Where are the Afghan war protests?

[SHRED]

Anyone have links to gatherings?

Would there be more if McCain were President?


---

[babylonsister]

1. I think because this President gave us a timeline, we're waiting and

seeing. I think he is, too.

I expect the war will peter out, and yes, I wish it had done so already.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

10. Peter out?

I've heard different opinions on where this war is going, but "peter out" has never been one of them.
Those pesky wars lose all their allure after a decade or so.

[EFerrari]

2. I've been thinking we need to have "Federal Fridays"

were we go protest the wars at the nearest federal building every Friday. And I think, yes, if McSame had been elected, they'd already be happening.

The anti-war folks, or this one anyway, sincerely wants Obama to succeed. But as our good brother Cornel West says, we do need to encourage him to do the right thing. :)

[Truth2Tell]

3. Kabul?

:shrug:

[amborin]

4. agree on the Federal Fridays idea! k&r

[leftstreet]

5. Oh but there ARE protests!

AP Photo 3 weeks ago
People burn an effigy of the US President Barack Obama during a protest in Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010. Thousands gathered to protest after four Afghan children and a policeman were killed and scores wounded, including at least three American troops when an explosion tore through a group of local residents and soldiers observing a road-construction project on Wednesday in Nangarhar province.




Reuters Pictures 1 month ago
Afghan protesters shout slogans during a protest in Kabul December 30, 2009. Hundreds of Afghans joined street rallies on Wednesday to protest against the killing of 10 civilians, most of them teenage students, in a military raid by foreign forces over the weekend.




AP Photo 1 week ago
People shout during a protest in Qara Bagh district, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Jan. 22, 2010. Protesters blocked roads and chanted angry slogans against the United States and the Afghan government for a second day amid mounting anger over the killing of four people in a village by NATO forces in volatile Ghazni province.

[amborin]

6. +1000

[amborin]

7. also, upcoming: March 20 March on Washingon:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/49760

"1. TAKE THE PEACE BUSES FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

The Activist Newsletter and Peace and Social Progress Now have chartered several buses to the nation's capital Saturday, March 20, leaving from Kingston, New Paltz, and Poughkeepsie in the early hours and returning at night. We will consider establishing other pickup locations farther down the Valley if groups of a dozen or more people commit to boarding at a particular location convenient to our buses.

The roundtrip cost is $60 per person. Discounts for students and low-income people will be offered when we receive contributions from readers for that purpose.

To reserve a seat, send us an email at [e-mail] with your name, town, email address, phone number, and boarding location of the three listed. When and if other stops are added you can switch to a more suitable boarding location. After emailing, make out your check to Activist Newsletter and promptly mail to Activist Newsletter, PO Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561. Your check will secure your reservations. Seats are unassigned, so you have your pick.

Since $60 is the price we must pay the bus company for each seat, we cannot afford to offer discounts for those unable to pay full price without generous donations from our readers. Please help them with any amount you can afford, however small (or large!). Send your check to the same PO Box, but note that it is a donation.

We have received messages from some friends in Beacon, Newburgh and Spring Valley, requesting that we consider stops at those locations. This depends on the peace groups in those areas. Get a dozen people (or more) for a stop and we can probably do it. Let us know very soon if you are working on this. For readers in the Capital District and more northern locations, our antiwar friends in Albany are also sending buses.

2. DETAILS ABOUT THE WASHINGTON DEMONSTRATION

People from all over the country, though mostly from the eastern half, are organizing to converge on Washington March 20 to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq. There will also be large demonstrations in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The principal organizer is the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) backed by dozens of peace groups (a partial listing is below). "

snip

[leftstreet]

8. I like that banner! 'End Colonial Occupation'

Fund People's Needs, Not the War Machine

:thumbsup:

[ddeclue]

9. Most Americans, myself included feel that war is justified..

it's the Iraq War that isn't justified.

[leftstreet]

11. What is the justification?

:popcorn:

[ddeclue]

14. Umm you are obviously be facetious... 9/11/2001 works for me.

[leftstreet]

15. I take it you mean those 19 Afghani hijackers

The Boxcutters From Kabul

[ddeclue]

17. I take it you wish to be deliberately obtuse..not interested in debating it with you.

[leftstreet]

19. Educate me

:popcorn:

[ddeclue]

20. NOPE.. you are being deliberately obtuse..educate yourself.

[amborin]

22. *you* should read up on the Afghanistan disaster, occurring at expense of soldiers' lives:

"Afghanistan: This War Won't Work
by Phyllis Bennis

The recent Taliban attacks on Kabul provide another wake-up call about why this war in Afghanistan simply isn't going to work. It won't bring security to Afghans. It won't turn Afghanistan into a democracy. And it won't make us safer.

In fact, the war killed more people in Afghanistan last year than the year before-40 percent more civilians, according to the United Nations. And the body count this year is already shaping up to be higher than last year. That goes for U.S. troops too.

And President Obama's escalation, the 30,000 new troops he just announced he's sending to Afghanistan? That's not helping either. The Taliban have mostly stayed in the countryside, based in the small villages where almost 80 percent of Afghans live. But now, after Obama announced that the additional troops would be deployed in Afghanistan's "population centers," meaning the cities, guess where the Taliban headed for their most recent assault?

The same thing happens when U.S. troops go after Taliban or al-Qaeda targets-they may or may not kill the "right" person, but they consistently do kill a whole bunch of people guilty only of being in the very wrong place at the very wrong time. The "wrong" people get killed.

And what happens then? The grieving and outraged family, friends, and tribe members of those "wrong" people get angry. Very angry. They start to hate those who killed their family members-us-even if they never did before. And some of them turn to violence when they never would have before. This isn't new-military and political leaders acknowledge that we're creating more terrorists than we're killing. And still the policymakers aren't hearing it.

So it doesn't make us safer. And here at home we have another problem too. Alongside the horrifying human cost-young soldiers killed, others coming home with horrifying life-shattering injuries, others returning to face traumatic brain injury and PTSD-we have to pay the financial cost for this war.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost us $950 billion. Yes, BILLION. That's not counting the $137 billion Congress appropriated for spending between now and September. And that also doesn't count the cost of those 30,000 new troops going to Afghanistan, which will cost roughly $30 billion more just for their first year.

Altogether, that means by the end of this year we will have spent about $1.08 trillion. Yes, TRILLION-a number so big it's practically incomprehensible.

What else could we do with that money? Well, just the cost of the current escalation could provide about six million people with health care. Or generate 600,000 well-paid green jobs.

Which is more likely to make us safer? Opposition to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which peaked at almost 60 percent just a month or so ago, has dropped after Obama's escalation speech at West Point. We've got a lot of work to do to make sure his administration knows this war won't make us safer, and it just costs too much-too many lives and too much money. Are you listening, President Obama? "


****************************************

just one of 1000s of examples


Afghanistan --- graveyard of empires

[KonaKane]

28. I'm not being obtuse - I want to know what the justification was

Besides the stupid lie that the Taliban were hiding or harboring BinLaden. The Taliban government at the time (who I am no friend of by the way) told the US several times that if they brought their evidence against AlQaeda for the 9/11 attacks and it was solid enough, they would turn over all of them. Instead the US bombed them.

I never understood that. Why didn't we just make the case, get the creeps and avoid yet another unnecessary war?

[blues90]

23. Well then go join up .nt needed.

[uppityperson]

25. Serious question. How is what we are doing in Afghanistan related to 9/11?

How is what we are doing in Afghanistan now related to 9/11?

I know the 21 young men trained in Afghanistan, but what are we doing there now that relates to that?

Not being obtuse and I won't argue with you since you are free to have your own opinions about things, just wanting to know how you think. If I start arguing, you don't have to answer any more.

[rhett o rick]

13. Which war is justified? nt

[EFerrari]

16. Invading Afghanistan to catch bin Laden is like invading Los Angeles

to catch a drug lord.

Stupid as hell, not to mention it won't work and you piss off the people you don't manage to kill.

[northofdenali]

12. Corner of College Road and University Avenue -

Fairbanks, Alaska, snow, vicious cold, anti-abortion-rights are across the street on the RIGHT corner.

Join us.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Every Tuesday, 5 - 6 pm

63 and Ward Parkway
Kansas City

[earthside]

21. Colorado Citizens for Peace

Every Saturday, Noon to 1:00 P.M.

52nd Ave. and Wadsworth Blvd.
Arvada, Colorado

http://www.coloradocitizensforpeace.info

[apocalypsehow]

24. Just Wars draw few protests. n/t.

[amborin]

26. so you think the Iraq invasion was "just," too? it triggered

comparatively few protests in is first several years

[apocalypsehow]

27. Just Wars draw few protests. n/t.

[earthside]

29. There's nothing "just" in a nine year occupation. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

33. You think we are fighting the people who masterminded 9/11?

The people we are fighting were little kids still wearing short pants on 9/11/01. So were most of our soldiers over there now trying to kill them.

Don

[Bigmack]

30. For now, let's ignore whether Vietghanistan is a "justified" war....

Let's be pragmatic.

We spend around $600 billion a year on the military, and God knows how much on the CIA and other spook organizations. We've been in Afghanistan for 8 years. We have 100,000 troops and 100,000 "contractors" there. We control the air. We have unlimited supplies and the latest weapons.
Yet...
We can't find one man, and we can't defeat a non-army of under 20,000.
Great value for the dollar there! Are we trying to do what the Soviet Union did... bleed ourselves to death?

Al Quaeda? In September of last year, Gen. McCrystal said: "I do not see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now,"

And the Taliban are "resurgent".  Desertion in the Afghan Defense force is over 50% and retention after expiration of enlistment is 10%.  Afghan commanders have sold their troops' ammo.  The Taliban are using the Afghan army boot camp to train their fighters.  That way, when they defect, they take their uniforms and weapons, too.  

The casualty rate among civilians is unconscionable... From a former Petraeus advisor:
"He said the US had killed 14 mid-level or lower level al-Qaeda leaders since 2006 but the strikes had killed 700 civilians. "That's a hit rate of two per cent on 98 per cent collateral. It's not moral."'

They can't defend themselves, and we can't turn a 14th century tribal culture into a 21st Century democracy in a few years by bombing them.

Never mind "justified"... this damn thing isn't "winnable" under any reasonable definition of that term. Why do we persist in a war that will end badly and just prove that the American military is incapable of winning against a small, determined force?

[NNN0LHI]

34. Recommend this post

[mmonk]

31. Most are in Afghanistan.

However, I read some protestors were arrested recently in Washington.

[Mari333]

32. March 20. DC.

http://votenowar.org/

and all over the USA

[Mari333]

35. what frigging chickenhawk would unrec this

[undeterred]

36. Have you organized one locally?

We had one in my city in December.