It’s Obama’s War, and We Will Stop It

The current escalation of the Afghanistan war comes at a new political moment. Unemployment is over 10%. Cities and towns are slashing basic services right and left. People are losing health care in droves, nothing is being done about the foreclosure crisis, and the U.S. is going to Copenhagen empty handed.   We need to build a movement that can respond to these challenges- because while this is not a new war, we need to fight it in a new way. We need to build new alliances into a movement that can bring this war and occupation to a rapid end, so that we can begin to make good on our real obligations to the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to the people of our own country who struggle to find jobs, health care, and climate justice.

We need to build a movement with roots in the labor movement, and among those struggling for economic rights, particularly among communities of color.

Congress hasn’t given Obama a blank check for this war yet – not even a $30 billion check.  And there’s still time for us to make sure they don’t.

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Read UFPJ’s synopsis of the President’s speech

For more detailed analysis of the President’s new Afghanistan policy, see this Phyllis Bennis paper. For other options to escalation see Madre: Six Alternatives to a Troop Surge in Afghanistan  and Don’t Escalate a Failing War (Ann Wright and Paul Kawika Martin).