U.S. tax dollars kill in Colombia but Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio doesn't care. His Columbus staff delivered this message on April 30 when they ordered myself and 9 other concerned constituents arrested for requesting a face-to-face meeting with the Senator.

For years students, teachers, faith-based activists, and workers of all sorts have met with DeWine's staff in their Washington and Ohio offices to call for a more humane policy toward Latin America. As U.S. involvement and the death toll in Colombia have escalated in recent years, concerned taxpayers from throughout the state have called, written and visited DeWine's staff, pleading with them to persuade the Senator to rethink his approach to America's drug problem. Despite our persistent efforts, the Senator has remained seemingly oblivious to our concerns, leading us to conclude that meeting with him in person is the only solution.

I am Jewish because all of my fathers and mothers before me were Jewish.

I am Jewish because I grew up on the south side of Chicago where even my public school was Jewish.

I am Jewish because my grandfather was oh so Jewish and I felt it then and feel it now.

I am Jewish because of the angry Irish boys who could feel my Jewish nose at the end of their Catholic fist.

I am Jewish because we are commanded to remember when we were slaves in the land of Egypt and I do.

I am Jewish because we are commanded to seek justice and because I believed my teachers who said we must do so.

I am Jewish because I have never felt any other way.

I am Jewish because dissent is my faith.

I am Jewish because I learned Hebrew and then forgot nearly every word of it.

I am Jewish because in my grandmother's kitchen nothing would rise, but of everything there was plenty.

I am Jewish because the South Shore Country Club was founded by people who wouldn't let us in.

Background

In 2001 over 12,000 Central Ohio residents signed a petition saying they wanted a vote at the ballot box in the City of Columbus on a moratorium to stop new City sewer and water service into the Big Darby Watershed. In October of 2001 the Franklin County Board of Elections certified that enough of those signatures were valid City voters to meet the requirements of the City Charter. Columbus City Council then voted in October to put the issue on the May ballot, according to the dictates of the Charter. That same Charter requires the Clerk of Council to immediately send the petition to the Board of Elections.

Animosity between India and Pakistan is spread over the past half a century, more or less equal to the total life of both South Asian nuclear neighbors. During this time, both the countries fought two full-scale wars (1965 and 1971) and two mini-wars (1948 and 1999). Interestingly, the two minor and one full-scale wars were fought over the issue of Kashmir, a state in the extreme north of south Asia. Both India and Pakistan claim their right over Kashmir. The war of 1971 split Pakistan into two halves, thus paving the way for the creation of present day Bangladesh.

Background of present conflicts

To understand the present stand-off between India and Pakistan, we must refer to the past that will guide us again to the present.

Akin to Europe, the sub-continent or south Asia (present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) as it is now being called, has never been under a single political authority in the annals of history. On the contrary, this part of the world remained divided into various empires, princely states and kingdoms in the past. Before 1947, there were no such countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh or India.

Authorities tell us that the world changed on September 11. As a result, university professors must watch what they say in class or be turned in to the "speech" police. Elected officials must censor themselves or be censured by the media. Citizens now report behavior of suspicious-looking people to the police. Laws now exist that erode our civil liberties. Americans now accept these infringements as necessary to win America's New War.

America, the world's only superpower, is stifled in its ability to defend human rights and democracy abroad because it has failed the fundamental test at home. Our combination of money and military might, and our willingness to use them, did not make us a superpower. We are the most powerful nation on the face of the planet because we have combined raw power with American ideals such as dignity, freedom, justice, and peace. These ideas and ideals are admired around the world and are more important, in my view, to our position of global strength than our ability to shoot a missile down a chimney. We might be feared because of our military, but we are loved because of our ideals.