Open letter to G.W. Bush about the terrorist attacks - please sign and pass on
On Wed, 19
Sep 2001 02:25:59 +0200, "Koen Moens" [Tp2000-l] < Koen.Moens@MailAndNews.com > wrote:
Dear
friend,
We are at a
decisive moment - either the world will be plunged into more
violence
and hate, or we use this tragedy to stop the infernal cycle of
violence
and start working for true peace.
The way
President Bush reacts, will have a profound impact on the way
we all live
together on this world. Now is the time for us to turn from
spectators
to participants.
If you share
this desire for peace, please help to make it visible:
- please
sign the open letter, and pass it on
- please
wear some white cloth around your arm, tie it around trees, your
bicycle, ..
as a visible request to President
Bush not to react militarily
- ....
In looking
at the terrible results to which hate can lead, perhaps we
should also
reflect on our own attitudes and the ways in which we
ourselves
add to a cycle of violence in our daily lives - and change that..
Open letter
to President G.W. Bush regarding the heinous
attacks on
New York and Washington
Dear Mr.
President,
Deeply
shocked and saddened by the senseless carnage which
has
befallen your nation, we share the grief of the relatives and
friends of
the victims of these terrorist attacks and ask you to
convey them
our heart- felt condolences.
Words fail,
we cannot comprehend .. No
ideological, political
or
religious motive could ever justify murdering innocent civilians.
Those that
are guilty of this barbaric act must be caught and
brought to
trial.
You, as
President of the nation, now face the unenviable
question of
how to react to this tragedy.
Because
your reaction will also affect our future, and the way we
all live
together on this world, we ask you to consider the
following
:
Faced with
what you and your citizens have just gone through, a
desire to
retaliate and hit back in kind would be only human -
but would
it be wise
?
Answering
violence with violence, can only lead to more
violence.
Never to peace.
Looking in
the past, we see that there is no military ‘answer’ to
terrorism
.. that this only lays the foundation for more hate. The
only way to
really reduce the threat terrorists pose, is to take
away the
causes upon which they feed. The fight against
terrorism
should be one against the causes of injustice. We
therefore
ask you to take the lead in this fight and make a
priority of
achieving a just world order, which includes fair trade
and
equality of dignity among men.
We believe
that instead of military assistance, your Nato-
partners –
and indeed all other countries – would help you more
by
assisting with your legal investigation and with extraditions.
Strengthening,
not breaking, the international legal order will
provide
better protection for everyone against the terrorist threat
and wanton
violence.
In your
address to the American people, you quoted from Psalm
23. In
another passage, the Bible also warns us that if we sow
the wind,
we will reap the whirlwind. Mister President, has not
the truth
of this principle been cruelly demonstrated today?
Surely the
fact that the suspect named by your government, Mr.
Bin Laden
and his network, was first established, armed and
trained by
American secret services (at that time to fight the
Soviets in
Afghanistan), is deeply disturbing to you too. We ask
you, and
indeed all governments, to urgently forbid all secret
services
from arming, giving military training to, or financing
groups.
Violence spirals out, and gets bigger.
You have
spoken of America leading the world to justice and
peace. It
could indeed be possible! With the amount the US
spends
every 92 days on military expenditure, we could ensure a
decent
human life for every person on this planet for one full
year. It
would pay for the costs of food, shelter, safe water,
literacy,
and health care for all in need. Mister
President,
wouldn’t
the world be a much safer place if none of our fellow
human
beings lived in misery? Conversely,
will increasing the
money for
military spending really be able to protect your people
more
effectively than now?
America
spends more on defence than the next fifteen nations
combined. 6
Times more than Russia, the second largest
spender.
And more than 23 times more than the combined
spending of
the seven countries you identify as your most likely
adversaries.
Adding Russia and China to these 7, they together
reach
one-third of your military budget.
The US now has more
than
one-third of global military spending. Who are you in an
arms race
with?
America
also exports more than half of all the arms exported
worldwide.
These weapons are used to kill and maim tens of
thousands
of men, women and children –each year.
We are
truly one humanity, all interconnected. And morality is
universal,
or it is not. If we tolerate that human lives are
worthless
anywhere on this earth, we put everyone at risk. It
does not
work to claim special protection and exemption for
some parts
only.
Justice too
is indivisible. There cannot be justice for one, and not
for
another. We have no room for double standards. Either the
same rule
of law – also internationally – applies to all, or it
works for
no one. And choosing the rule of force means
insecurity
for everyone.
The blind
and horrific violence and scale of these attacks
borders on
the unbearable. Our human minds can nearly not
take it in.
Tony Blair has said they are “perpetuated by
fanatics
who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life”.
Belgian
Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt called it “an
unspeakable
act of barbarism which discredits human nature”.
Can you
imagine what they would say about anyone firing a
nuclear
warhead on a city? With not thousands, but hundreds of
thousands
of people dead and devastation untold..
Were it to
happen
again, truly it would be the end of civilisation.. We urge
you, and
all other governments with nuclear weapons under their
control or
on their soil, to immediately decommission the nuclear
warheads
and eliminate them as fast as possible.
Mister
President, is this in reality not a time to repent? To repent
of all
violence ? An opportunity for America to live up to the true
meaning of
her creed – “in God we trust” – and not rely on her
weapons ? A
time to show the world, and the American people,
a ray of
hope where there is now only darkness ?
Terror,
violence and hate must not prevail.
We look to
you.
Respectfully,
1) Koen
Moens, Leuven, Belgium
DIRECTIONS:
PLEASE COPY
this email on to a new message, add your name and those
of your
household who wish to sign to the botttom and send it to
everyone
you know. If you are the 251st name on it please e-mail a copy
of it
to:
endnote 1)
92 days: with US military expenditure $ 300 billion
(year
2000), cost humane life for all at $ 76 billion. Annual cost
of global
programs for solving the major human needs are
documented
at: { HYPERLINK
http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.shtml
}http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.shtml
endnote 2)
The Defense Monitor, Aug. 2001, pg. 4: {
HYPERLINK http://www.cdi.org/dm/2001/issue7/dm701.pdf
} http://www.cdi.org/dm/2001/issue7/dm701.pdf
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