Chicago, IL – Sarah Simmons, a member of the Anti-War Committee – Chicago, speaks in front of the Field Museum where Boeing Company held its annual stockholders meeting, April 29. “As a Boeing stockholder, I want to tell the Board of Directors and fellow shareholders to stop manufacturing drones now. As we mourn the victims in Boston, we also mourn those faceless and nameless victims of the U.S. government, who have fallen in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Category: Antiwar Movement
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Students for a Democratic Society: End U.S. war threats against north Korea!
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Students for a Democratic Society
In the last several months, the U.S. has yet again ramped up tensions on the Korean peninsula, staging unnecessary and provocative war games; all while threatening north Korea with destruction. This comes after decades of similar threats and years of sanctions that have impoverished millions. The U.S. is clearly using lies, military threats including nuclear devastation, and economic bullying to get what it wants from both the north, the south, and indeed the world.
Students for a Democratic Society condemn the imperial actions of the United States toward north Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). We demand an end to the threats and lies that have helped divide the Korean people for more than fifty years, including war games.
We demand that the U.S. close military bases on the peninsula and withdraw troops from south Korea.
We demand an end to sanctions against the north that impoverish the Korean people.
We hold that peace is impossible so long as the United States continues to interfere with the affairs of sovereign states. The Korean people have a right to self-determination. The fate of reunification is for the Korean people to decide.
We say, “Hands off north Korea! Get off the peninsula!”
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Anti-war activists, stockholders to protest Boeing’s killer drone
Chicago, IL – The Anti-War Committee of Chicago opposes Boeing CEO James McNerny’s plan to make the next combat drone for the U.S. military. Members of the Anti-War Committee, including several who have purchased Boeing stock, will protest at the annual stockholders meeting at the Field Museum on Monday, 9:30 am, April 29.
Newland Smith, stockholder and anti-war activist, cited Senator Lindsey Graham of the Armed Services Committee, on the number of casualties from killer drones. Graham recently stated, “We’ve killed 4700.” According to Smith, “This is the estimated number of casualties in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, but including drone strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq would result in a much higher number.”
Smith and Sarah Simmons, also a stockholder, said that the Anti-War Committee will be at the Boeing meeting to expose the loss of life resulting from drones. “What the Obama administration says isn’t true; most of the drone strikes aren’t against proven, high level Al Qaeda leaders,” explained Simmons. “In Pakistan as many as 881 were civilians, including 176 children. Almost all the rest are ‘alleged combatants.’”
Boeing is competing with the other top arms manufacturers for the growing budget for unmanned aircraft for the military. This year, the Navy is asking for designs for a new combat drone. Boeing is expected to propose its “Phantom Ray.”
AWC has taken a number of measures to oppose the drone wars, including submitting a statement to an April 23 hearing held by Senator Richard Durbin on the topic.
In addition to the deaths caused by their products, Boeing received over $60 million in tax breaks to move to Chicago. Simmons, the mother of Chicago Public School children, spoke from her experience. “Our schools are crumbling, and we’re giving tax breaks to a company with $25 billion in defense contracts.” Smith added, “With their record profits last year, McNerny was given a 20% raise, to $27.5 million. Clearly war is profitable for Boeing.”
Smith put it plainly. “It’s time to end the drone wars, not prepare to build another generation of more deadly weapons.”
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Anti-war vets unite with community groups at national gathering
Decatur, TN – This past weekend, April 19-21, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) hosted a three-day organizer training in rural eastern Tennessee. Over 50 activists shared skills and strategies as veterans and active-duty soldiers were joined by civilian ally organizations from around the country, including IVAW’s partner organization Civilian-Soldier Alliance (CivSol,) One Love Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, The Poverty Initiative, Concerned Citizens for Justice, and many others.
This type of combined gathering was unprecedented for the nine-year-old IVAW and many of the attendees were excited by this new development. “We’re seeing a shift in the overall movement and the world right now, and its making me very excited and inspired,” said IVAW member Jacob George.
Collective liberation was a theme of the weekend. Activists represented a huge range of issues, including anti-racism, education rights, Palestine solidarity, poverty, environment, labor, media justice, LGBTQ rights, healthcare and immigrant rights. Many discussions over the weekend emphasized the interconnected nature of the struggle against war and occupation to other movements. IVAW chapters around the country reported back on work they have done with community groups and labor unions around the issue of mental health care in the community, and at Veterans Administration hospitals.
“The work we’re doing here, the work we’re doing in Maryland, I don’t see it as work, I see it as healing.” Said CivSol member Sergio Espana, who organizes for healthcare in Baltimore.
IVAW and CivSol are currently leading a national “Right to Heal” campaign, which demands that the government stop deploying traumatized troops and provide adequate physical and mental health care for victims of the U.S. occupations, and of military trauma such as PTSD, military sexual trauma and traumatic brain injury. At the weekend retreat, workshops and panels addressed the trauma faced not only by combat veterans, but the similar experiences of immigrants, refugees and victims of sexual assault and police violence.
Last May, IVAW brought national attention to the victims of U.S./NATO war and occupation as they joined Afghans for Peace and 30,000 protesters to march on the NATO convention in Chicago. 40 IVAW members returned their medals in a memorable ceremony outside the convention. Some of the veterans dedicated their medals to friends who had become victims of combat deaths and suicide, noting that 18 veterans commit suicide every day, and demanding the government recognize the Right to Heal.
In summation of the retreat, organizers were optimistic about the future of the campaign and its growing support among ally organizations. To learn more about the Right to Heal campaign, visit http://righttoheal.org and http://www.ivaw.org
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Utah anti-war rally against U.S. war and drone strikes
Salt Lake City, UT – Anti-war activists and students in Utah took their message directly to the U.S. government’s doorstep on April 11 with a rally in front of the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building.
Roughly 30 people attended, calling for an end to U.S. occupation and military intervention, as well as an end to drone strikes like the one that killed 11 Afghan children on April 8.
“President Obama is the Drone Ranger,” said Utah Valley University professor Michael Minch. “The self-described ‘Vulcans’ who ran George W. Bush’s White House must be green with envy, for Obama has killed far more people, personally authorizing their use, than Bush might have even imagined killing with this killing system.”
The crowd was adamant that the U.S. get out of Afghanistan and stay out of Syria and Iran. Many also voiced their opposition to ongoing threats and war rhetoric against Democratic Korea.
“People on both the right and the left have criticized north Korea for their military first policy,” said Dave Newlin, member of the October 7th Anti-War Committee, who organized the event. “I ask you, what about U.S. military first policy? What about U.S. endless hunger for weapons of mass destruction, for drones and for world dominance?”
Newlin pointed out that the U.S. spent almost $1.5 trillion on wars, military and defense support. That is more than any other U.S. expense and more than any other country. Those in attendance called for that money to be spent on things like education, jobs and health care, rather than war.
Organizer Tess Vandiver, who recently spent time in occupied Palestine, read a moving poem given to her by a Palestinian boy that read, “I feel like I am in a cemetery when I am in my own town.”
Vandiver condemned U.S. support for the Israeli occupation and called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel: “This issue isn’t about a group of people being better than another; this isn’t about whose land is whose, the Old Testament, or the Qur’an. It is about basic human rights and the suffocation of a society.”
The Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building houses both the offices of Utah Senator Mike Lee and the local FBI offices. Protesters took the opportunity to condemn the repression of anti-war activists throughout the U.S. by the FBI and called on Senator Lee to end his support for drone strikes and foreign intervention.