Iraq War

Members of UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) will mark the 6th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq with a display on Polk Place about the skyrocketing costs of the war Thursday.

The display will be comprised of 2,000 flags, each representing 20 million dollars of taxpayer money.

These flags will be used to highlight the disparity between the $36.7 billion that North Carolina taxpayers have spent on the War in Iraq and the November 2008 corporate bailout on the one hand and the $3 billion they have spent on college scholarships since March 2003 on the other. 

Of the 2,000 flags, 1,847 will be needed to represent the 36.7 billion spent on the War and the corporate bailout, compared to only 153 flags for the money spent on college scholarships over the past six years.

That's a disparity of more than $12 spent on war and corporate greed for every one dollar spent on making college educations available for all North Carolinians.

SDS plans to have the display ready by 8 a.m. on Thursday. Members of the group will be on hand throughout the day to talk about the costs of the war with students and other community members passing through Polk Place.

For more information about UNC SDS, visit http://chapelhillsds.org/node/12.

At the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 450 students attended an antiwar rally at noon and 300 marched through campus and into the community, occupying the main intersection in town before ending with a closing rally on the steps of the administration building. SDS, thirteen other student organizations, members of the newly-founded UNC Coalition Against the War, six community organizations and members of Iraq Veterans Against the War led the demonstration. "I'm inspired by the hundreds of students who were willing to leave class and march against this unjust war," said Abby Crownshaw, a first-year student and an organizer of the protest. "We brought our message of peace and justice to thousands of students, faculty and staff."

Many classes were unable to continue because of the noise of the protest. As the march wound through campus, students came up to the windows to watch, with many waving or displaying peace signs to the demonstrators. At the closing rally, the protesters renewed their commitment to struggle against the war and continue to build the mass movement across North Carolina in the coming year.

See also: UNC Chapel Hill SDS flyer distributed at the rally, The Movement Against War: 5 years of struggle (pdf)

Press round-up:

03/24/08 - Public outcry can influence policy on the war in Iraq [DTH]
03/24/08 - War protest was useful in promoting conversation [DTH]

Five years ago, George Bush, the Democratic and Republican Parties and the United States government committed what the Nuremberg Court called the “supreme international crime.” They waged a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, and they justified it with lies. They claimed Iraq possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction. But it did not take long for the truth to surface: Bush and big oil interests had been planning this war for years. The real motives of this war are not defensive, nor are they altruistic; they are imperial. The U.S. aimed to ensure its domination of the region by striking down an anti-imperialist government in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East.

Five years later, more than one million Iraqis lie dead. Over four and a half million have become refugees. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Basic infrastructure destroyed in the massive “shock and awe” bombing campaign has left 70% of Iraqis without access to safe drinking water and millions without access to effective sanitation. Vast areas of Iraq lack sufficient electricity, with many neighborhoods in Baghdad receiving only 5-6 hours of power a day. Ten million Iraqis maintain a precarious existence through a sanctions-era food rationing system – which the Iraqi puppet government soon plans to eliminate. Unemployment stands at 60-70%. 800,000 children did not go to school last year. Hospitals lack basic medicines and staff. U.S.–sponsored death squads roam the streets. Religious sectarianism, an important tool the U.S. employs in its divide-and-conquer strategy, has led to tens of thousands of murders and kidnappings.

But five years of occupation has also meant five years of struggle. The Iraqi people are not passively standing by while their sovereignty is dismantled in the name of a colonial-style puppet government in the Green Zone, and while the United States and the giant multi-national corporations loot Iraqi oil.

Dear friends and allies at UNC,

This March will mark a grim milestone: the U.S. occupation of Iraq will enter its fifth year. After five years of war and occupation, over 1.2 million Iraqis and 4,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives, and more that $500 billion has been poured into the failing occupation, money that should have been spent making education more accessible to millions of young people in this country who cannot afford it, to provide healthcare, housing and jobs to all Americans, and to rebuild the Gulf Coast, which is still suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina more than two and a half years later.

WHAT: Demand Peace, Stop Violence and End the Iraq War!
WHEN: March 19, 2008 at 12:30pm
WHERE: Gather in the Pit for a Rally and March
WHO: Students, Faculty, Staff and Community Members

Join the UNC Coalition Against the War.

We are: Students for a Democratic Society, Black Student Movement (Political Action Committee), Feminist Students United, Young Democrats, Arab Student Organization, Student Action with Workers, Solidarity with Palestine through Education and Action at Carolina, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender/Straight Alliance, Criminal Justice Action and Awareness, Muslim Organizations Actively Integrating Carolina, Advocates for Human Rights, Prochoice USA, Native Health Initiative, and Animal Rights Collective.

This Wednesday will mark a grim milestone: the U.S. occupation of Iraq will enter its fifth year. That means five years that the people of Iraq have been forced to live under the daily violence of the U.S. occupation of their country resulting in the deaths of over 1.2 million Iraqis and nearly 4,000 U.S. troops.

UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society, in solidarity with over 75 other Universities and High Schools across the country (http://www.newsds.org/), is working shoulder-to-shoulder with the UNC Coalition Against the War to call on all students and community members stand up, walkout and speak out against the brutal war on Iraq. We will gather in the Pit at 12:30pm on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 for a rally and march.

The rally will include speakers from member organizations of the UNC Coalition Against the War and Iraq Veteran Against the War, Joe Gill. We hope that you will break from your daily routine on this day to join us in struggle against violence in all of its tragic forms.

The march will feature giant puppets, beats by Cakalak Thunder, radical cheer leading and more!

UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society is organizing a demonstration against the continued U.S. war on Iraq and military recruitment on November 15, 2007.

Since the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilians and nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have died. More than $465 billion has already been wasted on this war and the Bush administration has just requested an additional $190 billion to continue the war. Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Congress refuses to offer any real challenge to the war and fulfill the mandate to end the war that brought them to power back in November 2006. We are sick and tired of these games. While the people of Iraq continue to suffer under U.S. occupation, people here at home are suffering too. The Gulf Coast still isn't rebuilt, the cost of education continues to rise and become less accessible for millions of this country's young people, and many people don't have access to healthcare. This war has got to stop.

Last November, the Army opened a new recruiting station in Chapel Hill. This station, the first of its kind to open in town, gives recruiters easy access to the area's youth, high schools, and colleges. It is clear why this facility was built: in the face of the failing war on Iraq, the military is desperate for more young people to continue the occupation and be able to wage new wars on people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Military recruiters use deceptive practices, ranging from promises about money enlistees will receive to the length of enlistment, and specifically target youth of color and working class youth. If we refuse to enlist, the war cannot continue.

On the first anniversary of this station's opening, join us a we renew our call for military recruiters out of our schools and communities, and U.S. troops out of Iraq NOW!

We refuse to kill and be killed--No to military recruitment!
Iraq for Iraqis--U.S. Troops Out Now!
Shut the War Down!

On September 12, the UNC Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (UNC-CH SDS) led a protest of over 120 people against John Ashcroft's visit to our campus. We chanted, we rallied, we disrupted his speech and we walked out to say NO to the "war on terror", Ashcroft's racist attacks on immigrants and Arab-Americans, the PATRIOT Act, and his legislative attacks on women's reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights. We are opposed to the use of $10,000 of our fees to pay for a speech from this bigot.

The protest was a success, thanks to the participation of the Feminist Students United, the Radical Cheerleaders, the Young Democrats, and dozens of students. Palestine, Colombia and Iraq solidarity activists, among others, spoke at the rally. Uniting together in a common cause, we were able to project our message loud and clear: "John Ashcroft go home! War criminals off our campus!"

We promise to keep exposing the phony "war on terror" for what it really is—a war for empire, from Iraq to Palestine, from Colombia to the Philippines. We vow to fight back against the attacks on our democratic rights. With a broad alliance of progressive students and student organizations, we can build a truly democratic university where heterosexism, homophobia, racism, and national oppression have no place. Protesting reactionaries like John Ashcroft whenever they rear their ugly heads on campus is a good first step to that goal.

UNC Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society
September 17, 2006