End All War Funding
• No Bases in Iraq! All U.S. Troops Out Now!
• July 9 Actions at Canadian Consulates
• Thank you, Canada, for Supporting War Resisters!•
End All War Funding
No Bases in Iraq! All Troops Out Now!
On June 19, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 268-155 to provide $162 billion in more funding for the war and occupation against Iraq and Afghanistan. The funds will insure the war continues for another year and that Congress will not vote again before the election. Congress has so far provided at least $600 billion for Iraq and another $200 billion for Afghanistan since the start of these aggressive wars. These funds are in addition to the more than $500 billion a year Congress provides the Pentagon. House Resolution (H.R.) 2642, supported by 188 Republicans and 80 Democrats, has no requirement for troop withdrawal and allows large numbers of troops and mercenaries to remain indefinitely in Iraq. The Senate passed the bill, 92-6, June 26 and it was signed by the president.
In addition to $162 billion in war funding, the bill includes:
• A slight increase in unemployment insurance: $12.5 billion over two years to provide 13 additional weeks of unemployment benefits for people whose benefits have run out. The amount is not considered anything close to what is needed given the long-term unemployment of tens of millions and the many millins more who have already run out.
• Flood aid: $2.7 billion for disaster aid for flooding in the Midwest.
• $10.1 billion for foreign aid programs including a large increase to fund Israeli aggeression against the Palestinians; $5.8 billion for Louisiana levees; $4.6 billion for military base construction; $400 million for energy and medical research.
• Vouchers for veterans who have served three years, covering tuition at any public or private university in the U.S. The maximum benefit would be equal to in-state tuition at a public university in the same state. The cost of the plan is estimated at $62.8 billion over 11 years, or approximately 6 months of current Iraq war funding at $10 billion per month.
The bill represents the refusal by the Democratic Party to end war funding and their capitulation to $162 billion more in the name of the veterans’ tuition funds and unemployment benefits. The Democrats could easily organize for no bill to be passed, forcing the start of troop withdrawal, but they refuse. They could also introduce bills not tied to war funding to fully fund education for all veterans and all who want it — education is a right belonging to all.
No Bases in Iraq
While the bill is supposed to include a ban on permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, the final wording is likely to allow President George W. Bush to go forward with a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq. The U.S. is currently working aggressively to conclude arrangements for 60 permanent bases in Iraq, by the end of July, using a SOFA. At the very least, the U.S. wants to secure the agreement before the end of the year, when United Nations' authorization of the occupation ends.
SOFA agreements commonly make the U.S. military bases “joint” operations with the host country. In this way the government gets around language against U.S. bases, as the joint bases are simply not categorized as a U.S. base. A SOFA also does not have to be approved by Congress. It is likely the funding bill allows for this loophole.
There are currently more than 300,000 U.S. troops and mercenaries in Iraq, with about 30 large bases. Some are the size of small cities. The U.S. wants the SOFA to include authority for continued military aggression and control over Iraqi airspace. It would also continue legal immunity for crimes against civilians by U.S. troops and mercenaries. Under such a SOFA, any American employed by the U.S. government in Iraq can continue to kill or abuse any Iraqi without having to explain and justify his or her actions to the Iraqis people or government. Generally, the SOFA is meant to give the illusion that the relationship between Iraq and the U.S. is not that of occupied and the occupier but instead that of two sovereign countries.
Overall, the U.S. has SOFAs with 80 other countries under which its military forces are immune from local laws and operate with impunity. The U.S. military is notorious for its murders and rapes in these countries, including the Philippines, Japan and south Korea. Around the world, U.S. troops are stationed in more than 120 countries.
As with every attack on Iraq’s sovereignty, this plan for permenant bases has also been met with resistance every inch of the way. Iraqis remain steadfast in their opposition to U.S. occupation and any U.S. military presence in their country. They are justly demanding reparations for the widespread death and destruction caused by the illegal invasion and occupation. Iraqis and Americans together with peoples worldwide are demanding: All U.S. Troops Out of Iraq and Afghanistan Now! All U.S. Troops Home Now! No U.S. Bases Abroad!
Iraqis are well aware that the various maneuvers by the U.S. to maintain its illegal presence mean more violence and repression against them and their neighbors, and a continued block to sovereignty. In June, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in several cities to protest any arrangement with the U.S. that would violate Iraqi sovereignty and independence. Protesters chanted No, no to America! No, no to the agreement! and carried banners that said, We Will Not Accept Iraq as an American Colony! Most of the Iraqi Parliament’s 270 members sent a letter to Congress demanding that it reject any “U.S.-Iraqi agreements” that in any way violate Iraqi sovereignty.
The U.S. occupation of Iraq has killed and permanently disabled more than 1.5 million Iraqis, displaced nearly 5 million and detained and tortured tens of thousands of others. In addition, according to Oxfam, in 2007, 70 percent of Iraqis had no access to clean drinking water and 43 percent were living on less than a dollar a day. Child malnutrition has increased from 19 percent in 2003 to 28 percent last year. According to a June 2008 GAO report, “only one in three Iraqi children under the age of 5 has access to safe drinking water, and only 17 percent of Iraq’s sewage is treated before being discharged into the country’s rivers and waterways,” creating the conditions for deadly epidemics.
Well more than 60,000 American troops, “coalition soldiers,” and mercenaries have also been killed and maimed. In addition, around 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan now suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression according to a recent report from the RAND Corporation. Morale remains low among U.S. troops and suicides continue to rise as well. Both wars have also contributed significantly to worsening economic and social conditions for millions at home. They are crimes against humanity.
All U.S. Troops Home Now! No U.S. Bases Abroad!
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July 9 Actions at Canadian Consulates
Americans and Canadians Say: Support War Resisters
Stop the Deportation of Corey Glass and All U.S. War Resisters!
Courage to Resist has issued a joint call with Veterans for Peace and Project Safe Haven for July 9th vigils at Canadian Consulates demanding "Canada: Do Not Deport U.S. War Resisters!" North Texas for Justice and Peace, War Resisters' League, Payday Network, and the Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles have also stepped forward to make these vigils happen. Contact us if you can also help organize a vigil, or can otherwise get involved at www.couragetoresist.org.
On June 3, 2008 the Canadian Parliament passed an motion to officially welcome war resisters! It now appears, however, that the Conservative Harper government may disregard the motion.
Iraq combat veteran turned courageous war resister, 25-year-old Sergeant. Corey Glass of the Indiana National Guard is still scheduled to be deported July 10th.
We will ask that the Canadian government respect the democratic decision of Parliament, the demonstrated opinion of the Canadian citizenry, the view of the United Nations, and millions of Americans by immediately implementing the motion and cease deportation proceedings against Corey Glass and other current and future war resisters.
Join a vigil and delegation near you, including Washington DC, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. Help organize in one of the dozen remaining cities with a Canadian Consulate.
Let us deliver a message on your behalf, "Dear Canada: Abide by the June 3, 2008 Canadian Parliament resolution — Let U.S. war resisters stay!"
Wednesday, July 9, vigils and protests at Canadian consulates demanding
Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!
Seattle, Washington — Noon to 1pm, 1501 4th Ave. Sponsored by Project Safe Haven. Info: 206-499-1220; projectsafehaven@hotmail.com
San Francisco, California — Noon to 1pm, 580 California St. Sponsored by Courage to Resist. Info: 510-488-3559; courage@riseup.net
Los Angeles, California — Noon to 1pm, 550 South Hope St. Sponsored by Progressive Democrats LA. Info: pdlavote@aol.com
Phoenix, Arizona — 5pm to 6pm, 2415 East Camelback Rd. Sponsored by Women in Black Phoenix (azpeace.org)
Denver Colorado — Noon, 1625 Broadway. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Denver. Info: 303-762-8408; spexx(at)mac.com
Dallas, Texas — 3pm, 750 North St Paul St. Sponsored by North Texas for Justice and Peace. Info: 214-718-6362; hftomlinson@riseup.net
Minneapolis, Minnesota — Noon to 1pm, 701 Fourth Ave. S. Info: jrkilgour(at)yahoo.com
Boston, Massachusetts — 2pm, Copley Square Park. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace (Boston Chapter); Contact info: nateg(at)pobox.com
New York City — Noon to 1pm, 1251 Avenue of the Americas. Sponsored by War Resisters' League. Info: 212-228-0450; wrl@warresisters.org
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — Time TBA - 1650 Market St. Sponsored by Payday Network. Info: 215-848-1120; payday@paydaynet.org
Washington DC — Time TBA - 501 Pennsylvania Ave NW. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace. Info: TBA
Miami Florida — 200 South Biscayne Blvd. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Miami. Info regarding delegation: VetsForPeace@the-beach.net
More details and cities added daily! Check our website for the most up-to-date information. Help organize a vigil at one of these other Canadian Consulates: Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Anchorage, Houston, Raleigh, Phoenix, or San Diego. Contact Courage to Resist at 510-488-3559 for help.
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Iraq War Resister Camilo Mejia
Thank you, Canada, for Supporting War Resisters!
Please receive our gratitude and friendship for having made possible the motion to halt the deportation of US war resisters and allowing them to find sanctuary in your country. As members of an organization made up of recent veterans and current members of the US Armed Forces, we understand the reasons that have compelled our brothers and sisters to seek refuge in Canada, leaving their country and families behind, in order to not participate in armed conflicts that stand at odds with their conscience. We stand in absolute solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Canada.
The argument has been made that US war resisters will not face persecution if they are returned to their units. I would like to speak to that point from my own personal experience as someone who sought justice from the US Military after having refused to return to my unit in Iraq, which had been actively committing abuses against the people of Iraq, including the killing and torturing of ordinary, unarmed civilians.
While serving in Iraq, from late April through early October of 2003, my unit engaged in activities that constituted war crimes, including severe sleep deprivation, threats of physical violence, and mock executions — all calculated to induce psychological trauma.
The people guiding these activities were highly trained in linguistics, weapons systems, interrogations, and counter-insurgency tactics. They did not wear any kind of identifying insignias; they wore mostly civilian clothes, used pseudonyms, and took their orders only from the highest levels of the United States government.
Other missions my unit conducted in Iraq led to the indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians, including children. We carried out missions in places that we knew were off limits, such as hospitals, mosques, schools, and marketplaces. Our leadership placed the lives of our own troops in unnecessary danger by instigating firefights in heavily populated civilian areas, which inevitably resulted in the killing of innocent people. By the time I returned from Iraq on a two-week furlough, my unit alone had killed 33 Iraqis, only three of them with weapons.
When I returned home after these experiences, I tried to leave the military through legal channels. When that avenue was blocked, my first reaction was to hide from military and civilian authorities. It was a time charged with fear, guilt and confusion during which I contemplated seeking asylum in Canada or in other countries. Eventually I decided to bring my case to the Army and its Uniform Code of Military Justice. I surrendered on March 15, 2004.
On May 19, 2004, I was put on trial for desertion with the intent to avoid hazardous duty. During the pretrial motions, the prosecution was granted most of its requests, including that all evidence of war crimes, all arguments pointing to the illegality of the war, and all relevant witnesses, were not allowed to reach the jury. This denial of due process and witnesses in my defense was a blatant violation of my Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution. The prosecution was allowed to reduce the case to the simple question of whether or not I had boarded my plane back to Iraq after my two-week furlough. My fifty-five-page Conscientious Objector application, which contained a detailed explanation of why I had refused to return to my unit, was also kept from the jury during the trial.
After three days of court-martial, an all-military jury composed of career officers, commanders, and other high-ranking personnel found me guilty and sentenced me to the maximum penalty under a special court-martial: demotion to the lowest rank, forfeiture of pay, a bad conduct discharge, and twelve months of incarceration at an army confinement facility.
My sentence was not harsh when compared to those of other public war resisters. Some of them have faced many years in prison. Some have been awarded dishonorable discharges, which erase their service contributions, prevent them from getting any government jobs, take away any and all medical benefits, tuition benefits, their housing loans, the right to vote, the right to run for office, etc.
I have taken the time to share my experiences with you for two reasons. The first is to let you know how much it means to us here that you have made possible the motion to allow our brothers and sisters to stay in your country. We know how hard it is to leave one’s land and family. We did that when we were called upon to serve in Iraq, and it is because of what we saw and experienced there that we support our brothers and sisters seeking a new home in Canada. They are avoiding participation in a criminal, illegal, and immoral occupation so that other families can live in peace in their own land. They are doing the right thing!
The second reason is that we know that under the current political climate and under the present leadership this country is under, US war resisters are more likely to face harsh punishment at home without the benefit of a fair trial.
We will be the first ones to welcome them back when we see the advent of freedom and justice in this country.
The Canadian people have transcended their own call to conscience by not only refusing to participate in the illegitimate and immoral occupation of Iraq, but also by embracing those have chosen to follow the same path; the path to conscience, to peace, to freedom, and to justice for all humankind.
We call upon the Canadian government to implement the motion stopping all deportations of US war resisters and allowing them to stay in Canada not only because it is your duty to the people you represent to heed to their will, but also because it is a clear statement of support and solidarity for the people of Iraq.
The occupation of Iraq has caused the deaths over a million Iraqi civilians, with at least four million displaced both inside and outside of their own country. It represents a clear violation of international law, and was launched against the will of millions of people who stood against it all over the world. The US occupation of Iraq is a supreme crime against humanity — a war of aggression justified by deliberately distorted intelligence, as has finally been acknowledged by the U.S. Senate intelligence committee. We understand the reluctance of some members of the Canadian government to risk straining diplomatic ties with the current U.S. administration; however, the international security precedent it has set by its disregard for international law must be reversed. By granting political asylum to war resisters who refuse to deploy to Iraq, the Canadian government can play a crucial role in reaffirming the wisdom of an international legal foundation painfully distilled from two world wars.
Thank you once more, Canada, for supporting our war resisters. We are united, in spite of the borders between us, by a connection that goes beyond nationality, race, or religion. We are united because we have embraced humanity over mere nationalism.
I end this letter with the hope that your government will follow the lead of its people and allow our brothers and sisters to stay in your country. I know it is the right and just thing to do.
Together in the struggle for a better world,
Camilo E. Mejia
Iraq War veteran and resister
Chair of the Board, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Conscientious Objector – US Army
Former Prisoner of Conscience
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ACLU Report on Abusive Military Recruitment of Youth
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently issue a report titled “Soldiers of Misfortune: Abusive U.S. Military Recruitment and Failure to Protect Child Soldiers.” Below we reprint the introduction and executive summary.
The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (Optional Protocol) is meant to safeguard the rights of children under 18 from military recruitment and deployment to war, and to guarantee basic protections to former child soldiers, whether they are seeking refugee protection in the United States or are in U.S. custody for alleged crimes.
The U.S. Senate ratified the Optional Protocol in December 2002. By signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. bound itself to comply with the obligations contained in the Optional Protocol.
The Optional Protocol provides that the absolute minimum age for voluntary recruitment is 16 years old. It also instructs countries to set their own minimum age by submitting a binding declaration, and the United States entered a binding declaration raising this minimum age to 17. Therefore, recruitment of youth ages 16 and under is categorically disallowed in the United States.
The Optional Protocol imposes special minimum safeguards for the recruitment of 17-year-olds, requiring that military recruitment activities directed at 17-year-olds be carried out with the consent of the child’s parents or guardians. The Optional Protocol also requires that recruitment must be genuinely voluntary, and that the military must fully inform youth of the duties involved in military service. In addition, the Optional Protocol requires underage recruits to provide reliable proof of age prior to acceptance into military service. The Optional Protocol also requires the United States to take all feasible measures to ensure that 17-year-old members of the armed forces do not take part in hostilities.
Public schools serve as prime recruiting grounds for the military, and the U.S. military’s generally accepted procedures for recruitment of high school students plainly violate the Optional Protocol. In its initial report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child — the body charged with monitoring compliance with the Optional Protocol — the U.S. government claims that “no one under age 17 is eligible for recruitment.” In practice, however, the U.S. armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment, heavily recruiting on high school campuses, in school lunchrooms, and in classes.
Department of Defense instructions to recruiters, the U.S. military’s collection of information on hundreds of thousands of 16-year-olds, and military training corps for children as young as 11 reveal that students are targeted for recruitment as early as possible. By exposing children younger than 17 to military recruitment, the United States military violates the terms of the Optional Protocol.
U.S. military recruitment of youth under 18 also frequently violates the minimum safeguards required by the Optional Protocol. Wartime enlistment quotas have placed increased pressure on military recruiters to fill the ranks of the armed services. The added strain of fulfilling enlistment quotas necessary to carry out sustained U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without reinstituting a draft has contributed to a rise in aggressive recruitment efforts and allegations of misconduct and abuse by recruiters, in contravention of the Optional Protocol. In the absence of a policy on implementation of the Optional Protocol, misconduct by recruiters often goes unchecked.
Heavy-handed recruitment tactics and misconduct by recruiters often render recruitment involuntary, and despite government and media reports documenting misconduct in recruitment of prospective enlistees under the age of 18, protections for students against abusive recruitment tactics remain weak.
Recruiters threaten serious penalties to 17-year-old youth who have signed Deferred Entry contracts and subsequently changed their minds about enlisting, in some cases forcing these youth to report to basic training against their will. A provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act forces schools to open their doors to recruiters and provide the military with students’ information to undergo recruitment without parents’ informed consent. The U.S. military’s practice of targeting low-income youth and students of color for recruitment, in combination with exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment.
The United States also fails to accord basic protections to former child soldiers from other countries. In the case of Omar Khadr, who has been in Department of Defense custody since he was 15 years old, the United States has detained the alleged child soldier at Guantánamo for a period of prolonged pretrial detention without charge; denied him access to legal counsel for more than two years; reportedly subjected him to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and denied him independent psychological assessment and treatment. The United States also has prosecuted Khadr in a substandard legal proceeding characterized by the withholding of exculpatory evidence from his defense counsel and the failure to meet internationally recognized standards for the trial of juveniles. In the cases of some former child soldiers who were victims of serious human rights abuses abroad and are seeking protection in the United States because they cannot return to a safe civilian life in their home countries, children are being excluded from protection under immigration provisions intended to bar those who victimized them.
The ACLU calls on the United States to take immediate, meaningful action to bring its policies and practices on military recruitment of youth, treatment and prosecution of alleged child soldiers, and consideration of the asylum claims of former child soldiers, into compliance with the Optional Protocol. A broader failure to recognize the importance of children’s rights underlies the shortcomings of the United States’ policies and practices on military recruitment of American youth and the U.S.’s failures to accord special protection to former child soldiers from abroad. The United States is one of only two countries in the world not to have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the most comprehensive treaty on children’s rights. The CRC is the most universally accepted and least controversial human rights treaty that has been drafted or adopted, and yet the United States has failed to ratify it. If the United States is to assert leadership on human rights issues, it must join the rest of the world in ratifying the CRC.
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Military Recruiters Must Be Confronted
As a former United States Marine Corps sergeant who was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam on January 20, 1968, I am sending my complete support and admiration to all those now involved in the courageous struggle to stop military recruitment in Berkeley and across the country.
Not since the Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s has there been a cause more just than the one you are now engaged in. Who knows better the deep immorality and deception of military recruiters than those of us who, decades ago, entered those same recruiting offices with our fathers, believing in our hearts that we were being told the truth — only to discover later we had been deceived and terribly betrayed. Many of us paid for that deceit with our lives, years of suffering, and bodies and minds that were never the same again.
Over the past five years, I have watched in horror the mirror image of another Vietnam unfolding in Iraq. So many similarities, so many things said that remind me of that war 30 years ago which left me paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for life. Refusing to learn from the lessons of Vietnam, our government continues to pursue a policy of deception, distortion, manipulation and denial, doing everything it can to hide from the American people their true intentions and agenda in Iraq. As we pass the fifth anniversary of the start of this tragic and senseless war, I cannot help but think of the young men and women who have been wounded, nearly 30,000, flooding Walter Reed, Bethesda, Brooke Army Medical Center and veterans hospitals all across our country. Paraplegics, amputees, burn victims, the blinded, shocked and stunned, brain-damaged and psychologically stressed, a whole new generation of severely maimed men and women who were not even born when I came home wounded to the Bronx Veterans Hospital in New York in 1968.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which afflicted so many of us after Vietnam, is just now beginning to appear among soldiers recently returned from the current war. For some the agony and suffering, the sleepless nights, anxiety attacks and awful bouts of insomnia, alienation, anger and rage will last for decades, if not their whole lives. They will be trapped in a permanent nightmare of that war, of killing another man, a child, watching a friend die fighting…
These traumas return home with us and we carry them, sometimes hidden, for agonizing decades. They deeply impact our daily lives, and the lives closest to us. To kill another human being, to take another life out of this world with one pull of a trigger, is something that never leaves you. It is as if a part of you dies with that person. If you choose to keep on living, there may be a healing, and even hope and happiness again, but that scar and memory and sorrow will be with you forever. Why did the recruiters never mention these things? This was never in the slick pamphlets they gave us.
Some of these veterans are showing up at homeless shelters around our country, while others have begun to courageously speak out against the senselessness and insanity of this war and to demand answers from the leaders who sent them there. During the 2004 Democratic National Convention, returning soldiers formed a group called Iraq Veterans Against the War, just as we had marched in Miami in August of 1972 as Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Still others have refused deployment to Iraq, gone to Canada and begun resisting this immoral and illegal war. Like many other Americans, I have seen them on television or at the local veterans hospitals. But for the most part, they remain hidden like the flag-draped caskets of our dead returned to Dover Air Force Base in the dark of night, as this administration continues to pursue a policy of censorship, tightly controlling the images coming out of that war and rarely allowing the human cost of its policy to be seen.
Many of us promised ourselves long ago that we would never allow what happened to us in Vietnam to happen again. We had an obligation, a responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, as human beings, to raise our voices in protest. We could never forget the hospitals, the intensive-care wards, the wounded all around us fighting for their lives, those long and painful years after we came home, those lonely nights. There were lives to save on both sides, young men and women who would be disfigured and maimed, mothers and fathers who would lose their sons and daughters, wives and other loved ones who would suffer for decades to come if we did not do everything we could to stop the momentum of this madness.
Mario Savio once said, “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
It is time to stop the war machine. It is time for bold and daring action on the part of us all. Precious lives are at stake, both American and Iraqi, and military recruiters must be confronted at every turn, in every high school, every campus, every recruiting office, on every street corner, in every town and city across America. In no uncertain terms we must make it clear to them that by their actions they represent a threat to our community, to our children and all that we cherish. We must explain to them that condemning our young men and women to their death, setting them up to be horribly maimed, and psychologically damaged in a senseless and immoral war, is wrong and unpatriotic and will not be tolerated by Berkeley — or, for that matter, any town or city in the United States.
The days of deceiving, manipulating and victimizing our young people are over. We have had enough, and I strongly encourage all of you to use every means of creative, nonviolent civil disobedience to stop military recruitment all across our country. I stand with you in this important and courageous fight, and I am confident your actions in the days ahead will inspire countless others across our country to do everything they can to end this deeply immoral and illegal war.
Czechs Organize Occupation of Site for U.S. Base
The people of the Czech Republic along with many international supporters organized an occupation of the place where the U.S. is trying to establish its “anti-missile” shield. The U.S. effort is widely recognized as a means to strengthen the U.S. military presence in the region, and specifically in relation to Russia. Protesters organized a six-week occupation of Height 718, the planned site of a missile-tracking high-speed radar base, southwest of Prague.
The government in Prague, under great pressure from the U.S., signed the agreement for the U.S. base last month. A wave of mass protests have occurred ever since, with people demanding no U.S. troops and bases on Czech soil. Protesters are also calling on the Czech parliament to reject the agreement. Participants include anti-nuclear protesters and environmentalists. More recently “rolling” hunger strikes have taken place, including hunger strikes by activists in the U.S. The large majority of Czechs oppose the base, just as the majority of Americans oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and use of the U.S. military for aggression worldwide. Americans are taking their stand with the world’s peoples by demanding All U.S. Troops Home Now!
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