[Mb-civic] Stand and Be Heard: Support House Res to withdraw from Iraq

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/stand-be-heard.php

Stand and Be Heard
By William Rivers Pitt
Progressive Democrats of America

Friday 27 May 2005

Next week, Progressive Democrats of America, in partnership with 
United for Peace and Justice and Code Pink, will initiate a nationwide 
campaign to demand that Congress and George W. Bush immediately 
and without delay implement and execute a plan to withdraw all U.S. 
forces from Iraq. This campaign will involve calls, letters, faxes and 
direct lobbying of members of Congress. This National Call-In Week 
will begin on May 31st and continue through June 3rd.

Take action on this now: 
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7071606

At the center of this campaign is House Continuing Resolution 35, 
authored by Representative Lynn Woolsey. H. Con. Resolution 35 calls 
for Bush and Congress to: (1) Develop and implement a plan to begin 
the immediate withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Iraq; (2) Develop 
and implement a plan for reconstructing Iraq's civil and economic 
infrastructure; (3) Convene an emergency meeting of Iraq's leadership, 
Iraq's neighbors, the United Nations, and the Arab League to create an 
international peacekeeping force in Iraq and to replace U.S. armed 
forces, and (4) Provide the Iraqi people the opportunity to completely 
control their internal affairs.

Read the text of Rep. Woolsey's H. Con. Res. 35:  
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/bills/?bill=6987171

The occupation of Iraq has lasted some 800 days. In that time, 1,653 
American soldiers have been killed, along with 180 soldiers from other 
nations of the ‘Coalition of the Willing,' putting the butcher's bill at 
1,833 in total. Ten times that number have been wounded, many of 
them permanently. The most common injuries are to the brain; when a 
roadside bomb goes off in Iraq next to an American armored personnel 
carrier, the soldiers inside get their brains jarred within their Kevlar 
helmets. They come away without a scratch, but are never, ever the 
same again.

More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during this invasion 
and occupation. There is no accurate numbering of the dead, because 
we don't do body counts. At least as many have been wounded. They 
are shot by snipers, strafed by helicopters, buried under the rubble of 
their houses by bombs, incinerated by fire, and left to rot in the streets 
of cities like Falluja to be gnawed on by dogs. The only crime these 
people committed against America, in the words of MP George 
Galloway, was to be born Iraqi.

Hospitals in Iraq are without trained medical personnel and without 
doctors. Ambulances are targeted for attack by American forces 
because they are suspected of transporting ‘insurgents.' Hospital 
bathrooms are filled to the walls with urine and feces because the 
plumbing does not work. Buildings that were blasted two years ago 
remain piles of shattered cement. Electrical power in the best 
neighborhoods is sporadic at best, and almost nonexistent everywhere 
else. Citizens of this oil-rich nation sit in endless lines for two days to 
receive their rationed 7.5 liters of gasoline, because the American 
corporations that have taken control of the petroleum infrastructure are 
not pumping any oil. They are sitting on it, hoarding it, keeping it for 
themselves like some kind of noxious nest egg. Unemployment stands 
at 70%.

And the rage there builds. Every day it builds, festering in the streets 
like the corpses left unburied after the echoes from bombs and bullets 
fade. The keepers of the cleansed consensus in the media tell us 
those who attack our troops are Ba'athist holdouts and foreign fighters 
who have come to Iraq for the pleasure of killing American soldiers, 
but this is only a small part of the story. Everyday Iraqi citizens who 
would never have dreamed of doing violence to anyone have taken up 
arms and now fight to rid their nation of its occupiers. Iraqi citizens who 
have seen their wives, husbands, children, parents, brothers, sisters 
and friends turned into red smears across what used to be the family 
dinner table now drink deep the bitter dregs of vengeance, because 
that is all they have left to them.

There is in the Bible a verse to describe what has been done to Iraq by 
the Bush administration, what has been done to our soldiers and their 
citizens, what has been done to us all. "For they have sown the wind," 
reads Hosea 8:7, "and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: 
the bud shall yield no meal." There is no freedom to be found in Iraq. 
There is no democracy. For sure and certain, there are no weapons of 
mass destruction, nor was there ever a threat posed by that nation 
against ours. There is only the whirlwind, and if we do not put an end to 
the crime that was this invasion and is this occupation, that whirlwind 
will consume us in fire and blood and tears.

It is enough. By all that we hold true and dear, it is more than enough. 
This must be ended.

Rep. Woolsey's efforts to bring national attention to the need for an 
end to this occupation of Iraq made it to the floor of the House of 
Representatives on May 25th. Rep. Woolsey offered an amendment to 
the Defense Authorization Bill which asked Bush to develop a plan for 
the withdrawal of American troops. Though the amendment was 
defeated, it garnered the support of a large majority of House 
Democrats. Perhaps more encouraging was the fact that five 
Republicans – Harold Coble (NC), Walter Jones (NC), John Duncan 
(TN), Jim Leach (IA) and Ron Paul (TX) – likewise voted in favor of the 
amendment. This happened with little advance warning and little time 
to get the grassroots mobilized, yet PDA joined with several groups 
and was able to successfully organize activists to urge 
Representatives to support the amendment.

There is daylight here. Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son Casey to this 
invasion and occupation, who lost her son after Bush proclaimed 
"Mission Accomplished," believes in her heart that there is daylight 
here. "Members of Congress know that Iraq is a mistake," says 
Sheehan. "I know, because I have spoken to many members of the 
House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, who all 
acknowledge that Iraq is a catastrophe. It has been encouraging to me 
to see that conscientious Republicans have begun to split with their 
party line on such things as the Bolton nomination and the so-called 
'nuclear option.' It is time that Republican members of Congress break 
with their party and their President on the issue of Iraq, and work with 
like-minded Democratic members of Congress to get our troops out of 
the quagmire as soon as safely possible."

In the name of all that you hold dear and true, in the name of the 
soldiers who have fallen and the soldiers who still stand waiting to 
come home, in the name of the men, women and children of Iraq, both 
the living and the dead, in the name of a justice that has been all too 
absent of late, I urge you to join us in our campaign next week. Call, 
write, stomp and shout to demand this catastrophe be brought to an 
end. It can be done, and it must be done. In your hands lies a better 
future for us, for them, for the world entire.

Ask your Representatives to support Rep. Lynn Woolsey's resolution 
to end the occupation. In the name of all that you hold dear and true, 
stand and be heard.

http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7071606

Read PDA's offered plan for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and 
sign our petition: 
http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/iraq-exit-action.php

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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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