http://blog.progressivevote.org/index.php?p=146HOW TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ - ACTION UPDATE
1. Pressure in Congressional Districts against $75 billion military supplemental. The Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) will meet in Washington during the Inaugural to lay plans for increasing local pressure on Congress to vote No on the expected $75 billion military request in February. Tom Hayden will hold workshops in southeastern Michigan and northern Illinois on local organizing strategies. Local Democratic clubs in California will demand that "liberals" who say the war is a "mistake" stop funding the occupation. Contact: Tim Carpenter (PDA) at info@pdamerica.org.
2. National Anti-War Coalitions Considering Calls for US Withdrawal. Our position must be that further military occupation is not worth the lives lost, the billions expended, and the further isolation of the United States (latest polls in Europe show majorities having an unfavorable opinion of the American people, not simply the Bush Administration). Most Americans think the war is a mistake, but hear no widespread calls for withdrawal. The large anti-war coalitions can no longer avoid the issue. Contact MoveOn.org (www.moveon.org/feedback/) and Win Without War (www.winwithoutwarus.org/html/contact.html), and insist that they take the lead now. Begin the search for a progressive Democratic elected official willing to become the Wayne Morse, George McGovern, or William Fulbright of this generation.
Remember- if the anti-war movement leads, public opinion and elected officials will follow.
3. GI Sanctuary Movement Focuses on Canada in January. An appeal will shortly be launched for the international anti-war movement to increase pressure of governments to stand for peace against US pressure. Canada is the immediate battleground, where the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is expected to rule early next year on an application for asylum by a US soldier who, among other directives, was taught to chant, "What makes the grass grow? Blood, blood, bright red blood!" The Canadian government is under pressure from the US military to reject any appeals for asylum, but the Canadian peace movement has a powerful role to play, with coordinated assistance from American peace groups. Contact Global Exchange (ted@globalexchange.org) for further information.
4. Big US Contractor Withdraws from Iraq, More To Follow?
Just as US information-warriors were claiming progress, Contrack International has become the largest Pentagon contractor to be driven out of Iraq by the insurgency ("citing skyrocketing security costs", reports the LA Times, Dec. 22). "If this is how other private companies are thinking, it's a very bad potential warning", said one US insider on the reconstruction process. Public pressure, including shareholder resolutions, is needed to urge all military contractors to withdraw until the military occupation is ended.
5. Even Bush Admits "Iraqization" Is Failing
Presumably preparing the American public for a longer war, President Bush admitted at a year-end press conference that his rosy campaign descriptions of Iraqization were false, and that "the whole command structure necessary to have a viable military is not in place." This is the Achilles' heel of the US strategy, as it was in Vietnam, guaranteeing either a permanent war which the US cannot afford, a near-term disaster on the ground, or a withdrawal under whatever cover explanation is necessary.
6. Europeans Balk on NATO Training of Iraq Troops
France, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg have effectively delayed any NATO decision to increase its forces training Iraqi troops (Joel Brinkley, “NATO Agrees to Expansion of Forces Training Soldiers in Iraq,” NYT, Dec. 10), citing a belief that any training mission might become a back-door path to a combat role. The European peace movement should be credited with keeping their ministers such as German foreign minister Joschka Fischer steered away from any premature reconciliation with the US.
7. Crusading Christian U.S. General Leads Pentagon Intelligence Power-Grab
The last the public heard of General William Boykin he was on the speakers' circuit denouncing Muslims as satanic idolaters. Not only was he never fired, Boykin heads the Pentagon's efforts to bolster its own intelligence operations at the expense of the CIA. Concerned clergy are making plans to denounce this merger of religion and military power, demand Boykin's resignation and strict guidelines that the Pentagon has nothing to do with promoting Christianity through force.
8. Shiite Alliance Leader Calls for Withdrawal of US Troops.
US plans for a staged Iraqi election continue to plunge the country towards civil war or a discredited result. The US fears that their favored client slate will not be able to campaign for name recognition given the daily warfare, and that the winners could be a Shiite coalition with ties to Iran and religious Sunnis connected to the Salafi fundamentalists, whose followers include Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
One leader of the Shiite Alliance, Dr. Hussein al-Shahristani, has released only one point of a 23-point platform: to negotiate a date for US military withdrawal. (Robert F. Worth, “Shiites Signal Concern Over Sunni Turnout Amid Violence,” NYT, Dec. 10).
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