John Kerry’s Policy On Iraq Criticized

Boston, July 27, 2004 -- United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the national anti-war coalition, is criticizing John Kerry at the Democratic Convention in Boston about his stance on Iraq. In a widely disseminated open letter, published as an advertisement in this week’s Boston Phoenix newspaper, UFPJ invokes Senator Kerry’s famous 1971 question to the Senate Foreign Relations committee concerning Vietnam, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Calling the war on Iraq, “the most dangerous and immoral action taken by the U.S. government since…Vietnam,” the letter urges Kerry to denounce the ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

“So far, all we have heard from you are politically calibrated platitudes about staying the course,” reads the letter.

Among the ten thousand signers of the letter are Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover.

“John Kerry once had a proud history of standing up against immoral war,” explains UFPJ national steering committee member Van Gosse, who is the co-chair of Historians Against the War. “Now he is running away from his own past. We’re calling on him to show the same courage today that he showed three decades ago.”

The letter to Kerry is posted online at the UFPJ website: http://www.unitedforpeace.org

UFPJ and Boston-based anti-war groups have organized a protest in Boston, for Thursday, July 29, on Canal Street outside the Democratic National Convention to spotlight the role of leading Democrats in supporting the Iraq War. “Far too many Democrats, including John Kerry, have gone along with Bush’s policies on everything from funding the war, to the Patriot Act,” said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of UFPJ. “We need an opposition party in this country.”

UFPJ is also the organizer of a major protest on the eve of the Republican convention in New York City, a march and rally under the banner, “The World Says No to the Bush Agenda.”

United for Peace and Justice is a national coalition with more than 800 groups under its umbrella. Since its founding in October 2002, UFPJ has spurred hundreds of protests and rallies around the country and through out the world, including the two largest demonstrations against the Iraq war.

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For immediate release: July 27, 2004
Contact: Bill Dobbs (212) 868-5545, (917) 822-5422 mobile

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