I watch Democracy Now! news. It’s season passed on our TiVO. It’s the ONLY news station that covers the stories most relevant to my fight for peace, civil liberties, and social justice.
Today, they covered CODEPINK’s struggle to bring in two Iraqi women for the March 8th rally in DC. The State Department has been refusing to issue visas to these women. CODEPINK, and Global Exchange, are working to bring these women to speak about how their husbands and children were killed by US military. The military literally shot them because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is the individual human cost of a war that we shouldn’t be waging, that was started through lies and greed for oil. That these women lost their entire families. And now the State Department is refusing visas because “they don’t have families to go back to, so there is no guarantee they would return.”
It’s appalling that the US military killed these women’s families and then the US government rejects their visas on the grounds that they have no family to return to in Iraq.
— Medea Benjamin, founder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange
You can help protest this. Go to:
http://www.codepinkalert.org
for info on petitioning the State Department
Or, go to:
http://www.womensaynotowar.org
and sign our petition against the war, being presented March 8th. I’m coordinating the LA rally.
By the way, Medea hugged me on Saturday when I introduced myself at a meeting. She’d been told by the CodePINK L.A. girls that I was one of their more active volunteers. Medea is one of my heroines because she started two amazing organizations, that are active in promoting ways to change the world. How many people get hugged by their heroes?
I’m going to be spending tonight pushing this fight on the Internet, on blogs, wherever I can. I strongly encourage all of you to do the same. Speak out. Stop letting Iraqi citizens be killed for a war that shouldn’t be fought. Stop letting the civil liberties of everyone – Iraqis and Americans alike – be suppressed by a 1984 regime. This, to me, is worth fighting for.
Jillian's Blog 