Strangechord

Jeremy and I went to hear Medea Benjamin speak tonight at Portland State University. She has been a leading progressive activist for over 20 years and is a co-founder of Global Exchange, a non-profit research, education, and action center dedicated to promoting people-to-people ties around the world. She recently traveled to Afghanistan, and spoke about the sad impacts there of the U.S. bombings over the past year. She also discussed the growing activist movement against war with Iraq.

The following is a point taken from the Top Ten Reasons Why the US Should Not Invade Iraq:

8) We Should Not Wage a War for Oil

The Bush Administration says we must invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein has violated UN Security Council resolution, is abusing his own people, and pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Yet the US supports the nuclear-armed dictator of Pakistan and provides billions of dollars in aid to the governments of Turkey and nuclear-armed Israel, both of which are in violation of multiple UN resolutions. The blatant double standard makes one wonder: What is this war really about? The short answer is oil. Iraq has the largest proven reserves of petroleum after Saudi Arabia, and US oil companies, which exercise immense influence over the current administration, are eager to tap into Iraqi oil. This is wrong. We should not attack people in a far-off country to take their resources.

I’ll tell you, the more I read, hear and learn, the more informed I become, the more obvious the choice to rally behind the anti-strike/anti-globalization movement. If you haven’t already, please avert mainstream media sources and truly educate yourself on the matter.