http://www.codepink4peace.org/ CODEPINK: WOMEN'S PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE FOR PEACE We call on women around the world to rise up and oppose the war in Iraq. We call on mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters, on workers, students, teachers, healers, artists, writers, singers, poets, and every ordinary outraged woman willing to be outrageous for peace.
Women have been the guardians of life- not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and this country that we are a part of, we understand the love of a mother in Iraq for her children, and the driving desire of that child for life. Our leaders tell us we that we can easily afford hundreds of billions of dollars for this war. But in the United States of America, many of our elders who have worked hard all their lives now must choose whether to buy their prescription drugs, or food. Our children's education is eroded. The air they breathe and the water they drink are polluted. Vast numbers of women and children live in poverty. If we cannot afford health care, quality education and quality of life, how can we afford to squander our resources in attacking a country that is no proven immediate threat to us? We face real threats every day: the illness or ordinary accident that could plunge us into poverty, the violence on our own streets, the corporate corruption that can result in the loss of our jobs, our pensions, and our security. In Iraq today, a child with cancer cannot get pain relief or medication because of sanctions. Childhood diarrhea has again become a major killer. 500,000 children have already died from inadequate health care, water and food supplies due to sanctions. How many more will die if bombs fall on Baghdad, or a ground war begins? We cannot morally consent to war while paths of peace and negotiation have not been pursued to their fullest. We who cherish children will not consent to their murder. Nor do we consent to the murder of their mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers, or to the deaths of our own sons and daughters in a war for oil. We love our country, but we will never wrap ourselves in red, white and blue. Instead, we announce a Code Pink alert: signifying extreme danger to all the values of nurturing, caring, and compassion that women and loving men have held. We choose pink, the color of roses, the beauty that like bread is food for life, the color of the dawn of a new era when cooperation and negotiation prevail over force. We call on all outraged women to join us in taking a stand, now. And we call upon our brothers to join with us and support us. These actions will be initiated by women, but not limited to women. Stand in the streets and marketplaces of your towns with banners and signs of dissent, and talk to your neighbors. Stand before your elected representatives: and if they will not listen, sit in their offices, refusing to leave until they do. Withdraw consent from the warmongers. Engage in outrageous acts of dissent. We encourage all actions, from public education and free speech to nonviolent civil disobedience that can disrupt the progress toward war.
