If Our Town Were Baghdad
By Holly Wren Spaulding
It is a sunny, but bitter twenty degrees outside, and the wind is coming off the lake in big gusts. A flock of northern Michigan peace activists tumbles from two minivans, fetching from their midst an official looking sign with big crosshairs on it. They run toward the entrance to the Cherry Capital Airport and position it in the snowbank. It reads “If Traverse City Were Baghdad, this Location Would be a Military/Civilian Target.”
The black and red and yellow sign has a certain chilling affect. But the bundled-up pranksters are giggling, happy to be together as they go about their plan. Beside the sign, Randy Bond inserts a cardboard missile on the side of which “U.S.A.” is painted in red, white, and blue.
A retired engineer and draughtsman, Bond spent the last week creating the symbolic arsenal which will be deployed around town today, not to cause fear, but to raise awareness about so-called “dual- use targets,” and therefore, some of the realities of war.
So what about this term? Dual-use targets could be anything a military might use, including the most basic civilian infrastructure that people here in Traverse City depend upon every day. In other words, “dual-use” targets are also military targets, and they include water systems, power plants, bridges, television stations, natural gas pipelines, even hospitals and schools.
Having placed three such displays so far this morning, Bob Russell is enjoying the ease with which they are able to deploy their graphic depiction of dual-use targets, even as police patrols crawl past at different points. “Notice how much Homeland Security is around, guarding the infrastructure,” But lack of surveillance was not the point of this action.
There is a disconnection, according to Russell, between what we perceive is going on, and the reality of how an attack on Iraq will be experienced by the victims -- the citizens of Baghdad, for instance.
A media activist and long time promoter of peace and justice, Russell believes Americans too miss the connection between our unsustainable lives of consumption, and the impacts this has ecologically, politically, ethically.
In a globalized world, our toxic waste gets shipped to distant countries for a fee; we eat food that was grown through chemically intensive means -- somewhere else. A bomb launched from one location lands in another, and images resembling a video game depict the strike for CNN viewers all over the world.
People in Michigan make choices and have lifestyle habits that are part of a long chain of events which begin and end in places far from our day to day lives We perpetuate a petroleum-based economy, and many know this to be the case. But we are still disconnected from what this really means.
The pending war in Iraq is being talked about in terms of oil, but there is less talk about the human face of all this There is a misperception that real people just like us don’t suffer and die.
“We need to bomb and kill people in order to maintain our lifestyle, but we don’t see that directly,” says Russell, pointing for David “Grips” Krumlauf to pull our car up next to the Waste Water Treatment facility behind the public library. Boardman Lake glimmers icily to the south.
But schools and hospitals, and as a result, children, women, the elderly and infirm, have been taken out during recent U.S. campaigns in Kosovo -- as they were twelve years ago during the last war in Iraq.
Russell and others in this group of peacemakers lay a certain amount of blame on the corporate media, which they feel sanitizes the issues. Russell is filming todays’ action himself with the intention of producing a piece for community public access television and other independent media venues.
Challenge the meanings implied by terms like “military” and “dual-use” with a clear marker of what those terms mean, makes the connection in a concrete way. Member of this group think society needs to come to grips with the true meaning of “collatoral damage.” They think that every one of us is an Iraqi; someone who needs clean water, heat, certain basic things to survive and have a quality of life.
To this end, a midwife, an attorney, a mediator, and handful of others spent their morning driving around their hometown of 16,000, identifying facilities which would be bombed if Traverse City were under attack. What would a firestorm mean to a quiet little town like ours? As their vans arrived at the massive fuel depot on the west side of town, Russell looked out across the bay and beyond to Lake Michigan. If those fuel storage tanks were hit, and indeed they would be one of the first hits, not only would the city grind to a halt without
gas, but it would have an ecological disaster to deal with too.
“This is what we are asking people to do, “ says Russell, suddenly very serious. “Imagine -- if Traverse
City were Baghdad, what would happen?”One of the major bridges on the edge of downtown is designated a target, as is the telecommunications building several blocks away. If the plant which supplies drinking water to the greater metro area were bombed, there would be no public water supply and civilian casualties -- the workers inside -- would be “collateral damage.” There would be no light, heat, or electricity for cooking if the power plant was bombed.
While deploying in front of the Water Treatment Plant, two employees come out to ask what was up, and if the group had permission to do what they were doing. But as they were using the public right of way, no one was actually in violation of any laws. The men took fliers and showed interest, wondering how other NATO nations view dual-use targets.
In fact, some NATO countries don’t like it at all, considering it a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Writing in Air & Space Power Chronicles in May 2001, Kenneth R. Rizer stated that the U.S. Air Force has a vested interest in such practices because it serves the purpose of “destroying legitimate military capabilities and indirectly targeting civilian morale.” Rizer explains that until there is a change in the letter or the spirit of the law, the Air Force will operate within the status quo, which currently supports this kind of engagement.
Over the last ten years, on average, some five thousand Iraqi children under the age of five have died every month due to bacterial diseases. Marion Kromkowski works with Mideast: Just Peace, and says that “These things are caused because of the destruction of the water system in Iraq.” Rebuilding this kind of infrastructure has been next to impossible due to U.S. and British lead sanctions which prevent materials and parts necessary for repairs from getting into the country.
Mayor Pro Tem, Ann Rogers, worked to pass an anti-war resolution with the Traverse City City Commission. She joined the group near the end of their route. “If (T.C.) were hit, many of the public entities that we depend on would be gone, and I’m not sure how we would handle all this, frankly,” she said. The prospect of an attack on Iraq makes her shake her head, “The Shock and Awe rhetoric that the Pentagon uses for their 400 plus missiles that would be sent into Baghdad and would virtually devastate everything, should be of concern to all of us. This is not what we are about.”
“I have a grandson-in-law who is in the military, and I believe his attitude is that I am a little bit nuts for demonstrating but I am doing this for him too,” says Grace Joppich, 76, a grandmother of six. She arrived, cane in hand, having picked her way over icy sidewalks to be with the group in front of the downtown Telecommunications Building. She says she never participated in any public protest prior to this winter when she marched against war in Washington DC on her birthday.
Last week, some thirty or so U.S. and Canadian citizens did their own version of the “dual-use target” action in Baghdad, where Iraqi citizens expressed appreciation for this effort to demonstrate a consciousness about the realities of war -- one which is rarely aired on U.S. news networks which are broadcasted globally.
Other peace activists are currently on the Iraq-Kuwait border, bearing witness and trying to influence the troops who are assembling there, preparing to invade.
Tom Shea has spent his life teaching and facilitating non-violence and conflict resolution in all sorts of situations, noting that “this is an educational process for our hometown citizens.” Shea is active with numerous projects and groups promoting alternatives to violence and war.
The final stop on the tour is the Government Building, which is of course, also a target. It has also been the frequent site of peace vigils and protests. Today the group of a little more than a dozen circle up, share info about upcoming events about “the war at home,” and coordinate carpools for lunch at the China Buffet.
Having spent the morning navigating and photographing for the group, often humming the theme from “Mission Impossible, Grips muses, “I ought to make a sign that says that peace is not irrelevant,” a comment on President Bush’s recent statement that those who demonstrate their vision of a better world don’t matter.
Templates and information about how to do a “If ............ Were Bagdad” action, including documentation from the military about dual-use targets - here.
Holly Wren Spaulding's work has appeared in Z Magazine, Clamor, Alternet, Earth First! Journal, and The Progressive. She is a contributor to We Are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism, forthcoming from Verso Press in September 2003.
Record Eagle article
February 27, 2003
Potential 'targets' revealed
Demonstraters seek to show how a war impacts civilians
By BILL O'BRIEN, Record-Eagle staff writer
http://www.record-eagle.com/2003/feb/27target.htm
