UFPJ Criticizes Kerry's Iraq Stance at DNC Rally Today

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UFPJ CRITICIZES KERRY'S IRAQ STANCE AT DNC RALLY TODAY
Late this afternoon, as Democratic Party delegates file into Boston's Fleet
Center, United for Peace and Justice will host a rally against the ongoing
military occupation of Iraq - and the support that many leading Democrats,
including John Kerry, have shown for that occupation. (See
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/dnc for details.)

The rally will highlight the message contained in our open letter to John
Kerry, published this week as an advertisement in the Boston Phoenix
newspaper. In it, we invoke Kerry's famous 1971 question to the Senate
Foreign Relations committee concerning Vietnam, "How do you ask a man to be
the last man to die for a mistake?"

Calling the war on Iraq, "the most dangerous and immoral action taken by
the U.S. government since…Vietnam," the letter urges Kerry to move beyond
the "politically calibrated platitudes about staying the course" that he
has uttered to date, in order denounce the ongoing U.S. military presence
in Iraq.

Among the ten thousand signers of the letter are Susan Sarandon, Danny
Glover, and Howard Zinn. The full text of the letter is below, followed by
a column in today's New York Daily News about our effort to persuade Kerry
to take a stronger stance on Iraq.

You can sign the letter, and a companion letter to President Bush, by
adding your name at
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority

This afternoon's UFPJ rally will take place across from - and outside of -
the appalling protest pit set up in Boston for the DNC. The Democrats, as
much as the Republicans, have colluded in stifling dissent this year in the
name of "national security." For more on the protest pit and the struggle
for free expression at the Democratic Convention, visit the website of the
Save Our Civil Liberties campaign: http://www.saveourcivilliberties.org

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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,


TO JOIN THE MORE THAN 10,000 SIGNERS OF THIS LETTER, VISIT
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/UnsilentMajority

===========================================
Pushing Kerry to oppose this war
by Albor Ruiz
New York Daily News
Thursday, July 29th, 2004

It is a powerful question, and it is as valid today as it was when it was
first posed 33 years ago: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die
for a mistake?"

The person asking it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was a young
decorated Vietnam vet by the name of John Kerry, and the date was April 22,
1971, the heyday of the Vietnam War.

Today, were it to be asked, the question would refer to another "mistake":
the war on Iraq.

But Kerry, who this week will be crowned at the Democratic National
Convention in Boston as the party's presidential candidate, is no longer
asking it.

Instead, his stance on the war is a series of "politically calibrated
platitudes about staying the course," reads an open letter addressed to
Kerry, signed by 10,000 people and distributed to convention delegates by
the antiwar coalition United for Peace and Justice.

"This is caution, not courage; calculation not leadership," continued the
letter. "To our dismay, you have even suggested sending more troops to
Iraq, a policy that may require the reinstatement of the draft to sustain."

The signers, including Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, urge Kerry to
denounce the military occupation of Iraq.

"In 1971, you showed courage," the letter reads. "But now, in 2004, we wait
and the world waits to see if you will denounce the grave damage the
occupation of Iraq is doing to the United States and the world."

"Far too many Democrats, including John Kerry, have gone along with Bush's
policies on everything from funding the war, to the Patriot Act," said
Leslie Cagan, the coalition's national coordinator. "We need an opposition
party in this country."

Which is why the coalition will hold a march today outside the Democratic
convention in Boston to highlight the role of prominent Democrats in
supporting the Iraq war. And to urge them to denounce the military
occupation.

Fernando Suárez del Solar is not a prominent Democrat. He is just a
hardworking naturalized Mexican immigrant from Toluca who became a tireless
anti-war activist. His stance is crystal clear: "The invasion was illegal,
and the occupation is illegal."

Suárez del Solar turned into a vocal opponent of Bush's war after his
21-year-old son, a U.S. Marine, became not the last man to die in Iraq, but
actually one of the first.

Jesús Alberto Suárez del Solar was killed on March 27, 2003, by a U.S.
cluster bomb, and since then the number of killed and wounded Americans -
and Iraqis - has been rapidly rising.

"We need to get out now," said Suárez del Solar, echoing the spirit of the
coalition's letter.

Tonight will be Kerry's biggest day ever. That is when he will give his
speech accepting the candidacy for the country's highest office. The whole
world will be watching. And that makes the coalition's plea much more
mportant.

"Speak up for what's right," the letter's signers ask Kerry. "Otherwise, if
you are elected, you will have to tell some family, years from now, that
their daughter or son was the last to die defending not simply a 'mistake,'
but a series of lies."

Indeed a sad duty for the young, principled Vietnam vet who bravely posed
the famous question for the first time.

============================================
AUGUST 29, THE WORLD SAYS NO TO THE BUSH AGENDA!
March and Rally at the Republican National Convention, New York City
* Assemble at 10:00AM
* March steps off at noon
============================================
Visit the RNC mobilizing section of our website for resources and to
endorse the August 29 demonstration:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/rnc
============================================
We need your financial support to make the August 29 protest a success:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/donate
============================================
To receive email updates on the August 29 RNC protest, visit:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
============================================
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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