This Video Will Piss You Off and Break Your Heart

[and-justice-for-all]

From: Robert Greenwald (bravenewfoundation.org)
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/?utm_source=rgemail#video

Well-reasoned foreign policy results in more housing and jobs, better health care and education. When that policy consists of applying a military solution to a political problem, however, it results in death, destruction, and suffering. I witnessed the latter during my recent trip to Afghanistan--the devastating consequences of U.S. airstrikes on thousands of innocent civilians.

The footage you are about to see is poignant, heart-wrenching, and often a direct result of U.S. foreign policy. It came from a combination of filmmakers: Nazir, a man who tracked me down through Facebook, met me at the Kabul airport, and showed me segments of his exclusive look inside Afghan refugee camps; a stringer we hired who was arrested by the Taliban in filming a bombing victim in Kandahar; and my own interviews while in Kabul. Together, we bring you Rethink Afghanistan: Civilian Casualties.

Clearly we must help the refugees whose lives have been shattered by U.S. foreign policy and military attacks. Here's how you can take action:

1. Digg this video. Just one click can help this video land on the Digg homepage, where it can reach tens of thousands of new people!

2. Provide aid through The Afghan Women's Mission to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which is directly helping the refugees in these camps. We have partnered with these groups, and RAWA will go to the camps in this video to help those most in need. On their website, you can provide emergency relief to refugees, enable Afghans to visit the doctor, and help educate women and children to ensure women's rights are respected.

3. Become a Peacemaker: Receive up-to-the-minute information through our new mobile alert system whenever there are Afghan civilian casualties from this war. Then take immediate action by calling our government and posting on social networking sites.

Here's why it's even more critical for you to take action now. Earlier this week, the House of Representatives narrowly approved $106 billion in wartime funding, despite an incredible progressive movement that inundated Congress with calls and helped move votes into the "No" column. This bill will escalate military operations in Afghanistan, which is all the more reason why we must help the civilians affected by U.S. airstrikes now, and help our government see the need for a more humanitarian foreign policy.

Yours,

Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Foundation team

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/?utm_source=rgemail#video

P.S. Many of you have asked us to release Rethink Afghanistan on DVD, and we're thrilled that Disc One is now available. Disc One includes the first three segments of the documentary: Troops, Pakistan, and Cost of War, plus over 60 minutes of special features.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Obama Looses the Manhunters

By Tom Engelhardt

SNIP

He may, for example, have declared a sunshine policy when it comes to transparency in government, but in his war policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, his imperial avatar is already plunging deep into the dark, distinctly opaque valley of death. He’s just appointed a general, Stanley A. McChrystal, as his Afghan commander. From 2003-2008, McChrystal ran a special operations outfit in Iraq (and then Afghanistan) so secret that the Pentagon avoided mention of it. In those years, its operatives were torturing, abusing, and killing Iraqis as part of a systematic targeted assassination program on a large scale. It was, for those who remember the Vietnam era, a mini-Phoenix program in which possibly hundreds of enemies were assassinated: al-Qaeda-in-Iraq types, but also Sunni insurgents, and Sadrists (not to speak of others, since informers always settle scores and turn over their own personal enemies as well).

SNIP

So, this is now truly Obama’s war, about to be run by his chosen general, a figure from the dark side. Expect, then, from our sunshine president’s men an ever bloodier secret campaign of so-called counter-terror (though it’s essence is likely to be terror, pure and simple), as befits an imperial power trying to hang on to the Eastern reaches of the Greater Middle East.

The new crew aren’t counterinsurgency warriors, but — a term that has only recently entered our press — “manhunters.” And don’t forget, President Obama is now presiding over an expanding war in which “manhunters” engaging in systematic assassination programs will not only be on the ground but, thanks to the CIA’s escalating program of targeted assassination by robot aircraft, in the skies over the Pakistani tribal borderlands.

For those who care to remember, it was into counter-terrorism and an orgy of manhunting, abuse, and killing that the Vietnam era version of “counterinsurgency” dissolved as well.

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog/?p=478

[JohnyCanuck]

2. More videos on the vets paqe at rethinkafghanistan.com

Veterans to Congress:Rethink Afghanistan

As the House geared up to vote on a $100 billion supplemental wartime funding bill a few weeks ago, 11 veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq traveled to DC to tell Congress to Rethink Afghanistan. They stood on the Capitol steps with signs that read: "How Many Civilians Are We Killing?" "Is There an Exit Strategy?" and "Have We Exhausted Non-Military Options?" They visited 63 Congressional offices, telling all who would listen about the dangers of the current plan to commit 21,000 more troops and hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to the war in Afghanistan.

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/veterans/

[slipslidingaway]

3. knr - thread in PV forums...

maybe one of these threads will get 5 recs.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=326439&mesg_id=326439