Thousands sign petition against war on Iran

With the U.S. bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and casualties continuing to rise among both occupying forces and civilians, it seems irrational that the U.S. government and the Pentagon could be contemplating taking military action against yet another country with a large Islamic population. But wounded empires do not act “rationally,” and it is wise to take U.S. threats against Iran quite seriously.

That is what thousands of people are doing. They are responding to an online campaign to “Stop the war on Iran before it starts!” The graphic above is the text of a statement that is gathering signers and financial support on the StopWarOnIran.org site. The initiators of this action hope to raise enough money to run the petition as an ad in major newspapers.

After just a week of its being online, 618 organizations had endorsed the statement, and over 3,000 individuals had also signed on. There is a place for the public to generate emails to political figures, too. By Feb. 20, over 100,000 emails had been sent to public officials telling them to oppose any war on Iran.

signers of the petition included Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, founding president of Pax Christi; author Michael Parenti; former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark; author and historian Howard Zinn; British MPs George Galloway and Tony Benn; former UN Assistant Secretary-General Denis J. Halliday; Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter; Margarita Papandreou, former First Lady of Greece; Ardeshir Ommani, co-founder of American-Iranian Friendship Committee; Prof. Ervand Abra hamian; and Leslie Feinberg, Nat'l LGBT Caucus Co-chair, National Writers' Union/UAW.

To add your name or your organization’s name to the ad, make a donation, see the full list of signers, or get more information, go to StopWarOnIran.org.