donderdag 21 december 2006

The Empire 100

Oproep tot terugtrekking van Amerikaanse troepen uit Irak:

'Why we stand for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.
THE U.S. occupation of Iraq has not liberated the Iraqi people, but has made life worse for most Iraqis.

Tens of thousands of U.S. service people have been killed or maimed, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003, the ongoing occupation, and the violence unleashed by them.

Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed, and U.S. plans for reconstruction abandoned. There is less electricity, less clean drinking water, and more unemployment today than before the U.S. invasion.

All of the justifications initially provided by the U.S. for waging war on Iraq have been exposed as lies; the real reasons for the invasion — to control Iraq's oil reserves and to increase U.S. strategic influence in the region — now stand revealed.

The Bush administration has insisted again and again that stability, democracy, and prosperity are around the next bend in the road. But with each day that the U.S. stays, the violence and lack of security facing Iraqis worsen. The U.S. says that it cannot withdraw its military because Iraq will collapse into civil war if it does. But the U.S. has deliberately stoked sectarian divisions in its ongoing attempt to install a U.S.-friendly regime, thus driving Iraq towards civil war.

The November elections in the United States sent a clear message that voters reject the Iraq war, and opinion polls show that seven in 10 Iraqis want the U.S. to leave sooner rather than later. Even most U.S. military and political leaders agree that staying the course in Iraq is a policy that is bound to fail.

Yet all the various alternative plans for Iraq now being discussed in Washington, including those proposed by House and Senate Democrats, aren't about withdrawing the U.S. military from Iraq. Rather, these strategies are about continuing the pursuit of U.S. goals in Iraq and the larger Middle East using different means.

Even the proposal to redeploy U.S. troops outside of Iraq, a plan favored by many Democratic Party leaders, envisions continued U.S. intervention inside Iraq.

With former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisting that a military victory in Iraq is no longer possible and (Ret.) Lt. Gen. William Odom calling for "complete withdrawal" of all U.S. troops, the antiwar movement should demand no less than the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military — as well as reparations to the Iraqi people, so they can rebuild their own society and genuinely determine their own future.
We call on the U.S. to get out of Iraq — not in six months, not in a year, but now.
Ali Abunimah
ElectronicIraq.net
Gilbert Achcar
Author
Clash of Barbarisms
Michael Albert
ZNet
Tariq Ali
Author
Bush in Babylon
Anthony Arnove
Author
Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
Noam Chomsky
Author
Hegemony or Survival
Kelly Dougherty
Executive Director
Iraq Veterans Against the War*
Eve Ensler
Playwright
The Vagina Monologues
Eduardo Galeano
Author
The Open Veins of Latin America
Rashid Khalidi
Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies
Columbia University
Camilo Mejía
First Iraq War resister to refuse redeployment
Arundhati Roy
Author
God of Small Things
Howard Zinn
Author
A People's History of the United States'

Ook u kunt de oproep ondertekenen. Zie: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow/

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