Peace prize winner 'could kill' Bush
The Australian:
Annabelle McDonald
July 25, 2006
NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren.
Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.
'I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent,' said Ms Williams, 64.
'Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.' Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.
'I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life.'
Ms Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 30 years ago, when she circulated a petition to end violence in Northern Ireland after witnessing British soldiers shoot dead an IRA member who was driving a car. He veered on to the footpath, killing two children from one family instantly and fatally injuring a third.
Ms Williams's petition had tens of thousands of Protestant and Catholic women walking the streets together in protest. Now the former office receptionist heads the World Centres of Compassion for Children International, a non-profit group working to create a political voice for children.
'My job is to tell you their stories,' Ms Williams said of a recent trip to Iraq.
'We went to a hospital where there were 200 children; they were beautiful, all of them, but they had cancers that the doctors couldn't even recognise. From the first Gulf War, the mothers' wombs were infected.
'As I was leaving the hospital, I said to the doctor, 'How many of these babies do you think are going to live?'
'He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'None, not one'. They needed five different kinds of medication to treat the cancers that the children had, and the embargoes laid on by the United States and the United Nations only allowed them three.'
Wrapping up the three-day forum yesterday, delegates agreed to a 26-point action plan.
'There can be no sustainable peace while the majority of the world's population lives in poverty,' they said.
'There can be no sustainable peace if we fail to rise to the global challenge presented by climate change.
'There can be no sustainable peace while military spending takes precedence over human development.'"
You tell 'em, Sister! 80% of the casualties of war are women and children, who NEVER have the political power to prevent it. It makes me so angry - why can't they fight in a field the way the Brits used to? At least then only soldiers were hurt.
If you ever want to start a fight with me, just use the oh-so- offensive term "collateral damage." They should have to call it what it is - dead babies. I hate this fuckin' war, and every other as well. We're supposed to be humans with the ability to reason and negotiate. We need to get down under the roots of the idea that a bomb can solve anything, and undo it. It can't and it never will. There's no justification to kill.
posted by Morgaine @ 6:18 AM
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3 Comments:
Maybe more women and children are killed because men are beginning to recognize at some level that we're more important than they are. It's women who rear the men-children. Once women wise up, I think they'll start whispering different messages into the ears of their babies.
My latest theory is that we're all members of "The Starvation Culture." We're descended from people who actually did starve, and exhibited classic starvation behavior -- losing interest in all pleasures but eating; killing anyone -- even their parents or children -- for a bite to eat. Losing the ability to see the needs and pain of others.
Our Starvation Culture makes us subconsciously afraid of starving to death. Thus war: we have to take everything we can get our hands on from everyone else. Thus compulsive eating: we can't understand why we can't stop eating. Thus environmental trashing: Mother Earth abandoned us by turning to desert, so we trash her in our subconscious anger. Thus hatred of women: If Mother Earth is bad, so must women be. Thus child and parent abuse, rape, and almost all our other ills.
Whaddya think?
80% of the casualties of war are women and children, who NEVER have the political power to prevent it.
That is simply false. The majority of victims in most wars are male. In Iraq, for example, adult men were the demographic group most likely to be victims. Adult women were the least. See my post here for details.
You are patently wrong, Daran:
Via Japan Times On Line
"According to a report prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross, titled 'Women and War' and based on two years of research from 1998 to 1999, approximately 80 percent of war victims are women and children. This is mainly because military conflicts now more commonly engulf towns and cities instead of only frontline areas.
There are many in this world for whom the ravages of war - including arson, looting, murder and rape -- are a way of life. These people have known little else than war all their lives, like their parents before them and their children (if they survive) after them. These generations of war face atrocities on a daily basis, and most of these go unnoticed by the rest of the world.
--snip--
While rape can be used to brutalize both sexes, it is usually committed against women during wartime -- males are usually killed or captured. Ongoing conflicts in many countries, including Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan and Congo, have victims of war rapes running into the thousands.
--snip--
Rape is a more effective weapon of war than killing. Many victims say they would prefer death over life after being raped." [emphasis mine]
*************************************
Read the whole article if you have the stomach for it.
I'm cross-posting this every damned place I can because I'm sick of people telling me that war affects men and women equally.
80% Women and Children. Only one in five is a man. War is a Woman's issue. Women's Rights Are Human Rights.
http://the-goddess.org/blog/2005/06/japan-times-online.html
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