January 29th, 2010 | 
Author: 
The billboard above will appear on northbound U.S. Highway 101 at Grand Ave just south of San Francisco on Monday August 28th. Right click on this image then click {save} to download it.
We live in an age where morality has taken a back seat to self-interest, where human life is assigned a worth by the Pentagon, and where justice is jailed without trial or verdict in the corridors of the U.N Security Council.
In this billboard, we admittedly simplify the story of the Iraqi people’s ten years of suffering. But we also remind motorists as they drive by, that every 12 minutes a child dies in Iraq as a result of U.S. led sanctions. During a typical 34 minute commute, three Iraqi children will have perished, as additional testimonials to the “effectiveness” of the U.S.-led embargo on Iraq. We ask you to look at the smiling child in this billboard and to imagine her dead by the time you reach your destination. Can you live with that?
Posted in 
Focus on the People of Iraq
Making Connections
a two-day forum of facts and culture
Saturday and Sunday • April 13 – 14
9:00 a.m. through the evening
Oakland YWCA • 1515 Webster Street at 15th Street (near 12th Street BART station)
$10-30 donation requested • no one turned away for lack of funds
For the past eleven years, the United States has illegally maintained a brutal blockade (“sanctions”) against the people of Iraq, directly causing the deaths of more than 1.5 million innocent Iraqi men, women and children (mostly children), and has conducted every-other-day air combat sorties over illegally-imposed “no-fly zones,” dropping bombs and firing missiles nearly every week for eleven years. For the past 11 years, the United States has been waging war on the people of Iraq.
• What have been the effects of our barbaric actions on the people of Iraq?
• Who are the people of Iraq?
• To answer those questions, a two-day forum focusing on the people of Iraq will be held at the Oakland YWCA –– with panel discussions, hip-hop music, Middle Eastern music and dance, speakers, questions and answers, food, action groups, letter writing, poetry and presentation of associated issues. The Forum is intended to help build a global, intergenerational movement.
Saturday:
• Keynote speaker Nabil Al-Hadithy, Iraqi-American spokesperson
• Ilitifat Al Gazawi on life in Iraq today. Eyewitness account.
• Panel: “Inside Iraq” the people of Iraq, their culture, and the economic and political aspects of Iraq
–– Mahmoud Suleiman, Shayee Khanaka, Barbara Lubin, Gloria Escalona
• Panel: “Regional Issues and Perspectives”–– Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, Iran, Palestine and Turkey –– Ali Alyami, Hatem Bazian, Ahmet Yazgan, Shahram Aghamir, Sonali Kolhatkar
• Carwil James will speak on “The Politics of Oil”
• Larry Everest –– film “Iraq, The War Against the People”
Sunday
• Youth activities and organizing
• Leuren Moret on the deadly use of depleted uranium by the U.S. in the Gulf Conflict.
• Panel: “Links / Solidarity Groups” Korea, the Philippines, Pakistan, Kashmir & India; Vieques
• Miho Kim, Mario Santos, Ravi Bhatnagar
• How Sanctions Work and the “Smart” Sanctions –– Paul George and Carolyn Scarr
• Efforts to end and to break the sanctions– Gulf Conflict veterans Water Project; the Campaign of Conscience, Voices in the Wilderness delegations and witnesses.
• Action Working Group meetings to develop plans for work to end the war on Iraq.
Both evenings: Music, Poetry & Spoken Word
Sponsored by the East Bay Coalition to Stop the Sanctions on Iraq (EB-COSSI)
Co-sponsored by Acting in Solidarity with Afghan People; Afghan Women’s Mission; American Friends Service Committee; American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Arab Women’s Solidarity Association; Asian Pacific Islander Coalition Against War; Asian Pacific Islander for Community Empowerment; Berkeley Environmental Commission; Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission; Dona Spring-Berkeley City Council member; Berkeley Women in Black; Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC; Institute for Multi-Racial Justice; Japan Pacific Resource Network; Korea Solidarity Committee; Middle East Children’s Alliance; Middle East Radio Project; Philippinos for Global Justice, Not War; Philippino Human Rights Commission; Project Underground; Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism; San Francisco Women in Black; Scientists for Indigenous People; U.S. Japan Peace Forum Organizing Committee; U.S. Japan No War Network; Women for Peace; and Women of Color Resource Center.
Signing, Wheelchair Access, Childcare –– please RSVP