Editorials
CONTENTS Volume CXVIII, Number 12 Correspondence 386 Editorials 387 What did you know?: Patrick Barnard 389 Making facts, not peace: Patrick White 390 A waste of time?: John Garvey...
...Question: Since Robert Gates was approved as deputy director of the CIA in April of 1986, during the period of activity by the Georgia branch of BNL, can Gates either deny or confirm that BNL-Atlanta was part of a CIA-aided operation...
...Baker's words...
...In April 1991 he was court-martialed, freed $25,000, and dismissed from the Army...
...it is a policy we support...
...3. The veto by Robert Gates in June 1990 of tighter controls on missile technology exports from the U.S...
...civil law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice recognize the right of military personnel to conscientious objector status...
...The Army refused his requests and Wiggins was imprisoned after he publicly stripped himself of his uniform...
...David Wiggins, a West Point distinguished graduate (1984) and a U.S...
...to Iraq...
...Army doctor, applied for a conscientious objector discharge in February 1990, six months before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait...
...caused a storm in Congress...
...civil and military law, even for an "all-volunteer" army...
...Israeli government officials and American Jewish organizations quickly joined in...
...GATES WHAT DID YOU 14 OW...
...Since Washington's Iraq policy was deeply flawed, these queries raise the very real issue of whether it is wise to make Gates the head of the CIA...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...Despite testimony to the contrary from its own investigating officers, the board declared that Wiggins's beliefs were political rather than moral...
...In lieu of military duty, the bishops suggested that some other form of alternative service be required...
...Washington also shared command-andcontrol intelligence with Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, encouraged the granting of U.S...
...There are, however, other equally important questions that should be put to Gates, all of them linked to his involvement in the Bush administration's policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq before and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait...
...Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process, I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity...
...Their moral awakening coincided with the onset of the war...
...support for Israel has been reliable and consistent in word and deed...
...Constitutionally, it will always remain the government's prerogative and duty to raise and maintain armies...
...2. The funding of Iraq's arms procurement network via a branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Atlanta, Georgia...
...As selective COs, they face even stronger skepticism from the military...
...bishops wrote that in light of the new character of modem warfare, it is necessary "to undertake a completely fresh appraisal of war...
...In a matter of some thirtysix hours on May 24-25, over 14,000 of their long-lost (since perhaps, 1000 B.C...
...interests in the Middle East, but ultimately to Israel's as well...
...As a result of the Gulf War, more than one hundred and fifty military COs have been or are now being prosecuted for refusing duty...
...In fact, morally, they would be obliged to do so...
...and Europe to Iraq's military-industrial complex...
...high-technology exports which were 14 June 1991:389...
...Israel has waited and worked through famine and revolution to insure the departure of those who remained in Ethiopia...
...Though significant numbers of Israelis object to the settlement activities, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the settlement movement and the Likud government are increasingly fixed on a policy that will lead eventually to annexation of the West Bank, and the expulsion of most of its Palestinian inhabitants through police action or economic strangulation...
...Throughout the beginning of 1990, Commerce Department officials--led by the Under Secretary for Export Administration, Dennis E. Kloske--argued in April, May, and June for much tighter controls on U.S...
...Army Capt...
...10038...
...Logic would hold that if the nations leaders accept the just-war theory as a standard for determining the legitimacy of particular wars--as the president did in this case--individuals who do not believe the war meets those standards should have the fight to refuse a call to serve...
...Congress, unwilling to address the matter during the Vietnam War, did not act on the bishops' request, and eventually the draft itself was replaced by the ail-volunteer army...
...These contracts brokered by BNL-Atlanta supplied electronic components for Iraqi missiles, barrels for special artillery, material to help make nerve and mustard gas, and computers for guidance systems...
...Baker is right to object as strenuously and pointedly as he has...
...But not everyone who objected was a pacifist...
...But it is a wholly other and contradictory policy for the United States to acquiesce in the continuing settlement of the occupied territories...
...390-91...
...Representative Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex...
...In 1971 the Supreme Court ruled that a congressional determination not to exempt selective conscientious objectors from the draft was constitutional...
...The bishops' position on selective conscientious objection, they wrote, had "not yet found expression in our legal system, but a means should be found to give this legitimate moral position a secure legal status...
...and Baghdad: 1. William Casey's secret trip to Baghdad in 1982...
...Some eight weeks later, Casey made a secret trip to Baghdad and arranged the quidpro quo which allowed Iraq to be removed from the State Department's list of states supporting terrorism, a prerequisite for the subsequent resumption of diplomatic relations in November 1984...
...Other ministers in the Likud government, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, may stand back from Mr...
...Both U.S...
...agricultural loans to Baghdad through the government's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), and licensed the export of sensitive dual-use technology to Iraq...
...10038...
...The intransigence of the Likud govemment is compounded by members of the Congress mortgaged to American supporters of Israel...
...With the Ethiopians, Israel is at its generous, persistent, heroic best...
...Beginning in 1983 and 1984, the Reagan adminisaafion facilitated the trans-shipment of U.S...
...The latter have been meted out administrative punishments that, in most cases, amount to less than one year in prison and do not include dishonorable discharges...
...Quite apart from the current efforts to negotiate a breakthrough, the settlements are counter to long-standing American policy, a fact barely discernible in congressional reaction to Mr...
...Portland, Me...
...Catholic Conference took up the issue again and published a "Statement on Registration and Conscription for Military Service...
...Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen Alava, Pamela Quatse Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome but cannot be considered or retomed unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...388: Commonweal Secretary Baker's observation, offered in response to a question from Representative David Obey (D-Wis...
...CONTENTS Volume CXVIII, Number 12 Correspondence 386 Editorials 387 What did you know?: Patrick Barnard 389 Making facts, not peace: Patrick White 390 A waste of time?: John Garvey 392 Reordering the world: J. Bryan Hehir 393 Keep your prayers to yourself?.: R. Bruce Douglass 395 The water is deep: Madeline Marget 399 Poetry: Carl L. Bankston IIl 402 S.E...
...Nothing has made my job of trying to fred Arab and Palestinian partners for Israel more difficult than being greeted by a new settlement every time I arrive...
...By requiring applicants to deploy to the Gulf, the armed forces were making sure prospective COs would have little access to lawyers, counselors, or witnesses...
...Isn't that like: "take the money and run...
...Despite the verdict, it is clear from reading Wiggins's testimony that he arrived at a bona fide moral conviction against all war while serving in the Army, and that he was willing to pay up personally...
...In their 1983 pastoral letter, The Challenge of Peace, the U.S...
...some, protesting this policy, arrived in chains...
...chairman of the House Banking Committee, claims that Italian officials of BNL have confirmed to him that "the CIA was involved in the concession of loans by BNL to Iraq...
...CROSSING THE LINE What a contrast there is between Israel's policy of marginalizing the Palestinians in their own land and the heartfelt welcome they have given the Ethiopian Jews...
...Within Baghdad's global and secret arms network, the highly specialized U.S...
...Baker is able to calibrate the importance of each of the many obstacles to peace he has encountered over the last two months in the Middle East...
...military goods to Iraq via Egypt, Kuwait, and Jordan...
...In the normal course of military routine, his request would have been ruled on by May 1990...
...In January 1982, the then director of the CIA, William Casey, appointed Robert Gates Deputy Director for Intelligence, the top analyst's post and a prize plum for the Casey prot6g6...
...This sense of generosity disappears at the Green Line, as Secretary of State James Baker had reason to lament in testimony before Congress on May 23...
...Answering the c a l l fter joining an all-volunteer army and taking advantage of its benefits, can a soldier refuse to fight...
...Sharon's blatant provocations but they do not disagree with the policy...
...Ariel Sharon, minister of housing, has been quite clear about that...
...He asked to be discharged, axld he volunteered to repay his debt for his education either monetarily or through service in the Peace Corps...
...AND WHEN DID YOU KNOW IT...
...In September, the Pentagon suddenly announced that it was refusing to process all CO claims until applicants had been deployed to the Gulf...
...Though serious obstacles come from the Arab side as well, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the increase of land seizures in the occupied territories and the growth of the Israeli settlements are meant to derail the secretary's negotiation efforts (see Patrick White's article, pp...
...But who better than Mr...
...Nonetheless, respect for individual conscience and belief is at the heart of our First Amendment fights and freedoms...
...Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas, New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...It could also mandate that those seeking CO or SCO status perform alternative service, perhaps of greater duration or at less pay, making such service less inviting to the insincere...
...Yet, as most adults know, moral clarity often comes only at the moment when situation and principle actually join...
...QUESTIONS FOR MR...
...He was grateful: He could have gone to prison for five-and-a-half years...
...When Dr...
...That appraisal is one we must all make...
...In 1980, however, the U.S...
...Display advertising correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...According to Pax Christi USA, the armed forces 14 June 1991:387 have applied a different standard of punishment to COs than to those who went AWOL simply to avoid duty...
...COs have gotten dishonorable discharges and prison sentences of up to twenty-five months...
...If our laws don't respect such principles, in the final analysis, what is it we are fighting for...
...From 1985-1989, Baghdad, for its part, employed the Atlanta, Georgia, branch of the state-owned Italian bank, the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), to channel more than $4 billion of weaponry from the U.S...
...The next issue will be dated July 12...
...to provide legal recognition of selective conscientious objection based on the just-war teaching...
...There were other service objectors to the Gulf War, but they did not come to their position in advance of the conflict...
...While at another time they might easily have qualified as COs (each year, the armed forces recognize and honorably discharge about two-hundredand-fifty conscientious objectors), in the midst of war they have had to overcome an understandable skepticism...
...An Israel that does this--slowly or swiftly, in stages or all at once--is an Israel that the United States should not support...
...The settlements are an effort to create a de facto and permanent Israeli presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem...
...The t-u'st groups of Ethiopian Jews were welcomed in 1984...
...With the Gulf War, the need for such a designation became even clearer...
...If not, can Gates explain why the CIA did not know more about the three thousand telexes sent from the obscure Georgia bank to major institutions in Iraq...
...During the Bush administration, Robert Gates moved from CIA to become deputy national security adviser under Brent Scowcroft...
...dealings, managed by BNL-Atlanta, took $1.9 billion of American taxpayers' funds from the CCC to aid procurement...
...In 1968 the Catholic bishops of the United States, however, in keeping with the church's just-war teaching, had recommended that the Selective Service Act then in force be modified to recognize selective conscientious objectors (those, who while not absolute pacifists, had concluded that a specific war was unjust, or who, because of the indiscriminate nature of certain modem weapons systems, had moral reservations about participating in military actions...
...brothers and sisters were flown from warwracked Addis Abba to an ecstatic welcome at LOd Airport...
...Congress could augment the present formulation for conscientious objector status from merely those who oppose "war in any form" to include those opposed to war "'in a particular form...
...At his coming confirmation hearings, some legislators plan to press Gates about his conduct during the Iran-contra scandal...
...When the settlements now serve as a critical barrier to peace negotiations, Mr...
...Question: Did Robert Gates know about Casey's visit or help to prepare it...
...Fuerst 403 Stage: Gerald Weales 405 Screen: Richard Alleva 406 BOOKS Dickens: Edward T. Wheeler 408 In the Parish of the Poor: John P. Hogan 409 Palace of Desire: David Castronovo 410 The New Medicine and the Old Ethics: Howard Spiro 412 STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Associate Editor: Paul Baumann Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Movies: Richard Alleva Stage: Gerald Weales Poetry: Rosemary Deen Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr...
...Mead 406 Time to get off the bus?: J.S...
...But if that is the case, can a soldier never change his or her mind about fighting, even for conscience sake...
...New York, N.Y...
...Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...p resident George Bush's nomination of Robert M. Gates to replace the outgoing William Webster as director of the CIA has prompted justified concern in Congress...
...Instead, it was delayed, and after the invasion of Kuwait the Army's Conscientious Objector Review Board ruled against Wiggins...
...For that reason, they have been advised by legal counsel to present their decision to refuse orders in terms of traditional pacifism rather than "selective conscientious objection...
...04106 (207) 799-4387, classified adverrising correspondence to 15 Dutch St...
...Wiggins landed in Saudi Arabia in December, he again refused to take up his duties but offered to work for the International Red Cross in Saudi Arabia or to help care for P.O.W.s inside Iraq...
...Thus, in an April 25, 1991, letter to President George Bush--who had argued that the Gulf War was "just" by justwar standards---thirty-three Catholic bishops asked the president "Stay" In keeping with Commorm,ears usual summer schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...
...They stem from five specific aspects of the connections between the U.S...
...They are well advised to do so...
...Some objectors came to conclude that the Gulf War was the wrong war for the wrong reasons at the wrong time...
...The liens on so many members blind them not only to U.S...
...He told the Army at Fort Hood, Texas, that at twenty-seven, "I finally realized the truth: War, the intentional slaughter of innocent human life, is unchristian and immoral by any standard...
...Legally, the right to refuse to participate in a particular war because it has failed just-war tenets should be codified in U.S...
Vol. 118 • June 1991 • No. 12
