[Peace-discuss] Proposed flyer for Obama

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I'll make several hundred of these -- two sides of a single
sheet -- for distribution at the Obama event, tomorrow at
lunchtime.  Comments welcome.  --CGE]


         *BRING ALL U.S. TROOPS HOME FROM IRAQ --
     AND U.S. MERCENARIES AND CORPORATIONS AS WELL.*
     *PAY REPARATIONS FOR THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION 
               THAT WE'VE BROUGHT TO IRAQ.*
       *TELL SENATOR OBAMA TO WORK TO END THE WAR 
          AND PUNISH THOSE WHO LIED US INTO IT.*

The junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, has done
nothing to end the occupation of Iraq or to punish those who
started this illegal war by deceiving us.  On the contrary, he
has cooperated in the critical support that the Democratic
party has given to the war and to US policy in the Greater
Middle East -- a policy that has killed tens of thousands of
people during this administration and may yet have even more
catastrophic results.  Leading Democrats are now to the
*right* of the Bush administration in calling for an expansion
of the US military.

Obama, featured as the keynote speaker at the Democratic
convention in 2004, was celebrated as a progressive figure
when he was elected to the Senate, against token Republican
opposition.  (He also had an unfunded independent opponent who
supported both withdrawal from Iraq and universal health care,
positions that Obama rejected.)  But his performance belies
that description.

--The day before his convention speech, Obama told reporters,
"There's not that much difference between my position and
George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my
mind, is who's in a position to execute."  In the speech Obama
criticized Bush for invading Iraq "without enough troops to
win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the
world" -- which remains the general Democratic party position.

--Obama voted twice (once in committee and once on the Senate
floor) to confirm Condoleezza Rice, the national Security
Adviser during the invasion of Iraq, as Secretary of State.

----Like all but six of the Senate Democrats, Obama quite
rightly voted against the confirmation of Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales, the promoter of the torture policy and the
Patriot Act, but he said he did so "At a time when we are
fighting for freedom in places like Iraq and Afghanistan ...
the seeds of democracy began to take root in Iraq ... we are
engaged in a deadly global struggle with those who would
intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most
basic freedoms..." In short, he echoed the administration's
account of the war.

--When Illinois' senior senator, Richard Durbin, timorously
raised the question of the administration's torture policy on
the floor of the Senate, Obama failed to support him. 
Instead, he rather timidly observed, after Durbin's tearful
apology for doing such a thing, "...he should have said what
he said somewhat differently.''

--Just two months ago Obama said, "It is a challenge now to
try to fix the mess that has been made by this administration.
 There aren't any easy answers. It would be irresponsible to
just spout off without having thought through what all the
alternatives -- and implications of those alternatives --
might be ...  "I believe the president must take a realistic
look at our current strategy and reshape it into an
*aggressive and workable plan that will ensure success in
Iraq*" [emphasis added].

--Paul Craig Roberts, a former Treasury undersecretary in the
Reagan administration, writes this week, "With every poll
showing majorities of Americans both fed up with Bush's war
against Iraq and convinced that Bush's invasion of Iraq has
made Americans less safe, the White House moron proposes to
start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has already
ordered the U.S. Strategic Command come up with plans to
strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons ... The Bush
administration is insane. If the American people do not
decapitate it by demanding Bush's impeachment, the Bush
administration will bring about Armageddon..." 

Shockingly, during his senatorial campaign, Obama supported
the Bush administration's policy on Iran in principle.  On 25
September 2004, the Chicago Tribune wrote, "U.S. Senate
candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States
one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into
Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of
nuclear bombs ... the United States should not rule out
military strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran,
Obama said."

We must demand that Senator Obama work to end the war and
punish those who lied us into it.

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