FCNL
Statement on the U.S. Bombing of Afghanistan
October
10, 2001
The
Friends Committee on National Legislation urges President Bush
to stop the bombing, stand down the U.S. military, feed the
hungry, and work diligently through peaceful means to win the
hearts and minds of the Afghan people and other peoples throughout
that region to the cause of justice for the victims of September
11.
We
continue to grieve for those several thousand unique, precious
and irreplaceable people who were murdered in the September
11 attacks on the airliners, the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. Our outrage at those acts of terrible violence is
rooted in our profound belief that every human being is a creature
of God and has been put here for a very special purpose. Those
who helped in planning and carrying out the attacks have violated
the most fundamental laws of a civil society. They should be
held accountable under those laws.
We
seek President Bush's leadership to end the downward spiral
of attacks and reprisals, a spiral begun long before September
11 but propelled by those attacks. U.S. bombing and a war on
terrorism will not bring justice for the victims of the September
11 attacks. Terrorism is not a person, place, or thing. You
cannot blast it out of this world. On the contrary, terrorism
is a vicious type of human conduct provoked by hatred or greed
and carried out by fanatics and by governments. Violent retaliation
by the U.S. will only sow more seeds of hatred and reap a new
harvest of terror. We call on President Bush to help lead the
world out of the wilderness of war and terror and into a new
world where people everywhere choose life by exercising a reverence
for life.
President
Bush has said that the attacks of September 11 changed everything.
Perhaps, but the thinking of our government officials and their
response to violence remains unchanged. The U.S.-led military
campaign is merely a high tech and more destructive version
of a 19th century military strategy, and promotes the law of
force over the force of law. By leading a military campaign
in Afghanistan, the U.S. has fallen from its internationally
recognized moral high ground to a much more morally ambiguous
position in the eyes of many around the world. This response
is inadequate to the demands of the 21st century and is unbecoming
to America.
While
we know that the administration's intent is not to harm innocent
civilians with its bombing, Afghan civilians have already suffered
this unintended effect. Weapons inevitably malfunction, are
misdirected, or put civilians adjacent to the intended targets
in harm's way. Already dozens of civilians, including four UN
workers, have been killed by U.S.-led military attacks. We cannot
simply consign those people who were killed to the category
of "collateral damage" or an "accident of war." They, too, were
unique and precious human beings who will never be replaced.
The U.S. government had no right to sacrifice their lives in
its pursuit of justice.
We
also know that the administration's intent is not to compound
a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan through military action.
However, the U.S. military actions are escalating the suffering
and putting ever more thousands of innocent people in jeopardy.
Afghan civilians have been fleeing their homes in fear. Winter
is fast approaching. Little food or shelter exist anywhere.
The borders with Pakistan and Iran are closed. With the U.S.
bombing, most shipments of humanitarian relief supplies into
Afghanistan have been halted, and the U.S. air drops of daily
food rations for 37,000 in remote regions do nothing to meet
the needs of millions of starving people elsewhere in the country.
How will the agonizing deaths of thousands of Afghan civilians
due to starvation and winter exposure advance the cause of justice
for the victims of September 11?
We
call on President Bush to let September 11 become a day of an
Epiphany of Hope, rather than of evil. We appeal to the President
to: exercise compassion for the people of Afghanistan, stop
the war, end the cycle of violence, and lead the world to a
new civil order for the 21st century. He should use the solid
backing of the international community to bring the perpetrators
of the September 11 attacks to justice under the rule of law.
Let the guns fall silent so that the world may hear freedom
ring from our mountain top.
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