By Dawn Morais Webster
Special to the Herald
Many of us feel impotent in the face of the world’s addiction to war and violence. But as the poet Adrienne Rich said, we do well to cast our lot “with those/who age after age, perversely/with no extraordinary power/reconstitute the world.” That is why I found myself recently standing next to about a dozen like-minded individuals, under the watchful gaze of St. Damien in front of the Hawaii State Capitol, holding signs calling for an end to militarism. This vigil on the first working day of every month was started by lifetime peace activist, Wally Inglis, after the 2018 false alarm about an incoming missile. Before and after the monthly civil defense siren wails at 11:45, Wally and friends stand with signs that remind those passing by, and those in the Capitol that “the nuclear threat is real. The nations of the world continue to call for disarmament — a call ignored or mocked by the U.S. and other nuclear powers … even as the killing in Ukraine and Gaza make nuclear war a possibility.”
This month the small group included 22-year Hawaii resident Ann Wright who has taken the same dire warning personally into the U.S. Senate Chamber and the United Nations where she recently addressed the Security Council. This retired colonel has served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves. A diplomat for 16 years, she served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. She is a member of Hawaii Peace and Justice and Veterans For Peace Hawaii Chapter.
She expressed horror at the “shameful” U.S. veto of the ceasefire resolution for Gaza on Dec. 8, 2023. At that point over 18,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli bombing using U.S.-provided munitions. That number has since climbed to over 22,000, more than 8,000 of them children. This is the “self-defense” that the U.S. continues to say Israel is justified to carry out?
Israel gets $3.3 billion annually from the US. The Biden administration wants to send another $10 billion. The media recently reported that “the State Department approved a proposed $147.5 million sale of artillery munitions and related equipment to Israel, invoking an emergency provision that avoids a congressional review process generally required for arms sales to other nations.”
Wright highlighted that, as of late October, the U.S. had delivered 36,000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition, 1,800 M141 bunker-buster munitions and at least 3,500 night-vision devices, ammunition for AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships including about 2,000 Hellfire laser-guided missiles, 57,000 155mm high explosive artillery shells and 20,000 M4A1 rifles, 5,000 PVS-14 night vision devices, 3,000 M141 hand-held bunker-buster munitions, 400 120mm mortars and 75 of the Army and Marine Corps’ new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, and 312 Tamir missile interceptors for the Iron Dome.
Secretary of State Blinken has argued that security assistance to other nations is a “win-win” because it stimulates economic growth here. But Wright observed, it’s not a win for innocent civilians getting slaughtered. The military industrial complex wins. The politicians and retired government officials who go on to high-paying jobs with defense companies win.
Senator Bernie Sanders has called Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack “grossly disproportionate, immoral, and in violation of international law. He points out that “half of the population of about 2.2 million are at risk of starvation and 90% say that they regularly go without food for a whole day.” When will Hawaii’s Congressional delegation and Governor Green join Sanders in saying this runs contrary to our culture of aloha? As Sanders says, “Enough is enough … [We] must no longer be complicit in destroying the lives of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.” Ceasefire now!
Dawn Morais Webster attends Mass at the Mystical Rose Oratory at Chaminade University.
