How much longer can democratically elected governments hope to get away with justifying policies that punish the Iraqi people for something they did not do, through economic sanctions that target them in the hope that those who survive will overthrow the regime? Is international law only applicable to the losers? Does the UN security council only serve the powerful? Read more…

How much longer can democratically elected governments hope to get away with justifying policies that punish the Iraqi people for something they did not do, through economic sanctions that target them in the hope that those who survive will overthrow the regime? Is international law only applicable to the losers? Does the UN security council only serve the powerful? Read more…

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Iraq! After a week in the country, I can say that the attitude here is pretty fatalistic. People are not too worried about the U.S. expanding the “war” to Iraq anytime soon. They’re celebrating Ramadan and going about their lives as usual. They say that the future is out of their hands, so why bother worrying about it? Everyone agrees that after Afghanistan, America will bomb Iraq next. But - as one man put it to me the Iraqi people are “used to the voice of American bombs.” In fact, this is something people have said to me again and again - that if America thinks they’re going to fall apart like the Taliban, they should think again. People say that Iraq has been bombed repeatedly by the U.S. for 11 years - almost every day in the North and South - and they’re still here. They don’t like it. It really, and justifiably, angers them, but, well – one woman compared U.S. bombings to the weather, saying it was just a fact of Iraqi life. I don’t know myself. This time it seems different. This time it seems much more serious. And much more frightening.

Good evening. I am pleased and yet challenged to be here. I feel somewhat reluctant to speak publicly on Iraq, the Middle-East, Afghanistan or Terrorism since 11 September. I sense many Americans are not ready for a discussion. Not ready for views that may differ from the mass. I sense instead an atmosphere of ‘dead or alive’ justice, intolerance, endangered civil liberties, the unhealthy influence of Christian fundamentalism, militarism, even jingoism. But I also sense a new feeling of American VULNERABILITY and thus I am here tonight! And I was encouraged to do so by your Rabbi Douglas Kranz , who is a risk-taker!