Peace Activists Head To Iraq; Halliday Says US Out To Annihilate Nation

[Andrej Tisma]

"We have been inundated by volunteers. This is just
the first wave. I am calling for 10,000 to get down
there and stop this war."
"Iraq constitutes one very large reserve tank - a tank
of some 120 billion barrels - and control of that tank
has become paramount for the very survival of American
economic superiority," [Denis Halliday] charged.


1) Peace Activists Head To Iraq
2) 100 Human Shields Head For Baghdad
3) High School Students Organize To Send Medical
Supplies To Iraq
4) Walter Bernstein: Veteran Finds No Pride In War
With Iraq
5) US And Britain Out To Annihilate Iraq - Denis
Halliday



http://europe.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.irq.human.shields/

CNN News
January 25, 2003

Peace activists head to Iraq
Volunteers hope their presence prevents attack


-"We will run the risk of being maimed or killed, but
it is simply the same risk that innocent Iraqis will
themselves face," O'Keefe was quoted as saying in an
online interview in December.
"I would rather die in defense of justice and peace
than 'prosper' in complicity with mass murder and
war," he said.


LONDON, England (CNN) --An international group of
peace activists boarded three British double-decker
buses and a taxi Saturday to begin their journey to
Iraq in hopes that their presence in that country
would prevent bombing by the United States and its
allies.

"The potential for white, Western body parts flying
around with the Iraqi ones should make them think
again about this imperialist oil war," said organizer
Ken O'Keefe, a former U.S. Marine who served in the
Persian Gulf War in 1991.

The group of about 60 volunteers includes Britons,
Americans, Spaniards, Brazilians, Australians and
Israelis, ranging in age from 20 to 60.

The activists plan to drive day and night through
Europe, arriving at the Turkey-Iraq border by February
4 or 5, where they will be given entry visas by Iraqi
officials, volunteer Sue Darling said.

"What we are intending to do is to make it politically
impossible for [U.S.] President [George] Bush and
[British Prime Minister] Tony Blair to have this war,"
said Joe Letts, a volunteer driver and owner of two of
the buses.

Letts, a father of four, said the anti-war coalition
came to him and asked for his help in planning the
route to Baghdad. Letts offered to lend his buses and
himself to the cause.

The second levels of the buses have been converted to
accommodate cots for the two-week journey. Letts'
buses are red, but the third bus and the taxi have
been painted white.

The taxi has a flagpole on its roof, with an all-white
peace flag raised.

"We will run the risk of being maimed or killed, but
it is simply the same risk that innocent Iraqis will
themselves face," O'Keefe was quoted as saying in an
online interview in December.

"I would rather die in defense of justice and peace
than 'prosper' in complicity with mass murder and
war," he said.

O'Keefe renounced his American citizenship in 1999.

Darling, 60, is a former British diplomat to the
United Nations, she said.
------------------------------------------------------http://www.gulf-news.c
om/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=75170

Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)
January 26, 2003

100 'human shields' head for Baghdad
Bristol
By Richard Savill



Around 100 peace protesters set off for Baghdad from
Britain yesterday in a convoy of three red London
buses, to act as human shields and attempt to stop a
war against Iraq.

Coach operator Joe Letts, 52, from Shaftesbury,
Dorset, and the peace protesters planned to drive the
3,000 miles in his double-decker Routemasters, to act
as deterrent "human shields" against any bombing of
Iraq.

Letts has converted the inside of one of the vehicles
into living accommodation, and the other two will each
carry 50 protesters.

The convoy set off from Shaftesbury and picked up
supporters in London, en route. They hoped to attract
followers in other vehicles before arriving in Baghdad
on February 8.

Letts, who has left his wife Thea and four children at
home, said he anticipated no problems being allowed
into Iraq and had had discussions with the country's
authorities.

He said: "I am proud of being British. But I don't
want my government going to war with Iraq in my name.
We want to send out a strong message that we want to
stop this war and hope a serious convoy will get that
message across.

"When we get there we will place ourselves between the
people of Iraq and the American and British
soldiers.We want to make it impossible for George Bush
to drop bombs on the Iraqi people because we will be
in the way."

Letts, who was in Iraq during the last Gulf war as
part of a film crew, said: "The Iraqi people have
suffered enough. We are punishing them because we
don't like Saddam."

"Our strategy is potentially dangerous but that is the
risk we must take in standing beside our brothers and
sisters in Iraq," said former U.S. marine Ken Nichols,
whose Human Shield Action Iraq group is coordinating
the London departures.

"We have been inundated by volunteers. This is just
the first wave. I am calling for 10,000 to get down
there and stop this war."

Yesterday's convoy - like others being planned for
early February - will travel across Europe, picking up
more people on the way, loading provisions and
stopping to promote their cause.

Nichols' group is one of several around the world
whose aim is to mobilise peace activists as human
shields in Iraq and show solidarity with Iraqi people
in the face of a possible  war against Saddam.

The campaign has upset some among the thousands of
Westerners detained by Saddam to act as shields
against attacks after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait and
during the 1991 Gulf War.

They feel the volunteers do not appreciate the
seriousness of what they are doing and are unaware of
their past suffering.
------------------------------------------------------http://www.seacoastonl
ine.com/news/01262003/news/9557.htm

Portsmith Herald (New Hampshire)
January 26, 2003


Protesters want medical supplies mailed to Iraq
By Elizabeth Kenny


PORTSMOUTH - A longer line than usual formed yesterday
afternoon inside the post office, with 20 or more
people holding boxes with children's chewable
vitamins, Tylenol, Band Aids, and healing ointments.

The mail's destination was Iraq, but the
over-the-counter drugs and stuffed animals never left
Portsmouth's Daniel Street post office because United
Nations sanctions do not allow for any mail more than
12 ounces, the weight of a letter document, to be sent
to Iraq.

The Student Action for Freedom and Equality (S.A.F.E)
group, comprised of Hampton's Winnacunnet High School
students, organized the peaceful protest, hoping to
bring awareness to residents of the sanctions placed
on Iraq for more than 10 years.

"Our first goal is get the aid that is needed over to
Iraq," said Jake Hess, one of three founders of
S.A.F.E. "Our second goal is to show Americans what
these sanctions are doing to the Iraqi people."

Hess said the items were collected at the school over
a three-week period with even some teachers
contributing.

S.A.F.E., a youth organization formed to spread
democracy to all people, worked throughout the weekend
to raise money and bring awareness to the community,
including a Friday night concert to raise money to aid
Iraq.

"By being publicly refused to send these things, we
hope to highlight the injustice of these sanctions,"
said Lydia Baghdoyan, a Portsmouth High School senior.


Baghdoyan, joined by a few other Portsmouth High
students and many more S.A.F.E. participants and other
local residents, walked into the post office and
individually placed their items on the counter to ask
that they be sent to Iraq.

Each time Scott Jardon, the window clerk, patiently
explained how the sanctions work.

"The only thing we are permitted to send are things
under 12 ounces," Jardon repeated more than 20 times.
"If you want to try to change that you need to contact
your representatives from the Senate."

Jardon said he knew about the protest beforehand from
the S.A.F.E. Web site. He said he was not upset with
the group for what they were doing, recognizing that
they have done it once before and are always very
respectful to the post office workers while trying to
prove their point.

"It is not our choice to not be sending things to
Iraq," explained Jardon to the students. "We have the
prices ready, but we have an agreement with the
International Postal Union."

As the students and residents walked away with their
mail still in hand, they did not seem too discouraged,
having already known what the outcome would be.

Instead, students signed a letter to send to President
Bush that had already been typed out.

The letter addressed the concerns of Iraq's "tyrant"
leader, but also explained their opinions on
sanctions.

"While politically and socially, the citizens of Iraq
are most certainly oppressed by Saddam Hussein," the
letter states, "they are far more directly oppressed
by the hunger, disease, and death that have become a
way of life in Iraq under the toughest trade sanctions
in history."

After the letter was approved by those signing it, the
group congregated outside the post office, once more
giving out small sheets of paper explaining their
cause and shouting for peace.

A few residents trying to get their mail sent out
seemed frustrated with the event, while some supported
the cause.

"I don't think any conflict can be resolved without
going through negotiation," said Newmarket resident
Evan Bontemps, who was waiting in line behind the
protesters.

One post office clerk asked for those who weren't
mailing to Iraq to come forward to keep things running
smoothly, but clerk Jardon said he couldn't help but
empathize with the protesters.

"I think they are mostly thinking about the (Iraqi)
children," said Jardon, who has two children of his
own.

"I think it's unfortunate that they (American and
Iraqi children) are the ones who get stuck between our
wars...because they are the ones who are going to
suffer."

The three founders of S.A.F.E., Chris Caesar, Jarret
Middletown and Hess, explained their fight is not
over.

"Our next steps are going to be to continue collecting
items, and then trying to meet with our congressmen,"
Hess said. "We are also going to try to come up with
more creative ways to take action."
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jan/01262003/commenta/23480.asp

Salt Lake Tribune
January 26, 2003

Veteran Finds No Pride in War With Iraq
BY WALTER BERNSTEIN


Recently, my wife and I vacationed in Sicily. I had
not been there since 1943, when I was a soldier in the
Army. My wife wanted to visit the village where her
mother was born, and I discovered it was near a
village named Ficarra.
I remembered Ficarra well, both the combat and the
liberation. What I remembered best was the liberation,
my first experience of what our fighting was all
about. It occurred during the campaign to drive Axis
troops out of Sicily. I was part of a reconnaissance
team that drove up a winding dirt road to see whether
there were German troops in this hilltop village.
There were, and there was a brief firefight with no
casualties. Then the Germans pulled out.
Of course, it looked like nothing I remembered. It had
been tiny, too small even to be on a map, but now
there were stores and a new church. We wandered around
the town square, watched by several men sitting on a
bench. We went over to them, and my wife explained
what we were doing there. They nodded, no one
speaking, and then a man standing on the edge of the
group suddenly said something.
My wife turned to me and said, "He said there were
seven of them." He had been hiding in his mother's
house, a deserter from the Italian army, and had seen
us come up in two jeeps, seven of us. The man and I
stood there, staring at each other over all those
years, speechless.
And it all came back to me, that hot, dusty day,
shooting from doorways at dim, running figures and how
pumped up and scared I was. I remembered the
frightened faces of the three German soldiers we
captured -- young men certain we were going to shoot
them -- and I recalled the stillness after the
fighting, the stink of gunpowder hanging in the air.
And then the stillness was shattered by the sharp,
clapping sounds of shutters being thrown back and
people pouring out of the houses to greet us, some of
them holding out loaves of brown bread, apologizing
that, because of the war, the flour was not white.
As I was flooded by those memories, I thought of
Baghdad. I wondered: Will the shutters open there
after the smart bombs have done their work, the
collateral damage not yet tidied up? Will we be
greeted with bread or grenades or simply the sullen
hate of the conquered?
My generation was not the greatest (there is no
greatest generation), but we believed in our war,
believed it was just and necessary. It was the last
war the whole country believed in.
The prospective war with Iraq is not one I believe in.
We have been attacked and must fight back, but Iraq is
not who attacked us, and I have yet to see proof that
it can or will.
Whatever is claimed, this will not be a war of
liberation.
We were proud of ourselves that day in Ficarra 60
years ago, secure in the rightness of our cause.
Standing in that same square, I thought of what the
United States is planning for Baghdad.
I am not proud. And I do not think I am alone.
    -----
Walter Bernstein is a screenwriter and the author of
"Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist." His column
was written for The Los Angeles Times.
------------------------------------------------------http://www.news.com.au
/common/story_page/0,4057,5895735%255E1702,00.html

News Interactive (Australia)
January 27, 2003

US, UK 'out to annihilate Iraq'
>From correspondents in Baghdad


A FORMER UN official has said the United States and
Britain are ready to "annihilate" Iraqi society in
order to control the country's oil wealth.

Denis Halliday told a press conference in Baghdad:
"The United States and Britain are proceeding with
plans to annihilate Iraqi society, a catastrophe that
would be heightened by the threatened use of tactical
nuclear weaponry.

"Washington has informed us that the very security of
America require ever-increasing quantities of oil and
the source of that oil can only be the Middle East."

Halliday said that since the September 11, 2001,
terror attacks on the United States, "the relationship
between Washington and Saudi Arabia has become
fragile, therefore making that massive flow of cheap
oil insecure".

"Iraq constitutes one very large reserve tank - a tank
of some 120 billion barrels - and control of that tank
has become paramount for the very survival of American
economic superiority," he charged.