Stop funding these useless wars!

There is a campaign on by Friends Committee on National Legislation to stop the build up of troops in Afghanistan -- and work on peace through diplomacy. Here is a list of all their action items. You can email your Senators and Representative via that link.

Here is my letter:

I want to see an end to these useless wars. We are not getting anywhere
in Afghanistan, unless getting people to hate you forever is "getting
somewhere".

We have invaded and destroyed Iraq. And that was after not one bullet,
not one bomb, not one rocket, not one missile was fired on the US from
Iraq. IT WAS AND WILL ALWAYS BE A WAR CRIME.

And while the people who planned the 9/11 attacks might have been in
Afghanistan at one point, they have moved on. And if you keep bombing
Pakistan, they will move again.

Isn't it time to come up with a better plan?

Tonight I went to UNCA to hear a panel on "Who will speak for the innocent?" They mostly focused on what has recently happened in Gaza, with some mention of Rwanda and Palestine (in 1948). A lot of talk was on the lack of access to human rights redress via courts or law - it just does not exist. The UN and ICC are not effective at enforcing the law, which means the law might as well not exist. There was some talk of the BBC ban on an aid appeal for Gaza.

I spoke at one point about how no one was talking about Iraq and our massive human rights abuses there. With Gaza, Israel did at least have rockets fired at them. Not one bullet, not one rocket, not one missile, not one bomb, was fired from Iraq on the USA prior to our military entering their country. It was a war of aggression, a war crime, from the first Iraqi killed..... until today, where the US troops are still killing Iraqis.

Maybe there would be some respect for human rights if we started by prosecuting ourselves and our politicians.

Someone commented after me that we have indeed suffered from our illegal war of aggression on Iraq. That is true, but the level of our suffering is truly insignificant.

Truly.