Get This Message to Washington - John D. Maguire

GET THIS MESSAGE TO WASHINGTON!
John David Maguire
with author’s permission

On April 12 Bill Coffin, a prophet and patriot, died. He provides us a perfect text for this morning: “This war in the Middle East is as disastrous as it is unnecessary; perhaps in terms of its wisdom, justice, purpose, and motives, the worst war in American history. Of course we feel for the Iraqis, so long and cruelly oppressed, as we support our military men and women: But we don’t support their military mission. They were not called to defend America but rather to attack Iraq. They were not called to die for, but rather to kill for, their country, and in an illegal and unjust war opposed by the UN Security Council and virtually the entire world. What more unpatriotic thing could we have asked of our sons and daughters serving in the military?”

If that is true of Iraq, how truer it would be if we – out of desperation or demonic deliberateness – intervene with nuclear strikes in Iran? Just think of the numbers: An estimated 2.6 million people would die within 48 hours. Over 1,000,000 people would suffer immediate injuries. Over 10.5 million people would be exposed to significant radiation from fallout. It would be a collapse of a 60-year moratorium going back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If we were to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran, it would be the third time in human history such a bomb had been used: Every time by the United States! And this time it would not even be at the end of a long, deadly and wearing war against a major opponent. Instead it would be another preemption, an American first-use against a country not at all an immediate threat to the US and its interest, but rather would be used as an extension of our attempt to impose US control on the Middle East.

We American people must wake up to where we are. We’ve been on the wrong road for five-and-a-half years. At every fork, we take the wrong turn. Now – this summer – we are at a crucial fork. One road leads to a hopeless, hapless, horrible pit where military power serves empire rather than freedom; where we lose from within what we’re trying to defend from without; where fundamentalism and the state scheme together to write the rules and regulations; where true believers in the Gods of the market turn the law of the jungle into the law of the land; where in the name of patriotism we keep our hand over our heart pledging allegiance to the flag while our leaders pick out pockets and plunder our trust; where elites insulate themselves from the consequences of their own actions; where ‘the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must;’ where we have become global bully boys, the scourge of the weaker, not a model or missionary of freedom.

The other fork in the road – the one we must take – leads to an America whose promise is ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.’ There is nothing utopian about this. It leads to a world where every life is precious and of infinite worth. It leads to a world of justice, compassion, sustainability.

We are at that fork in the road. The time to take the road toward life is now. Our current nuclear threats to Iran underscore the urgency of the moment. In order to start down the right road, we must commit today to doing the following:

• We must call on our representatives in Congress to pass immediately legislation prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons in Iran or elsewhere without further specific authorization by Congress.
• We must insist that any military action against Iran requires specific authorization by Congress in conformity with Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution.

• In order to calm turbulence and advance peace, we must insist that President Bush or his highest level emissary respond to Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recent letter and offer to meet with him to discuss steps toward a situation freed of the specter of nuclear weapons.

• We must launch a blitz of letters to the media as well as the Congress, street demonstrations and activities in civic groups, to oppose the extension of war in the Middle East by the Bush administration, especially the use of nuclear strikes in Iran by the United States. Our lives, the lives of our descendants and the lives of many inhabitants of this globe are at stake.

We must assert our moral autonomy, our moral power, our moral insistence that we will not be a part of the dishonesty, the brutality, and the hypocrisy behind the current war of aggression. We must call together for an end to the insanity – an end to the obscenity – of the war in Iraq and certainly demand no new war in Iran.

Let’s crystallize our resolve by listening once more to William Sloane Coffin: “Our real mortal enemy is war, war itself. Let us not argue that we’ve had to go to war to defend vital interests. Those interests aren’t worth it. Nor let us argue that we must go to war to defend our democratic way of life. Such a way of life – governed and led this way – will not survive. Let us instead proclaim a new kind of patriotism, which takes as its object of ultimate loyalty not the nation-state but the human race (didn’t Margaret Meade say, ‘We have explored the entire planet and found only one human race’)?”

“Remember,” says Coffin, “There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good.” The bad ones are the uncritical lovers of their country and its loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world. We must join our voices, raise our voices in this quarrel. If you’re at the edge of an abyss, the only progressive step is backward!”

Today’s message is clear. Begin disengaging from Iraq and, for God’s sake, the world’s sake, the sake of humankind, no new war – particularly nuclear war in Iraq.

John D. Maguire

June 10, 2009

Institute for Democratic Renewal/Project Change *
A Joint Anti-Racism Venture
Claremont Graduate University
170 E. 20th Street, Claremont, CA 91711

When John Maguire retired as president of the Claremont University System the Institute for Democratic Renewal was formed to continue his passions for peace and justice.