ANSWER plans April 12 action in DC, SF, LA...still spreading LIES (BARF alert)

In the face of Iraqi resistance to the invasion, the U.S. military strategy has abruptly shifted in the last few days. Instead of posing as liberators, the U.S. high command has called for open warfare against the Iraqi civilian population. In the last 48 hours, hundreds of civilians have been shot down on the roadways, in their homes, on their farms. The aerial bombings are becoming more indiscriminate as missiles land in markets and residential neighborhoods.

The Iraq war has suddenly taken on the worst features of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Facing a defiant and resisting population, U.S. troops, under the direction of their officers, treat all members of the population as suspect and decide to shoot first and ask questions later. The U.S. soldiers have been lied to about their mission. They have been sent to kill and be killed in a war for empire and conquest, not liberation. U.S. casualties are mounting in this war that need not have happened.

On March 31, there was a massacre of civilians, mainly women and their children, whose crime was that they were driving on a roadway in their own country. As their van approached a checkpoint, U.S. soldiers destroyed their vehicle with a barrage of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of their M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The Washington Post quoted Capt. Ronny Johnson of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in his series of orders to the troops present: - "Fire a warning shot" - "Stop [messing] around!" - "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!" - "Cease fire!" - "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

The "shoot first ask questions later" strategy is not the result of spontaneous actions by scared and edgy troops. These are orders given the troops from the Pentagon high command.

"Everyone is now seen as a combatant until proven otherwise," a Pentagon official is quoted in the Washington Post of April 1, 2003. The Pentagon recognizes that the shift in tactics will be understood as a brutal escalation of force against the civilian population and that their earlier posture as "liberators" will be exposed. "You'll see acts of kindness, medical care and the like, but the large scale aid effort will have to wait," a Pentagon official told the Washington Post. In fact the new U.S. strategy now is deliberately preventing Iraqi civilians in Nassiriya and other towns from receiving food and water unless they cooperate with the occupation forces.

U.S. Marine Operations Commander Lt. Colonel Paul Roche told reporters on March 31 that the U.S. strategy towards the people of the city of Nassiriya included the use of food and water as a weapon to terrorize and break the will of the civilian population.

In the April 1 front page of the Washington Post, the Pentagon's new strategy is euphemistically referred to in the headline "U.S. troops instructed to use tougher tactics."

The assault against civilians is being reported in greater detail and honesty by the world media outside the United States. This change in U.S. tactics is, as the following report shows, encouraging the most racist and homicidal tendencies among U.S. soldiers at the front.

It is important to read the following passage from the UK Times of Sunday, March 30. It reports of a gruesome scene outside of Nassiriya. Some fifteen vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of trucks, were found destroyed and riddled with bullets by the Times UK reporter Mark Franchetti:

"Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery.

"Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved.

"One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound. Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes were turning to ashes. His savings, perhaps.

"Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the body of a man who may have been her father. Half his head was missing.

"Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition holes, an Iraqi woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was dead, slumped in the back seat. A US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto Fabulous drove past the bodies.

"This was not the only family who had taken what they thought was a last chance for safety. A father, baby girl and boy lay in a shallow grave. On the bridge itself a dead Iraqi civilian lay next to the carcass of a donkey."

The UK Times article also documents that in Iraq, just as in Vietnam, the U.S. soldiers are being trained to wage war against a civilian population by dehumanizing those whom they are killing.

"As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child, Isabella, was born while he was on board ship en route to the Gulf, appeared beside me.

" 'Did you see all that?' he asked, his eyes filled with tears. 'Did you see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being killed like this, but we had no choice.'

"Martin's distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of some of his fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. 'The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy,' said Corporal Ryan Dupre. 'I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him.' "

George Bush and the high command are guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes. What we are witnessing is a full-scale massacre carried out from the land, the air and the sea assault. The U.S. media presents the war as carefully packaged propaganda and trivializes the actual human costs of the war by turning it into something of a spectator sport. But the Iraqi people cannot escape this war and they cannot turn off their television to make it go away.

Again, it is the non-U.S. press that reveals the extent of the criminality of the war.

A March 29 Reuters article entitled "Iraqis Delirious with Grief After Missile Attack" described the Friday night attack by U.S. bombs in a poor section of Baghdad. Arouba Khodeir, 39, while "wailing hysterically and hitting herself in the face and chest, as women around her were trying to calm her down," spoke of her 11-year-old son Karar who died outside the house with his friends: " 'My son had his head blown off,' screamed Khodeir. 'Why are they hitting the people? Why are they killing the children? Why are they doing his to us? Why are they attacking civilians? Didn't Bush say on TV that he won't attack civilians. But these people who died are all civilians? Is this a target?' she wailed, pointing at the dried blood of her son still splashed on the walls."

The report also described the killing of Shaza Shallum, 20, who was "holding her baby and walking with two relatives when the explosion sent a shard of shrapnel through her neck. Six-month-old Fatma was found alive in her dead mother's arms and brought by neighbors to her grandmother. The wails of the mourners drowned the cries of the hungry infant."

One of the people living in this neighborhood told Reuters: "We are helpless people. It is all out of our hands. Why cannot the world find a solution? The whole world is watching us die and is doing nothing to help us."

The full article can be found at http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=AIXRWPJ3C5TXOCRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=2471290

On April 12, people of conscience all over the world are marching, rallying, and carrying out massive protests in solidarity with the suffering people of Iraq. The people who are being killed are not our enemies, they are our sisters and brothers. They must not be allowed to think that the world is "doing nothing" as the violence is inflicted upon them. Thousands of young men and women in the U.S. armed forces either oppose the war or are going through a process of questioning about the mission. It is crucial that the people of the United States come together to demand: Stop the War Against Iraq / Bring the Troops Home Now.

In Washington, huge numbers of people will gather at the Washington Monument at 12 noon. Joint U.S. actions will take place in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

BUSES, VANS AND CAR CARAVANS WILL TRAVEL FROM THE EAST COAST, MIDWEST AND SOUTH to be at the White House on Saturday, April 12. For a listing of transportation being organized from cities around the country, go to: http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/a12/a12transp.html

If you are ORGANIZING TRANSPORTATION, fill out the easy-to-use form at http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/a12/index.html#a12transp so that we can help spread the word to others (if the link does not take you directly to the form, scroll down)

To DOWNLOAD LITERATURE, go to http://internationalanswer.org/campaigns/resources/index.html

If you cannot download and print the flyers and stickers, you can pick up stacks at A.N.S.W.E.R. offices around the country, or you can call us at 202-544-3389 and request a packet of flyers. Please make your request immediately so they can be sent in time for massive distribution.

To make a tax-deductible DONATION to support the work of the anti-war movement, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/donate.html

Please check the April 12 page on the A.N.S.W.E.R. website at http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/a12/index.html frequently for additional organizing information. This will include additional pieces of downloadable literature; a daily update to the list of cities organizing transportation; logistical information; & more.

*The National March to Stop the War on Iraq comes in the midst of the long-planned Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) Mobilization Against Military and Economic Intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. A.N.S.W.E.R. encourages participation in the LASC public plenaries including major Latin American speakers on Friday and Saturday at 7:00pm and the LASC rally and demonstration ending at the World Bank and IMF on Sunday, April 13. Visit the LASC web page at http://www.lasolidarity.org for details.*

FOR MORE INFORMATION http://www.InternationalANSWER.org http://www.VoteNoWar.org info@internationalanswer.org New York 212-633-6646 Washington 202-544-3389 Los Angeles 213-487-2368 San Francisco 415-821-6545

To make a tax-deductible donation, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/donate.html

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It would be great if the war ended before April 12th, and these maroons were left protesting nothing, while crowds of Iraqis cheered their freedom. It may be too optimistic, but I can hope.

Also on April 12th, approx. 6 BILLION people on Earth will continue to ignore ANSWER and live their lives as they have always done.

Not a single word about Saddam and his sadistic sons. This sums up the so called "peace" protests: Saddam is/was a wonderful leader and life in the socialist dictatorship of Iraq was a Utopia, or at least not as bad as the capitalist, representative government to follow the liberation.

The saddest part is that the young minds in college that swallow this pap are so intellectually damaged, that they take this hog slop as facts, and do no research on their own, despite the ease with which it can be done via the internet. That is self delusional ignorance, a mainstay of the liberal rabble.

The other week I warned a peacenick friend of mine about Answer's communist roots, with articles I found about them. I didn't know if she was aware of that or not. Thought it would be an interesting read for her. Yesterday I got the nastiest, snottiest email I've ever seen from her, with accusations about how I don't believe in free speech, the Constitution, etc, questions about my sanity.

Who are the protestors with the square blue printed signs with images of the "world" on them? I've seen them via TV news at every anti-war protest thus far but don't know what they stand for.

11 posted on 04/02/2003 12:59:15 PM PST by sauropod (If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy...)

13 posted on 04/02/2003 1:02:30 PM PST by sauropod (If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy...)

Thanks for all the pings to keeping me up-to-date on the goings on in the SF area. The propaganda has gotten so bad that I even find myself yelling at my monitor and this pile of "stuff" really had me going.

Thousands of young men and women in the U.S. armed forces either oppose the war or are going through a process of questioning about the mission.

I'm going through a process of thinking that ANSWER is a bunch of pinko losers. I'm in questioning about their intelligence. Most of all I'm just really sick of their sorry @sses. Just had to dialog with you about that.

April 12th A.N.S.W.E.R. Rally in SF

I've got plans that day, so if anyone wants to organize a counter-demo, go for it!

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