The War Stops Here

Press Release

28 March 2008

Basra Assault Confirms Presence of British forces a Threat to Political and Trade Union Rights in Iraq

In a series of telephone calls from Basra over the past 48 hours, Iraqi trade union activists appeal for solidarity and describe how the so-called ‘Security Plan’ started midnight 24 March with intense shelling and fire from all kind of weapons.

The attacking forces now besieging Basra stretched all the way to the city from Dhi Qar province. Two armoured divisions are deployed, in addition to thousands of policemen, backed by US and British planning and air cover.

They have cut off electricity supplies, food and water on the city of1.5 million people. Hundreds have been killed or injured in a savage, premeditated and unprovoked attack, now spreading to much of Iraq as the people protest and show solidarity with Basra’s beleaguered people. Continue reading Naftana (UK) Report On Basra Assault…

The Iraqi Federation of Oil Employee Union (IFOU) organised a celebration in honor of women’s and mothers’ day in Basra. This included a bazaar in support of the Iraqi women. All organizations and political parties were invited to participate.
Continue reading Iraqi Oil Union: International Womens Day Celebration…

Admin’s note: If you never crossed the line, how would you know where it was?

Calls Cardinal George to repentance for his tacit support for the unjust war on the people of Iraq.

An Open Letter to
His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, OMI,
Archbishop of Chicago
P.O. Box 1979
Chicago, IL 60690-1979

Dear Cardinal George:

I have read the news reports and the Archdiocesan statement concerning the disruption of an Easter mass that you celebrated at your Cathedral. Your official statement says, in part. . . “This is a profoundly disturbing action. . . It is a sacrilege that should be condemned by all people of faith and good will.”

Although I actively oppose the unjust war the United States is waging on the people of Iraq, I agree that the demonstrators action was disturbing and sacrilegious.

However, theirs was not the first sacrilegious act of that day. The sacrilege commenced when you ascended to the Altar of God and began to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with your hands dripping with the blood of the innocent in Iraq whom you and most of the other United States Catholic Bishops have so callously abandoned to their grisly and violent fates. Like the rest of the US Bishops save one, you issued no canonical declaration forbidding Catholics of the Archdiocese of Chicago from participation in the unjust war on the people of Iraq. A review of your website finds no pastoral letter instructing the souls entrusted to your care about the Church’s teachings on unjust war and condemning the war on the people of Iraq as unjust. Like nearly all of your confreres in the U.S. hierarchy, you have preached a gospel of moral relativism and moral laxism that makes a mockery of the Church’s teachings on life. You claim you want “peace”, but you have done nothing to actually support peace other than to offer pious platitudes and hypocritical rhetoric from your position of safety in your palatial Chicago residence.

Continue reading An Open Letter to Cardinal George…