updates via email:



Subscribe to this siteXML feedRSS feed
[What is this?]



Partner Sites

About Us

Search



Elsewhere

Ojai Bloggers

© 2006-2009 The Ojai Post
all rights reserved

The views expressed herein are the personal views of each individual author or commenter and are not intended to reflect the views of The Ojai Post or its Authors, Tribal Core or Tyler Suchman as managing editor.

Back to The Ojai Post home

Friday the 13th...A Day For Hope?

This note was sent via email by Clive and Marion Leeman of the Ojai Peace Vigil, 2007 recipients of the OPC’s Noble Peace Prize, and is originally posted at ojaipeace.org:

Dear Peace Friends,

Today, November 13, was the fifth anniversary of the Ojai Peace Vigil, which started one week after Bush won re-election in 2004.

By fortunate coincidence, we also received the first sign yesterday, Thursday, November 12, that a huge policy change in the Afghan War may be coming. News was leaked yesterday that U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, a retired general and former commander of U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, has been advising President Obama by email not to send any more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Apparently, the president has now scrapped the four military options he has been considering, all entailing an increase in troops.

Just as intriguing is the news presented on The Rachel Maddow Show last night that President Obama has been reading Lessons In Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, by Gordon Goldstein, which demonstrates how JFK rejected the advice of his generals on Vietnam and took control of the decision-making process himself, and how LBJ acquiesced to the generals and ended up with a disaster.

President Obama has asked all his White House staff to read Goldstein’s Lessons in Disaster.

Goldstein, a former security counsel to the United Nations, points to a curious historical synchronicity: just as the former commanding general in Afghanistan who is now U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, has been urging the U.S. president not to send more troops to Afghanistan, so the former commanding general in VIetnam and U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, General Maxwell Taylor, urged President Johnson not to send any more troops to VIetnam.

Unfortunately, LBJ paid him no heed. We hope Obama responds otherwise.

Today, three young men from Nordhoff High School joined us at the vigil. They seemed excited at the possible prospect of peace. For their sake, and the sake of all young Americans who may have to bear the burden of war, we pray that peace comes soon.

Blessings,

Clive and Marion

Share

Posted by evan austin on November 14, 2009 08:30 AM | | | Friday the 13th...A Day For Hope?

Back to The Ojai Post home

Post a comment

Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. You also agree not to impersonate any regular authors or commenters with the intent to participate in deceptive dialogue. Violators may be banned.

Please treat fellow commenters with civility and respect, as if you were engaging in person. Despite differing opinions, we would all like to see Ojai's character and quality of life preserved and improved for generations to come. We're in this together.

(will not be published)

(you may use HTML tags for style - link to example)
<a href="http://www.ojaievents.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Ojai Events</a>
<b>Bold Text</b>
<i>Italicized Text</i>
<u>Underlined Text</u>
<blockquote>Nice Purple Blockquote</blockquote>