Thousands
in US rally
against war on Iraq
Thousands marched
in an anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles, California on Saturday,
Jan. 11, 2003. Estimates on the number of participants ranged from 15,000-20,000.
Photo courtesy of LA Indymedia
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Jan. 15 (AGR)— Thousands of people protesting a looming US-led
war against Iraq marched and rallied throughout the US and abroad this
past weekend. Downtown Los Angeles boasted the biggest turnout on Saturday,
with many claiming it had been the largest anti-war demonstration there
since the Vietnam War era. Median estimates put the number of marchers
at 15-20,000. Thousands of people were also reported protesting in Minneapolis
and Chicago just as across the US, thousands more are making travel
plans to demonstrate in Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA this weekend.
A mother of three small children, Negrete echoed the views of many
in the diverse crowd, protesting in a mid-day march that stretched ten
city blocks in downtown LA.
"There are going to be children like mine who will die for oil,
which I think is crazy, stupid and dumb," she said. "So I
brought my sons, who are just as beautiful as any in Iraq."
The march and a rally afterwards, monitored by police but with no arrests,
followed President Bush’s announcement the day before that the
US will deploy 62,000 more US troops to the Persian Gulf.
At the rally, the protesting masses aired their dissent with the help
of former Guns ‘n’ Roses guitarist Slash, singer Jackson Browne,
the band Burning Star, and poets Saul Williams and Jerry Quickly. Speakers
included actor Martin Sheen, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, CA State Rep.
Jackie Goldberg, and legendary Vietnam veteran against the war Ron Kovic.
Behind this scene, the work of 4 distinct groups reportedly made the
difference and tied things together. Opting for one massive rally instead
of four disparate ones, ANSWER, the Coalition for World Peace, the Interfaith
Communities United for Peace and Justice, and Not in Our Names collaborated
with strong sponsorship from local radio station KPFK-FM.
Present was retired school teacher Bill Payne, 65, who said he had
not participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam era. But his
feelings about activism changed over the years, prompting him to drive
two hours from his home in Yucaipa.
"I don’t want to see any kids killed. That’s it. That’s
all there is to it," he said. "No kids in Iraq killed, no
kids any place killed."
Two thousands miles away, smashing organizer’s expectations, over
2,400 people attended an anti-war rally held in Minneapolis on the same
day. First-time protesters, of which there were many, came away from
the event strong and excited. In the words of one participant: "I
was feeling a sense of accomplishment because I was making my voice
heard, I was exercising my natural right, the right to dissent. I was
no longer sitting around and bitching about the situation and society
and history. I was actively trying to change it, to do something."
"I think it’s important that everybody who is against the
war make their voice heard," said resident Chris Baird. "I
think that we (could) end up killing a lot of innocent Iraqis, and an
action like that would not separate us very much from the terrorists,"
she said.
Meanwhile, an estimated 2,000 Chicagoans braved record-low temperatures
to march and rally at the city’s Federal Plaza. Convened by over
60 anti-war, international solidarity, faith-based, and community-based
organizations, the broad mobilization attracted protesters from all
over Chicago, as well as those from most of the adjoining and distant
suburbs.
In Cleveland, in an assembly that resembled a revival as much as a
peace rally, nearly 500 people filled the sanctuary of Antioch Baptist
Church in Cleveland to protest and strategize.
The rally – billed as "Voices Against the War" –
featured Rev. Joan Brown-Campbell. The mother of Cleveland Mayor Jane
Campbell, who was also present, the reverend talked about traveling
to Iraq in 1991, a week before the first war against Saddam Hussein.
She said she returned 10 years later on a humanitarian mission and while
she was there a baby died in her arms.
The United States cannot ask the world to disarm while its troops are
poised for war, she said.
"I have prayed with the Iraqi people, they are our sisters and
brothers," Brown-Campbell said. "There is there, as there
is here, a will for peace. But it must be given voice. We cannot be
timid in our cries for peace and justice."
A speech by US Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Cleveland Democrat, began with
a standing ovation.
Iraq has not committed any acts of aggression toward the United States,
Kucinich said, and was not responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
and the anthrax scare. Nor has it been established that Iraq has weapons
of mass destruction or plans to attack the United States, he said.
The reason the Bush administration wants to send hundreds of thousands
of men and women into combat and to destroy the lives of Iraqi people
is the pursuit of oil and empire building, the congressman said.
"We must be prepared to stand up, to speak out, to organize, to
demand an end to the war or demand an end to the administration which
insists on war," Kucinich said.
Washington, DC
Dallas lawyer Robert B. Dennis is headed to Washington this week, one
of about 50 Texans willing to endure a 22-hour bus ride. Amer Mirza,
a web developer from suburban Chicago, has been signing up Muslims in
his area for seats on a charter bus he plans to ride. Casey Chapman,
a senior at Catholic Central High School in Troy, NY, will join a dozen
other teenagers in a chaperone-driven van.
Dennis, Mirza and Chapman are a fraction of the thousands going to
Washington, DC for a national antiwar demonstration on Saturday, Jan.
18, a rally and march that they and organizers say will be their last
chance for a massive display of dissent before the United States goes
to war with Iraq.
"The Iraqi people are not our enemy," said Dennis, 70, a
member of the Dallas Peace Center. "We don’t need to subject
them to another war and more bombings."
Saturday’s events in DC follow an October protest that drew about
100,000, a turnout organizers and police also said was the largest antiwar
demonstration in the nation’s capital since the protests against
the Vietnam War.
Tens of thousands are planning to make the trip, as organizers from
Texas to New York to Wisconsin arrange for charter buses, car caravans
and flights to DC.
The protest, organizers say, is one of several Washington anti-war
rallies coinciding with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
Activists said they wanted to link King’s opposition to the Vietnam
War to the current peace movement.
Kovic, whose autobiography Born on the Fourth of July was made into
a movie, predicts the protest will mark the start of "one of the
greatest anti-war movements in the history of the United States."
"I and others are entering a deployment order for citizens of
this country to go to the streets and to protest in mass," Kovic
said.
Nearly 500 people have registered to travel by bus from Wisconsin.
Mike Miles of the Northwoods Peace Initiative said participants include
many people who have never done anything like this. "We have already
filled almost six buses with no end in sight."
Guy Wolf of La Crosse said he has collected enough donations to finance
the trip for 40 people.
"People who can’t go themselves are paying for others to
go in their place," he said.
Demonstrators from religious groups, labor organizations, schools and
high-profile celebrities are among the more than 100,000 people expected
to attend the event, organizers said.
"Never before in human history has an anti-war movement grown
so fast and spread so quickly. It is even more remarkable because the
war has yet to begin," commented Ruth Rosen in the San Francisco
Chronicle.
The anti-war movement has entered mainstream culture, Rosen says. To
give just a few examples, she points out that the National Council of
Churches, the National Organization for Women, Win Without War (Hollywood
celebrities), the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and John
Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO have all voiced their opposition to
an invasion of Iraq.
On Saturday in DC, demonstrators have planned a rally on the west side
of the Capitol. Organizers say they will then march to the Washington
Navy Yard, where they will ask to inspect for weapons of mass destruction.
Sources: Associated Press, Chicago Independent
Media Center, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Indymedia.org, Los Angeles Independent
Media Center, Los Angeles Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Francisco
Chronicle, Twincities Indymedia, Washington Post
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One
generation to save world,
report warns
By Paul Brown
Jan. 9— The human race has only one or perhaps two generations
to rescue itself, according to the 2003 State of the World report by
the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute.
The longer no remedial action is taken, the greater the degree of misery
and biological impoverishment that humankind must be prepared to accept,
the institute says in its 20th annual report.
Overuse of resources, pollution, and destruction of natural areas continue
to threaten life on the planet. Conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly,
the report says, although there are some hopeful signs in that technical
solutions to the problems have been found and — where there is
political will — adopted. In most cases, though, nothing is being
done.
Among the worst trends worldwide is that 420 million people live in
countries which no longer have enough crop land to grow their own food
and have to rely on imports. Around 1.2 billion people, or about a fifth
of the world’s population, live in absolute poverty -- defined
as surviving on the equivalent of less than one dollar a day.
About one quarter of the developing world’s crop land is being
degraded, and the rate is increasing. The greatest threat is not a shortage
of land, says the report, but a shortage of water, with more than 500
million people living in regions prone to chronic drought.
By 2025 that number is likely to have increased at least fivefold,
to between 2.4 billion and 3.4 billion. A probable world population
increase of 27 percent over the same period will create social and ecological
instability.
Global warming is accelerating, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
has reached 370.9 parts per million, the highest level for at least
420,000 years and probably for 20 million years.
Toxic chemicals are being released in ever-increasing quantities, and
global production of hazardous waste has reached more than 300 million
tons a year. There is only a vague idea of what damage this does to
humans and natural systems, the report says.
Another threat is the movement of highly invasive species to regions
where they may pose problems to native species.
The state of the world’s natural life support system is perhaps
the most worrying indicator for the future, says the report. About 30
percent of the world’s surviving forests are seriously fragmented
or degraded, and they are being cut down at the rate of 50,000 square
miles a year, it says.
Wetlands have been reduced by 50 percent over the last century. Coral
reefs, the world’s most diverse aquatic systems, are suffering
the effects of over-fishing, pollution, epidemic diseases and rising
temperatures.
A quarter of the world’s mammal species and 12 percent of the
birds are in danger of extinction.
On the hopeful side, the report says that renewable energy technologies
have now developed sufficiently to supply the world. They could significantly
reduce the threat to the world from pollution — but currently there
is a lack of political will to introduce them fast enough.
Another industry which causes widespread destruction, mining for minerals,
could be largely replaced by re-use and recycling.
Mining consumes 10 percent of the world’s energy, spews out toxic
emissions, and threatens 40 percent of the world’s undeveloped
forests but these effects could be drastically reduced.
Another crisis which the report identifies is in the world’s cities,
where one billion people seek shelter in shanty towns, often on hillsides,
flood plains, in rubbish dumps or downstream from industrial polluters.
The inhabitants of these settlements live under the constant threat
not only of eviction, but also of natural disasters and disease. Urban
centers in the south now dominate the ranks of the world’s largest
cities.
Slum dwellers are organizing for greater rights and better lives, the
report says. One of the great challenges for governments is to help
their poorest citizens feel secure in their own homes, make a living
and improve their environment.
Worst trends
Malaria claims 7,000 lives every day
Bird extinctions are running at 50 times natural rate
Global rate of ice melt has more than doubled since 1988; sea levels
may rise 27cm by 2100
New fishing technologies help to locate and further exploit declining
stocks
Reasons for hope
Populations have stabilized in Europe and much of southeast Asia
Organic farming is the fastest-growing sector of world agricultural
economy
Wind and photovoltaic electricity generating capacity will increase
30 percent a year for five years (1 percent for fossil fuels)
Production of ozone-depleting CFCs fell 81 percent in the 90s, slowing
growth in ozone hole
Source: Guardian (UK)
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White
House: time running out for Iraq
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Jan. 15 (AGR)— The White House said Tuesday "time is running
out" for Saddam Hussein to disarm, though President Bush said he
has not decided when military action might be necessary. The remarks
came as an already massive US military juggernaut in the Persian Gulf
is multiplying in size, and as allies urged the Bush administration
to give UN inspectors time to carry out their work in Iraq.
"Regrettably, we’ve seen no evidence that he’s made
a strategic choice to disarm and come into compliance with the United
Nations," said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. "Saddam
has not complied and, therefore, time is running out."
Chief UN inspector Hans Blix had said on Monday that inspections might
require as much as a year to finish searching Iraq for weapons of mass
destruction, but they may not get the time if the UN Security Council
decides to stop inspections -- or the United States takes military action.
On Tuesday, Bush said he was "sick and tired" of what he
referred to as Iraq’s "deception" regarding the alleged
weapons. He portrayed growing impatience as UN weapons inspections proceed
with no evidence to prove US charges that Iraq possesses chemical and
biological weapons and is trying to build a nuclear weapon.
"So far I haven’t seen any evidence that he has disarmed.
Time is running out on Saddam Hussein. I’m sick and tired of games
and deception. That’s my view of the timetable," Bush told
reporters.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is dispatching an enormous array of naval combat
power to the Persian Gulf region, including two seven-ship armadas carrying
thousands of Marines.
The Navy also is prepared to put as many as six aircraft carriers within
striking distance of Iraq. Two are already in position, two are prepared
to sprint to the region, and two are gearing up for possible deployment.
The latest naval movements are part of a broader buildup of US air,
land and sea power in the Gulf region. The United States is building
a large military force of more than 100,000 troops. About 60,000 US
troops currently are in the Gulf region, and Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld signed orders in recent days for an additional 67,000 to
go there over the next few weeks. Eventually the size of the US force
arrayed against Iraq could reach 250,000.
Even though the White House says Bush has not yet decided to attack,
the rapid pace of troop deployments has convinced many that a US-led
invasion could be only weeks away. Central Command is sending much of
its battle staff to a command post in Qatar, where Gen. Tommy Franks
would direct a war, and officials have said the post is likely to be
ready for operations by the end of this month.
The Marine Corps has taken the unusual step of stopping all Marines
from leaving the service for the coming 12 months, officials said last
Thursday. The decision was announced to all Marines in an internal message
Tuesday from Gen. James Jones, the Marine Corps commandant. He said
it applies to active-duty as well as reserve Marines and is effective
Jan. 15 through Jan. 31, 2004.
The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Monday
he believes war with Iraq is inevitable.
"I’m convinced that the president is going to go in there
one way or the other," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri.
While Bush made his threats on Tuesday, over in Britain, an uncompromising
Tony Blair said he would refuse to allow the United Nations to veto
military action against Iraq. Blair kept open the possibility that the
United States and Britain might act in tandem if France, Russia or China,
the other permanent UN Security Council members, vetoed a second resolution.
The Prime Minister also suggested a war could be launched even if the
inspectors found no evidence, on the basis that Hussein had obstructed
their work.
Some Ministers of Parliament belonging to Blair’s Labor Party
reacted angrily. Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South, warned: "If
you choose to operate outside international law and you act in defiance
of any democratic mandate from your own society, sooner rather than
later the mandate the Prime Minister has will be withdrawn by the British
people."
In the US, Charles Kennedy, a Liberal Democrat leader, said: "It
is disingenuous to argue that we want to work through the UN, but only
if the UN does what we want."
But Pope John Paul II became the most prominent new voice against war
on Iraq, declaring in an address the day before: "No to war!"
The Catholic Holy See said the war would be a "defeat for humanity."
"What are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike
Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more
than 12 years of embargo?" he said.
That previous Friday, the European Union warned the US that there could
be no war against Saddam Hussein without clear proof that he holds banned
weapons. Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, issued a
blunt reminder to Washington that only the UN Security Council could
determine whether military action was justified.
European governments believe, and public opinion agrees overwhelmingly,
that at this stage war is not justified, because the work of weapons
inspectors has been inconclusive.
"Without proof, it would be very difficult to start a war,"
Solana told the French daily Le Monde. "The legitimacy of such
a war will be determined by the Security Council. The UN arms inspectors
derive their legitimacy from the Council... so if there is not any information
deemed sufficient by the Security Council... I would find it very difficult
to act."
Solana’s uncharacteristically tough comments came after inspectors
reported on Thursday that they had uncovered no "smoking guns"
in their work so far -- making it harder for Bush to win over skeptical
international opinion.
Her remarks were made as Russia made the startling announcement that
the country has put three warships on standby to go to the Persian Gulf
within the next month to protect its "national interests"
in the event of an American invasion of Iraq. Russia’s Pacific
fleet has been ordered by the central command to prepare two cruisers
and a fuel tanker for immediate deployment to the Gulf.
The move will heighten tension between Moscow and Washington, who both
have interests in Iraq’s oilfields.
The Marshal Shaposhnikov and the Admiral Panteleyev cruisers would
be called upon to defend Russian "national interests" in the
Gulf if the conflict between Iraq and the US escalates.
Lukoil, Russia’s biggest oil firm, had an approximately $50 billion
contract with Baghdad to develop the West Qurna oilfield cancelled last
month, reportedly after the Iraqi regime discovered Russia had been
negotiating with Iraq’s opposition.
Turkey, meanwhile, has doubled its military strength in northern Iraq
to 12,000 soldiers, a senior intelligence source said.
The United States and Britain are preparing a "devastating’’
war against Iraq to subjugate the Middle East, a top Iraqi official
said on Wednesday, Jan. 8 as US jets attacked three air defense sites
in the south. It was the second of five attacks by the US-led coalition
this past week.
Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said his country’s standoff
with the United States was not about weapons of mass destruction, but
rather the destruction of what he called the "strongest country
of the area.’’ Iraq was fully cooperating with the inspectors,
he argued.
"The real motives behind the whole fuss created by Bush and Blair
are imperialist motives ... they would like to destroy Iraq being the
strongest country of the area, the most independent among them, they
want to destroy it and then take the whole region in their hands with
all its riches, mainly oil,’’ he said.
Bedouin gunshop owner Yassin al-Jabbouri says Iraqi civilians are arming
themselves to challenge the American invader.
Iraqi clan groups, a key force in the country, are stocking up on rifles
and pistols from the Iraqi capital’s 45 retail gun outlets, taking
heed of government calls for the populace to ready itself for a US invasion,
Jabbouri says.
"I have a tribe of 200,000 people and 12,000 of them are in Baghdad
ready to fight. We are all human shields against America," the
50-year-old Bedouin chief said.
"There has been growing interest in buying weapons. It’s
in the interests of Iraqis to have weapons to face the American fighter...We
are all military now," he said, adding that Iraqis would be keen
to punish American troops for the suffering of Palestinians fighting
US ally Israel.
Sources: Associated Press, Guardian (UK),
Independent (UK), Le Monde, New York Times, Reuters, Washington Post
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