Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Gaza.

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Gaza.

Will Secret Service try to stop protesters?

Chicago IL – In a surprise move Jan. 12, the City of Chicago granted permits to the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) for a rally and march on May 19. CANG8 is mobilizing against the summits of NATO and the G8 occurring in Chicago that weekend.

Parliamentary elections took place in occupied Iraq on March 8 as rockets and mortars slammed into the Green Zone and U.S. military bases across the country. The U.S. government and its allies in occupied Iraq have hailed the election as a victory for democracy ( Newsweek went so far as to write “Victory at last” across the cover of their latest issue), but the reality is anything but. The elections are nothing but a continuation of the same illegal, unjust occupation political process that began when the U.S. invaded and overthrew the anti-imperialist Iraqi government in 2003. The latest election only serves to consolidate the existence of a puppet regime loyal to the U.S. occupation.

In the face of growing resistance, the U.S. is unable to consolidate its occupation of Iraq. Efforts to quickly assemble a puppet regime have failed. As we go to press, dozens of attacks are taking place on U.S. and British forces on a daily basis. The number of Americans killed and wounded is surpassing the causalities of the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon is weighing the issue of sending additional troops, while former Defense Department officials are speaking of a guerrilla war that will last for years.

In the face of a growing Iraqi resistance movement, the plans of the Bush administration to consolidate the occupation of Iraq are crumbling. The Pentagon acknowledges that attacks on the occupation forces are growing in scale and intensity. U.S. attempts to gain more military and financial support, within and outside of the United Nations, have by and large failed. So have efforts to create a viable Iraqi puppet government. The Governing Council, made up of U.S. appointees, has little legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people or in the region as a whole.

The continued strength of the Iraqi resistance has created a growing crisis for the occupiers.

Palestinian children are shot down and murdered by Israeli troops every week. Their blood is on the streets and their funerals are pictured in our magazines. Using U.S. guns, mortars, tanks, and helicopters, the Israeli state has killed over 400 people since September. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been wounded.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the Israeli army to intensify its attacks. The result – a wave of assassinations, armed incursions into Palestinian towns and villages and more operations to arrest activists in the Palestinian resistance. Using any means at hand to achieve these goals, Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ serves as a pretext and cover. More than 17 Palestinians have been killed since Christmas, including three children under the age of 11 who were shot in the head.

An upsurge of armed resistance to the U.S. occupation has swept across Iraq over the past six weeks. Most of the fighting was initially concentrated in the southern port city of Basra, and then in the densely populated Sadr City, an impoverished suburb of the capitol Baghdad. The fighting in Basra and Sadr City is significant in that it represents a decisive rejection by the masses of Iraqi Shiites of the occupation government’s ‘political process.’