SEPT 22- 29: Encampment in front of Congress - Cut off the War funds - Build a People Peace Congress
Hundreds of Endorsers - More than 40 Organizing Centers - It's time to Shut Down Washington!
Stop the War at Home & Abroad! Bring ALL the Troops Home Now! Impeach Bush & Cheney for War Crimes!
Congress will not end the war Marches alone will not end the war It's time to shut down Washington DC - No more business as usual!
Endorsers include:* Rep. Cynthia McKinney; Medea Benjamin, CoFounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace; Fernando Suarez del Solar, founder of Proyecto Guerrero Azteca por la Paz; Bishop Filipe C Teixeira, OFSJC; Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General; Brenda Stokely of the NYC Solidarity Committee For Katrina / Rita Evacuees; Liz Arnone, Co-Chair, NJ Green Party; Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha, Chief Coordinator, We The People United Bangladesh; Abayomi Azikiwe, Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice; Jack Balkwill, Chair, Liberty Underground of Virginia; Barney Richards, National President, New Zealand Peace Council; Teresa Dawson, Coordinator, MFSO Central Ohio; Joan Gibbs, Jericho Movement; Efia Nwangaza, Founder/director, Afrikan Amerikan Institute for Policy Studies & Planning; Jose Luis Diaz, President, Casas las Americas; Leslie Feinberg, author and activist; Teresa Gutierrez of the NY May 1 Coalition for Immigrant Rights; LeiLani Dowell, FIST (Fight Imperialism - Stand Together); Berna Ellorin, BAYAN USA; Ben Carroll, UNC SDS; and hundreds more. for an updated list, see TroopsOutNow.org *organizations listed for ID purposes only
Since mid-April, when the Troops Out Now Coalition issued a proposal for a week of action in Washington DC in September, activists from across the U.S. and worldwide have contacted us to support the proposal and to volunteer to help with this major mobilization.
More than a hundred activists, from as far away as Los Angeles, Sacramento, and New Orleans, packed the Troops Out Now New York office on June 16 to begin planning for this week of resistance. Momentum is building as more activists realize that it is time to move from protest to resistance:
**We now have hundreds of endorsers and more than 40 organizing centers.
**Activists, community groups, and grassroots organizers are planning to set up tents at the Encampment to highlight issues they are working on.
**Youth activists are working to build a national student strike during the week of the Encampment.
**Regional coordinators are working on organizing transportation to the Encampment and March.
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on all youth and rank and file GI’s to…
RESIST! Don’t Enlist! Don’t Go!
Don’t fight, die, or massacre for big oil!
Our fight is at home against poverty, war and racism!
My Lai, Vietnam, 1968. Haditha, Iraq, 2005. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush hate it when anyone mentions these two events—these two war crimes—in the same breath. All the more reason to examine them closely, to see that they have the same basis that they spell out the same lesson.
Thirteen-year-old Safa Yunis was the family’s only survivor. She says U.S. Marines slaughtered her father and mother, Khafif and Aeda Yasin Ahmed, her four sisters aged 14, 10, 5 and 3, her 8-year-old brother, and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family. Neighbors said the family members were shot at close range or killed by grenades. The children died screaming. Safa survived because she was covered in her mother’s blood when she fell to the floor. The Marines thought she was dead.
Pentagon officers are expected to announce a judgment on the Haditha war crime. Will they call it murder? Will they instead excuse the young Marines who killed the Iraqi children, women and men that day last November? What they won’t do is put the blame where it belongs first of all: on those who conspired to invade Iraq, on those who lied to justify this conspiracy, on those who put U.S. young men and women in the horrible position where they kill babies. For if there were really justice not only the Marines would be put on trial but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their whole gang who sent these Marines to kill for power, for “strategic interests”, for oil profits.
What is the lesson of My Lai and of Haditha? It’s that when an occupation army is ordered to suppress a resistance movement (in Iraq this is called the “insurgency”) that has popular support, then it commits war crimes. The young Marines know that all the Iraqis hate them, including the civilians, including the children. So when they attack, they kill civilians. They kill children. When this is done with bombs from airplanes, it is called “collateral damage” in Pentagon newspeak.
It is ridiculous to think that a “refresher course” in military ethics will change the situation. The Marines are ordered to go in and win a battle. Rep. John Murtha saw this happen in Vietnam and has exposed this latest war crime in Haditha. But we have to go further than Murtha in our conclusions from these facts. There is no longer a way to hide the criminal nature of the war. It is out there before the world. And there are very few “ethical” or honorable choices before the young Marines, soldiers and other U.S. combat troops if they want to avoid being war criminals. Their only choice is to refuse to take part in these military operations in Iraq. This is a heroic choice but it is also the only honorable choice. And it is up to the anti-war movement to give every support possible to those who refuse.
The movement should bring this same message to recruiting offices around the country. Appeal to the youths to refuse to sign up for the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army and the National Guard. Otherwise they may be placed in the position of being war criminals. Not signing up is an easier choice than refusing to fight once in Iraq, but it is still a sacrifice to those without jobs or future in civilian life. So the anti-war movement should also be dedicated to fighting for jobs for all and for education for all.
Organize Emergency Protests at Recruiting Centers…
In New York City…Fri., June 9th, 5 P.M.- 6 P.M. at the Chambers St. Recruiting Station (address & subway info) For more information contact the Troops Out Now Coalition at 212-633-6646 or www.troopsoutnow.org
The Troops Out Now Coalition (TONC) is a national grassroots coalition of antiwar activists, trade unionists, solidarity activists and community organizers.
For more information, or to find out how you can get involved, visit our homepage at TroopsOutNow.org
