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Peace vigils planned throughout the US

Amid talk of war, movement pleads for reconciliation

By Alice Dembner and David Abel, Globe Staff, 9/18/2001

TODAY'S GLOBE


NEW YORK - They are gathering quietly in vigils, not mounting protests. And they are largely being drowned out by a feverish tide of war rhetoric.


But across the country, voices of pacificism and restraint are growing stronger.


Little more than a mile from ground zero of the incinerated World Trade Center, a vigil at Union Square for the victims has already evolved into an ad hoc center for the budding peace movement. The square's monument to George Washington is not only draped in American flags, but also covered with antiwar slogans.


Peace vigils have been held from Portland, Ore., to Cambridge, Mass., and hundreds more are planned over the coming weeks.


More than 100 civil rights and religious organizations plan to gather Thursday in Washington to map a larger response to last week's terrorism, hoping to moderate the government's support for military strikes abroad and expanded law enforcement powers at home.


Separately, peace groups will gather in New York Friday to plan national action against President Bush's declared ''war on terrorism,'' arguing that war is not the answer and will only add to the carnage.


''We're mobilizing the peace community to call for reconciliation, not retaliation,'' said Judith Mahoney Pasternak of the War Resisters League. ''The faster we start singing the songs of peace to counter the drums of war, the better it's going to be.''


While the War Resisters League said their organizing efforts have been hampered by phone and e-mail failures at their offices only 11/2 miles from ground zero, other groups said they had been moving slowly out of respect for the victims.


''We are committed to building public opinion in our communities and then moving in the near future to a national expression,'' said Judith McDaniel at the national office of the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. She confirmed that the office has received several bomb threats since it launched a national ''No More Victims'' peace campaign.


Meanwhile, some in Congress are questioning whether lawmakers are rushing into actions that will harm America. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, yesterday said he is worried that the push to relax wiretapping restrictions could infringe on civil liberties.


''We do not intend to tie the hands of the intelligence community, but neither do we intend to curb the rights of millions of Americans,'' he said.


And Representative Barbara Lee, the California Democrat who was the only member of Congress to vote against last week's resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against terrorism, says there is growing support for her stand.


''People are beginning to understand that we must show some restraint, that we don't want to see this spiral out of control,'' Lee said. ''We've got to make sure democracy is upheld and our country is safe.''


It's not only pacifists who oppose the war rhetoric, but also others who look to history and see failures and abuses when the United States moved without enough thought.


In 1998, they note, US forces bombed a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan that turned out to be a pharmaceutical factory. And in World War II, hysteria led the United States to round up Japanese-Americans into internment camps.


''I really have a problem with the war analogy,'' said Stephen Zunes, chairman of the peace and justice studies program at the University of San Francisco. ''This was not an act of war but a criminal act. We need to think in terms of police actions in response. But I don't think it would be unreasonable to have small-scale commando operations to break up the terrorist cells.''


Longtime pacifist and MIT professor Noam Chomsky opposes even that action. ''A call for revenge without thinking about what lies beyond is a gift to the terrorists,'' he said. ''It virtually guarantees an escalating cycle of violence. An alternative in the short term is to follow the rule of law through the United Nations Security Council or the World Court.''


Retired Boston University historian Howard Zinn suggests that the answers to terrorism lie elsewhere. ''We have to move from a war-making nation to a nation that uses its resources for constructive purposes ... to get at the grievances that feed terrorism,'' he said.


In the Boston area, peace vigils are planned at noon today at the JFK Federal Building and at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Copley Square, with a planning meeting for more events to follow. At Tufts University, members of the peace and justice studies program are circulating a petition urging that ''the search for justice'' focus only on the perpetrators of the crime, avoid targeting entire nationalities, and respect civil liberties.


At Union Square in New York, young and old, Jews and gentiles, blacks and whites have gathered around thousands of votive candles, American flags, and pictures of the missing to pay their respects and chant such slogans as ''Vengeance isn't justice'' and ''Break the cycle of violence: War is weakness, peace is strength.''


''People need to know that there are other feelings in America, that we are not all hawks hoping to exchange an eye for an eye,'' said Josh Torpey, 24, a Manhattan teacher who met a group of friends on Union Square Sunday night.


Ted Lawson, a 31-year-old artist from Boston, was creating a painting of the American flag out of thumbprints of passersby to signify American unity, but said he wondered whether previous acts of war by the United States had encouraged terrorism.


Heated arguments have erupted throughout the park between those who question US policy and those who believe the United States should annihilate any group or country who helped organize the attacks.


But others were frightened about the prospect for war. Lighting a candle next to a row of roses arranged to evoke the World Trade Center, Christine Andriopoulos said she was scared.


''The message should be that the violence has to stop,'' she said. ''Here. Now. Forever.''

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Doc Smith: Twice as many people died last Tuesday than did at Pearl Harbor

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RainDancer: i'm afraid of what would happen if we do go to war

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"Uncommon valor was a common virtue."

USMC - Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, because I'm the baddest motherfucker in the valley.

This message was edited by VooDude on 9-19-01 @ 9:23 PM

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there's a peace that can only be found through war.

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During WWII, our Grandparents (and Great Grandparents for some of you) faced a much larger and capable enemy than we face now.

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"Uncommon valor was a common virtue."

USMC - Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, because I'm the baddest motherfucker in the valley.