Mass Demonstration in Washington DC on January 27

Now that Democrats on the Hill are lining up to support President Bush's expected call for as many as 50,000 new troops for Iraq, it is time for a massive antiwar demonstration in Washington.

More than 70% of the American public is opposed to this war, but it doesn't matter to this President. You voted in November -- but your vote apparently didn't register. This time, vote with your feet, vote with your airfare, vote with your bus ticket. Vote with your presence in the streets of Washington DC on Saturday, January, 27th. The stakes have never been higher.

Momentum is building for this urgent mobilization. There are already more than 500 endorsements for the demonstration and we are hearing from groups around the country that they are organizing to get people to Washington DC. To send the strongest, clearest message to the new Congress, we are working hard to have the largest turnout possible.

As the details of the January mobilization are being worked out, please check regularly the UFPJ website for updates, volunteer opportunities, housing, transportation, and program: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/.

We will assemble at 11:00 a.m. on the east end of the National Mall, the end closest to the Capitol, and will march on a route that will literally circle the Capitol. We'll make sure the Congress hears us.

On Monday, January 29th, we will meet with members of Congress and/or their aides. Training for the lobby day and other activism will be held in DC on Sunday, January 28th.

Please join us in solidarity.


Joan Stallard for United for Peace and Justice


What follows is an excellent recent analysis from the Traprock Peace Center along with a request for your signature on their petition. It is signed by some of our most prominent activists.


*****please sign and circulate widely****

Why We Stand for Immediate Withdrawal of all U.S. Troops from Iraq

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/outnow/

THE U.S. occupation of Iraq has not liberated the Iraqi people, but has made life worse for most Iraqis. Tens of thousands of U.S. service people have been killed or maimed, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003, the ongoing occupation, and the violence unleashed by them.

Iraq’s infrastructure has been destroyed, and U.S. plans for reconstruction abandoned. There is less electricity, less clean drinking water, and more unemployment today than before the U.S. invasion. All of the justifications initially provided by the U.S. for waging war on Iraq have been exposed as lies; the real reasons for the invasion — to control Iraq’s oil reserves and to increase U.S. strategic influence in the region — now stand revealed.

The Bush administration has insisted again and again that stability, democracy, and prosperity are around the next bend in the road. But with each day that the U.S. stays, the violence and lack of security facing Iraqis worsen. The U.S. says that it cannot withdraw its military because Iraq will collapse into civil war if it does. But the U.S. has deliberately stoked sectarian divisions in its ongoing attempt to install a U.S.- friendly regime, thus driving Iraq towards civil war.

The November elections in the United States sent a clear message that voters reject the Iraq war, and opinion polls show that seven in 10 Iraqis want the U.S. to leave sooner rather than later. Even most U.S. military and political leaders agree that staying the course in Iraq is a policy that is bound to fail.

Yet all the various alternative plans for Iraq now being discussed in Washington, including those proposed by House and Senate Democrats, aren’t about withdrawing the U.S. military from Iraq. Rather, these strategies are about continuing the pursuit of U.S. goals in Iraq and the larger Middle East using different means.

Even the proposal to redeploy U.S. troops outside of Iraq, a plan favored by many Democratic Party leaders, envisions continued U.S. intervention inside Iraq.

With former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisting that a military victory in Iraq is no longer possible and (Ret.) Lt. Gen. William Odom calling for “complete withdrawal” of all U.S. troops, the antiwar movement should demand no less than the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military — as well as reparations to the Iraqi people, so they can rebuild their own society and genuinely determine their own future.

We call on the U.S. to get out of Iraq — not in six months, not in a year, but now.

Ali Abunimah, ElectronicIraq.net
Gilbert Achcar, Author - Clash of Barbarisms
Michael Albert, Znet
Tariq Ali, Author - Bush in Babylon
Anthony Arnove, Author - Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
Noam Chomsky, Author - Hegemony or Survival
Kelly Dougherty, Executive Director - Iraq Veterans Against the War*
Eve Ensler, Playwright - The Vagina Monologues
Eduardo Galeano, Author - The Open Veins of Latin America
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, Columbia University
Camilo Mejía, First Iraq War resister to refuse deployment
Arundhati Roy, Author - God of Small Things
Howard Zinn, Author - A People’s History of the United States

Charles Jenks, Chair of Advisory Board, Traprock Peace Center
charles [at] traprockpeace.org
103 Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342