Peace News Now

I was 13 when it started. All of my teenage years were Bush years. I haven’t forgotten the theater which surrounded the invasion:

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of War in Iraq.

To recap the reasons why this thing started in the first place:

* In 1999, UN weapons inspectors and US intelligence agents examined Iraq and found no weapons.

* In 2001, A man named George Bush accused Iraq of starting to develop weapons of mass destruction and to ensure UN weapons inspectors were allowed full access to Iraq weapons,

* In 2002, Iraq let weapons inspectors back into the country, again confirming no weapons.

* In 2003, Bush commanded the US Military to begin war with Iraq. This did not include a Declaration of War by Congress.

* 10 years later, $1.7 Trillion dollars has been spent, half a trillion has been promised in benefits to war veterans. Since war spending comes from borrowed money and not savings, the interest on the war debt will add $4 Trillion dollars to the total, meaning a total of $6 Trillion dollars spent on War with Iraq alone.

* The US government and its supporters are now responsible for the deaths of 134,000 Iraqi civilians, not combatants, civilians.

* The Iraq war has actually seen more civilian deaths than insurgents.

* Think the people fighting it believe in this war? Think again. For the first time ever, the veteran suicide rate outpaces war casualties. More men and women in the armed forces are killing themselves than are being killed by the quote, “enemy.”

* Fact: These wars will continue indefinitely unless and until you take personal responsibility for withdrawing your support. Quiet disapproval in conversation won’t do it. Take action to starve the beast by refusing to pay for senseless murder.

* Fact: The American Government lied to its people about this war, and now the politicians want YOU to pay for it, and your children to pay for it, with interest, for the next 40 years!

* Fact: This isn’t the fist time. When Daniel Ellsberg revealed the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, they demonstrated among other things, that the Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about secretly expanding the war in Vietnam by bombing Cambodia and Laos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/14/iraq-war-cost-more-than-2-trillion_n_2875493.html

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13481099

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers