Folks,

The Peace Vigil in Aurora is THIS Friday Night 5-7 pm.  (See directions below). Lets turn out a crowd for Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert and let him know that there are Peace folks out here in the western suburbs who believe this war needs to be stopped.  It's very important to let him know that ** We Are Strongly Opposed to this War and Condemn the Plan to Expand this War ! ! **   Bring signs, posters and banners to the event.

Time:   Friday, March 15th, 5-7:00 pm

Location:   Walter Payton's Roundhouse Restaraunt, at 205 N. Broadway  (ie, IL-25, just East of Fox River), Aurora

Directions: Take I-88 West, past all Naperville exits, to IL 31 (just West of  Fox River).  Exit towards Aurora/Batavia.  Turn Right onto S. Lilncolnway St. ( about 1 or 2  blocks)   Go South on  IL 31,  Pass Indian Trail Drive.  Go approx.. 0.5 mi. further South to Illinois Ave.  Turn Left on Illinois, ( cross the Fox River bridge) then Turn Right (South) on Broadway, IL 25.  Go about .7 mi. to 205 N. Broadway.

That's the  Walter Payton's 'Roundhouse Restaurant'  We expect the vigil will be along the Broadway, near the restaurant.

PLEASE CONTACT SOME FRIENDS, AND PEACE FOLKS AND TURN OUT A GOOD CROWD FOR THIS. PASS THE WORD ALONG TO ANYONE WHO MAY BE INTERESTED. See you Friday in Aurora !

-Dave Martin DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition
http://dupagepeace.home.att.net/
to subscribe to the Coalition mail listserve:
http://dupagepeace.home.att.net/maillist.html


On Friday, March 15th, the Fox Valley Pledge of Resistance together with the DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition and individual peace activists from surrounding areas will hold a peace vigil outside the Roundhouse Restaurant at 205 N. Broadway in Aurora, from 5:00 PM till about 7:00 PM. Inside the restaurant at that time, local Republicans will be holding a fund-raiser for the re-election campaign of House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

We are holding this peace vigil to ask Dennis Hastert to take this message back to the Bush Administration and to his colleagues in Congress: 1) There is a peace movement alive and growing out here, even in the suburbs of Chicago. And 2) We oppose this war , especially any widening of the war.

The self-defense argument, which was used to justify the war in Afghanistan, surely cannot justify attacks on countries that had no connection with the evil attacks of September 11th.  An attack on Iraq, North Korea or Iran would be a war of aggression.

The Bush administration has decided that Iraq needs a "regime change."  If the United States implements such a change, then some other country may decide to give the United States a "regime change."  If the United States does not abide by the principles of international law, and does not honor the role of the United Nations and the World Court, then why should other countries do so?

Researcher Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire estimates that over 3500 Afghan civilians were killed by American bombing in the first two months of the war.  Some may question the accuracy of Professor Herold's estimates.  But the American press does not even offer an alternative casualty count.  They remain silent on the question, and treat any discussion of Afghan civilian casualties as taboo, almost unpatriotic.  American lives lost are treated as infinitely precious, as indeed they should be.  But the lives, and the deaths and the suffering of Afghans and other third world peoples barely rate a mention.

About one million Iraqis have died over the past eleven years as a result of our sanctions.  Now Iraqis, while they are oppressed by the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, also live in dread of another American attack on their country.  If we attack them, it will be civilians who do most of the suffering and the dying.

Meanwhile here at home, our civil liberties are curtailed and our domestic needs are neglected as the military industrial complex eats up our surplus and brings us into deficit.

Violence will not end terrorism.  Violence solves almost no problems in the long term.  Poverty, oppression and ignorance breed terrorism.  It is time that the United States turned its efforts to the root causes of terrorism.