[OPIRG-EVENTS] Saturday NOWAR/PAIX march - Protest the war on Iraq!

[nowar_paix@flora.org]

Please distribute to COAT and other lists

The next Saturday NOWAR/PAIX march will again focus on the campaign to
fight against the war on Iraq – an expansion of the so-called war on
terror and an escalation of the decade long war on the Iraqi people.

The US government wants war with Iraq to force a regime change, an
illegal action under the UN Charter.  Although Iraq agreed to the return
of weapon inspectors, the U.S. has managed to delay this by insisting on
a new resolution in the U.N. Security Counsel.  The fine print of this
resolution sets conditions that no country could accept (see article,
"Nato used the same old trick" by Robert Fisk below).  Our Canadian
government is supporting this ploy and will likely participate in the
U.S. war if it is "legitimized" in the U.N.
 
Join us this Saturday as we march, hand out literature and collect
signatures on postcards opposing Canada's support of an attack on Iraq
even if the US manages to maneuver a new UN resolution guaranteeing a
war – a maneuver that Canada is one of the few countries supporting that
the moment.

The march starts at noon at the corner of York and Sussex, on Saturday
Oct. 5th. It will then travel through the market and finally to
Parliament Hill. 

Please bring your signs, noise makers and outrage!!!!

--------------
NATO Used The Same Old Trick
by Robert Fisk; The Independent; October 04, 2002 


It's the same old trap. Nato used exactly the same trick to ensure that
it could have a war with Slobodan Milosevic. Now the Americans are
demanding the same of Saddam Hussein – buried well down in their list of
demands, of course. Tell your enemy that you're going to need his roads
and airspace – with your troops on the highways – and you destroy his
sovereignty. That's what Nato demanded of Serbia in 1999. That's what
the new UN resolution touted by Messrs Bush and Blair demands of Saddam
Hussein. It's a declaration of war.

It worked in 1999. The Serbs accepted most of Nato's Interim Agreement
for Peace and Self-government in Kosovo, but not Appendix 8, which
insisted that "Nato personnel shall enjoy ... free and unimpeded passage
and unimpeded access throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."

        It was a demand that Mr Milosevic could never accept. US troops
driving through Serbia would have meant, in these circumstances, the end
of Yugoslav sovereignty.

        But now we have the draft UN resolution which Presidents Bush
and Blair insist the UN must pass. Arms inspection teams, it says,
"shall have the right to declare for the purposes of this resolution ...
ground and air-transit corridors which shall be enforced by UN security
forces or by members of the UN [Security] Council".

        In other words, Washington can order forces of the US (a
Security Council member) to "enforce" these "corridors" through Iraq –
on the ground – when it wants. US troops would thus be in Iraq. It would
be invasion without war; the end of Saddam, "regime change", the whole
shebang.

        No Iraqi government – even a Baghdad administration without the
odious Saddam – could ever accept such a demand. Nor could Serbia have
accepted such a demand from Nato, even without the odious Slobodan.
Which is why the Serbs and Nato went to war.

        So here it is again, the same old "we've-got-be-able-to-drive
through-your-land" mentality which forced the Serbs into war and which
is clearly intended to produce the same from Saddam.

        America wants a war and here's the proof: if the United States
truly wished to avoid war, it could demand "unfettered access" for
inspectors without this sovereignty-busting paragraph, using it as a
second resolution only if the presidential palaces of the Emperor Saddam
remained off-limits.

        Saddam can open his country to the inspectors; he can open even
his presidential palaces. But if he doesn't accept the use of "Security
Council" forces – in other words, US troops – on Iraqi roads, we can go
to war. There's also that other paragraph: that "any permanent member of
the Security Council may request to be represented on any inspection
team." In other words, the Americans can demand that their intelligence
men can return to become UN inspectors, to pass on their information to
the Israelis (which they did before) and to the US military, which used
them as forward air controllers for their aircraft once the inspectors
were withdrawn.

        All in all, then, a deal which President Saddam – yes, Saddam
the wicked, Saddam the torturer, Saddam the lover of gas warfare – could
never, ever accept.

        He's not meant to accept this. Which is why the Anglo-American
draft for the UN is intended to give us war, rather than peace and
security from weapons of mass destruction.

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