I remember sitting in my living room, six years ago, watching the “Leader of the Free World” announcing that the United States military had just embarked in “shock and awe” against the country of Iraq.
The images made me physically ill, as they had 12 years before when the criminal’s criminal father was bombarding Iraq.
I was also personally sick with fear as my family had “skin in the game,” our son/brother, Casey. On that night, Casey’s life clock starting ticking down: He had exactly one year and 15 days to live from “shocking and awful.”
Six years and over a million lives later, our military is still shamefully in Iraq. Our “Peace President” has created no positive change there and is in fact extending the length of the deployment of “combat troops.” The country has been ethnically cleansed. Violence is down because everyone there is either dead, displaced or too poor, wounded or frightened to move or continue fighting. Violence is down, but not out, and you can bet there will be a strong US military presence in Iraq until every last drop of oil has fallen into the hands of foreign oil companies.
What about Afghanistan? When will the “peace movement” begin to protest the anniversary (Oct. 7, 2001) of the invasion of that war-torn country? When will we begin saying “illegal and immoral” in connection with Afghanistan and start mourning the dead there? Maybe when US casualties begin to ratchet up as Obama surges US troop presence there? Obama is sending incursions farther and farther into Pakistan every day. From one “dumb war” to another “dumb war,” and the cycle of death will never end for we in the Robbed Class or the poor innocents of that region.
The economic collapse is a very worrisome and immediate problem to so many of us, but we need to remember that the Military Industrial Robber Class Complex is the reason we are in this current crisis and the economic costs of the occupations cannot and must not be separated from the human cost. Whose life clock is ticking away today? How can we allow yet another year to pass?
Every year I say that this will be our last…I don’t believe that anymore. I believe that a very few of us will be demonstrating against these “wars” for years and every year that goes by, fewer of us will be out.
It is our shame that we as a nation complacently sit by and allow the audacity of the atrocities of empire to continue in our names.
Our demands must be the same with the Obama regime as it was with the Bush regime: Troops home completely and immediately. Leave cowardice and compromise to the politicians: we in the movement must never compromise or sell out the values of peace with justice. Or if we have already sold-out, we must buy-back…we need everyone!
Many have already given up or have been co-opted by the Democratic Party or the false specter of “hope.” Most have never even protested other than bitching on blogs or yelling at the TV when Bush or Cheney came on spewing their lies (Cheney is still at it).
Some will never give up. Here’s to you! I honor your commitment to peace, no matter who is the current warmonger occupying the Evil Office (oops, I sorta meant “Oval Office”)
Hasta la victoria, siempre!
March 19, 2009
Tags: Afghanistan, Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, United States military, Obama and Afghanistan
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