these messages reprinted today by
VOICES FOR PEACE
‘Stop the bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia! 
End the sanctions against Iraq! 
Let Iraq LIVE!’
La Crosse post office, April 5 1999

Since our last vigil a week ago, probably another 1,500 Iraqi children have died at our hands, due to economic ‘sanctions’. 
Yesterday our military machine bombed 3 sites in Iraq, after a 12-day respite, the first such break since December.
Today our military machine massively bombarded Yugoslavia for the thirteen straight day. 
Now there are hundreds of thousands of Albanians fleeing for their lives. 

CALL YOUR GOVERNMENT, FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND TELL THEM 
THIS MUST STOP!
 
Perspective: One is Too Many, But…
Estimated # of persons killed:
In Iraq, due to US-led sanctions:   1,000,000
In the Sudan over the past 15 years:    1,500,000
In Rwanda over the last 5 years:      500,000
In Chechnya:       80,000
Around the world each day, because of lack of water, clothing, shelter, food, or medicine:      100,000
Est # of people in the world 
who go to bed hungry:		 800,000,000
Est # of persons killed
in Kosovo last year: 		       2,000
-from Sam Smith’s  The Progressive Review

 


The harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iraqi civilians for the past seven years are now resulting in 4,500 deaths of children each month, according to U.N. studies.  Secretary General Kofi Annan reports that one-third of Iraqi children are malnourished.  Hundreds of thousands of children under the age of 5 have now died since the ‘end’ of the Gulf war in 1991.

Our policy in Iraq is guilty of violating the gospel warning against “seeing the speck in your neighbor’s eye, and ignoring the log in your own eye.”  If the United States wants to gain some real moral authority in calling Iraq to task for its weapons of mass destruction, we could begin by dealing with our own.  How can we avoid the charge of hypocrisy and double-standards as long as we refuse to allow any moral scrutiny of our weapons of mass destruction?

More bombing just worsens the problems caused by lack of clean water, sanitation, food, and medicines.  Do we honestly believe that raining bombs on the heads of already beleaguered people will turn them against their dictator and towards those doing the bombing?

 -Jim Wallis, editor, Sojourners Magazine