UNITED FOR
PEACE OF PIERCE COUNTY
"We
nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than
cooperative diplomacy."
SIX MONTHS
& 500 MORE U.S. MILITARY DEATHS LATER, NOTHING HAS CHANGED
March 3,
2005
On March 3, 2005, as the number
of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq topped 1,500, United for Peace
of Pierce County re-examined and re-issued the group’s statement of September 9,
2004, when the number of U.S. military personnel dead in Iraq topped 1,000. Only
the numbers and a few verb tenses had to be changed. We call
for mass participation in the March 19 noon antiwar rally in Seattle!
See UFPPC's web site for information on caravans from Tacoma.
On the 1,500 [1,000] American Soldiers Who Have Died in
Iraq
March 3, 2005
[September 9, 2004]
. . . the war in Iraq
has turned into a textbook case of a quagmire. Unfortunately, political leaders
are not telling the American people the truth about the war. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld called the rising level of violence a "backlash" that is
a sign of "progress," but in fact it made [it is likely to make]
meaningful elections in January impossible. The failure of these elections
signifies [will signify] the collapse of the third and last justification
offered for the war, the transformation of Iraqi political institutions in the
direction of democracy, after the first two justifications offered ― the
existence of threatening weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the state
sponsorship of international terrorism by the regime of Saddam Hussein ― proved
groundless.
As a result, the nation now finds
itself [In that event, the nation will find itself] with well over
100,000 troops engaged in an open-ended commitment with no goal in sight other
than a demonstration of national will, or "character."
Throwing away human life to avoid
embarrassment cannot be good policy.
United for Peace of Pierce County
believes that there are four steps that are essential to extricating our nation
from a situation for which there is now no good solution. 1. Our government
should frankly acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. 2.
Pre-emptive war should be renounced as an instrument of national policy. 3. An
international consensus, preferably brokered through the U.N., should establish
a new policy for Iraqi reconstruction. 4. Democracy in the U.S. must be
revitalized -- for the Bush administration's adventure in Iraq is a sign that
our government yields to pressures from groups that do not represent the will or
interests of the American people.
If these steps could be taken as a
result of the war, than it could be truly said that the American soldiers who
died in Iraq did not die in vain.
UNITED FOR
PEACE OF PIERCE COUNTY
"We
nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than
cooperative diplomacy."
