Peace and War in Iraq

[Cynthia]

"contra la guerre, contra la guerre, anti war, everywhere" (one of the slogans on European Social Forum in Florence from French anti war demonstrators). The European Social Forum is going to be in London this year on 14-17th October in Alexandra Palace - a chance to meet and discuss with other peace activists from a wide variety of backgrounds - more info on this thread another time. I am hoping my posting won't disappear again as follows: this is an excellent anti war cartoon - please have a look at this website - you won't regret it....
http://www.respectcoalition.org/?sec=37

[Cynthia]

Hustings meeting on Iraq 2 June and rally 30 June


A hustings meeting for the European election on Iraq and Palestine will take place at 7 pm on Wednesday 2nd June in Renfield St Stephens Church Centre, 260 Bath St Glasgow. Please come along.

Speakers will be:
Robert Aldridge (Lib Dem), Chas Booth (Green), Douglas Henderson (SNP), Bill Miller (Labour), Tommy Sheridan (SSP), plus a Conservative candidate.

Leaflets and posters are available at:
http://www.banthebomb.org/events/hustings.shtml


There will also be a March and Rally on Wednesday 30th June assembling at
5.30 pm in George Square Glasgow. The themes of the event will be

Iraq -
Send the troops home
Stop the killing and torture
Let the people of Iraq decide

Please help to publicise this. Leaflets and posters are available at:

http://www.banthebomb.org/events/300604.shtml

[Cynthia]

More from Gush Shalom peace group in Israel supporting Palestinian fight against occupation
A Victory of Conscience - translation of the Gush Shalom weekly ad
in Ha'aretz, Friday May 28, 2004

The storm of protest put an end to the attack on Rafah.
As Minister Tommy Lapid testified, the aim of the action was to destroy
3000 homes in order to widen the "Philadelphi Axis". For this end, a
whole division of the Israeli army was brought in. Public opinion was
prepared by mendacious tales of Katyushas and missiles in the tunnels.

Sharon, Mofaz and Ya'alon were compelled to give in because of the
demonstrations of the Israeli peace forces, the world-wide anger and the
American rebuke. Minister Lapid's remark about the similarity between the woman rummaging through the ruins of her home in Rafah and his
grandmother in the Holocaust may have provided the final push.

This is a victory of conscience over inhuman brutality.

But let us not kid ourselves: this is a temporary victory. Sharon and Co.
have not really given up.

Let us be on guard!

Gush Shalom,
Help us speak out - with yout donation to:
P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033,
Phone 972-3-5221732.
www.gush-shalom.org

[Cynthia]

From Our World Our Say:
Protest at more UK troops being sent to Iraq......
Email Gavin Strang at strangg@parliament.uk (you may need to write this down as his email doesn't come up on the OWOS link) and contact Tony Blair at No 10 at http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page848.asp to get the troops out of Iraq (they are part of the problem not part of the solution as this is an illegal and barbaric occupation employing torture, indiscriminate killing and locking up without trial costing £4 million a day to the UK alone and what for???) and protest at the PLAN TO SEND A FURTHER 300 OR SO AS PART OF A 3,000 EXTRA UK TROOPS DEPLOYMENT VERY SOON. .....read on...

"Dear Friend

"Mr Blair's intention, as yet unannounced, to send 3,000 Royal Marines to the holy places of Iraq is near unbelievable...Why cannot Mr Blair simply say no? It is Mr Bush who has turned a peaceful region of Shia Iraq into a cauldron of militancy..." - Simon Jenkins, The Times, 26th May

Geoff Hoon announced today in Parliament that several hundred more British troops WILL be sent to Iraq shortly. However, the fact is that plans are in place to send at least 3,000 extra troops and this announcement today is to soften people up for a much larger deployment. This is enormously concerning and I am asking you to join a nationwide campaign to halt any plans to escalate Britain's involvement.

An opinion poll in Tuesday's Guardian shows that more than 66% of voters oppose sending more British troops to Iraq. If you have replied to our campaign and contacted your MP thank you for taking part. If you haven't could you please take action TODAY or as soon as possible.

Whilst Geoff Hoon talks of this being a temporary measure tied in with the June 30th handover of power and the security situation, the reality is likely to be far different. It's the thin edge of the wedge - again and again we've seen the government using this kind of tactic.

With the European Elections imminent, it is a timely moment to let MPs know the strength of public feeling on this issue. The government may be postponing an announcement of a much larger increase until after the June 10th elections. It is therefore vital that we act today. Thousands of calls and emails to MPs now will signal to Tony Blair that the British public will go no further and that the Government must not send more troops.

Following the horrific torture allegations against both US and British troops, world opinion has turned even more strongly against the war and the occupation of Iraq.

British service men and women might be sent to join an attack on the city of Najaf - the Shi'ite equivalent of the Vatican. Such an attack would be highly inflammatory to Shi'ite Muslims and would mark a significant escalation in Britain's involvement in the disastrous occupation of Iraq.
The London Evening Standard reported that British troops are being prepared for "their most dangerous mission yet" and Tony Blair has been warned there could be "large casualties".
I urge you to join with thousands of Our World Our Say supporters now by emailing and phoning your MP and Tony Blair's office to demand a halt to these plans.

It is unacceptable that our armed forces should be put in harm's way because of incompetent US military tactics. Instead of bringing freedom and democracy, George Bush's representatives have closed down newspapers, bombed mosques, and tortured and abused prisoners.

It is hugely important that our troops are not sent to Iraq to clean up President Bush's mess.
Thank you. Please act NOW.

Yours sincerely
Tim Walker

Chair, Our World Our Say

www.ourworldoursay.org

P.S. Please help give friends and colleagues the opportunity to take part in this campaign. Send a simple message to a group of your contacts quickly and easily to help build the pressure on the Government. It is important that you only send it to people you know as spam damages our reputation.

[Cynthia]

Another urgent call for help to stop the bulldozers demolishing people's homes in Palestine - from Gush Shalom - please spare a minute to email including Gavin Strang strangg@parliament.uk and Tony Blair http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page848.asp
Subject : [GushShalom] 18 Rafah houses today - earlier this week 23

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/

International release, Thursday, June 3:

################
T O D A Y I N R A F A H
18 HOUSES DESTROYED
EARLIER THIS WEEK 23
AN IMMEDIATE OUTBURST OF WORLDWIDE CONCERN MAY HAVE SOME IMPACT

P L E A S E S E N D O N C E M O R E
Y O U R P R O T E S T
The world's attention went in another direction, and the bulldozers are
back. But maybe, so short after Rafah was in the spotlight, your renewed
protest would again help stop them. We should address Tommy Lapid,
Israel's Justice Minister who ten days ago remembered what happened to
his own grandmother, and all the Foreign Ministries of the world - and
again the Israeli embassies (seems to have a more than average effect).

Sample letter (for creative use)

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOUR GRANDMOTHER HAD NEIGHBORS

Dear Minister of Justice of the State of Israel Mr Lapid.

Your courage to say loud what you said about your grandmother has made a deep impression. And it seemed to send away the bulldozers from Rafah - but only for a few days. Meanwhile 41 more houses have been demolished there, for no other reason than that the army wants to push through with its original plan. In the pace of this week it will take less than three months to "finish the project." I don't have to tell you that this is a
war crime. Our hope is that you won't let it pass, even not when it is
done piecemeal.

Sincerely
[your name and address]
--

Please send it by fax (if you can) AND email to:

Minister of Justice Yosef Lapid
Ministry of Justice
29 Salah al-Din Street
Jerusalem 91010, Israel
Fax: +972 2 6285438
E-mail: sar@justice.gov.il

and a copy to:
Secretary of State Colin Powell <secretaryofstate@USA.gov>
Fax: +1-202-261-8577

and/or to the Foreign Minister of your country

and to the editors of the daily paper(s)of your choice

and to:
Kofi Annan ecu@un.org,
Mr. Terje Rod Larsen <unsco@palnet.com>,
Mr. Romano Prodi <romano.prodi@cec.eu.int>

NB: Don't forget to also send it to the nearest Israeli Embassy:
http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/israel1.htm (It will be
good when the foreign ministry will be alarmed by many of its
embassies)

for your convenience, here are the combined email addresses we
vollected (please add your own):

To: sar@justice.gov.il
Copies to: secretaryofstate@USA.gov, ecu@un.org,
unsco@palnet.com, romano.prodi@cec.eu.int

for a regularly updated site of life in Rafah (by just somebody)
http://www.rafahtoday.org

[wangi]

Yawn! Is this really the place for politics?!?!?

Local stuff, yeah fair enough (but it does come across as a socialist hotbed) - but this?

[Surrealist]

Hello Wangi.

I know what you mean - but I guess it depends on the forum. If this was a forum about Toyota cars then I guess you'd be "off topic" if you started talking about ketchup - but I think the only rule here is that we're all from Porty or thereabouts and so you get a snapshot of what's on peoples minds.

I've posted about politics, cats, music and my new baby as well as local issues - and I tend to be quite Darwinian about threads on forums - if they are interesting they live and if they aren't they die off because nobody posts in them.

Carla has worked tirelessly on behalf of local issues as well - but it's testament to her nature that she is as peeved by the thought of bulldozers at the Seafield roundabout as she is at the ones currently levelling homes in Rafah.

You raise an interesting philosophical point though about what is local and what isn't. Are you suggesting, when referring to my MP on this forum, that I only concern myself with local issues and not his membership of the Joint Intelligence Committee (he was one of only 9 people appointed to oversee GCHQ, SIS and the secuirty services) which was involved in the production of reports detailing Iraqi WMDs?

[wangi]

[Surrealist]

[administrator]

This is an interesting debate and worthy of its own thread at:

suitable topics for forum

http://porty.org.uk:/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1891#1891

[Cynthia]

I have been asked by a Porty resident, not on the internet, to advertise this (fairly local) meeting for those interested - on The Arms Trade - Saturday 26th June 10.30-1.00pm St George's West, 58 Shandwick Place, EH2 4RT

"Around the world one person every minute is killed by armed violence. To end this cycle of poverty and suffering we need to tackle the trade in arms. Now. This event will provide an accessible introduction to the key issues surrounding the arms trade, and outline how you can help to change it."
Speakers: Chris Gole, Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation; Ian Goudie, Defence Analyst, Arms Conversion Project, Kate Kirton, Campaigner, Oxfam in Scotland, John Watson, Prog Director, Amnesty International Scotland.

A Plenary Session chaired by Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of Edinburgh, will be followed by two sessions of workshops focussing on
- Confronting the arms trade through influencing British Politicians
- Controlling the arms trade by joining the Control Arms Campaign run by Amnesty International, Oxfam and IANSA (www.controlarms.org)
Converting the arms industry to peaceful production.

Free event - all are welcome. Contact: scotland@amnesty.org.uk or 0131 466 6200 for more information.

Organised by Church of Scotland, Campaign Against Arms Trade, Oxfam, Scottish Centre for Nonviolence, Amnesty International.

[Cynthia]

And another nearly local event - albeit preparing for a likely to be fantastically international peace event in London:

The Edinburgh Stop the War Coalition is supporting the Scottish Mobilisation for the 2004 European Social Forum which takes place in London in October. The 2002 E Social Forum in Florence was the occasion for the call that led to the world-wide demonstrations against war on Feb 15th 2003. The next meeting of the Scottish Mobilisation takes place in Leith - for details email eastedinburghstw@fsmail.net or phone 07905 220954. You can attend as an individual - even better raise the issue in any organisation that you are involved in and get it involved. for more details see http://esfscotland.no-ip.org/


European Social Forum
London October 14-17 2004

Another World is Possible! Carla