Giving Peace a Chance?
Random acts of cluelessness at Berkeley.

By Sheri Annis, a Los Angeles-based political and media consultant.
October 17, 2001 3:15 p.m.

erkeley, Calif., that most tolerant city, has found something new to tolerate: the murder of 6,000 Americans by fanatical terrorists.

A majority of the Berkeley city council Tuesday night urged approval of a recommendation to "send letters to our elected national representatives asking them to take whatever action they can to cease the bombing of Afghanistan and to seek a legal, non-military resolution." Furthermore, it seeks to adjourn the council meeting "in memory of the innocent civilians in Afghanistan being harmed and made refugees due to the bombing."

Who elects these people, anyway?

Having lived in both Northern and Southern California, I used to wonder which city's governance, Berkeley or Santa Monica, is most out of touch with the rest of the nation.

Well, Berkeley's winning, hands down.

I once watched a Santa Monica restaurant owner being berated because one of his many permits had not yet come through. His crime: allowing outside seating for two tables of two on the local promenade. (He apologized profusely.) The way he was interrogated by the city council for not following orders, you'd think he was a terrorism suspect.

Berkeley got back in the race-to-the-bottom last month, when its city manager forced the local firefighters — who had spearheaded an effort to raise money for the families of their fallen comrades — to remove American flags from their fire trucks. An anti-war rally had been scheduled, and the city manager felt that the flags might make protestors uncomfortable and therefore spark violence. The logic was that the "peace" protestors could become violent if made to look at the American flag. (The policy has since been rescinded.)

But the latest Berkeley resolution takes the cake.

Passing resolutions may be harmless, I suppose. But the Berkeley lawmakers seem clueless about the fact that if the United States does not take action, the terrorists could strike again, perhaps even in a city by the bay — say on Telegraph Avenue, or at UC Berkeley.

I believe in peace. That's why I want terrorists dead.

These statements are not incompatible. But while polls show that as much as 95 percent of Americans believe military action is justified against those who attacked New York and Washington, Berkeley, in its ignorant bliss, is still preaching nonviolence as the solution.

What they don't seem to get is that even a city like Berkeley is not immune from attack. The city council members say violence should not be fought with violence. But at what point do they advocate protecting themselves? This horrifying attack is as clear-cut a reason for retaliation as any in our history. It's important to pinpoint our targets, but once we've done that, let's blow them out of the water.

Yes, any civilian death is tragic, but the terms of these deaths are very different. The civilians who died on September 11, both American and foreign citizens, were targeted, by hijackers determined to kill as many thousands as possible. The Taliban and al Qaeda have initiated a war on America and essentially all free nations (quite a few not-so-free nations feel threatened, too). Civilians who die because of errant American bombs are not the intended targets. (Indeed, we've passed up many inviting Afghan targets specifically in order to avoid killing civilians.) But this is a distinction that seems to elude the Berkeley city council.

The councilwoman who sponsored the recommendation, Dona Spring, recently told the UC Berkeley campus newspaper, the Daily Californian, that "The U.S. is now a terrorist nation." (Spring disputes the context.) If this woman ever lives in a true terrorist nation, she'll probably have a different perspective. Under the Taliban, for instance, she wouldn't be allowed to work in the first place.

Fortunately, no one cares what the Berkeley city council thinks about national defense. So let them keep passing resolutions to their hearts' content. These days, we could all use a little comic relief.