[Peace-discuss] Immediate withdrawal

[Karen Medina]

Did anyone else hear Bush's statements he made this morning? His plan is to increase the troops, and in response to most Americans wanting the troops to withdraw he said that people know it'll take time for an ideology of freedom to overcome an ideology of hate.

Carl, do you think we could/should read the signed immediate withdrawal statement at the Postcards for Peace mailing ceremony? 

-karen medina

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:07:03 -0600
>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>  
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Immediate withdrawal  
>To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
>     Why we stand for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq
>
>     THE U.S. occupation of Iraq has not liberated the Iraqi people, but 
>has made life worse for most Iraqis.
>
>     Tens of thousands of U.S. service people have been killed or 
>maimed, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have lost their 
>lives as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003, the ongoing occupation, 
>and the violence unleashed by them.
>
>     Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed, and U.S. plans for 
>reconstruction abandoned. There is less electricity, less clean drinking 
>water, and more unemployment today than before the U.S. invasion.
>
>     All of the justifications initially provided by the U.S. for waging 
>war on Iraq have been exposed as lies; the real reasons for the invasion 
>-- to control Iraq's oil reserves and to increase U.S. strategic 
>influence in the region -- now stand revealed.
>
>     The Bush administration has insisted again and again that 
>stability, democracy, and prosperity are around the next bend in the 
>road. But with each day that the U.S. stays, the violence and lack of 
>security facing Iraqis worsen. The U.S. says that it cannot withdraw its 
>military because Iraq will collapse into civil war if it does. But the 
>U.S. has deliberately stoked sectarian divisions in its ongoing attempt 
>to install a U.S.-friendly regime, thus driving Iraq towards civil war.
>
>     The November elections in the United States sent a clear message 
>that voters reject the Iraq war, and opinion polls show that seven in 10 
>Iraqis want the U.S. to leave sooner rather than later. Even most U.S. 
>military and political leaders agree that staying the course in Iraq is 
>a policy that is bound to fail.
>
>     Yet all the various alternative plans for Iraq now being discussed 
>in Washington, including those proposed by House and Senate Democrats, 
>aren't about withdrawing the U.S. military from Iraq. Rather, these 
>strategies are about continuing the pursuit of U.S. goals in Iraq and 
>the larger Middle East using different means.
>
>     Even the proposal to redeploy U.S. troops outside of Iraq, a plan 
>favored by many Democratic Party leaders, envisions continued U.S. 
>intervention inside Iraq.
>
>     With former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisting that a 
>military victory in Iraq is no longer possible and (Ret.) Lt. Gen. 
>William Odom calling for "complete withdrawal" of all U.S. troops, the 
>antiwar movement should demand no less than the immediate withdrawal of 
>the U.S. military -- as well as reparations to the Iraqi people, so they 
>can rebuild their own society and genuinely determine their own future.
>
>     Ali Abunimah
>     Gilbert Achcar
>     Michael Albert
>     Tariq Ali
>     Anthony Arnove
>     Noam Chomsky
>     Kelly Dougherty
>     Eve Ensler
>     Eduardo Galeano
>     Rashid Khalidi
>     Camilo Mejía
>     Arundhati Roy
>     Howard Zinn
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