United for Peace & Justice: – 2006-04-17 00:29:00
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/iran
‘Don’t Attack Iran’
United for Peace & Justice / www.unitedforpeace.org
(April 14, 2006) — United for Peace and Justice opposes any military action against Iran, as well as covert action and sanctions. We reject the doctrine of “preventive war.” All diplomatic solutions must be pursued.
Send a clear message to the Bush Administration: Don’t Attack Iran!
As a first and immediate step, we urge you to add your signature and comments to AfterDowningStreet’s petition to President Bush and Vice-President Cheney opposing an attack on Iran.
Many UFPJ member groups, including AfterDowningStreet, Gold Star Families for Peace, CodePINK: Women for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy Rising, and others, are all promoting this petition. UFPJ encourages you to circulate this message and help expand the growing list of signers.
Efforts to resolve any dispute with Iran should include promoting negotiations — including Israel — on a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the MiddleEast.
We call for the global elimination of nuclear weapons. The United States should stop blocking negotiations on abolition and demonstrate leadership by taking steps to fulfill its own nuclear disarmament obligation.
We call for the development and promotion of sustainable energy alternatives. We need to stop going to war for oil.And we need to address climate change. But nuclear power is not the answer: Every nuclear power plant is a potential bomb factory and a source of radioactive waste that will remain deadly forever.
Additional Iran resources and action items will be available shortly on the UFPJ website.
And, be sure to join us in New York on April 29 in the national March for Peace, Justice and Democracy.
Backgroung
Seymour Hersh’s stunning article in the April 17 New Yorker, “The Iran Plans,”revealed that the Bush administration has intensified planning for bombing Iran, and that US combat troops are already in Iran preparing for military operations and recruiting local supporters from minority groups.
Of gravest concern, Hersh reported that the Bush administration is giving serious attention to the option of using nuclear weapons to attack buried targets.
From Hersh’s article and other sources, it has become clear that the administration is prepared to launch an attack should Iran not accede to US demands that it abandon its uranium enrichment activities. Regardless of whether the nuclear issues can be resolved, the administration secessionist committed to regime change in Iran.
An attack on Iran would be an act of aggression, barred by the UN Charter and prosecuted at Nuremberg.If executed, US military action would apply the Bush doctrine of ‘preventive’ war in an unprecedented way that would set the template for years or decades original global violence, unrestrained by law.
US use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be an atrocious act violating the existing near taboo that has held since the USdevastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.That would in turn make it far more likely that the weapons will be used elsewhere as well — including against cities in the US.
While Washington accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear power program, in violation of its obligations as a non- nuclear nation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the US is itself in blatant violation of its own NPT obligation to eliminate its vast and sophisticated nuclear arsenal.
There is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The US, however, retains a nuclear arsenal of more than 10,000 weapons, some2,000 on hair-trigger alert.
With nearly 500 tactical nuclear weapons deployed in 6 NATO countries, the US is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil. And the US is modernizing its existing nuclear weapons and publicly making plans to develop and produce new ones.
www.unitedforpeace.org (212) 868-5545
Sign Petition Opposing Attack on Iran
[This Petition and signatures and comments will be delivered to the White House by many activists, including Cindy Sheehan.]
Dear President Bush and Vice President Cheney,
We write to you from all over the United States and all over the world to urge you to obey both international and US law, which forbid aggressive attacks on other nations. We oppose your proposal to attack Iran. Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, just as Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons.
If Iran had such weapons, that would not justify the use of force, any more than any other nation would be justified in launching a war against the world’s greatest possesor of nuclear arms, the United States.
The most effective way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons would be to closely monitor its nuclear energy program, and to improve diplomatic relations — two tasks made much more difficult by threatening to bomb Iranian territory.
We urge you to lead the way to peace, not war, and to begin by making clear that you will not commit the highest international crime by aggressively attacking Iran.
Demand Congress Act to Prevent Aggression against Iran
In the wake of the irresponsible invasion of Iraq, which has killed and wounded thousands, the Bush administration is again using outright lies about “weapons of mass destruction” to justify an attack on Iran.
To the dismay of their own Joint Chiefs of Staff they are seriously considering using tactical nuclear weapons to do so, a plan characterized as “completely nuts” by even our British allies.
It is time for Congress to reassert their authority under the Constitution as the controlling voice on the declaration of war, and tell this administration that an attack on Iran is NOT on the table, and especially not a nuclear one. We cannot stand idly by while the Bush administration plunges us deeper into a quagmire we never should have entered in the first place.
• ACTION PAGE: http://www.clearwaterforcongress.com/petitions/pnum248.php
JOIN GRETCHEN CLEARWATER IN STANDING UP FOR YOU ON THIS AND ALL OTHER ISSUES
This alert is brought to you through the activism of Gretchen Clearwater, Democratic candidate for the US House from the 9th district of Indiana. Gretchen needs your help in the next 3 weeks to win her primary election.
How many times have you felt helpless and wished you could influence the votes of representatives in other districts to prevail on a critical vote in Congress, but knew you could not do so effectively because you were not one of their own constituents? How much more would you support Gretchen if you do live in her district?
Here we have a courageous candidate who will fight for all the issues you care about, if only she is given the chance to make the run. Please donate whatever you can to help Gretchen get on the radio to recruit and mobilize even more people to speak out so we can have a real impact on these policy decisions now and for the future. What would you give to have a whole legislature of people like Gretchen Clearwater? Won’t you give her your support now to make that a reality?
We have been valiantly speaking out with action alerts based on one fundamental premise — either our representatives in Congress would listen to and heed the voices of their people — or else we would work to replace them in the next election.
The time for the replacement action is NOW.
If each of us will just contribute what we can, to the most worthy candidates we can find, it will make a real difference in the kind of Congress we will all have to deal with in 2007. Most importantly, strong showings NOW by candidates who DO have a backbone, and WILL stand up and fight, can send a powerful message to the rest that they better start shaping up or we will ship them out too. Make your donation today and it will have cascading positive effects in many other races for months to come.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.
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