Three-year Chain of Concern
Cascade Park, Bangor, Maine
It was the very best Chain of Concern we’ve ever had. Over 150 people stretched about 300 meters along US Rt. 2 in Bangor at Cascade Park from 11am to noon this morning. Traffic is quite heavy there on a Saturday. Hundreds of drivers honked for peace as they went by.
Delusions
Meanwhile, President Bush peddled in his radio address today incredible delusions about how “the reaction to the recent violence by Iraq’s leaders is a clear sign” that “progress is being made” and of “Iraq’s commitment to democracy”.
Well, Bush is telling us the truth about just one aspect of his forcing us to hang on to his despicable Iraq policy. That is, “More fighting and sacrifice will be required to achieve this victory.”
To President Bush: We in the Peace Movement totally and completely reject your deluded statements following your call upon others to sacrifice. You offer a false choice between staying the course and presuming that removing our imperial occupation forces would constitute “abandoning our commitments”, and that “there is no peace, there’s no honor, and there’s no security in retreat”.
No one wants America to “abandon” Iraq. What we want is to pull out our military occupation so that Iraq will be allowed to solve its own problems. We owe the people of Iraq nothing less than to take our stranglehold off of their people, politics, and resources. Then we must pay Iraq reparations for the decades of support we gave Saddam, the destruction of infrastructure our bombing and corrupt bumbling of reconstruction have caused, and most importantly, for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis our policies have killed or injured.
March 18th, 2006 at 21:08
My wholehearted support to you all today!
Sadly, here in Sweden, I have not seen a single march here in Sweden. Even “Svenska Freds” have been ominously silent. Why? I do not know…
On another note, a documentary recently revealed that an Electric company here in Sweden (Vattenfall) had been purchasing compounds of some description from Uzbekistan, knowing full well that the Karimov Regime pockets most of the country’s foreign trade profits and redistributes virtually nothing. Then of course there’s the record of henious human rights’ violations and the list goes on…
The posiitive thing is that issues of this kind come to light. However, I am not convinced that the Swedish genral public psyche really contemplates the maning of all this. The struggle goes on.
March 19th, 2006 at 07:55
Update: I read in today’s rag that a few demonstrations around the country had taken place. Why the anniversary of the quagmore did not take centre-stage I suppose is emblematic of a media that tilts towards the US…hmmm.