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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 2004, pages 77-83

Waging Peace

Transition of Power in Iraq

(L-r) Phyllis Bennis, Anas Shallal and William Hartung listen to discussion (staff photo S. Powell).
   

THE THINK TANK Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) held a June 22 panel discussion in Washington, DC to consider the prospects for Iraq following the June “transition” of power from the U.S. to Iraq. The panel was moderated by Salih Booker of Africa Action.

Commenting on administration claims regarding progress in Iraq, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) pointed out that what Americans were not hearing was the real cost of the war. Based on a study by IPS and FPIF, Bennis presented findings regarding varying costs to the U.S., to Iraq, and to the world.

First, she said, the war will cost every American household $3,415 over the next three years. Moreover, the $150 billion spent on the war so far could have provided food to the hungry of the world, AIDS medication globally, immunizations for every child in the developing world, and clean water and a functioning sewage system for the entire world, each for over two years. Or it could have provided almost 23 million housing vouchers, salaries for almost three million elementary school teachers, 678,200 new fire engines, over 20 million spaces in Head Start, or health care coverage for 82 million children in the U.S.

The cost for the Bush administration’s war on Iraq in terms of human rights, the economy, the military, and the environment has been high, Bennis continued, and it is these costs, she contended—that Americans, Iraqis, and people all around the world pay—that are never mentioned.

The full report is available online at <http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/costsofwar/>.

William Hartung of the World Policy Institute reflected that, during much of the country’s recent discussion of heroes, he had thought about President Dwight Eisenhower and his warning about the military-industrial complex. Citing such contractor over-charges in Iraq as embroidered towels, $7,500-per-month SUV leases, and the abandonment of vehicles in the desert because they had flat tires, Hartung said the problems were approaching war-profiteering.

Moreover, he said, because contractors chose not to enter danger zones, soldiers there were not getting badly needed food and fresh water supplies. Hartung also said that contractors doing “security” work had contributed to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. Noting the lack of parity between military personnel and private contractors’ pay scales, he cautioned that Tim Spicer, whom he described as “the closest thing [in the U.S.] to a mercenary,” was in charge of all security contracts. Hartung recommended that bidding for contracts be open not just to Europeans, but to Iraqis as well. He concluded by stating that practices begun in the Balkans and Colombia under former President Bill Clinton now had come to full fruition, and would take years to fix.

Iraqi American Anas Shallal said that the Mesopotamia Cultural Society, which he co-founded in 1991, was designed to preserve and disseminate the memory of Iraq’s long history and culture, so that it would not be remembered just for Saddam Hussain and the Gulf war.

Continuing on the theme of history, Shallal took the audience to June, when Sunnis and Shi’a were fighting against the heavy handed repression of a common enemy. That was not June of 2004, however, but of 1920, when the Iraqis rebelled against British occupation following World War I. Shallal said he often is asked if Iraqis aren’t happy being free, and responds that they are happy Hussain is gone, but that celebrations were for that alone, not a welcome for occupying troops.

Moreover, he pointed out, Iraqis, young and old, know that the U.S. had supported Hussain. Now, he said, the U.S. is not building roads, but roadblocks, imposing collective punishment instead of dealing with a few rogue elements, and “knocking down doors like barbarians...[and] stealing money and jewelry.”

Warning that July and August are the hottest months in Iraq, Shallal said that, historically, there is much unrest during these months. With electricity functioning about one-third of the day at best, he predicted the summer would be dangerous. Though many people own generators, he said, fuel is very scarce in the country with the world’s second largest oil reserves.

Although unemployment in Iraq is awful, probably more than the reported 35 percent, Shallal identified security as the biggest problem. Most people cannot venture outside after 5 or 6 p.m., he said, parents wait for their children outside schools, weddings are only planned in the daylight now, and anyone close to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is considered radioactive. Even academics and those serving on local counsels are being targeted as collaborators, said Shallal.

Most Iraqis want to see the occupiers leave, he said, and feel they can handle the situation themselves. Shallal concluded by saying that the process of reconciliation among Iraqis must be played out in a full trial of Hussain to give people closure and allow healing to take place.

According to Chris Toensing, executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), the project of “winning Iraqi hearts and minds” was dubious, noting that even a June 21 story in The Washington Post said the “U.S.’ own assessment of the CPA was pretty bleak.”

Citing a poll by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS), Toensing said its findings showed that there is very little confidence in either U.S. representatives or those Iraqis who work with them. With the caveat that the poll was the first taken since the Abu Ghraib disclosures, which could have colored results, Toensing said the May survey showed that 81 percent of respondents had no confidence in U.S. forces, and 78 percent had no confidence in the CPA. Discussing his own March 2004 visit, Toensing said U.S. troops were well aware that as an occupying army they were not popular.

Statistics from various other polls reflected such disturbing findings as that 50 percent of Iraqis thought physical security was the top problem, but only 1 percent saw U.S. forces as a help, and 55 percent would feel safer if the U.S. left. According to Toensing, it is a contradiction of U.S. popular fiction that Iraqis want U.S. soldiers there, when in fact 41 percent of poll respondents said U.S. troops should leave immediately, no matter what, and 92 percent of those polled viewed U.S. forces as occupiers.

Further, in a poll ranking Iraqis’ trust of political and religious figures, nobody came out on top, although Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Muqtada al Sadr ranked fairly high. Ousted president Hussain ranked above the then-interim president, Ghazi al Yawer, by six points. Although the occupation was set to end, Toensing concluded, the occupiers were not leaving, and the interim government would have no veto power over any U.S. military action—seeming to imply that in reality the occupation was not ending.

The final speaker, Prof. Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco, introduced Israel and Palestine into the discussion. He quoted an Israeli journalist who said that as bad as (Israeli) war crimes had been in Jenin, they paled next to those committed in Falujah, and as bad as Israelis treated Palestinians, the U.S. treated Iraqis much worse.

Zunes also mentioned President Bush’s April 14 endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plans to reject right of return and annex large West Bank settlements in contradiction of U.N. resolutions. He went on to discuss the precedent set by neocons and their adherents vis-à-vis the Syria Accountability Act which, among other things, applies U.N. Resolution 540 to Syria, although it was written with regard to Israel. These were not just Bush policies, Zunes contended, but Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s stated views as well. Arguing that the U.S. was moving into a time of empire, Zunes quoted the classic 1960s movie “Billy Jack”: “When the law breaks the law, there is no law.”

Referring to Hartung’s remarks about Eisenhower, Zunes said the U.S. had never been so beloved as when it stood up to Britain, France, and Israel over the Suez crisis. The human rights and international law perspectives were really the same as the “realistic” perspective of those who put national security first, Zunes concluded, seeming to imply that only the neocons saw Iraq in a different light.

—Sara Powell

Pakistani American Congress Tackles Big Issues

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Torkel L. Patterson (photo S. Bilaal Ahmed).
   

In the wake of President George W. Bush’s naming of Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally earlier this year, and a $400 million U.S. aid package with a proposed $3 billion in the works, relations between Pakistan and the U.S. government have improved in recent months.

With this in mind, more than 60 people attended the 12th annual Pakistani American Congress (PAC) Friendship Summit, held June 24 at the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill. The summit was a formal way to build relations between the Pakistani-American community and U.S. government officials, and provided a platform to discuss Pakistan’s economy, government and social transformations.

The audience was comprised mainly of Pakistani males, with three females in attendance. The summit opened with a talk by Torkel L. Patterson, deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asian Affairs, on Pakistan’s economic outlook. “When I think of Pakistan’s future,” Patterson said, “the key competitive advantage is the geostrategic region and mineral and energy richness.” Its “legal trade of over $630 million” with neighboring regions like Afghanistan, he added, also has helped build up its economy. “In 2004, the trade will be over one billion,” he told the audience. “A trade of this volume never happened before.”

Patterson also pledged continuous U.S. support, and described the aid package as a “symbol of efforts to work with Pakistan in the long term and see what Pakistan needs.”

“A prosperous Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India is attainable,” the American official concluded, “and we will try to support it.”

Though promising support, Patterson did not provide concrete details, leaving some in the audience dissatisfied.

Next was a session on the “Role of Pakistani Americans in Mainstream Media,” where Dr. Amanullah Khan, chairman of the PAC Advisory Council, imparted words of advice. “Focus on civic responsibility and political representation,” he urged. “Let’s not forget, all politics is local. The impact made at home can be felt over here [in Washington, DC].”

Later in the day, talk shifted to a subject on everyone’s mind: transition to democracy in Pakistan. In a session on “Democracy and the Rule of Law in Pakistan,” scholars and policy experts analyzed Pakistan’s need for governmental change.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh William Milam distinguished between the plausibility of democracy in the Muslim versus the Arab world. “I’m not here to attack the Arab world,” he explained, “but because of its past colonialist history, democracy is a hard process.”

Criticizing the U.S. for its myopic interests, Milam said Washington used Pakistan in the Cold War and is doing so in the current War on Terror, disregarding what is best for Pakistan. “Our policies should have been and should be now to promote a viable, sustainable democracy,” he argued.

Paula Newburg, special adviser to the United Nations Foundation, discussed Pakistan’s treatment of the rule of law. She has given a similar speech for 23 years now, Newburg said, which suggests that serious and dedicated change must be invoked to make a difference.

Citing the military’s stronghold on power as the primary impediment to democracy, Newburg stated that “as long as the citizens don’t govern themselves, there is no way you can have a democracy. It effectively inhibits democracy.”

Pointing out that if Pakistan’s judicial system and court of law did not change, progress would be difficult, Newburg cited as ongoing problems such actions as imprisonment for voicing opposition to the government, and judicial abuse of contempt of court. “It is the content, not the fact of the law that makes a difference,” she argued. “Right now it is the content that makes it extremely difficult.”

Brookings Institution senior fellow Stephen Cohen, whose book The Idea of Pakistan comes out in the fall, also said Pakistan’s major problem lies in its control by the military. “An army is not trained to manage a country with 150 million people,” Cohen pointed out. “The army can’t govern Pakistan but won’t let others do it, either.” He called for a “gradual retreat of the army from politics.”

For now, Cohen and others are optimistic about Pakistan’s future but, as Newburg expressed it, “The responsibility and blame lies in Pakistan, not outside Pakistan.”

Mahin Ibrahim

San Franciscans Protest Ongoing Occupation of Iraq

An ANSWER coalition’s demonstration in San Francisco protests the ongoing occupation in Iraq (staff photo E. Pasquini).
   

Calling the June 28 “handover” of power in Iraq ”fake sovereignty” and condemning the continued presence of more than 138,000 American troops still there, the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition held a protest in San Francisco June 30. More than 200 people gathered in the city’s recently renovated Union Square to protest the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq. Many in the crowd carried signs demanding “Bring the Troops Home Now. End the Occupation.” Two members of the Jewish organization Not In Our Name, held a banner stating, “Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.”

Elaine Pasquini

ANSWER Marches on Rumsfeld

The June 5 march through the streets of Northwest Washington, DC, from the White House to Donald Rumsfeld’s house, was smaller than some of the demonstrations that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Among the approximately 5,000 participants, however, there was no less passion that the invasion was wrong. The sentiment to “Bring the troops home now,” was as strong as the desire had been not to send troops in the first place. A number of speakers expressed their outrage that the administration that had ignored their popular message that Iraq was not a threat, now ignored their message that the U.S. had caused more than enough damage and should cut its losses.

The long list of speakers included ANSWER (Act Now To Stop War and End Racism) activist regulars Brian Becker (ANSWER), Chuck Kaufman (Nicaragua Network), Larry Holmes (International Action Center), Macrina Cardeñas (Mexico Solidarity Network), and Caneisha Mills (ANSWER), as well as Isma’il Kamal (Muslim Student Association), Hussein Agrama (Free Palestine Alliance), Cheri Honkala (Kensington Welfare Rights Union), Rev. Graylan Hagler of the Plymouth Congregational Church, and Mahdi Bray (Muslim America Society).

Several thousand brave the rain to protest the war on Iraq once again (staff photo S. Powell).
   

Other important speakers were on hand to share the pain the war on Iraq had inflicted on them, including Al Zappala, whose son, Sherwood Baker, was killed in April—the first Pennsylvania National Guardsman to be killed in combat since World War II. Raised in a pacifist family, his father said Zappala had joined the National Guard seven years ago to supplement his income as a social worker.

Gloria Jackson, whose daughter and son-in-law have finally come home safely, also spoke. Former U.S. Air Force Captain Dorothy Mackey, now executive director of STAAAMP (Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel), explained how her rape by fellow soldiers was endemic to the culture of violence and inhumanity inculcated in the modern military. And Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, spoke angrily about his son’s arrest in Iraq by the U.S., his subsequent release, kidnapping, and beheading. An anti-war activist since 1965, Berg blamed both the United States—which admitted holding his son in Fallujah, then, rather than sending him home as requested, sent him alone into the besieged and rebellious city—and Nicholas’ hooded captors for using terror tactics against a civilian contractor. Berg told the Washington Report that he wanted to take power away from those who now had it in the U.S.—then amended his statement, saying he didn’t want the power, he just didn’t want them to have it.

Like the previous protest, the march wound through ethnically diverse neighborhoods, drawing cheers from those on the streets, then closed in on Kalorama St., where Rumsfeld lives. Police cut the march short after about 200 demonstrators filed into the narrow street, then gave way as other marchers flooded past. Rumsfeld wasn’t home, but someone said, “I hope his neighbors get disgusted and force him out.” The sentiment found great favor with those who heard it.

Sara Powell

Bethlehem Besieged

The Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Bethlehem’s Christmas Lutheran Church, visited Washington, DC from June 7 to 10 to promote his new book, Bethlehem Besieged. The book recounts Israel’s 2002 invasion of Bethlehem and the injustices the town has suffered since, mainly from construction of the Separation Wall.

During each of his talks, Raheb stressed the need to humanize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Heads of state, he said, manage—but don’t solve—the conflict. Many people view the conflict in mathematical or theoretical terms, forgetting that humans are involved. “People today are used to hearing ‘breaking news’ or seeing ‘live events,’ and think they better understand what is happening,” Raheb remarked. “But often their hearts are not touched. This conflict is about human beings…both sides are paying the price.”

Raheb described his book as “narrative theology,” written for the average man or woman in the pew, and as a source for inter-faith, peace and justice, and educational groups. Half of the stories in the book, he said, are “glimpses of hope.” Only bad news makes the news, he noted, explaining that the public hears “news from one suicide bombing to the next. They don’t hear anything that happens in between.”

It does no one any good, he said, to think of the conflict as hopeless. Raheb said he wanted to “infuse hope. Hope invites us to action to transform the world and make a difference.”

Recognizing that the Palestinian story often is not allowed to be told, Raheb also wrote Bethlehem Besieged “as an act of nonviolent resistance.” Raheb described the book as at heart “an open invitation to care for the ‘little town of Bethlehem.’ At Christmas, a billion people gather in churches and sing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ or ‘O Come All Ye Faithful,’ but are interested only in 2,000-years-ago Bethlehem. They are not interested in what politics and power are doing to the town today. By reading the book,” Raheb concluded, “I hope people will have insight into what life is really like today.”

Hugh S. Galford

Survivors, Friends Honor USS Liberty Victims

Mary Ann and John Hrankowski drove from Rochester, NY to attend both the USS Liberty reunion and the Arlington Cemetery ceremony (staff photo D. Hanley).
   

Nearly 37 years after Israel attacked the USS Liberty during the Six-Day War, survivors and friends held a reunion from May 20 to 23 at the Lied Lodge and Conference Center in Nebraska City, NE, an hour’s drive south of Omaha. Nearly 50 people gathered to honor the 34 American sailors killed and 172 wounded in the attack. Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats strafed and torpedoed the lightly armed intelligence-gathering vessel as it was cruising in international waters off the Egyptian coast.

While the U.S. and Israeli officials have declared the attack accidental, the crew has spent years building an air-tight case that it was deliberate, and that there has been a monumental cover-up.

Steve Forslund, 60, and Ron Gotcher, 57, were enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and worked as intelligence analysts for the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the attack occurred.

Gotcher, who was stationed in Vietnam, and Forslund, based at Offutt Air Force Base outside Omaha, both saw transcripts of Israeli air-to-air and air-to-ground communication during or after the attack. They agree that Israel knew the ship was American and tried to sink it. Forslund released a sworn statement in May to that effect. Gotcher said he spoke out soon after the attack because he thought any orders to keep quiet about the Liberty incident were illegal.

On June 8, survivors met at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia to hold their annual remembrance ceremony. They read the roll call of remembrance, while a triangle was struck after every name. A wreath was laid at the granite headstone marking the mass grave of six Liberty crewmembers in Section 34.

Wayne Hildebrand said he’d been coming to this memorial service ever since he discovered shipmate Jim Ennes’ book, Assault on the Liberty. Jane Reymeyer, whose brother, Ed, was killed aboard the Liberty, said she was disappointed that presidential candidate John Kerry had turned down her invitation to attend the ceremony.

“These ceremonies don’t get any easier,” John Hrankowski said as he rejoined his wife, Mary Ann, following the wreath-laying ceremony. “We’re the lucky ones who can get together and compare scars.”

As they drove into Arlington Cemetery, the Hrankowskis said, they passed (and picked up) a familiar figure trudging up the long road carrying a suitcase. It was Bill Casper, who was determined to pay his respects and meet up with his fellow Liberty survivors, even if it meant walking miles in the heat from the bus stop to Section 34, where the bodies of his slain friends rest.

Delinda C. Hanley

The New Republic on Saudi Arabia

On June 8, The New Republic magazine hosted a panel discussion entitled “Inside the Kingdom: The Views and Perspectives on Journalists in Saudi Arabia” at the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, DC.

Moderator Lawrence Kaplan, a senior editor of the conservative magazine, began by asking, “What, if anything, do the two states that are most important to the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, have in common?” Kaplan described Israel as a “thriving liberal Western democracy,” while characterizing Saudi Arabia as a “closed repressive [regime], struggling to come to grips with modernity.” However, he added, press coverage of both states “generate angry letters to the editor” and claims of media bias.

Lawrence Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker, said it took him a year and four months to receive a visa to Saudi Arabia. In order to stay longer than the usual time allotted to foreign reporters, he then took a job mentoring young reporters at the Saudi Gazette. Most reporters who go to Saudi Arabia, Wright said, have little to no background on the country, and, since they typically have “a week or so” on their visas, little time to talk to people or gain true knowledge of it.

David Kaplan, who covers the terrorism beat for U.S. News and World Report, said he spent a total of one week in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has “repeatedly come up” in his reporting on terrorist attacks, he said, including the 1996 attack on a U.S. military complex at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the role of Saudi nationals in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to Kaplan, after the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi officials “let in more Western press.”

Unlike his co-panelists, who had visited the kingdom recently, New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz said he went to Saudi Arabia a decade ago “under the most favorable circumstances.” The trip took place during a “progressive moment,” when “various Arab countries were opening up Jewish portfolios…and wanted to see Zionists in the flesh,” he said, apparently referring to himself.

David Montgomery, currently in Saudi Arabia reporting for Knight Ridder news service, called in to offer his own insights. Asked whether he has faced obstacles as a reporter there, in terms of travel or access to officials, Montgomery said he has had no travel restrictions, but also complained of the “immense” bureaucracy.

Montgomery also cited Saudis’ reluctance to speak with journalists. Having reported from Russia before he went to Saudi Arabia, he said people in the former Communist country were more willing to talk to journalists than the Saudi citizens. Some Saudis may be “afraid of authority,” he speculated, while others are merely “unaccustomed to dealing with journalists,” attributing their behavior to a “cultural thing.”

The New Yorker’s Wright agreed, describing Saudis as “very cautions people by nature” who are “shy and reluctant to assert themselves.” So-called “man on the street” interviews, he noted, are a “Western ideal,” explaining that Saudis “don’t know how much to trust you.” It is much easier to conduct interviews in Saudi coffee houses or private homes, he added.

On the question of reform in the kingdom, Wright said it is a “constant subject of discussion,” and seems to be “accompanied by external traumas” such as the Gulf war or the “War on Terror.” The main areas in need of reform, he offered, are education and incorporating women into the workplace. “Ninety-five percent of [Saudi] women are unemployed,” Wright noted. “No modern nation can expect to prosper when half of its population is cut off from the workplace.”

According to Kaplan, there is a sentiment among Washington officials that Saudi Arabia has been a major partner in the war on terrorism. In addition to a “tactical struggle” against Al-Qaeda, however, Kaplan suggested, Saudi officials should also engage in an “ideological war” to confront “spreading Wahhabism.”

Wright, meanwhile, argued that “boredom is driving terrorists” in Saudi Arabia, pointing to the lack of “nightclubs” and “girls” to engage young Saudi men. When asked if frustration with U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, which militants frequently cite as their reasons for targeting the United States, is a factor, Wright responded, “Terrorists come out of the culture that produces them, not from external causes.”

Peretz agreed, maintaining that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “just a scapegoat in this issue.” He lamented the fact that there is not “even a hostile strategic thinker that speaks about Israel” in Saudi Arabia. “The truth is Israel is a permanent fixture of the Middle East,” Peretz stated. “The refusal of top Saudis to conjure [sic] that fact is another self-delusion.”

The security of Saudi Arabia depends on Israel, Peretz concluded, since Israel “tames wilder forces in the region.”

—Laila Al-Arian

Washingtonians Enjoy Tunisian Jazz

Highly acclaimed Tunisian musician Faouzi Chekili joined up with Tunisian-American Habib Haddad, from Chicago, for a unique performance of Tunisian jazz at the Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University, in Washington, DC on June 4. Chekili’s oud and Haddad’s guitar and drums enchanted the audience. Chekili has written modern Tunisian folk songs flavored with American jazz rhythms that make your feet tap. Watching and listening to Chekili and Haddad perform together in the nation’s capital is a treat that could only be improved upon by seeing them at the Tabarka Jazz festival in Tunisia’s ancient amphitheater.

Delinda C. Hanley

Things Heat Up For Bush at Home

Tricia Khleif, Bob Novak (on drums), Wendy Lanxner, Franz Kellner, and Len Seligman play a song for Iraqi mothers (staff photo D. Hanley).
   

As elections approach and the summer days grow hot and sticky in Washington, DC, a grassroots “Anyone But Bush” movement has begun to gather some serious steam. The president’s war on terrorism, and especially the war on Iraq, may be the deciding factor in the upcoming elections. Michael Moore’s anti-Bush film “Fahrenheit 9/11” drew large crowds and much discussion. Just as damning is the far subtler film, “Control Room,” (see page 50), about U.S. censorship of the war on Iraq.

These recently released films, as well as tell-all books that annihilate the Bush administration; anti-war protests; the damaging results of the 9/11 Commission; sinking opinion polls; and a media that has just begun to criticize the commander-in-chief add up to a media sea-change. It should not have been such a surprise, therefore, to hear about a Takoma Park, MD band singing anti-war songs of protest.

After hearing the song title, “Our Voices Cry to the Mothers of Iraq” written by local songwriter Wendy Lanxner, I had to hear her band, xoxo, perform. The song’s words are simple and the melody haunting. I can’t help but think the mothers of Iraq should know that some mothers in the U.S. (including Lanxner, whose son was hanging on her leg as she sang) are concerned about them:

Know, know, our voices cry, when will you...

When will you hear our voices cry?

I cry for your children, but you will never know, never know.

Another of Lanxner’s songs, “Wake Up America” reminds listeners that:

There’s a war on, Far-off bullets you can’t feel. Well that don’t mean that they’re not real. Wake up, wake up, America...You don’t seem to really see, Beyond the world in your TV. You don’t really realize half of what you hear is lies...

I watch you thrive on high-tech toys built to kill off girls and boys. Apathy’s your middle name. War to you is just some abstract entertaining game...

Say hello to militarization; Say goodbye to your civil liberties. Say your prayers and duck and cover, sisters and brothers, or stand up for a world that’s peaceful and free.

If bands like xoxo are performing anti-war songs in backyards and coffee shops, and movie-goers, readers, and others around the country also are getting fired up, George W. Bush may find himself a one-term president. If American mothers, like Lanxner, are writing and listening to songs about mothers in Iraq, they’re most likely going to show up at the polls and vote for anyone who’ll bring peace. At the very least, Americans will take a break from TV reality shows (and I don’t mean the news!) to consider the new realities that have come to pass in the last four years, now made excruciatingly clear in books, music and films.

Delinda Hanley

SIDEBAR

Neturei Karta Braves Pro-Israel Rally

On May 6, Christians for Israel USA held a poorly attended rally in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC. The Christian Zionist group displayed a bus that had been destroyed in a Jan. 29 suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Members of Neturei Karta (Jews United Against Zionism) drove from New York to demonstrate against the event. After being harassed by several hostile attendees, they were asked by police officers to stand at a distance from the rally for their own safety.

—Laila Al-Arian