As I scrolled through my Facebook news feed, I discovered the following artwork, being shared by an acquaintance from here, and originally posted it to my own wall, along with commentary…
“War: I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit”
My Commentary: “Red is for the blood that flows from shore to shore
White is for the wash that covers up it’s core
Blue are for the seas and skies, all seized for war
America, America, what are we fighting for?”
The following correspondence originally took place on my Facebook wall, upon my post, “First U.S. Official Yet Hands in Resignation in Protest to Afghan War!“…
Former Foreign Service Employee and Marine, Matthew Hoh
Rayn: First U.S. Official Yet Hands in Resignation in Protest to Afghan War!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009102603447Now, this is CHANGE I can BELIEVE IN! There’s nothing like an honest-to-goodness change of heart! Especially, after some good ol’-fashioned first-hand experience!
According to the September 2009 resignation letter of Foreign Service Officer, former Marine captain, & former civilian Department of Defense employee Matthew Hoh, he has “lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” having “doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy.” His resignation “is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.” He cannot “see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.”
Seeing the current Afghani administration as corrupt – seated by lawless drug lords and war criminals, bound by sweet-heart deals, and wrought with election fraud – Matthew feels that “our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds [him] horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.” Well put, Matthew! And, well done!
And, for those interested in reading Matthew Hoh’s full resignation letter, go here:
http://original.antiwar.com/news/2009/10/27/resignation-letter-from-us-foreign-service-officer-matthew-p-hoh/
Kenny C.: would u actually attend a protest?
Raymond M.: Protests can be counter effective if your primary motive is consciousness-raising. Your audacity might turn off people who are unfamiliar with your cause and need to be educated about what’s at stake before being subjected to all the noise.
Kenny C.: not like protesting does anything anyway, they dont care..and soon enough when the fema camps are ready to go, they are gonna take us and send us to modern concentration camps!
Rayn: To answer your question, Kenny, I don’t think I would attend a protest march, unless it was privately coordinated to be highly, independently videotaped, as police have been known to plant agent provocateurs into marches in order to cause havoc, enabling them to dispatch SWAT teams to the scene to unleash brutal, and even lethal, force. It’s one thing to clearly put yourself on the line for your rights, but it’s another thing to have police beat you down, then hit you with bogus charges, while the mainstream media paints you out to be a violent criminal, or an anarchist, with most believing it. Having a gigantic propoganda machine at their disposal, and the ability to reach vast audiences, the media is usually able to hijack the point of the public protest right out from underneath the protesters, and hand it over to the very small minority of fringe, or extremist elements that are there, successfully sullying the public’s views of even the most reputable cause.
Watch the following videos to understand what I mean: (Click Here to Continue Reading This Post)
I originally posted the following information and commentary onto my Facebook wall…
Former Foreign Service Employee and Marine, Matthew Hoh
First U.S. Official Yet Hands in Resignation in Protest to Afghan War!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009102603447
(Karen DeYoung, Washington Post) – When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
My Commentary: Now, this is CHANGE I can BELIEVE IN! There’s nothing like an honest-to-goodness change of heart! Especially, after some good ol’-fashioned first-hand experience!
According to the September 2009 resignation letter of Foreign Service Officer, former Marine captain, & former civilian Department of Defense employee Matthew Hoh, he has “lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” having “doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy.” His resignation “is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.” He cannot “see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.”
Seeing the current Afghani administration as corrupt – seated by lawless drug lords and war criminals, bound by sweet-heart deals, and wrought with election fraud – Matthew feels that “our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds [him] horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.” Well put, Matthew! And, well done!
And, for those interested in reading Matthew Hoh’s full resignation letter, go here:
http://original.antiwar.com/news/2009/10/27/resignation-letter-from-us-foreign-service-officer-matthew-p-hoh/
The following debate originally took place on my Facebook wall, upon my post, “Cindy Sheehan Heads to Martha’s Vineyard to Confront Obama on the War“…
Peace activist, Cindy Sheehan
Rayn: Cindy Sheehan Heads to Martha’s Vineyard to Confront Obama on the War:
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/08/cindy-sheehan-heads-to-marthas-vineyard.htmlWhile most Americans voted President Obama into the Whitehouse with the “hope” that he would effect real “change,” by putting an end to the previous administration’s falsely-premised, highly illegal wars of aggression & occupation in the Middle East, very few individuals have been willing to take him to task for his blatant failure to make any sort of true “progress.” Then, there’s peace activist, Cindy Sheehan. Unfazed by the “right” and “left” of American politics, she bodly chooses, rather, to focus on what is “right” vs. “wrong.” With the loss of her son, Casey, to the senseless war in Iraq, she honors his memory by making it her personal mission to end our Imperial Adventures overseas, period.
During the week of August 23-30, while Obama’s vacationing @ an expensive resort on Martha’s Vineyard, Cindy will join other activists in letting him know that there’s no relaxing when peole are still dying in our wars! She’s a courageous American, a real Humanitarian & a true patriot!
Kenny C.: It is sick! How can the Commander in chief be on vacation at a resort while there is a full blown war going on with over hundred thousand brainwashed american soldiers killing innocent women and children in countries we have no business in.
INSTEAD OF VACATION, WORK ON YOUR PROMISE YOU MADE, END THE WAR AND PRESERVE THE CONSTITUTION!
Rayn: As I have said before, Obama IS working on the promises he made, and all is going according to planned! Allow me to direct your attention to some of the comments he made when he was still just a candidate on the campaign trail, looking to secure American votes:
Speaking from Afghanistan in a July 20, 2008 interview on “Face the Nation,” Obama said, ”it’s time for us to withdraw some of our combat troops out of Iraq, and deploy them here in Afghanistan, and I think we have to seize that opportunity. Now’s the time for us to do it” (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4275914n). Translation: MORE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN!
Speaking on August 1, 2007 in an address to the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC, Obama stated the same exact agenda, taking it a step further: “The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan” (http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58663). Translation: MORE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN! NEW ILLEGAL WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST PAKISTAN!
According to Obama, “if we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will” (http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=62500&newsChannel=domesticNews). Translation: NEW ILLEGAL COVERT WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST PAKISTAN!
Obama even went as far as saying, “we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair – our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan; it is a democratic ally” (read transcript of entire speech here: http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/the_war_we_need_to_win.php) Translation: REGIME CHANGE AND NATION-BUILDING IN PAKISTAN!
In August of 2007, in an article entitled “Renewing America’s Leadership,” published in the Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) “Foreign Affairs” Magazine, Obama wrote, “I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened. We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability — to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities” (read transcript of entire speech here: http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/153/26336.html). Translation: NEW UNPROVOKED, ILLEGAL WARS OF AGGRESSION AGAINST MIDDLE-EASTERN SOVEREIGN NATIONS!
In this same article, Obama also claimed that “we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy — the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.” Translation: NEW ILLEGAL WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST NORTH KOREA! NEW ILLEGAL WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST IRAN!
See what I mean? Obama was always just another Bush, hell-bend on expanding America’s wars in the Middle East. I tried to warn as many people as I could not to vote for this warmongering pig, but only a select few took the time to review my research!
But, you know what? It’s never to late to turn this slimeball into the LAME DUCK he should be! We can prevent his re-election if we spread the truth around, and let people know that they were fooled by this FALSE PEACE CANDIDATE! (Click Here to Continue Reading This Post)
I originally posted the following information and commentary onto my Facebook wall…
Peace activist, Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan Heads to Martha’s Vineyard to Confront Obama on the War:
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/08/cindy-sheehan-heads-to-marthas-vineyard.html
For immediate release:
Next week, Cindy Sheehan will join other like-minded peace activists to have a presence near the expensive resort on Martha’s Vineyard where President Obama will be vacationing the week of August 23-30.
My Commentary: While most Americans voted President Obama into the Whitehouse with the “hope” that he would effect real “change,” by putting an end to the previous administration’s falsely-premised, highly illegal wars of aggression & occupation in the Middle East, very few individuals have been willing to take him to task for his blatant failure to make any sort of true “progress.” Then, there’s peace activist, Cindy Sheehan. Unfazed by the “right” and “left” of American politics, she bodly chooses, rather, to focus on what is “right” vs. “wrong.” With the loss of her son, Casey, to the senseless war in Iraq, she honors his memory by making it her personal mission to end our Imperial Adventures overseas, period.
During the week of August 23-30, while Obama’s vacationing @ an expensive resort on Martha’s Vineyard, Cindy will join other activists in letting him know that there’s no relaxing when peole are still dying in our wars! She’s a courageous American, a real Humanitarian & a true patriot!
