By Debra Sweet

Within days or hours, the U.S. may be bombing Iraq again.  John Kerry predicts drone strikes on Iraq. Democracy Now says today, "The U.S.S. George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier has recently arrived in the Persian Gulf. The carrier is accompanied by the U.S.S. Philippine Sea guided-missile cruiser and the U.S.S. Truxtun guided-missile destroyer, both of which carry Tomahawk missiles that can reach Iraq."

It's time to be in the streets in protest, demanding NO further war on Iraq.

President Obama will appear Tuesday evening in Manhattan, where he will see us. Other protests, including tonight at The White House at 5:00 pm, will happen across the country this week.  We urge you to join in.

Some quick and basic reminders to many of you who have been working to stop US attacks for decades, and to some who weren't even alive when this first began:

The U.S. has been overtly trying to control Iraq since 1990 and is responsible for uncounted deaths from bombs, sanctions, occupation, and destruction of the environment by the use of depleted uranium and other toxic weapons. "Kinetic strikes" have always killed mainly civilians.

The current problem is NOT that the U.S. finally withdrew military forces in 2012, but its illegitimate invasions in 1990 and 2003, and its 20+ year aggressive war of sanctions and occupation against a country which never attacked the U.S.

"The US invasions under both Bushes and the continued occupations under Democrats, both Bill Clinton and Obama, have spawned the sectarian fighting and truly massive suffering in Iraq. Now Obama is trying to drum up support for escalating the U.S.'s war on the Iraqi people in response to the violence that the U.S.'s invasion and occupation have themselves caused." See more in "Iraq: A Point of Orientation" by Dennis Loo, editor of Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush & Cheney.

No party in this fight, not the "insurgents," not the Maliki government--paid for by the U.S.--and certainly not the U.S. itself, has "right" on its side.  In reference to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), one of the insurgent groups fighting the Iraqi government (which has been supported by the U.S. for years), Revolution newspaper reported, "This is a reactionary force. In the sizable areas they control, they ban music, force women to wear the niqab—a covering with only a small opening to see through—and terrorize other Muslim sects and non-believers. There are reports coming out of Iraq that ISIS massacred Iraqi soldiers taken prisoner." Read more.

We in the U.S. need to make a statement to the world that we oppose any U.S. intervention or military attacks in Iraq.  By exposing and standing against the lies and crimes of the U.S. government in Iraq, led first by Bush and now by Obama, we can make a difference in how people see what's going on.

See Raed Jarrar today on Democracy Now, who says that, whatever you name it, from the Iraqi perspective, U.S. military strikes on Iraq will not bring a solution.  He says that almost everyone fighting in the country is an Iraqi, and "The U.S. has historically been part of the problem" and U.S. intervention will only bring more violence.