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Even doves bare talons, vow revenge

Even doves bare talons, vow revenge

Author: The Wall Street Journal
Publications: The Indian Express
Dated: September 21, 2001

LAST week, Lee Weiner, a 1960s radical and one of the Chicago Seven, did something he's never done before. He hung an American flag outside his house. Weiner fiercely opposed American military involvement in Vietnam, but last week's terrorist attacks New York and Washington obliterated his pacifist inclinations. "I think that one of the responses to evil has to be an honest and complete struggle against evil - and that struggle includes violence," Weiner, now 62 years old says.

Now 1960s peaceniks, who demonstrated against the Vietnam War on campuses and in the streets, are feeling patriotic, in some cases for the first time. While struggling over what an appropriate response to the terror should be, a surprising number are concluding that the action must include military strikes against the culprits, and maybe even war.

'Ten years ago, Danny Kaiser, a Sarah Lawrence College professor who marched in countless anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s and counselled students on how to dodge the draft, tore down the yellow ribbons people tacked to his door as a symbol of support for the Persian Gulf War. "The Gulf War I felt very bad about, I hated the outpourings of patriotism," says the 65-year-old Kaiser.'Now I see a larger perspective.'

The proximity and scope of the destructoin makes all the difference to Stew Albert, a self-described pacifist and a founder of the Youth International Party, better known as the Yippies. "This is Manhattan getting attacked, not Kuwait" says Albert, who asserts that 'surgical military interventions is an appropriate response. But as they cautiously--even guiltily--advocate some kind of military action, these former flower children say they are also filled with misgiving, sadness and confusion.. "I fear the world may be spinning out of control" Albert says. They cringe at the words "collateral damage." They fear that the Bush administration might rush to go after its prime suspect Osama bin Laden, before it is absolutely certain that Osama is responsible. In other words, they still don't trust the government.

"The problem with a surgical military intervention is I'm not confident the US can do it" says Albert. Others are deeply troubled about the potential erosion of their hard-fought civil liberties. Noam Chomsky, a leading dissenter on the Left and a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, maintains that non-violent alternatives are readily available. 'There certainly is an appropriate response, and we know exactly what it is," writes Chomsky via e- mail. "Determine who the perpetrators are present some minimally credible evidence and then follow the rule of law."

One thing many old-line activists agree on is that age brings with it the ability to accept the complexity of a crises. "When you've lived through the missile crisis, assassination, racial conflict, war, resignation and impeachment of presidents, you appreciate the frailties of public life," says Paul Gorman, who helped organise the Congressional delegation to Selma, Ala., in 1965 and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam in 1966 and 67. "So the call now is for moral maturity, to balance several goals at once: Protect the people, hold criminals accountable, treat other cultures with nuance, and admit we have much to learn"

Grace Paley, a writer and a long-time peace activist, says she's not convinced that any of her 1960s comrades 'suddenly have become great warriors." She has a suggestion. "Maybe we should send three tons of wheat and rice to Afghanistan - they're starving - and call that the big bombing."
 


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