End this war Mr. Obama!!!

October 10, 2010 9:35 PM

Last Wednesday, October 6, a panel of speakers from a variety of political positions met antiwar activists at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco to discuss how to build a consensus to end the war in Afghanistan. The speakers included Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, Antiwar.com’s Angela Keaton, Republican congressional candidate John Dennis, labor leader Michael Eisenscher, and radio talk show host Karel. The moderator was Jeff Johnson of PeacePundit.com, and included remarks by Unitarian Church leaders Dolores Perez Priem, Sandra Schwartz, Jeremiah Halliday, and Louis Vitale, and Anthony Gregory of the Independent Institute. (via) Daniel Ellsberg - part I - part II - part III

John Dennis

Karel - part I - part II

Michael Eisenscher - part I - part II

Q&A from audience - part I - part II - part III

posted by AElfwine Evenstar (12 comments total)

consenus: come home
outcome: coming home
posted by clavdivs at 9:47 PM on October 10, 2010

I'm firmly convinced that the political system in the US is now impotent to make this kind of change. Politicians are all captive to "the powers that be"... and until that beast is brought out into the light and destroyed, efforts like this will prove to be futile.

I really, REALLY want to be wrong about this. The war isn't about Al-Queda, which was a list of people we created when we wanted to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

It's not a plot by any religious or ethnic group to take over the world.

It's all about money, there are multiple parasites of huge scope who all siphon off a percentage of the flow of money into the abyss... and are unconcerned with the collateral damage.

Those parasites brought us the housing bubble, the tech bubble, and are working hard to figure out the next way to extract a few trillion more out of the husk of the US for their next route of bonuses.
posted by MikeWarot at 9:50 PM on October 10, 2010 [8 favorites]

The FUUC?
posted by doublehappy at 11:09 PM on October 10, 2010

The FUUC?
posted by doublehappy at 11:09 PM on 10/10
[+] [!]


Heh. I was raised going to the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans. That's not a very nice acronym.
posted by brundlefly at 11:44 PM on October 10, 2010

MikeWarot, which entities are you thinking of that had major roles in both the recent wars and the recent bubbles? The defense contractors and the finance corps don't seem to have a huge amount of overlap (unlike the defense and petroleum industries, for example).
posted by ryanrs at 11:56 PM on October 10, 2010

I hesitate to haul this weathered quote out, but it's too important to pass up:

G: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

X: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

G: Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

This is the true danger of the rise of nationalism in the United States. The only way a nation can pretend to afford eternal war to defend the homeland is if a greater part of the population is denied the civil liberty or sapped of the will to avoid participating economically in the continuation of the war. Unfortunately, the PATRIOT act has already been passed, and these wars will continue to be funded by the desire for American commercial interests to control oil resources.

One more successful terrorist attack is the only tipping point needed to allow corporate funds, now legal for direct political investment, to push American politics dangerously close to fascist nationalism. The fringe elements of the GOP have already managed to flip McCain from a moderate into a feeble facsimile of GW Bush, and have succeeded in pushing out other moderates in primaries across the country for candidates who believe that the only valid expenditure of public funds is war.

The hysteria over mosque building and burqas is just a glint in the eye of the Tea Party's shameless racist nationalism. Give America a second 9/11, and the voices that now seem comically out of touch will become mainstream long enough to start another war in a Muslim country, and don't doubt for a second that the terrorists aren't aware of that fact. Fundamentalist Islam has been rewarded already with the destruction of Iraq and American military failure in Afghanistan, and is poised to take political control of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

The only problem is the next war would probably be in Iran, and the death and destruction and political consequences of a mistake of that magnitude will make Iraq and Afghanistan look like teatime in a park.
posted by notion at 12:03 AM on October 11, 2010 [3 favorites]

rantrantrant
posted by clavdivs at 1:16 AM on October 11, 2010

Mr Obama is ending the war.
posted by humanfont at 2:43 AM on October 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mr Obama is ending the war.

You mean like he is doing in Iraq?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:34 AM on October 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mr Obama is ending the war

Just as it was once said "Real men go to Tehran", Obama seems to have decided that real men go to Islamabad.

The new "surge" against Pakistan is not limited to attacks on "militants" (the description now given to any Pakistani -- man, woman or child -- who is killed by American ordnance) but is also being waged against the forces of the Pakistani government itself. After a weekend bombing blitzkrieg across Pakistan's supposedly sovereign border that left more than 50 people dead, American forces launched a pre-dawn helicopter raid on Thursday which hammered two posts of Pakistan's Frontier Corps, killing three soldiers. That is to say, three allied soldiers of an army that has lost hundreds of men fighting (and killing and displacing) its own people at the behest of Washington.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:34 AM on October 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

oi if you think starting a war in Afghanistan didnt automatically imply war within Pakistan then all you did was buy into Georgie and Rummy's b.s.
posted by lslelel at 8:18 AM on October 11, 2010

In 1981 Barack Obama spent 3 weeks living in Pakistan traveling around with his Pakistani roommate who now works for a community theater in Seattle. Not sure how that experience as a young man shaped his decision making, but interesting.
posted by humanfont at 1:55 PM on October 11, 2010