One does not endorse the violence of militant groups. Neither morally nor strategically. But to condemn it without first denouncing the much greater violence perpetrated by the state would be to deny the people of these regions not just their basic human rights, but even the right to a fair hearing. People who have lived in situations of conflict know that militancy and armed struggle provokes a massive escalation of violence from the state. But living as they do, in situations of unbearable injustice, can they remain silent forever? ...

In this restive, despairing time, if governments do not do all they can to honor nonviolent resistance, then by default they privilege those who turn to violence. No government’s condemnation of terrorism is credible if it cannot show itself to be open to change by nonviolent dissent. Instead, today, nonviolent resistance movements are being crushed, bought off or simply ignored.

Meanwhile, governments and the corporate media (and let’s not forget the film industry) lavish their time, attention, funds, technology and research on war and terrorism. Violence has been deified. The message this sends is disturbing and dangerous: If you seek to air a public grievance, violence is more effective than nonviolence. ...

The mandarins of the corporate world, the CEOs, the bankers, the politicians, the judges and generals look down on us from on high and shake their heads sternly. “There’s no alternative,” they say, and let slip the dogs of war.

Then, from the ruins of Afghanistan, from the rubble of Iraq and Chechnya, from the streets of occupied Palestine and the mountains of Kashmir, from the hills and plains of Colombia, and the forests of Andhra Pradesh and Assam, comes the chilling reply: “There’s no alternative but terrorism.” Terrorism. Armed struggle. Insurgency. Call it what you want.

Terrorism is vicious, ugly and dehumanizing for its perpetrators as well as its victims. But so is war. You could say that terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketers of war. They are people who don’t believe that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Of course, there is an alternative to terrorism. It’s called justice. It’s time to recognize that no amount of nuclear weapons, or full-spectrum dominance, or “daisy cutters” or spurious governing councils and loya girgas can buy peace at the cost of justice.

The urge for hegemony and preponderance by some will be matched with greater intensity by the longing for dignity and justice by others. Exactly what form that battle takes, whether it’s beautiful or bloodthirsty, depends on us.

The transition to multipolarity - if it prevails - has been set off by the severe problems confronted by the United States in its occupation of Iraq and by the decline of the dollar in international currency markets. The former has revealed the limitations and vulnerabilities of US military power and the latter has brought forward underlying weaknesses in the US economic system that are symbolized by persistent trade and budget deficits and are rooted in changes in the world balance of economic power.

At present, the US has lost the position that it was perceived to have after the fall of the Soviet Union as the undisputed global superpower presiding over an economic order integrating a world of market democracies. Contemporary global politics are structured primarily by a struggle of regional powers to assert themselves against efforts by Washington to reclaim at least some of its dominance.

What Washington has most essentially lost is acquiescence to its leadership. Other powers no longer have any compunction about opposing US policies and preferences when it is not in their own independent interests to follow them. It is a game of every power for itself, in which each regional power center cooperates with others when it shares common interests with them and opposes them when interests conflict. The result is the absence of a single paradigm of world order or even of a coherent pattern of alliances. In their place are coalitions of convenience that - taken together - have no consistent direction.

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is a group of veterans who have served since September 11th, 2001 including Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. We are committed to saving lives and ending the violence in Iraq by an immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces. We also believe that the governments that sponsored these wars are indebted to the men and women who were forced to fight them and must give their Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen the benefits that are owed to them upon their return home.

We welcome all active duty, national guard, reservists, and recent veterans into our ranks. Confidentiality can be assured. To join IVAW please send an email to join at ivaw dot net.

Veterans for Peace, Inc. (VFP) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

We, having dutifully served our nation, do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace. To this end we will work, with others

(a) Toward increasing public awareness of the costs of war.
(b) To restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations.
(c) To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.
(d) To seek justice for veterans and victims of war.
(e) To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

To achieve these goals, members of Veterans For Peace pledge to use non-violent means and to maintain an organization that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace.

We urge all people who share this vision to join us.

IVAW is proud to announce a working partnership with an organization called No More Victims, nomorevictims.org. The mission of No More Victims, a non-profit, non-sectarian, humanitarian organization, is to restore health and well being to victims of war and to advocate and educate for peace.

Art

The Internet Movie Database is the sine qua non for anyone interested in film. Easily searchable and full of information about any movie, plot, director, actor or crew member you could think of; reliably accurate. For opera lovers, Opera Base is essential. Check future schedules of singers or directors and find details of opera houses or festivals. The National Gallery's website is wonderful: you can search the entire collection with ease. Abe Books is the best and biggest place to look for and buy secondhand and rare books. All Music is a comprehensive database on all musical genres. Great for checking discographies and the like.

us.imdb.com

www.operabase.com

www.nationalgallery.org.uk

www.abebooks.co.uk

www.allmusic.com


Reference

The web is often the quickest place to look something up - if you know where to go. If you don't, you can always start with Jim Martindale's Reference Desk, an astonishing collection that has been 10 years in the making. Usually, however, you will probably want to look up a word, a phone number, a place or whatever. For words, try Onelook, which indexes more than 6m words in 981 dictionaries. It also has a "reverse lookup" to find words from their meanings. For longer items, the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia is online (the Britannica costs money). There are links to the world's online phone books at Teldir, which is now on the Infobel site. Finally, there are maps of just about everywhere at Multimaps.

www.martindalecenter.com

www.onelook.com

www.multimaps.com

www.infobel.com/teldir

www.encyclopedia.com