[CitizensTruth] Will we have an ANTI-war movement?

[Jay Becker]

		The World Can't Wait
Stop the Crimes of Your Government
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                                    Visible action is urgently needed. Plan Now:

                                    

                                    The
USA PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, and Obama's FISA Act
must be repealed; the U.S. torture state must be dismantled, and secret
rendition ended.

                                    *Visible - orange - protests on Sunday, January 11, the anniversary of Guantanamo.

                                    

                                    Prosecute the war criminals and STOP the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan!

                                    *The first anti-war protest of the Obama administration January 20, 2009, Washington  DC,

                                    

                                    Six Years of Illegitimate War - Resist the Recruiters!

                                    *Wednesday, March 18 "We Are Not Your Soldiers" Day of resistance to recruiters;

                                    *Thursday March 19: Local protests including school walk-outs.

                                    *Saturday March 21: United mass protests.

                                    

                                    We
in World Can't Wait pledge to work with everyone who wants to build an
ANTI-war movement.  Real change happens when people take independent
action - outside the confines of government and in their own interests.

                                    

If we want to stop the continued horror of the largest imperialist
power on earth dropping bombs, sending death squads and torturers
anywhere with impunity - in our names -- the only way is to face up to
reality, tell the truth, and get out to the people with the message
that we must stop the crimes of our government.

                                    
                                    Become a sustainer 4Real Change Now...
                                    
                                    
                                
                            
                        
                        
                    
                
            
            
        
    

Jay
I
was at the United for Peace & Justice National Assembly this
weekend.  I met some of you there who read this list; and others who
were not familiar with World Can't Wait.
I
worked with others -- mostly peace coalitions from the middle of the
country, not in the larger cities -- to get UFPJ to support a united
anti-war march in Washington DC on the sixth anniversary of the war,
Saturday March 21.  By 111-49, that proposal was defeated, in favor of
what UFPJ's program "Yes We Can...End the War" for a Saturday, April 4
march on Wall Street, focusing on the recession.


Not
to directly challenge Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan is
shameful.  On the anniversary of "Shock & Awe," and under a new
president, the anti-war movement needs to be in Washington.  And many
of us WILL be there (see sidebar).  
World Can't Wait wrote a letter to the anti-war movement.  We posed:


"We
in this country, and those of us in this movement, have a choice. We
can side with our government, with the "good war" fought in our names,
and act like American lives are more important than anyone else's lives.



Or we can show the people living in the Middle East, and the world,
that in the U.S. there is a difference between the people and their
government, and that the people are taking responsibility to end an
unjust war and the war crimes that have been carried out in our name.
We can act like we care about the whole planet."
To the Anti-War movement in the United States: 
"That which you do not resist and mobilize to stop you will learn - or be forced - to accept."


>From the Call to Drive out the Bush Regime, 2005




Barack Obama is sending a surge of 20,000 troops to Afghanistan.



An antiwar movement that does not move immediately to oppose
the Obama doctrine of shifting the central front of the war on terror
to Afghanistan, no longer deserves to be called an anti-war movement.



Millions of people voted for Obama because they thought he would end
the war. Yet Obama filled his cabinet with Hillary "Obliterate Iran"
Clinton, Robert Gates, James Jones and Susan Rice ("a kettle of hawks,"
said Jeremy Scahill).



He is not only continuing an unjust war by leaving 80,000 troops and 17
permanent bases in Iraq, and all over the region, including nuclear
carrier-led task forces with enough firepower to "annihilate" any
country in the region, but Obama is enlisting many progressive sections
of society to support and be complicit in waging a spreading war for
U.S. hegemony and imperialist expansion known as the "war on terror."



The election of the first Black president is effectively re-branding
preemptive and illegal wars of aggression to make us feel good about
them. Massive anti-war sentiment and action is already being
transformed into flag-waving patriotism, passivity and capitulation in
the face of horrors... full text.
►Please post your comments on this letter on worldcantwait.org; digg it; post it to other sites or email it; and write me here about it.  

 			The
protest seen around the world: "He [George Bush] deserves to be hit
with 100, not just one or two shoes. Who wants him to come here?" said
an Iraqi in response to Muntadar al-Zaidi's action yesterday of
throwing his shoes at Bush during a Bagdad press conference.  "This is
a farewell kiss, you dog.  This is for the widows the orphans, and
those killed in Iraq."  al-Zaidi, who reportedly was detained by U.S.
troops last year while working as a reporter, was dragged out and
beaten by Iraqi security, and is still being held.  Iraqis rallied
today, calling him a hero for insulting Bush.


An
action at the White House Wednesday December 17, 11 am, to bring shoes
with the names of Iraqis as a demand that the war in Iraq be ended has
been called by Code Pink, AfterDowningStreet, and Democrats.com.  David
Swanson writes Bush Comparison Seen As Unfair to Dogs.  

Last Monday,the City Council of Berkeley, CA passed a resolution putting the City of Berkeley
on record calling for UC Berkeley Law professor John Yoo to be
prosecuted for war crimes.  Many of you contacted the City Council, and
people, including 3 City Council members, testified in favor of the
resolution, which marks another stage in the growing political battle
over torture that erupted over the past year with "torture professor"
Yoo at its vortex.  The nearly-unanimous vote is being described in the
San Francisco Chronicle and other news reports as Berkeley boldly taking a stand on yet another national controversy.   
It
is a good thing that even one U.S. city says out loud and officially
that torture is a war crime, and that criminals like John Yoo should be
brought to account.  The people of the world would surely be glad if
many more cities followed Berkeley's
lead.  Yet the resolution which ultimately passed was a re-written
substitute for, and cut the heart out of, the original version.  World
Can't Wait will be reporting further as part of our extensive coverage
of the US torture state. 



Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime


	
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