Anti-War Protests Tuesday & Wednesday as President Obama Announces More Troops to Afghanistan

[IndianaGreen]

Anti-War Protests Tuesday & Wednesday as President Obama Announces More Troops to Afghanistan Occupation

Anti-War Protests Tuesday & Wednesday as President Obama Announces More Troops to Afghanistan Occupation

Anticipating President Obama’s announcement December 1, 2009, of a plan to “win” Bush’s war in Afghanistan and to “finish the job,” anti-war groups are organizing protests around the US against a plan to send more troops and naming this “Obama’s war.”

Protesters from the tri-state area will march to the main gate at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where the President will speak at 8:00 pm Tuesday. A rally starts at 5:30 pm at the intersection of Main Street (Route 218) and West Point Highway, just south of the Academy’s Thayer Gate. Protesters will also gather at the White House beginning at 5:00 pm Tuesday staying into the evening.

On Wednesday, December 2, at federal buildings and major intersections in dozens of cities – organized by a coalition of organizations representing veterans, military families, religious groups and anti-war activists – organizers expect an outpouring based on recent polls showing more than 50% opposition to further escalation in Afghanistan.

World Can’t Wait Director Debra Sweet said today, ”The richest country with the most powerful highly militarized empire is destroying, not helping, one of the world’s poorest countries. The only resolution in the interests of the people of Afghanistan and the world, including the people living in the United States, is for the United States to remove its combat and support troops and its contractors from Afghanistan and to end the occupation of Iraq.”

Protests are scheduled at 40 cities including Allentown, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Columbus OH, Detroit, Eugene OR, Greensboro, Harrisburg, Hartford, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Madison WI; Miami, New Haven, New Paltz, New York City, Newark, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland ME, Portsmouth NH, Richmond, San Francisco, Seattle, Teaneck NJ. Complete list.

“Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan is with a Code Pink delegation protesting at Creech Air Force Base which controls the un-manned drones targeted on Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to human rights groups, hundreds of civilians have been killed by the drones in more than 40 strikes, since Barack Obama took office.

National organizers include Veterans for Peace; Iraq Veterans Against the War; Military Families Speak Out; Code Pink; International ANSWER, World Can’t Wait, and many local groups who have opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for years.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/48071

[wisteria]

1. Count me out. I want to hear what my President has to say, he is closer to this situation

than I will ever be and I trust that he has weighed his options very carefully. How can you be so sure you are right? Have you considered this country's security needs? As a Democrat, I support our president and his difficult decision. I don't think now is the time to divide the party over this issue and present the Republicans and the media with talking points against our party.

[sabrina 1]

3. The people of Afghanistan are closer to the situation than

anyone in this government and they want US troops out. I'll take their word for it since it's their country and since they have lost so many of their loved ones for this useless war.

It is not the war protestors who are 'dividing' the party. When it Bush's war the base of the party was pretty united about these wars. You are asking people to give up their principles simply because the current president is a Democrat. Why would someone do that? Something is either right or wrong regardless of which political party is in charge.

I support these people for their consistency and for not allowing politics to cause them to all of a sudden become war supporters. Lives are stake, Afghan lives especially and the lives of the troops who are not wanted there.

[Skittles]

5. did you speak this way about bush?

[ima_sinnic]

8. yeah, that's a good point, too

the public was force-fed the notion that invading Iraq was "the only option" (I remember that weak, transparent, obvious bullshit about "we tried to negotiate")--did poster buy that, too?

[IndianaGreen]

11. Some people around here seem to have forgotten that the Iraq War was a bipartisan war!

Both political parties have innocent blood on their hands!

Remember Bush & Gephardt at Rose Garden, October 2, 2002, upon passage of the bipartisan Iraq War Resolution?

Add to that this:

[ima_sinnic]

7. I will oppose his or anybody else's stinking wars no matter what their "options"

the "option" of war should not even BE an option.
no matter what our "security needs," wantonly occupying another country that has done nothing to us, murdering its citizens, destroying its infrastructure, ruining people's lives, and alienating the rest of the world's citizens is not a viable option for intelligent human beings in the 21st century.

You are free to plug your ears and sing la-la-la while "supporting the president and his difficult decision."

His most difficult decision should be whether he wants the country to fall into the graveyard of dead empires, or go down in history as the president who changed the deadly course of the country's direction by instituting a new era of peace, working to eliminate war altogether.

Which option do you think he'll choose? I don't even have to wait for the speech to tell you which one it will be. This president has already shown where his loyalties lie. He doesn't have the appetite, COURAGE, or imagination to do anything differently.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Country trumps party any day, any time!

This war is wrong!

[roody]

2. Count me in. War must always be protested.

[BigBearJohn]

4. This is all I can say --

[PJPhreak]

6. I have that one on my living room wall. nt

[ima_sinnic]

9. big list of protest sites:

http://www.worldcantwait.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start

the list is long and would require some formatting to make presentable in a post, so please follow the link.