Ten years. Ten long years of invasions and occupations, drone bombings and night raids; of torture chambers, “enhanced interrogation techniques” and indefinite imprisonment without trial. Ten years, and the number of dead is over a million. Ten years, and more than four million people made refugees.
Ten years since Dick Cheney said these wars “may never end. At least, not in our lifetime’’. Stop and think about that. Think about what these ten years of U.S. wars have meant to the people in Iraq , Afghanistan , Somalia , Yemen . Think about the fact that the United States has reserved its “right” to invade wherever it wants, to embed military occupations across the planet, to systematically kill whoever it determines has gotten in their way.
Is that the world you want to live in? Is this the planet we aspire to bequeath to future generations?
On October 6, 2001 George W. Bush announced to the world that the U.S. was poised to invade Afghanistan . On October 6 2011, the world must know that there’s a section of people in this country who are determined that we will not allow these wars to continue in our name.
Think about this decade of war and torture. Understand that on the current trajectory there is no end in sight. Think of the world you would want yourself and others across this planet to live in. And express those thoughts – by being in the streets and on the campuses protesting on October 6, by unleashing a crescendo of creative opposition, by expressing yourself in song, in poetry, in art, in whatever form you can.
The World Can’t Wait