Meditation Focus #83
Unconditional Love - Total Forgiveness
Hello,
What follows is the 83rd Meditation Focus suggested for the two consecutive weeks beginning Sunday, March 9, 2003.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND TOTAL FORGIVENESS
1. Summary
2. Meditation times
3. More information on this Meditation Focus
1. SUMMARY
As the world enters the last stretch before the onset of a massive aerial bombardment preceeding the invasion of Iraq by U.S. and British troops and following the virtual announcement by the U.S. President in a rare press conference that, with or without a UN resolution authorizing the use of force, he will order his armed forces to attack Iraq ("when it comes to our security, we really don’t need anybody’s permission"), the world community is left with the growing realization that no matter how widespread and well organized the opposition to such a war is, nothing is apparently going to succeed in preventing it. Thus with the pictures or war and the echos of human suffering soon to fill our daily news for possibly weeks or even months to come, the peacemaking resolve of men and women of goodwill will be seriously tested as the chorus of calls for revenge arising from Muslim countries and the outraged protests of horrors erupting in the rest of the world will reach a cacaphonic pitch and as our hopes for a true global peace will seem dashed under the rolling juggernaut of military hubris unleashed by the "peace-making" drive of the hawks dominating the current U.S. Administration.
At this hour of the highest need for spiritual succour and sustenance, the last thing humanity needs is for Light Servers and likeminded souls to lose sight of their highest mission, of the very reason why they chose to come in the crucible of this evolutionary crossroad, each according to their unique talents and precious gifts. While it is not for anyone but each of our own inner guidance to spell out what this mission entails at any point in time, it is generally fair to assume that love must be the guiding beacon of all our thoughts, words and actions, but especially more so of which emotions we allow to rise and expand from ourselves. The combined power of our totally dedicated and absolutely unconditional Love must never be deflected from its intended goal of global healing of ALL souls currently embodied on Earth and no amount of suffering caused by the misconceived choices of any human being must prevent this Love from being radiated towards where the greatest needs are. From the well of understanding that springs forth from the Source of all Love as we channel and help to step down this Universal Energy of Goodness towards serving the Will of God here on Earth and beyond, we can also gather that total and uncompromising forgiveness is the only way to be totally unobstructed and uncompromisingly pure channels for this Universal Force of Love.
Please dedicate your prayers and meditations, as guided by Spirit, in the coming two weeks, and especially in synchronous attunement at the usual time this Sunday and the following one, to contribute in co-creating a sustained field of unconditional Love, guided by total forgiveness, enfolding the entire planet and informing humanity's consciousness that no matter what events are transpiring on the physical stage, the long-planned era of Peace, Love and Harmony for all is well underway and will inevitably manifest in due time, for the Highest Good of All.
This whole Meditation Focus is also available at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/MeditationFocus83.htm
2. MEDITATION TIMES
i) Global Meditation Day: Sunday at 16:00 Universal Time (GMT) or at noon local time. Suggested duration: 30 minutes.
ii) Golden Moment of At-Onement: Daily, at the top of any hour, or whenever it better suits you.
These times below now correspond to 16:00 Universal Time/GMT:
Honolulu 6:00 AM -- Anchorage 7:00 AM -- Los Angeles 8:00 AM -- Denver 9:00 AM -- San Salvador, Mexico City, Houston & Chicago 10:00 AM -- New York, Toronto & Montreal 11:00 AM -- Halifax, Santo Domingo, La Paz & Caracas 12:00 PM -- Montevideo, Asuncion * & Santiago * 1:00 PM -- Rio de Janeiro * 2:00 PM -- London, Dublin, Lisbon, Reykjavik & Casablanca 4:00 PM -- Lagos, Algiers, Geneva, Rome, Berlin, Paris & Madrid 5:00 PM -- Ankara, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Athens, Helsinki & Istanbul 6:00 PM -- Baghdad, Moscow & Nairobi 7:00 PM -- Tehran 7:30 PM -- Islamabad 9:00 PM -- Calcutta & New Delhi 9:30 PM -- Dhaka 10:00 PM -- Rangoon 10:30 PM -- Hanoi, Bangkok & Jakarta 11:00 PM -- Hong Kong, Perth, Beijing & Kuala Lumpur +12:00 AM -- Seoul & Tokyo +1:00 AM -- Brisbane, Canberra & Melbourne +2:00 AM -- Wellington * +5:00 AM
+ means the place is one day ahead of Universal Time/Greenwich Mean Time.
* means the place is observing daylight saving time (DST) at the moment.
You may also check at http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/full.html to find your current corresponding local time if a closeby city is not listed above.
3. More information on this Meditation Focus
This complement of information may help you to better understand the various aspects pertaining to the summary description of the subject of this Meditation Focus. It is recommended to view this information from a positive perspective, and not allow the details to tinge the positive vision we wish to hold in meditation. Since what we focus on grows, the more positive our mindset, the more successful we will be in manifesting a vision of peace and healing. This complementary information is provided so that a greater knowledge of what needs healing and peace-nurturing vibrations may assist us to have an in-depth understanding of what is at stake and thus achieve a greater collective effectiveness.
From: http://www.dawn.com/2003/03/07/top18.htm
US prepares 'shock & awe' plan for Iraq
WASHINGTON, March 6: The Pentagon has prepared a "shock and awe" plan to destroy the Iraqi defence and intends to drop 10 times as many bombs on Iraq as in the opening days of the 1991 Gulf War, US officials said on Thursday.
They said US and British pilots had already "tripled" their sorties over the no fly zone in southern Iraq on Thursday.
The strategy, they said, aims at engaging Iraqi air defence so that they are caught unaware when the actual attack begins.
Pentagon officials said some 300,000 US troops had already reached the Gulf region or were waiting in the nearby areas.
In northern Iraq, the officials said, US troops have employed hundreds of Kurds to build airstrips for bringing in the 101st Airborne Division in the event of war.
Defence analysts in Washington say that such moves indicate that the Bush administration is not allowing the current diplomatic row over Iraq to affect its war preparations.
Pentagon officials say they have ordered an irregular pattern of flights over invasion routes in the south, making it more difficult for Iraqi air defenders to foresee a shift from air patrols to actual combat.
They said that several hundred sorties a day are now being flown over southern Iraq, including F-16 and other attack planes as well as surveillance, refuelling and other support aircraft.
During the war, powerful airstrikes with thousands of bombs and missiles would be combined with quick ground assaults to overwhelm the Iraqi forces, the officials said.
The aim is to prevent the Iraqi military from launching a major retaliatory strike and convince them that they can't win, Pentagon officials said.
They said part of that plan is to launch an initial air bombardment using 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the opening days of the 1991 war.
Targets will include Saddam's military and political headquarters, air defences, and communications facilities.
The Pentagon says the ordnance possibly earmarked for Iraq includes a new kind of weapon - nicknamed "the mother of all bombs." Considered the biggest bomb in the US conventional arsenal, it weighs 21,000 pounds. Like its predecessor, the "daisy cutter," the bomb's blast would create a huge mushroom cloud. CLIP
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From: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030307/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_diplomacy
U.S., Britain Propose March 17 Deadline (March 7)
UNITED NATIONS - The United States and Britain proposed an ultimatum Friday for Saddam Hussein to comply with U.N. inspections by March 17 or face a military attack.
But France, Germany, and other Security Council members rejected the plan, an amended U.S.-British-Spanish resolution that paves the way for war. Opponents said the proposal would automatically lead to military action, and France threatened to wield its veto.
U.S. officials said they want a vote early next week.
The council meeting, held a day after President Bush said the crisis was in its "last phase of diplomacy," appeared to leave Washington and London struggling for U.N. support. Despite weeks of diplomatic maneuvering, they have been unable to muster the nine votes necessary for the resolution's passage.
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have said that if necessary, they would go to war without U.N. backing. But both know that U.N. support would give the war international legitimacy and guarantee that members of the organization would share the costs of rebuilding Iraq.
CLIP
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From: http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=23422
Dear Mr. Bush Tariq A. Al-Maeena
I am sure you have been sent quite a few letters on the following subject, and I am certain that more will follow. However, my conscience compels me to write down my thoughts, however futile. Whether these letters ever get to you is another question, and whether you have the time to read them is a moot point.
Shortly after you were elected by 50 percent of those who cast their ballots, a heinous crime took place on your shores. One committed by those promoting mayhem and destruction. A crime without precedent within your borders. A tragedy denounced by all proponents of humanity.
In your quest to stamp out terrorism, you bombed Afghanistan. And when that failed to capture the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, you elected to scare your constituents into believing that Al-Qaeda was freely roaming Iraq. When that charge was challenged not only in your country but around the world, suddenly the people of the United States were confronted with an alarming concept: Weapons of mass destruction. They are weapons, you have publicly emphasized, capable of delivering nuclear warheads to US shores. Scenarios of blown cities and massive destruction, of germ warfare and bloated bodies, were fed daily to the already frightened public by the various organs of your government. And many believed you then. For where was the proof to the contrary?
You took your case to the United Nations. There were even some ominous-looking samples of such weaponry presented to the world to back your assertion that Iraq was preparing for a massive onslaught on your country. And you drew concessions from the UN to sanction detailed inspections of Iraq’s offensive machinery. The inspectors have been swarming all over Iraq for some months now. No smoking guns have been located yet, nothing capable of remotely striking American interests either in the US or in the regions bordering Iraq. As a matter of fact, your initial charge is today reduced to nit-picking over whether missiles with a range of fifty to eighty miles constitute a violation of UN resolutions.
In the meantime, you collared the ever-obedient Mr. Blair on this side of the Atlantic into trotting out your doomsday scenario. Amidst rising concerns around the world at your policy of aggression, you began to mobilize and dispatch troops and war machinery to the region to prepare for an attack. Your Pentagon generals, we are told, would employ the strategy of raining down 10 times the bombs on Iraq in the opening hours than were used in the entire Gulf War in 1991. A shock-and-awe punch meant to maximize damage. A showering inferno over a defenseless people who had absolutely nothing to do with that dreadful day in September. You may lead your public to believe that your God-fearing virtues are the impetus behind this determination to take war to the Iraqi people. But if you honestly believe that Saddam Hussein will be your first victim when those weapons of destruction fall, then you are sadly mistaken. If anything, Saddam has proven over time that he will willingly sacrifice his own people to save his hide.
So who would really suffer and die? People without names and faces to the media circus preparing to cover the news, but victims nonetheless, whose identities will forever be etched in the minds of their loved ones. Turn toward your family for a moment Mr. Bush. Would you welcome any acts of aggression toward your wife or your daughters, carried out under the lofty pretensions of saving humanity? Or is it your belief that while an American life is significant and worthy, all others are not?
And while Iraq’s pitiful arsenal seems to occupy so much of your aggressive rhetoric, you remain strangely silent over the threat further to the east, in a place called North Korea. The North Koreans continue to thumb their noses at you, but, in a bizarre twist of logic you choose to deal with them through Security Council resolutions, while in Iraq you have stated on countless occasions that you are prepared to “go it alone” if necessary, regardless of the UN.
Dear Mr. Bush, I understand that today you are between a rock and a hard place. You have stationed over 300,000 troops in the region. You have cemented your bellicose stance. Anything less than war may signal a quick end toward your ambiguous political career.
Set aside visions of a second term and contemplate for a moment the sad reality following a war. Your actions will create a new breed of terrorists, innocent today, who will carry the message of vengeance far into the future. Instead of making America a safer place for Americans, you will have succeeded in making the world a less safe place for all of us.
I fervently hope that deep in your soul, the prospect of this war of aggression has sown conflicting seeds of doubt. If ever there was a time to act like the righteous and God-fearing Christian you claim to be, it is now. Now is the time to take the bold step of reducing the tensions your policies have given rise to in so many regions of the world. Now is the time to prove that the United States of America is indeed a beacon of liberty and hope, not just to its own people but to the rest of the world.
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, clsencounters@hotmail.com
Arab News Features
8 March 2003
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From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54153-2003Mar6.html
Unready for the Aftermath
March 7, 2003
Despite months of planning by the Bush administration to respond to the humanitarian challenges that could follow an attack against Iraq, preparations for dealing with displacement, injury, illness and food shortages remain inadequate. If current problems continue, the suffering caused by war could be amplified by lack of aid resources and coordination.
The most urgent need could be food. The United States boasts that it has shipped nearly 3 million humanitarian daily rations to the region to help feed Iraqis. But individual meal packets will feed only a tiny portion of Iraq's 24 million people, and for just a few days. A United Nations official recently called U.S. and U.N. preparations to feed the Iraqi people "grossly inadequate." The official said that "they need to be sending ships of wheat to the Persian Gulf, along with ships of soldiers."
More than a decade of U.N. sanctions has left approximately 16 million Iraqis dependent on government rations for their entire food supply under the U.N. Oil-for-Food program; most of the remaining 8 million Iraqis rely on government rations for a portion of their daily food basket. The U.N. Children's Fund estimates that more than 2 million Iraqi children will require therapeutic feeding in the event of a conflict. A break in the U.N. food pipeline could cause "extremely grave" conditions, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, director of the U.N. World Food Program office in Baghdad, told The Post. He estimates that 10 million people could run out of food within six weeks of the start of a war. "After that we will have to feed 10 million people. Eventually, we'll have to feed the entire population," Lopes da Silva said. The World Food Program currently has enough food in the region to feed 900,000 people for 10 weeks.
Preparations to deal with refugees and displaced people also are behind schedule. The United Nations estimates that in the "medium impact scenario" -- a two- to three-month conflict involving ground troops -- 1.45 million refugees and asylum seekers would try to reach neighboring countries, and 900,000 people would be newly displaced within Iraq. Yet Ruud Lubbers says that his agency, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the world's first responder when people flee their countries, lacks the resources to prepare for a flood of refugees.
So far the U.N. refugee office has raised less than $20 million of the $60 million it is seeking for tents, stoves, blankets and other materials for refugee camps. Most of that money came from the United States. As result, the agency has positioned only about 20 percent of the equipment it needs in the region. In a flurry of news conferences last week, administration officials admitted that the military may have to provide food and medical assistance during and immediately after a conflict, but they said humanitarian tasks would quickly be turned over to the United Nations and private relief agencies. Sadly, private relief agencies, most of which depend on government funding, aren't yet well prepared for the task.
Although the United States has spent $2.4 billion to send troops to the Persian Gulf region, it has spent less than $1 million to position relief agencies in the region. An official at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently told a conference that his biggest concern is the small number of private relief agencies ready to move quickly into Iraq.
Lack of preparedness by U.N. and private relief agencies means the U.S. military will have to do most of the relief work, and this in turn could mean that the suffering of the Iraqi people will be greater than necessary. Administration officials have done little to match the skills of relief agencies -- some are specialists in medical care, others in water and sanitation projects, for instance -- with projected needs. One urgent unanswered question is: Who will care for Iraqis exposed to weapons of mass destruction? Humanitarian organizations lack the skills and equipment to handle this challenge.
In modern warfare, precision bombs limit civilian casualties during the conflict, so that most death and suffering occurs in the post-conflict period, when people are displaced, poorly fed or prone to disease because water sanitation and sewage systems have been disabled. This means that rapid humanitarian intervention is just as important to holding casualties down as quick military victory. The United States may be ready for war, but it is not yet ready to help Iraq recover from war.
Kenneth H. Bacon, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs from 1994 to 2001, is president of Refugees International. George Rupp is president of the International Rescue Committee.
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From: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20030309/ap_on_re_us/anti_war_movement
Activists Plan Strong Anti-War Strategy (March 9)
BOSTON - They have marched and chanted, hoping to use persuasion to prevent war. If that fails, though, activists are readying a more aggressive strategy of sit-ins and social disruptions, meant to restore peace in Iraq.
Protest sit-ins, especially at federal buildings, defense recruiting offices and military bases, have been mapped out for dozens of cities in the first day or two of any war, anti-war organizers say. Some also foresee widespread walkouts at schools and workplaces. A smaller number talk of blocking roads and bridges.
"Once war happens, there will be civil disobedience. It's bringing to a higher level what people have been doing," said coordinator Bal Pinguel at the American Friends Service Committee, an arm of the pacifist Quaker church.
The peace movement that has taken shape in the United States and around the world uses organizing technology — including the Internet and e-mail — that was not available the last time such large-scale domestic anti-war activism took place, in the Vietnam War era.
On Saturday, demonstrators gathered by the hundreds in cities across the nation, an increasingly common sight as the conflict looms closer. In Washington, police and organizers estimated between 4,000 and 10,000 demonstrators turned out in conjunction with International Women's Day; by late afternoon, 25 people were arrested on charges of crossing a police line in front of the White House.
The event was organized by the group CodePink, whose name protests the government's terror alert system. "The White House is definitely afraid of women in pink and the power of love," said CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.
Once spearheaded largely by leftist students, hippies and draft-card burners, the peace movement is now taking on more support from the mainstream: labor unions, war veterans, middle-aged professionals, and teenagers born years after the last draft. Almost 100,000 backers have donated to Peace Action, one of the biggest anti-war groups, over the past six months, coordinators say.
Still, despite its broader reach, it is unclear if the highly decentralized peace movement can marshal protests that can disrupt the war effort or win public sympathy. Some peace activists themselves harbor doubts that they can prevent a war against Iraq.
"There's a good chance we won't be able to stop it," said Kate Pearson, a Chicago organizer at Not in Our Name.
In a counter effort, rallies to support President Bush and U.S. troops in a possible war also are being held across the country, and anger at the anti-war movement sometimes is apparent. Echoing a slogan from the 1960s, one placard at an Orlando, Fla., rally read: "America — Love It or Leave It."
Peace activists have mounted mass rallies in major cities reminiscent of the Vietnam era, but they have also held smaller community vigils and discussion groups, and traditional contact-your-congressmen drives.
In January and again in February, peace groups coordinated demonstrations in cities around the world. Hundreds of thousands of protesters unfurled signs and rallied in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, London, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Cairo and other cities.
On Wednesday, thousands of students around the United States walked out of classes. Some Americans have taken quiet, personal actions too.
Anti-war members of the clergy have slipped into Iraq — without U.S. government permission mandated by American sanctions law — or visited European countries to lobby and pray with the local religious communities. Anti-war American doctors have gone to Iraq to evaluate the dangers that war poses for civilians there.
Picking up on domestic anxieties, some anti-war activists have argued that conflict might foster more terrorism that endangers American civilians on their own turf. "It's almost certainly going to guarantee not only more violence in the Middle East, but will almost guarantee another calamitous attack on U.S. soil," said Scott Lynch, a spokesman for Peace Action.
The White House has argued that disarming Iraq is part of its war on terrorism and will disrupt that government's links with terrorist groups.
The peace movement has also embraced a particularly influential contingent of supporters: veterans of the war with Iraq 12 years ago.
"Sept. 11 was nothing compared to the destruction that we visited on Iraq 12 years ago and even more so for what will probably happen this time," said Charles Sheehan-Miles, a decorated tank crewman in the 1991 Persian Gulf War who now wants peace.
President Bush has acknowledged the swelling protests, though they have not changed his mind.
After February's protests, he said he would not decide policy "based upon a focus group." At a White House news conference Thursday, he addressed protesters directly. "I recognize there are people who don't like war. I don't like war," Bush said. But he said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein must be deposed to disarm Iraq and keep the United States safe, and that might only be accomplished with force.
CLIP
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See also:
UN's Blix Gives Mixed Picture of Iraqi Cooperation (March 7)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20030307/wl_nm/iraq_un_weapons_dc
Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said on Friday that Iraq's cooperation fell short of U.N. Security Council demands but called the recent destruction of al-Samoud missiles a "substantial measure of disarmament.
France Stands Ground at UN Against U.S. Rush to War (March 7)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20030307/wl_nm/iraq_un_france_dc
France on Friday flatly rejected a proposal to give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to fully cooperate with disarmament demands by March 17.
British Forces Prepare for War in Days (March 7)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20030307/ap_on_re_mi_ea/kuwait_british_buildup&e=5
Activists Plan Protests if War Starts (Mar 8)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&ncid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20030308/ap_on_re_us/anti_war_movement_4
UK nuclear evidence a fake (March 8)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,910113,00.html
British intelligence claims that Saddam Hussein has been trying to import uranium for a nuclear bomb are unfounded, according to UN nuclear inspectors. British intelligence claims that Saddam Hussein has been trying to import uranium for a nuclear bomb are unfounded and based on deliberately fabricated evidence, according to an investigation by the UN nuclear inspectors in Iraq. The chief nuclear inspector for Iraq, Mohammed El Baradei, yesterday flatly contradicted Downing Street's and British intelligence's claims of attempted uranium smuggling by Iraq and said that the documents used to substantitate the British claim were "not authentic". CLIP
US Bullying African States To Support War (March 6)
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200303060556.html
AS THE UN Security Council nears a showdown vote on war against Iraq, the United States is making an all-out effort to enlist three key African nations in what critics are calling a "coalition of the coerced." Angola, Cameroon and Guinea, each with a potential swing vote on the Security Council, are the focus of intensive American lobbying in the run-up to the March 7 vote on a US-sponsored resolution authorising military force against Iraq. US officials pressing the three countries are engaging in "bullying and acts tantamount to bribery," according to a Washington-based think tank. The US preferential trade scheme known as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) may be used as a lever to persuade Cameroon and Guinea to support the Iraq war resolution, warns the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-of-centre think tank. In an analysis of how the US is assembling a "coalition of the coerced," the institute points to a stipulation in the Agoa law requiring that nations "not engage in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests." Failure to vote in Washington's favour in the Security Council could therefore jeopardise Cameroon's and Guinea's eligibility for Agoa trade benefits, the Institute suggests.
War in the Name of God (March 6)
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/2003/03/000378.html
There are dozens of reasons offered by either side of the Iraq debate for George Bush's overwhelming desire to attack Iraq. Jack Beatty argues in the Atlantic Monthly (http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp2003-03-05.htm) that none of them explain why Bush is willing to pay any price, however steep, to wage war. The answer, Beatty suggests, may lie in Bush's apparent belief that God has appointed him to lead a global crusade against evil. He writes, "If this is what Bush believes, if his talk of Armageddon is not just catnip for the religious right, then he is in a fair way to becoming the American Ayatollah."
UN Withdraws Civilian Staff from Iraq-Kuwait Border Reuters (Mar 8, 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=564&ncid=564&e=5&u=/nm/20030308/ts_nm/iraq_kuwait_observers_dc_3 KUWAIT
U.N. military observers on the Iraq-Kuwait border said on Saturday they were withdrawing civilian staff to Kuwait City for their own safety in view of a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq. Daljeet Bagga, spokesman of the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM), added that UNIKOM had also ceased air and maritime patrols of the demilitarized zone, saying without elaborating that this was a precautionary measure. "We are doing this as a protective measure for their safety in view of the situation," Bagga told Reuters of the decision to withdraw civilian staff. He said UNIKOM had begun on Saturday to remove some of its 230 civilian U.N. staff from their residential quarters in the demilitarized zone that runs the length of the 130 mile land border. More of them would go on Sunday.
Protests put Blair under pressure BBC (Mar 8, 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2832963.stm
Anti-war protests have taken place in towns and cities across Britain as Tony Blair seeks international backing for a plan to give Iraq until 17 March to disarm. (...) However, the Stop the War coalition increased pressure on the government with demonstrations in Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Hertfordshire, West Sussex and south Wales. Up to 10,000 people marched through Manchester in the biggest of the protests. Labour MP George Galloway told BBC News "a lot more" than 10,000 had attended. He said: "This war has no friends. No one can understand the rush - the mad lust to get the fighting started, when the peaceful alternative is working." Mr Galloway described the war as "mass murder" and said if it began people from across Britain would "pour onto the streets" to "do anything they can to show this crime is not being committed in their name". "The children of Iraq are going to bed every night not knowing if this is going to be the night the dive bombers come to kill them and that is a terrible shame on our reputation," said the MP for Glasgow Kelvin.
Totally Unconvincing (March 7)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/882083.asp?0cl=c1
At his press conference, Bush failed yet again to make his case for war. Here’s why. He was steely, determined, resolute—and totally unconvincing to anyone who didn’t already agree with him.
Text of Bush’s March 6 news conference
http://www.msnbc.com/news/881943.asp?cp1=1
Bush Lobbies for U.N. Resolution Support (March 9)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20030309/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq
The machinery of war and diplomacy rolled forward side-by-side at the White House on Saturday as the Bush administration prepared for imminent decisions about military action in Iraq by both international allies and the president. (...) The new resolution, due for a vote next week in New York, faces strong opposition from veto-wielding council members and not yet enough backing yet from others to pass, even without a veto. Newly amended, the proposal would give Saddam until March 17 to totally disarm. If the resolution fails, as seemed likely, military action could come within days, officials have said. The timetable is less certain if it passes.
UnitedForPeace.org
http://www.unitedforpeace.org
Human Shields
http://www.humanshields.org/
Win Without War
http://www.winwithoutwarus.org/
http://www.peace-action.org/
http://www.notinourname.net/
Standoff with Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/iraq
Complete Coverage about Iraq
http://www.msnbc.com/news/attack_front.asp?0cb=-11b133692
Full coverage about Iraq
http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=World&cat=Iraq
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