Peter King’s attacks on Muslims are an antiwar issue. We all must
respond!
We,
the undersigned peace and antiwar organizations, call for the immediate
cessation of the hearings on “Muslim radicalization” being orchestrated by
Representative Peter King (R-NY), Chair of the U.S. Congressional Committee on
Homeland Security.
We
believe that these hearings will do nothing to protect residents of the United
States from terrorism. This attack on Muslims within the U.S. is an extension
of U.S. wars in the Muslim world.
Demonizing
these populations has been part and parcel of a so-called “War on Terror,” a US
foreign policy that has resulted in the last ten years in the death and maiming
of many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis and thousands of
U.S. soldiers, and the expenditure of trillions of US dollars desperately
needed at home for jobs, social services, education, and housing.
Talk
of a U.S. military intervention into Libya threatens even more death and
austerity. Will the King
hearings be used to justify even further expansion of U.S. military
intervention in the Arab world?
Representative
King is also deepening the attacks on the civil liberties of all residents of
the United States. It is an effort
to criminalize all opposition to U.S. wars. His false claim that
80% of U.S. mosques are dominated by “radical Islam” can only lead to efforts
to restrict the freedom of religious expression and the freedom to express
opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The aspirations
of the majority of the peoples of the U.S., the Middle East, South Africa, and
South Asia for democracy and a dignified life will not be furthered by
McCarthyite hearings that give a platform to hate and to the purveyors of war
and repression.
We
call on Congress and President Obama to call an immediate halt to this attempt
to revisit the most horrific episodes in war-time and political hysteria in
U.S. history. We also call for the
total abandonment of language and behaviors which serve to demonize people on
the basis of their faith community including the use (abuse) of hearings and
the use (abuse) of media by virtue of access as elected officials.
Call
Off the King ‘Witch Hunt’ on Muslim Americans!
U.S. Out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Now!
No
U.S. Military Intervention in North Africa!
United National
Antiwar Committee UNACpeace.org
Endorsers to date: Code Pink, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Kathy Kelly – Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Veterans for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, International Action Center.