THE ARAB WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION, NORTH AMERICA
SAYS NO TO THE RACIST, COLONIALIST WAR ON IRAQ

As you're reading this statement, Iraqi civilians are being killed in a racist, colonialist war led by the U.S. empire. U.S. led sanctions have devastated and impoverished Iraqi land and people for over a decade and now, the U.S.-led war kills Iraqi people, devastates Iraqi land and destroys the infrastructure of Iraq. All of this is rationalized through a propaganda machine that claims to liberate Iraqi people. Since when did liberation mean bombing, killing, and starving a people?

As we denounce Saddam's regime, we also denounce this war and all other forms of colonialist militarism in the region. Democracy cannot be brought by force especially though foreign intervention. The Bush administration, by backing a right wing government in Israel and other authoritarian regimes in the region, has lost its credibility in the Arab streets.

So far several hundred Iraqi civilians have been killed, and Saddam's popularity is on the rise. The corporate U.S. media has been complicit in this war by hiding the reality of this genocide. This is an urgent call for the Bush administration to withdraw its troops from Iraq and to end this genocide now!


Whereas we see the US war on Iraq in the larger context of its role in the Middle East,

Whereas the US-led war on Iraq is a key part of the Bush Administration's plan to re-colonize the entire Middle-East region,

Whereas UN (US enforced) sanctions have devastated the Iraqi people for many years, and the US war on Iraq will further devastate Iraqi resources, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians,

Whereas the US arrogance in the UN Security Council has demonstrated the farcical nature of democracy and accountability within the UN,

Whereas the US-supported war on Palestine continues, and the UN has failed again to enforce its own resolutions regarding the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians from their homeland,

Whereas we recognize the US war on Palestine as a continuation of US-led genocide in Guatemala, Philippines, East Timor, El Salvador, Colombia, Western Sahara, Panama, etc. (to name a few),

Whereas Israel benefits from the war on Iraq; as the world turns its attention to Iraq, Israel is intensifying its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,

Whereas the US government continues to prop up ruthless despots across the Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa in order to secure its economic, political and military interests,

Whereas the US-led war abroad means increased violence, hate crimes and racism against Arabs and Muslims in the US,

Whereas the US "War on Terrorism" is a white supremacist "crusade" against Arabs, Muslims, and other people of color all over the world,

Whereas the Bush Administration promotes racist propaganda about Arab women's oppression and uses racist images of Arab and Muslim women to justify its imperialist foreign policies,

Whereas we reject the false claim that the US-led war on Iraq will "liberate" the Iraqi people,

Whereas Saddam's oppressive regime, previously funded and supported by the US, must be dismantled by the people of Iraq, not outside imperialist forces,

Whereas women and children are disproportionately impacted by war; women often lose their men to war and are faced with raising families on their own without enough food, medicine, and water

Whereas war promotes patriarchy, sexual assault and increased domestic violence,

We, the women of the Arab Women Solidarity Association of North America, condemn the US-led war on Iraq and the Iraqi people and its continued war on the Arab peoples at home and in the diaspora.

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!
US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST!
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*This statement was authored by members of Cyber-AWSA.