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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 00:05:54 -0500
Subject: [WW] Time is Short: Surround White House March 15
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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 13, 2003
issue of Workers World newspaper
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TIME IS SHORT: SURROUND THE WHITE HOUSE
ANTI-WAR COALITION CALLS MARCH 15 EMERGENCY MASS ACTION
By Monica Moorehead
As the Bush administration and the Pentagon move ever closer to a war against Iraq, the International ANSWER coalition is mobilizing for a March 15 emergency convergence on the White House.
There are now 300,000 U.S. troops massed around the Persian Gulf area. An unimaginable Pentagon arsenal of weapons of mass destruction is aimed at a largely defenseless country. Anti-war forces are presented with their greatest challenge since the war crisis developed last fall.
More than 100 cities in 35 states are organizing buses and other modes of transportation to go to Washington, D.C., on March 15 to send a resounding message to the warmongers that the vast majority of people do not want to see one drop of blood--be it from an Iraqi or a U.S. soldier--spilled for oil profits or empire building.
Simultaneous protests are set for San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many other countries, including Greece, Japan and Portugal, are holding their own protests on March 15.
Anti-war forces in the U.S. and worldwide are also organizing other mass protests, work stoppages, direct action, civil disobedience and many more actions to stop the criminal U.S. war on Iraq before it starts.
Student walkouts are taking place at hundreds of colleges and high schools all over the U.S. as part of a national March 5 moratorium against the war. The National Youth and Students Peace Coalition has called the walkout actions "Books, Not Bombs," to show how the billions of tax dollars being diverted to war are directly linked to devastating cutbacks in education.
Both President George W. Bush and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair had hoped to begin a war with Iraq in January. They had to postpone it to February. But their diabolical war plans were temporarily dashed again when an unprecedented massive outpouring of humanity occurred worldwide on the weekend of Feb. 15 and 16--more than 10 million people took to the streets in 600 cities around the world to demand "No war on Iraq."
Both Bush and Blair are now attempting to push through another pro-war resolution in the United Nations Security Council in defiance of world public opinion. The U.S. and Britain are finding it more difficult to depend on their long-time allies for military support for this war. All their attempts at bribery and arm-twisting to impose their imperialist will on the oppressed, underdeveloped countries have not produced the kinds of results they anticipated.
Most notably, the Turkish parliament voted against the use of its bases for U.S. troops to launch an attack on Iraq, despite U.S. efforts to bribe Turkey's beholden, reactionary regime with billions of dollars in aid and loans. On the same day as the vote, tens of thousands of people in Ankara, Turkey, marched to parliament to demand no war.
In Cairo, where many protests are repressed by law, 100,000 people jammed a stadium and hundreds of thousands more rallied outside in support of Iraq and Palestine on Feb. 27.
Bush has become so defensive and isolated in the world about this war that he has admitted publicly what so many already knew--that its real aim is to overthrow the Iraqi government and put Iraq under the
jurisdiction of the U.S. military.
The bottom line is that the real aims of a war against Iraq have nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with "regime change" in the interests of conquest.
RESPONSE TO MARCH 15 CALL
Sarah Friedman, a national outreach coordinator of ANSWER in Washington, told Workers World, "A movement has to have the ability to switch gears in terms of mobilizing efforts, especially when the stakes are so extremely high, like doing everything possible to stop a racist war on Iraq. We are getting great responses from all over the country--150 cities are organizing to get to March 15 protests on both coasts, including Minnesota, Florida and the Midwest."
At a jam-packed meeting at Community Church in New York City on March 4, speakers including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, ANSWER spokesperson Larry Holmes and others spoke about how critical the March 15 mobilization is. And they stressed that the people of the world understand the need for a strong anti-war movement inside the U.S.
People in the audience took stacks of March 15 leaflets and bought many bus tickets.
Mass leafleting for March 15 is planned for every International Women's Day protest from New York to Baltimore, Washington to Los Angeles.
ANSWER organizers have called for a gathering of anti-war forces at 12 noon on March 15 at the Washington Monument. After a rally, a march will proceed to surround the White House, followed by a wind-up rally at the Department of Justice, which promotes so much injustice at home.
Go to www.internationalANSWER.org to download leaflets, endorse the protest, make a donation and find a local March 15 organizing center near you.
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