By Elaine Brower
As I sit here tonight listening to the crap about extending troop withdrawal 19 months, instead of 16 months, and keeping 50,000 troops in Iraq as so called “advisers” or “trainers” or whatever they want to nickname them, I am outraged! I expected this, but did you?
This is wrong. The occupation is wrong, and those of us in the anti-war movement have been screaming this at the top of our lungs for the last 6 years, even before the first boots were on the ground in Iraq. Even before the campaign of “shock and awe” even lit up the skies above innocent people. What the hell are we thinking? Because it isn’t Bush and Cheney, those loathsome characters we so love to hate that isn’t doing this, it’s Ok? That because it isn’t Don Rumsfeld, that warmongering war criminal of a pig, it’s Ok? Because the face of the occupation is now Barack Obama it’s Ok?
Well I have a newsflash, it’s NOT OK! We have in our infinite wisdom killed over 1 million Iraqis, displaced 2 million, destroyed hospitals, mosques, historical sites, homes, agricultural, stolen natural resources, orphaned children, made widows, killed entire families, sent over 4,200 soldiers to their deaths, severely wounded another 50,000, not including those who have PTSD and are committing suicide in record-breaking amounts, and we think we shouldn’t be out in the streets demanding an end to this now? Why is that?
Right now, if this were 1970, thousands upon thousands of people would be marching outside, almost rioting because this war is not over. We went to the polls twice to tell our so called elected representatives that we want an end to this, and they are ignoring their mandate. Wait and see? Why so we can murder more innocent people, build more walls, and kill our own as well. Come on, people, get with the program. Stop fooling around, nothing was ever accomplished worth a damn by hoping for someone to do the work for you.
This occupation is costing us $10 billion a month, and Obama is now saying he will continue it for 19 months, maybe, possibly longer. That’s $190 billion if my math is right. And what about Afghanistan. How much will that cost us. Who is getting rich off of this and why aren’t the people being listened to.
We were warned of the Military Industrial Complex, and endless wars, and boy we got it. Those of us in the movement, if you want to call it that, haven’t even been a mosquito in the ear of any one in this government. They don’t give a damn about what we have to say, or what our sons and daughters have to go off and do in war.
My son is in Iraq, his third tour of duty in this hellacious war of terror. We have been terrorized, our lives will never be the same, and he could go back? Over my dead body. Get with it, they are not listening to you. When will the movement get out there and demand this end NOW. We attempted to do it under Bush, we must, absolutely must, do it under Obama. We cannot wait 19 months, or even a day. We have been out there calling “not one more day not one more dollar”, yet now those voices are silent.
March 19th marks the 6th year of this mess, and we will mark a 7th, 8th, 9th, and on and on if we don’t stop business as usual for these bastards in Washington. So it’s a weekday, oh, we have to take a day off of work, or move away from our computers, or not walk the dogs! Wherever you are, you must gather your forces and get out into the streets. Take over whatever it is you have to occupy. Demand this government shut down its warmongering policies immediately, and stop sending more troops to Afghanistan. Stop bombing sovereign nations because we “think” there might be a “high value target” somewhere lurking amongst some party goers or innocent villagers who happen to live in the hills.
Damn it. Wake up and see what is going on around you. When your child, wife, husband, brother, sister has to go fight will you be pissed off then? I mean really mad, like I am. Not occasionally mad because you don’t like war. I mean every day mad. Shut down your cities, your communities. Get out en masse and take to the streets, not on a Saturday, but on that Thursday, the day they bombed the crap out of Iraq.
Demand justice be served now, not when politicians feel like it. We cannot leave troops in Iraq. That wasn’t our demand at all. We keep yelling “troops out now!” Say it like you mean it. We lost the battle, but we didn’t lose the war, yet.
Mobilize on the 19th, do something loud and meaningful. Complacency is not acceptable, nor is silence. People are dying, people are crippled for life, we must act now. We owe it to the Iraqi people. We owe it to those who got out in the 60’s and 70’s, our predecessors in the fight for peace. Let’s pick up the sword and continue the fight. Or has the media won, and dumbed us down so much that those of us who want peace, think we can get it through the Internet.
Anti-war activist, mother of U.S. Marine currently on his way to Iraq for a 3rd tour of duty; member of Steering Committee for the "World Can’t Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime" and Military Families Speak Out.
Dear Mrs. Brower and WWW:
A former navy corpsman in Vietnam with the First Marine Air Wing, I have been interested in Bible prophecy of a time of lasting peace for over half a century.
For I was born into World War II’s martial law in this city of Honolulu, and can vaguely recall an early childhood of distant parents, who, it turned out, were stressed out from curfew and blackout/brownout enforced by block wardens overseen by the military.
President Obama, as have so many of his predecessors, is trying to please all influential constituencies. Well, my really substantial effort indicates that he is going to meet with colossal failure, beginning at the end of this very week. So bad it may take substantial urban portions of the country under martial law before April is out.
Please check out my site to get some details. Most certainly, start off with my newest article, the “Executive Summary.” If need be, keep coming back until you’ve read all of this piece. It is downloadable from a separate directory page entitled “Downloads.” If you can believe what you read, seek out a clergyperson who has a head on his/her shoulders, and tell that person what you feel about what you learned and why.
The clergy are the moral authorities of last resort in this country, and it’s time we citizens who know how we’ve been deceived and led along by claims of the need for a national security which is way in excess, to forcefully call upon that source for help. For without the vehement protest of a faithful “remnant” of the Nation’s churches, we could go down wihout a whimper. That’s the meaning I get from interpreting Revelation 12:17.
The real problem is unscrupulous representation in Congress. Congressional decision-making rules are full of provision for horsetrading, which needs to be abolished or at least sharply reduced if we are to quickly convince the middle and working class that the economy will treat them fairly. Requiring the end of secret earmarks in budgeting seems like a no brainer to me.
Nuclear arms are the most brutal man-made thing on earth, and it’s time for them to go too. The increasing violence we’ve seen over the decades of my life has its seeds in these threats of mass destruction, and the handmaiden they justify–covert intelligence operations.
At Daniel 7:26, the Good Book states, “But the judgment shall sit, and shall take away his dominion….” I understand this to be a prophecy of the impeachment and conviction of Dick Cheney, a prophecy which failed. In my interpretation, that means that we are still on the path to the cataclysmic destruction prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
Please see to it.
Aloha from the land of love,
James