The war in Afghanistan is now

the longest war in U.S. history!

Attend a local vigil, write a letter, start a conversation!

Please do not be silent!

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Santa Rosa protesters decry Obama's Afghan buildup

By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 7:49 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 7:49 p.m.

About 100 people - some of whom voted for President Barack Obama a year ago — came to Santa Rosa's Courthouse Square Wednesday night to quietly protest his decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Standing beneath the square's twinkling white holiday lights on a chilly evening, some said they were dismayed by the president's announcement on Tuesday, but others said they expected it.
“I am not surprised at all,” said Alan Horn of Sebastopol, who said he is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran. “I knew this was going to happen.”
When Obama failed to call for a ceasefire in his inaugural address, Horn said, “I knew we were in for a tough four years.”
He voted for Obama, but said it was “a vote against John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
Several hundred anti-war protesters marched in San Francisco on Wednesday, with no reports of trouble.
In Santa Rosa, Therese Mughannam said she voted for Obama, who “brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart,” she said.
“I feel betrayed by him,” the Santa Rosa resident said. “He is not doing what we voted him in to do.”
U.S. troops could leave Afghanistan tomorrow, Mughannam said. “We ought to give them their country back and let them determine their own destiny.”
“I am one of those who is disappointed,” said George Houser, 93, who moved to Santa Rosa from Nyack, N.Y. four months ago. “It's going to be quagmire. Obama will now become a war president.”
An ordained Methodist clergyman, Houser said he was jailed for refusing to register for the draft during World War II.
Lupita Chavez Alvarez, 18, of Petaluma was among the younger protesters. Obama “set himself up as a peacemaker, but he is escalating the problem,” the Santa Rosa Junior College student said. “We have to fix it.”
Susan Lamont, office manager of the Peace and Justice of Sonoma County, said she was satisfied with the turnout. “It's a real improvement,” she said. “I want more.”
The center, which sponsored a weekly war protest in Santa Rosa for seven and a half years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saw participation fall to fewer than a dozen people, Lamont said.
Now, the organization is talking about renewing the regular event. “The phone was ringing off the hook at the center today,” she said.
Dave Warrender of Sebastopol, a veteran war protester, said he was “afraid we'd come up here and there'd be no one.”
His sign, saying “No More War,” was at Iraq war demonstrations in 2003, Warrender said.
Colleen Fernald of Sebastopol, a registered Democrat who calls herself as “omnipartisan,” said that a safe withdrawal from Afghanistan should start with a ceasefire.
“I wish progressives would get on the ceasefire bandwagon,” she said.
None of the protesters were impressed with Obama's promise to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in 2011. “I think he was throwing a bone to those who don't want an increase in American involvement,” Houser said. “It's by no means certain.”

Get Out of the Military Now

The ACLU-NC filed a lawsuit in September 2008 charging that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been collaborating beyond the law to target, arrest, and detain Latino residents of Sonoma County. For three years sheriff deputies and ICE agents have stopped and searched people who appear to be Latino, interrogated them about their immigration status, and detained them in the county jail without lawful authority. The lawsuit charges that the actions by the local sheriff and ICE violated constitutional guarantees of due process, equal protection, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the Sheriff’s Department acted beyond its authority in enforcing federal immigration law. Read more on the ACLU site.

The figures on the left include reported civilian deaths only. The figure in the center represents an estimate of civilian casualties based upon a study by public health experts in 2006.
Read the 2006 article.

New WHO study:
40 months of war, 151,000 Iraqis dead by violence through June, 2006. Violence now leading cause of death in Iraq. 3,775 violent deaths per month.
Read the new study.

** A Life, Wasted. **
Click below to read an open letter from Paul E. Schroeder, the father of a soldier killed in Iraq:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010200974.html

320,000 Veterans Have Brain Injuries

Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates. Learn more.

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The War Against Iraq is Costing 720 million Dollars Every Day.
$720,000,000 wasted every day.
See some of the things that money could have bought instead.

For more information on alternatives for spending the estimated 3TRILLION DOLLARS that the Iraq war will cost, watch the Three Trillion Dollar Spending Spree video.

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$23 Billion Lost, Stolen or Unaccounted For in Iraq
Contractors Reaping Windfall Gains
Possibly "the largest war profiteering in history."

A BBC probe has disclosed that around $23 billion dollars may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. The investigation has also revealed the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding. U.S. corporations and Iraqi government ministers implicated in wrongdoing. A U.S. gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations against some of the top U.S. companies. Read the whole story.

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$$ The Global Rich List $$

Too often we gaze enviously upon those who are richer than we are, but we seldom think about those who have less than we do. Are you curious to know where you stand in the continuum of wealth world wide? Want to know how you rank on a list of the richest people in the world? Find out using the global rich list calculator.

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Burma's monks are leading the struggle of the Burmese people against an oppressive military dictatorship, despite the risk of beating, torture and death. Click on a monk above to learn more or to help the monks in their courageous opposition to a brutal regime.

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Hope Art & Poetry – 2007 winners

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National Priorities Project Database