Voice of Revolution

All Out for April 29 and May 1

We Are All Anti-Imperialist!

As peoples here and worldwide prepare to take action on April 29 and May 1, what is coming to the fore is the growing resistance to U.S. imperialism. President George W. Bush, the chieftain of imperialism, is being denounced far and wide as a war criminal to be impeached and punished for his crimes. The anger with the crimes against the Iraqi people is increasing and spreading. Everywhere, including among troops in Iraq, the demand is for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops.

The organizing for May Day demonstrations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, Mexico City and now across Europe, is also bringing to the fore the internationalist unity of the workers in defense of rights. U.S. imperialism is responsible for the horrific impoverishment on a world scale, which forces many immigrants to leave their homelands. It is also responsible for the massive unemployment and attacks on rights inside the country. It is a system that provides massive profits to the monopolies that necessarily demands they be "competitive in the global markets." The demand to serve U.S. monopolies in their competition with rivals worldwide is a demand to support war and aggression. It is a demand to stand against the workers and peoples of other countries.

The actions on May Day stand directly against this chauvinism and demand that everyone be recognized as a human being with rights. It is a stand to unite everyone against their common enemy, U.S. imperialism. It is this united fighting force that can stand up to Bush and the drive to war and give rise to another world, where the rights of the peoples are guaranteed.

These actions stand against imperialism and bring to the fore the necessity to strengthen the fight for rights for all and, in doing so, strengthen our stand against imperialism.

Defend the Rights of All!
No to War and Occupation!
No One is Illegal!

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"Native or Foreign We are all Workers"

International May Day Actions for Immigrant Rights

- Farm Labor Organizing Committee -

Migration is increasing all over the world, as economic globalization and social conflicts force people to leave their homes and seek better opportunities elsewhere. Millions of people are moving from areas suffering poverty and social disruption to richer and more developed countries like the U.S., Europe, Japan, Korea, and Saudi Arabia to support their families. Migrants are often treated in their new homelands with discrimination, exploitation and prejudice, the same as they experience here in the U.S.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the National Coalition for Dignity and Permanent Residency have joined with other immigrant organizations in Europe to declare international solidarity with undocumented immigrants everywhere. Together with other immigrants of the world, we are planning an International Day of Action for Immigrant Rights on May 1.

International Manifesto of Undocumented Immigrants

May 1st is Working Class Day in most countries around the world, celebrated in honor of those who lost their lives to gain the 8-hour workday. On this day, demonstrators around the world will come together to support the rights of the working class and of the oppressed. It is a day of struggle, commemoration, and pride. It is our day, no matter where we come from, even if we are born here [in the U.S.] or on another part of the planet, we face the same injustices and struggles.

In the United States, it is those without papers that have taken the date of May 1st to bring to light the cause that they have been struggling for years. More than a million immigrant workers have taken to the streets to rally against the terms in H.R.4437, which was passed by the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress.

On May 1st, immigrants call for "a day without immigrants" and for a one-day consumer boycott to demand the legal status of 12 million undocumented workers in the United States. May 1st is not a holiday in the United States. The absence of the immigrants will show just how vital they are to the economy of the United States.

In Europe, the undocumented are rallying for the same cause. In Belgium, 10,000 people took to the streets to demand legal status for immigrants and to say NO to prisons for children born "in the wrong place." The undocumented have held hunger strikes in six churches to demand legal status.

In Spain, a limited regularization process from a year ago has left hundreds of thousands of workers without papers and many others with serious difficulties in reapplying. A few months ago, thousands of workers without papers took to the streets of Madrid with the chant: "Nativa o extranjera, la misma clase obrera" (Native or foreign, we are the same working class).

In other parts of Europe, the masses rose to rally against the conditions which lead to dozens of undocumented workers getting burned in cages like rats in Schiphol [Holland] this past October. In France, the undocumented struggled for the last 10 years for the legalization of all. Thousands of young people from the suburbs took to the streets to protest discrimination, and today the undocumented, students and other French workers joined in the struggle against the CPE [New Employment Law]. Their unity and determination won the first step in that battle.

Unconditional Legalization for All

It is a system based on the unlimited search for profit and on the savage exploitation of the earth and its people that has led to the displacement of millions of workers from the poorest to the richest countries searching for work and a way to sustain their families.

Facing the phenomena of migration, the receptor countries arbitrate cruel laws that criminalize and control immigrants. Different "regularization" or "adjustment" laws for immigrants all over the world also regulate the working conditions, the quality of life and residency of the immigrants submitting them to a double standard, creating second-class workers, and developing situations of new slavery. These are xenophobic laws (hatred against foreigners). The same way that Europe wants to "export" its borders south, to Libya, Morocco, etc., the United States wants to export its border to the south of Mexico to stop the flow of immigrants. A similar struggle extends through all the rich countries - France, the United States, Belgium, England, and Switzerland. The struggle of immigrants in one country reflects on the rest and should be coordinated with each other.

All immigrant workers contributing in receptor countries have the right to legal documentation that would allow them to work with dignity, and to enjoy full rights and human dignity. The use of the "immigrant status" allows governments to keep a massive class of workers in unjust working conditions, which in turn lowers the working conditions and wages of all the workers.

Native or Foreign, We're the Same Working Class

The division between native and foreign workers, between the documented and the undocumented, affects all workers and impedes our unity. This allows for the passing of laws such as the New Labor Reform in Europe, which attacks and reduces labor rights for all. The first to be affected by these reforms are the immigrants.

We call on all workers, with or without papers, to participate in the next mobilizations to defend everyone's rights. "Native or foreign, we are all workers" signifies the end of the division between workers, the unity against a system that favors slavery and racism.

On May 1st we will take to the streets demanding Rights, Dignity, and Respect. Native or foreign, we are the same working class. We call upon everyone, documented or undocumented, to join us in supporting this international declaration of the movement of the undocumented.

The following organizations endorse the international declaration of undocumented immigrants:

United States: Farmer Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC); National Coalition for Dignity and Permanent Residency; Contact: www.floc.com

Spain: Asociacion de Trabajadores Inmigrantes En España (ATRAIE); Contact: nodo50.org/atraie

France: La Coordination Nationale des Sans Papiers CNSP/France; pajol.eu.org/article125.html

Bélgium: Unión De Sans Papiers UDEP; Contact: udepbxl@yahoo.fr

Italy: Le Comitato Immigrati in Italia; Contact: comitatoimmigrati@libero.it

CRER: contact: coordsanspapiersbxl@yahoo.fr, regularisation.canalblog.com

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Civil Death in the United States

New Federal Regulations Put 50 Million U.S. Residents at Risk

The following excerpts from a Boston Globe article highlight the growing danger of civil death in the United States. It is no small matter. A federal government agency estimates that regulations may negatively affect as many as 50 million U.S. residents - denying them access to health care and other social programs. It is well known that workers who have not been given legal status - the so-called undocumented workers - most often work in jobs that do not provide company-sponsored health plans and their incomes are too low to afford individual private plans.

In the Globe article, note in particular the wretched positions of Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Charles Norwood from Georgia and Massachusetts State Democrat Marie J. Parente. They both advocate civil death on the basis of supporting social programs for "legal citizens."

This argument is strikingly similar to one opposing the emancipation movement and freed slaves during the 19th century. Emancipated slaves of African descent were characterized as major competitors for jobs, as they were willing to work for less than the standard of the day. In the North, rather than organizing to defend the rights of all, opponents of emancipation and the northward movement of slaves escaping enslavement, or after the Civil War, argued that it would be better to keep a section of the people as slaves. Send all who ventured North back to the slave states and criminalize and punish all those who supported them and their right to be full members of the U.S. polity. Vulgar racism and opposition to the emancipation movement were couched in rhetoric to protect jobs of the poorest section of the working class and to prevent wages from falling from the competition of freed or escaped slaves.

The Globe writes: "Norwood issued a statement in February saying, 'After years of listening to "advocates" whine about compassion for those who intentionally break our laws for financial gain, I'm glad to see us finally showing some compassion for our own poor and sick who abide by the law.' "

In the same article, State Representative Marie J. Parente, says, "Why don't you have the same compassion for the American people who don't have a good healthcare plan?"

All this dividing of the people on a spurious basis of documentation or non-documentation is to deny the modern conception that people have rights by virtue of being human. The shameless pitting of one section of the people against another is an example of how low mainstream political discourse has sunk in the U.S., making it crystal clear to justice-minded people the necessity to get involved and organized to combat this growing fascism and the despicable attempts to split the people.

Everyone has rights by virtue of being human! No one is illegal!

Excerpts from the Boston Globe article:

U.S. Rule Demands Proof of Citizenship for Healthcare
By Scott Helman
Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Almost all of the state's poorest residents will have to show proof of U.S. citizenship to continue getting medical care by July 1, under a little-noticed federal law that could endanger coverage for many, as Massachusetts is trying to expand access to healthcare.

Born out of ongoing efforts in Washington to clamp down on illegal immigration, the new federal requirement compels anyone seeking Medicaid coverage to provide a birth certificate, a passport, or another form of identification in order to sign up for benefits or renew them.

No such proof is required now.

The requirement was tucked into the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which President Bush signed into law earlier this year.

The measure was part of an effort to limit the skyrocketing growth of federal entitlement programs.... Healthcare specialists voiced fear that because many Medicaid recipients - including the homeless and the mentally disabled - won't be able to easily produce documentation of their citizenship, they will have difficultly receiving care at community health centers, hospitals, or anywhere else.

"So we've got people in nursing homes, people in the [state Department of Mental Retardation] institutions, we've got the homeless, we've got the... mentally ill who now will have to come up with some verification to prove that they're citizens," said Victoria Pulos, health law attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. "It's ironic that this is happening in the state where part of the health reform plan is to make sure that everyone who's eligible for Medicaid is enrolled."

The new federal requirement, which all states have to comply with, would apply to the vast majority of the more than 1 million people on MassHealth, the Massachusetts Medicaid program.

The intent is to prevent undocumented immigrants from posing as citizens and taking advantage of taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits that are afforded only to legal residents. (Under federal law, undocumented immigrants can receive only emergency Medicaid care; Massachusetts has 40,000 on such a program, which is called MassHealth Limited.)...

Massachusetts already compels Medicaid recipients to verify their incomes, usually through W-2 forms, to ensure that the figure is low enough to qualify for the program. The state Medicaid director, Beth Waldman, played down the difficulty of adding another requirement.

"This shouldn't take away from people's access to healthcare," Waldman said. "All you need to do is show that you're a citizen."...

Some healthcare advocates, though, described the new rules as onerous on community health centers and other healthcare providers, but more so on Medicaid recipients, many of whom, they said, may not continue getting care if they cannot provide the paperwork or may have to wait to get treatment until they can locate the right documents.

"We're in the business of trying to make central Dorchester and parts of Mattapan a healthier place," said Bill Walczak, chief executive officer of Dorchester's Codman Square Health Center. "We didn't create the healthcare centers to become citizenship enforcement centers."

The provision was added to the Deficit Reduction Act by two Republican representatives from Georgia, Charles Norwood and Nathan Deal, who have been outspoken against illegal immigration. Bush signed the legislation two months ago, saying, "The bill I sign today restrains spending for entitlement programs while ensuring that Americans who rely on Medicare and Medicaid continue to get the care they need." Chris Riley, Deal's chief of staff, said yesterday that the citizenship provision was simply about "enforcing the law."

"The intent was to verify that U.S. citizens are getting Medicaid," Riley said.

Norwood issued a statement in February saying, "After years of listening to 'advocates' whine about compassion for those who intentionally break our laws for financial gain, I'm glad to see us finally showing some compassion for our own poor and sick who abide by the law."

State Representative Marie J. Parente, a Milford Democrat who speaks often about restricting illegal immigration, said she agreed with Norwood's statement. Parente said she was at an event in Peabody yesterday at which someone asked her about healthcare for illegal immigrants.

"I said, 'Why don't you have the same compassion for the American people who don't have a good healthcare plan?'" said Parente, who hosted a meeting on immigration last week at the State House that she said drew more than 1,000 people. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., issued a report this year saying that the rule would affect nearly 50 million people nationwide.

It would, the report said, "almost certainly create significant enrollment barriers for millions of low-income citizens who meet all Medicaid eligibility requirements."

An evaluation of the Medicaid program by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July 2005 recommended the agency strengthen quality control to prevent abuse by noncitizens. It did not, however, recommend requiring recipients to provide proof of citizenship....

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Documentation & the Security and Prosperity Partnership

People Have Rights by Virtue of Being Human - No One Is Illegal!

The battle in Congress over immigration laws, and the annexationist policies of the U.S. at the recent summit of North American leaders to advance the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) should awaken people to join the movement to resist this growing fascism.

An important feature of fascism is the state's fear of the subject people and the need for criminalization according to arbitrary criteria based on politics, race, class, lifestyle, age, nationality, immigration status or religion. Arbitrary criminalization demands a law and order mentality of the state and the framing of every problem in that way. It becomes a battle of the repressive organs of the state versus the people.

A priority of President George W. Bush is increased "border enforcement" and law enforcement more generally, in the name of the "war on terrorism." The arbitrary criminalization of people and their behavior requires the ability of the state to identify and locate those individuals who belong to those groups profiled and under suspicion of resistance and defiance of the rich.

The state must be capable of casting a wide net. Identifying individuals who are suspected of indiscipline and rebellion proceeds through arbitrary searches and other means. This allows the monopolies and their state to single out subjects for persecution and exploitation and to divide them according to specific features that are associated with politics, race, class, lifestyle, age, nationality, immigration status or religion.

Chattel slavery in the United States was enforceable in the 17th and 18th centuries partly because of the identifying racial features of the enslaved people of African descent. All people of African descent, even those living in non-slave states were subject to arbitrary search, arrest and forced transfer to a slave state based on their membership in the targeted or profiled group.

Today the targeted or profiled groups are so diverse they require a different form of identification or what is commonly referred to as "documentation." In the U.S. or Canada, people on the street or in an airplane may look very European but that does not preclude them from being a member of a targeted group. Someone in the U.S. for example may be overheard speaking Spanish. The individual could immediately be profiled as an "undocumented migrant" but may be of Cuban origin. In that case, for political reasons, the individual has received all the necessary "documentation" from the government, no matter how the Cuban national arrived in the U.S. The documentation means they are considered "legitimate and documented." It is arbitrary because it is based on the political pragmatism and needs of the ruling elite in relation to Cuba, as an example, and not on the rights of the human being.

The concept of "documented" and "undocumented" has entered the reactionary consciousness. It has come to mean a human being with or without certain rights. Documentation is singled out as a key to identity. The state establishes the very being of the individual or not through its process of documentation. Through documentation the very right to be is established or not. With current immigration laws, this right to be is being directed not only at documentation for immigrants, but for all workers. As well, this arbitrary demand for documentation is being extended to medical care. Recent federal law requires anyone applying for Medicaid to now show proof of citizenship - which means anyone without such documentation will be excluded, even if they qualify.

The state, which is controlled by the most powerful monopolies, gives itself the right or prerogative to sanction the rights of the people, such as the right to healthcare. The state considers the people's rights as privileges to be granted or not, to be documented or not according to criteria that suit the monopolies. Such a situation can only be arbitrary and unjust.

The antithesis is quite simple: the modern conception of rights is based on a social consciousness that emerges from the level of development of society. Modern society is social in all its aspects and people have rights by virtue of being human. The state must become subject of the socialized people and act as the guarantor of their rights. Modern society is the only institution capable and positioned to guarantee the rights of all. It has the duty and authority to do so. If it does not, the people must force the authority to do its duty or the people must change the authority.

Fascist Control

Fascist control is designed to isolate individuals and groups from others based on their personal identification or documentation, which is arbitrarily dictated by the state. Individuals are forced to fend for themselves in the fascist environment prohibited from uniting in action to defend their basic interests and conditioned by the culture to submit without question. Anyone who unites with others for any reason not sanctioned by the state is branded an enemy. "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists."

In fascist Germany, people of the Jewish faith were forced to wear an identifying symbol, the Star of David. The Nazi state criminalized and identified individuals as terrorists or possible terrorists according to their political or trade union activity, religious faith, lifestyle or membership in certain minorities such as the Roma, called Gypsies. People criminalized and identified as terrorists or potential terrorists were captured and forced into labor concentration camps to work as slaves. They were branded on the arm with a numbered identity tattoo.

People captured abroad by the German army were transported to labor concentration camps within Germany or to labor concentration camps located in conquered territory. An expanding empire needs slaves and plundered wealth to survive. Constant war demands enormous material wealth coming into the empire and mercenaries or conscripts to fight the constant wars.

The base or homeland of the empire for those numbed into anti-consciousness by chauvinism must at least appear as normal as possible in the material sense and as irrational, fearful and patriotic as possible in the political, ideological and cultural sense. Nazi Germany was able to carry the illusion of a "normal" yet irrational existence for those consumed by chauvinism for the racist homeland until the defeat of the German army at Stalingrad in January 1943. After the people's heroic victory at Stalingrad, the collapse of the German Empire was sealed worldwide and the tide turned against fascism.

SPP and National Identity Cards

The three leaders at the recent summit of the SPP, President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico's President Vincente Fox, agreed to "North American Smart, Secure Borders." The implementation of this proposal is said to include the requirement of all travelers crossing North American borders to possess a passport or another high-tech identity card with a photograph, fingerprint and possibly an iris scan, which is digitalized for immediate verification with a handheld computer. Already a no-fly list is in place and now the Mexican-U.S. border is to be fortified with a secure wall stretching more than 700 miles. Consideration of building a similar wall for the Canada-U.S. border is underway.

Speaking of a national identity card U.S. President George W. Bush said at the SPP, "I intend to enforce that law [passed by Congress]. But what I've told the prime minister and I've told President Fox is that we have an obligation to work very closely with our counterparts to provide a set of standards as to what will meet the obligations of the law.... I think we can be wise about the use of technologies to envision a card that can be swiped across a, you know, reading device that facilitates the movement of people." Harper said, "I'm not sure Canadians are fully aware these requirements are coming.... People finding they don't have documentation whether it's for business or for ordinary travel, they're going to find they do in fact need it in the future."

The identity cards fit well with the emphasis of both Bush and Harper on law and order. Activists in Toronto report people in national minority areas being arbitrarily questioned and forced to produce documentation. Deportations of Portuguese and other minorities are increasing all within the climate of "law and order." Bush is having more detention camps built and threatening to deport million of workers. Among provisions I the Congressional bills are those allowing local police and even vigilantes like the Minutemen, to profile and stop people, demand documentation and arrest and detain them if they do not have it. The notion that simply to be in public requires documentation is being established.

In the U.S., the House of Representatives passed HR4437 that criminalizes "undocumented" people and their supporters. The mass media even speak of former military bases being proposed as concentration camps for criminalized "undocumented" people, also including first and foremost political activists. Are they to become labor camps and centers from which workers are sent out to work in prison gangs? Already state laws are being passed putting a tax on workers' remittances abroad. Empires do not like wealth flowing out. More than $50 billion in remittances are sent to Mexico and Central America every year mostly from "undocumented" workers.

Labor concentration camps combined with prisoners sent to do farm and construction work on big projects would stop much of the remittances. The monopolies are not concerned about providing workers in front of the Home Depot for day labor. The monopolies want a guaranteed mass of organized workers for their huge operations. The options they are presenting to solve the problem of masses fleeing the devastation and impoverishment of Mexico and Central America caused by neo-liberal policies and NAFTA are indentured labor through a "guest worker" program, criminalized concentration camp workers or a combination of the two.

A "guest worker" program could be combined with criminalization of "undocumented" workers. Guest workers by definition have an indentured contract. The indenture is their captive document. The contract controls the added-value claimed by the individual and sent home. If they violate the captive document, they become "undocumented," criminalized and subject to imprisonment in a concentration camp.

The framing of the debate favors the monopolies no matter how it is resolved because the rights of the people are violated. To break out of the framed debate the people have to organize to force the state to do its duty and uphold the rights of the people by virtue of their being human.

No One is Illegal!

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Stop U.S. Nuclear Threats Against Iran!

- StopWarOnIran.org -

Nearly 250,000 petitions have been sent to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton to Stop War on Iran.

Once again, Bush is using outright lies about "weapons of mass destruction" to justify an attack as part of a long-term strategy to establish U.S. control over the oil-rich Middle East. He lied in order to lead the U.S. into a war with Iraq that has cost the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqi people. Now he is using the same lies to demonize the people of Iran and justify a war that may be much more destructive.

The time to act is now. President Bush, with the support of politicians from both parties, is already preparing for an attack on hundreds of sites in Iran, most of them located near major population centers. These strikes will kill tens of thousands Iranian civilians. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story last year of U.S. plans for an attack on Iran, and who has a decades-long record of investigative journalism, including exposés of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the U.S. torture chambers of Abu Ghraib, wrote in the April 17 New Yorker:

"The Bush administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, undercover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government, ethnic-minority groups."

This article and similar articles in the Associated Press, Agence France Press, Washington Post (reprinted at the StopWarOnIran blog) and other major media outlets, attest to the very real threat of an imminent U.S. attack on Iran. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Pentagon is preparing for a possible nuclear strike against Iran. U.S. Navy aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, are flying simulated nuclear attack missions in preparation for such a strike. According to Hersh:

"One of the military's initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites."

After all of Washington's talk about weapons of mass destruction, it is the Pentagon that possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and is threatening to use them against civilian targets. Whether these threats are real or are just a tool of psychological warfare to intimidate and destabilize the Iranian government, it is clear that the real international danger is from Washington, not Tehran.

In the few weeks since StopWarOnIran was launched, nearly a quarter of a million petitions have been sent from all over the globe to voice growing opposition to the war. We have printed tens of thousands of leaflets and placards for distribution at protests, speakouts, and educational forums. Much more needs to be done in the next few weeks to alert the world to the growing danger of a new war.

We know that we cannot trust the politicians of either party to stop this drive for war. The only way to stop the war is by mobilizing a massive international grassroots campaign against a new war. The whole world knows that Bush and Congress lied in order to justify their war against Iraq, and everyone knows that they are lying now. Opposition to Washington's agenda of endless war is growing - Bush's poll numbers are at an all time low and continue to drop. But this growing opposition will only be a force for change to the degree that it becomes a massive movement determined to stop this new war.

So sign the petition, join the April 29 anti-war protests in New York City and carry Stop War on Iran signs and banners at this action and the many more on-going anti-war activities nationwide.

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No Military Action Against Iran

- United for Peace and Justice -

United for Peace and Justice opposes any military action against Iran, as well as covert action and sanctions. We reject the doctrine of "preventive war." All diplomatic solutions must be pursued.

Send a clear message to the Bush administration: Don't Attack Iran! As a first and immediate step, we urge you to add your signature and comments to AfterDowningStreet's petition to President Bush and Vice President Cheney opposing an attack on Iran.

Many UFPJ member groups, including AfterDowningStreet, Gold Star Families for Peace, CodePINK: Women for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy Rising, and others are all promoting this petition. UFPJ encourages you to circulate this message and help expand the growing list of signers.

Efforts to resolve any dispute with Iran should include promoting negotiations — including Israel — on a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East. We call for the global elimination of nuclear weapons. The United States should stop blocking negotiations on abolition and demonstrate leadership by taking steps to fulfill its own nuclear disarmament obligation. We call for the development and promotion of sustainable energy alternatives. We need to stop going to war for oil. And we need to address climate change. But nuclear power is not the answer: Every nuclear power plant is a potential bomb factory and a source of radioactive waste that will remain deadly forever.

Be sure to join us in New York on April 29 in the national March for Peace, Justice and Democracy.

Background

Seymour Hersh's stunning article in the April 17 New Yorker, "The Iran Plans," revealed that the Bush administration has intensified planning for bombing Iran, and that U.S. combat troops are already in Iran preparing for military operations and recruiting local supporters from minority groups. Of gravest concern, Hersh reported that the Bush administration is giving serious attention to the option of using nuclear weapons to attack buried targets.

From Hersh's article and other sources, it has become clear that the administration is prepared to launch an attack should Iran not accede to U.S. demands that it abandon its uranium enrichment activities. Regardless of whether the nuclear issues can be resolved, the administration seems committed to regime change in Iran.

An attack on Iran would be an act of aggression, barred by the UN Charter and prosecuted at Nuremberg. If executed, U.S. military action would apply the Bush doctrine of "preventive" war in an unprecedented way that would set the template for years or decades of regional and global violence, unrestrained by law. U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be an atrocious act violating the existing taboo that has held since the U.S. devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That would in turn make it far more likely that the weapons will be used elsewhere as well.

While Washington accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear power program, in violation of its obligations as a non-nuclear nation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the U.S. is itself in blatant violation of its own NPT obligation to eliminate its vast and sophisticated nuclear arsenal. There is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The U.S., however, retains a nuclear arsenal of more than 10,000 weapons, some 2,000 on hair-trigger alert. With nearly 500 tactical nuclear weapons deployed in six NATO countries, the U.S. is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil. And the U.S. is modernizing its existing nuclear weapons and publicly making plans to develop and produce new ones.

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Tell Congress: Do Not Attack Iran

- Progressive Democrats of America -

It is deja vu all over again. Americans are hearing exactly the same language we heard before the U.S. illegally attacked Iraq - nuclear bombs, enriched uranium, mushroom clouds. Let's not kid ourselves. President Bush is rattling his saber again in what many believe is an attempt to help his Republican cronies on the hill before the November elections by starting a war in Iran. The hope is that, once again, voters will not change leadership in wartime.

According to the U.S. State Department's own website, Iran is likely years away from producing weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2005 that Iran is expected to be able to produce a weapon early next decade. According to one report, the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran assesses that it will be 10 years before Iran has a bomb.

It is wrong for the United States to attack other countries without provocation. It is criminal to attack other countries based on lies cooked up in the bowels of the White House. It is hypocritical and lacking of all humanity to even think of using a nuclear weapon against Iran in order to prevent that country from developing nuclear weapons.

Now is the time to tell Congress enough is enough - don't attack Iran!

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