Posted on 03/24/2007 1:49:13 PM PDT by pat1982
Andrea LeBlanc's thoughts after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, didn't exactly mirror those of the status quo, especially the flag-waving, chest-thumping Americans who were calling to "Kill them all!" From Sept. 12 on, her words have focused on forgiveness, on opposition to war and on understanding a people who were not inherently violent, as politicians and media implied, but rather were pushed to the brink by decades of skewed U.S. foreign policy.
Most would have dismissed LeBlanc's ideas; that is, until they learned that her husband of 29 years, Robert LeBlanc, a cultural geography professor, was aboard United Airlines Flight 175 when it was flown into the World Trade Center.
LeBlanc, of Lee, N.H., spoke at Berkshire Community College on Thursday night. Her talk, titled "Empathy and Compassion: The Ultimate Issue," centered on bringing about a new vision for peace in the world, one that preaches nonviolent responses to terrorism rather than war.
LeBlanc is a member of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group comprising about 250 victim families that established the organization five years ago.
The group uses the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as its motto: "Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."
LeBlanc said that, in the wake of the attacks, she immediately began to think about the Middle Eastern women who would lose their husbands to U.S. bombs. During an interview with the FBI in the weeks after the attacks, she was reprimanded by an agent for expressing her thoughts.
"Pain is pain, sorrow is sorrow, no matter where you live," she said. "I was frustrated that I could do nothing to stop the bombings on Afghanistan and the innocent lives that would be lost."
She said she drew her beliefs from her husband. As a professor at the University of New Hampshire, he had traveled to all parts of the world and had a deep appreciation for different cultures.
"He believed you really had to visit these places to see how people lived, to walk in the markets, taste the foods, to sit in their holy places ... to truly understand the world," she said.
Since his death, she has dedicated her life to spreading a message of peace.
In July 2004, she took part in "Stonewalk," an event that saw hundreds push a stone monument from Boston to New York City to commemorate civilian casualties in the Iraq war. In 2005, she did the same for "Stonewalk-Japan," where a massive stone was moved 380 miles from Nagasaki to Hiroshima.
And last year, she testified for the defense along with other victim family members in al-Qaida terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui's trial. She spoke out against the death penalty and lobbied for forgiveness for Moussaoui, and felt the verbal wrath from anti-Moussaoui demonstrators.
"Many actions have been taken in the names of those lost on September 11," she said. "But many of the families want an alternative to war. There are options other than violence and doing nothing."
Hopes to open communication
LeBlanc, who blames an anti-Arab U.S. foreign policy for fueling Sept. 11, said she would like lines of communications opened between the United States and the Middle East. She urged U.S. high schools to add peace-teaching courses and cultural exchanges to their curricula to educate and spread an air of tolerance.
"Why is forgiveness seen as abhorrent?" she asked. "People were appalled when the Amish in Pennsylvania forgave the man who killed their children. We don't want our children killing other people's children."
Donald Lathrop, a former professor at Berkshire Community College, said LeBlanc's group follows the traditions of Gandhi and King.
"This war is an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth response," he said. "At this rate, we'll all be toothless."
Anticipates more attacks
LeBlanc said she believes that the U.S. war on the Middle East will provoke more attacks. She urged that, to stop the cycle of violence, the nation adopt a psychological change from revenge to reprieve.
"The more we know about people, the more understanding we have," she said. "But I have more questions than answers."
She should read the Koran.
King wanted the US to surrender to the North Vietnamese comunists.
Gandhi wanted the British to surrender to Hitler. Gandhi also thought the Jews in Warsaw were wrong to fight back. They should have just marched to the trains and gone to the death camps willingly.
Pacificsm is a death wish.
they make that sound like a bad thing.
Welcome to FR...watch out for the kitties!
"Hopes to open communication"
Radical Islam doesn't wish to talk to us. They wish to kill us.
What's your opinion, Pat?
Retards such as these need to be stood up against a wall and shot, IMO.
Pat, I forgive you for posting this pacifistic drivel. Now go away.
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Howdy Pat
Signed up just to post this?
I'd like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love, Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves. I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. [Repeat the last two lines, and in the background:] It's the real thing, Coke is what the world wants today.
Oh, well, that changes everything. Since her husband died, she's perfectly entitled to walk around with her mind closed to the true intentions of Islam.
Sad to say but pacifists always support fascists. They always support the killers.
Confronting the killers requires courage; even openly siding with the killers requires a certain kind of courage that is too much for these people. So they mouth platitudes but act in support of the brutal.
How do I know this? Because they will never confront the headchoppers; they only confront you.
Ridiculous. The jihadis are after submission, and they have been since the first jihadi con man, mohamed conjured it up. The jihadi is inherently violent, and will be as long as the foundation for their worlview is mohamed's con.
You can't forgive someone who is dead.
All you can do is let it go.
What do you bet his appriciation for Arab and Muslim culture was slipping a bit in the last moments of his life? This woman is stupid beyond words.
Couldn't disagree with her more.
Obviously that commercial never got any play in Muslim countries.... or maybe it did and that's the problem!
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