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BLOGS
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The
Green House peace project started out as just an email list, a few
days after 9-11. The purpose, then as now, was to "engender ideas,
disseminate information and ideas, and help each other and other organizations
to take positive action to prevent war, support our Arab-American
brothers and sisters and protect our civil liberties." The list
still exists and a subscription to it can be obtained by sending an
email wih a blank text field to: GHpeaceproject-subscribe@yahoogroups.com During the final portions of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq by the US and coalition forces, the GH peaceproject began meeting on Saturday afternoons, holding vigils at Nine Mile and Woodward. Perhaps more significantly, we participated in the Cities for Peace campaign to convince City councils and other organizations to pass resolutions opposing the impending war. The GHPP was thus a part of an effort that put Michigan tied for fifth in the Nation for the number of cities passing such resolutions. California, Massachusetts, New Jersy, and New York all had more; only California had a lot more (28); the next three all numbered in the mid to lower teens; and Ohio and Michigan were tied at 11. It was, of course, not possible to obtain such a resolution in every city in which we tried. But even in the cases in which it didn't pass, it was worth the effort, because issues were raised during the attempts that most people were not aware of. The major media were serving mainly as cheerleaders for the adminstration's impending war, for which, notably, several media outlets, including The New York Times, have since apologized. Very little information outside of such cheerleading was getting through. We also sent out press releases on various aspects of the administration's war plans, as we understood them, and understood the context. Those press releases make interesting reading now; except for an occasional point, we were right on the mark, as were many, many other groups, the bulk of the anti-war movement. Why do we say this now? Not for purposes of self-congratulation, but to make the point that the anti-war movement was right about the war and right about the occupation, as well.  The occupation has been going wrong since shortly after the President's address underneath the "mission accomplished" sign over five years ago; conditions have worsened in a steady progression. Go to globalsecurity.org; The crosses above were set up by Veterans for Peace in the median strip of Woodward in Ferndale on the second anniversary of the war. The casualty rates were much lower then. You can get the casualty toll up to the day from global security. The morning of 12/25/08, that figure stood at 4144 US service deaths and 30,182 wounded. Approximately 1.2 million Iraqi deaths (estimated) (More than double what we projected before the war and were often told was an overestimate.) There are also at least two million refugees in surrounding countries, especially Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. For an interview on the refugee problem that is undated but not exqactly recent, see epic-usa.org/files/EPIC/the_Ground_truth_Garcia.pdf. Then, too there is the more than $10 billion per month we spend on the war. Nobel Prize-winning American economist, Joseph Stiglitz, estimated the ultimate cost of the war to be $3 trillion and said it was ruining the US economy in The Three Trillion Dollar War. It's not a matter of what figure is correct; the wasteful and largely unnecessary military budget is a significant part of the very scary economic downturn taking place in the US now. Even the IMF is now predicting a global depression Page updated Dec. 25, 2008. Questions, comments, etc. should be forwarded to the webmaster. |