PHA-Exchange> Re: Fwd: CC: invitation to join a global action on August 15th in solidarity with the Bhopal survivors
David Werner
healthwrights at igc.org
Sat Aug 10 08:49:13 PDT 2002
Hi Molly,
Spending extra time in Glacier Nat Park doesn't sound all that negative!
I will spread the word on Diane's action ref. the Bhopal situation. She
certainly has balls (so to speak)!
To follow is something even bigger that needs to be protested.
With warmest best wishes,
David
-----------
George Monbiot
Tuesday August 6, 2002
The Guardian
There is something almost comical about the prospect of George Bush waging
war on another nation because that nation has defied international law.
Since Bush came to office, the United States government has torn up more
international treaties and disregarded more UN conventions than the rest of
the world has in 20 years.
It has scuppered the biological weapons convention while experimenting,
illegally, with biological weapons of its own. It has refused to grant
chemical weapons inspectors full access to its laboratories, and has
destroyed attempts to launch chemical inspections in Iraq. It has ripped up
the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and appears to be ready to violate the
nuclear test ban treaty. It has permitted CIA hit squads to recommence
covert operations of the kind that included, in the past, the assassination
of foreign heads of state. It has sabotaged the small arms treaty,
undermined the international criminal court, refused to sign the climate
change protocol and, last month, sought to immobilise the UN convention
against torture so that it could keep foreign observers out of its prison
camp in Guantanamo Bay. Even its preparedness to go to war with Iraq without
a mandate from the UN security council is a defiance of international law
far graver than Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with UN weapons inspectors.
But the US government's declaration of impending war has, in truth, nothing
to do with weapons inspections. On Saturday John Bolton, the US official
charged, hilariously, with "arms control", told the Today programme that
"our policy ... insists on regime change in Baghdad and that policy will not
be altered, whether inspectors go in or not". The US government's
justification for whupping Saddam has now changed twice. At first, Iraq was
named as a potential target because it was "assisting al-Qaida". This turned
out to be untrue. Then the US government claimed that Iraq had to be
attacked because it could be developing weapons of mass destruction, and was
refusing to allow the weapons inspectors to find out if this were so. Now,
as the promised evidence has failed to materialise, the weapons issue has
been dropped. The new reason for war is Saddam Hussein's very existence.
This, at least, has the advantage of being verifiable. It should surely be
obvious by now that the decision to wage war on Iraq came first, and the
justification later.
Other than the age-old issue of oil supply, this is a war without strategic
purpose. The US government is not afraid of Saddam Hussein, however hard it
tries to scare its own people. There is no evidence that Iraq is sponsoring
terrorism against America. Saddam is well aware that if he attacks another
nation with weapons of mass destruction, he can expect to be nuked. He
presents no more of a threat to the world now than he has done for the past
10 years.
But the US government has several pressing domestic reasons for going to
war. The first is that attacking Iraq gives the impression that the flagging
"war on terror" is going somewhere. The second is that the people of all
super-dominant nations love war. As Bush found in Afghanistan, whacking
foreigners wins votes. Allied to this concern is the need to distract
attention from the financial scandals in which both the president and
vice-president are enmeshed. Already, in this respect, the impending war
seems to be working rather well.
The United States also possesses a vast military-industrial complex that is
in constant need of conflict in order to justify its staggeringly expensive
existence. Perhaps more importantly than any of these factors, the hawks who
control the White House perceive that perpetual war results in the perpetual
demand for their services. And there is scarcely a better formula for
perpetual war, with both terrorists and other Arab nations, than the
invasion of Iraq. The hawks know that they will win, whoever loses. In other
words, if the US were not preparing to attack Iraq, it would be preparing to
attack another nation. The US will go to war with that country because it
needs a country with which to go to war.
Tony Blair also has several pressing reasons for supporting an invasion. By
appeasing George Bush, he placates Britain's rightwing press. Standing on
Bush's shoulders, he can assert a claim to global leadership more credible
than that of other European leaders, while defending Britain's anomalous
position as a permanent member of the UN security council. Within Europe,
his relationship with the president grants him the eminent role of broker
and interpreter of power.
By invoking the "special relationship", Blair also avoids the greatest
challenge any prime minister has faced since the second world war. This
challenge is to recognise and act upon the conclusion of any objective
analysis of global power: namely that the greatest threat to world peace is
not Saddam Hussein, but George Bush. The nation that in the past has been
our firmest friend is becoming instead our foremost enemy.
As the US government discovers that it can threaten and attack other nations
with impunity, it will surely soon begin to threaten countries that have
numbered among its allies. As its insatiable demand for resources prompts
ever bolder colonial adventures, it will come to interfere directly with the
strategic interests of other quasi-imperial states. As it refuses to take
responsibility for the consequences of the use of those resources, it
threatens the rest of the world with environmental disaster. It has become
openly contemptuous of other governments and prepared to dispose of any
treaty or agreement that impedes its strategic objectives. It is starting to
construct a new generation of nuclear weapons, and appears to be ready to
use them pre-emptively. It could be about to ignite an inferno in the Middle
East, into which the rest of the world would be sucked.
The United States, in other words, behaves like any other imperial power.
Imperial powers expand their empires until they meet with overwhelming
resistance.
For Britain to abandon the special relationship would be to accept that this
is happening. To accept that the US presents a danger to the rest of the
world would be to acknowledge the need to resist it. Resisting the United
States would be the most daring reversal of policy a British government has
undertaken for over 60 years.
We can resist the US neither by military nor economic means, but we can
resist it diplomatically. The only safe and sensible response to American
power is a policy of non-cooperation. Britain and the rest of Europe should
impede, at the diplomatic level, all US attempts to act unilaterally. We
should launch independent efforts to resolve the Iraq crisis and the
conflict between Israel and Palestine. And we should cross our fingers and
hope that a combination of economic mismanagement, gangster capitalism and
excessive military spending will reduce America's power to the extent that
it ceases to use the rest of the world as its doormat. Only when the US can
accept its role as a nation whose interests must be balanced with those of
all other nations can we resume a friendship that was once, if briefly,
founded upon the principles of justice
-------------
At 10:38 AM 8/8/2002 EDT, you wrote:
>Morning, David.
>I'm just back from Glacier National Park - one of the great negative aspects
>of this job that I have to go hike in beautiful places - and will be here
for
>only a couple of days will be here for the winter after October 19. But
>wanted to see if you might be able to get this news out about Diane's action.
> Until October. Molly
>Return-path: <WilsonAlamobay at aol.com>
>From: WilsonAlamobay at aol.com
>Full-name: WilsonAlamobay
>Message-ID: <124.14a8fbea.2a82fa9b at aol.com>
>Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 18:35:07 EDT
>Subject: Fwd: CC: invitation to join a global action on August 15th in
solidarity with the Bhopal survivors
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>Subject: CC: invitation to join a global action on August 15th in
> solidarity with the Bhopal survivors
>Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 11:45:56 -0400
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>Dear Colleagues,
>
>Below is an invitation to join Diane Wilson, who is on her 21st day of a
>hunger strike outside Dow Chemical's factory in Seadrift, Texas in
>solidarity with the Bhopal survivors. Please join her on August 15th
>(Indian Independence Day) for a global set of actions targeting Dow
>Chemical/Union Carbide for evading its liability in Bhopal, and the
>Indian government, for being complicit in this corporate violence and
>lack of responsibility.
>
>Please pass the word around....
>
>Thanks,
>
>Gary Cohen
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-------
>
>An Invitation from Diane Wilson to Join Her Fight for the Victims of
>Bhopal
>(you remember Diane, the 4th generation shrimp boat captain from Texas
>who
>with her hunger strikes stopped Formosa and Alcoa from dumping their
>toxic
>chemicals off the Texas coast.)
>
>Seadrift, Texas
>5 August 2002
>
>At midnight on December 2, 1984, deadly toxins leaked from a badly run
>Union
>Carbide (now wholly owned by Dow Chemical) plant in Bhopal, engulfing
>half a
>million of India's poor in the world's worst-ever industrial disaster.
>In
>hours, a historic city became a gas chamber. As dawn broke, some 8,000
>dead
>were strewn across the city's streets in postures of agony. That was 18
>years ago. You'd think that by now the survivors would have received
>proper medical care, that they'd have been adequately compensated for
>their loss and their suffering, that somebody would have had to answer
>in court for what was done to them.
>
>On all counts, you'd be wrong.
>
>Dow-Carbide, one of the world's largest corporations, forced a
>"settlement"
>with the Indian government that gave the survivors "compensation" of a
>maximum of $500 each-many received less-not even enough to cover the
>cost of
>simple medicines.
>
>Thirty people still die every month from the effects of the gas.
>Meanwhile,
>Bhopal's drinking water is being poisoned by chemicals from the derelict
>
>factory and dumped in the open by the company up to 10 years after the
>accident.
>
>On July 17, the Indian government applied to reduce charges against
>Warren
>Anderson, the Union Carbide CEO at the time of the disaster-the same man
>who
>has been refusing to answer the court's summons for 11 years. The
>court's
>judgment will be given on August 27. If the charges are diluted it will
>reduce the deaths of 20,000 people and the 18 years' suffering of the
>survivors to the status of a car accident and virtually end hopes of
>ever
>getting just compensation for the victims. The victims began a hunger
>strike
>in India, which I joined July 17th to force Dow Chemicals to accept its
>liabilities for the Bhopal disaster. Hundreds around the world have
>joined me. Here are things you can do to join us:
>
>1. Join me outside Dow Chemicals, Seadrift, Texas, on August 15 at 1pm
>to demand Dow clean up it's mess in Bhopal and Seadrift, bring your own
>broom.
>Contact kinnu at subvertisement.org for details and all press inquires.
>
>2. On the morning of August 14 hold a vigil and protest outside your
>nearest
>Indian embassy or consulate.
>
>3. Call Dow headquarters in Michigan at 800/232-2436 demanding that Dow
>accept its liabilities and clean up its mess in Bhopal.
>
>4. Demonstrate outside your nearest Dow facility.
>
>5. Join me in the worldwide hunger strike; details at
>www.bhopal.net/worldwide-action.
>
>6. Sign the electronic petition addressed to the Indian government at
>www.corpwatchindia.org. or raise your own and send to your nearest
>Indian
>embassy, listed at www.thokalath.com/embassy/index.php
>
>7. Alert your local media and pass this message on to your friends.
>
>8. Contribute to fund the worldwide relay hunger strikes and ongoing
>action.
>In India contact admin at del3.vsnl.net.in for details of how to do this.
>In the
>U.S. contact Jodie at thebadbabes at aol.com.
>
>9. Let us know what you are doing and if you are interested in joining
>any of
>the international actions contact thebadbabes at aol.com.
>For more information, flyers, banners, and answers to your questions go
>to
>www.bhopal.net.
>
>Attachment Converted: "C:\PROGRAM FILES\INTERNET\download\Bhopal
solidarity action flyer.doc"
>
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