Activist criticizes U.S. actions abroad

Cofounder of Code Pink: Women for Peace and a long-time human rights activist Medea Benjamin sharply criticized United States' actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that the country's actions have only worsened conditions abroad.

Code Pink is a grassroots organization dedicated to peace and social justice, seeking change through protest and nonviolent action.

Her speech, held Thursday in the Shea Room, was part of the Radical Women's Speaker's series sponsored by the Undergraduate Government of Boston College.

Benjamin argued the Bush administration's handling of both countries has resulted in increased poverty, heightened violence towards women, and overall insecurity in both nations.

She also said that the cost of U.S. military actions abroad has drained resources on the domestic level. She began by addressing the position of the anti-war movement in the United States, something she said has slackened considerably over the course of the past two years.

"We're in a tough spot right now, and that is, that the anti-war movement that was so strong before the war began ... got really disoriented during the presidential election campaign," Benjamin said.

"I think because people were so determined to hold Bush accountable that we gave the Democrats a lot of slack, and put a lot of energy into trying to have a different outcome than the one that happened on Nov. 2," she added.

Benjamin also cited the administration's portrayals of the Iraqi elections as a resounding success as another blow to the anti-war movement.

"I think that the way that it has been portrayed in the United States as a great success for the policies of the administration, and that this has now showed a wave of democratic reform blowing over the Middle East has left a lot of people confused," she said, alluding to recent developments in relations between Lebanon and Syria.

Benjamin then attacked what she called "myths about democracy in the Middle East."

Her first target was the invasion of Afghanistan, the apparent success of which she said strengthened arguments for invading Iraq.

"When you look a little deeper at what is really happening in Afghanistan you see that it is basically a narco-state. It is a state that is producing now 87 percent of the heroin for the entire world; that's gone up from 12 percent just a couple of years ago," she said.

What resulted, she argued, was a decentralization of governmental power in favor of drug-producing warlords and an overall worsening of living conditions for much of the population, especially women.

"If you see the condition of Afghan women today, it hasn't changed much at all. Yes, schools were opened up for girls, but 80 percent of girls are not going to school either because the security situation is too dangerous or because of poverty," she said.

Benjamin said present conditions show the United State's inability to fulfill its wartime promises.

"Afghanistan today remains an impoverished nation where one out of every five children dies before the age of five, where the educational system is deemed by UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund] to be the worst in the world, and where people feel betrayed by the United States for the promises of rebuilding the country that have never been fulfilled," she said.

Benjamin made a similar argument regarding the present situation in Iraq.

Before the war, she said, many Iraqis enjoyed a middle-class standard of living, however, alleged ensuing poverty and insecurity have so shaken the Iraqi populous that many want to see the United States leave immediately.

"Most Iraqis understand, unlike most Americans, that violence will not cease until American troops leave," she said.

She supported the position by citing poll data, collected at the time of the Iraqi elections that suggested 69 percent of Shias and 82 percent of Sunnis wanted the U.S. to leave either immediately or after the installation of a new government.

"And so many people who voted for the coalition that got the most votes were actually voting on the understanding that that was a coalition that was calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops," said Benjamin.

As further evidence for not only U.S. failures, but U.S. misconduct in Iraq, she showed pictures given to her by Iraqis from Fallujah she contacted on a recent trip to Amman, Jordan.

She traveled there with numerous family members of servicemen killed in Iraq to deliver $650,000 in medical supplies to the people of Fallujah, many of whom, she alleged, were victims of "war crimes" and the "usage of chemical weapons," a claim she supported with a grisly photo of a severely disfigured human body.

Benjamin closed her remarks by suggesting ways to bolster support for the anti-war movement.

She argued for more effective use of independent media outlets to oppose what she described as the failures of big media in the United States, greater pressure on government to bring National Guard troops home, and a movement aimed at emphasizing the domestic costs of war.