PEACE GROUPS TARGET WAR PROFITEERS

[TreasonousBastard]

<with permission>

From Portside:
* PEACE GROUPS TARGET WAR PROFITEERS AND "CORPORATE LOOTERS" OF IRAQ

Leading anti-war groups and prominent activists sign on to campaign
challenging "second invasion" of Iraq by corporate interests

DURHAM, N. C. - Leading anti-war activists and organizations launched
a new campaign today calling for an end to war profiteering by
military contractors, and challenging what they call the "second
invasion" of Iraq by powerful corporate interests seeking to control
the countrys oil, water and other resources.

The Stop the War Profiteers Campaign, initiated by the North
Carolina-based Institute for Southern Studies
< http://www.southernstudies.org >, has been endorsed by several leading veteran, faith, labor, peace and other organizations, as well as prominent scholars and activists across the country.

"A handful of Bush-connected corporations are poised to make billions
in profits while U.S. troops are killed almost daily, and Iraq
plunges deeper into a colonial nightmare," said Dr. Rania Masri, a
campaign coordinator and program director at the Institute.

<...>

Veterans for Peace, New York Labor Against the War, Global Exchange,
United for Peace and Justice, Public Citizens Critical Mass Energy
and Environment Program, and other groups have signed on to the
campaigns founding statement, as well as well-known activist authors
Noam Chomsky, Jim Hightower, and Howard Zinn.

The campaign calls on elected leaders to take several steps to stop
war profiteering at taxpayer expense and to end the "corporate
looting" of Iraq, including:

*** Holding congressional hearings to investigate war profiteering
and the secretive, closed-bid "reconstruction" contracts in Iraq
given to a handful of corporations close to the Bush administration.
The hearings would be modeled on those held in the 1930s by Sen.
Gerald Nye to investigate the role of the "munitions industry" in
warping foreign policy.

*** Reigning in war profiteering by military contractors - such as
the $400 million in taxpayer-funded profits promised in Halliburtons
biggest contract - through an "Excess Profits Tax," similar to those
during the Civil War, both World Wars, and the Korean War

*** Halting the U.S.-led drive to hand over Iraqs industries,
services and resources to powerful multinational corporations - such
as efforts by occupying forces to privatize public services and strip
down rules on foreign investment, before Iraqs indigenous government
is allowed to take part in decision-making.

The campaign opens a new front of opposition to the Bush
Administrations war in Iraq, adding to charges at home of
manipulation of intelligence to justify the war, and fierce
resistance in Iraq to the U.S.-led occupation and delay of self-rule.

Tara Purohit, an Institute associate working on the campaign, noted
that during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said "I
don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United
States as a result of this disaster," and then-Senator Harry Truman
denounced war profiteering as "treason." Earlier in the century, Sen.
Robert LaFollette called war profiteers "enemies of democracy in the
homeland."

<...>

[kimchi]

1. Excellent!

[Lady Freedom]

2. Darn right we are!

It will be a long, hard fight! But, from us grassroots groups to the big boys in the peace fight, we'll all keep fighting the good fight against Bushy's evil forces!