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.