Tell John Kerry: It's Time to Bring the Troops Home -- Now!

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ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE http://www.unitedforpeace.org |
212-868-5545 To subscribe, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
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Dear friend:

As the June 30 date for "transferring" sovereignty to Iraq approaches, it
becomes increasingly clear that real power will remain in the hands of the
U.S. military, which invaded and now occupies Iraq in violation of
international law.

It's time to bring the troops home -- now. You can help work toward that
goal by gathering signatures to United for Peace and Justice's "Two Letters
from the Unsilent Majority," which are now available in downloadable form
on our website at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority

These letters, which we began circulating last week, forcefully call on
each of the major presidential candidates -- John Kerry and George W. Bush
-- to end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. They have already been
signed by Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Howard Zinn, and thousands more.

With our new downloadable versions, you can print out the letters and
gather signatures from other members of the Unsilent Majority -- your
friends, co-workers, relatives, and neighbors. Mail the completed forms
back to us by June 25, so we can have the largest number possible of
signers in advance of the national weekend of anti-war protests on June
26-27. (See our web site for
information about this weekend of action: http://www.unitedforpeace.org )

If you haven't already, we also encourage you to forward the email version
of the Unsilent Majority letters to your friends and to any appropriate
listservs you are on. The full text is appended below. If you are part of
an anti-war or progressive organization, make sure its entire membership
receives these important letters and has an opportunity to join the
Unsilent Majority.

Now is the time to raise our voices, now is the time to let the candidates
know what we think.

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**A special message from United for Peace and Justice**

Dear friend,

The occupation of Iraq is the greatest political and military disaster in a
generation.  We need to reach both John Kerry and George W. Bush with a
simple message:  Bring our troops home, now.

Do you agree?  Join our Unsilent Majority and send a letter to each of the
major presidential candidates. To sign the "Two Letters from the Unsilent
Majority," the text of which is appended below, go to
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority

For too long, pro-war voices have dominated the debate over the occupation
of Iraq.  Now it's our turn.  United for Peace and Justice, the nation's
largest antiwar coalition, is mobilizing as many people as we can between
today and June 26 to tell John Kerry:  Speak out!  We remember your
leadership against the war in Vietnam, and we demand the same courage
today. June 26 is the first day of a weekend of protests we are organizing
jointly with Win Without War.

We have to remind John Kerry of his famous plea from 1971, "How do you ask
a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" A majority of voters
support ending the Iraq occupation as soon as possible, yet there has been
no debate on the issue in this presidential campaign. Senator Kerry must
take a stand. Write Senator Kerry at
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority and please pass this letter
on to everyone you know who wants a real choice in 2004.

To President Bush, our message is simpler:  Repent, admit your imperial
folly, and end the occupation.

As evidence mounts of systematic war crimes in Iraq, we have a unique
opportunity to indict the Bush/Cheney administration for its arrogance and
corruption.  If you want to speak truth to power, here is a special
opportunity to speak directly to the President.  Write George W. Bush at
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority .

We cannot reach the vast numbers of people who opposed this occupation by
June 26 without your help.  We need everyone who receives this appeal to
send it on to their friends, family and co-workers.  Together, we can tell
both of these political leaders that we are not--and will never be--silent.

Are you part of the Unsilent Majority?  Then join us.

Sincerely,
Danny Glover
Susan Sarandon
Howard Zinn
Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

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Two Letters from the Unsilent Majority
an initiative of United for Peace and Justice www.unitedforpeace.org

Letter #1: To Senator John Kerry
Dear Senator Kerry,

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

This is a question you asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on
April 22, 1971, testifying against the Vietnam War. If you are elected
President of the United States, you will have to answer it. Surely, the war
against Iraq, and the escalating disaster of our military occupation,
qualify as some of the worst "mistakes" in the history of our nation.

In fact, the invasion of Iraq is the most dangerous and immoral action
taken by the U.S. government since the devastation and atrocity in Vietnam.
This is a subject you know more about than most, because you were there.
Having served, you came home to denounce the evil of that war in language
that many still admire for its unsparing honesty.

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" you asked
in your testimony to the Senate in 1971. Representing one thousand
veterans, you spoke plainly about your "determination to undertake one last
mission-to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to
pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that has driven this
country the last ten years or more, so from when 30 years from now our
brothers go down a street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and
small boys ask why, we will be able to say 'Vietnam' and not mean a desert,
not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead the place where America
finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning." Now
your opponents use these words to pillory you, as they try to justify
another barbaric war with more "lies and garbage," in the words of General
Anthony Zinni, another Vietnam veteran.

In 1971, you showed courage. But now, in 2004, we wait, and the world
waits, to see if you will denounce the grave damage that the occupation of
Iraq is doing to the United States and the world: the thousands of young
men and women in our Armed Forces killed and wounded, the much larger
number of dead and injured Iraqis, all caught in a vicious cycle of popular
resistance and intensifying repression. Just as in Vietnam, there is no way
out of this swamp of violence other than to renounce it. So far, all we
have heard from you are politically-calibrated platitudes about staying the
course. This is caution, not courage; calculation, not leadership. To our
dismay, you have even suggested sending more troops to Iraq, a policy that
may require the reinstatement of the draft to sustain.

Senator Kerry, we call on you to show the same courage now that you did in
1971. Tell the people of this country the war was wrong, the occupation is
disaster, and that we can have no future as a colonial power. Speak up for
what's right, right now. Otherwise, if you are elected, you will have to
tell some family, years from now, that their daughter or son was the last
one to die defending not simply a "mistake," but a series of lies. You will
be known as the president who dragged the U.S. further into a quagmire of
countless needless deaths.

We urge you to speak as a winter soldier, not a summer patriot. As you
know, a war begun for the wrong reasons cannot be made right. The only way
forward is to end this war now.

Sincerely,
Danny Glover
Susan Sarandon
Howard  Zinn
Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Join the Unsilent Majority by adding your name to this list at
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority


Letter #2: To President George W. Bush

Dear President Bush,

In sending our young men and women to fight, to kill, and to die in Iraq,
you have committed a grievous wrong and trampled international law. People
from small towns and inner cities, for whom military service was a
desperately-needed form of economic mobility, now suffer for your imperial
fantasies. We know why you will not be seen in public with the coffins of
our war-dead, with the grieving families: you cannot face them.

Instead of bringing freedom to the Iraqi people, you have imposed a
colonial occupation. Thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives as
"collateral damage" in this war built on lies. Do you think that Iraqi
mothers and fathers care any less for their children than you do for yours?
When their homes or mosques are rocketed or shelled, do you imagine they
thank you? You call them "terrorists" for defending their country, but our
troops know better. They understand this is a war of resistance, and that
every day the occupation continues they will face more and more Iraqis
united in their opposition to foreign domination. Our troops have committed
war crimes inside the very prisons where Saddam Hussein tortured his
prisoners. How long will it be before our Armed Forces are torn apart by an
unjust war, as they were in Vietnam?

You claimed that this war was necessary to avert immediate threats from the
government of Saddam Hussein. Now that government is gone, but we are more
at risk than before. This war has done nothing to make the United States
safer. It has made the world more dangerous. You lied to us and to the
world.

The war against Iraq and the corrupt occupation have ruined our standing
internationally. Evidently, that matters little to you or your small circle
of advisors, but it matters greatly to the rest of us. We cannot function
as a healthy democracy, we cannot contribute to peace, we cannot be safe
from terrorism in a world community that regards the United States as an
outlaw nation.

You have asserted that history does not matter, and that God wanted you to
be President. We urge you, as people from every religious and ethical
tradition who share a deep faith in democracy, to end this barbarism. Bring
our troops home now, end the occupation, and give up your fantasy of
permanent domination over the world.

Sincerely,
Danny Glover
Susan Sarandon
Howard  Zinn
Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Join the Unsilent Majority by adding your name to this list at
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority

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ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE http://www.unitedforpeace.org |
212-868-5545 To subscribe, visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
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