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War
talk in Washington is alarming and unnecessary. We
are patriotic Americans who share the belief that
Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to possess weapons
of mass destruction. We support rigorous UN weapons
inspections to assure Iraq's effective disarmament.
However, a pre-emptive military invasion of Iraq will
harm American national interests. Such a war will
increase human suffering, arouse animosity toward
our country, increase the likelihood of terrorist
attacks, damage the economy, and undermine our moral
standing in the world. It will make us less, not more,
secure. We reject the doctrine -- a reversal of long-held
American tradition -- that our country, alone, has
the right to launch first-strike attacks. The valid
U.S. and UN objective of disarming Saddam Hussein
can be achieved through legal diplomatic means. There
is no need for war. Let us instead devote our resources
to improving the security and well-being of people
here at home and around the world. Signed, Artists
for Winning Without War...
Along
with the views expressed in this petition Artists
Say Win Without War, honorable Americans and our fellow
people of the Earth are most deeply grieved and enraged
that you and your pro-war camp -- Dick Cheney and
your Cabinet, domestic and foreign government politicians
and lawyers, national leaders such as Tony Blair,
Jose Mariá Aznar, Silvio Berlusconi and Abdullah
Gul, 'think' tank advisors, and many others -- embody
the cabal of evil.
Your
representation of us goes only as far as what you
can manipulate to suit your miserable ends, your bottom
line profit. You are the weapons and nuclear industry,
the petroleum industry, the pharmaceutical industry
controlling corporate agriculture and gene patents,
banking and finance. You are massive world-destroying
entities with allies in technology, science and education.
You are responsible for cumulative global atrocities
in criminal excess of Saddam Hussein's hideous record
in Iraq.
More
than half of Iraq's surviving people, these terrorists
you say we must kill, are under the age of fourteen.
Killing children has not deterred you before. It is
quite clear to all the world you have no intention
of liberating Iraqis in the name of democracy. In
the name of democracy you gave them chemical and biological
weapons. You empowered the torturer Saddam Hussein
al-Majd al-Tikriti. You hope to mutilate his victims
again.
What
you did not exterminate the last time, you poisoned.
You poisoned the land and the people For All Time.
You poisoned The Garden. Radioactive toxins. Iraqi
women are afraid to give birth now, afraid of what
they will find. Babies with no skulls, no brains,
no eyes, deformities too horrifying to look upon.
If they are born sound, many will die. Sanctions you
call them. Torment with the longing for death. Genocide.
Your
Desert Storm. Where were you hiding, you warmongers?
You took our eager young people and gave them weapons
from hell. You fed them lies. You made them monsters.
You poisoned them with radioactive killing tools.
Do you think we will let you do it again, and again?
We, the People, demand the end to your policies
of greed, deceit, death and destruction. We demand
the dismantling of all nuclear weapons, the disposal
of all depleted reactor fuel toxins and the elimination
of all stores of chemical and biological weapons,
worldwide, beginning with the United States. Americans
do not wish to war with other people, economically
or militarily. Americans do not wish to destroy what
remains of Gaia, our shared home.
The
resounding NO!! that is coming at you from
directions you did not know existed is not solely
the refusal to acquiesce as you continue to war while
cowering behind us. The wrath of our dissent runs
deeper. You, your cohorts, and previous governments
here have misrepresented our desires. You have violated
our will and trust. You make our fellow human beings
in other nations loathe us.
We
hold you and your associates responsible for the totality
including the calculated, illicit and ongoing removal
of our constitutional rights, the police brutality
against free citizens and guests of our country exercising
their rights, the corrupt control of media and opinion,
the threatening of peaceful citizens with martial
law and the attempt to keep all of us in a distracted,
protracted state of terror.
The
next time we have a free democratic presidential election
in this country, one without illegal tampering, your
heinous crimes will be fresh in our minds. We will
be keeping the issues of representative democracy
of the mass of humanity and the health of all planetary
life in the foreground. We will not rely on the political
system alone to make significant changes.
You
might come to realize far too late what you have purposely
chosen to misinterpret. Our unfailing strength to
refuse and resist, our dedication to protecting life
on the planet and our compassionate will to do what
is right and good for all the world are the most noble
and enduring attributes of our patriotism.
Signed,
Karen Lyden Cox
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