[Peace] peace demonstration / Saturday, 2pm-4pm / January 7, 2017

Fri Jan 6 00:03:38 UTC 2017

A proposed flyer for Saturday’s demonstration. Comments welcome.  

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[Text of the flyer as follows.]

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S ATTACKS ON THE PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST -
AND ITS WAR PROVOCATIONS AROUND THE WORLD - CONTINUE IN 2017. 
THAT’S UNJUSTIFIED - WE MUST TELL THEM TO STOP .

Like all American presidents for more than a generation, President Obama is today making war around the world - although most Americans are not aware of what he is doing.

Since World War II, US presidents have killed more than 20 million people in 37 nations. The US remains what M. L. King called it, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

When his second term ends this month, Barack Obama will have become the first US president - ever - to have been at war throughout two presidential terms. He has attacked eight countries (two more than George Bush), and he is today conducting what has been called “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times” - his drone assassinations. He has killed thousands of civilians with drones, including US citizens and hundreds of children. He chooses the targets himself, from lists prepared by the CIA.

In addition to conducting wars throughout the Mideast, the US is acting with belligerence toward China and promoting an ongoing proxy war against Russia in Ukraine; that war has already killed more people than Israel killed (with US permission) in Gaza in 2014. The president is risking war with both Russia and China, even nuclear war. He also commands a 70,000-member private army, the Special Operations Command, active in more than 130 countries. Their activities include kidnapping ("rendition"), murder, and torture. 

Not only is the Obama administration risking nuclear war, they’re preparing for it: President Obama has launched a 10-year trillion dollar program to update nuclear weapons - and make them more usable!

The Obama administration is also responsible for the vicious civil war in Syria, which has killed thousands and flooded Europe with refugees. 

Why has our government plagued the world with war for more than two generations? The answer is simple and horrible - to protect the profits of the 1%, the American economic elite.

When World War II ended in 1945, the US was the only undamaged major country, and controlled the world economy, for the benefit of that 1%. In all the years since, US administrations have been willing to kill people and make war to “maintain the disparity,” as American planners said.

The Mideast has been a particular concern of the US government because of its vast stock of oil and natural gas. The US doesn’t need oil from the Mideast, but Mideast gas and oil are needed by America’s economic competitors in Europe and Asia - so control over them gives the US a choke-hold over China, Germany, and other countries. But that control benefits only the American economic elite and not Americans in general, who’ve seen wealth concentrate in fewer and fewer hands - at an accelerating rate - throughout the Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama administrations.

Obama was elected twice because the generally anti-war US public understood him to say that he would end George Bush’s wars. But in office, Obama moved massively to expand Bush’s war in Afghanistan, and as he leaves office he promises ten thousand US troops will stay there - along with mercenaries and ‘coalition forces’ (NATO). And US subversion of other countries in MENA - the Mideast and North Africa - continues apace.

Astonishingly, the Obama administration claims that its authority to continue to kill people in the Mideast today comes from the “Authorization for the Use of Military Force” passed by Congress just after the criminal attacks of 9-11-2001: that was directed against al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the 9-11 attacks. But the Obama administration is killing people today in the Syria in alliance with al-Qaeda - although most Americans don’t know it. 

And the supporters of that murderous policies, the neocons, are desperately seeking to influence the incoming Trump administration. 

The Australian journalist John Pilger wrote before the election, "The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times - taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears - demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of “perpetual war” are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire."

But if Trump can stick to his campaign promises, he will likely find reliable partners in Russian president Putin (in spite of the Democrats’ lying portrayal of him ) and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Russia and China have little to gain from a confrontation with the US - or, even less, from war. Will president-elect Trump have the wisdom to realize this and use it for the benefit of America?

AWARE and other anti-war groups around the US demand that President Trump  
~ (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 foreign military bases (neither Russia nor China has more than twelve); 
~ (4) stop US support of human rights abusers, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia; &
~ (5) lead on global nuclear disarmament.

~~~
	{This flyer is distributed by members and friends of the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort (AWARE) - a local Champaign-Urbana peace group; contact us at <aware at anti-war.net>.
	Watch our weekly discussion of war news on “AWARE on the Air” on Urbana Public TV and YouTube; open meetings Sundays at 5pm at Pizza-M, 208 West Main Street, Urbana.}
###