[Peace] Join us to leaflet the Art Theatre tonight 6-7pm

[C. G. Estabrook]

AWARE will distribute the following flyer at the Champaign Art Theatre 
Tuesday, May 9, before the 7pm showing of the film "Sonita," part of THE 
SEVENTH ART STAND, the Theater's film series against Islamophobia & the 
#MuslimBan

["Two-time Sundance Film Festival award winner Sonita tells the 
inspiring story of Sonita Alizadeh, an 18-year-old Afghan refugee in 
Iran, who thinks of Michael Jackson and Rihanna as her spiritual parents 
and dreams of becoming a big-name rapper. For the time being, her only 
fans are the other teenage girls in a Tehran shelter. And her family has 
a very different future planned for her: as a bride she’s worth $9,000. 
Iranian director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (Going Up the Stairs) 
poignantly shifts from observer to participant altering expectations, as 
Sonita’s story unfolds in this personal and joyful portrait. An intimate 
portrait of creativity and womanhood, Sonita highlights the rarely seen 
intricacies and shifting contrasts of Iranian society through the lens 
of an artist who is defining the next generation."]

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The U.S. is Illegally Making War in the Mideast
Pres. Trump: Bring U.S. Troops and Weapons Home

The U.S. military is today killing people in seven Mideast and African 
countries - Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and 
Pakistan. Thousands of U.S. troops are fighting in these countries, 
although most Americans don’t know that. In addition, the 70,000-member 
U.S. ‘Special Operations Command’ - American death squads - are active 
in three-quarters of the countries of the world. Their activities 
include kidnapping (‘rendition’), torture, and murder.

[Map of Iran, surrounded by US military bases]

The U.S. government says that we’re fighting terrorism, but we are in 
fact creating terrorists - in response particularly to the 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.

Since World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. has attempted to exercise 
military control over the Mideast and its energy resources. 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 the 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.

Those of us in AWARE, like other 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, 
and human rights;
~ (2) end U.S. wars in the Mideast and war provocations against Russia 
(in Eastern Europe) and China (in the South China Sea), and stop the 
drone assassinations;
~ (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); 
bring U.S. troops (and weapons) home;
~ (4) stop U.S. support for human rights abusers, notably Israel and 
Saudi Arabia; and
~ (5) lead on global nuclear disarmament.

ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT - on Facebook at
<AWARE of Champaign-Urbana Illinois>:
~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast
~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income ~
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