habeas corpus are only two examples.

What is habeas corpus, you ask, and why is everyone talking about it? “Habeas corpus provides a remedy against arbitrary detentions and constitutional violations. It guarantees an opportunity to go to court, with the aid of a lawyer, to prove one’s innocence (See article from Democracy Now.) ” A bill recently passed in the Senate that will take away habeas corpus from anyone the Bush administration deems to have provided material support to anti-U.S. hostilities.

According to the Democracy Now article:

The bill gives President Bush extraordinary power to detain and try prisoners in the so-called war on terror. The legislation strips detainees of the right to challenge their own detention and gives the President the power to detain them indefinitely. The bill also immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for torturing detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year.

The editors of the New York Times described the law as tyrannical. They said its passage marks a low point in American democracy and that it is our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

For more information, please check out Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)’s statement on the Senate floor from September 28, 2006.

Senator Leahy puts it so eloquently,

What has changed in the last five years that our Government is so inept and our people so terrified that we must do what no bomb or attack could ever do by taking away the very freedoms that define America? Why would we allow the terrorists to win by doing to ourselves what they could never do, and abandon the principles for which so many Americans today and through our history have fought and sacrificed?

The World Can’t Wait. This Thursday, October 5th is “The World Can’t Wait” Day. My impeachment buddies and I will be, once again, out at the intersection of NC Highway 54 and 55 waving signs in peaceful protest during rush hour. You’re welcome to drive by and honk!