In this Issue:

Commentary: An Anniversary to Mourn by Michael S. Piazza
Monday Night with Mike: Special guest Donna Red Wing to speak
On the Compromise Plan to Fund the War: Speech by Rev. John Lewis
In the H4PJ Online Action Center
Poll: Iraqis Give US Thumbs Down
White House issues veto threat on Iraq pullout bill

Commentary: An Anniversary to Mourn
By Michael S. Piazza

For Spring Break this year, my daughters and I drove to Georgia to see their grandparents. Our return trip took us along U.S. Highway 80 from Montgomery to Selma. I talked to them about the shameful events of March 7, 1965 and reminded them that it was there in Selma that Hero of Hope Award-winner Congressman John Lewis was almost killed. One of the girls asked me where I was that day. For a moment, I felt great shame, and then I realized that I was just a child blissfully ignorant of the events shaping my world.

I am no longer a child. Neither are you. How will you mark the fact that the war in Iraq has now lasted longer than American involvement in World War I or World War II?

On March 19, 2003, President Bush, speaking to the nation from the Oval Office, announced that the United States was invading Iraq. “Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. Our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.”

Now, more than four years later, no one is sure what the President's real “purpose” was for invading Iraq, nor do we know when our troops will be coming home. Instead of “reluctantly” going to war, the president and his administration exaggerated, cherry-picked and simplified intelligence, telling the American public, wrongly, that Sadd­am Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. As a result, approximately 3,200 American troops have died, our military is overextended, and the world is less safe. Violence in Iraq continues to skyrocket, and the current escalation seems to be driving us into a much deeper and longer-term role in occupying Iraq.

The Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine recently released their second “Terrorism Index,” a bipartisan survey of America's top national security experts. The consensus: the world is growing more dangerous, and America is losing the war on terror. Eighty-one percent of Terrorism Index respondents “see a world that is growing more dangerous for the American people, while 75 percent say the United States is losing the war on terror.” Among the 81 percent of experts who believe the world is becoming “more dangerous” to the United States, a large plurality identified the Iraq war as the primary cause. These results are supported by the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate released last fall, which stated that, “The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives,” and that Iraq “has become the ‘cause célèbre’ for jihadists.” Nearly six in 10 experts of all political stripes say the Bush administration is doing the “worst possible job” in Iraq, and fully 88 percent of the experts believe the war in Iraq is undermining U.S. national security.

It is well past time for us to resolve to write our political representatives daily and tell them to bring this disastrous war to an end. What have you done to stop the war? Let us mark this anniversary by committing to send at least one email or letter a day until our troops are redeployed and a new policy of peace rather than war is implemented.

I believe that the period from 2001-2008 will go down as one of the darkest and most shameful periods of America’s history. Don’t feel shame when, someday, a child asks you what you did to oppose this war. Many anniversaries are days of celebration … then there are the anniversaries of deaths or losses. This is an anniversary during which every free soul should grieve because so many have died with so little to show for it. Let our grief motivate us to do all we can to stop a war whose purpose was a lie.

H4PJ Online Action Center
Bring Our Troops Home
It is time to end US involvement in the Iraqi Civil War

<--back to top-->

Monday Night with Mike
Special guest Donna Red Wing to speak
Monday, March 26; 5-7 p.m.; Gloria’s

Our next “Monday Night with Mike” will be March 26, at Gloria’s, 4140 Lemmon Ave.; Dallas, TX 75219. The event will begin at 5 p.m. and last until around 7 p.m. There will be a cash bar with happy hour pricing and, of course, Gloria’s famous black bean dip! Donna Red Wing, an activist, advocate and agitator for social justice who currently serves as the Senior Advisor for Program and Development at The Interfaith Alliance in Washington, DC, will be our special guest. Donna, who has served on the staffs of the Gill Foundation, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was the winner of the first Walter Cronkite Award for Faith & Freedom. She is a true champion for peace and justice, so you won’t want to miss the chance to say hello and hear what is on her mind these days.

Monday Night with Mike is a free event, to which everyone is invited! This is a great way to meet other people who are passionate about peace and justice issues, and an excellent opportunity to introduce your friends to the work that we are doing. Rev. Michael Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice, will speak about current issues and give an update on the tour promoting his new book, The Real antiChrist: How America Sold its Soul. The book will be available for purchase, and Rev. Piazza will be happy to sign them. Please join us for this special event. Invite your friends and family and then stay for dinner to brainstorm what you can do to work for peace and justice!

On the Compromise Plan to Fund the War
Speech made by Congressman John Lewis (D-GA)

Congressman John Lewis was the courageous leader of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s--a major civil rights organization and recipient of the 2005 Hero of Hope award from the Cathedral of Hope. Here is John Lewis speaking as an elected member of the House of Representatives from Georgia, on March 20, 2007, addressing the proposed "compromise" presented by centrist Democrats that would actually fund the war for another year with $120 billion, more than the Bush White House asked for:

I rise with deep concern that on this very day 4 years ago, our Nation inaugurated a conflict, an unnecessary war, a war of choice, not a necessity.

The most comprehensive intelligence we have, the National Intelligence Estimate and the latest Pentagon report, tells us that Iraq had descended into a state of civil war. Over 3,000 Americans have died, and hundreds of thousands, some even say up to 1 million citizens of Iraq, have lost their lives in this unnecessary conflict.

And while we are telling our veterans of this war, the elderly, the poor, and the sick that there is no room in the budget for them, the American people have spent over $400 billion on a failed policy. We cannot do more of the same. Mr. Speaker, violence begets violence. It does not lead to peace.

President John F. Kennedy once said, ``Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'' My greatest fear is that the young people of Iraq and of the Middle East will never forget this war. My greatest fear is they will grow up hating our children and our children's children for what we have done. Mr. Speaker, the Bible is right. Even a great nation can reap what it sows.

Nothing troubles me more than to see the young faces of these soldiers who have been led to their death.

Some are only 18, 19, 21, 22, 23. It is painful; it is so painful to watch. Sometimes I feel like crying and crying out loud at what we are doing as a Nation and what this administration is doing in our name. Our children do not deserve to die as pawns in a civil war.

They do not deserve to pay with their lives for the mistakes of this administration. They never had a chance.

When I was their age, when I was 23 years old, I was leading the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, soon to speak in Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, but then we were involved in a nonviolent revolution to transform the soul of America, to create a beloved community.

Forty years ago, I was there in New York City in Riverside Church when Martin Luther King, Jr., gave one of the most powerful speeches he ever made against the war in Vietnam. If he could speak today, he would say this Nation needs a revolution of values that exposes the truth that war does not work. If he could speak today, he would say that war is obsolete as a tool of our foreign policy.

He would say there is nothing keeping us from changing our national priority so that the pursuit of peace can take precedence over the pursuit of war.

He would say we must remove the causes of chaos, injustice, poverty and insecurity that are breeding grounds for terrorism. This is the way towards peace.

As a Nation, can we hear the words of Gandhi, so simple, so true, that it is either nonviolence or nonexistence? Can we hear the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish as fools?
Tonight I must make it plain and clear that as a human being, as a citizen of the world, as a citizen of America, as a Member of Congress, as an individual committed to a world at peace with itself, I will not and I cannot in good conscience vote for another dollar or another dime to support this war.

<--back to top-->

Poll: Iraqis Give US Thumbs Down
Originally published by the Agence France Press

LONDON - Iraqis are increasingly pessimistic about the future, four years after ouster of Saddam Hussein -- and fewer than one in five have faith in the US-led coalition, a poll showed Monday.

The survey, contrasting with a survey two years ago, indicated that barely a quarter -- 26 percent -- feel safe in their own neighborhoods as the anniversary of the US-led invasion is marked this week.

Only 18 percent of those polled have confidence in the United States and the US-led coalition troops, while some 78 percent opposed the presence of coalition forces and 69 percent said it worsened the security situation.

Faith in the new Iraqi government was a little better, although hardly overwhelming: 53 percent were dissatisfied with the performance of the Iraqi government.

But some 63 percent said foreign troops should only leave after security improved and the capacity of Iraq's institutions was strengthened, according to the poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV and USA Today.

A survey conducted for the BBC in November 2005 painted a much brighter picture, with 71 percent saying things were good in the lives, 64 percent saying their lives would be better in 12 months, and 69 percent saying the situation in the country would be improved in a year.

Britain's ambassador to Baghdad, Dominic Asquith, told BBC radio that different polls were prone to show different views of experiences of life in Iraq.

"These are snapshots and snapshots can always give a rather different view of the picture," he said.

"What we're seeing in the most recent poll you've produced is the effect of the sectarian violence that broke out after the Samarra attack," he added, referring to the bombing of a Shiite shrine which triggered a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites in February 2006.

According to the latest survey, 39 percent of Iraqis questioned think things are going well in their lives, while 35 percent think their lives will improve over the next year. Just 40 percent believe the general situation will improve.

Some 86 percent of those questioned expressed concern about someone in their household being a victim of violence.

The poll found that basic necessities were lacking in Iraq, with 88 percent of respondents saying the availability of electricity was either "quite bad" or "very bad".

About 69 percent gave similar responses for the availability of clean water, and 88 percent for the availability of driving or cooking fuel.

There was some solace for supporters of the foreign presence in Iraq, however, as 56 percent did not believe that Iraq was in a state of civil war, while 58 percent were in favour of maintaining a unified Iraq.

Asquith also claimed that there were "positive" signs that the US security plan in Baghdad is beginning to have a positive effect.

"There are some people who left Baghdad out of fear who are coming back," he added.

"There is some degree of normality -- I'm not saying it is normality but there is some degree of normality -- coming back.

"Shops are beginning to open, children are beginning to play on the streets."

Pollsters D3 Systems questioned more than 2,000 people across all 18 Iraqi provinces between February 25 and March 5 for the survey.

<--back to top-->

White House issues veto threat on Iraq pullout bill
Originally published by CNN

WASHINGTON -- The White House sent a message to Congress on Monday that President Bush will veto a war funding bill if it requires the removal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by September 2008.

"This legislation would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders," a White House policy statement said of the $124 billion appropriations bill for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush has ordered more than 20,000 new troops to Iraq this year, a move that has upset opponents of the war and prompted Democratic leaders in Congress to offer withdrawal legislation."The American people have lost confidence in President Bush'

s plan for a war without end in Iraq," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an Associated Press report. "That failed approach has been rejected by the voters in our nation and it will be rejected by the Congress."

Senate Democrats last week were unable to muster a simple majority in favor of a bill that also would have set a timeline for withdrawal.

The White House routinely issues policy statements on legislation pending in Congress, outlining the administration's objections and proposed changes.

But according to one Bush official, the early timing of Monday's veto threat was unique -- coming before the House had even assigned a number to the legislation.

The White House statement said patience was needed to see the positive effects the additional troops will make.

"This bill assumes and forces the failure of the new strategy even before American commanders in the field are fully able to implement their plans. Regardless of the success our troops are achieving in the field, this bill would require their withdrawal," the statement said.

The statement also said Bush would veto the bill if members of Congress loaded it up with "excessive and extraneous" domestic spending projects.

Congress has "a responsibility to pass a clean bill that does not use funding for our troops as leverage to get special interest spending for their districts," Bush said in a speech on Monday marking the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

In his speech Monday, Bush alluded to polls that show weakening public support for the war.

"It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home," he said. "That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating."

If U.S. forces were to leave Baghdad, he said, "a contagion of violence could spill out across the entire country ... [and] could engulf the region. ... We cannot allow this to happen."

Bush said victory remains possible in Iraq.
"Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won," he said.

<--back to top-->