Action Alert: Call-in against the Occupations!
Call Senators Mike DeWine (614-469-5186) and George Voinovich (614-469-6697) to demand that the US government:
* Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Pay Reparations to Iraqis and Afghans * Stop US Military and Financial Support for Israel Until Israel Dismantles All the Settlements, Ends the Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and Abides by All Relevant International Laws, Including United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 * Appoint an Independent Commission, and Hold Open and Public Hearings, to Investigate the Bush Administration's Lies That Misled Americans into the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Support H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307)
Mike DeWine: 614-469-5186 (Columbus); 202-224-2315 (DC) George Voinovich: 614-469-6697 (Columbus); 202-224-3353 (DC) [Call the Columbus phone numbers while Congress is in recess.]
The Press Conference on People's Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East held on August 27, 2003 was covered by WCBE, Ohio News Network, and Hannah News Service. Our Central Ohio Peace Network lobbying delegation met with Senator Voinovich's district representative Khisha Fallon (614-469-6697) and Senator DeWine's regional director Scott S. Corbitt (614-469-5186). In the course of our lobbying, it became clearer than ever that the Senators have no exit plan -- there is no end of the US occupation of Iraq in sight. Ms. Fallon and Mr. Corbitt could offer no satisfactory explanations of missing Weapons of Mass Destruction and of extraordinary US military and financial support to Israel regardless of its occupation, settlement construction, and the Apartheid Wall building. Worst of all, according to Mr. Corbitt, "we" may very well stay in Iraq for ever!!!
To their credit, however, Mr. Corbitt and Ms. Fallon promised us that Senators DeWine and Voinovich will present us with *Clear Answers in Two Weeks* to the questions of (1) the US occupation of Iraq, (2) US military and financial aid to the Israeli occupation, and (3) the need for an independent commission with open and public hearings about missing Weapons of Mass Destruction and other gaps between reality and the Bush Administration's claims. The Rev. John Wallace, representing our lobbying delegation, will call the Senators' offices in two weeks, to hold them accountable to their promises. (If they fail to give us answers or if they give us morally wrong answers, we'll respond by a big protest!)
In the mean time, please call Senators Mike DeWine (614-469-5186) and George Voinovich (614-469-6697) to demand that the US government:
* Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Pay Reparations to Iraqis and Afghans * Stop US Military and Financial Support for Israel Until Israel Dismantles All the Settlements, Ends the Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and Abides by All Relevant International Laws, Including United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 * Appoint an Independent Commission, and Hold Open and Public Hearings, to Investigate the Bush Administration's Lies That Misled Americans into the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Support H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307)
Cf. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194: <http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument>
Cf. H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307: Both Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation (H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307, respectively) into the House calling for investigation into the Bush administration's misuse of intelligence. Both bills address some but not all of our criteria of open, thorough, timely, televised public hearings and an independent investigation with a broad mandate. Both representatives have supported the other's bill, although Tauscher's is stronger in several regards -- it calls for a House Select Committee rather than an independent commission, and it calls for reporting before the election. (Details can be found at <http://www.thomas.loc.gov/>).
Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, Student International Forum, 614-668-6554, <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>; and Mark D. Stansbery, the Community Organizing Center, 614-252-9255, <walk at igc.org>
Resources for People's Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East -- Measure the Burden of the Empire and Occupations and Measure It in Concrete Terms:
1. Iraq and the US * Beth Osborne Daponte, a Census Bureau demographer, "postulated in 1991 that 158,000 Iraqi men, women and children died during and shortly after the Persian Gulf war" (the US government rewrote her report and derailed her career for her courageous act of truth-telling - Thomas Ginsberg, "War's Toll: 158,000 Iraqis and a Researcher's Position," <http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/4874382.htm>). 293 US service members and 50 allied soldiers also lost their lives in the war. * At least "500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five (according to UNICEF)" died due to the US-imposed sanctions on Iraq (Rania Masri, "Re-Constructing or De-Constructing Iraq?" <http://electroniciraq.net/news/981.shtml>). * More than 9,600 Gulf War veterans have died, as of March 1, 2001, and 36% of the 504,047 eligible veterans filed claims against the VA for service-related medical disabilities (The National Gulf War Resource Center, "2002 Gulf War Statistics," <http://www.ngwrc.org/Facts/default.htm>). * In the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq, a conservative estimate (as of August 22, 2003) reveals that 6113 Iraqi civilians have perished (see <http://www.iraqbodycount.net/>), and CBC reports that as of August 22, 289 US soldiers have died, 195 (64 in combat) since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat was over ("Casualties in the Iraq war," <http://www.cbc.ca/news/iraq/issues_analysis/casualties_postiraqwar.html>). * The cost of the occupation has soared to $3.9 billion per month, $46.8 billion per year (Thom Shanker, "Rumsfeld Doubles Estimate for Cost of Troops in Iraq," <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0710-05.htm>). * In the wake of the military destruction and occupation of Iraq, a second invasion has begun: the invasion of powerful corporations that seek to reap billions in profits from the devastation of war, seizing the wealth and resources that belong to the Iraqi people. The US governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, has openly declared that transforming the Iraqi economy into a '"free market" economy is his top priority, downsizing the Iraqi public sector that employed 30% of the Iraqi work force, privatizing state assets and enterprises, and removing price controls and subsidies that kept prices of staples and public utilities low and affordable to the poor. US occupying forces are making "Iraq open for business again," using the funds set aside for "reconstruction" of Iraq to issue credit guarantees for foreign companies that sell goods to Iraq - in other words, guaranteeing that Iraq's "reconstruction" will be profitable to foreign investors and that "reconstruction" funds will be spent on importing foreign goods, rather than employing jobless Iraqi workers. Global multinationals are lining up to gobble up and profit from the lucrative oil and water industries of the country. Through wide-scale privatization, lowering "barriers to entry for new firms," and changing Iraqi commercial law to "encourage private investment," the Bush Administration and US occupying forces are ensuring that long after the military forces are gone, the occupation of Iraq by multinational corporations will continue (consult the Institute for Southern Studies' Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers and Corporate Invasion, <http://www.southernstudies.org/campaignpage.asp>; Rania Masri, "Re-Constructing or De-Constructing Iraq?" <http://electroniciraq.net/news/981.shtml>; Naomi Klein, "Downsizing in Disguise," <http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0606-01.htm>; Tim Shorrock, "Selling [Off] Iraq," <http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623&s=shorrock>, and "A New Solidarity Front in Iraq," <http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=shorrock>; Dan Baum, "Nation Builders for Hire," <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/22BROWN.html>; Patrick Tyler, "US Plans Credit System for Sale of Goods to Iraq," <http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0527credit.htm>; and Richard A. Oppel, Jr., "New Trade Bank to Extend Credit for Rebuilding," <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/international/worldspecial/22IRAQ.html>).
2. Israel, the Occupied Territories, and the US * Over 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees before and during the establishment of Israel in 1948. "During the 1967 Israeli-Arab war more than 400,000 Palestinians were displaced, half of whom were 1948 refugees displaced for a second time in less than two decades" ("The 1967 Palestinian Refugees - Also Waiting to Go Home," <http://www.badil.org/Press/2002/press261-02.htm>). Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, estimates that Palestinian refugees, who are denied the right to return (despite UN General Assembly Resolution 194, <http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument>), number 6.5 million today, with 3.8 million registered with the United Nations for humanitarian assistance (see <http://www.al-awda.org/faqsonrefugees/>; for a range of estimated numbers of refugees, go to <http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/proverview.html>). * Dispossession and displacement of Palestinians continued even during the so-called "Peace Process," sowing the seeds of anger and despair that erupted into the second Intifada. Between September 1993 and September 2001, the number of housing units in the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip "rose from 20,400 to 31,400 -- an increase of approximately fifty-four percent. . . . The sharpest increase during this period was recorded in 2000, under the government headed by Ehud Barak," B'Tselem documents in its report "Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank" (May 2002, <http://www.btselem.org/Download/Land_Grab_Eng.pdf>, pp. 15-16). The total area under the control of the settlements has come to the shocking 41.9% of the West Bank ("Land Grab," p. 112, Table 9), crushing the hope of Palestinian independence. * Since the beginning of the second Intifada, at least 2,286 Palestinians, 753 Israelis, and 45 foreign citizens have been killed (as of July 23, 2003), according to B'Tselem (at <http://www.btselem.org/>). On June 26, 2003, the UN International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel reported "a sharp increase in the torture" and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees since September 2000, despite the 1999 High Court of Justice ruling to outlaw torture (at <http://www.stoptorture.org.il/eng/press.asp?menu=7&submenu=1&item=125>). * Since 1976, Israel has been the leading recipient of US aid. The National Lawyers Guild has found that well over $81 billion of US foreign aid was given to Israel from 1949 through 2000 (see "The Al Aqsa Intifada and Israel's Apartheid: The U.S. Military and Economic Role in the Violation of Palestinian Human Rights," <http://www.nlg.org/programs/mideast/al_aqsa_intifada.pdf>). SUSTAIN (Stop US Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now!, at <http://www.sustaincampaign.org/>) calculates that US aid to Israel during the 1990s was about $6.3 billion a year, over $17 million a day. US aid to Israel violates the US Arms Export Control Act and the US Foreign Assistance Act (see "Reasons to Oppose US Aid to Israel," <http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/palestine/reasons.pdf>). * The eight-meter-high Apartheid Wall marks the latest stage of the US-backed occupation, this time incorporating "10%-15% of the occupied territories" into Israel and imprisoning at least "11,700 [Palestinian] people in 13 villages . . . between the wall and the green line [Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank]" ("Israel's 'Separation Wall,'" <http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/> -- for more information about the Apartheid Wall, go to <http://www.stopthewall.org/>). The wall will further ghettoize Palestinian lives and devastate their livelihoods, without providing security to Israelis (ironically, the wall is also protested by Israeli settlers, who fear that it may become a de facto border).
3. Qui Bono? Who Benefits? Corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, the biggest looters of Iraq (see US Labor Against the War, "The Corporate Invasion of Iraq," <http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/images/CorpInvasion.061503.v1.4.pdf>). Arms manufacturers like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, the merchants of deaths in Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Territories, and beyond (Jordan Green, "Arming the Occupation," <http://www.ncdivest.org/articles/01_Backgrounder_Arming-the-Occupation.pdf>; William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan, "U.S. Arms Transfers and Security Assistance to Israel," <http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html>; Frida Berrigan, "The War Profiteers: How Are Weapons Manufacturers Faring in the War?," <http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1218-03.htm>). Corporate media like Fox News and Clear Channel, the propagators of lies and racist fantasies. Politicians who are funded by, or are even themselves, corporate profiteers who take away precious resources - from land to oil, from water to anything else - from the multitudes in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America; who exploit the labor of the dispossessed and displaced; and who feed on their blood and tears (for instance, check out "The War Profiteers Card Deck," <http://www.warprofiteers.com/>).
-- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>