Subj: URGENT: call the President, please please please
please
Date: 01-11-05 05:00:49 EST
From: Edwardmast@aol.com
Sender: owner-911peace@scn.org
hi everyone
Please call the President today, Monday, now. If you have more time,
please call your two Senators and your Congressperson. Please
tell them
to stop the bombing of Afghanistan immediately because the bombing
is
preventing international relief organizations from taking in the food
that
is necessary to save the lives of as many as 7 million people. That's
all
you have to say. Telephone numbers below. Facts from UNICEF and
others
below. Calling is easy: they have operators waiting to take your
opinion,
though they're getting many phone calls and when calling the President
you
may have to hold for a while.
When winter snows set in, over the next week or two, it will be too
late.
The food aid will not be able to reach the people in Afghanistan, and
millions will starve -- not go hungry, but starve to death -- over
the
next several months. The food is gathered at the borders, but
the aid
groups can't take it in while the country is being bombed. If
the bombing
stops tomorrow, the food will go in tomorrow.
The air-dropped food packages being dropped along with the bombs are
in no
way sufficient to make any dent in the humanitarian catastrophe that
is
unfolding. Only ground-based aid organizations can take in enough
supplies to support the millions of people through the winter.
See the
figures on this below.
I have never asked this many people to make such a call. I WOULDN'T
ASK
IF IT HAD NO CHANCE OF SUCCESS. The President and our government are
already under considerable pressure from a wide range of humanitarian
and
church and other organizations across the country; even some national
media are taking up the call to stop bombing and let aid in.
If you make
only one call this year -- or this decade or maybe your whole life
-- do
this one.
This is an impending holocaust that in one or two weeks will be
irreversible. Our grandchildren are going to ask how we could let this
happen. It can be prevented.
Please call, please please please please now now now.
ed
----------------
President Bush:
Tel: (202) 456-1111 or (202)
456-1414
Fax: (202) 456-2461
president@whitehouse.gov
Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121
For those of you in Washington State:
Senator Maria Cantwell
Tel: (202) 224-3441
Fax: (202) 228-0514
maria@cantwell.senate.gov
Senator Patty Murray
Tel: (202) 224-2621
Fax: (202) 224-0238
senator_murray@murray.senate.gov
(If you absolutely can't call, email is better than nothing. Don't
bother
writing letters: the matter is too urgent, and they're not opening
mail
anyway.)
If you're not concerned, here are some facts:
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations
High
Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF), the World Food Programme and other agencies have issued a
joint
statement warning that:
* A humanitarian crisis of
stunning proportions is unfolding in
Afghanistan;
* More than 5 million Afghans
now require humanitarian assistance
to survive, including 3.8 million who depend on United Nations-delivered
food rations (a number that is expected to rise to 5.5 million in November
2001);
* Nearly 20 percent of those
struggling to survive are children
under the age of 5 years; and
* Lack of safe access has
created a situation where the United
Nations World Food Programme has been forced to suspend operations
in
Afghanistan;
*Recent bombing attacks have
damaged the warehouses of the
International Red Cross as well as the United Nations World Food
Programme, and the agencies' staff, laborers and truckers are now afraid
to load, unload or transport food inside Afghanistan;
*The United Nations
has estimated that more than 50,000 tons of
food must be delivered before the end of November 2001;
* Oxfam International
and other non-governmental organizations
and relief workers have joined in a call for a pause in military action
and an immediate undertaking to stave off mass starvation throughout
Afghanistan by trucking in food before bitter winter snows make such
an
effort futile.
call call call please please now now now now