Military Out of Our Schools and Out of Iraq Now!

By Carole Seligman

September 24th Speech to the College Not Combat Contingent Rally on behalf of Bay Area United Against War.

The people of the U.S. are joining the rest of the world majority to oppose the U.S. government’s gang rape and looting of Iraq. So, the government is taking drastic measures to recruit new cannon fodder for the military. We are campaigning to deny the military our young people. We want the military out of our schools and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now!

The people are joining the movement because the gang behavior and looting of the U.S. government stands exposed: The bipartisan government failed to safely evacuate the working people of New Orleans; it failed to save people from the hurricane; it failed to safely evacuate residents of Texas from the path of Hurricane Rita; it even failed to pick up the corpses of those they failed to rescue.

These failures were preventable. And so is the piling up of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the grievous injuring of civilians and soldiers, and the poisoning from depleted uranium. More and more Americans know that the U.S. is in Iraq to loot oil for corporate profits.

They know that the $7 billion dollars a month the U.S. spends on this gang rape and looting war could be used for life, not death. It could provide 9-1/2 million students 4-yr. scholarships at public universities. It could build almost 2 million homes. It could feed the hungry of the world for 8 years. It could fund worldwide AIDS programs for 19 years. It could provide Head Start programs to almost 26 million children for a year, or health insurance for 117 and a half million children. It could have rebuilt the New Orleans levees and rebuild New Orleans.

You will help end this war just as the people helped to end the war in Vietnam. Demand government spending for relief and life saving; not for war and killing! Bring the troops home now!