Think the piles of snow have discouraged outside play? Think again. Watch a quick video of the outside activity on Feb. 12.
Lots of pictures from recent weeks, including people hard at work on Valentines.
Play dough!
More of Dwight’s sketching:
And the original he used as a model:
Friends,
On March 16th I will be heading to Kabul, Afghanistan at the invitation of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and the Open Society Organization. I will be traveling with friends from Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV). The young people of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have been using nonviolent methods to resist military occupation and build civil society for a couple of years. As their campaign gathers strength and visibility they face increased risks to their safety; thus their invitation to a group of nonviolent Americans with experience is war zones.
Our Friends at VCNV have written:
On the 19th t of March 2011, 50 ordinary Afghan youth from all ethnicities will celebrate the People of Afghanistan’s wish to live without wars. This is the wish of every Afghan person, especially the youth and mothers of Afghanistan.
They will celebrate a Day of the People’s Peace by walking hand-in-hand through the streets of Kabul to a private garden plot where they will plant trees of peace. March 21st is the Afghan New Year’s Day and also the first day of spring. On the evening of that day, they will light fiery candles of grief for all the youth and children of Afghanistan and the world who have been killed in fighting and wars.
The young people of Afghanistan have been inspired by the nonviolent revolution in Egypt. Abdulai, a 15 year old Afghan student and farmer, writes:
I see the unchanging System of the Rich and Powerful
in which my world is Violently collapsing,
and human hope for a decent life leaves my heart.
So, in solidarity with the People of Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq,
the Middle East, North & South America, Europe, Africa and Asia,
& with the People of the world,
I will walk for peace
I will light my candles
& I will plant my trees
If you would like to support this nonviolent effort to build a free and democratic Afghanistan donations can be sent to The Hartford Catholic Worker, 18 Clark St. Hartford 06120, note Afghanistan on the memo line.
Peace and thanks,
Chris
for more information check out: I Wish to live Without Wars on Facebook
and
Christopher J. Doucot
Joy Gordon’s recent book Invisible War is accurately subtitled The United States and the Iraq Sanctions however, an equally appropriate subtitle could be How the United States perfected the Neutron Bomb. If you don’t remember the neutron bomb was supposed to maximize human death while doing minimal property damage. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) imagined just such an outcome when the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on the people of Iraq. A January 18, 1991 DIA memo forecast epidemics of typhoid, Cholera, and Hepatitis by June of 1991 because of sanctions induced “degradation of the water treatment system” in Iraq. Of course we don’t know if sanctions alone would have driven Iraq back to a pre-industrial society since two days prior to the penning of this memo American warplanes began a bombardment which damaged or destroyed every major water treatment, sewage treatment and electrical power plant in Iraq. What we do know is that the sanctions prevented Iraqi civil engineers from making any significant repairs to the nation’s infrastructure for more than a decade thereby ensuring widespread civilian death and disease. By the late ‘90’s UNICEF was reporting that the combined effects of the bombings and sanctions were killing upwards of 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 every month.
In Invisible War Gordon explains how the “nonviolent” weapon of sanctions ultimately killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. For example, the near elimination of electricity prevented Iraq from “maintaining a cold chain”; that is, without uninterrupted electricity, and lacking a fleet of refrigerated trucks, Iraq was unable to import, produce or distribute perishable foods, child or livestock vaccines, or medicines like insulin. In response to growing international and domestic criticisms that the sanctions were taking too severe a toll on civilians the US consented to the creation of the Oil for Food program which was intended to provide the people of Iraq with immediate relief by allowing Iraq to recommence importing food, medicines, and the equipment necessary to deliver these goods. In chapter 4, “The Problem of Holds”, Gordon meticulously documents the ways in which the United States undermined the Oil for Food program by preventing Iraq from importing everything from eggs to the components required to restore electricity to the nation. The consistent American justification for placing “holds” on antibiotics, fire trucks, irrigation equipment, yogurt makers…, was that the items in question were “dual use”. Following the American reasoning vaccines along with a restored cold chain could enable Iraq to manufacture biological weapons; sick children, spoiled medicine and rotted food were an unfortunate but unavoidable, and purportedly unintended, side effect of keeping America safe.
In January of 1999 I apologized to a grieving Iraqi father whose son had been killed by an American missile a week earlier to wit he asked: “why does America bomb us? We are not criminals.” In chapter 10, Inside the US Policy, Gordon explores the question of why the civilian impact of the sanctions and bombings did not spur the United States to alter Iraqi policy even while nearly all international support withered. She concludes that “civilian suffering literally counted for zero” because “[a]mong US policymakers, “Saddam Hussein” and the people of Iraq were entirely conflated; denial of goods to the civilian population was seen as “denying Saddam Hussein”. With three administrations framing our policy as containment of Hussein, and with most media coverage hewing closely to this official narrative, the true impact of twenty years of war on the people of Iraq is largely unknown in America. Instead we have accepted that since Saddam Hussein was evil incarnate any other considerations, eg the 22 million other Iraqis not named Saddam Hussein, were distractions and impediments to security.
In July of 2000 I again found myself apologizing to an Iraqi mother. She was at the bedside of her 6 year old son in a Najaf hospital. His right arm had been blown off by an American cluster bomb. After my feeble act of contrition the mother said to me: “You don’t need to apologize, I don’t hold you responsible for the actions of your government.” Her generosity was both ironic and undeserved. I am responsible for my government; ours is a free society with free elections, our tax dollars purchased the weapon that maimed her child. As a child living under a dictator he was in no way responsible for the invasion of Kuwait or any of Saddam’s policies, and yet he was he and a half million other children whom we held accountable.
In her concluding chapter, “The Moral and Political Questions”, Gordon explores the questions everyday Iraqis posed to me dozens of times: intentionality and responsibility. What are the moral implications if the intention of the sanctions was to remove Saddam Hussein and the consequent civilian harm was unintended- but not unknown? And, with a diffuse decision making bureaucracy executing the policy who is responsible for the deaths of at least a half a million civilians? If we embrace the notion that ours is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”, are “we the people” complicit in the deaths of innocent Iraqi children?
In the Spring of 1999 the deputy director of the UN’s humanitarian program in Iraq, Farid Zareef, told me: “In five years a new generation will take over that is less educated, more hostile to perceived enemies, less stable psychologically, less confident in the future and less competent…” This new generation has no memories of a modern society with clean water, electricity, and quality health care. On p242 Gordon writes: “For both Saddam Hussein and the US government, one critical feature of the decision-making calculus was the same: it was that humanitarian needs… were consistently subordinated to the state’s overriding political agenda…” The boy I met in Najaf is now 16. Without an arm his opportunities in a still devastated society are limited. While I hope that he has embraced the generous spirit of forgiveness displayed by his mother it is just as likely that he embodies the fears outlined by Mr. Zarif making him a prime candidate for a suicide bombing. The former outcome is the product of a calculus based on the Golden Rule, while the latter is the product of RealPolitik calculus. If peace and security is what we seek it seems to me that we need to change our calculus.
Invisible War by Joy Gordon fills what had been a gap in the historical record. The writing is clear and follows a logical progression. The veracity of her information is well documented with 23 pages of bibliography and more than a thousand endnotes. With the ongoing tensions between the US and Iran unfolding in ways that parallel our earlier relationship with Iraq we need to know this history so too not repeat it.
Christopher J. Doucot is a founder of the Hartford Catholic Worker. He holds a M.A. in Religion from Yale Divinity School.
Denise has been quilting with some of the young women. “Keyanna and Paula are making impressive progress,” she says.
Drawing at the Green House on a Saturday.
Dwight’s sketch of a childhood toy with an affinity for the fruits of summer.
A collage made from parts of old newsletters (Chris was able to rescue uncut copies for his future needs, too).
When they walk through the door, grins crease their faces. This is home as much as any place, a refuge, the only community they know. These are their friends, their brothers and sisters of chess, and there is relative safety and comfort here. Inside Agape church it is almost possible to forget the chaos outside, in Katwe, the largest of eight slums in Kampala, Uganda, and one of the worst places on earth.
Tim Crothers writes about 14-year-old chess progidy Phiona Mutesi on ESPN.com.
Soon I was retelling our story to the man who answered that door. I had just said that my wife and baby were in the car when a woman shoved the man aside, opened the door fully and asked, “You have a baby in the car?”
I said that I did, and that his mother was in the car, too. “Get them in the house right now,” she said. “They’ll freeze to death out there!” …
On the way back, several pickups passed us at high speed, one recklessly chasing another, horn blaring. My host solemnly explained that they were Laguna teenagers, that his son was probably among them and they were surely drinking, too.
“Our kids are trapped here,” he said. “They won’t leave the reservation and get a good education. They waste their money on cars, trucks, booze and girls. I worry about their future.”
Andrew Scrimgeour describes the universal love of parents for their children, no matter how heart-breaking their circumstances in The New York Times.
On a landscape pocked by vacant lots, Tibbels felt the need for decent housing that he and his neighbors could own. The overpriced rental units had lead paint and ancient wiring, which made them firetraps. Landlords were strictly absentee. Evictions punished families and promoted transience. One night, the prayer group produced a large, crayon-drawn sketch of Sandtown as God might picture it. The row houses stood proud. …
Tibbels, who had done a handful of houses, announced he would do 100, with mortgages of about $300 a month, less than half the typical rent. Committed to hiring from the neighborhood, Tibbels built a staff long on men with troubled pasts he was famously unwilling to fire — ex-cons, addicts, dealers off the streets. (His co-director, LaVerne Stokes, a Sandtown native, played the bad cop when people skipped work or mortgage payments.) What he lost in efficiency, he gained in trust. No one could doubt that Tibbels understood brokenness and pain. …
Over two decades, a man who couldn’t lift his arms built 286 houses. Though he often called himself a failure, Sandtown disagreed.
Jason DeParle eulogizes Allan Tibbels in The New York Times.
[Alex Lomax] began his career gathering songs with a 300-pound disc-cutter in the back of a Model A and ended it using hand-held video cameras for backwoods documentaries. No matter what the gear, Lomax never wavered from his mission—to find evidence that the world’s poorest places offered some of the richest cultural treasures.
Eddie Dean reviews “Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World” in the Wall Street Journal (insert your own joke about irony here).
