12/2/05 Picket Against Pelosi For Supporting Iraq War

Protest Congresswomen Pelosi’s Vote For The War In Iraq
Friday December 2, 2005 12:00 Noon
San Francisco Federal Building
Golden Gate Ave/Polk St. San Francisco

On November 18, 2005 in response to the statement for an orderly withdrawal by Congressmen Murtha, the Republicans forced a debate on the war and put a resolution in front of Congress to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
Unfortunately Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi. who is also the Democratic House leader not only voted against it but also ordered all the other Congressional Democrats to vote against this as well. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll608.xml The San Francisco Labor Council, the national AFL-CIO and many organizations as well as the people of San Francisco have called for the immediate rapid withdrawal of the US military from Iraq.
While she now says she supports Murth’a position, she has said she will continue to vote for billions more for the war including the last appropriation of $80 billion dollars and and the upcoming appropriation of $3.5 billion. While our health services, education and housing funding are being slashed, Congresswomen Pelosi supports continued funding for the war. Apparently our representative in Congress has not heard from her constituents about who she is representing or not representing.
Please Join Us to Let Congresswomen Pelosi Know That She Is Not Speaking For the People Of San Francisco
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/national/19military.html?hp&ex=1132462800&en=22fde8be5c871982&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The battle came as Democrats accused Republicans of pulling a political stunt by moving toward a vote on a symbolic alternative to the resolution that Mr. Murtha offered on Thursday, calling for the swift withdrawal of American troops. Democrats said the ploy distorted the meaning of Mr. Murtha's measure and left little time for meaningful debate. The measure's fate was sealed - and the vote count's significance minimized - when the Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, criticized the Republican tactics and instructed Democrats to join Republicans in voting against an immediate withdrawal. "Just when you thought you'd seen it all, the Republicans have stooped to new lows, even for them," said Ms. Pelosi, who assailed Republicans as impugning Mr. Murtha's patriotism.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10097801
Three Democrats, Jose Serrano of New York, Robert Wexler of Florida and Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, voted for withdrawal. Six voted present: Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Maurice Hinchey of New York, Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, Major Owens of New York and William Lacy Clay of Missouri.

Ad Hoc Coalition for Immediate Withdrawal From Iraq
Endorsed by ANSWER-SF, Peace & Freedom Party, Labor Action Coalition

Let Pelosi know what you think. Contact
From: "Bernal, Dan" <Dan.Bernal [at] mail.house.gov>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:12:54 -0500
To: "Bernal, Dan" <Dan.Bernal [at] mail.house.gov>
Subject: PELOSI: We Should Follow Rep. Murtha's Lead on Iraq

Dear Friends --

Thank you again for our meeting on September 26th. Below is a message Rep. Pelosi sent to constituents today about her support of Rep. Murtha's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq. You can find her full statement at http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/Nov05/iraq.html. Also below is today's Roll Call article about Rep. Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. Murtha's call for U.S. troop withdrawal.

Please respond or call me at 415-556-4862 if you would like more information or if Rep. Pelosi's office can be of assistance to you.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Mr. Speaker:

The Republicans in this House have done a heinous thing: they have
insulted one of the deans of this House in an unthinkable and
unconscionable way.

They took his words and contorted them; they took his heartfelt
sentiments and spun them. They took his resolution and deformed it:
in a cheap effort to silence dissent in the House of Representatives.

The Republicans should be roundly criticized for this reprehensible
act. They have perpetrated a fraud on the House of Representatives
just as they have defrauded the American people.

By twisting the issue around, the Republicans are trying to set a trap
for the Democrats. A "no" vote for this Resolution will obscure the
fact that there is strong support for withdrawal of US forces from
Iraq. I am voting "yes" on this Resolution for an orderly withdrawal
of US forces from Iraq despite the convoluted motives behind the
Republican Resolution. I am voting to support our troops by bringing
them home now in an orderly withdrawal.

Sadly, if we call for an end to the occupation, some say that we have
no love for the Iraqi people, that we would abandon them to tyrants
and thugs.

Let us consider some history. The Republicans make great hay about
Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons against the Iranians and the
Kurds. But when that attack was made in 1988, it was Democrats who
moved a resolution to condemn those attacks, and the Reagan White
House quashed the bill in the Senate, because at that time the
Republicans considered Saddam one of our own.

So in 1988, who abandoned the Iraqi people to tyrants and a thugs?

In voting for this bill, let me be perfectly clear that I am not saying the
United States should exit Iraq without a plan. I agree with Mr. Murtha that
security and stability in Iraq should be pursued through diplomacy. I
simply want to vote yes to an orderly withdrawal from Iraq. And let
me explain why.

Prior to its invasion, Iraq had not one (not one!) instance of suicide attacks
in its history. Research shows a 100% correlation between suicide
attacks and the presence of foreign combat troops in a host country.
And experience also shows that suicide attacks abate when foreign
occupation troops are withdrawn. The US invasion and occupation has
destabilized Iraq and Iraq will only return to stability once this
occupation ends.

We must be willing to face the fact that the presence of US combat
troops is itself a major inspiration to the forces attacking our
troops. Moreover, we must be willing to acknowledge that the forces
attacking our troops are able to recruit suicide attackers because
suicide attacks are largely motivated by revenge for the loss of loved
ones. And Iraqis have lost so many loved ones as a result of
America's two wars against Iraq.

In 1996, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on CBS that the
lives of 500,000 children dead from sanctions were "worth the price"
of containing Saddam Hussein. When pressed to defend this
reprehensible position she went on to explain that she did not want US
Troops to have to fight the Gulf War again. Nor did I. But what
happened? We fought a second gulf war. And now over 2,000 American
soldiers lie dead. And I expect the voices of concern for Iraqi
civilian casualties, whose deaths the Pentagon likes to brush aside as
"collateral damage" are too few, indeed. A report from Johns Hopkins
suggests that over 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the March
2003 invasion, most of them violent deaths and most as "collateral
damage" from US forces. The accuracy of the 100,000 can and should be
debated. Yet our media, while quick to cover attacks on civilians by
insurgent forces in Iraq, have given us a blackout on Iraqi civilian
deaths at the hands of US combat forces.

Yet let us remember that the United States and its allies imposed a severe
policy of sanctions on the people of Iraq from 1990 to 2003. UNICEF
and World Health Organization studies based on infant mortality
studies showed a 500,000 increase in mortality of Iraqi children under
5 over trends that existed before sanctions. From this, it was widely
assumed that over 1 million Iraqi deaths for all age groups could be
attributed to sanctions between 1990 and 1998. And not only were
there 5 more years of sanctions before the invasion, but the war since
the invasion caused most aid groups to leave Iraq. So for areas not
touched by reconstruction efforts, the humanitarian situation has
deteriorated further. How many more Iraqi lives have been lost
through hunger and deprivation since the occupation?

And what kind of an occupier have we been? We have all seen the
photos of victims of US torture in Abu Ghraib prison. That's where
Saddam used to send his political enemies to be tortured, and now many
Iraqis quietly, cautiously ask: "So what has changed?"

A recent video documentary confirms that US forces used white
phosphorous against civilian neighborhoods in the US attack on
Fallujah. Civilians and insurgents were burned alive by these
weapons. We also now know that US forces have used MK77, a
napalm-like incendiary weapon, even though napalm has been outlawed by
the United Nations.

With the images of tortured detainees, and the images of Iraqi civilians
burned alive by US incendiary weapons now circulating the globe, our
reputation on the world stage has been severely damaged.

If America wants to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, we as a
people must be willing to face the pain and death and suffering we have
brought to the Iraqi people with bombs, sanctions and occupation, even
if we believe our actions were driven by the most altruistic of
reasons. We must acknowledge our role in enforcing the policy of
sanctions for 12 years after the extensive 1991 bombing in which we
bombed infrastructure targets in direct violation of the Geneva
Conventions.

We must also be ready to face the fact that the United States once
provided support for the tyrant we deposed in the name of liberating
the Iraqi people. These are events that our soldiers are too young to
remember. I believe our young men and women in uniform are very
sincere in their belief that their sacrifice is made in the name of
helping the Iraqi people. But it is not they who set the policy.
They take orders from the Commander-in-Chief and the Congress. It is
we who bear the responsibility of weighing our decisions in a
historical context, and it is we who must consider the gravest
decision of whether or not to go to war based upon the history, the
facts, and the truth.

Sadly, however, our country is at war in Iraq based on a lie told to the
American people. The entire war was based premised on a sales
pitch—that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction menacing the United
States—that turned out to be a lie.

I have too many dead soldiers in my district; too many from my home
state. Too many homeless veterans on our streets and in our
neighborhoods.

America has sacrificed too many young soldiers' lives, too many young
soldiers' mangled bodies, to the Bush war machine.

I will not vote to give one more soldier to the George W. Bush/Dick
Cheney war machine. I will not give one more dollar for a war
riddled with conspicuous profiteering.

Tonight I speak as one who has at times been the only Member of this
Body at antiwar demonstrations calling for withdrawal. And I won't
stop calling for withdrawal.

I was opposed to this war before there was a war; I was opposed to the
war during the war; and I am opposed to this war now--even though it's
supposed to be over.

A vote on war is the single most important vote we can make in this
House. I understand the feelings of my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle who might be severely conflicted by the decision we have to
make here tonight. But the facts of US occupation of Iraq are also
very clear. The occupation is headed down a dead end because so long
as US combat forces patrol Iraq, there will be an Iraqi insurgency
against it

I urge that we pursue an orderly withdrawal from Iraq and pursue,
along with our allies, a diplomatic solution to the situation in Iraq,
supporting the aspirations of the Iraqi people through support for
democratic processes.