[Peace-discuss] Demonstrate this Saturday, June 3, in downtown Champaign 2-4pm

[C. G. Estabrook]

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/30/1667323/--Resist-March-for-Truth-will-be-held-in-100-cities-this-Saturday

BUT AGAINST WAR, NOT FOR THE DEMOCRATS & NEOCONS

This 'March for Truth' [sic] is nefarious 'Russiagate' nonsense. It 
supports Obama-Clinton/neocon war-making and hostility toward Russia and 
China.

Instead, come demonstrate against war with AWARE this Saturday at the 
corner of Main and Neil in downtown Champaign, 2-4pm. We'll provide 
signs and flyers.

====================================================
[This is the text of the the flyer to be distributed]

President Trump: End war in the Mideast!
Get U.S. troops, weapons, mercenaries, and
‘coalition partners’ (NATO) out of the Mideast.
Stop supporting human rights violators - notably
the allies, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel.
No war with Iran, with whom the U.S. has a treaty.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the countries most responsible for war in the 
world were Germany and Japan. Today the country most responsible for war 
is the one for which we are responsible, the United States.

Since World War II ended in 1945, US presidents have killed more than 20 
million people in 37 nations. The U.S. is - as Martin Luther King said - 
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

At this moment our government is making war and killing people in 
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Thousands 
of U.S. troops are fighting in these wars, although most Americans are 
not aware of it.

In addition, the 70,000-members of the U.S. ‘Special Operations Command’ 
are active in three-quarters of the countries of the world. Their 
activities include kidnapping (‘rendition’), torture, and murder. As the 
rest of the world recognizes - but Americans don’t - they are nothing 
less than American death squads - out to get ‘bad guys’ as they say, who 
might be thought of as affecting ‘American interests’ - usually 
financial.

We rightly deplore “radical Islamic terrorism,” in spite of the fact 
that the US government set it up 40 years ago to use against Russia, and 
cooperates with it in various places today. But we are by far the 
greatest terrorist regime in the world.

Why is our government terrorizing the world to the point that 
international polls show the US is by far the most feared country in the 
world - not Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran? The answer is simple 
and horrible. The US is killing people to protect the profits of the 1%, 
the American economic elite.

The U.S. doesn’t need oil from the Mideast, but Mideast gas and oil are 
needed by America’s economic competitors in Europe and Asia, and so 
control over them gives the U.S. a major advantage over China, Germany, 
and other countries - a chokehold which benefits only that American 
economic elite, the one percent. In 2003 the US illegally invaded Iraq - 
and killed perhaps a million people for that purpose - and now has 
thousands of troops and mercenaries throughout the Mideast.

The U.S. government says that we’re fighting terrorism, but we are in 
fact creating terrorists - in response particularly to our drone 
assassinations, “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times” - 
which have killed more than 5,000 people, including U.S. citizens and 
hundreds of children.

Anti-war groups in the United States and around the world call upon 
President Trump to
~ (1) establish a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, 
human rights, and respect for the sovereignty of other nations;
~ (2) end the wars (in the Mideast and elsewhere) and stop the drone 
attacks;
~ (3) cut military spending by at least 50% and close the more than 700 
US military bases around the world (Russia has 15; China has one); bring 
US troops (and weapons) home; and withdraw US ‘special forces,’ who’ve 
been sent into 3/4 of the world’s countries;
~ (4) stop US support for human rights abusers, notably Israel and Saudi 
Arabia; and
~ (5) lead on global nuclear disarmament.

{AWARE of Champaign Urbana Illinois} ###