Kris Hamel, Sandra Hines and Abayomi Azikiwe in front of the "Spirit of Detroit" downtown during the anti-war actions on March 15, 2008. (Alan Pollock).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
No New Troops to Afghanistan!
Money for Jobs and Healthcare, Not War!
The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI) urges everyone to support the call by Detroit Area Peace with Justice Network (DAPJN) to hold a demonstration opposing the escalation of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The demonstration will take place on the next business day after President Obama announces his strategy for the war in Afghanistan.
At this time, the demonstration will probably take place on Wednesday, Dec. 2, since President Obama is expected to announce his new strategy in a speech Tuesday evening. He is expected to announce that 33,000 more troops will be sent to wage war on the people of Afghanistan, at an estimated cost of $40 to $50 billion dollars!
Furthermore, a White House Summit on Jobs is scheduled for Dec. 3. Join us in demanding JOBS and HEALTHCARE, not WAR! The trillions of dollars that the U. S. government continues to waste on bailing out Wall St. and waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan must be used instead to create jobs and a universal, affordable healthcare system.
More than 40 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. said that you can’t meet the needs of workers and the poor and at the same time pay for war. King’s words are true today and it’s up to us to let the president know that he has made a wrong choice.
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2009.
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: McNamara Federal Building, 477 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, MI 48226
http://www.mecawi.org
NYC: Wed., Dec 2 -- No New Troops to Afghanistan!
Troops Out Now!
No New Troops to Afghanistan!
Money for Jobs and Healthcare, Not War!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Times Square - NYC
42nd and 7th Ave
4:30 - 6:30 pm
Rally and March
Next Tuesday, at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, President Barack Obama will announce plans to send somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 additional troops to continue the war against the people of Afghanistan.
Join us on Wednesday, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm to say, “Bring the Troops Home Now! We need jobs, not war!”
A generation ago, in the midst of another U.S. colonial war, Dr. Martin Luther King said, “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.” This is even more true today, as working people face the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Office of Management and Budget has determined that the escalation will cost up to $1 million dollars per additional troop: another $35 billion on top of the billions already spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need this money for a real jobs program and health care, not more death and destruction in Afghanistan or in Iraq.
All progressive and antiwar organizations are invited to come, bring signs, speak, and join in a united effort to demand: “Troops Out Now!”
Called by the International Action Center and the Troops Out Now Coalition
Endorsing organizations include: Peoples Organization for Progress, Vets for Peace-Chapt. 21-NJ & Chapt. 34-NYC, Harlem Tenants Council, Million Worker March, World Can’t Wait, National Assembly Against War in Iraq and Afghanistan and Occupations, Bailout the People Movement, NY Solidarity with Katrina/Rita, Al Awda-NY Palestine Right to Return Coalition, BAYAN, Green Party-Manhattan, Picture the Homeless, American Iranian Friendship Committee, WESPAC-Westchester Peoples Action Coalition, NYC Labor Against War, FIST-Fight Imperialism Stand Together, International League of People’s Struggle, Queers for Peace and Justice, Harlem Anti-War Coalition, Pakistan USA Freedom Forum, Guyanese Workers United.
To add your name, to endorse, or for more information, contact us:
http://troopsoutnow.org/cmnt.shtml or call 212.633.6646.
Excuse me, Mr. President; the war in Afghanistan is not in the
interests of the USA
There is nothing in Afghanistan that is vital to American interests
unless those interests are heroin and oil pipelines around the Caspian Sea to escape Russian hegemony. Originally, the war in Afghanistan was to deny Al Qaeda a foothold and punish them for 9/11.
The USA global bandits supplied and supported the Taliban as they ran the Russians out, but now they are fighting the Taliban to again deny Al Qaeda, although there is no Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Thus, there is no need to have a surge of troops in Afghanistan. It is good for the militarist US economy, for the generals who run the corporations, the university/corporate complex that benefits with contracts and related research.
The war in Iraq was a total failure simply because it was unnecessary to kill a million people over the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But again, Iraq was for oil and to check Shia expansion for the reactionary Sunni regimes throughout the Middle East, namely Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Persian Gulf states--and of course to protect Israel.
Of course Obama is a politician looked toward the next elections so he must mollify the right wing militarists. He told you he would expand the war into Pakistan during his election campaign. At least he is true to his word. And so for political expediency he will expand the war in Afghanistan, then try to deescalate near election time.
He is not thinking of the American's who shall die and those sure to
come home traumatized, suicidal and homicidal. He is allocating
billions to buy off the Taliban's acts of violence, but here at home
he does nothing to "buy off" those brothers and sisters terrorizing
the hood with internecine violence, depriving the hood of any social
security.
How can the US pay the insurgents to stop violence yet
allow brothers in the hood to wreak havoc throughout America with guns and drugs? Internal violence is the real threat to America's interests and security. This is why the poet Amiri Baraka warns us, "In the end the Negro will be the terrorist." The violence in the hood would surely one day cross over to the white community. We see black men redirecting their guns against the police in Oakland and Washington State.
If this trend continues, get ready for an escalation in the
police/military occupation of the hood. As the depression continues
and creates more joblessness, expect the prison population to increase leading to a further destabilization of the hood. As Dr. Cornel West says, we must protect and respect the President but we must also correct the President when he goes down the path of reaction by enacting policies against our national interests as North American Africans.
Meanwhile, North American Africans may be oblivious to the
radicalization of Latin America, but how long can we maintain our
reactionary support of the US when our friends, brothers and sisters
throughout the Americas are charting their own agenda and it does not include the globalist free trade policies of the US and her allies.
Where is the North American African leadership that is putting our
agenda in harmony with the people of Cuba, Brazil, Argentina,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela? Shall North
American Africans continue their addiction to white supremacy
domination and exploitation? Or shall we unite with our brothers and
sisters throughout the Americas and work toward an agenda in harmony with our national and regional interests?
--Marvin X
2009 YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066
Troops, families mixed over Obama's Afghan surge
By KEVIN MAURER and RUSS BYNUM, Associated Press Writers
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. – Battle-weary troops and their families braced for a wrenching round of new deployments to Afghanistan, but many said they support the surge announced Tuesday as long as it helps to end the 8-year-old conflict.
As President Barack Obama outlined his plan to send 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan — while pledging to start bringing them home in 2011 — soldiers, Marines and their families interviewed by The Associated Press felt a tangle of fresh concerns and renewed hopes. Some took in the televised announcement as they played darts in a barroom near their base, while others watched from their living rooms.
"All I ask that man to do, if he is going to send them over there, is not send them over in vain," said 57-year-old Bill Thomas of Jacksonville, N.C., who watched Obama's televised speech in his living room, where photos of his three sons in uniform hang over the TV.
One of his sons, 23-year-old Cpl. Michael Thomas, is a Marine based at neighboring Camp Lejeune. He'll deploy next year to Afghanistan.
An ex-Marine himself, Thomas said he supports Obama's surge strategy. But he shook his head when the president announced a 2011 transition date to begin pulling out troops.
"If I were the enemy, I would hang back until 2011," Thomas said. "We have to make sure that we are going go stay until the job is done. It ain't going to be as easy as he thinks it is."
Military officials say the Army brigades most likely to be sent as part of the surge will come from Fort Drum in New York and Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Marines, who will be the vanguard, will most likely come primarily from Camp Lejeune.
As the wife of a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, where some of the first surge units could deploy by Christmas, Jamie Copeland says she wished the war "would be over and done with."
Copeland's husband, Sgt. Doug Copeland, is already scheduled to return to Afghanistan later this fall. She hates to see him go — he just returned from his last seven-month tour in August — and miss more time with their 1-year-old son. But she also concedes that American forces need more help fighting Taliban insurgents.
"We need to be in Afghanistan," said Copeland, 24. "Our Marines are getting slaughtered out there. I would say we need more out there. Iraq is done."
At the John Hoover Inn, a bar in Evans Mills, N.Y., near Fort Drum, a dozen soldiers watched the speech on a large-screen TV, drinking beer out of red cups. When Obama announced the troop increase, only one cheered, and the rest remained silent. They continued to play darts while the president was speaking.
"I'm just relieved to know where we're going," said Spc. Adam Candee, 29, of Chicago.
Theresa McCleod said she worries what Obama's plans might mean for her husband, a soldier in the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. She said he's already done a long combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving her to care for their three children.
"First he was supposed to be pulling everyone out, and now all the sudden he's throwing everybody back into Afghanistan and it's like nobody can really make up their minds," McCleod said of Obama.
Obama's plan calls for deploying 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in the next six months, boosting total U.S. forces there to about 100,000. The first waves of Marines are expected to arrive by Christmas, with the rest coming by summer.
The president also began outlining an endgame to the war, saying troops would begin pulling out of Afghanistan in July 2011 — though he did not say when a withdrawal could be completed.
Army 1st Lt. Emily Stahl, who is preparing to deploy from Fort Campbell next spring, said she's not going to focus on the timetable.
"We have to get the job done," Stahl, 24, said after watching the speech from her home outside the Army post, where she serves in the 101st Airborne Division. "If we do what we're supposed to do, the end of the war will come when it comes."
At home with her two young children in rural Byron, Ga., Traci Watson hopes the surge does work — and brings a swift end to the war.
Her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Dwayne Watson, is midway through a yearlong tour in Afghanistan with the Georgia National Guard's 48th Infantry Brigade, which has 2,400 troops helping to train Afghan security forces. While she's a little concerned the surge could delay her husband coming home around March, she also hopes it means he won't have to deploy again.
"There's always the worry that his orders might be extended and he might have to help transition between the ones they have coming and the ones that are leaving," Watson said. "But if staying an extra 30 or 60 days meant he wouldn't have to be gone from our family a year later, absolutely."
___
Bynum reported from Savannah, Ga. Associated Press writers Ted Shaffrey at Fort Drum, N.Y., and Kristin Hall in Clarksville, Tenn., contributed to this story.
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