Mumia’s message for March 20 mobilizations

Mumia’s message for March 20 mobilizations—Radio Version

End Occupations

The United States and its client state of Israel are using military force and aggression to dominate, occupy, and control subject peoples, both on the pretext of fighting terrorism while imposing a regime of state terror both in Iraq and in Palestine. The US used the lie of weapons of mass destruction to unleash a war against a sovereign nation and now occupies a nation torn by conflict with a very real threat of civil war. Americans should reject the policy of preemption, which really means 'might makes right'. If we have learned anything from history, it is that the strong are not strong for long, that empires rise and empires fall, that fates of nations are written and how they use their power. The same class, and some cases the same people like Donald Rumsfeld who supported the Iraqi regime militarily, damned them a decade later for using the very weapons they provided them with. They used the resolutions of the United Nations to justify a mindless cruel war of regional conquest. The people were right in spring of 2003 when they demanded all throughout the world "no war for oil." They are right now. The billions used to enrich Halliburton and Bechtel for false defense could best be used to rebuild schools, to provide low-income housing, to hire the jobless. The billions used for Neocolonial and Imperial wars that enrich the oil companies, the defense industries, and the like are thefts from the dismal futures of millions of American children. It is in fact a transfer that takes from their tomorrows only to enrich more now. Occupations drained Rome just as Iraq sucks the life out of the US economy. The US has not been this hated or this feared since Vietnam. It is time to reject Occupation, to reject Imperialism, to reject the Bush doctrine of war against all, of perennial fear of preemption. It is time for a deep change in this Nation and it is time for you to demand it.

From Death Row this is Mumia Abdul Jamal.

posted March 10, 2004