5 LONG YEARS OF WAR and does the public still remember there is a war going on? When the media stops giving due mention of a cataclysmic event it is the responsibility of the people to take to the streets and rally the wakeup call. Let's not forget why we are at war: LIES… The government lied that Iraq was connected to 911. The government lied that Al Qaeda was stationed in Iraq. The government lied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The government lied that the war would only cost 60 billion dollars. The government lied that we would only be in Iraq a couple months. The government lied that we are winning the war. The government lied that the mission has been accomplished. DO YOU REMEMBER ANY OF THIS? Since the very beginning we have been fighting a war upon false pretenses. Why? Why would the government lie to start and perpetuate a war? Surely this war is not being fought for the reasons claimed. The 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians who have died as a direct result of coalition forces and the 600,000 innocent Iraqi "casualties" of war who have died or been seriously injured and disabled were never a threat to us. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/ The media hardly ever gives mention of these unfortunate statistics and trivializes the lives of these honorable people by demeaning them as foreigners. But even these revealing statistics can not really appraise the value of a human life and the cost of such tragic loss. How do you gain peace and justice by waging an illegal war of aggression? How do you protect human rights by murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings? How do you stabilize a region by destroying the essential infrastructural services and displacing millions of people from their homes? How do you preserve freedom and democracy abroad by unilaterally acting against the will of the public and taking away the civil liberties of citizens at home? So if every claim for why we are fighting was a lie than why are we at war? WE WERE FED LIES AND DECEPTIONS! Who is profiting? What is the real motive? The nearly 100,000 Iraqi's who have died by coalition forces and 600,000 men, women, and children who have violently died been seriously injured and disabled did not benefit. The 3,000 US soldiers who have laid down their lives and the tens of thousands of young men and women serving in the armed forces who are permanently injured and disabled who must now spend an entire lifetime suffering did not benefit. The family, friends, and loved ones of these dead and disabled civilians, soldiers, and human beings did not benefit. NEITHER THE AMERICAN OR IRAQI PEOPLE ARE BENEFITING! We are now trillions of dollars in debt. All of the money that could have been spent on hospitals, education, energy, and agriculture has been wasted fighting an illegal war upon lies and false pretenses that serves no just cause, no moral purpose, and absolutely no beneficial interest to humankind. This war has only destroyed countless lives and inflicted irreparable damages while actually increasing the threat of terrorism and overwhelming military resources. The only people profiting from this war are the corporations. The private armies and the military industrial complex, the banks and contractors. And their soulless self interest is money, greed, and power. The people in control of the US government are some of the biggest mass murderers in history. Who else now incarcerated in the overcrowded Cook County Jail is responsible for taking as many lives? Out of all the convicted felons rotting away in prison how many have committed similar atrocities? THERE IS NO BIGGER CRIME THAN WAGING A WAR AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE! Who else has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives? Who else has displaced millions of people from their homes? Who else has destroyed the essential infrastructure of a nation? Who else has forsaken millions of civilians in a state of hunger, destitute, and ruins without basic humanitarian services such as water, hospitals, or electricity and in the midst of ever-present violence, chaos, and warfare? Out of the over 2 million people currently packed behind bars in the US prison system, and of all the hundreds of thousands of people illegally held captive in prisons overseas, who else has ever committed such crimes against humanity as the villains who are currently running the government of this country…No one; THE BIGGEST ATROCITIES are being committed by the CRIMINALS CONTROLING THE WHITE HOUSE while hiding behind false patriotism and wiping clean the blood stains with our country's flag. And YESTERDAY IN CHICAGO 6 YOUNG PROTESTERS WERE ARESTED and are being held in Cook County Jail on felony charges for staging a "die in" against the war during Easter service at Holy Name Cathedral which is the city's most prominent Catholic parish. Let us not forget that the blood these activists sprayed was fake while the blood spilled by the war is real. And if the crime of reenactment is intolerable enough to land 6 youths in Cook County Jail then what about the criminals in our government who are responsible for actually committing the real atrocities? What would Jesus be preaching about in his sermon on this Easter Sunday? Would he be supporting the war like the so called Christian-right republicans and waving the US flag as troops come home in body bags? And the church clergy claims to represent Jesus Christ as the authority figure for God on earth. Where would Jesus be at this historic moment? Perhaps Jesus would be in jail like all the other radical thinkers in history: Socrates, Baha'u'llah, Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Marin Luther King Jr… To be continued? When does it end? When is enough enough? When is the cost too much? At what price do we set our maximum wager? How many more thousands of lives? How many more trillions of dollars? What exactly are we trying to accomplish? Can't we realize that war is not the tool? We need to immediately CALL A CEASE FIRE and END THE MILITARY OCCUPATION! The problem is that the corrupt government administration can not possibly negotiate a peaceful settlement: 1. If they wanted to they would have already so apparently it isn't in the administration's interest. 2. The US administration's sinister motives are exposed to the world and these criminals can not be trusted by either the Iraqi or US citizens. The terms being offered are BLATANTLY UNACCEPTABLE, unreasonable, and non-negotiable. The resistance fighters or "insurgents" are not willing to tolerate: 1.Reckless killing in order for the US to gain geopolitical dominance 2.The construction of 14 new military bases 3.The installation of a puppet US government 4.The US ownership and control of national resources Who are we to negotiate the terms of withdrawal? WE HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! In order to sustain legitimate peace we must call a mutual cease fire and institute a period of peaceful diplomacy in which people of both nations can communicate directly without interference by the corrupted political "authorities" which are not capable of settling this dispute. WE MUST BE THE PEACEMAKERS! Starting on the home front! It is time to reclaim our government In order to make reparations for damages And restore justice for freedoms lost. "Blessed are the peacemakers For they shall inherit the Earth." (Jesus)