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Action Needed on January 28, 2003!
The State of the Union - as suggested by Steve Cleghorn, Washington, DC
All Signs Point to the State of the Union for the Announcement of War on Iraq:
January 28, 2003 may be P-Day (Peace Day) for America’s Peace Movement
The Hans Blix report to the UN on January 27 will be critical, MoveOn.org tells us, and the next day, January 28 – when Bush delivers the State of the Union (having moved it a week back so as not to be too close to the major MLK Jr. weekend peace demonstrations) – may be decisive. Yet is “the tide turning” toward putting off the war?
Action Email Message from MoveOn.org (January 10, 2003)
On January 27th, Blix will make a full report to the council; he's widely expected to repeat that to date, no evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has been found. And according to newspaper reports, Tony Blair's "assessment of the situation is increasingly in line with that of Mr. Blix."
Meanwhile, at the White House, Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer continued to make the case for invading Iraq. It's widely believed that President Bush will use the January 27th report by Hans Blix to the Security Council, and his State of the Union address the day after, to launch his final push for war.
We face the prospect of an imminent war against Iraq, fought alone. Luckily, as the British newspaper The Guardian put it, the tides are turning. The world community wants to see the inspections process work, and some of our closest allies are questioning the push for war.
Yet it appears, sadly, that we shall not be so lucky, says Richard Perle, a principal ideological architect of war on Iraq:
US Will Attack Iraq 'Without UN Backing'
By Toby Harnden
Daily Telegraph UK, January 10, 2003
America will not delay a war with Iraq until the autumn and is prepared to launch military action against Saddam Hussein without further United Nations authorisation, a senior Bush administration adviser said yesterday.
Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board and a hawk whose views carry considerable weight, rejected suggestions from British ministers and senior Foreign Office officials that plans for an early war should be put on hold.
Mr. Perle, who is close to Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said he did not expect the UN Security Council to reach agreement on the use of force but had little doubt that George W Bush, the US president, would press ahead regardless and lead a coalition to victory.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/011203A.perle.attack.htm
And even if you do not accept that this is about “blood for oil,” the White House itself is certainly seeing the connection – planning to finance its war plans with oil revenues!
Plan: Tap Iraq's Oil
U.S. Considers Seizing Revenues to Pay for Occupation, Source Says
By Knut Royce
Newsday Special Correspondent January 10, 2003
Washington - Bush administration officials are seriously considering proposals that the United States tap Iraq's oil to help pay the cost of a military occupation, a move that likely would prove highly inflammatory in an Arab world already suspicious of U.S. motives in Iraq.
Officially, the White House agrees that oil revenue would play an important role during an occupation period, but only for the benefit of Iraqis, according to a National Security Council spokesman.
Yet there are strong advocates inside the administration, including in the White House, for appropriating the oil funds as "spoils of war," according to a source who has been briefed by participants in the dialogue.
"There are people in the White House who take the position that it's all the spoils of war," said the source, who asked not to be further identified. "We [the United States] take all the oil money until there is a new democratic government [in Iraq]."
The source said the Justice Department has urged caution. "The Justice Department has doubts," he said. He said department lawyers are unsure "whether any of it [Iraqi oil funds] can be used or has to all be held in trust for the people of Iraq."
Another source who has worked closely with the office of Vice President Dick Cheney said that a number of officials there too are urging that Iraq's oil funds be used to defray the cost of occupation.
Jennifer Millerwise, a Cheney spokeswoman, declined to talk about "internal policy discussions."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/011203E.wh.plan.oil.htm
And so it is proposed that on January 28, 2003:
Peace Day on Pennsylvania Avenue
That on January 28, 2003, beginning at sundown, all peace-loving people in the Washington D.C. area, and as many peace-loving people from around the country as possible, converging by car, by Metro, by bus and by foot, shall gather on the sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the U.S. Capitol to call for peace and to oppose going to war against Iraq.
Our nation is in peril, and will be more deeply in peril if we go to war in Iraq. And so we need to make our own “state of the union” address in the streets on the evening of January 28. All peace-loving people should come with candles in hand, wearing a white outer garment that says “Peace” in whatever way and artistic form suits you, carrying signs if you wish, so that we might be seen as a mighty wave of white and light in the streets, and so that we might recognize one another and join our hands and voices in common purpose.
As the sun sets we shall set our candles alight (you may need several) and be present as the President makes his way to the Capitol for the State of the Union address. We will form a visual, peaceful phalanx of light along Pennsylvania Avenue that even a jaded media cannot ignore. We will sing our songs of peace spontaneously along the route, and we will pray, no doubt, for the soul of our nation. No permits needed. All traffic signals and other means of order and civility obeyed.
Imagine, if you will, that President Bush’s motorcade must pass through thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of faithful, democracy- and peace-loving Americans, before delivering a call to war.
And if the President does hear of this beforehand, and if he orders, as might be expected, that there be no “peace people” along Pennsylvania Avenue, if he orders that “free speech zones” be set back some distance away from Pennsylvania Avenue, then that will speak for itself, but as for us we shall all move with our candles and our signs of peace as close to Pennsylvania Avenue as we can, and as the hour approaches for the State of the Union address, we shall collect as close as we can to the west side of the U.S. Capitol, and we shall form a vanguard of light and sensibility to oppose what it is to be said inside that building, and we shall hope and pray that the press will carry our message throughout the land and give courage to others to stop this war!
In the words of the songwriter L. Cohen, we shall come out onto Pennsylvania Avenue the night of January 28 to sing an “Anthem” of peace, not worrying about whether it is the exactly right action or the perfect action, but presenting our bodies and our hope as a “crack” in the firmament of perpetual war that our President preaches as inevitable. Our modest and nonviolent actions will be the means by which the light gets in and we are delivered out of the darkness.
from “Anthem”
-by Leonard Cohen
The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Peace to all –
Steve Cleghorn - JSC1949@email.msn.com
Washington. D.C.
(Pass it on!)
And if you can't come to D.C. that day, do something where you are.
Page created January 11, 2003 by Charlie Jenks.
