• Create your own action
Like people everywhere, many in our community think it’s wrong to kill civilians as means to pressure another government. However, our own fears, misinformation, or desensitization can disconnect us from what it means to target military/civilian facilities.
During the l991 Gulf War, the United States bombed water treatment and sewage facilities, communication centers, schools, bridges, fuel sources around Baghdad---all in the name of destroying “dual use” facilities. These actions caused death and disease for hundreds of thousands of the people during the past twelve years. Contaminated water caused untold health problems, particularly to children. UN sanctions prevented materials that could be used to re-build the facilities from entering the country.
The purpose of placing these signs at significant community resources in the Traverse City area is to provide a more visual sense of the cost of war to our citizens.
When you see these signs, imagine yourself in Baghdad. Imagine your family, friends, businesses without the use of a wastewater treatment plant,a bridge, or telephone communication.
What you can do: Demand an extension and expansion of U.N. Inspectors in Iraq -- www.moveon.org. Get involved with local peace activities, like joining the peace march every Saturday, 11:00 am. downtown Traverse City -- www.nrec.org. Oppose all racial/ethnic/religious profiling -- www.wearetraversecity.com.
An excerpt from an article on Military dual-use targeting -- Bombing Dual-Use Targets: Legal, Ethical, and Doctrinal Perspectives, by Kenneth R. Rizer, From: Air & Space Power Chronicles, May 2001
… IV. Summary
This paper has reviewed the development of three perspectives to dual-use targets. In the final analysis, none of the perspectives shows any near-term tendency to outlaw attack on dual-use targets nor to demand consideration of the long-term, unintended effects of attacking them. …
…The Christian Just-War Ethic’s treatment of dual-use targets is more encouraging as several commentators have begun to question the wisdom of ignoring the long-term unintended effects obviously caused in part by such dual-use attacks. Yet proponents of the JWE have no leverage over international opinion so long as their voices are a cacophony of competing views. …
… Finally, the US Air Force has a vested interest in attacking dual-use targets so long as dual-use target destruction serves the double role of destroying legitimate military capabilities and indirectly targeting civilian morale. So long as this remains within the letter if not the spirit of the law and the JWE, the Air Force will cling to the status quo.
The full article can be found on the web:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/Rizer.html
Bombing Dual-Use Targets?
By Sean Gonsalves
Cape Cod Times, November 12, 2002
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/law/2002/1112dual.htm
Iraqi Water and Sanitation Systems Could Be Military Target, Says MoD,
by Jo Dillon, Deputy Political Editor
Sunday, February 2, 2003 by the lndependent/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0202-03.htm
BOMBING DUAL-USE TARGETS?
http://www.theblackflag.org/2002/seang01.html
The Secret Behind the Sanctions
How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply
by Thomas J. Nagy
http://www.progressive.org/0801issue/nagy0901.html
Human Shields Bed Down in the Target Zone
Antiwar group aims to protect power plant
by Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
Published on Monday, February 24, 2003 by the Guardian/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0224-02.htm