WRITE LETTER TO NEW TORK TIMES REGARDING EDITORIAL ON IRAQ

A project of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)
521 North Broadway,
Nyack, New York 10960
forbsp@igc.org

The New York Times staff editorial of November 3, 1998 calls on the United States to prepare for military action against Iraq. The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest and largest interfaith organization in the United States, appeals to your moral sensibilities to write to the New York Times, and other publications, which are calling for war. Please ask them to call on national leaders to respond non-violently to a serious global dilemma. We are quite certain that violence never solves anything, it only deepens the spiral of death and suffering; and will do so if the United States chooses to use violence to force Iraq to allow inspections to continue.

I attach a sample letter to the editor, as well as the e-mail address of the New York Times. Please take a minute and send them a response to their editorial.

Their bellicose statements require such a response.

--Nicholas Arons

e-mail address: letters@nytimes.com

To the editor,

I write in response to your editorial on November 3, 1998, entitled "Iraq's Audacious Defiance." I am saddened that a national newspaper has called for the use of violence against a nation which has been punished for eight years by debilitating economic sanctions. Since over one million people have already died as a result of the sanctions, killing more people will certainly not result in a decision by Iraq to allow inspections to continue. I am no supporter of Saddam Hussein, but I strongly believe that the United States will not improve the living conditions of people in his austere regime by utilizing violent means and weapons that we are asking Iraq to cease making. Violence only begets violence, and we ask you to please reconsider your editorial opinion, and call on international leaders to engage in non-violent reconciliation.

Sincerely,

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