Anti-War Groups Appeal to public to Join Global Protests Tomorrow
national |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report
Friday March 18, 2005 16:09
by Pat - iawm
TOMORROW) IN GLOBAL PROTEST TO MARK SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF US LED INVASION
Anti-war organisations today appealed to the Irish public to take to the
streets of Dublin tomorrow (March 19th) as part of a global day of protest
to mark the second anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. The protest
will take place in over 100 cities across the world including almost all
major US cities and five continents.
IRISH ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
ANTI-WAR GROUPS CALL ON IRISH PUBLIC TO JOIN OVER 100 CITIES WORLDWIDE
(
OF IRAQ.
PROTEST CALLS FOR: ENDING THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ - NO WAR ON IRAN OR
SYRIA - US MILITARY OUT OF SHANNON
The global protest will call for an end to the US occupation of Iraq and
Palestine. In light of recent US threats, the protest will also have
opposition to a possible military assault on Syria or Iran as a central
theme. Here in Ireland, the protest will renew pressure on the Irish
government to halt the use of Shannon airport by the US military.
The protest in Dublin will assemble at Parnell Square at 2pm. After a short
opening rally the demonstration will march through the city centre to Dail
Eireann for a closing rally with speeches and music.
Speakers at the protest will include: Dr Quaseem Quaseem (Irish-Palestinian
Community), John Gormley TD (Green Party), Joe Higgins TD (Socialist Party),
Cllr Aodhan O Riordan (Labour Party), Fahad Ansari (President, Federation of
Student Islamic Societies), Roger Cole, (Peace & Neutrality Alliance),
Brendan Butler (NGO Peace Alliance), Sinn Fein speaker, Iraqi speaker (names
to be confirmed) & more
Richard Boyd Barrett (Irish Anti-war Movement) will chair the protest and
speakers.
Music: Omar Simon will perform the song "Prisoner" about the torture and
maltreatment of US held prisoners. Omar will be accompanied by a number of
people wearing prisoner uniforms to visually symbolise the torture victims.
Muslim Prayer: Just before the protest begins at 1.30pm members of Dublin's
Muslim community will participate in a collective prayer, distributing
leaflets for the protest and wearing "End the Occupation" T-shirts at the
centre island on O' Connell St, opposite the GPO.
The March 19th protest in Dublin is supported by: The Irish Anti-War
Movement, the NGO Peace Alliance, the Peace & Neutrality Alliance, SIPTU,
ATGWU, Dublin Council of Trade Unions, Union of Students in Ireland, the
Labour Party, the Green Party, Sinn Fein, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers
Party, Islamic Cultural Centre, Federation of Islamic Student Societies,
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Galway Alliance Against War, Sen
David Norris, Finian Mc Grath TD, Fintan O Toole, Denis Halliday & many
more.
March 19 protests will take place simultaneously in over 100 cities
worldwide including 46 Cities in Europe, 48 in North America, 8 in Australia
and New Zealand, Philipines, South Korea, Pakistan, India, 6 other cities in
Asia, Egypt and South Africa.
Richard Boyd Barrett, chairperson, Irish Anti-War Movement and protest
organiser said:
"Everyone who wants to see and end to the terrible bloodshed in Iraq and who
oppose further US aggression in the Middle East should come out on this
important protest. It is also very important to put pressure, once again, on
the Irish government to stop facilitating the US war machine and the torture
of prisoners at Shannon.
Two years after the US led invasion of Iraq every justification for the war
has been exposed as a lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The
promised surgical war has turned into a blood bath with as many as 100,000
Iraqi's dead. The violence in Iraq has increased steadily since the US
occupation began. The shooting on innocent protesters, the torture of
prisoners, the massacres in Fallujah, the continued bombings and shootings
of innocent civilians and the destruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure
have plunged Iraq into chaos.
The recent elections have done nothing to stop this. One section of the
population boycotted the poll and those that voted did so mostly in the
belief that it would end the US occupation.
The majority of Iraqi's clearly want the US to get out but they are refusing
to go. The new government is almost exactly the same as the old US installed
interim government with only the ministerial positions likely to change. It
is clear that as long as the US stays the violence will continue and will
escalate.
The US invasion has de-stabilised the entire region. Interference in Lebanon
is threatening civil war. US calls for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon are
pure hypocrisy. They want 14,000 Syrians to leave Lebanon but refuse to
remove 140,000 US troops from Iraq. The real agenda behind US interference
in Lebanon is to install a pro-Israeli government and lay the ground for a
possible military assault on Syria.
The global day of protest this weekend is a vital opportunity to mobilise
world opinion again to halt another murderous US assault on an Arab country.
It is also a vital opportunity to show our solidarity with the Iraqi and
Palestinian people who are struggling against the military occupation of
their countries.
The protest in ireland will demand our government halt its criminal and
undemocratic collusion with the US war machine at Shannon. Despite the lies
about WMD being exposed our government has actually allowed the number of US
troops going through Shannon to increase. We are now the major logistical
supporter of the US war machine in Europe. Even more shamefully, it appears
our government is turning a blind eye to the US bringing illegally held
prisoners through Shannon on route to be tortured in repressive states in
the Middle East and in Guantanamo Bay. It is outrageous that our government
can give lectures about criminality and thuggery while they facilitate
murder and torture on a huge scale in Shannon."
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Comments (11 of 11)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11Yep, the war is still relevant and yes the bombs are still dropping - yeah, that's right, they are dropping bombs - its not all street fighting.
-- --
Bombs Away
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0511,murphy,62078,6.html
From last May through February, U.S. warplanes flew 13,000 missions and dropped about 490 bombs and missiles weighing a combined 265,800 pounds. That's not much compared to the 41,000 coalition missions flown during the first month of the war in March and April 2003, but in those early days there was an organized Iraqi military with air defense installations and regime headquarters. Those are gone, but the number of bombings rose sharply twice last year, jumping from 13 in May to 127 in August, and from 50 bombings a month in September and October to more than 100 in November, according to numbers obtained from military officials by the Voice. The bombing has since decreased substantially.
[....]
We don't know what all this hardware is hitting, partly because journalists in hot spots like Falluja were busy avoiding death and reporting on the fighting they saw, not what warplanes were doing.
[....]
One reason for this gap in reporting is there are apparently no embedded reporters with air force units or on navy aircraft carriers to notice trends in bombing. That is not a matter of policy, a Centcom officer tells the Voice: The media show little interest in working with those units. For cash-constrained news operations covering the massive story of the Iraq war, air combat is admittedly a tiny piece of the picture. But the bombs are still falling.
I presume a lot of people will be too hung-over to go into this. First i heard of it though. Hey all the last ones made absolutely no difference. Pity. Where has the lefts spine gone, there are no leaders there anymore the're all working for multinationals i suppose.
could you find another name to post under ?
Ive been contributing to this site using the name "barry" for ages now, and i dont want to be confused with yourself.
Another platform of politicians... 'calling on government', and useless union officials ...'calling on the unions'....to do something.
If these people were really 'leaders' in their respective political office, or union official office,as they lay claim to be they would lead . They are not, they are simply cashing in on the war to better their profile- and in a purely subjective way they are actually supporting the war by doing nothing only calling on the people they claim to lead to do something.
by by.
there'll be gabbar techno. Yay!
looking at each other.
been there done that.
end War.
bring the kids home.
give them jobs and a decent life and a lot of therapy.
make Peace.
at home in the mall and overseas.
use all that wonderful 200+ iq stuff in the thinktanks for something other than figuring out what dolphins are really saying about the zohar and if the chinese will breach the time space fabric in nanotech research before we do.
you have no excuses. or would you like some modelling clay?
and the democratic contract requires us to continue telling you till the worms eat your bones.
"we are at the end, on each others side".
> I presume a lot of people will be too hung-over
> to go into this. First i heard of it though. Hey all
> the last ones made absolutely no difference. Pity.
I don't think you can say that they made no difference. In fact if you look at the original "Shock and Awe" plans laid out openly by the war criminals in the Bush administration there's a slight case to be made that the large and rapid anti-war protests reined them in slightly.
Public protests _on their own_ will not achieve anything but they're an important part of the recipe for success. They only become a problem when they're seen as the only legitimate way to effect change.
Here's a list of things I think the Irish peace movement have achieved over the past few years. I haven't included names for who done it, as that's not the point here.
* Raising international awareness of Shannon Airport as U.S. military pitstop.
* Raising public consciousness of war, peace and neutrality issue.
* Establishing peace groups in Limerick, Cork, Belfast, Waterford, the Midlands and Dublin.
* Peace House and Peace Camp resistance community experiments.
* Nonviolence workshops and direct actions.
* Taking war issue into the courts/the system.
* Increased cost of policing Shannon Airport.
* MORE (your comments here...)
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing
because he could do only a little.
(Edmund Burke, political thinker, 1729-97)
Madness is repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.(Einstein)
Iraq in figures: the toll of the conflict so far
- 1,512 US troops killed in Iraq
- 1,157 US troops killed in combat
- 355 US non-combat deaths
- 11,285 US troops wounded
- 86 UK troops killed in Iraq
- 35 UK troops killed in combat
- 91 troops from other states killed
- 17,053-19,422 estimated number of civilian casualties since the war started, according to Iraq Body Count
- 257 number of non-Iraqi civilians killed (30 of whom were British)
- 189 number of foreign nationals kidnapped since October 2003
- 47 number still captive
- 170,000 number of coalition troops in March 2003
- 175,000 number of coalition troops in Iraq in March 2005
- 45,000 number of British troops in March 2003
- 8,930 number of UK troops in Iraq in March 2005
- 30 number of countries identified as members of the coalition backing the war in March 2003
- 38 number of countries which have provided troops in Iraq at some point
- 24 number of states currently providing troops in Iraq
- 5 number of countries currently planning to withdraw troops from Iraq
- 18,000 latest estimate of strength of insurgency
- 1,000 estimated number of foreign fighters involved in the insurgency
At yesterdays anti-war demo in Chicago, a number of Irish Americans planned to picket the British consulate to highlight the plight of republican prisoners in Maghaberry who are denied political status and subject to humiliating and regular forced strip searching and general harassment by the screws.
The British succeeded in getting a federal court order banning the picket. After informing the protestors that their picket could not go ahead the cops then proceeded to read out the message on the protesters banner "support political status for Irish POWs" over the police frequency, just to let everyone know the picket was banned. Helpfully this message was broadcast in full on every police radio in Chicago for the entire day, ensuring the picket recieved more publicity than if it had gone ahead.
Just goes to show the police can often be of great help when your in a spot of bother.