Redlands/Loma Linda Protestors: No War on Iran

Occupy Redlands is rallying support for a protest against a war with Iran.

The group will participate in a National Day of Action on Saturday to demand “No War on Iran.” The call is sponsored by scores of progressive and anti-war organizations, local organizers said.

Protestors ask, “Who is the real threat to peace?”

Tensions with Iran mounted following the US and European Union's decision to impose sanctions that target Iran's oil industry and central bank, according to several news reports. The goal is to thwart Tehran’s plans for a nuclear program that some suspect is part of an effort to build nuclear weapons.

Iran insists it has no such intentions and has threatened retaliation, according to news reports. Iranian officials warn they may disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global oil shipments. The move could drive up oil prices possibly to an all time high, according to some experts.

Occupy Redlands points to several facts behind their decision to protest.

“Fact: Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon,” members wrote. “Fact: Iran has the right, according to international law, to develop nuclear energy for civilian use.”

“Fact: Iran has never started a war,” they say. Below are more reasons for their protest. And let us know what you think by taking the survey below.

• Fact: The United States possesses 10,600 nuclear warheads in its stockpile, 7,982 of which are deployed and 2,700 of which are in a contingency stockpile. The total number of nuclear warheads that have been built from 1951 to present is 67,500.
• Fact: The United States is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons. It did so when it incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese people living in the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Neither city had any military significance.
• Fact: The United States has spent $7 trillion on nuclear weapons. The U.S. military budget for 2012 alone is about equal to Iran’s entire Gross National Product.
• Fact: The United States and Britain used severe economic sanctions and CIA covert operatives to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran led by Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. The Iranian government under Mosaddegh had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which became known as British Petroleum (BP), in a campaign to use oil profits to eradicate widespread poverty within Iran. The successful CIA and British Intelligence coup d’état put the Shah of Iran (King) back in power. The Shah’s dictatorship denationalized Iranian oil and returned it to the ownership of British and U.S. oil companies. The Shah executed and tortured thousands during his 26-year bloody reign, which ended in the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• Fact: Iran’s oil reserves are the fourth largest in the world—it has 12.7 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. That makes Iran’s oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, greater than those of Iraq.