WORLD CAN'T WAIT STATEMENT
ON MARCH 20TH DEMONSTRATION

US Troops Out of Iraq & Afghanistan NOW!
Stop the Wars & Torture for Empire!

Saturday March 20, on the 7th anniversary, U.S. invasion of Iraq

CNN on February 23, 2010, more than eight years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan:

Twenty-seven civilians died and 14 others were wounded in the incident Sunday in the central Daikondi province, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.  Ground forces at the scene found women and children among the casualties, the Afghan government and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a joint statement.

This is exactly what wars of occupation are all about, and they must stop!

The U.S. is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and now has more combat troops there – 166,000, with 30,000 more on the way – than during the Bush years.  President Obama is using drones (pilot-less aircraft) on raids into Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing hundreds of civilians.  All of these attacks are against international law, because none of these countries attacked the U.S.

IRAQ: As U.S. troops switch from “combat” to “permanent occupation” one million Iraqis are dead, 4 million are refugees. George Bush invaded Iraq seven years ago on the basis of outrageous lies: that Iraq was responsible for 9-11, and had “weapons of mass destruction.”  There was never any evidence of either, but over a million people died as Iraqi civil society, schools, sewers, water, and electricity were destroyed by occupation.  President Obama still has 98,000 U.S. troops there, though most people voted for him because they thought he would end the war.

AFGHANISTAN: the world’s most powerful military is destroying one of its poorest countries, a horror for civilians. Afghanistan is not any more “just” than the Iraq war.  It’s a war of terror on the people, now being expanded by Obama.  During the current and largest U.S. offensive of the war, which is going to spread over the next year, innocent civilians are being killed by U.S./NATO bombs, driven from their homes, and innocent Afghans have been imprisoned and tortured in secret U.S. detention centers.

Is the US there to stop the Taliban and Al-Qaeda? The Afghan people say they want the U.S. to leave because its actions – such as killing innocents – drive more people to join the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban, and because the U.S. allies with the bullying Northern Alliance warlords.

Is the US there to “save the women” from the Taliban? The Karzai government of Afghanistan, only in power because of U.S. guns, passed a law last year governing the Shi’a population (10-15% of the total) giving men the right to starve their wives if they refuse their husband’s demands for sex. Maternal death rates (from childbirth) are nearly the highest in the world, eight years after the US took over.

VISIBLE PROTEST – marching to stop the crimes of our government – makes a difference because we show what we won’t accept, and we learn what we’re up against.  These wars are not legitimate.  People around the world must see that we don’t support them, and know that to us, American lives are not more important than their own.

JOIN WORLD CAN’T WAIT SATURDAY MARCH 20 IN PROTEST!