Barbara Lee Speaks for Me

by Frances M. Beal

fmbeal@igc.org

Barbara Lee Speaks for Me



With grief, horror and anger over the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon carnage gripping the nation, the drums of war beat ever

faster and louder from the highest office in the land to street corner

apostles shouting, "Bomb them back to the Stone Age." Amid this

emotional milieu, it takes a lot of political courage to stand up

against a precipitous rush toward military vengeance and only one

member of Congress found the temerity to do so. That person is

the House representative from the Ninth District of California, the

Honorable Barbara Lee.

In opposing the resolution that literally gave the President carte

blanche to go anywhere and do anything militarily with a $40 billion

budget in hand, Barbara Lee was speaking for me and for

thousands if not millions here in the U.S. who do not believe that

indiscriminate slaughter of civilian men, women and children

abroad is an appropriate response to the terrorist attacks in the

U.S. Will it make us more secure and safe from future assaults of

this kind? Do we really know what group is responsible? Is there an

alternative approach? Addressing the military option earlier this

year, Lee articulates a global justice option that is shared by many:

"To be secure in this world," Lee writes, "we must educate our

children, house the homeless, and feed the hungry. We must work

to promote peace and attack fundamental threats to global security

such as AIDS and other profound health threats. These are

national security issues, and they must be addressed as such."

African Americans should have no problem understanding this link

between justice and national security. It is the same argument we

use domestically in the fight against racist criminal justice policies

when we demand a switch from the criminalization of social ills

and the incarceration of Blacks and other people of color to the

provision of education, jobs, health and welfare services.

Even more pertinent to coming to grips with the terrorist assault on

the U.S., unfortunately, is a review of recent U.S. foreign policy,

which Lee also proposes. The most prominent suspect (he

categorically denies culpability), Osama ben Laden, for example, is

a creation of U.S. intelligence forces that recruited and armed right

wing Islamic fundamentalists in the Cold War zeal to defeat a

Soviet-backed democratic regime in Afghanistan. And it was the

almighty dollar that supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in

creating thousands of religious schools from which the seeds of