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# Posted 1:57 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

WHAT THE PROTESTERS ARE SAYING: Here's a passage from the Unity Statement of United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella group organizing tomorrow's largest protest (which I'll be covering):

It is now clear the war on Iraq was the leading edge of a relentless drive for U.S. empire...This military strategy brutally reinforces the empire-building agenda of corporate globalization, which uses “free trade” policies to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few by attacking labor and environmental protections, reducing governments’ control over their country’s economies, and slashing public services...

Emboldened by its military victory in Iraq, the Bush administration has warned Syria, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea that if they don’t comply with U.S. demands, they, too, could be subject to “pre-emptive war” and “regime change.”

No! Not North Korea!

Now's here an excerpt from a 2003 interview with Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator of UFPJ:

[Interviewer]: I heard one of the big three radio networks in their coverage of the Washington march to stop the war, and they described the message coming out of the Oct. 25 rally as a call "to abandon Iraq" -- very highly charged words and a description. How do you respond to those who say that pulling out U.S. forces now from Iraq, would be a recipe for disaster both for Iraq and the
United States?
Leslie Cagan: Well, you know that's been said before in other
situations. People said during the Vietnam era, "We can't leave because there would be a nightmare, there'd be a bloodbath." And in fact when the U.S. left Vietnam that's when the war ended and the bloodbath stopped.

It's true, it's true. North Vietnam did not invade South Vietnam after the United States left. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese 'boat people' didn't become refugees after the American withdrawal. And the Khmer Rouge certainly didn't commit genocide after the United States went home.

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