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.”
Obama, Make It So A powerful video about conditions in Gaza. Watch
it now.
Committee for Immigrant
Rights of Sonoma County et al.
v. County of Sonoma et al. (2008)
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.
At
least 5,596 US military killed
and over 1,339,771 civilians estimated dead in the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan Get more casualty figures.
The figures on the left
include reportedcivilian 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.
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.
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.
$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.
$$ The Global Rich List $$
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.
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.
Check
out this mine of information on Federal spending! Compare money spent on
the military and on human needs. Information is available by State,
County, School District, High School and even Zip code! Expenditures
by category, including housing, military, health, labor and many
more. Get information on defense contracts, costs of nuclear weapons,
military recruiting and more. The site has decades of stored information.
Click here
to go there now.
Video and Music Archive
See and hear the best progressive
videos and music at the Peace and Justice Center's Video
and Music Archive page.