Call-in against the Occupations!

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Just to let you know what we are up to in Columbus, OH. . . .

Action Alert:
Call-in against the Occupations!

Call Senators Mike DeWine (614-469-5186) and George Voinovich
(614-469-6697) to demand that the US government:

* Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and Pay Reparations to Iraqis and Afghans
* Stop US Military and Financial Support for Israel Until Israel
Dismantles All the Settlements, Ends the Occupation of the West Bank,
Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and Abides by All Relevant International
Laws, Including United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194
* Appoint an Independent Commission, and Hold Open and Public
Hearings, to Investigate the Bush Administration's Lies That Misled
Americans into the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Support H.R. 2625
and H. Res. 307)

Mike DeWine: 614-469-5186 (Columbus); 202-224-2315 (DC)
George Voinovich: 614-469-6697 (Columbus); 202-224-3353 (DC)
[Call the Columbus phone numbers while Congress is in recess.]

The Press Conference on People's Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East
held on August 27, 2003 was covered by WCBE, Ohio News Network, and
Hannah News Service.  Our Central Ohio Peace Network lobbying
delegation met with Senator Voinovich's district representative
Khisha Fallon (614-469-6697) and Senator DeWine's regional director
Scott S. Corbitt (614-469-5186).  In the course of our lobbying, it
became clearer than ever that the Senators have no exit plan -- there
is no end of the US occupation of Iraq in sight.  Ms. Fallon and Mr.
Corbitt could offer no satisfactory explanations of missing Weapons
of Mass Destruction and of extraordinary US military and financial
support to Israel regardless of its occupation, settlement
construction, and the Apartheid Wall building.  Worst of all,
according to Mr. Corbitt, "we" may very well stay in Iraq for ever!!!

To their credit, however, Mr. Corbitt and Ms. Fallon promised us that
Senators DeWine and Voinovich will present us with *Clear Answers in
Two Weeks* to the questions of (1) the US occupation of Iraq, (2) US
military and financial aid to the Israeli occupation, and (3) the
need for an independent commission with open and public hearings
about missing Weapons of Mass Destruction and other gaps between
reality and the Bush Administration's claims.  The Rev. John Wallace,
representing our lobbying delegation, will call the Senators' offices
in two weeks, to hold them accountable to their promises.  (If they
fail to give us answers or if they give us morally wrong answers,
we'll respond by a big protest!)

In the mean time, please call Senators Mike DeWine (614-469-5186) and
George Voinovich (614-469-6697) to demand that the US government:

* Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and Pay Reparations to Iraqis and Afghans
* Stop US Military and Financial Support for Israel Until Israel
Dismantles All the Settlements, Ends the Occupation of the West Bank,
Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and Abides by All Relevant International
Laws, Including United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194
* Appoint an Independent Commission, and Hold Open and Public
Hearings, to Investigate the Bush Administration's Lies That Misled
Americans into the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Support H.R. 2625
and H. Res. 307)

Cf. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194:
<http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument>

Cf.  H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307:
Both Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.)
have introduced legislation (H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307, respectively)
into the House calling for investigation into the Bush
administration's misuse of intelligence.  Both bills address some but
not all of our criteria of open, thorough, timely, televised public
hearings and an independent investigation with a broad mandate.  Both
representatives have supported the other's bill, although Tauscher's
is stronger in several regards -- it calls for a House Select
Committee rather than an independent commission, and it calls for
reporting before the election.  (Details can be found at
<http://www.thomas.loc.gov/>).

Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, Student International Forum, 614-668-6554,
<furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>; and Mark D. Stansbery, the Community
Organizing Center, 614-252-9255, <walk@xxxxxxx>

Resources for People's Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East --
Measure the Burden of the Empire and Occupations and Measure It in
Concrete Terms:

1. Iraq and the US
* Beth Osborne Daponte, a Census Bureau demographer, "postulated in
1991 that 158,000 Iraqi men, women and children died during and
shortly after the Persian Gulf war" (the US government rewrote her
report and derailed her career for her courageous act of
truth-telling - Thomas Ginsberg, "War's Toll: 158,000 Iraqis and a
Researcher's Position,"
<http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/4874382.htm>).  293
US service members and 50 allied soldiers also lost their lives in
the war.
* At least "500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five (according
to UNICEF)" died due to the US-imposed sanctions on Iraq (Rania
Masri, "Re-Constructing or De-Constructing Iraq?"
<http://electroniciraq.net/news/981.shtml>).
* More than 9,600 Gulf War veterans have died, as of March 1, 2001,
and 36% of the 504,047 eligible veterans filed claims against the VA
for service-related medical disabilities (The National Gulf War
Resource Center, "2002 Gulf War Statistics,"
<http://www.ngwrc.org/Facts/default.htm>).
* In the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq, a conservative estimate
(as of August 22, 2003) reveals that 6113 Iraqi civilians have
perished (see <http://www.iraqbodycount.net/>), and CBC reports that
as of August 22, 289 US soldiers have died, 195 (64 in combat) since
May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat was over
("Casualties in the Iraq war,"
<http://www.cbc.ca/news/iraq/issues_analysis/casualties_postiraqwar.html>).
* The cost of the occupation has soared to $3.9 billion per month,
$46.8 billion per year (Thom Shanker, "Rumsfeld Doubles Estimate for
Cost of Troops in Iraq,"
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0710-05.htm>).
* In the wake of the military destruction and occupation of Iraq, a
second invasion has begun: the invasion of powerful corporations that
seek to reap billions in profits from the devastation of war, seizing
the wealth and resources that belong to the Iraqi people.  The US
governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, has openly declared that transforming
the Iraqi economy into a '"free market" economy is his top priority,
downsizing the Iraqi public sector that employed 30% of the Iraqi
work force, privatizing state assets and enterprises, and removing
price controls and subsidies that kept prices of staples and public
utilities low and affordable to the poor.  US occupying forces are
making "Iraq open for business again," using the funds set aside for
"reconstruction" of Iraq to issue credit guarantees for foreign
companies that sell goods to Iraq - in other words, guaranteeing that
Iraq's "reconstruction" will be profitable to foreign investors and
that "reconstruction" funds will be spent on importing foreign goods,
rather than employing jobless Iraqi workers.  Global multinationals
are lining up to gobble up and profit from the lucrative oil and
water industries of the country.  Through wide-scale privatization,
lowering "barriers to entry for new firms," and changing Iraqi
commercial law to "encourage private investment," the Bush
Administration and US occupying forces are ensuring that long after
the military forces are gone, the occupation of Iraq by multinational
corporations will continue (consult the Institute for Southern
Studies' Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers and Corporate Invasion,
<http://www.southernstudies.org/campaignpage.asp>; Rania Masri,
"Re-Constructing or De-Constructing Iraq?"
<http://electroniciraq.net/news/981.shtml>; Naomi Klein, "Downsizing
in Disguise," <http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0606-01.htm>; Tim
Shorrock, "Selling [Off] Iraq,"
<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623&s=shorrock>, and "A
New Solidarity Front in Iraq,"
<http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=shorrock>; Dan Baum,
"Nation Builders for Hire,"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/22BROWN.html>; Patrick
Tyler, "US Plans Credit System for Sale of Goods to Iraq,"
<http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0527credit.htm>;
and Richard A. Oppel, Jr., "New Trade Bank to Extend Credit for
Rebuilding,"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/international/worldspecial/22IRAQ.html>).

2. Israel, the Occupied Territories, and the US
* Over 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees before and during the
establishment of Israel in 1948.  "During the 1967 Israeli-Arab war
more than 400,000 Palestinians were displaced, half of whom were 1948
refugees displaced for a second time in less than two decades" ("The
1967 Palestinian Refugees - Also Waiting to Go Home,"
<http://www.badil.org/Press/2002/press261-02.htm>).  Al-Awda, the
Palestine Right to Return Coalition, estimates that Palestinian
refugees, who are denied the right to return (despite UN General
Assembly Resolution 194,
<http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument>),
number 6.5 million today, with 3.8 million registered with the United
Nations for humanitarian assistance (see
<http://www.al-awda.org/faqsonrefugees/>; for a range of estimated
numbers of refugees, go to
<http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/proverview.html>).
* Dispossession and displacement of Palestinians continued even
during the so-called "Peace Process," sowing the seeds of anger and
despair that erupted into the second Intifada.  Between September
1993 and September 2001, the number of housing units in the illegal
Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip "rose from 20,400
to 31,400 -- an increase of approximately fifty-four percent. . . .
The sharpest increase during this period was recorded in 2000, under
the government headed by Ehud Barak," B'Tselem documents in its
report "Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank" (May
2002, <http://www.btselem.org/Download/Land_Grab_Eng.pdf>, pp.
15-16). The total area under the control of the settlements has come
to the shocking 41.9% of the West Bank ("Land Grab," p. 112, Table
9), crushing the hope of Palestinian independence.
* Since the beginning of the second Intifada, at least 2,286
Palestinians, 753 Israelis, and 45 foreign citizens have been killed
(as of July 23, 2003), according to B'Tselem (at
<http://www.btselem.org/>).  On June 26, 2003, the UN International
Day in Support of the Victims of Torture, the Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel reported "a sharp increase in the torture"
and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees since September 2000,
despite the 1999 High Court of Justice ruling to outlaw torture (at
<http://www.stoptorture.org.il/eng/press.asp?menu=7&submenu=1&item=125>).
* Since 1976, Israel has been the leading recipient of US aid.  The
National Lawyers Guild has found that well over $81 billion of US
foreign aid was given to Israel from 1949 through 2000 (see "The Al
Aqsa Intifada and Israel's Apartheid: The U.S. Military and Economic
Role in the Violation of Palestinian Human Rights,"
<http://www.nlg.org/programs/mideast/al_aqsa_intifada.pdf>).  SUSTAIN
(Stop US Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now!, at
<http://www.sustaincampaign.org/>) calculates that US aid to Israel
during the 1990s was about $6.3 billion a year, over $17 million a
day.  US aid to Israel violates the US Arms Export Control Act and
the US Foreign Assistance Act (see "Reasons to Oppose US Aid to
Israel,"
<http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/palestine/reasons.pdf>).
* The eight-meter-high Apartheid Wall marks the latest stage of the
US-backed occupation, this time incorporating "10%-15% of the
occupied territories" into Israel and imprisoning at least "11,700
[Palestinian] people in 13 villages . . . between the wall and the
green line [Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank]" ("Israel's
'Separation Wall,'" <http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/> -- for more
information about the Apartheid Wall, go to
<http://www.stopthewall.org/>).  The wall will further ghettoize
Palestinian lives and devastate their livelihoods, without providing
security to Israelis (ironically, the wall is also protested by
Israeli settlers, who fear that it may become a de facto border).

3. Qui Bono?  Who Benefits?
Corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, the biggest looters of
Iraq (see US Labor Against the War, "The Corporate Invasion of Iraq,"
<http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/images/CorpInvasion.061503.v1.4.pdf>).
Arms manufacturers like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, the merchants of
deaths in Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Territories, and beyond
(Jordan Green, "Arming the Occupation,"
<http://www.ncdivest.org/articles/01_Backgrounder_Arming-the-Occupation.pdf>;
William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan, "U.S. Arms Transfers and
Security Assistance to Israel,"
<http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html>;
Frida Berrigan, "The War Profiteers: How Are Weapons Manufacturers
Faring in the War?,"
<http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1218-03.htm>).  Corporate media
like Fox News and Clear Channel, the propagators of lies and racist
fantasies.  Politicians who are funded by, or are even themselves,
corporate profiteers who take away precious resources - from land to
oil, from water to anything else -  from the multitudes in the Middle
East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America; who exploit the labor of the
dispossessed and displaced; and who feed on their blood and tears
(for instance, check out "The War Profiteers Card Deck,"
<http://www.warprofiteers.com/>).

--
Yoshie

* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>,
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>