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This past Thursday, 3/28, WPFW aired an absulutely horrendous piece of propaganda on Josephine Reid's show "On the Margin" a literary show that airs every Thursday from 10-11 am. On 3/28, Ms. Reid interviewed Samantha Powers, author of a book titled "A Problem From Hell", a book about responding to cases of genocide in the world. In the interview, Ms. Powers shamelessly advocated American military intervention in any area of the world where there are civil wars going on, and charges of genocide being committed against various ethnic groups. She defended American military intervention in Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia and Kosovo, and said that the US should intervene militarily in other areas of the world as well, such as Rwanda. Her arguments had a very self-righteous tone to them, implying that the United States has the moral authority to tell other countries how they should resolve their internal conflicts, and that the US supposedly has a "moral" duty to intervene in conflicted areas in the name of "humanitarian" intervention. Even though Bill Clinton is one of the most militaristic Presidents this country has ever had, and initiated more US military actions than Nixon, Carter and Reagan combined, Ms. Powers complained that Clinton had, of all things, not intervened militarily in ENOUGH areas of the world, had not intervened soon ENOUGH or strong ENOUGH in Bosnia, Somalia and Kosovo. I found it very disturbing that Pacifica, a station that purports to be progressive, and was founded by pacifists, would see fit to air such a pro-militarist and pro-imperialist piece. I believe we should express our displeasure to WPFW for airing this piece. I believe that it is very dangerous at this time of increasing militarism and war fervor for the station to be promoting and encouraging such pro-interventionist sentiments. The ploy of couching wars in terms of "humanitarian intervention" is dangerous, because it gives these wars an air of undeserved legitimacy. This was used by Clinton by justifying the war against Serbia as a war to stop "ethnic cleansing", and is also being applied by the Bush Administration by claiming that the war against the Taliban "liberated" Afgan women. Personally, I believe that the progressive view should be that if there are real cases of genocide happening and people feel compelled to do something to help in these situations there are charitable non-governmental organizations that activists can support as individuals that will help the victims, but that progressives should never call for the military force of the US government to be brought down on smaller, weaker nations. I work with a DC Coalition to Stop the War Against Iraq, and we're hopefully going to write some sort of a letter written in the name of the Coalition to Pacifica. If we do, I'll post a copy of it to this list. I'll also try to get contact information for Pacifica for anybody who wants to complain to then Peacefully Yours, Nancy A. Hey --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
