March 15-22: int'l peace demo against 5 years of war & occupation of Iraq

New US president Obama for a world without nuclear weapons

Can the US be so easily liberated from the military-industrial complex?

January 20, 2009 -- New US president Barack Obama has pronounced himself several times for nuclear disarmament during his electoral campaign. But can the US be so easily liberated from the military-industrial complex? It is up to the people of the US and the peace movement everywhere to hold Obama to his word and hold the president elect to what are surely some of the most important of all his promises. Today, in his inaugural speech, he says: 'We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.'

armscontrol.org: Arms Control Today 2008 Presidential Q&A: President-elect Barack Obama (September 10, 2008). Arms Control Today (ACT) posed a series of detailed questions on arms control and nonproliferation issues to the major presidential nominees. Sen. Barack Obama answsered about how he would address key weapons-related security issues as president of the United States.

Barackobama.com: Statement on Call for World Without Nuclear Weapons (January 17, 2008).

Vote for U.S. Dept. of Peace and Non-Violence

Peace idea is #2 at Obama's website www.change.org

January 15, 2009 -- The Obama administration is asking for citizens to stay involved with the process of change. The voting on change.org is one place where we can make our wishes for such change very visible to the politicians. Idea "Appoint Secretary of Peace in Department of Peace and Non-Violence" proposed by US citizen Stephen Zendt has received more than 13,800 votes and is currently in 2d place. Stephen Zendt says "We are asking for a motive and a method to counteract violence, with positive potentials for resolution of conflict, by individuals trained to work with local, state and national approaches, building a United States that no longer glorifies warfare and deadly force, but brings to the table a sincere desire for peace, and a methodology to achieve it."

Website: www.change.org/ideas/view/appoint_secretary_of_peace_in_department_of_peace_and_non-violence

Troops Out of Iraq And Afghanistan! Don't Attack Iran!

Worldwide peace demonstrations planned for March 15-22, 2008

LONDON - December 1, 2007 -- Delegates from 26 countries addressed the World against War conference in London. There was unanimous agreement to organise demonstrations for Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and against an attack on Iran in every country around the fifth anniversary of the attack on Iraq between 15 and 22 March.

Source: www.stopwar.org.uk

EXXON exposed for twisting facts

Check the Exxon files and take action!

Brussels, September 26, 2007 – Climate change is at the top of Europe’s political agenda but not everyone is happy about that. The world’s biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, is working hard to block internationally agreed policies designed to combat climate change. Friends of the Earth Europe released The Exxon Files - an animation spoof exposing how oil giant ExxonMobil is working to prevent action on climate change. The cartoon's website, www.exxon-files.eu, asks people to add their signature to a formal complaint Friends of the Earth is submitting to the Belgian Economic Affairs Minister about Exxon's advertising at Brussels Airport. In the ads, Exxon claims to be reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, despite data from its own Corporate Citizenship Report stating the contrary: Exxon's CO2 emissions actually increased by 8.7 million metric tons (over 6 percent) from 2003 to 2006.

Iraq war blamed for 600,000 Iraqi deaths

The Human Cost of the War in Iraq, A Mortality Study, 2002-2006 .

BAGHDAD - BALTIMORE - October 12, 2006 -- The School of Medicine at Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, Iraq, and The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University--in cooperation with MIT's Center for International Studies--have released a report on the under-examined question of civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Its central conclusion, based on a population-based survey conducted at some risk by a team of Iraqi and American public health researchers, is that approximately 600,000 people have died violently above the normal mortality rate. Including non-violent deaths that are nevertheless linked to the war, the total is estimated to be more than 650,000.

Source: MIT Center for International Studies

More information:
Comments on The Lancet study: www.brusselstribunal.org/Lancet111006.htm

International call to boycott US multinationals

No money for war! Boycott Bush!

Illustration: US tank sponsored by US multinationals

One can not protest US foreign policies while drinking a can of Coca Cola or smoking a cigarette of Marlboro, two important sponsors of Bush re-election.

With the military attack and invasion of Iraq in March 2003 the US acted once again as a "Rogue State" and violated the UN Charter.

Today more than ever, US government policy is increasingly marked by arrogance and self-interest, and US multinationals seem to have a major impact on the policy of the US administration.

For this reason we are calling for an open ended boycott campaign.

As opposition to the Nazi regime would have boycotted German companies supporting the fascist regime of Hitler, today we need to boycott US multinational as an effective tool to oppose US foreign policies which are the most dangerous threat to international security and peace today.

The economic boycott is an effective non-violent tool with which concerned citizens around the world can vote with their wallets against the aggressive policies of Washington and use their consumers power to built another world in purchasing local, fair-trade and organic products as an alternative for the US corporate products.

By boycotting US multinationals who are large donors to the Republican Party, we want to put pressure on the US government to join the international community, complying with the rules of the United Nations and international law, the same way Mahatma Ghandi drove out the British empire out of India, or the international opinion put an end to the apartheid regime in South-Africa.

And as most US embassies became military fortresses US multinationals became today for boycotters worldwide the most natural US embassies.

The unilateral policies of the US must stop now and all US troops must leave Iraq immediately.

As consumers we do not want our money to be used to fuel wars, environmental destruction and human-rights violations.

The Boycott Bush International Network

May 2005

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