The Importance of Antiwar Mobilizations!
The importance of antiwar mobilizations could not be clearer. Each day the press reports new outrages perpetrated by the Pentagon in the Middle East and North Africa. The U.S. threat to intervene militarily in Libya is a dagger pointed at the heart of the heroic popular movements to overthrow the dictators and usher in the new societies imagined in Tahrir Square and other sites across North Africa. In Iraq, the U.S.-backed puppet government has been attacking protests for social services and human needs with incredible violence. At the same time, the protests in Wisconsin and other state capitals around budget cuts demonstrate that the audience for the demand to Bring the War Dollars Home is large and growing day by day. National U.S. antiwar marches are planned for the weekend of April 9-10. See www.UNACpeace.org
What about Hawaii & the Pacific region?
Major U.S. military expansion is taking place in Hawaii. Guam is experiencing rapid military build up as a forward base in the western Pacific. Hawaii is the training ground for ongoing U.S. wars of aggression and empire building around the world. Even our sacred mountains –Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are coming under increasing pressures for helicopter assault training for mountainous regions in Afghanistan. Military training desecrates and contaminates sacred cultural sites. It further entrenches U.S. military occupation in Hawaii instead of ending U.S. occupation and restoring the Hawaii nation as justice demands.
The bottom line is this. We do not want the U.S. training anywhere to do to others what the U.S. has already done to Hawaii: overthrow and occupy its independent government and nation, desecrate its sacred sites, and contaminate its air, water, people, plants an animals with military toxins.
The U.S. military has confirmed it has used Depleted Uranium (DU) in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks on Oahu , the Pohakuloa training Area in the middle of Hawaii Island, and possibly other sites. Du is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. It emits radioactive alpha particles that can cause cancer, cell mutations, birth defects, and other possible health problems. Comprehensive, independent testing and monitoring needs to be done with citizen oversight to determine the full extent of radiation contamination. Federal funds should pay for this effort that needs to be transparent and have the confidence of the community. The military needs to clean up, not build up, then end its illegal occupation of the independent nation of Hawaii!
The Days of Dictators, Global Empire
& Occupation Must End!
It’s Time for Justice, Peace, & Freedom to Reign!
1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Contact: Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622. Email ja@interpac.net http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (March 4, 2011 – 494th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office
