Ask you what you think because your words and thoughts are powerful

More than 4,000 troops dead, tens of thousands more seriously wounded physically and psychologically, +81,000 being stop-lossed. McCain says he’d keep us there another 100 years if necessary, the Democrats discuss ‘safe and orderly withdrawal’…how could we manage something on withdrawal that we never had to begin with? Now means now, not 6 months nor 16, nor another century: it will not get better, it will only get bloodier.

The actions that happened around the country were powerful, but continued to be largely ignored by the media. This AP article mentions the range that some of these protests took, albeit quite disparagingly. The Winter Soldier Testimonies of returning soldiers got virtually no coverage or mention, but you can watch videos at www.IVAW.org; how can you understand what is happening if you never listen to those that have actually been there?

Al-Jazeera coverage of Winter Soldier, one of few media outlets to even mention it:

Student Peace Action Network activists confront war profiteers:

The irony is that last week I also found out that my cousin just got out of Air Force Boot Camp…they don’t think he’ll be sent to Iraq since he ‘just does computers,’ and it seemed like a good option since he had $65,000 in student loan debt and still no degree to show for it. Counter-recruitment is only effective in your family if you speak to them more often than every 7 years.

It is hard to find the words to express the rage, disappointment and sadness that all of this causes each day, but there are no perfect words and silence is support since it does not challenge the acceptance of such horrible acts due to time and distraction by ‘the economy.’ Are lives not more important than money? Can you not distinguish the relationship between the two? Can you muster more emotion for the stock exchange and numbers scrolling on a screen or a gas pump than you can for the real and physical ruining and ending of life?

Violence has increased in recent days, with Al-Maliki launching an offensive against militias in Basra. Muqtada Al-Sadr has called for civil disobedience to protest the targeting of the Mehdi army militia. If the Mehdi militia truce is broken, key to the reduction in violence at the start of the ‘surge,’ things will be worse than before, though they aren’t great at the moment with factions of the Mehdi militia who have broken off and escalated violence already.

There are no simple solutions to this occupation, but our continued presence exacerbates and complicates internal tensions and ties with the consequence being extensive fear and loss of life of the civilian population.

This is not what democracy looks like, here nor there.