World Can't Wait statement on Berkeley counter-recruiting protest

by Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime, Feb. 15 2008

In a month, this illegitimate, immoral unjust war started by the Bush regime on the basis of lies will have gone on for 5 years. The troop surge that Bush said would help end the war began a year ago this week.

Now a new British study shows that more than 1 million Iraqis have died in the occupation. More than 4 million are displaced from their homes. Rape, collective punishment and other war crimes are being committed daily by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan . The rest of the world now considers the names “Haditha, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo ” synonymous with crimes against humanity by US forces.

The world cannot wait any longer for people living in the United States to stop these crimes. Most people here want an end to the war. But how? No one in power will stop it.

This week, hundreds of Berkeley CA High School students poured out of their school to support the Berkeley City Council’s stand against military recruiters. Rather than pinning their hopes on a new president and a new round of promises, these kids are stuck in reality. They are demanding that recruiters leave them alone, and leave town. They speak with the moral authority of a generation whose future is threatened by Dick Cheney’s “war without end.”

Military recruitment keeps this illegitimate war going. Let this antiwar sentiment ripple across the country and set a new standard for resistance. More people must say “no” to the recruiters preying on young people to meet their growing quotas.

People in Berkeley had the courage to show how the war can be stopped, and now this has to happen across country. It’s time for the rest of us to take the only realistic step that can bring all this to a halt. Drive Dick Cheney, the #1 fan of torture, from office. And let George Bush, the proven liar, be not far behind.

In times like these, when the battle lines are sharply drawn, your choice -- of silence or resistance – is decisive. WE are the ones the world is waiting for!

Here are chants from SF:

What are they recruiting for?
Murder, rape, torture, WAR!

Falluja, Haditha, Guantanamo Bay,
This is the truth the recruiters don't say!

We support the troops who refuse to fight,
Cuz killing (and dying) for empire just ain't right!

Shut it down, shut it down!
The war machine
Shut it down, shut it down!
The Bush Regime!

Semper Fi, Kill and die,
In a war based on lies