Peace

WASHINGTON — Greeting almost 500 people at a national Venezuela solidarity conference held here March 4, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez set a tone for new beginnings.

National peace organizations are pressing Congress to open up debate on getting the U.S. out of Iraq. With Bush insisting on “staying the course” and “not believable any more,” Congress is “the only body left to come forward and make a statement about leaving Iraq and not leaving any bases behind,” said Col. Daniel Smith, senior military affairs analyst for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobbying group.

MOBILE, Ala. — I joined more than 150 Iraq war veterans, Vets for Peace and Gold Star parents together with Hurricane Katrina survivors beginning a 138-mile march from here to New Orleans, March 14. They accused the Bush administration of wasting $250 billion in tax dollars in Iraq, money desperately needed to rebuild the still devastated Gulf Coast.

CHICAGO — They say all politics is local. Although the Iraq war policy is played out on a federal level, the war spending and lives lost come back to a local level here.

Sarah, the oldest daughter of Emad Mohsin Jafar, a leader of Iraq’s oil workers union, was burned during a bombing in the first Gulf War, and needs reconstructive surgery.

WASHINGTON — Pundits opined that India is the one place in the world George W. Bush would be “warmly welcomed.” And he was, by huge throngs of Indian protesters demonstrating against his policies of war and U.S. domination, rejecting Bush’s claim that his spreading democracy and ending terrorism.
En español: Bush se enfrenta gigante protestas en India

“I can’t sit here and do nothing while this war keeps claiming kids and stealing souls.” This was the response I received from Fernando Suárez del Solar when I questioned his newest and boldest idea for bringing an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.

While condemning antiwar advocates for “not supporting the troops,” George Bush has nothing of substance to say about a recent Zogby poll showing that a sizeable majority—72 percent—of U.S. troops in Iraq want to be brought home this year, most saying now or within six months. Twenty-nine percent favor immediate withdrawal.

Veterans, hurricane survivors walkin’ to New Orleans
Four men, 241 miles and a call to end bloodshed

CHICAGO — “Schools are for learning, not for recruiting,” read a large banner in the basement of St. Pius Church here Feb. 17. On the speaker’s platform were Cindy Sheehan and Juan Torres, both members of Gold Star Families for Peace and parents who have lost sons in President Bush’s “war on terrorism.”