"I just wanted to let you know I really appreciate what you're doing," said a 55 ish women who walked up to John Fortier and me during the vigil. "It makes a real difference. People really appreciate it and I honk at you when I drive by to express my support."
It was nice to hear her words of support, and she joined that vigil that without the participation of John, a Korean War veteran, would not have taken place for I'm still recovering from right shoulder surgery from a week ago Friday. Each Friday evening nearby, John holds a vigil as well.
While she was with us, she spoke of the WikiLeaks revelations this week about the Afghan War and secrets the U.S. government has been keeping from the American people until now. Obtained from a U.S. military source, WikiLeaks shared the information with three major newspapers, The New York Times, The Guardian (British) and Der Spiegel (German) and then published 90,000 documents.
President Obama immediately claimed there was nothing new in those documents while privately directing the military to find out who released that information and prosecute them. Some of the information revealed is from the U.S. military directly involved in the battles and tells a much different and uglier story about Afghan civilian casualties than the U.S. government had claimed was the case. It also paints a dismal picture of the war's status from the U.S's perspective.
This woman felt that ultimately, what WikiLeaks published would have the affect as when The New York Times published the secret Pentagon Papers in 1971. The American people were shocked by what their government had been doing in Vietnam and realized they had been lied to. Even louder than before, Americas demanded the Vietnam war be ended. John and I hope she is right and that Americans demand ending the Afghan and Iraq Wars..
Despite these WikiLeaks revelations, and despite the enormous financial problems Americans have at home, Congress immediately appropriated another $59 billion to spend on the Afghan War
Speaking of money, the Defense Department was unable to account for another $8.7 billion for the Iraq "reconstruction" effort it attempted from 2004 to 2007. This parallels the recent Wall Street Journal revelation that in Afghanistan, billions of U.S. dollars in taxpayer money has disappeared.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan yesterday, a bus was blown up killing 26 men, women, and children and injuring 20 others, while in Iraq on Monday, a series of bombs took the lives 48 Iraqis, injuring 88 more, while yesterday bombs and rocket attacks killed 35 Iraqis, injuring 60 others. The bloodshed is endless and will continue as long as the wars do.
But thousands of miles away, on a peaceful Los Angeles area street corner, the vigil received numerous horn honks and waves of support. "I'm very disappointed in Barack Obama." said a 42 year old woman who joined the vigil with her 5 year old son. "I hear many people say that."
"I'm from Costa Rica." said a 25 ish bike rider. "When I see something like this, I know Americans really do care for peace."
We also heard a few people say "thank you" to us. And as John said, "the thank yous we got mean people think we gave them something of value." These vigils are of value and they remind people of the enormous price being paid in lives and limbs and in heartache and hopefully they will help us find our way to peace.
Dick
2 comments:
Well done! Even injured and in pain, you still took the time to remind us about what is going on. THANK YOU!
That lady who approached us to thank you for being there complimented the peace sign pin I was wearing. I had one like it in my pocket for such situations, and I offered it to her if she would wear it. She accepted the condition and the pin and put it on then and there. Her enthusiasm and appreciation were a huge return for a permanent marker peace sign on a poker chip with a little badge-pin on its back. I don't know who was the happiest of the three of us.
Post a Comment