2001 - Iraq

David E. Anderson

Sometimes, late at night, when I’m trying to clear my mind of the daily debris that journalism casts on my mental shore, I write a little poetry. It’s mostly for myself and is principally a way of connecting to the language, to a different kind of story-telling than that which drives most days. I remembered that over a year ago I had written a poem called ‘No Fly Zone’ which, indeed, touched in an oblique way on our topic.

Denis J. Halliday

When preparing for this event I realised how little I know about the media! Of course - like many others - I have had my frustrations with the New York Times. In fact often just reading it is too much! I refer to Friedman/Safire and others on the op-ed page and those appalling editorials - although every now and then a good one emerges.

Thomas J. Gumbleton

When you become very much aware of the humanitarian crisis, I think we need also to be aware that we face a very profound spiritual crisis in this country. And one way, perhaps, that I can make that clear, the kind of spiritual crisis that we face, is by sharing with you something that I just came across just recently.

Hans von Sponeck

I think this is an important moment because the Iraq discussion is at a crossroads and honesty and media can play an important role in deciding in which direction this discussion develops.

Jake Lynch

Journalism is a form of realism. It presents itself as reporting the facts, reflecting reality or revealing the truth. But these days that’s more and more obviously naïve. What if news is, instead, part of a process or at least intertwined with a set of processes, working to construct the truth?

James M. Wall

Two mothers meet on a street corner. One asks the other: ‘How are the kids?’ The second mother responds, with weary exasperation, ‘Don’t ask.’ And then she answers. ‘My son’s new wife is impossible. She never gets his meals cooked on time; she is always demanding money to buy stuff; and, worst of all, she thinks she has to have a new winter coat just because her old one is not in style. What a loser this woman is!’

John L. McCullough

The ecumenical community in the United States has been engaged by and involved in responding to US policy towards Iraq for over a decade. While condemning Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait, the ecumenical community was united in its position that an appropriate policy approach must be multilateral, and not unilaterally determined by the United States, and that non-military means such as sanctions and diplomacy were the better means of resolving the immediate crisis. Moreover, the ecumenical community also pointed to the larger regional issues like massive arms sales and militarisation, wide disparities of wealth and poverty, unelected and unaccountable governments, and the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as contributing factors.

Kathy Kelly

In spite of the numbing effect that mainstream media reports have created, an effect that lowers the general public’s ability to respond adequately to war-making efforts against Iraqi civilians, I think current campaign efforts show signs of life and growth. We are still fuelled by the spirit of resurrection that tells us you can’t kill the likes of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and Mohandas Gandhi. Powers and principalities could not prevail against the good news of Jesus. The message that calls for love of neighbour and love of enemy rises in our efforts to speak truthfully and persuasively.

Mike Nahhal

Sanctions here, sanctions there, sanctions everywhere. First Cuba and South Africa, then Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, and Kosovo. Who will be next on the list? How many more nations must be put under sanctions, how many more people must suffer and endure the effects of sanctions, before this method of punishment is eliminated?

Comment: In 1959 the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would not release any information about radioactive material without prior approval by the IAEA, which will never agree to that under the present circumstances. The WHO may now be in a position to do some research, which it would have to do in consultation with lots of really important people, statisticians and others so that they could do a proper job. But the report would have to be handed to the IAEA and therefore would be blocked from being publicised.