Subject: URGENT: call the President
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001
 
Hello 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 aion 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:    202 456-1111    or    202 456-1414        fax 202 456 2461
   president@whitehouse.gov

Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121


(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 convinced, 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.