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2009 Annual Peace Conference

NFP

What a Just U.S. Policy
in the Muslim World
Would Look Like

DOWNLOAD CONFERENCE BROCHURE

Phyllis Bennis
The Institute for Policy Studies
Washington, D.C.

Saturday, October 24
9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Trinity United Methodist Church
5th & Elm Streets
Grand Island, Nebraska

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan…

The nations with which the U.S. is becoming politically and militarily entangled seem to be growing by the year. In the last decade alone, the U.S. government’s ‘War on Terror’ in the Middle East and Central Asia has cost over a trillion dollars in taxpayer money, a fortune in international ‘good will’ and hundreds of thousands of lives.

But the U.S.’s policy problems in this region aren’t limited to these battlefields. Other oil-rich, strategic and Muslim countries as diverse as Somalia and Nigeria in Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and Palestine in the Mideast, are all simmering ‘hot spots’ that could erupt if the U.S. doesn’t change its policies in these vast areas of the globe.

Author and analyst Phyllis Bennis, who directs the New Internationalism Project for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and serves as a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, is uniquely positioned to help chart a new course for the U.S. in the Mideast and Central Asia.

While working as a journalist at the U.N. during the run-up to the 1990-91 Gulf War, she witnessed first-hand the U.S.’s efforts to dictate terms at the United Nations. That experience in turn drew her into the struggle over the use of ‘economic sanctions’ to punish Iraq for its alleged weapons of mass destruction. In 1999, Bennis accompanied a group of congressional aides to Iraq to examine the impact of U.S.-led sanctions on humanitarian conditions there, and later joined former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, who resigned his position as Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq to protest the impact of sanctions, in a speaking tour.

In 2001 she helped found (and still serves on the steering committee of) both the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation and the national anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice. She also co-chairs the U.N.-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine and acts as an informal adviser to several United Nations officials on Middle East issues.

Bennis is the author of numerous books, including Ending the Iraq War: A Primer (Olive Branch Press, 2008), Understanding the U.S.-Iran Crisis: A Primer (Olive Branch Press, 2008), Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (Interlink, 2009), Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power (Interlink, 2005) and Before & After: U.S Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis (Interlink, 2002).

This year’s Annual Peace Conference, which is co-sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Omaha School of Social Work, will be held on Saturday, October 24 at Trinity United Methodist Church, 5th & Elm Streets in Grand Island, starting at 9:30 a.m. In addition to the keynote speech by Bennis, there will be a second presentation from a representative of Amnesty International, outlining the need for a more just national immigration policy. The luncheon program will continue the celebration of the 40th anniversary of NFP’s founding, confirming our status as ‘the oldest statewide Peace & Justice organization in the country.’ And the afternoon session will feature a selection of Peace & Justice Workshops covering a gamut of timely topics. Registration for the entire day, which includes lunch, is $25 if you register by October 20. (After the deadline, the cost rises to $30.) Four-and-one-half CEUs are available for Social Workers and Licensed Mental Health Practitioners.

For information on how to register contact the NFP State Office directly by email at nfpstate@nebraskansfor peace.org or by phone at 402-475-4620.