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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 16.5pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%">Join Committee for Peace and Human Rights for a public <b><span style="COLOR: rgb(192,0,0)">flag</span> <span style="COLOR: rgb(192,0,0)">washing</span></b><span style="COLOR: rgb(23,54,93)"> </span>on the anniversary of September 11, as part of our weekly anti-war protest at Park St Station on <br>
<b>Saturday <span style="COLOR: rgb(192,0,0)">September 11</span> at 1pm.</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Help us try to wash the lies and crimes out of the American flag, to do our part to bring real democracy to our country based on actual understanding.<span> </span>The rationale for <b>“the War On Terror”</b> is first among the lies that shape our public policy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Come narrate as you wash, if you want, or just help us wash.<span> </span>(We will have a few flags, plenty for all who want to help.) We do not want to have our foreign policy based on a bunch of lies, especially when the many wars resulting from the lies take money we need to work on domestic issues.<span> </span>We are not under grave threat, even if the MBTA’s “Now, more than ever” messages might lead a person to think so.<span> <br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The main lies we would like to wash out of the flag are:</b></p>
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<div class="MsoNormal">That Sept 11 was an attack on the US by Muslim extremists that the US, with all its military might, was not able to defend against, and that somehow attacking and occupying Muslim lands will make us safer and prevent another terrorist attack.<span> </span>The war in Afghanistan is based on an even bigger lie than the war in Iraq and was being staged prior to September 11.</div>
</li>
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<div class="MsoNormal">That the US is fighting for “democracy” around the world, when our government is usually actually acting to control some resource, usually oil.<span> </span>Actually, US foreign policy has been responsible for the deaths of over 13 million people around the world since the end of WWII, through covert and overt wars, and in modern warfare 95% of the casualties are civilians.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">That the US stands for human rights, when actually the US has given up long-held principles and traditions like Habeas Corpus, the right to challenge one’s detention and is still holding many people picked up after 9/11.<span> </span>Obama, like Bush, claims the right to hold “terror suspects” indefinitely without charges and the torture is continuing.<span> </span>What is so much worse about our enemies today than in the past, that our age-old tradition of the rule of law no longer works?</div>
</li>
<li>
<div class="MsoNormal">That things are better under Obama.<span> </span>He has increased the number of covert operations to 75, more than Bush had going.<span> </span>Most of those operations are secret wars, secret from us, not the people there!<span> </span>Just as many civilians are being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, under Obama as under Bush.<span> </span>All the articles of impeachment introduced in Congress against the Bush administration by Rep McKinney and Rep Kucinich still apply to Obama, in some cases he has made the situation worse. </div>
</li>
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<div class="MsoNormal">That the US has withdrawn from Iraq, when 50,000 troops are left, along with countless contractor mercenaries and the supposedly “training” troops got into their first firefight just days after the made-for-TV withdrawal</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">That the huge banking and insurance companies who created the financial crisis we are in are too big to fail and needed to be bailed out with our taxes to save the economy, when in fact they are too big to exist and the economy has not been saved.</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The crimes are too many to list them all</b> starting with all the death and destruction in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where US wars and sanctions have killed millions and created endless suffering that will last for generations, with birth defects coming from toxic depleted uranium, white phosphorous and other toxic weapons and by-products of war.<span> </span>The US is giving millions in flood aid to Pakistan, and spending billions on the drone attacks targeting “insurgent leaders” who would not be insurgents if the US were not illegally occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and playing a large military role in Pakistan.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">If you’re in the military and don’t like these wars, follow the example of brave resisters like Camilo Mejia and whistle blowers like Bradley Manning, who is now in the brig in Quantico, VA for releasing secret information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a massacre in Iraq in 2007 viewable at <a href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/" target="_blank">www.CollateralMurder.com</a><a href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/" target="_blank"><span style="COLOR: windowtext; TEXT-DECORATION: none"></span></a>.<span> </span>To support him, go to <a href="http://www.bradleymanning.org/" target="_blank">www.BradleyManning.org</a>.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">If you’re a vet, join Vets For Peace, <a href="http://www.massvfp.org/" target="_blank">www.MassVFP.org</a> or Iraq Veterans Against the War, <a href="http://www.ivaw.org/" target="_blank">www.ivaw.org</a>.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">To help find and spread the truth about September 11, contact <a href="http://www.911truth.org/" target="_blank">www.911Truth.org</a>.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">To get involved in the peace movement, see <a href="http://www.justicewithpeace.org/" target="_blank">www.JusticeWithPeace.org</a> or <a href="http://www.stopthewars.org/" target="_blank">www.StopTheWars.org</a>.<span> <br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">To help stop torture, contact Witness Against Torture, <a href="http://www.witnesstorture.org/" target="_blank">www.WitnessTorture.org</a>.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">For more information or to talk about this, contact Susan McLucas, (617) 776-6524 <a href="mailto:SusanBMcL@gmail.com" target="_blank">SusanBMcL@gmail.com</a><a href="mailto:SusanBMcL@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="COLOR: windowtext; TEXT-DECORATION: none"></span></a>, Committee for Peace and Human Rights, (the Saturday vigil at Park St Station, 1-2) <a href="http://www.stopallwars.com/" target="_blank"><span style="COLOR: windowtext; TEXT-DECORATION: none"></span></a><a href="http://www.stopallwars.com/" target="_blank">www.StopAllWars.com</a>, and Citizens Action Team</p>
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