SIGN PETITION TO JOIN THE INTERNET GLOBAL PEACE MARCH!!!!!

Add your voice now – Join the Internet March

Hundreds of thousands of Americans will march to their capital city Washington DC on Saturday 27 January. It could be the rebirth of the US peace movement. People round the world - let’s join the march with our own global internet protest! Last week, our ad told decision-makers in Congress how strong world opposition is to Bush’s escalation in Iraq.

This Saturday, Avaaz supporters at the US march will carry banners and country placards announcing how many of us from each nation are joining the marching. Every signature will be counted on the banners! Let’s raise a global voice for a real plan to end this war. Let’s make those numbers big. Time is short. Join the global peace march and tell your friends today!

Petition: President Bush’s plan to escalate the war in Iraq is not supported by the Iraqi people, the international community, the Iraq Study Group, or the vast majority of Americans.

We urge the new US Congress to block the military escalation in Iraq and demand a diplomatic solution and a real plan to end the Iraq war.

55,251 Have joined the global march, help us get to 75,000

Add your voice now – Join the Internet March

http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_peace_march/

SUPPORT LT. WATADA: TAKE ACTION NOW!!!!

"The war in Iraq is in fact illegal. It is my obligation and my duty to refuse any orders to participate in this war. An order to take part in an illegal war is unlawful in itself. So my obligation is not to follow the order to go to Iraq." - Lt. Ehren Watada President Bush says he takes responsibility for the mistakes in Iraq. And he wants to deploy 20,000 more soldiers to fix his mistakes. The new Congress hesitates to take responsibility or stand firmly against a "surge-escalation" to the war - even as 1,000 soldiers submit a petition imploring lawmakers to oppose the escalation and bring troops home. A military judge says it's not for his court to judge the legality of the war or how it impacts a soldier of conscience, while the prosecution says it's not the responsibility of an officer to question the legality of his orders. Lt. Ehren Watada examined his responsibility as a United States officer. For refusing to deploy to Iraq and then sharing his thoughts, he faces a court martial and six years in prison. And the military court won't let him testify that the war is illegal. The Iraq War is Illegal and Immoral. Yet inquiries to Congress about Lt. Watada's case garner polite, standard responses - they care, they respect his decision, but it's not their responsibility to speak to the military on Lt. Watada's behalf. So why take action and petition the President and the army to accept Lt. Watada's resignation? Because it's the right thing to do. It's OUR responsibility to tell OUR government: "We support Lt. Watada's courageous stand against U.S. preemptive war and occupation in Iraq. Do not punish him for standing up for the Constitution and international law." Don't delay - Click the button below to send your message. Demand justice for Lt. Ehren Watada! Friends & Family of Lt. Watada will prepare a copy of the e-mail message, along with a copy of the Support Lt Watada petition and a printed list of all petition signers to date, for personal delivery to the res pective offices in Washington, DC and Ft. Lewis, Washington Send a letter to the following decision maker(s): President George W. Bush Your Congressperson Your Senators Below is the sample letter: Subject: Please Accept Lt. Watada's Resignation Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here], The best course of action for the army, the nation and 1st Lt. Ehren Watada is for the army to accept Lt. Watada's resignation and give him an honorable or general discharge. Voters sent a clear message in the November, 2006 elections that they oppose the war in Iraq. War resisters who refuse to deploy to Iraq should not be sentenced to prison for expressing their beliefs. The Iraq war is illegal. It's time for the army to accept Lt. Watada's resignation. Sincerely, YOUR NAME HERE Instructions: Click here to take action on this issue Tell-A-Friend: Please pass this message on to your friends and ask them to take action now for Lt. Watada. Tell-a-Friend! What's At Stake: Lt. Watada faces court martial and up to 6 years imprisonment for his refusal to deploy and for speaking out against a war that he believes is illegal. Learn more at thankyoult.org Campaign Expiration Date: February 9, 2007 If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Action Center - Lt. Watada Support Campaign RSS

CLEMENCY FOR 50,000 WAR RESISTERS GIVEN BY CARTER 30 YEARS AGO TODAY

More resisters expected By PATRICK MALONEY, FREE PRESS REPORTER http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2007/01/20/pf-3412893.html George W. Bush's plan to boost U.S. troop strength in Iraq has ratcheted up interest among American soldiers about defecting to Canada, local sympathizers say. And one London woman hopes any who do come north will consider settling here. "If the people are here, they need financial support and emotional and social support," Beth Guthrie said. "We want to create a community of support for people who are resisting the war in Iraq." This weekend marks a key anniversary in the 1960s-era exodus of young American men to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Thirty years ago tomorrow Jimmy Carter pardoned the draft dodgers. An estimated 50,000 came to Canada, of whom about half remain. Now, in a quiet echo of an earlier generation's anti-war sentiment, the War Resisters Support Campaign is noticing growing interest in Canada as a haven for U.S. soldiers otherwise destined for Iraq. The group that usually gets five inquiries a month has had "several dozen" calls from soldiers since Bush unveiled his plan this month to deploy an extra 20,000 troops to Iraq. "There are many soldiers who are looking for options," said Lee Zaslofsky, 62, who heads the Toronto-based group with more than 250 supporters nationwide offering temporary homes to defectors. Zaslofsky arrived in Canada 37 years ago today to avoid the Vietnam War. He estimates there are now about 100 Iraq deserters in Canada. Guthrie plans a Feb. 1 meeting at 7 p.m. at the Tolpuddle Housing Co-op in London to organize support among sympathizers if the number of resisters jumps significantly. "The majority of Canadians are known to want an end to the occupation in Iraq. This is one way we in London can move to that goal," she said. Zaslofsky said he knows of no Iraq deserter to successfully apply for refugee status, and some who returned have been sentenced to prison. "The strongest argument we can make is these are good guys who feel betrayed by their president," he said. And one London woman hopes any who do come north will consider settling here. "If the people are here, they need financial support and emotional and social support," Beth Guthrie said. "We want to create a community of support for people who are resisting the war in Iraq." This weekend marks a key anniversary in the 1960s-era exodus of young American men to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. (photo caption) Iowa native and University of Western Ontario student Tim Richard, 24, fled the U.S. for Canada to avoid military service in Iraq. (Derek Ruttan, LFP) --- BY THE NUMBERS Iraq 135,000: U.S soldiers in Iraq 3,000+: U.S. soldiers killed Four: Years U.S. at war Vietnam 8.2 million: U.S. Vietnam War vets 58,000: U.S. soldiers killed 16: Years U.S. at war 50,000: Estimated draft dodgers and war resisters who came to Canada

censorship bedamned!!

Action Alert! Google did it again! (updated) Uruknet

January 20, 2006 On January 12, 2007 Google has stopped indexing Uruknet.info as a news source (The latest Uruknet article included in the Google News index is Iraqi Children "Play" Civil War, January 12, 2007). We wrote to Google News and this is their reply: Hi Vincenzo, Thank you for your message. We apologize for the confusion, we've reviewed your site again and are unable to include it in Google News at this time. We appreciate your willingness to provide your articles to us, and we will log your site for future consideration. Thank you for your interest in Google News. They are unable? and for which reason? Of course there isn’t any technical reason, because Google.news have been indexing Uruknet up to five days ago and although old pages are still available, there has been no update since then. The only "technical reason" is censorship. We rewrote to Google.news and their reply was even more cryptic: Thank you for your note. Although we're unable to provide specific information at this time, we sincerely appreciate your interest in Google News and your willingness to provide us with your content. Please be assured that we'll keep your site on file should we be able to crawl it in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to contact us. Regards, The Google Team Of course, it is a lie: In our logs it seems that you still crawl Uruknet, but the articles do not appear on Google.news. We re-rewrote to Google.news and we didn’t get any answer at all. We ignore the reason for which Google has manipulated the rankings for Uruknet , but we think the exclusion of alternative media through search engines results is government/corporate tactics to harness the free flow of information on the Internet. Being banned by Google.news is obviously a serious threat to a news website's existence. This isn't the first time that Google discontinues indexing Uruknet. On February 18, 2005, Google.news removed Uruknet.info as a news source, apparently thanks to Michelle Malkin's protestations only to reinstate them - following many complaints sent in by our readers. On June 4, 2005 both Google.com and Google.news dropped Uruknet again without explanation: and in this case too Google reinstated Uruknet only because of complaint messages from our readers. We must add that Google’s censorship unintentionally occurs in a particularly critical period for our website. Uruknet has been under hacking attacks since September 2005. These attacks increase whenever there are important events from Iraq. Since this past summer, when a great number of attacks were carried out against Uruknet, we have been moving our servers and spending lots of time, money and energies in order to prevent these attacks and to repair the damages. Since the assassination of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the attacks have increased again and last week they managed to destroy our main server and other servers we use for mirroring websites. As our readers know, we never carried out campaigns neither for fund-raising nor for any other kind of aid. Although we’ve been able to provide, in spite of sacrifice, for maintenance and safeguard of Uruknet and mirroring websites, and although we succeeded, notwithstanding such a great deal of problems, to face all damages caused by hacking attacks, now Google’s censorship risks to be a blow too hard to ward off. We therefore kindly request our readers to write to Google asking Uruknet.info to be reinstated as a news source. Please, send your complaints to google.news! Click here to fill a speedy form. Update A few hours ago, we asked our readers to send their complaint messages to " source-suggestions@google.com " Now google.news claims that the address source-suggestions@google.com is no longer active. When one of our readers sends google.news a complaint letter for having stopped indexing uruknet, he receives the following automated response from google: ----- Original Message ----- From: news-feedback@google.com To: pao**si@tin.it Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 8:00 PM Subject: Re: [#102548054] Complain for removing www.uruknet.info from google.news Thank you for your note about Google News. This is an automated response to let you know that we appreciate your interest and feedback. Please note that this email address is no longer active. To further assist our users, we've created a Google News Help Center, where you can search or browse all of our available support information. Our Help Center is located at http://www.google.com/support/news/ If you're a news publisher, please visit our Publisher Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/news_pub where you'll find extensive, up-to-date information and solutions. But four days ago google.news did reply us from the same email address: so on 16 January 2006 the address " source-suggestions@google.com " surely was active. Messaggio Originale -------- Oggetto: Re: [#81255140] Re-inserting uruknet.info into google-news *Data: * *Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:24:43 -0800* *Da: * *Google Help source-suggestions@google.com* A: enzo@uruknet.eu Hi Vincenzo, Thank you for your message. We apologize for the confusion, we've reviewed your site again and are unable to include it in Google News at this time. We appreciate your willingness to provide your articles to us, and we will log your site for future consideration. Thank you for your interest in Google News. Regards, The Google Team -------- Messaggio Originale -------- Oggetto: Re: [#81255140] Re-inserting uruknet.info into google-news Data: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:45:05 -0800 Da: Google Help source-suggestions@google.com A: enzo@uruknet.eu Hi Vincenzo, Thank you for your note. Although we're unable to provide specific information at this time, we sincerely appreciate your interest in Google News and your willingness to provide us with your content. Please be assured that we'll keep your site on file should we be able to crawl it in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to contact us. Regards, The Google Team We therefore strongly suspect that google.news "source-suggestions@google.com" has put a filter on the word "uruknet". We made some test, and we made sure that if someone sends to source-suggestions@google.com an email message without the word "uruknet", google news doesn't reply that the address is inactive. Please click here to send your complaints to google.news. :: Article nr. 29907 sent on 20-jan-2007 18:58 ECT www.uruknet.info?p=29907

IF YA DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING

©2007 lisbethwest

ANY ROAD WILL TAKE YOU THERE

©2007 lisbethwest

Carter confronts critics

A New Chance for Peace?

By Jimmy Carter
Thursday, January 18, 2007; A23
Washington Post
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3yomo6

I am concerned that public discussion of my book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" has been diverted from the book's basic proposals: that peace talks be resumed after six years of delay and that the tragic persecution of Palestinians be ended. Although most critics have not seriously disputed or even mentioned the facts and suggestions about these two issues, an apparently concerted campaign has been focused on the book's title, combined with allegations that I am anti-Israel. This is not good for any of us who are committed to Israel's status as a peaceful nation living in harmony with its neighbors.

It is encouraging that President Bush has announced that peace in the Holy Land will be a high priority for his administration during the next two years. On her current trip to the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for an early U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian meeting. She has recommended the 2002 offer of the 23 Arab nations as a foundation for peace: full recognition of Israel based on a return to its internationally recognized borders. This offer is compatible with official U.S. policy, previous agreements approved by Israeli governments in 1978 and 1993, and the "road map" for peace developed by the "quartet" (the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations).

The clear fact is that Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighboring occupied territories and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights. With land swaps, this "green line" can be modified through negotiations to let a substantial number of Israeli settlers remain in their subsidized homes east of the internationally recognized border. The premise of exchanging Arab territory for peace has been acceptable for several decades to a majority of Israelis but not to a minority of the more conservative leaders, who are unfortunately supported by most of the vocal American Jewish community.

These same premises, of course, will have to be accepted by any government that represents the Palestinians. A March 2006 poll by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah found 73 percent approval among citizens in the occupied territories, and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed support for talks between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and pledged to end Hamas's rejectionist position if a negotiated agreement is approved by the Palestinian people.

Abbas is wise in repeating to Secretary Rice that he rejects any "interim" boundaries for the Palestinian state. The step-by-step road-map formula promulgated almost three years ago for reaching a final agreement has proved to be a non-starter -- and an excuse for not making any progress. I know from experience that it is often more difficult to negotiate an interim agreement, with all its future uncertainties, than to address the panoply of crucial issues that will have to be resolved to reach the goal of peace.

Given these recent developments and with the Democratic Party poised to play a more important role in governing, this is a good time to clarify our party's overall policy in the broader Middle East. Numerous options are available as Congress attempts to correlate its suggestions with White House policy, and there is little doubt that the basic proposals of the Iraq Study Group provide a good foundation on which Democrats might reach something of a consensus (recognizing that individual lawmakers could still make their own proposals on details). This party policy would provide a reasonable answer to the allegation that Democrats have no alternatives of their own to address the Iraq quagmire.

A key factor in an Iraq policy would be strong demands on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to cooperate in ending sectarian violence, prodded by a clear notice of plans for troop withdrawals. A commitment to regional cooperation, including opportunities for Iran and Syria to participate, would be beneficial in assuring doubtful Iraqis that America will no longer be the dominant outside power shaping their military, political and economic future.

Although Israel's prime minister has criticized these facets of the Iraq Study Group's report, the most difficult recommendation for many Democrats could be the call for substantive peace talks on the Palestinian issue. The situation in the occupied territories will be a crucial factor, and it would be helpful for both the House and Senate to send a responsible delegation to the West Bank and Gaza to observe the situation personally, to meet with key leaders and to ascertain the prospects if peace talks can be launched.

I am convinced that, with bipartisan support, this is a good opportunity for progress.

The writer was the 39th president and is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. His most recent book is "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."