Peace groups will hold vigils (FReep Alert!)

Peace groups around the nation are preparing vigils and rallies on Sunday (10/7/01) to demand legal and diplomatic alternatives to war. The American Friends Service Committee, Pax Christi USA, the War Resisters League and others have asked their members to participate in the local gatherings, including a march and rally in New York, beginning at Union Square.

"We're encouraging peace groups throughout the country to get together and formulate their own way to speak out and promote peace," said Janis Shields, spokeswoman for the American Friends, a Quaker organization.

The idea, Shields said, is "to call attention to the fact that not everyone is calling for war in these trying days." Leaders in the groups say there has been a growing demand for public expressions of sentiment in favor of peace.

"It's really spontaneous," said the Rev. Chris Ney, national coordinator at the War Resisters League, a 78-year-old organization based in New York. "I wish I could say we're organizing it. We're just providing skills that we have."

Marches and vigils have already been held in Washington, Philadelphia and western Massachusetts. Besides the rally in New York, Sunday events are planned in Chicago, Philadelphia and Bangor, Maine, among other places. Organizers say events are likely in Seattle.

Common themes include not just opposition to war, but also condemnation of the terrorist acts, a call to defend American civil liberties and a rejection of bias against Arabs, Muslims and immigrants.

The ideas are stated on the War Resisters League's Internet site, warresisters.org, which also calls for peace through "economic and social justice." That reflects a view among peace groups that the United States must work to mitigate such problems as corrupt governments and poverty in developing nations if it is to eliminate the threat of terrorism.

The peace argument differs from another stand with a long history in Christian tradition, recently articulated by Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders, that there are instances in which war may be justly waged.

In a recent interview, Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Commission in the Southern Baptist Convention, said the central principle for allowing a nation to enter into war was "just cause." Land added, "War is only permissible to resist aggression and to defend those victimized by it."

In a letter laced with references to the theory of just war, the nation's Catholic bishops wrote to President Bush two weeks ago, saying military action must be considered as one option, along with diplomatic and legal means.

But opponents of war have argued that the terrorist attacks should not be regarded as an act of war, requiring a military response, but as an international crime, demanding legal pursuit, arrest and trial of the perpetrators, as well as diplomatic and financial penalties against the aggressors and their backers.

"We believe the perpetrators should be brought to justice, but under the rule of law," said Mary Ellen McNish, general-secretary of the American Friends.

Deja vu?

These people join with the sworn enemies of America. 21st Century "Jane Fondas" - they are the bastard seed of of the most murderous ideology to survive the 20th Century - the ideology of international Marxism/Communism - now serving as "useful idiots" for radical Islamic jihadists. Look at the t-shirts, the slogans. These people are the "fifth column" who are already at work trying to tear down, one impressionable mind and heart at a time, the moral fortitude and fighting spirit of the United States. And, they are strengthening the resolve of terrorists. In their own words:

Also on Sat, hundreds participated in a women's march for peace in Santa Rosa, CA. The demonstration was held in solidarity with mass actions in D.C. in which thousands took to the streets with a thundering Anti-War and Anti-Capitalist message. Around the world, resistance against US military retaliation to the Sept 11 attacks continues to grow. Link: HERE.

Washington DC

San Francisco

Oh I agree with that. Question is, what harm is created? You can't yell fire in a theatre. When do you cross the line to aiding and abetting the enemy?

Something to think about:

Anti-War Demonstrators Should Think Twice

Tuesday, October 02, 2001
By David Horowitz

The following "open letter to anti-war demonstrators" is running as a paid advertisement in college newspapers across the country: I am a former anti-war activist who helped to organize the first campus demonstration against the war in Vietnam at the University of California, Berkeley in 1962. I appeal to all those young people who participated in "anti-war" demonstrations on 150 college campuses this week, to think again and not to join an "anti-war" effort against America’s coming battle with international terrorism.

The hindsight of history has shown that our efforts in the 1960s to end the war in Vietnam had two practical effects. The first was to prolong the war itself. Every testimony by North Vietnamese generals in the postwar years has affirmed that they knew they could not defeat the United States on the battlefield, and that they counted on the division of our people at home to win the war for them. The Vietcong forces we were fighting in South Vietnam were destroyed in 1968. In other words, most of the war and most of the casualties in the war occurred because the dictatorship of North Vietnam counted on the fact Americans would give up the battle rather than pay the price necessary to win it. This is what happened. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, and tens of thousands of Americans, is on the hands of the anti-war activists who prolonged the struggle and gave victory to the Communists.

The second effect of the war was to surrender South Vietnam to the forces of Communism. This resulted in the imposition of a monstrous police state, the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent South Vietnamese, the incarceration in "re-education camps" of hundreds of thousands more, and a quarter of a century of abject poverty imposed by crackpot Marxist economic plans, which continue to this day. This, too, is the responsibility of the so-called anti-war movement of the 1960s.

I say "so-called anti-war movement," because while many Americans were sincerely troubled by America’s war effort, the organizers of this movement were Marxists and radicals who supported a Communist victory and an American defeat. Today the same people and their youthful followers are organizing the campus demonstrations against America’s effort to defend its citizens against the forces of international terrorism and anti-American hatred, responsible for the September attacks.

I know, better than most, the importance of protecting freedom of speech and the right of citizens to dissent. But I also know better than most, that there is a difference between honest dissent and malevolent hate, between criticism of national policy, and sabotage of the nation’s defenses. In the 1960s and 1970s, the tolerance of anti-American hatreds was so high, that the line between dissent and treason was eventually erased. Along with thousands of other New Leftists, I was one who crossed the line between dissent and actual treason. (I have written an account of these matters in my autobiography, Radical Son). I did so for what I thought were the noblest of reasons: to advance the cause of "social justice" and "peace." I have lived to see how wrong I was and how much damage we did — especially to those whose cause we claimed to embrace, the peasants of Indo-China who suffered grievously from our support for the Communist enemy. I came to see how precious are the freedoms and opportunities afforded by America to the poorest and most humble of its citizens, and how rare its virtues are in the world at large.

If I have one regret from my radical years, it is that this country was too tolerant towards the treason of its enemies within. If patriotic Americans had been more vigilant in the defense of their country, if they had called things by their right names, if they had confronted us with the seriousness of our attacks, they might have caught the attention of those of us who were well-meaning but utterly misguided. And they might have stopped us in our tracks.

This appeal is for those of you who are out there today attacking your country, full of your own self-righteousness, but who one day might also live to regret what you have done.

David Horowitz is editor-in-chief of FrontPageMagazine.com and president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. He also appears frequently on the Fox News Channel.

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