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Kevin Anderson, Purdue University
Stanley
Aronowitz, New York, NY
Susan Blake,
PeaceSmiths, Long Island, NY
Ronald Bleier
Kaveh Boveiri,
Tehran,
Iran
Grace Braley
Lizzie Czerner,
NYC
Anne Denise, Tropizmo, Los Angeles, CA
Franklin
Dmitryev,
News and Letters
Committees
Matthew
Dodge, Northern Indiana
Kathleen (Kaitlin) Drury, Chicago
Committee
to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Robert Erler, New
York Metropolitan
Alliance of Anarchists (NYMAA)
Joseph Grim
Feinberg,
University of Chicago
Columbia Fiero, New
York Environmental
Law & Justice Project (NYELJP)
Andrea
Fishman,
The New SPACE
Christina Forras, Student
at UTPA
and former intern at WESPAC
Sam Friedman, poet, New
Jersey
Urszula
Frydman, woman prisoner
activist, Oakland,
CA
Jay A. Gertzman, Philadelphia
Thilo Gesche, Paris,
France
Peter
Gorman, writer
Alex Hanna, Purdue
University, West
Lafayette, IN
Ann Marie Hendrickson, Moorish
Orthodox
Radio Crusade(WBAI), Neither
East Nor West
Joshua
Howard, National Co-Chair,
NO-IFS
Peter Hudis, News
and Letters
Committees, Chicago, IL
Anne
Jaclard, National Co-Chair,
NO-IFS
F. John Jeannot, Squire
Park
Community Council, Seattle WA
Tom
Jeannot, Gonzaga University,
Spokane, WA
Dan Karan, New
York,
NY
Ron Kelch, Philosopher Activist,
Oakland,
CA
Andrew Kliman, Pace University,
Pleasantville, NY
Paul
Knopf, New York, NY
Ray Lampe
Robbie
Liben
Allan Lummus, peace and justice
activist, Memphis, TN
Christopher
MacDonald-Dennis,
Brwn Mawr College, Drexel
Hill, PA
David Massey
Bob McGlynn, founding member of
Neither
East Nor West and veteran
leading bike
messenger activist
Ray McKay, New York, NY
Terry Moon,
News and Letters
Committees
Judith Mahoney Pasternak, War
Resisters
League
Andy Phillips, Detroit, MI
Ali Reza,
Chicago,
IL
Brad Rodgers, Lafayette, Indiana
Richard
S., blog Commie Curmudgeon
Carlos Saracino, Lafayette, Indiana
Jason Schulman, Democratic Socialists of
America
Steve Seltzer, New York, NY
Susan Stellar,
Detroit
Agriculture
Network
Vida Tehrani, Los
Angeles, CA
Bill Weinberg, National Co-Chair,
NO-IFS
Steve
Weierman, Lockport, IL
Seth Weiss, The
New SPACE
Steven Wishnia, writer and musician
Anonymous
#1, New
York, NY
Anonymous #2, New York, NY
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The National Organization for
the Iraqi Freedom
Struggles (NO-IFS) is a coalition of individuals
who have come together to oppose the U.S. war against Iraq by
supporting
the secular, democratic, and progressive
movements in Iraq that are struggling for freedom against the occupation
and against
the Ba'athists and the political Islamists of
all stripes, who aim to impose a theocratic state on the Iraqi people.
We intend
to be an organized presence within the American
antiwar movement on the basis of the following principles:
(1) We
recognize
the brutality under which the people of Iraq
live, due to a recent history that includes dictatorship, wars, economic
sanctions,
and, especially, the current occupation by
foreign troops, accompanied by indiscriminate killing and systematic
torture. The
presence of these troops has helped to promote
indigenous reactionary forces that often target women, trade unionists,
and
innocent civilians. The Iraqi people cannot be
free as long as foreign armies occupy their land. We therefore demand
the immediate
withdrawal of U.S. troops and military bases
from Iraq, and an end to the U.S.-created "democratic process" that is
part of
the occupation. We also deem it necessary to
stop the "next war" before it happens. To this end, we will help educate
Americans
as to the causes of continual U.S. intervention
overseas.
(2) We recognize the overwhelming, steadily growing
opposition
of Iraqis to the occupation, but also the sharp
divisions within the opposition. Accordingly, we do not support "the
resistance"
as such. In particular, we oppose all forms of
outright or tacit support for the political Islamist and Ba'athist
forces that
overwhelmingly make up the armed insurgency. We
reject all suggestions that non-Western peoples are somehow less
entitled
than we are to freedom from oppression by
foreign and indigenous reactionary forces.
(3) We support the
secular, democratic,
and progressive freedom struggles in Iraq – the
Iraqi women, workers, and youth who have created their own organizations
within
Iraq, who oppose both the occupation and the
terrorist reaction, and who fight for the rights of women, workers,
national
minorities, and GLBT people. For instance, we
support the efforts of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq to
prevent
the imposition of Sharia law and to maintain
women's shelters; the struggle led by the Basra Oil and Gas Workers
Union, in
defiance of threats and assassinations, against
the privatization of the industry; the demand for secular government put
forward
by the Iraqi Freedom Congress, a new coalition
of several civil groups; and the IFC's efforts to build a non-sectarian,
multi-ethnic
society based on neighborhood assemblies in
communities of Baghdad and Kirkuk. These struggles and their
accompanying ideas
are the latest instance of a long and rich
history of indigenous Iraqi mass movements for self-emancipation – much
of it secular,
feminist, and multiethnic – that existed prior
to the Ba'athist dictatorship. Although these groups are at present
relatively
small and weak, this is no reason to neglect
them. On the contrary, it is a reason to make our support of them an
urgent priority.
(4)
We advocate that the antiwar movement as a whole
adopt this approach to ending the war and occupation – active support
for
the secular, democratic, and progressive freedom
struggles against both the U.S. occupation and the indigenous
reactionary
forces. This type of solidarity is a central way
to build and sustain our movements here. It is by evincing an
unyielding,
principled commitment to human freedom and to
people struggling for freedom – not by explicitly or tacitly supporting a
supposedly
"lesser evil" – that the antiwar movement and
other movements will be able to grow.
New York City
February
2006
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Click
on the link to become a NO-IFS SUPPORTER
!!
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