Source:
Associated Press Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel said the "window is closing" on Iran and the possibility of diplomacy if it continues to ignore international demands to end pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
In his first opportunity to express his opinions since President Barack Obama nominated him Jan. 7, Hagel addressed a range of issues, from Iraq and Afghanistan to women in combat, in a 112-page questionnaire for the Senate Armed Services Committee. The panel submitted the extensive questions to Hagel in advance of his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
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"If Iran continues to flout its international obligations, it should continue to face severe and growing consequences," Hagel said. "While there is time and space for diplomacy, backed by pressure, the window is closing. Iran needs to demonstrate it is prepared to negotiate seriously."
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Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/hagel-window-closing-iran-diplomacy-170046922--politics.html
Obama, Kerry, and Hagel are going to make a great team!
I am confident they will be able to resolve this issue non-violently.
Remember - non-violence does not preclude property destruction:
http://quest.quaker.org/issue-10-johnson-02.htm
The Berrigan Tradition
One cannot address the issue of nonviolence and property damage without acknowledging the Berrigan brothers and the Plowshares movement. Daniel and Philip Berrigan were influenced by the writings of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. After participating in some rallies, marches and being arrested in protests against the Viet Nam war, the brothers Berrigan decided to take a bolder stand against the war. 14
On 17 May 1968, Daniel and Philip Berrigan along with seven others raided the Catonsville draft board. "First, they liberated about four hundred folders from a Selective Service office, drenched them with homemade napalm in an adjoining parking lot, then set them on fire. While the papers crackled, the protestors joined in prayer." 15 The "ultra resistance" was born. Their goal was to bring attention to the injustices of the Viet Nam War. 16 On 9 September 1980 a Plowshares group broke into a General Electric facility and destroyed the casing on nuclear war heads by hitting them with hammers and pouring blood over them. 17
The main argument used by the Berrigans and those who have taken up their cause is that some property has no right to exist and therefore damage done to this type of property is not violence. The movement maintains it is nonviolent because property not human life was harmed. 18 Examples of property that has no right to exist can be seen in things like nuclear arms or the ovens at Hitler’s concentration camps. The impact of the Berrigans can be seen in groups like the War Resisters League. In the 1986 War Resisters League Organizer’s Manual, the following is written about property damage:
"Some property has no right to exist (e.g., nuclear weapons, napalm, electric chairs). Other property, such as fences around nuclear power plants or military bases, while ‘neutral,’ serve only to protect facilities which are harming all of us. The concern is not their destruction, but how they are destroyed. No one has suggested blowing them up or indiscriminate property destruction, but a calm deliberate cutting of a fence with a minimum of hardware can gain entry into a site otherwise not accessible." 19
What is key to the quote above, and to this paper, is the distinc-tion in the types of property being destroyed. It is not indiscriminate. The targets of this type of property destruction are carefully selected and the attitude of those doing the destruction is spiritual.