Iraq: A Blueprint for Peace

Iraq: A Blueprint for Peace

by Karen Button

Beirut - “The US talks about withdrawal after bringing Iraqi security forces up to speed, yet has paid militias, allowed mercenaries, and, with few exceptions, ignored the blatant abuses and torture committed by Iraqi forces. They have ignored rampant corruption within all ministries, the most egregious resulting in a medical crisis and a judicial joke. They have also committed their own atrocities, ensuring that the new Iraq is riddled with violence, fear, and contempt for the occupying forces.”

Thus starts a new peace plan entitled Planning Iraq’s Future: A detailed project to rebuild post-liberation Iraq. The 250-page book was written over the past two years by 108 Iraqis that consciously included Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and other minorities. Two-thirds of the Iraqis still reside inside the country, the other third, outside. Read complete article

Protester attempts necessity defense

By Margaret Friedenauer Staff Writer, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

A judge Wednesday continued a case against a local man charged with trespassing in an act of civil disobedience protesting the Iraq war.

Rob Mulford will get a chance to argue in front of District Court Judge Raymond Funk that he should be able to present a “defense of necessity” in his arrest when he refused to leave Sen. Ted Stevens’ Fairbanks office Feb. 20. Mulford and others arrived at Stevens’ office during open hours to read names of U.S. troops and Iraqis that have died in Iraq. Most of the protesters left when asked by office staff at closing time. But Mulford continued reading names, refused to leave and was arrested for trespassing.

Mulford, as part of the group Veterans for Peace, was taking part in the Occupation Project at the time of his arrest. The project, active in 25 states, is a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience aimed at ending the war. Read article

The last thing the Middle East's main players want is US troops to leave Iraq

By Hussein Agha. The Guardian, Wednesday April 25

Across the region, ordinary people want the Americans out. But from Israel to al-Qaida, political groups and states have other ideas

Overt political debate in the Middle East is hostile to the American occupation of Iraq and dominated by calls for it to end sooner rather than later. No less a figure than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arguably the United States' closest Arab ally, has declared the occupation of Iraq "illegal" and "illegitimate". Real intentions, however, are different. States and local political groups might not admit it - because of public opinion - but they do not want to see the back of the Americans.

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2064685,00.html

Are We Politicians or Citizens

By Howard Zinn TomPaine.com April 16, 2007

Howard Zinn is the author, most recently, of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. This article was originally published in The Progressive.

As I write this, Congress is debating timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. In response to the Bush Administration’s “surge” of troops, and the Republicans’ refusal to limit our occupation, the Democrats are behaving with their customary timidity, proposing withdrawal, but only after a year, or eighteen months. And it seems they expect the anti-war movement to support them.

That was suggested in a recent message from MoveOn, which polled its members on the Democrat proposal, saying that progressives in Congress, “like many of us, don’t think the bill goes far enough, but see it as the first concrete step to ending the war.”

Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It’s as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Read article

You Can't Hurt a Troop By Defunding a War

By David Swanson. afterdowningstreet.org, April 8, 2007

When Senator Russ Feingold and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid propose cutting off the funding for the war, they are proposing the only thing that can possibly benefit U.S. troops. In fact, there is no way to make any sense of the idea that they could possibly be hurting U.S. troops. The funding is not for the troops.

When President George Bush claims that the money is for the troops, he is quite simply lying. The funding is not for the troops.

When Senator Barack Obama or Senator Carl Levin claims to want to pressure Bush to end the war, while at the same time promising to fund the war forever in the name of funding the troops, we are being told something that cannot possibly make any sense. The funding is not for the troops. It is for the war. You can't end the war while providing it. You can't hurt a troop by denying it. Read article