November 18, 2002
Statement by Marc Reichardt to the Ann Arbor City Council
in support of a resolution opposing a war against the people of
Iraq
Good evening. My name is Marc Reichardt and I am the chair of the Green Party of Michigan, as well as a member of the local Huron Valley Greens.
One of the key values of the Greens is non-violence. We believe quite strongly in the peaceful resolution of conflict. Now, this is not to say that, when threatened, we believe in ignoring said threat to home and family, but in the case of pursuing a war against the people of Iraq (and, have no doubt, this will be a war against that people, and not the man who rules them), we find that threat to be non-existent, and the case for war to be unsupportable.
Ann Arbor is an educated city, graced as we are with one of the world’s foremost institutions of higher learning. Consequently, I don’t think I exaggerate when I suggest that it is not very difficult for the vast majority of our city’s population to see through the web of deceit and diversion being presented before us as an excuse for conducting this military venture. When one discovers that most of the voices coming from our own military are against this operation; when one discovers that former weapons inspectors in Iraq decry these stories of a threat at every turn; when one discovers that even the emirate of Kuwait, whom we ostensibly rescued in the previous Gulf War of 1991 is against any violence directed at the people of Iraq, one begins to question the substance of what the NY Times recently referred to as the Administration’s ‘embroidery of the truth.’ We have a far more succinct euphemism for it: it’s called ‘lying’.
Many of those lies center around the question of oil. Most of the famed market analysts suggest that our economy will weaken under the burden of oil supplies interrupted by the conflict. Why, then, continue to give our tacit community support to an issue that will only exacerbate our growing problem of being a commuter town? Of course, many of us would rather move our economy away from the petroleum teat, so that the perceived agenda of access to oil supplies doesn’t even come into question. I know that the mayor and many others in the city administration have been diligent in their efforts to that end. However, we find no succor in the idea of using the minor problem of increased gasoline costs to change our way of life, while millions of Iraqis try to change theirs… inside a bomb shelter.
However, many of those lies also center around the perceived threat from Iraq, using the catchphrase ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ In order to right this supposed wrong, the citizens of Michigan will be asked to contribute units of our National Guard, perhaps even the 156th Signal Battalion out of nearby Ypsilanti. Several hundred citizens of our city belong to that organization of HOME DEFENSE… and will be asked to put their lives on the line in a war against an enemy 8000 miles away that has not attacked us. I ask you: Would it be a better scenario to greet these members of our community at our next Summer Festival, or see them as they return in body bags, victims of the effort to replace the aspirations of one petty tyrant with those of another?
A few weeks ago, our Congressional representative, John Dingell, made a brief tour through his district, asking his constituents what they thought of a war against the people of Iraq. In Ann Arbor, as at the other stops he made, the audience was overwhelmingly against it. Greens also believe strongly in the principle of grassroots democracy. As I say so often to people who suggest to me that "You can’t fight city hall": You ARE city hall. We, the People ARE the government. There is truth in the aphorism that states ‘All politics are local.’ From local, to state, to national, to international, should be one unbroken chain of communication. So, we come to you, our local elected leaders to register this community’s dismay with the actions taken by those who purport to represent us in Washington, DC. And we say: "No war against the people of Iraq."
As so often in these troubled times, I’m reminded of the salient words of someone from history: "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." You might think that was some pacifist or government dissenter like Eugene Debs or Senator J. William Fulbright. On the contrary, that was former General Douglas MacArthur, 1957.
Please help us register the community’s opposition to this latest effort by our federal government. No war in Iraq.
[Green Party of Michigan home page]
http://migreens.org/press/iraqspeech.htm
Created 18 Nov 2002