Global Candlelight Vigil for Peace
Statement to Senator Charles Schumer
Brooklyn Parents for Peace (718-624-5921)
Read by Carolyn Eisenberg, Co-Founder
September 24, 2006
We stand here this evening to remember those, who have perished in Iraq and to express our fervent wish for peace. Many of us were gathered here on the night of March 16, 2003 asking you to speak out against an invasion, which seemed imminent although not inevitable.
Here is what we said then :
“Our hearts go out to the innocent people of Iraq—the men, women and children—who will face in a matter of days, the full wrath of an American attack…
“Our hearts go out as well to the young Americans, now poised for combat in the Middle East.” If the war comes, “Many of them will never see the age of thirty. Many of them will lose limbs. Many of them will carry images of horror that will never leave them. Many of them will be sick for the rest of their lives.”
Along with other politicians –Democrats and Republicans- you did not speak out. . And everything that we feared has now happened and worse: 2700 Americans dead, 20,000 wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, a country disintegrating before our eyes, their electricity, water, transportation, medical systems in ruins. People terrified to leave their homes. And still the occupation continues with no end in sight. And still you support it.
It is easy to blame the failures in Iraq on President Bush, to say as you did recently: “we haven’t seen enough smarts…and that’s why the things in Iraq are getting worse.” But this isn’t about “smarts, ” it is about principle and wisdom. It is about understanding that the attacks on the United States and upon Israel cannot be solved through war and domination, but by humane policies and diplomacy.
Look up and see the rage that is brewing in this world, when people contemplate the wreckage in Beirut and the anguish of Iraq. Count the casualties and the money spent, the New York constituents who will never come home. Reflect on the secret prisons, the use of torture, the unauthorized wiretaps, the use of “depleted uranium” and ‘cluster bombs.” These are the moral issues of our time. And you are either “missing in action.” or on the wrong side. The war in Iraq is not simply a “Bush war,” it is a Congressional war.
On this holiday night, we are reminded of the best Hebrew word: “Shalom”-peace. We call upon you to speak for peace, to make New Yorkers safer by rejecting violence and respecting the rights of other nations. We call upon you to show courage, to stand for principle, to do what is humanly possible to end this senseless killing. Shalom!