We are hoping you can support this effort to end the war in Iraq.  Please encourage your members to keep in touch with us. 
We appreciate your help.  Give me a call with any questions.  Thank you,  Troy Horton  888-435-8173

 

 

Rallies to end the Iraq war will be held statewide at Senator Gordon Smith’s offices on April the 10th

 

Citizens urging Senator Gordon Smith to vote against any further funding for the war in Iraq will demonstrate outside his five Oregon offices on April 10.  Some are expected to risk arrest to make their cases more persuasively.

 

“Our troops need our help. It is time to bring them home NOW,” said Defund the War Campaign spokesperson Troy Horton. Horton’s group has sent teams to Smith’s Portland office eight times since last November’s election.  “Spending another $100 billion for slow withdrawal is not the answer”, Horton asserted.  The campaign believes that cutting off funding for the war is the only way that the war, which Senator Smith has said he “can not support”, will end.

 

On April 10th demonstrators will gather at Smith's offices in Bend, Eugene, Medford, Pendleton, and Portland.  The Portland rally will be at 12:00 noon at the World Trade Center, 121 SW Salmon Street.  People planning to offer civil resistance and risk being arrested, will meet under the Hawthorne Bridge at 10:30 am.  Those with questions are urged to contact Horton at troyhorton@centurytel.net or 888-435-8173. Specific plans for other offices can be found at www.defundthewar.com

 

All those planning to risk arrest will be required to sign a nonviolence pledge.  Organizers will be working with the police and will provide nonviolent peacekeepers to ensure that the event is nonviolent.

 

Senator Smith said in December, “I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore.”

 

“In asking Senator Gordon Smith to agree to defund the Iraq war, we are simply asking him to walk his talk”, Horton insisted.

 

WHO:  The Defund the War campaign in conjunction with Voices for Creative Nonviolence is asking that Senator Smith agree he will not vote to fund the $100 billion plus supplemental bill that would contain additional monies to continue the Iraq war. Other groups participating in the action are, www.ActiveResource.org , CODEPINK: Women for Peace, Oregon PeaceWorks, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War