Iraq War Continues!
Hoodwinked?
“Don’t be hoodwinked by Obama’s claim that the Iraq war is ending. We still have 50,000 troops there, tens of thousands of contractors and the biggest Embassy in the world. While we watch President Obama try to put a positive spin on a disastrous war we should have never started, let us redouble our efforts to bring ALL our troops home–from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Ann Wright –Hawaii resident, U.S. Army colonel (retired), official of the U.S. State Department (retired)
“No American should be allowed to forget that the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, have been destroyed, ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured … the people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives … More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile … The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium … the most awful birth defects … unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up … an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia … a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris … through a country that may never be put back together again.”
William Blum, author www.killinghope.org
see article http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26280.htm
Beware of Army DU Safety Claims!
The Army is stonewalling community involvement in seeking the truth about DU radiation contamination at Pohakuloa. The Army has repeatedly made unreliable safety claims based on questionable assumptions, scientific methodology, and no peer reviewed studies.
The bottom line is this: the Army does not want to risk having to shut down Pohakuloa if it is determined that the presence of DU and other military toxins pose a threat to the health and safety of the troops who train there and resident and visitors of Hawaii Island. While the Army says that health and safety is the primary concern, in truth it is continuing the military mission that trumps all.
Malu Aina calls for an end to all live-fire and activities at PTA that create dust. Comprehensive, independent monitoring and clean up, to protect health and safety should be done at military expense. The entire process needs to be transparent and have the confidence of the community, which to date is sorely lacking. The military made similar safety claims to troops and residents in the early days of atmospheric atomic bomb testing, they said much the same thing about agent orange exposure during and after the war in Vietnam, Gulf War syndrome, etc. etc.. all to be proven eventually wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading or lying to the troops and the public.
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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 (Sept. 3, 2010 – 468th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office
