[Peace] Fwd:[ANSWER]: Sept. 14-16: Emergency actions to Sto (1 of 2

[jencart]

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STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ BEFORE IT STARTS!

EMERGENCY ACTIONS SEPT. 14-16
in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles & more

*If you would like to hold an emergency action in your 
city to Stop the War on Iraq Before it Starts, email 
dc at internationalanswer.org*

The weekend of September 14-16 is the time in which the  military-industrial complex will host its annual arms 
bazaar in Washington DC where Corporate America's arms  dealers get to display their latest high tech weapons to 
the militaries and arms merchants of the world. This 
year's arms bazaar will feature Donald Rumsfeld as the  guest of honor. We will be there to demonstrate at the 
arms bazaar. Join us in Washington DC on the morning of  Monday, September 16 at Connecticut Ave. and Woodley NW.

On the West Coast, join us on September 14 at the Port of  Oakland in a march and rally co-sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R.  and the International Longshore & Warehouse Workers, Lo.  10 (Dockworkers), and in Los Angeles at the Westwood 
Federal Building.

ONLY THE PEOPLE CAN STOP THE WAR!

There won't be a real national debate on a planned 
invasion of Iraq until the people are in the streets. We 
salute the activists in Portland, OR yesterday and 
Stockton, CA today who are confronting Bush and who have  stood against pepper spray, rubber bullets and police 
brutality to tell him that they will not allow his 
adventurous war of aggression to be waged.

This war can be stopped. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and 
company can be stopped. But the essential element must be  the mobilization of a massive anti-war movement in the  streets. The debate that is opening now to public view 
from within the political establishment presents a 
necessity for all anti-war forces to become a major factor  in generating an authentic opposition to U.S. war plans in  the Middle East. 

We can't leave it to the military establishment to decide 
when and how they will go to war and to define the debate.  We must tell Bush and his corporate and Big Oil patrons 
that we will not allow this to happen.

We must remember that it was the intervention of the 
people around the world that stopped a new U.S.-British 
war against Iraq in February 1998. Demonstrations all over  the Middle East. and the famous humiliation of 
then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of  Defense William Cohen and National Security Advisor Sandy  Berger at Ohio State, were followed by hundreds of 
protests across the country. 

The Bush administration has attempted to create an aura of  inevitability about a war that need not happen and can be  stopped. They have created a juggernaut with almost daily  pronouncements about the inevitability of an invasion. 
This propaganda campaign was designed to paralyze public  opinion in the United States while carrying out a 
psychological war against Iraq. Now there are voices from  within the political and military establishment itself 
that are challenging the right-wing, ultra-militaristic, 
pro-war policy of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, et  al. (See General Brent Scowcroft's op-ed in 8/15 Wall 
Street Journal and front page story and lead editorial in  8/16 New York Times.) 

The debate within the political establishment is limited 
to a discussion as to whether a U.S. military invasion 
carried out without the slimmest credible pretext would  upset the political equilibrium and stability inside the 
oil-rich Middle East and damage U.S. long term interests.  For our part, from the point of view of the progressive  anti-war movement, we oppose an invasion of Iraq because  it would be an illegal act of aggression. Unlike the 
political establishment figu