White House protest joins international day against Iran war

By Askia Muhammad -Senior Correspondent- | Last updated: Feb 15, 2012 - 10:59:08 AM

Demonstrators converged before the White House Feb. 4 in Washington, D.C., to denounce the campaign of sanctions, assassinations and war threats being waged against Iran by the United States and its allies.

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) - Several dozen protesters marched and chanted in front of the White House Feb. 4, in solidarity with demonstrators in 56 cities in the U.S. and Canada, and India, Ireland, Bangladesh, England and other countries to demand: “No War on Iran, No Sanctions, No Intervention, No Assassinations.”

“This is way, the beginning of a new movement against war in Iran,” Sarah Sloan of the International ANSWER—Act Now to Stop War & End Racism—Coalition told The Final Call. “There’s been a significant anti-war movement in the United States over the last decade, especially since September 11, but it has largely focused on the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, but all those people who came into the streets to oppose those wars, to oppose the subsequent occupations, recognize now that the United States government has seriously ratcheted up its threats against Iran.

“It’s imposed new sanctions, which are really fundamentally an act of war, and we recognize that can escalate in a number of different ways. And so we believe that many different groups are coming together. Many different individuals will be out.

“This is, in a way the beginning of what will be a significant movement, should the U.S. continue to threaten Iran with war, with these additional forms of intervention,” Ms. Sloan said.

The ANSWER Coalition and other groups—including CODE PINK, Peace Action New York State, Raging Grannies, Dallas Peace Center, Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination, Occupy Wall Street NYC, Occupy Boston, Shannon Watch Ireland, Dallas Peace Center—blame people in this country who put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the U.S., for fomenting the war fever.

“The U.S.-led campaign to bring about regime change is escalating,” the ANSWER Coalition said in a statement. “The European Union has announced a complete embargo of Iranian oil. Taken together with the other economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, this is a campaign meant to impose maximum suffering on the people of Iran by destabilizing and destroying the country’s economy.

“At the same time, covert action inside the country, including assassinations, sabotage and drone over flights, is intensifying. U.S. military bases surround Iran, while nuclear-armed U.S. aircraft carriers and Trident submarines sit right off its coast.

“The pretext for this aggression against another country in the strategic Persian Gulf region is that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, an assertion that Iranian leaders have denied,” the statement continued. “The utter hypocrisy of this charge by the world’s leading nuclear weapons power and its nuclear-armed allies, including Israel, Britain and France, could not be clearer.”

Sixty years ago, protesters point out, the U.S. and British imposed a worldwide embargo on Iranian oil in response to the nationalization of the country’s petroleum resources by the first democratically elected government in Iran’s history.

That embargo weakened the government enough so that in 1953 the CIA was able to carry out a coup, which placed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran back on the throne. For the next 25 years, the Shah served as an agent of the U.S., killing, according to some estimates, 100,000 Iranians in his notorious torture chambers, and turning the country’s resources over to U.S. oil companies and banks.

Similarly, 21 years ago the U.S. pushed through the UN Security Council a total blockade of Iraq. The 13 years of sanctions which followed resulted in the unnecessary deaths of more than one million Iraqis and severely weakened the country, paving the way for the 2003 invasion and occupation which killed one million more Iraqis and killed and wounded tens of thousands of U.S. and other occupying troops.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is threatening—with the “ironclad” support of the U.S.—to unleash military strikes against Iran at the same time as the United States and NATO powers have imposed economic sanctions and while they spend millions of dollars each year carrying out covert operations to destabilize the country.

Demonstrations intended to protest any possible military action against Iran were held, not only in Washington, but in New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco, as well as in Calgary and Vancouver, Canada. In Los Angeles, demonstrators wore orange prison jumpsuits and black hoods, similar to those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, Cuba.

Protesters warned that dire consequence, including escalated war in the Middle East and Northern Africa will be the result of the current U.S. policy.

The U.S., Israel and some of their E.U. allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program, and have used this pretext to push for sanctions, repeatedly warning of a possible military strike of Iranian nuclear targets.

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Hillary Clinton threatens Iran with genocide (FCN, 05-20-2008)

Pro-Israel lobby dictates U.S. policy, study charges (FCN, 04-05-2006)

The Islamic Republic of Iran and How America crushed democracies (FCN, 08-28-2003)