Date:19/02/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/02/19/stories/2003021904141200.htm

National

Open letter from people in U.S. against war

A large number of people in the United States are sending an open letter to people everywhere, openly proclaiming their differences with their Government's policies on a number of fronts, especially on Iraq.

The letter criticises the U.S. for setting itself above the law. It eschews support for a U.S.-led war even if inspections should fail "in part because the United States insists on a prerogative of using nuclear weapons, and because it may have ulterior motives, unrelated to the issue of disarmament".

"I believe the open letter from the people of the United States to the rest of the world states the case against war as persuasively as any I have seen," said Professor (emeritus, Boston University) Howard Zinn, historian and author of the "A People's History of the United States". "People around the world and in the United States are opposing U.S. policy on Iraq because we seek a peaceful resolution of conflicts," said Dr. Michael Klare, who is Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, based at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. The letter has gathered nearly 2,000 signatories in a little over two weeks. They include farmers, professors, students and administrators in colleges and universities, high school students, a

Colorado cowboy, clergy, immigrants, peace activists, local elected officials and environmentalists. In reaching out to the world, they cite Mahatma Gandhi's rejection of the kind of patriotism that "sought to mount the distress, or exploitation, of other nationalities" and affirm their determination not to "allow the ill-considered and short-sighted military and energy policies of the U.S. Government to separate us from the fellowship of other human beings across national borders."

"I don't want to be despised as a warmongering person when I travel abroad just because the government of the United States is bullying the rest of the world," said Roxanne Turnage, Executive Director of the CS Fund and one of the charter signatories of the letter.

The letter supports the disarmament of Iraq; it also denounces all weapons of mass destruction as illegal and immoral. It urges an end to the era of weapons of mass destruction in the world. "Double standards regarding the rule of law and about weapons of mass destruction are not only wrong, they are downright dangerous," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.