Media Release: End all support for US Wars, not just Iraq

From: Auckland Peace Action

Date: 10 June 2019

“It is right and proper that the Prime Minister has ended the NZDF deployment to Iraq. This decision is long overdue. The Iraq deployment has been underway in various manifestations since June 2003 when NZ troops were sent into Basra to serve alongside the British Army,” said Valerie Morse, member of Auckland Peace Action.

“It is absolutely shocking that NZ has been in this war for 16 years. We need to stop and absorb that figure, because that is how long the Iraqi people have endured the US-led occupation. We cannot forget that more than a million people are dead as a direct result of the US’s illegal and unjust war of aggression. The Iraq War is synonymous with human horror. The words ‘shock and awe,’ Fallujah, Blackwater, Abu Ghraib and white phosphorus evoke the most gruesome depths of human misery.

“New Zealand should never have had anything to do with this war.”

“Jacinda Ardern now needs to prioritise ending all New Zealand support for the US War on Terrorism, ending the involvement of the GCSB in intelligence gathering and targeting drone assassinations, ending the deployment of troops to Afghanistan and ending counterterrorism training with US Marines.”

“In 2001, then US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said that the War on Terrorism could last 50 years. This is an ideological war, a war of empire for US domination of the planet. We need to understand that the US has no intention of ever stopping this war. Clearly the next target for Washington is Iran. This is an utterly terrifying prospect.”

“So we need to get out and to seriously reconsider our foreign policy and military alliances. We can choose to work for peace and justice - to find urgently needed solutions for climate change and human survival - or we can continue to be “part of the club” that is hastening the planet’s destruction and causing immeasurable suffering while lining the pockets of the world’s biggest weapons companies. We have a choice. Let’s choose peace.”

ENDS

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