In the name of implementing the shameful UN Security Council Resolution, the world imperialist powers and their allies, led by the government of the United States, have once again unleashed a war of aggression, this time against Libya. This is the fourth war of aggression initiated by the US Government and its imperialist allies in the past twelve years after the attacks on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Within the first few hours of the initiation of the attack, more than 112 Cruise Missiles were fired on that country, causing, according to various reports, more than 60 civilian casualties with hundreds of others injured. And all this is being done in the name of protecting the lives of “peaceful Libyan citizens.”

The duplicity of these claims is nowhere better manifested than in Bahrain, where the same aggressors and their regional allies have sent in military troops to protect another dictatorial government, here a client state, that has been similarly shooting at its “peaceful citizens,” or in Egypt, where the same imperialist powers are trying to contain and possibly suppress the Egyptian people’s revolution and impose a more formal pro-West, pro-Israel regime.

What is happening in Libya today is not a “humanitarian effort” on the part of the international community, as it is hypocritically claimed, but a clear effort by the US Government and its NATO allies to impose full control over the countries of North Africa and the Middle East in their broader drive to rearrange the whole region according to their military-strategic and economic interests. We must not forget the recent establishment of Africom, the US military command responsible for Africa. The specter of George W. Bush and the neocons is once again haunting Africa and the Middle East.

As in the case of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, the people on both sides of the frontline will be the main victims of this imperialist war. One cannot but expect huge civilian casualties and disruption of life among the innocent Libyan citizens as a result of the bombings and missile attacks, the immanent civil war in that country, and the massive refugee crisis that is already underway.

Since the beginning of the uprisings in Libya, the price of oil has risen by 18 percent and currently it stands at about $105 per barrel. There is no doubt that it will surge to much higher levels as this war continues, further impoverishing large sectors of the world population, including the people of our country, already battered by unemployment and foreclosures, while further enriching the Wall Street Barons and Corporate speculators with additional billions of dollars in speculative cash.

The US Peace Council strongly condemns and demands an immediate halt to this new round of imperialist war, which will have no outcome but further victimization of the people of Libya, United States and the rest of the world. We call upon all peace-loving people of the United States to voice their outrage:

• Call our Congressional Representatives and Senators, demanding they exercise their sworn oath to uphold the Constitution and their sole responsibility under the War Powers Act to declare War, withhold any funds for this Act of Aggression, and order the withdrawal of all armed forces from the region.

• Demand the dismissal of the war hawks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Susan Rice to the United Nations for their role in this aggression.

• Organize public demonstrations.

The American people must not allow Moammar Ghaddafi’s violence against his own people be used as a pretext for the expansion of violence against all people. Time for war as a solution to human problems has long come to an end. This is the 21st Century, not the Middle Ages!

US Peace Council
P.O. Box 3105
New Haven, Connecticut 06515
Telephone 203 387-0370
www.uspeacecouncil.org
amistad.nai@rcn.com