La’Onf participants hung posters in public areas, schools and government service and administrative offices. They also met with 40 organizations from Iraqi civil society.
Miscellaneous
Report on LaOnf #1: The Week of Nonviolence has begun in Iraq
“We can create a way for all opinions to be expressed; all parties and all people can participate in the elections, if we work to make them truly democratic. So do not choose violence because you think that your opinions are not being represented.”
Support LaOnf Week of Nonviolence
October 9, 2008
By Voices for Creative Nonviolence
LaOnf, the Iraqi Nonviolence Group, is a gathering of Iraqi people from diverse religions, ethnic, and political backgrounds who come together to promote non-violence. LaOnf means “no violence” in Arabic. LaOnf activists believe that war is not a means to build democracy. They believe promoting dialogue through non-violence is the best alternative. This collaboration of almost 100 separate Iraqi organizations came together to form LaOnf in the hopes that it will help to end the occupation, corruption, and the fighting in Iraq.
Pictures From Summer Camp
July 27, 2008
At 6:45 a.m. this morning, our friend, Joel Gulledge, called from At-Tuwani, a village in the West Bank where he and another Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) member were escorting Palestinian children to a local summer daycamp, protecting them from hostile Israeli settlers. A masked settler, carrying a slingshot, was threatening the children. While Jan Benvie, the other CPT team member, raced the children to safety, Joel paused to film what was happening. The masked settler caught up with Joel and attacked him. “He smashed my head again and again,” said Joel, “with my video camera, and punched me in the face, repeatedly, with his other hand.” Joel managed to remain standing. He didn’t fight back, but he screamed for help. The attacker broke Joel’s glasses, and Joel was bleeding from a gash over his eyes. When he called, he was waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
In case you missed these articles...
Two important articles were recently published that show what has happened and is happening in Iraq, and what the results are for US troops and Iraqis alike. The first is “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness”, in which The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States. The second “is the perfect companion to the piece independent reporter Dahr Jamail has written for Tomdispatch” and “through a series of wrenching emails Jamail has received recently from Iraq, you get a small sense of what the dark and horrific war the American vets described to Hedges and al-Arian, a war only escalating in brutality, looks like to the Iraqis”
The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness
By Chris Hedges & Laila Al-Arian
The Nation - posted July 9, 2007 (July 30, 2007 issue)
Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, Iraq Reporter Schizophrenic in Disneyland
By Tom Engelhardt and By Dahr Jamail posted July 12
Iraq on My Mind
Having spent a fair amount of time in occupied Iraq, I now find living in the United States nothing short of a schizophrenic experience. Life in Iraq was traumatizing. It was impossible to be there and not be affected by apocalyptic levels of violence and suffering, unimaginable in this country.
Summer of Action in Washington, D.C.
Join the Swarm on Washington to Tell Congress:
“No business as usual until the war is ended”
May 14 to July 31
The only thing that will end the war is constant, organized and focused pressure from Americans who oppose the war.
The last few months have shown that we can move Congress toward the view that the war must end. When the Democrats came to power they said “we will not use the power of the purse to end the war.” Now, they have moved from that position to passing a bill that opposes Bush enough for him to veto it.
More work is needed Congress needs to constantly stiffen its spine to respond to those who want to continue the war. Too many in Congress still refuse to vote to end the war. But, as the 2008 election approaches the power of the anti-war voter becomes greater, especially if it is organized and focused.
Vietnam and Iraq, two losing wars with the same blame game losing excuses.
By Frank Cordaro frank.cordaro@gmail.com
Des Moines Catholic Worker
(From a speech given May 2, 2007 Post Veto Rally “MISSION BOTCHED – NEITHER CONGRESS NOR THE PRESIDENT HAS IT RIGHT!” in Des Moines, IA)
Today’s demonstration brings to mind a famous quote from one of my favorite philosophers, Yogi Berra of NY Yankee fame: “It feels like deja vu all over again.” Vietnam and Iraq, two losing wars with the same blame game losing excuses.
And, yet, I know that the War in Iraq is not the same as the War in Vietnam. One big reason the Iraq War is not like the Vietnam War is because this USA lead war in Iraq is a much bigger disaster and national disgrace, has far reaching ramifications beyond the borders of Iraq that threatens the whole region of the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Rural Oregon: Strategic organizing to end the war
March 22, 2007
Blue Oregon
guest column
By Mike Edera of Scappoose, Oregon. Mike is a landscaper and an activist with the Rural Organizing Project.
“Strategy-free activism” is a term coined by the late-great activist Judy Bari. The worst example of strategy-free activism I have ever seen was provided by a band of mask-wearing ‘revolutionaries’ carrying an ‘F the Troops’ banner in a big Portland peace march.
By contrast, the best recent example of strategic activism was Cindy Sheehan’s protest outside of Bush’s Crawford dude-ranch. Before a national press corps stuck covering the President’s summer vacation, she contrasted her condition as the grieving mother of a soldier-son killed in Iraq with Bush’s feckless month-long West Texas siesta. Her example galvanized peace vigils across the country, re-launched the anti-war movement, linking it to the suffering of soldiers and their families.
TJ Students Suspended Over Military Protest
By Sarah Breitenbach and David Simon
Frederick News-Post
April 27, 2006
FREDERICK — Five students at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School were suspended Wednesday pending parent conferences after a protest during a career fair, according to one of the students.
Junior Bob Hayes said he and four other students staged a “die-in” in front of a U.S. Marine Corps recruiting booth at the school about 10:30 a.m. The students pretended to die by falling down in front of the booth and then passed out leaflets protesting the war in Iraq and the presence of military recruiters on school grounds.
24 of 32 Wisconsin Communities Vote for Iraq Pullout
By EMILY FREDRIX
Chippewa Herald
April 5, 2006
MILWAUKEE - It was a purely symbolic message but a heartfelt one. Thousands of voters turned out in Wisconsin communities large and small to tell President Bush to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.
By margins overwhelming in some places and narrow in others, voters in 24 of 32 communities approved referendums Tuesday calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Joy Kenworthy, 78, of Madison, doesn’t mind that the nonbinding referendums have no bearing on federal policy. She was one of more than 24,300 voters in the state capital who gave 68 percent support to a referendum calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops.
