Press Release:
For Immediate Release
3/19/03

Contact: The Justice Not War Coalition
phone: 541-343-8548
e-mail: jnotwar@efn.org

The Justice Not War Coalition condemns this unethical, illegal, hypocritical war - war that makes this world a more dangerous place. To kill thousands or tens of thousands of innocent people, mostly children, to drive millions of people from their homes, and to risk a grave humanitarian crisis in a nation already widely dependent on food aid is unconscionable. Jennifer Knowlton of the Justice Not War steering committee said, "While most of the world supports continued diplomacy and inspections, the Bush administration has chosen the immoral path of killing thousands of children and other innocent civilians." The Bush administration has failed to make a convincing case for war. It has stooped to the use of bribery, spying, threats, and manufactured evidence. In spite of all of this, it has failed to gain the support of nine members of the U.N. Security Council. World opinion remains strongly in opposition to the Bush war.

The war is illegal because it is the responsibility of the U.N. Security Council to determine what actions shall be taken in response to a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression (see Articles 39 and 42 of the U.N. Charter). The only exception is in a case of self-defense in response to an attack (Article 51). Yet Iraq has not attacked the United States, and not even the Bush administration has argued that there is a threat of imminent attack.

In the United States, we believe in a system of checks and balances. Yet when the United Nations fails to submit to the will of the Bush administration, Bush suggests that the U.N. risks irrelevance. The Supreme Court did not appoint Bush to the post of ruler of the world.
U.N. Resolution 1441, which was unanimously adopted by the Security Council, calls for Saddam Hussein to disarm. But for the Bush administration to claim that it authorizes war is a bald-faced lie. As Keir Starmer put it (The Guardian, March 17): "The argument that all the security council members, including France and Russia, intended to authorize the use of force when they voted for resolution 1441 is hardly compelling, and arguments that resolution 1441 implicitly authorises the use of force run into the same difficulty."

The Bush administration appears to be grasping at straws. Bush has claimed that war is authorized by resolutions 678 and 687, adopted by the Security Council in the context of the first Gulf War. Yet 687 does not authorize the use of force, and 678 authorized the use of force only for the purpose of restoring Kuwait's sovereignty.

Not only is this war illegal, but for the Bush administration to initiate an aggressive war on the basis of concerns about weapons of mass destruction is hypocritcal. Every five years since 1970, the U.S. has renewed its NPT commitment to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. Yet we still have nuclear weapons, thousands of which are on hair-trigger alert. The Bush administration is engaged in contingency planning for the use of nuclear weapons against Iraq (which would be in violation of international
law, according to the World Court's July 8, 1996 advisory opinion). The Bush administration has also increased funding for "bio-defense," which includes funding of research for biotech applications for bio-weapons. This research is likely to launch a bio-weapons arms race (see the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - the September/October 1996 issue for commentary on the World Court advisory opinion, and recent issues for commentary on U.S. bio-weapons research).
This war and the following military occupation of Iraq may lead to prolonged instability in Iraq, to a rise in anti-Americanism and increased terrorist recruitment, to continued economic decline in the United States, and to dramatically impaired diplomatic relations, in turn making it more difficult to work with other nations to reduce terrorism and to address other serious international problems.
The Bush administration's $459 billion military budget, in addition to the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars which will go toward war on Iraq and the following military occupation, threatens to break the economy. The War Resisters League presents some comparisons: for $14,000 you can enroll two children in Head Start, or buy a cluster bomb; for $46 million you can improve, repair, and modernize 20 schools, or support one hour of war in Iraq. At a time when schools are receiving devastating cuts, and people are being dropped from the Oregon Health Plan, we must question the priorities of an administration set on war.

There is a road to peace, and to freedom from the scourge of terrorism. Among other steps, this would require working together with other nations in an atmosphere of mutual respect; listening to the legitimate concerns of people in the Middle East and around the world; and meeting the U.N. target by allocating 1% of the U.S. GDP for foreign aid to address basic needs of people lacking food, clean water, shelter, medical care, or opportunities for education. The U.S. currently allocates 1/10th of 1%, and most of this goes to Israel and Egypt. In the words of historian Howard Zinn:
"The modest nations of the world don't face the threat of terrorism. Let us pull back from being a military superpower and become a humanitarian superpower."

The Justice Not War Coalition is a community response to the events of September 11th, 2001 and the subsequent military actions. The coalition sponsors and organizes activities including marches, rallies, teach-ins, conferences, planning meetings, and peace vigils. When the coalition was formed, it agreed to the following purposes: 1. organize and promote community action for global peace and justice; 2. educate ourselves and our community about peaceful alternatives too war; 3. resist suppression of liberty in the name of security; 4. speak out and act against policies and actions that target people for their racial, ethnic, cultural, and/or religious identity. Coalition members include: the Center for the Advancement of Liberty, the Committee in Solidarity with the Central American People, the Community Alliance of Lane County/Progressive Responses, Community-wide Nonviolence Training, the Eugene Middle East Peace Group, Eugene PeaceWorks, the Fair Trade Coalition, Faith in Action, the Independent Police Review Project, Inform Productions and Radio, Lane
Conversation Cafes, the Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Military Tax Resisters, Million Mom March, Neighborhhoods for Peace, the Nonviolence Alliance, the Northwest Project of the Institute for Public Accountability, Oregon PeaceWorks, the Pacific Green Party, Peace Monitor Program and Training, the Socialist Party of Oregon - Lane County Chapter, Students for Peace, Urgent Carnival, and Women's Action for New Directions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 18, 2003

Contact: Justice Not War Coalition
phone: 541-343-8548
e-mail: jnotwar@efn.org

RESPONSE TO GEORGE W. BUSH’S RENEWED THREATS AGAINST IRAQ

George W. Bush calls his March 17 speech “Iraq: Denial and Deception,” and
he is absolutely correct. Mr. Bush is practicing both denial and deception
as he attempts to mislead the American people about illegality of war, and
its effects on the Iraqi people.

Not only are multitudes of people throughout the world opposed to the United
States unilaterally attacking Iraq, but Mr. Bush has failed to secure the
support of the United Nations Security Council. Articles 39 and 42
specify that only the Security Council may determine what course of action
is to be taken if there is a threat to the peace. Article 51 lays out the
one exception: there is a sovereign right to self-defense in response to
an attack. Yet Iraq has not attacked the United States and there is not an
immiment threat of such an attack.

Bush maintains that war is authorized by UN Resolution 1441. But as Keir
Starmer writes in The Guardian (March 17): "The argument that all the
security council members, including France and Russia, intended to
authorise the use of force when they voted for resolution 1441 is
hardly compelling...." Similarly, resolution 687 does not authorise the
use of force, and 678 authorised the use of force only to restore
Kuwait's sovereignty, following the 1990 invasion by Iraq. It appears that
Mr. Bush is grasping at straws, looking for any excuse to attack, and
doing so without any regard for the truth whatsoever.

Mr. Bush ignores the fact that nearly half the American population opposes
war. According to the Associated Press, 13 percent oppose the war in all
circumstances, and 37 percent are opposed because there is no UN Security
Council resolution. That’s a total of 50 percent of the American population
with extreme misgivings about attack on Iraq. Though Mr. Bush may talk
about a “coalition” that has formed to remove the “evil Saddam,” the truth
is the countries in coalition besides Great Britain, are those bribed and
intimated to be there.

It would be laughable, if it weren’t so tragic to hear Mr. Bush speaking to
the Iraqi people, trying to make it sound plausible that American bombs will
hit only the lawless people in Iraq and leave the innocent unharmed. The
fact is, thousands, if not tens of thousands of Iraqis – most of them
children – will be killed by American firepower in order to accomplish the
regime change that Mr. Bush insists must take place to restore order in the
world. According to a UN document for the planning of humanitarian relief,
the expected outcomes of a US campaign of bombing and invasion includes:

- 500,000 civilian casualties,

- 2,000,000 people homeless,

- 10,000,000 people without enough to eat,

- 18,000,000 without access to clean water, and

- more than 1,000,000 children under the age of 5, at risk of death from malnutrition.

It is Mr. Bush who is lawless. It is Mr. Bush who has upset order in the
world. It is Mr. Bush who is terrorizing Iraqi people with his plans for
war. It is Mr. Bush who has transformed this American democracy into a
rogue nation, willing to impose its will on the rest of the world.

The American people will not stand by while these denials and deceptions are
uttered by the White House. In thousands of cities across the nation,
including Eugene, ordinary citizens will take to the streets in the days to
come, continuing to show Mr. Bush and the world that we do not support
attacking another country with no provocation. We will not turn a blind eye
while Mr. Bush attempts to practice his denial and deception on us all.