No War Against Iran
Like a gangster seeking revenge, President George W. Bush has been gunning for Iran for some time. He has already put in place the military forces needed to attack, including troops, battleships and bombers with tactical nuclear weapons. Now there is the potential pretext — the reported seizing of British troops by Iran as it defends its sovereignty.
Let no one be fooled. The Iraq war is illegal, the occupation is illegal, the presence of U.S. ships and troops is illegal — all are crimes against humanity and peace. The U.S. and Britain have no business in Iraq, no business boarding merchant ships, no business in the area. In addition, the U.S. has repeatedly acted to provoke the Iranians by using the disputed waters of the Shatt al-Arab waterway as the area for boarding ships. The U.S. is looking for an excuse and is notorious for creating them, as they did with Iraq, with Vietnam, and other aggressive wars. The potential for the U.S. to use this incident as a justification for attacking Iran is great. Americans must be vigilant and firm: No War Against Iran! All U.S. Troops Home Now!
Whatever justification the U.S. attempts, it cannot hide the fact that war against Iran would be another U.S. crime of aggression. With or without nuclear weapons, Iran is not threatening the U.S. and has the right to determine its own affairs. And unlike the U.S., it is not planning any attacks, it is not occupying any foreign countries, it is not threatening to use nuclear weapons. At present, it has none.
What Iran is doing is defending its sovereignty. What Iran is doing is rejecting U.S. domination and dictate. What Iran is doing is defending resistance in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere. It has every right to do so and should be applauded for doing so because these actions stand against U.S. crimes and aggression and thus serve the cause of peace.
In threatening Iran, the U.S. is also challenging the other big powers, particularly Russia. Using the issue of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program as an excuse, the U.S. is organizing to build bases in the Czech Republic and Poland — supposedly to install a missile defense system to “protect” against Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons. The bases would move the U.S. forces much closer to Russia while also positioning their forces for increased attacks in the Middle East and Asia more generally. It is also a means to strengthen their hand against the European Union, as the bases would be outside of any EU control.
Russia has expressed its opposition to the bases and the shields, and so has Germany. But Russia also recently agreed to hold off on sending reactor fuel — enriched uranium — to Iran for use in its nuclear energy plant, being built in cooperation with Russia. The plant is not a target of UN sanctions now under discussion by the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. So why the delay? If the power plant were to be bombed with the fuel present, it could cause a nuclear disaster creating greater international impact. Without it, that likely would not be the case. Is a deal being struck with Russia to allow the U.S. to bomb Iran to weaken it and then withdraw? Has Bush made the same arrangement with top Congressional Democrats, who removed language from the war bill just passed that forbid aggression against Iran without Congressional approval?
The peoples in the Czech Republic and Poland are standing opposed to the bases and demanding their right to decide the matter in referendums. The peoples of the U.S. and the world are opposed to any attack on Iran and demanding that all U.S. troops be brought home now. Whatever deal may be worked out, let there be no hesitation in denouncing U.S. aggression and rejecting the crime of war against Iran. Let us stand together with the Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians and Lebanese, all the peoples in supporting resistance and demanding:
All U.S. Troops Home Now![TOP]
Solidarity Peace Action: Do Not Attack Iran
We invite you to participate in an international “Solidarity Peace Strike” against any US/UK/Israel attack on Iran. The actions are being initiated by organizers of the 24-hour ongoing Peace Picket at Parliament Square, in London. It is very short notice, but we urge you to do what you can to support this initiative, wherever you are. The Peace Strike will happen March 20, in London and other locations in Britain and the U.S.
Here are ideas for how you can support the Solidarity Peace Strike:
• Put a sign in the window of your home or place of work: for example, “We support the Solidarity Peace Strike: Don’t Attack Iran.” Take a photo and send it in.
• Gather support from local businesses, churches, mosques, synagogues, community and campus centers
• Stop work or break your routine. If you can’t take time off, take action on your lunch break.
• Forward this message to your contacts and lists.
•Send a message of support to mail@peacestrike.org.uk, and cc us at philly@crossroadswomen.net
We provide below the call issued by the London Peace picket.
Don’t Attack Iran
Solidarity Peace Strike in the USA/Britain. Tuesday 20th March 2007, from 10.00am onwards, Non-violent direct action
Join us on our Peace Strike wherever you are, and in whatever way you can be effective. Establish a Peace Strike in your area, withdraw your labor or break your routine. Join us for the day, part of the day or even just your lunch break if you are unable to take time off. Anyone can be a striker, you don’t have to be employed, for example: housewives, students, pensioners, the homeless.
We Will All Be On Strike For Humanity!
We are organizing non-violent direct action for peace on the 4th anniversary of the illegal attack on Iraq. Let us unite together and take a stand against any threat or military action against Iran and/or neighboring countries. Together we can send out a powerful message, both from the USA and Britain and take a stand against our governments’ decisions to willfully invade and destroy other countries and devastate people’s lives.
We operate an official 24 hour ongoing Peace Picket at Parliament Square, Westminster, London, Britain. Calling a strike simultaneously in both the USA and Britain will show that we find any military action or threat totally unacceptable.
Email your solidarity actions to mail@peacestrike.org.uk and we will post your actions on the site and announce any actions or messages of support and goodwill at the Square on the day. Make your own banners and show the world you care.
See www.peacestrike.org.uk for more details
All Welcome – Please Join Us And Make A Difference
Together We Are Strong
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Join the International Campaign to Say
U.S. Bases Out Now!
Join the international campaign against the construction of new U.S. military bases in the Czech Republic and Poland. In recent polls a clear majority of the population of those countries is opposed to U.S. bases there. By an overwhelming majority, people are demanding the right to decide on this dangerous escalation in a national referendum.
Already, tens of thousands have signed names to petitions and participated in rallies and demonstrations demanding “No to the Bases.” More than 40 organizations are part of the No to the Bases Campaign formed last July in the Czech Republic.
Tell Bush & Congress: NO U.S. Military bases in the Czech Republic and Poland! We need funds for peoples needs, not for war and occupation. Sign the Petition!
Petition Text:
To: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rice, Secretary Gates, and Congressional leaders:
cc: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, members of the media
NO U.S. Bases in the Czech Republic and Poland!
The Pentagon is planning to build U.S. missile bases and radar stations in the Czech Republic and Poland. A majority of the population in both countries is opposed to this dangerous military escalation. I stand in solidarity with them in opposing this reckless warlike move.
In both countries there is an effort to ram through the decision to allow the U.S. bases despite thousands of petitions, mass calls for a national referendum and wide protests. Millions of people are concerned about the opening of a new cold war and a new arms race.
President Bush has just submitted the largest military budget in history. U.S. military spending surpasses $1 million a minute – every day of the year. Desperately needed social programs for health, education, housing and the environment are being cut, to pay for a brutal war in Iraq, new bases and new threats of endless war.
I support the right of the people of the Czech Republic and Poland to oppose U.S. bases on their soil.
I support their just and democratic demand for a national referendum on this issue.
We need funds for peoples needs, not for war and occupation.
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Would Pace Attack Iran if Bush Ordered It?
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, just sent his political masters a message, and could send another.
Many people listen to the White House these days and conclude that a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent: “To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again,” as Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said recently. But if President George W. Bush gives the order, then Gen. Peter Pace will face a big decision.
Some senior U.S. soldiers were worried about the strategic wisdom and even the legality of invading Iraq, but nobody resigned over it...But an attack on Iran is different, even though it would not involve American ground troops (since all available U.S. combat troops are committed to Iraq), because any competent general knows that this is a war the United States cannot win.
Air strikes alone cannot win a war, however massive they are, and they probably could not even destroy all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are numerous, dispersed and often deeply buried. Many Iranians would be killed, but what would the United States do next? It would have few options, whereas Iran would have many.
Iran could flood Iraq with sophisticated weapons and send volunteers to help the fight against U.S. forces there. It could throw international markets into turmoil by halting its own oil exports. It could try to close the entire Persian Gulf to tanker traffic (with a fair chance of success) and throw the entire world economy into crisis. And any further U.S. air strikes would simply harden Iranians’ resolve.
Would Pace attack Iran if Bush ordered him to? His only alternative would be to resign, but he does have that option. Senior officers like Pace, while bound by the code of military discipline, acquire a political responsibility as well. Like Cabinet members, they cannot oppose a government decision while in office, but they have the right and even the duty to resign rather than carry out a decision that they believe is disastrous.
Some people naively hoped that Colin Powell would do that rather than let the invasion of Iraq proceed. After all, he was no longer a soldier, but he still thought like one, and he must have understood that the intelligence was corrupted. If he had resigned as secretary of state, he might even have stopped the war. But Powell was too deeply entangled with the neo conservatives and too inured to military obedience to exercise his option.
The resignation of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and possibly several of the other chiefs as well — would be an immensely powerful gesture. It could stop an attack on Iran dead in its tracks, for the White House would have to find other officers who would carry out its orders. It would doubtless find them, but such a shocking event might finally enable Congress to find its backbone and refuse support for another illegal and foredoomed war.
This is not a hypothetical discussion: My guess is that both the Joint Chiefs and the White House understand that the option of resignation is on the table. Consider the dance that was done around the question of Iran and “Explosively Formed Penetrators” in the past couple of weeks. (EFPs are glorified, shaped-charge weapons that penetrate armor at a good distance. Most major armies have had them for several decades.)
On Feb. 11, U.S. officials in Baghdad claimed that the EFPs that have killed some 170 American troops in Iraq since 2004 were Iranian-made, and supplied to Iraqi insurgents by “the highest levels of the Iranian government.” White House spokesman Tony Snow picked up the theme, insisting that they were being supplied by the Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
“The Quds Force is, in fact, an official arm of the Iranian government and, as such, the government bears responsibility and accountability for its actions,” he said.
Familiar stuff from the Iraq war — but then something unscripted happened. Pace, visiting in Australia, said that Iranian government involvement was not proven: “We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.” A day later, in Jakarta, Indonesia, he repeated his doubts: “What [the evidence] does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”
Generals as experienced as Pace do not contradict their political masters by accident. The White House got the message, and retreated a bit. “What we don’t know is whether the headquarters in Iran ordered the Quds force to do what they did,” said President Bush. But he didn’t really back down: “I intend to do something about it ... we’re going to protect our troops.”
There is a civil/military confrontation brewing in the United States more serious than anything since President Truman fired Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur during the Korean War. But this time, if the general acts on his convictions, he will be in the right.
[In addition to the actions by Pace, news reports indicate that several military generals, perhaps five, are ready to resign if Bush orders an attack on Iran. The fact that this is being reported, like Pace’s open contradiction of the White House, indicates the serious splits developing in the military itself and between it and the Bush administration. Bush, however, has continued to repeat that the military option is on the table and he has ordered all the necessary preparations and they are now in place-BF]
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based Canadian journalist and military historian. Published in the Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune
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What is Behind Russia’s Delay of
Iran’s Nuclear Reactor?
Russian officials announced in February that work on Iran’s nuclear power reactor at the southern port of Bushehr would be slowed due to Tehran’s failure to make scheduled payments on the construction contract. Far from being an ordinary commercial dispute, the delay is another pointer to the extreme tensions from the Bush administration’s military threats against Iran.
The Russian announcement came just two days before a UN Security Council deadline for Iran to shut down its uranium enrichment facilities. Tehran, which insists that all its nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes, has refused to comply. The Bushehr reactor, being completed by Russian firms, is designed to produce electricity and is not included in the UN resolution.
According to Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom, Iran is behind in its financial commitments. “In February no payments were made. In January we received just $5.1 million of the $25 million due,” he said. Under-financing, Novikov explained, would influence the agreed timetable, including the delivery of nuclear fuel and the launch of the reactor.
After repeated delays, Russia and Iran agreed last year to a timetable for the reactor’s completion: the delivery of nuclear fuel was due by March 2007 and the launch of the facility in September, with electricity generation to start in November. Now the supply of nuclear fuel will be delayed. According to Andrei Cherkasendko, an official with the Russian state nuclear power company Atompromresursy, operations will probably not commence until mid-2008.
The announcement provoked an angry Iranian response. Muhammad Saeedi, deputy director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, denied the country had been late in making payments. He insisted that the financial problems lay with the Russian contractor, not on the Iranian side. On Wednesday, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, urged Russia to complete the reactor on time and warned that a delay “will have adverse affects on the minds of the Iranian people”.
It is evident that “non-payment” is simply an excuse for the delay. Iran wants to make payments in euros, rather than US dollars, as part of its stated policy of holding reserves and settling accounts in currencies other than the dollar. As part of its campaign against Tehran, the Bush administration has been pressuring European and Asian banks to freeze Iran’s dollar-denominated accounts. Rather absurdly, Rosatom has refused Iranian payment in euros. [...]
The Rosatom decision was obviously a political, rather than a commercial decision. Moscow has repeatedly resisted pressure from Washington over the past decade to pull out of the project altogether. At Russia’s insistence, the international sanctions imposed under a UN Security Council resolution in December excluded the Bushehr reactor. At the same time, the Moscow government is deeply concerned that the Bush administration will exploit the nuclear issue as the pretext for a military attack on Iran and has been pressing Iran to stop its uranium enrichment.
Coming immediately prior to a debate in the UN Security Council on Iran’s nuclear programs, there is no doubt that Moscow is using the Bushehr project as another lever against Tehran. Moreover, Washington is demanding the imposition of harsher economic sanctions against Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin could be planning to use the delay in the Iranian reactor as a bargaining chip in the backroom haggling between the major powers that will inevitably accompany any new UN resolution.
There may well be other calculations, however. Russia is acutely aware of the danger of a U.S. attack on Iran. A second U.S. aircraft carrier group led by the USS John C. Stennis arrived in the region on Monday, placing two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf for the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The U.S. has also placed Patriot anti-missile batteries in several of its Gulf state allies. The threatening military build up has been accompanied by an escalating U.S. propaganda campaign against Iran’s nuclear programs and its alleged support for anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq.
Commenting to the Lebanese magazine Al-Watan Al-Arabi on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the U.S. against using its troops in Iraq against other countries in the region, including Iran. “The multinational force in Iraq should abide strictly by the UN Security Council’s mandate, which does not provide for any operations outside the country,” he said. “The escalation of the conflict and its possible spread beyond Iraqi borders will inevitably result in catastrophic consequences and not for the Middle East alone.”
As Lavrov well knows, the absence of a UN resolution did not stop the Bush administration from launching the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003, which Russia and the rest of the UN Security Council rubber stamped. Nor will any UN resolution, or lack of one, prevent the White House from attacking Iran.
The BBC reported that the U.S. Central Command had completed drawing up a list of targets for an air war on Iran, including its nuclear facilities and most of its military infrastructure. Among the list of nuclear targets is the Bushehr reactor, even though its purpose is the provision of electricity and an agreement has been signed to return all spent fuel rods to Russia.
In this context, Russia’s announced delay in the Bushehr project takes on a more sinister aspect. The most critical component of the timetable is the provision of reactor fuel — enriched uranium — which was due to take place in March. Once the fuel is loaded, any air strike on the reactor has the potential to send a plume of radiated dust and debris into the atmosphere affecting not only Iran but neighboring countries. Russian technicians employed on the site would also be endangered, threatening to provoke an international incident.
The sudden Russian delay raises the obvious question: just what does the Putin administration know about the Bush administration’s plans for a military attack on Iran?
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Sit-ins, Student Walk-Outs, Direct Actions
Continuing Anti-War Actions Demand Congress Cut War Funding
Youth, veterans and military mothers and families have been in the forefront of continued anti-war actions. In New York and San Francisco dozens of people were arrested for blocking traffic and occupying Congressional offices.
In San Francisco hundreds marched up and down Market Street on Monday, March 19, the day marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They organized a “die-in” at a major intersection on Market Street, with 45 protesters getting arrested. About 100 protesters continued down Market Street, chanting “We want justice for Iraq now,” and dancing to a mobile five-piece band. Police arrested another 13 people for blocking a second intersection at Market and Powell streets. Still hundreds more demonstrated at the office of U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and the main leader of the Democrats pushing for war funding. Iraq war veterans and members of military families then occupied her office. Eleven people were arrested. In New York City similar actions took place.
Across the country on March 20, students at more than 80 schools organized walk-outs and demonstrations, making their stand known: “We will stop this war!” In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the military recruiting center was targeted. At the University of Florida, students demanded that the university publicly oppose the war and cease research that benefits the war effort. Chanting “This is what democracy looks like!” and, “What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!” hundreds demanded an end to war now. In the Bay Area, oil giant Chevron was targeted. Youth as one insisted, “Not One Youth, Not One Cent for U.S. Wars!”
Numerous occupations of Congressional offices also continued, with protesters demanding that Congress cut all war funding. Many also made clear that the refusal of Democrats to submit to the demands of the peoples to end the war means the people will no longer submit to the Democrats. No one is accepting more war and more war funds as the answer. Across the country people are stepping up the fight: End the War Now! All U.S. Troops Home Now![TOP]
New Brunswick, NJ — The Hub City got hot on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion as 400 anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. Protesters took over the downtown shopping district, blocked a Marine recruitment station and shut down south bound lanes on Route 18 during rush hour traffic. Police responded only by halting traffic on the highway and tailing the march during the three-hour-long action. There were no arrests.
The protest began as a student walk-out at Rutgers University at 1:30 pm, where several hundred students left class and gathered on Voorhees Mall for a rally. Speakers included several veterans, local activists, students and Sue Niederer, co-founder of the anti-war Gold Star Mothers and mother of Lt. Seth Dvorin, a Rutgers grad who was killed in Iraq.
Just before 3:00 pm, the march kicked off with drums, whistles and music courtesy of the Disobedient March Band. Protesters headed straight for the Marine recruitment station downtown and about a hundred swarmed down the steps toward the doors, which were quickly sealed and locked from the inside by staff, who were greeted with an impromptu march band performance, chanting and spontaneous speeches from local residents who saw the protest and joined in.
Soon after, the march again swarmed through downtown traffic and headed straight for the highway entrance ramp to Route 18. With police squad cars trying to cut off the front of the march, protesters made clear their intention to take the highway. Rather than block the un permitted march, officers halted traffic as nearby construction workers began cheering and pumping fists in the air as everyone passed by.
The group then took the Commercial Avenue exit and headed back to the shopping district, with chants of “Stay downtown! Shut it down!” A brief dance party began at the center of the Albany and George Street intersection with drummers playing and more musicians joining in, but as the bulk of the marchers continued, it soon dispersed and rejoined the rest. As dusk fell, the march returned to the Rutgers University campus, held announcements for further local actions, and dispersed into the twilight, hungry for more.
The student walk-out and march were organized and endorsed by Rutgers Against the War, Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War, Tent State University, Student and Education Workers Union (SEWU), BAKA, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Students for a Democratic Society Rutgers, New Brunswick Food Not Bombs, the Anarchist Soccer League of New Brunswick and the Disobedient March Band.
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Barricade and Occupation of Chevron’s International HQ in Bay Area
The sun hadn’t risen yet. After circling once under the cover of darkness, our van and truck pulled up to Chevron’s world headquarters. Our affinity group Bay Rising Affinity Group (BRAG), burst out of the van and deployed our barrels, lock boxes, and bodies. The cops were waiting for us, but for some reason when we hopped out of the van, they ran the opposite direction. We locked our arms into place.
Our barricade and occupation of Chevron’s entrance was in place in less than 60 seconds. We completely shut down the main entrance to Chevron’s International HQ. Initially we were worried that we wouldn’t have enough bodies to cross the whole 6 lanes of the entrance — but lucky for us, even though we didn’t reach the other side (at first!), the cops completely shut down the rest of it for us!
Police accumulated and we were told that a call had been made to the special unit that had the saws to cut us out of the barrels. As we wondered how long we would be able to hold the space, people started arriving. First it was our friends with bright banners and puppet heads. Then it was the Tug-of-Oil-War affinity group, complete with costumes for subsequent street theater. Then people from local communities that have been devastated by Chevron’s refineries in Richmond. Soon we had over 100 people with bright signs and loud voices. Groups representin’ included Bay Rising affinity group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), Communities for a Better Environment, AmazonWatch, US Labor Against the War, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice, Oil Change International, Global Exchange, West County Toxics Coalition, Tug of Oil War, Failure to Disperse, and Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
We chose Chevron for a lot of reasons. We wanted to step it up with nonviolent direct action and begin to target war profiteering corporations, as they are a strategic pillar along with recruitment centers and other direct military targets. We wanted to help draw the link for the public between climate change and war, with oil at the center. We also wanted to highlight (one of the) real reasons we are at war: the Iraqi Oil Law is being rammed through Iraq’s parliament as I write this. It’s a law that was drafted by the Bush administration, and it would literally give the oil underneath Iraq to American corporations. Companies like Chevron would outright own two-thirds of the oil underneath Iraq for the next generation if this goes through. The Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions and a coalition of Iraqi parliamentarians have asked for international solidarity and support. They want us to resist these companies and this law in our own countries, where we have the most power to do so. So we’re leveraging our own power to jam up the gears of the War Machine, to give Iraqis a little bit more breathing space to organize.
We were working with local affected communities and organizers who have been campaigning against Chevron for a long time now. Leila Salazar-Lopez, a new RAN campaigner, longtime Bay Area activist, and former organizer with AmazonWatch, said that after years of going after Chevron she knew their PR guy pretty well. Usually at demonstrations he is calm, collected, and professional. At this action, he was going bonkers. Dude was pacing back and forth, getting all bent out of shape and freaking out; Chevron knew we had clear and concise messaging, and roughly a gazillion (maybe even two gazillion) TV cameras on us.
So they decided that it would make them look much worse if they let the cops arrest us. So to all our surprise, we held the entire space and shut down their entrance for the whole time. And at the end of the day we walked away without going to jail. It was fun: a bunch of kids who had gotten trained in nonviolent direct action (NVDA) at the demonstration the day prior came and locked down with us, extending our barricade all the way to the second entrance. A group of folks held a funeral procession for “the last ice cube on earth,” and Larry the clown hammed it up as a fabulous preacher. There was a tug-of-oil-war with “the people” dressed in Robin Hood costumes, and “Chevron Execs” dressed as…Chevron Execs (guess who won). The Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane folks came, and danced dressed as the Bush administration. People sang beautiful songs. Amazing local folks spoke passionately about the environmental destruction happening right next to us. Amazing women from the Philippines spoke about Chevron destroying their communities. It was a good day.
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Chapel Hill, NC Student Walk-Out
“Whose Streets? Our Streets!”
Hundreds of students walked out of class at the University of North Carolina, joined by many people from surrounding communities. They marched through campus and into the streets of downtown Chapel Hill, demanding the immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and an end to war funding. They organized to block various intersections, including at Franklin and Columbia for several minutes. Emphasizing that it is the public who decides and must be listened to, they chanted, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
The protest was part of the March 20 Student Day of Action Against the War. More than 80 campuses and high schools nationwide scheduled walk-outs, including others in North Carolina such as N.C. State University, UNC-Asheville and Raleigh’s Enloe High School.
“I walked out today to show this campus and this town, and, along with the other 80 campuses that walked out today, to show this country that the youth will not be silent, and we won’t stand aside as people are murdered,” said one UNC freshman. “And we’re going to end this war.”
The walk-out brought together various campus organizations as well as those from Raleigh and Greensboro.[TOP]
On Monday, March 19, more than 50 students, youth, women, and faculty participated in a four hour teach-in on the Iraq war at Nazareth College. The event consisted of eight different half-hour activities highlighting various aspects of the war.
One undergraduate student gave a presentation with many pictures and statistics showing how conditions of life have worsened dramatically for the Iraqi people as a direct result of the U.S. invasion and occupation. The pictures showed Iraqi families living daily with no electricity, water, gas, and food, while U.S. bombs go off around them. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been massacred by the U.S. The student said she was motivated to do such a presentation because the government and monopoly media dehumanize the Iraqi people.
Another presenter, a faculty member, gave a 30 minute slide show of anti-war actions at home and abroad over the last few years, including the most recent March 17 actions. The presentation was very well received. Participants said the actions show how broad and representative the anti-war movement is today. The photos showed people from all walks of life from all parts of the planet vigorously opposing U.S. war and crimes against humanity.
Another undergraduate student conducted a session on the law and war, bringing out how and why the war on Iraq is illegal. He shared with participants some of the articles in the decades-old UN and Nuremberg Charters. It was also pointed out that the U.S. and Britain violated the very resolution, UN Resolution 1441, they imposed on the UN in late 2002 as a justification for invading Iraq.
A faculty member from the Anthropology department held a session entitled “Who is the terrorist?” — smashing the disinformation promoted by Bush that those resisting U.S. crimes are terrorists. A student who served a year in Iraq in the military described how soldiers terrorize Iraqis and give rise to a vicious cycle of violence.
Several other faculty and staff organized a session where several people read quotes on war and violence by various people, such as Dr. Martin Luther King. They asked everyone to spend 1-2 silent minutes collectively reflecting on the content of the quotes and then spoke about them, relating them to today’s events. Different people expressed that the aim is to not only oppose and end the U.S. war on Iraq but to oppose and end violence against all peoples once and for all.
Throughout the event many others, especially young women students, militantly expressed their rejection of and contempt for U.S. double standards, hypocrisy, and aggression around the world, including the escalation of attacks on rights at home.
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My first open act of civil disobedience took place February 27 at the office of Representative Russ Carnahan, D-Missouri. I had gone with three veterans and other activists as part of the Occupation Project to persuade Carnahan to vote against any bills that continue to provide funding for the war in Iraq. Jim Allen, a member of our entourage, and I, decided to sit-in to protest Carnahan’s refusal to pledge not to continue funding for the war. As a result, Jim and I were arrested.
Carnahan’s basic rap is that he is against the escalation and believes the war must come to an end. He cannot promise to vote against a bill he has not seen. He thinks that Representative John Murtha’s (D-Pennsylvania) plan is promising: to restrict, through oversight, the ability of the president to continue the war and place high standards on troop readiness before deployment. But, he said, he does not want to de-fund the troops. We explained that de-funding the war is not de-funding the troops; legislative restrictions on the executive branch will not end the war. Giving money to the president for the war will only prolong the war.
We also told him that Democrats should put the president on the defensive and make him explain why he continues to wage war when Congress has demanded a change of course based on the mandate from the American people. We emphasized that every day Congress spends looking for less direct ways to end the war, on average three U.S. service members die, as do many Iraqi children, women and men.
Unfortunately, we reached little agreement beyond the obvious — the war must end. It appears that most Democrats and Veterans For Peace are on a different timetable.
Our sit-in at Rep. Carnahan’s office was part of weeks of outreach and meetings to change his mind. I decided that I was not leaving until I received a satisfactory answer. Thus I was willing to risk arrest.
There are many who ask, “Do you really think being arrested will make a difference?” No, I do not know if my refusal to leave and subsequent arrest will make a difference. However, I do know that inaction will change nothing.
My journey to civil disobedience has been one of reflection and hesitation. I did not come to this decision easily. As a black male in America who has been trained to be wary of the police, it has not been easy to decide to willingly put myself into their hands. I have spent most of my 42 years trying not to be arrested. I have plenty of examples of police brutality against black men. In the late 1990s the sodomizing of Abner Louima and the shooting death of Amadou Diallo by police officers in New York City heightened my fear of being pursued and in the custody of police. In November 2006, Sean Bell, a young and unarmed man leaving his bachelor party at a nightclub in Jamaica, Queens, died in a storm of 50 shots fired by five undercover police. The names of these three victims stay with me, and remind me of dangers I face.
So what motivates me? Why have I decided to move forward with this tactic? I am motivated by the death of tens of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — of people in this war. I am most motivated by the life of my only son, who is a soldier in the 101st Airborne who has already participated in one tour in Iraq.
I am also motivated by the January 3 death of Jeremiah, my 7-month-old grandson, of a genetic disease. I am motivated by the fact that when I peer through the pain of his death in search of reasons and people to blame, I can only find the reality and cycle of life. It is natural for people to die from disease, and for the most part, not any one person is to blame. But where I must accept the reality of life, Gold Star parents must face the reality of war, a human activity caused by human actions. Where I can find no one to hold responsible for my anger and pain, an Iraqi can hold my nation, my son and me responsible for their pain. This is the sense of urgency I hope my small act of civil disobedience will help convey.
Lastly I ask myself, if not now when? After nearly four years of protest, over 3,100 dead U.S. service members, tens to hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis who are guilty of nothing but living in Iraq, obvious lies by our leaders that took us to war, a possible war with Iran, an election for a change in direction, no change of direction by our president and an indecisive Congress who needs to be pushed in the right direction — when would be a better time to give civil disobedience a try?
We are at a critical moment. Congress will soon vote for a $90 billion appropriation that could fund the war until the end of President Bush’s term. After this vote, Congress will have little power to end the war. We need to flood Congress with letters, phone calls, emails and faxes demanding they end funding. We must show up at their door in force. If enough of us sit in, they will end the war. If we don’t, they won’t. Maintaining a majority and gaining the presidency is the priority of the Democrats. Ours is ending the war.
Michael T. McPhearson is the executive director of Veterans For Peace, which supported nonviolent civil disobedience in local cities across the United States as part of anti-war actions March 16-19, 2007.
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Des Moines, Iowa Rally to Stop War Funding
Funding the War is Equal to Abandoning Troops
They all have names and faces and families who love them.
That was the message about troops in Iraq that Brenda Hervey repeated Monday to anyone who would listen. She was visiting Des Moines on the fourth anniversary of the start of the war to tell the story of her son’s injuries in Iraq and why they drove her to publicly oppose the war effort.
She called for members of Congress to vote against money for continuing the war. Her inspiration was her stepson, Michael Hervey, 21, who is healing from injuries he suffered in an explosion that tore out a piece of his elbow and required three surgeries to repair muscle and nerve damage in his lower leg. Michael Hervey is in the Army and was in his second tour of duty in Iraq when he was injured, she said.
“Congress must understand that by continuing to fund this war, and by leaving our loved ones in Iraq, it is they who are abandoning them,” said the 42-year-old Sioux City woman. “If you vote to continue funding this war in Iraq, it will no longer be President Bush’s war. It will be yours. If you fund it, you’ve bought it and you own it and we will remember.”
Hervey is a member of Military Families Speak Out, a group of military families who publicly oppose the war in Iraq. Hervey and other anti-war protesters gathered in Des Moines Monday afternoon, March 19, and delivered petitions to the Des Moines offices of Iowa’s two United States senators, Charles Grassley, a Republican, and Tom Harkin, a Democrat. The petitions asked them to stop funding the war and the occupation of Iraq by the United States.
President Bush on Monday asked for the public’s patience and for more time to send troops to Iraq to stabilize Baghdad. He said that operation is still in its early stages. Bush also said that pulling U.S. soldiers and Marines out of Iraq now could create more violence in the region. He predicted that terrorists would make Iraq the safe haven they once had in Afghanistan.
Anti-war activists, including Hervey, disputed that strategy during the Des Moines rally, where they gathered in front of the Federal Building. The American Friends Service Committee in Iowa organized the event, where protesters held signs, banged on drums, and displayed flowers and boots to symbolize lives lost in the war. Protesters said messages from people like Hervey made a powerful statement.
“I’m so glad these women are here today,” said Jamie Woodson, 40, of Des Moines. “I really appreciate seeing military families speaking up.”
Woodson’s son was also injured November 2 when the armored vehicle he was in drove over a bomb that exploded. “It was horrific,” she said.
Hervey said her simmering opposition to the war became full-on public advocacy for an end to the war after she learned her stepson might have to stay in Iraq to heal, and possibly return to his unit, rather than being transported to his base in Baumholder, Germany, for rehabilitation.
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