From ojaipeace.org:
Tonight, just like nearly every Friday night since George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, a tiny and committed group of Citizens will gather under the Pergola in front of Libbey Park for one hour beginning at 5pm, to vigil for an end to War. Tonight’s vigil carries an extra message: we mark the grotesque milestone of 1,000 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan. (1,007 as of today, according to icasualties.org).
Please consider adding your voice and body to our community’s visual call for an end to war, by coming to Libbey Park at 5pm. Signs and candles are welcome, though optional. Dress warmly, and know that it might be sprinkling by then. In addition, a visitor from New York City who will be joining us sends along the image above, which is to be used as an armband at vigils like ours. Click on the image to visit the page where several versions are available for download and printing.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Obama has done NOTHING about pulling us out of Iran either…ALL politicians are crooks, liars and thieves.
We’re not in Iran.
You want peace? Stop buying gas. Else stop whinin’.
Thank you for reminding us of the connection between gas and war.
Check it out:
Peak Oil
the real connection between Iraq and 9/11
The most important question facing the human race is how we respond to the interconnected crises of Peak Oil, Climate Change, overpopulation, and resource conflicts.
How we use the remaining oil will determine what the “post carbon” society will be:
do we “spend” it on solar panels or battleships?
on relocalizing food production or further “globalization” of production?
more superhighways or better trains?
more coal, oil and nuclear, or more renewable energy systems?
http://www.oilempire.us/peakoil.html
We are not in Afghanistan for oil. Afghanistan is not an oil producer.
We are not in Afghanistan to “secure” a pipeline route, as some have suggested. We can secure such a route any number of simpler and cheaper ways.
We are not in Afghanistan to route out terrorists. When we had the Al Qaeda leadership locked down in Tora Bora years ago, the decision came from on high to permit their escape. (How else do you explain the decision to pull back U.S. troops and send in unreliable “Afghan” warlord-run forces, while opening an escape route?) Now the “terrorists” are in east Africa, Pakistan, and other places besides Afghanistan.
We are not in Afghanistan to establish democracy. The recent election was universally recognized as a complete fraud. We have done nothing to help build up civilian political parties. We endorse warlords in the drug business in government.
Why are we in Afghanistan at all?
As best I can tell, the only thing they have is opium.
Is it a coincidence that we decided we hate the Taliban months after the Taliban had begun uprooting poppy fields?
Is it a coincidence that seven years into our occupation, Afghanistan is the world’s largest opium producer?
Is it a coincidence that the brother of our handpicked President, Hamid Karzai, is well-known to be knee-deep in the drug business?
Logic tells us that when we eliminate all of the answers but one, that one is the answer.
In the case of Afghanistan, as crazy as it may seem, it appears that our troops are there to secure control of a key asset in the global heroin business, for the benefit of somebody. Obviously not us.
What am I missing? Is there another answer that is not patently absurd?
I am not discounting the confluence of interests in this country that drive us to wage war generally. Our war industry demands to be fed – but those folks don’t really care where we attack, just so we drop lots of bombs and use up lots of high tech ammo. (I suppose they prefer we stick to places they don’t generally go for vacation or second homes.) Same with the politicians and corporate media, who feed on the fear of war – any war will do, the only issues for them being they prefer the war be on people who cannot really fight back, who are far enough away and unknown enough that they can be painted as a scary threat. It does not strike me that these interests alone explain why we are in Afghanistan, as opposed to anywhere else.
Afghanistan has heroin. That’s it, right? Our troops are fighting for turf in the heroin business.