What a wonderful crowd! Thank you, each of you, for being here. We are part of a national day of protest against the war in Iraq. We stand with thousands acrossthe nation in a fearsome expression of the breadth and depth of anti-war sentiment.
From the beginning of the Bush/Cheney administration, it was clear that they were committed to expanding the American geopolitical role in the Middle East. They knew that those huge oil reserves were crucial to the world’s industrial economy and they wanted US domination over those reserves. So they lied to us, to you and to me. They violated national and international treaties to achieve that supremacy. But their lies and their failures can no longer be covered up. Bush and Cheney must be held accountable. They must be IMPEACHED now: before they leave office – or a terrible precedent with be left for future leaders to fall back on.
We know the numbers of dead in Iraq but we can’t begin to imagine the scale of human suffering, the destroyed infrastructure, the destabilizing daily life for the entire population from severe shortage of water, electricity, jobs, and medical care, and the displacement of over 4 million civilians as a result of the bloody civil war.
We know the number of dead in our country, the wounded and maimed, the broken homes, and we see the incredible financial burden this illegal war in Iraq has placed on current and future US taxpayers. This year, taxpayers in Florida will have paid TWELVE BILLION dollars for the cost of the war. For the same amount of money, close to FOUR MILLION people could have been provided with Health Care, more than EIGHT MILLION homes with renewable electricity could have been constructed, or TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND music and art teached could have been employed in our schools.
But knowing all this, and feeling angry about it is not enough. We must transform our feelings into action. We must call on our elected representatives to demand full investigation. We must demand that Bush and Cheney be IMPEACHED.
We must END THE WAR. END THE OCCUPATION.
Negotiations and diplomacy will be our peace-making tools. Reconciliation our goal. The very culture of our society must be transformed from violence to non-violence. Returning troops must be treated with all-out medical and psychiatric care. Homes and jobs must be provided. Family life restored.
We, the people, must reclaim our civil rights. We must VOTE and ELECT national and local officials who will guarantee us an ethical foreign policy and an ethical domestic policy, providing civil liberty, health care and education to everyone. For this, we need PEACE. An end to war.
No more wars – ever!
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