Meredith Dearborn and Women Against War

"Here's the smell of blood still:
all the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!"

--Macbeth, Act V, Scene I

Meredith Dearborn was studying at Yale University in Connecticut on September 11th 2001, when the World Trade Center in New York City crumbled into a smoking heap of debris. Along with other women around the world she is now on the forefront of growing opposition to the U.S. war against Iraq. The Voz Journal asked Meredith to talk about her ideas and peace proposals.

"Our campus, which was very close to New York City, was silent for weeks in mourning," she recalls, but "despite my colleague's great sadnesss and astonishment, I also felt dismayed by the Bush Administration's reaction to the tragedy, which I felt to be misdirected and childish, based on grandstanding rather than on good foreign policy."

As a result she began a process of questioning.

"I wondered what would prompt someone to sacrifice their life to slap the face of a superpower, and felt there was a lesson to be learned here that the government and most of the country was intent on ignoring."

Then came the invasion of Iraq. 

"When Iraq entered into the picture, and the press corps and government started beating the drums for war, I felt more than ever that this was the wrong answer to an exceptionally difficult question. I did not see any evidence that would indicate that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and felt that the skepticism of the United Nations on this front corroborated my opinion that the WMD's were just a piece of very effective rhetoric."

She also felt uneasy about Washington's claim about an alleged hook up between Al Queda, Saddam Hussein and the September 11th terrorist attack.

"Hussein was clearly a dictator of the worst order, but I fundamentally believe that the international community must engage these issues with foresight, diplomacy and reason, and that there are non-violent ways of influencing even the most gruesome leaders, if we work collaboratively."

"So this process of questioning led you to the peace movement..."

"Actually it was this difference of opinion with my government that led me to wonder about the business side of war-the so-called 'war machine.' War is fabulous business for politicians, who enjoy the relative malleability of public opinion during wartime-when disagreement and dissent can easily be labeled as unpatriotic. That is something we are now witnessing. War is immensely profitable for companies such as Halliburton, in the business of reconstructing blasted countries, and Lockheed Martin, which makes dramatically expensive weaponry. Should we be surprised then, when those in power make war and benefit from it? 

"True indeed. Have you also worked in the peace effort outside the United States?"

"Yes. I lived in Nicaragua for four mounths, working with a local rural community. I have also spent a summer in Europe, mainly in Spain, and have done extensive research at the U.S.-Mexican border concerning the 'maquiladoras' and worked with women and men in the shantytowns across the border. I find it lovely and quite easy to speak with people from outside the U.S. and with persons whose background are different from mine."

"Do you consider working outside the U.S. to be an educational experience?"

"Oh certainluy. It's often like getting a year's education in the span of one conversation. In fact, my politics are usually more aligned with theirs than with my fellow (North) Americans. During the 2004 U.S. presidential elections I was in Managua, Nicaragua, and the first thing people would say to me was 'who are you voting for?' My answer was usually a grin and '¡Kerry, como no!' Then we'd all laugh. It's not hard to break that kind of ice, and people are generally really relieved to know that the caricatures are wrong, that alll Americans aren't gun-slinging Republicans. We all have a lot to learn from each other."

"How do you feel about the unending wars the U.S. has been involved in?"

"I'm only 23, so my memories of war are limited. My grandfather fought in World War II, though, and my uncle in Vietnam. Their stories involve great sadnesss and courage. War makes for good stories, but also tremendous pain and suffering: the experience of fighting has deeply affected both relatives. In terms of my own support for America's wars, it's hard for me to judge because our history has been written by the vistors and all I know of these conflicts has come from books I have been allowed to read. I don't feel that I'm in a position to judge the justness of a war on which I have such a limited perspective. However, as I understand it, the U.S. has continually demonstrated a tendency to enter into self-interested conflicts. The wars in the 80'' with Central America, in the 70'' with Korea, in the 60'' with Vietnam, in the 90'' with the first Gulf War...all were quite profitable for either the political or the economic capital of the U.S. That'' wrong of course: people'' lives are far more important than profits.""

"Why do U.S. citizens find it so difficult NOT to believe in and support their government's policies?"

"Well, it's a very effective political move to judge dissenters in terms of their love for their country. As an activists, I deal with this kind of vitriol all the time. Usually I quote the great patriots who have questioned their governments, such as Carl Schurz, who said in 1869: 'It is my country, right or wrong;when right, it is my duty to keep it right; when wrong, to set it right.' True patriotism, in the best of the American tradition, does not mean blind support but rather educated criticism and reform or revolution if morally necessary. Jefferson said this too."

"Would you say then that the Bush Administration utilized the supposed existence of weapons of mass destruction to gain support for the invasion of Iraq?"

"Unquestionably. It was a public relations blitz. I think the press was absolutely compromised in propagating the falsehoods that Bush used to convince the country and Congress to go to war. We in the anti-war movement at that time were baffled at how people could wholeheartedly believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Queda, without a shred of evidence. What makes that kind of blind faith more plausible is that we weren't just hearing the pro-war messages from the president's mouth. We were reading it in the New York Times, in our local papers: we were seeing it paraded around as fact on TV news programs. For the press it was the truth and that made dissent difficult. No one was questioning it, except for demonstraters in the streets, who had no direct accesss to the big press and thus no real way to get our message into the mainstream."

"How did the movement against the war begin in the U.S.?"

"Well, going back to the Vietnam War, opposition grew slowly, becoming a popular groundswell by the end of the ten year war. In the case of Iraq, we had already built a huge movement even before the war began, culminating on February 15, 2003, when almost 40 million people around the world took to the streets to say no to war. But when we were unable to stop the war, people became disillusioned. Ever since then we have been trying to rebuild that lost momentum, and it wasn't until the summer of 2005, when Cindy Sheehan stood outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch for a month that we got our second wind."

"Do you see any hook up between the present anti-war movement and that against the Vietnam War?"

"Our present movement lacks the Vietnam era's great tangible domestic motivator: the draft. There is nothing like compulsory service to mobilize young people against a war. The U.S. government learned that lesson well during Vietnam, and even though the military is now having tremendous difficulty meeting its recruitment quotas, the government is loath to impose a new draft for fear of igniting a huge youth-based anti-war movement. What is interesting, however, is that the presence of military recruiters in schools has almost re-created the same kind of popular resistance as the draft did. When a mother faces the prospect of losing her child to a war that seems increasingly unjustified, she recoils at the idea of seeing recruiters on the high school playground demonstrating how to lob a hand granade. In contrast to Vietnam, now the peace movement recognized early-on that the soldiers and their families could be our best allies. Groups such as 'Military Families Speak Out,' 'Iraq Vets Against the War,' 'Veterans for Peace' and 'Gold Star Families for peace' often take the lead in our marches. The number of soldiers speaking out remains small, but their testimony is incredibly powerful, and brings a vital dose of reality to a war that is often either sanitized or ignored in the nightly news."

"Women seem to be strong protagonists in the movement. What do you attribute that to?"

"In any conflict women are disproportionately affected by warfare. In Iraq women trying to raise children and keep safe families in the war zone must cope with destruction of sanitation systems, the loss of electricity and clean water, a dearth of the social services upon which many women rely. Here in America a staggering proportion of our federal funds and tax dollars are being siphoned awar from public libraries, health care and education. Millions of American children are uninsured, yet our defense budget is bloated beyond reason, used to prop up a failing occupation and a seemingly endless conflict overseas. This imbalance in federal dollars affects women and children the most; so though it seems like the major players in war are men, war is actually very much a woman's issue. Because women bear the brunt of the cost of war, we should be the ones sto initiate the peacemaking process. In fact, the UN Security Council recently passed Resolution 1325, a document that essentially emphasizes this point, saying that women are uniquely situated to be peacemakers in a world dominated by men of war. In this spirit, CODEPINK: Women for Peace has launched this campaign, "Women Say No To War." We are gathering 100,000 signatures-mostly from women and decidedly from international women-before March 8, International Women's Day. The message of the campaign is very simple: women don't want warfare anymore; instead, we want to help create an alternative process by which countries can settle their differences."

"Do you reach out towards men too?"

"In CODEPINK we tend to mirror the kind of world we want to see in the way we work with each other. We have a more collaborative, less hierarchical approach to our organizing than some male-driven groups. We tend to be more open to new ways of thinking and new strategies. We relate viscerally to the pain of mothers in Iraq and here in the U:S. who have lost their children. It's the desire to stop more suffering that keeps us going at our frenetic pace. We juggle a million tasks at once organizing rallies, writing alerts, training newcomers, fundraising, building networks locally and globally amidst all the work and the constant barrage of bad news, we remain creative, joyful, playful and optimistic. I don't know many men who could juggle all that!"

"Has the women's peace movement been subject to harassment?"
"Well, the U.S. government has spied on us, to be sure. On Mother's Day last year a small group of women from CODEPINK and the Raging Grannies (a protest group of charming elders who sing clever songs about stopping war) held a rally in Sacramento, California, at which there were several spies from the National Guard. This has been well-documented and has raised quite a few eyebrows here when it was uncovered. The new PATRIOT Act contains clauses that could throw us in jail for disrupting political gatherings-a tactic CODEPINK has used to great effect in the past. One of our interns here is from Italy. She was absolutely blown away yesterday when there were more police than protesters at a demonstration in San Francisco. There were helicopters circling overhead, cops in riot gear standing by, and generally no noise from the crowd. It's a very effective intimidation tactic."

"Have you received support from Arab women? What has their reaction been to your programs?"

"It is certainly difficult to reach out to Arab women for a variety of reasons: language, cultural differences and political repression. But despite those obstacles, we have been pleasantly surprised by the support of Arab women and the interest they have in working together. We've been invited by women in Lebanon to come and meet with women from the region. We have a group of Iraqi women trying to come join us in Washington on March 8th (despite all the risks on their part) and we have many Arab-American organizations in the U.S. that are behind this effort."

"How might the increasing arrival of women to positions of power around the world affect the peace movement?"

"I absolutely believe that if we are to succeed in bringing about social and political change, we must build peace and equality from the ground up. We must, as Ghandi said, be the change we wish to see in the world. I see women are already doing this, all over the country and the world; we have connected with amazing women through this campaign who are heads of organizations, who sit on continental Parliaments, who are in the process of building peace in the most inhospitable of places. Women are assuming roles of power, it's true, but here are also many ways of being influential and making change. Some of the most inspiring and prominent women are acting in grassroots roles: they are the ones stepping to the plate, feeding their communities, building community centers, educating their local governments, founding charities to support women's rights overseas. CODEPINK has 230 local chapters throughout the U.S. and abroad. These women do incredible work in their communities. Some hold vigils every week. Others stage small gatherings of three women who want to educate themselves and their families about the realities of war. The grassroots are vital. I also belñieve that women in positions of power can also help shift the balance awar from war as foreign policy. But there are plenty of women politicians here in the U.S.-Senator Hillary Clinton and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi among them-who have continually supported the war in Iraq and continue to vote to fund it. Nevertheless, as I mentioned before women as a whole do support peace more than men do, so I see great potential in women taking on greater roles as leaders. But I also see a different model of social interaction taking hold, one that empowers women at the local level so we make systemic change from the ground up."

"What kinds of comments do you hear from the women you work with concerning the war and the peace movement?"

"Well, let me tell you about two Argentine women who have written me letters this week: Raquel Soprano de Witis and Miriam Mabel Medina. Both are mothers whose sons were killed in police violence over the past years. Miriam, whose son Sebastián Bordon, was killed in October of 1997, founded the Casita Sebastián in his honor; the Casita is a kindergarten for underprivileged children. Miriam has also organized a group called 'Madres de Lucha,' an organization of women who have lost children that is struggling to end violence against youth. Raquel lost her son, Mariano Witis, when he was just 23, on September 21, 2000, also in police violence. After that day she and her family have worked to ensure that her history is not repeated. It seems at first glance that these women are addressing different issues than we are. However, as I mentioned in the last question, peace begins at home, and if we are going to counter the war machine, we will do it from the ground up. What they are doing is vital to the peacemaking process. In fact, both women emphasize that they endorse the Call because they believe that peace is possible. The messages I received are peppered with words of hope and great love, of solidarity and understanding, a belief that violence of all institutional origins, whether in warfare or at the hands of the police, cause pain to women and so we should be the one to fight back. We couldn't agree more."

"What is your evaluation of the present situation in the world?"

"Wow! What a question! I believe the war makes profits for a few very wealthy men. I believe that the war in Iraq is a political tactic, and a way to secure the nation's oil requirements. I believe that it's geopolitical, that the Middle East is a very strategic location for the United States to maintain indefinite influence and military presence. In terms of the feasibility of ending this war, the war must end at some point and I believe that can happen while Bush is still in power. Public opinion is turning drastically against the war. There has been a real sea change in how Americans are thinking about the war in Iraq since the war's inception in 2003. Six out of ten Americans believe that going to war in the first place was a mistake. To some extent, we are exercising our democratic rights and rising up across borders to counter a war that has drained our resources and murdered our brothers and sons. We've had enough of it, and we believe that the faster and harder we work, the sooner this war will end. We have wonderful politicians who believe that this war needs to end. Here in California, Democrats Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters are working hard in Congress to pass legislation that will bring the troops home. To some extent, as the American people grow increasingly tired of war and increasingly involved in politics, those in power will have to start listening. Our movement and this campaign are emblematic of a significant shift in public opinion. We're just riding the wave."

Meredith Dearborn
http://www.womensaynotowar.org 
http://www.womensaynotowar.org 
Email: [e-mail] 

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THE CALL:
We, the women of the United States, Iraq and women worldwide, have had enough of the senseless war in Iraq and the cruel attacks on civilians around the world. We've buried too many of our loved ones. We've seen too many lives crippled forever by physical and mental wounds. We've watched in horror as our precious resources are poured into war while our families' basic needs of food, shelter, education and healthcare go unmet. We've had enough of living in constant fear of violence and seeing the growing cancer of hatred and intolerance seep into our homes and communities.

This is not the world we want for ourselves or our children. With fire in our bellies and love in our hearts, we women are rising up - across borders - to unite and demand an end to the bloodshed and the destruction.

We have seen how the foreign occupation of Iraq has fueled an armed movement against it, perpetuating an endless cycle of violence. We are convinced that it is time to shift from a military model to a conflict-resolution model that includes the following elements:

- The withdrawal of all foreign troops and foreign fighters from Iraq;
- Negotiations to reincorporate disenfranchised Iraqis into all aspects of Iraqi society;
- The full representation of women in the peacemaking process and a commitment to women's full equality in the post-war Iraq;
- A commitment to discard plans for any foreign bases in Iraq;
- Iraqi control of its oil and other resources;
- The nullification of privatization and deregulation laws imposed under occupation, allowing Iraqis to shape the trajectory of the post-war economy;
- A massive reconstruction effort that prioritizes Iraqi contractors, and draws upon financial resources of the countries responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq;
- Consideration of a temporary international peacekeeping force that is truly multilateral and is not composed of any troops from countries that participated in the occupation.

To move this peace process forward, we are creating a massive movement of women - crossing generations, races, ethnicities, religions, borders and political persuasions. Together, we will pressure our governments, the United Nations, the Arab League, Nobel Peace Prize winners, religious leaders and others in the international community to step forward to help negotiate a political settlement. And in this era of divisive fundamentalisms, we call upon world leaders to join us in spreading the fundamental values of love for the human family and for our precious planet.

THE CAMPAIGN:
In January of 2006, CODEPINK: Women for Peace announced its latest campaign, Women Say No To War. On that date, they launched a website, http://www.womensaynotowar.org  / http://www.womensaynotowar.org  where the group is gathering a hundred thousand signatures in support of their Women¹s Call for Peace. On International Women¹s Day, March 8, CODEPINK will deliver these signatures to the White House, and to U.S. embassies abroad.

At the beginning of this campaign CODEPINK made a concerted effort to reach out to the heads of organizations, prominent women, parliamentarians, and others across borders, and ask them if they would support this women's call for peace. The response was overwhelming, and the group received 250
signatures at the outset from prominent women across borders who are working both at a grassroots and at a governmental level for peace. At this point, six members of the European Parliament have signed on, as well as members of the UK Parliament and the German Bundestag. Women from grassroots groups in
Pakistan, Colombia, Fiji, Puerto Rico, Austria, Spain, Vieques, Poland, the UK, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, Israel, Palestine, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Panama, Serbia, Finland, the Netherlands, Bosnia, Greece, Mali, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Canada, the Philippines, Pakistan, Canada, Jordan, Italy, New Zealand and France have signed the call. The campaign has the support of Cindy Sheehan and other military families, conscientious objectors, and former diplomats.

More information about the campaign is available at www.womensaynotowar.org 
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/  , or by email at [e-mail]