U.S. Peace Movement Responds to Bush's Speech

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*For immediate release*

National (DC) press contact: Sarah Sloan,
Office: 202-544-3389; Mobile: 202-904-7949
New York press contact: Ed Felton,
Office: 212-694-8720; Mobile: 917-806-5867

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U.S. PEACE MOVEMENT PLANS TO "ESCALATE" STREET PROTESTS

The ANSWER Coalition Responds to Bush's War Speech of January 10, 2007

ANSWER Coalition Statement:

Unwilling to accept the failure of his war of aggression in Iraq, his
"war of choice," Bush announced tonight a plan that will succeed only in
sending thousands of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers to their graves in the
next year.

What Bush is really proposing is using thousands of additional U.S.
soldiers in a planned reign of terror in the streets and neighborhoods of
Baghdad against those who want the U.S. to leave. Bush chose to use a
euphemism about the planned reign of terror when he stated that one of
the past "mistakes" of the U.S. military operation in Baghdad was that,
"there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have." The blood
will flow just as Bush promises but this plan will fail just as badly
as every announced initiative since Bush arrogantly taunted the Iraqi
resistance with his infamous "Bring em on" speech back in 2003.

Bush gave the people of the United States a warning that they should
expect the coming year will be "bloody and violent," with "tv screens
filled with images of death and suffering." He tried to innoculate
himself from responsibility for this carnage although his plan makes it
inevitable.

Bush's aspiration to salvage his "legacy" and his place in history
isn't worth one more life. Every mother and father of a U.S. soldier, every
family member who has a loved one in the U.S. armed forces should make
it crystal clear that the lives of their family members are too
precious to be sacrificed for such an ignoble cause.

The deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis since March 2003 (see
Lancet medical journal 10/06), proves beyond a reasonable doubt that
Bush's claim that his invasion was for the liberation of the Iraqi people is
a complete and utter lie.

"Clearing and holding neighborhoods in Iraq" is not the duty or right
of members of the U.S. military. The people who live in those
neighborhoods lived in peace before the arrival of the occupation forces. The
occupation is illegal and the order to stiffen the occupation is illegal
too. U.S. soldiers have the right and duty to disobey illegal orders.

Neither one more Iraqi nor one more soldier should die so that the
politicians, who inaugurated a criminal "pre-emptive" invasion of a country
that posed zero threat to the people of the United States, can postpone
the verdict of history.

For their part, the Democrats in Congress are involved in a slightly
more complicated dance. They want to posture as opponents of Bush's
escalation and so-called surge without taking responsibility for bringing
the war to a close. They could cut funding for the war which is their
exclusive Constitutional prerogative. But they will absolutely refuse to
take this responsibility. They are merely posturing for the 2008
elections hoping to take advantage of the well deserved public disgust for
Bush and the Iraq war.

The issue right now for the anti-war movement is not either opposition
to a surge or an escalation: the issue is the war itself. The troops
must be brought home now. As in Vietnam, that is the only solution. Those
who initiated the war and who funded the war should be held accountable
for one of the great crimes of the modern era.

Everything that Bush has said about the Iraq has proved to be a lie.
This was always a war for Empire in a strategic area that possesses two
thirds of the world's oil supply. He proclaimed tonight that, "failure
in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." If Bush fails in
Iraq the people of the United States lose nothing. It is not our Empire.

On March 17, 2007, the anniversary of the start of the criminal
invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people from around the country will
descend on the Pentagon in a mass demonstration to demand: U.S. Out of
Iraq Now! 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the historic 1967 anti-war march
to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. The message of the 1967 march
was "From Protest to Resistance," and marked a turning point in the
development of a countrywide mass movement.

Thousands of organizations and individuals are mobilizing for the
upcoming March on the Pentagon:
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=4Z-l8p_EBV03njxvkVd8ZQ..

Organizing committees and transportation centers are being established
to bring people to the March on the Pentagon.

Tomorrow, January 11, there will be emergency demonstrations protesting
Bush's planned escalation of the war in Iraq. A schedule of the
demonstrations can be found by clicking here:
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=BUoxgBcr5Zr4Mbv6-uon3Q..

The March 17 demonstration will assemble at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Constitution Gardens) at 12 noon in Washington, D.C.and march to
the Pentagon.

There are more than 1,000 endorsers for the March on the Pentagon
including:

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
Alice Walker, Pulitzer prize winning author
Cynthia McKinney, Congresswoman
Cindy Sheehan, co-founder Gold Star Families for Peace, author
Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran, author, Born on the 4th of July
Malik Rahim, Founder, Common Ground Collective, New Orleans
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit
Paul Haggis, Director of Crash, 2005 Academy Award for Best Picture
Elias Rashmawi, National Coordinator, National Council of Arab
Americans (NCA)
Howard Zinn, Author, A People's History of the United States
Rev. Luis Barrios, Iglesia de San Romero - UCC
Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild
Chaplain James Yee, former Army chaplain, Guantánamo Detention enter
Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom
Foundation
Father Roy Bourgeois, Founder, School of the Americas Watch
Leonard Weinglass, Attorney for the Cuban Five
Eric LeCompte, National Office, School of the Americas Watch
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice
Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Mounzer Sleiman, TV commentator and Vice Chair, National Council of
Arab Americans
Ben Dupuy, Co-Director, Haiti Progres
Juan Jose Gutierrez, Executive Director, Latino Movement USA
Calvin Gipson, Former President, San Francisco LGBT Pride Committee
Rev. Graylan Hagler, Senior Pastor, Plymouth Congregational Church,
Washington D.C
Kay Lucas, Director, Crawford Peace House, Crawford, TX
Chuck Kaufman, Co-coordinator of the Nicaragua Network
Al Garcia, Alliance for a Just & Lasting Peace in the Philippines
Macrina Cardenas, Mexico Solidarity Network
Eugene Puryear, Howard University, student leader
Gloria La Riva, Coordinator, National Committee to Free the
Cuban Five
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
KAWAN: Korean Americans Against War and Neoliberalism
Justice Committee
Ed Asner, Actor
Shirley Knight, Actor
Debra Sweet, National Coordinator, World Can't Wait -- Drive Out the
Bush Regime
Jennifer Harbury, Human Rights Lawyer, author
United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA)
Jim Lafferty, Director, National Lawyers Guild - Los Angeles
Iglesia de San Romero - United Church of Christ
Mimi Kennedy, Actor (Dharma & Greg)

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A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.answercoalition.org
info [at] internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
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