Protest of Killer Drones
 
        CL had a contingent at this anti-drone rally at Hancock Air Force Base in Syracuse, New York, on October 5.
 
Photo, Left to Right:
Mark Carver, with CL member group Justice House Catholic Worker in Trumansburg, NY
Ellen Grady, main organizer of rally
Carol Crossed and Rachel Leigh Peller, CL board members
   
Stopping Terrorism 101
 
        The late Glen Stassen, a CL endorser, addressed the effectiveness of the U.S.’s approach of using war, drone killings and torture of prisoners by citing the U.S. Department of State official report: 

• 208 terrorist attacks killed 625 people - 2003.
• 3,168 attacks killed 1,907 - 2004
• 11,111 attacks killed 14,602 - 2005
• 14,500 attacks killed 20,745 - 2006
• 14,506 attacks killed 22,508 - 2007
• 11,770 attacks killed 15,765 - 2008

         He points out that in contrast, the struggles of Great Britain’s government against the Irish Republican Army, and Turkey’s against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, employed strategies of working for human rights, economic development, and political representation for Northern Ireland and Kurdish areas. They used Just Peacemaking practices. Both terrorist movements have essentially ceased.  
 
Source: Interfaith just peacemaking: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives on the new paradigm of peace and war, edited by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, (2012). New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 174-175
 
       Stassen relates a study examining 268 terrorist organizations that ceased operations during a 40-year period. The main causes of the movements ending were:

• Participation in political process, 43%
• Effective policing, 40%
• Military force, 7%

Source: How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida, by Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki. (2008) Santa Monica: CA: RAND Corporation
   
Muslims Stopping Terrorism
 
        There is an open letter, published September 19, signed by 136 well-respected Muslim scholars detailing why the current Islamic State terrorist activists are anti-Islamic, asking them to repent. This set of bold assertions comes from a large broad-based group of scholars. Islam has no hierarchical decision-making body, making Islamic scholars coming to consensus the highest form of authority in world-wide Islam.    
        Unfortunately, it has received little press coverage – the press prefers violent drama (“if it bleeds, it leads”) to acts trying to counter violence. As prolifers know only too well, the press coverage of condemnation of carnage done in the name of a cause is usually excruciatingly inadequate.
   
Sharp Abortion Clinic Drop in Texas
 
        Good news: of the 43 remaining clinics in the U.S. state of Texas, 14 shut down or stopped taking abortion appointments as of last Monday, as the law requiring them to meet the health standards of surgical centers went into effect. Yet appointments were immediately available in all but one of those remaining, so the closures haven’t led to long waiting lines. Supply was always pushing demand, especially since the “demand” was often being made on the pregnant woman by other people.




       This graphic comes from CL member group Feminists for Nonviolent Choices. The line comes from Prolifers for Survival founder Juli Loesch (now Julianne Wiley) who pointed out how handy abortion is for sexually irresponsible men: “How quickly a woman’s right to choose comes to serve a man’s right to use.”


 
Quotation of the Week
Mary Meehan
“Abortion. The Left Has Betrayed the Sanctity of Life:
Consistency Demands Concern for the Unborn"
The Progressive, September, 1980
 
       The abortion issue, more than most, illustrates the occasional tendency of the Left to become so enthusiastic over what is called a "reform" that it forgets to think the issue through. It is ironic that so many on the Left have done on abortion what the conservatives and Cold War liberals did on Vietnam: They marched off in the wrong direction, to fight the wrong war, against the wrong people.d>