Friends for a Non-Violent World (FNVW)
Presents:
Leaving Iraq Now
Why it’s the best chance for peace & security and why September is our best
chance to make it happen.
Phil Steger was born in Buffalo, NY and raised
in Marshall, MN. He earned a B.A. in Theology
from St. John’s University. Until recently, he was
executive director of the Quaker organization,
Friends for a Non-Violent World. He traveled
three times to Iraq on peacemaking delegations
before the present war and appeared widely as a
commentator on the war on network TV, MPR, AM
talk radio, and both the Minneapolis Star Tribune
and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He has presented
hundreds of times on the topic of Iraq to audiences
across Minnesota and the rest of the country. In
2004, his plan for exiting Iraq was endorsed by two
Minnesota Congress members and one Presidential
candidate. He has traveled the state and the country
as a speaker on peace. He has since returned to St.
John’s University as Deputy Director of Manuscript
Preservation at the Hill Museum & Manuscript
Library, where he oversees digital preservation of
the ancient hand-written cultures of the Middle East
and the former Eastern bloc.
Phil Steger
In Morris on
Saturday, September 8
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Morris Public Library
America needs an “end the war” push in
the last months of 2007 to equal the “no
to war” push of 2003. Bring friends, neigh-
bors, family members. Learn why leaving
is the best, most just, most secure choice
for Iraqis and Americans. Learn why Sep-
tember is a must-act month for ending the
war and what YOU can do.
Phil Steger is a three-time traveler to Iraq and has
been one of Minnesota’s most prominent, widely
seen and best received voices explaining, opposing,
and proposing solutions to the U.S. war in Iraq. He
was executive director of FNVW from 2002 to 2007.
The unconventional formatting burns my eyes!
Otherwise, yes, get us out of this crazy war.
You’re promoting the activities of a trained theologian???
I don’t go in for the god hocus-pocus, but the Quakers have been on the right side of pretty much every issue in American history.
Even though Quakers and (some) Unitarians believe in a god (or gods), they still stand for most of the issues that we atheist folk do: separation of church and state, secular government, social justice, freedom of thought and speech, etc. U’s and Q’s have pretty much morphed into social action groups rather than churches with dogmas. Even as an atheist, I find it petty to block someone because of their beliefs. Rather, I block those who think everyone must share their beliefs or else. Unfortunately, that’s something like 45% of my country.
I almost feel like giving up. How could the American people have sent a clearer message than the 2006 elections? Why are the Democrats backing down and not simply refusing to further fund the war? That’s what we want. That’s what we voted for.
MMMmmmmm…oatmeal!
Oh, wait, wrong Quakers.
This, “war,” is more screwed up than Vietnam. I don’t think this guy is better than any other political windbag. Everyone would like this Iraq nonsense to be over except for Bush and few of his closest friends that he put in positions of power. What we need to do is get Bush out–and that should have happened years ago when it would have made a difference. While he coasts to the end of his second term is no time for actual political change. Everyone who wants to talk big and bad now is just looking for attention because it just doesn’t matter anymore. Whomever comes in next will use Iraq as a campaign slogan, you can rely on it. Apathy has reigned supreme. The time to make real change is past.
“America needs an “end the war” push in the last months of 2007″
It is ongoing, it is popularly called the “Surge”, and it seems to be working, slowly. Leaving now, with the Iraqi army half trained and almost totally lacking in air power, would be a disaster. The actual result would be conquest of Iraq by Iran, with much bloodshed.
The Iraqi security forces are developing steadily, but it will be at least 12 months before they could defend their country on their own.
I wonder why it is that surge-supporters always use the phrase “seems to be working”?
Actually, no I don’t.
The surge didn’t work in Vietnam when we called it escalation, and it won’t work in Iraq. And it “seems to be working” because the government has changed the way it tallies the violence in Iraq, not because the violence has actually decreased. Remember that big bombing in Northern Iraq that killed 400-500 people a few weeks ago? Apparently, that doesn’t count as violence when assessing the success of the surge.
And, yes, if we leave things, will be really horrible for awhile while Sunnis flee and Shiites take over, but that’s pretty much what’s going on right now anyway, so we might as well get the hell out of the way while it happens.
Better yet, I say those who support this disastrous occupation of Iraq be sent over to do whatever it is they think needs to be done, then bring home all the soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors who don’t want to be there anymore.
I’ll buy your plane ticket, Mr. Cox. Deal?
should read “if we leave, things will be horrible…”
and I even used the preview…
should read “if we leave, things will be horrible…”
and I even used the preview…
hmmmm, interesting have you read the transcript of the new tape just released of supposedely Usama Bin Laden.
This tape now gives the opportunity for GW/DC to call unpatriotic all americans who agree with what he is saying in this tape.
As he is quoting Chomsky and other ex CIA executives in his speech, who basically say that it was a huge mistake to get into Iraq and it was made up, which will get spinned by Fox News and others aa “if you say what they say, you are agreeing with Bin Laden and therefore unpatriotic.
What Iraq needs is investment. Nothing stops revolution faster than prosperity.
Note, that’s nice measurable heft-it-in-your-hands *prosperity*, not amorphous concepts like “liberty”. You can’t eat liberty.
Can I post a stupidly big block of Mr Dooley? He is awesome. It’s from a hundred years ago, but it stillholds true.
Yeah, you’ll have to decode the accent. It’s fun!
—
“As rega-ards Cubia, she’s like a woman that th’ whole neighborhood helps to divoorce fr’m a crool husband, but nivertheless a husband, an’ a miserable home but a home, an’ a small credit at th’ grocery but a credit, an’ thin whin she goes into th’ dhressmakin’ business, rayfuse to
buy annything fr’m her because she’s a divoorced woman. We freed Cubia but we didn’t free annything she projooces. It wasn’t her fault. We didn’t think. We expicted that all we had to do was to go down to Sandago with a kinetoscope an’ sthrike th’ shackles fr’m th’ slave an’ she’d be comfortable even if she had no other protiction f’r her poor feet.
“Well, Cubia got her freedom or something that wud look like th’ same thing if she kept it out iv th’ rain, but somehow or another it didn’t suit her entirely. A sort iv cravin’ come over her that it was hard to tell fr’m th’ same feelin’ iv vacancy that she knew whin she was opprissed be th’ Hated Casteel. Hunger, Hinnissy,
is about th’ same thing in a raypublic as in a dispotism. They’se not much choice iv unhappiness between a hungry slave an’ a hungry freeman. Cubia cudden’t cuk or wear freedom. Ye can’t make freedom into a stew an’ ye can’t cut a pair iv pants out iv it. It won’t bile, fry, bake or fricassee. Ye can’t take two pounds iv fresh
creamery freedom, a pound iv north wind, a heapin’ taycupfull iv naytional aspirations an’ a sprinklin’ iv bars fr’m th’ naytional air, mix well, cuk over a hot fire an’ sarve sthraight fr’m th’ shtove; ye can’t make a dish out iv that that wud nourish a tired freeman whin he comes home afther a hard day’s wurruk lookin’ f’r a job. So Cubia comes te us an’ says she: ‘Ye done well by us,’
she says. ‘Ye give us freedom,’ says she, ‘an’ more thin enough to go round,’ she says, ‘an’ now if ye plaze we’d like to thrade a little iv it bhack f’r a few groceries,’ she says. ‘We will wear wan shackle f’r a ham,’ says she, ‘an’ we’ll put on a full raygalia iv ball an’ chain an’ yoke an’ fetters an’ come-alongs f’r a square meal,’ says she.
Can I post a stupidly big block of Mr Dooley? He is awesome. It’s from a hundred years ago, but it stillholds true.
Yeah, you’ll have to decode the accent. It’s fun!
—
“As rega-ards Cubia, she’s like a woman that th’ whole neighborhood helps to divoorce fr’m a crool husband, but nivertheless a husband, an’ a miserable home but a home, an’ a small credit at th’ grocery but a credit, an’ thin whin she goes into th’ dhressmakin’ business, rayfuse to buy annything fr’m her because she’s a divoorced woman. We freed Cubia but we didn’t free annything she projooces. It wasn’t her fault. We didn’t think. We expicted that all we had to do was to go down to Sandago with a kinetoscope an’ sthrike th’ shackles fr’m th’ slave an’ she’d be comfortable even if she had no other protiction f’r her poor feet.
“Well, Cubia got her freedom or something that wud look like th’ same thing if she kept it out iv th’ rain, but somehow or another it didn’t suit her entirely. A sort iv cravin’ come over her that it was hard to tell fr’m th’ same feelin’ iv vacancy that she knew whin she was opprissed be th’ Hated Casteel. Hunger, Hinnissy, is about th’ same thing in a raypublic as in a dispotism. They’se not much choice iv unhappiness between a hungry slave an’ a hungry freeman. Cubia cudden’t cuk or wear freedom. Ye can’t make freedom into a stew an’ ye can’t cut a pair iv pants out iv it. It won’t bile, fry, bake or fricassee. Ye can’t take two pounds iv fresh creamery freedom, a pound iv north wind, a heapin’ taycupfull iv naytional aspirations an’ a sprinklin’ iv bars fr’m th’ naytional air, mix well, cuk over a hot fire an’ sarve sthraight fr’m th’ shtove; ye can’t make a dish out iv that that wud nourish a tired freeman whin he comes home afther a hard day’s wurruk lookin’ f’r a job. So Cubia comes te us an’ says she: ‘Ye done well by us,’ she says. ‘Ye give us freedom,’ says she, ‘an’ more thin enough to go round,’ she says, ‘an’ now if ye plaze we’d like to thrade a little iv it bhack f’r a few groceries,’ she says. ‘We will wear wan shackle f’r a ham,’ says she, ‘an’ we’ll put on a full raygalia iv ball an’ chain an’ yoke an’ fetters an’ come-alongs f’r a square meal,’ says she.
PZ, maybe you should look at this: http://bluepyramid.org/peace/ It seems to be a good organization, and they only have a few hundred blogs out of their target 1,000,000.
negentropyeater: Chomsky is already vilified as antiAmerican or worse, so …
t is ongoing, it is popularly called the “Surge”, and it seems to be working,
Uh, I guess you didn’t read the report from the General in charge of operations over there that was in all the papers today.
Seems he doesn’t think it’s *quite* going to plan.
you can read his letter for yourself, just look up:
General David Petraeus
one AP Military writer put it as:
“Gen. David Patraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, conceded on Friday that the buildup of American combat forces has fallen short of its goal.”
oops.
now wasn’t September the month that Bush (shortly after the 2006 elections), promised us that there would be great progress, and the final review would be forthcoming at that time?
yes….
expect much lying and backpeddaling to keep us there indefinetly.
any idiot can see where this is going. If you can’t, you must be less than an idiot.
is that possible, even?
oh, yeah, Bush is case on point that it is. have you heard his latest revisionist version of Vietnam this week?
I’d laugh if it wasn’t all so deadly serious and pathetic, and people weren’t losing their lives because so many here at home, including the administration, apparently have their heads encased in cement.
do you REALLY want an indefinite commitment in Iraq and the middle East?
’cause that’s what shrub wants.
We’re making Progress in Iraq!
exactly.
This is GW to a “T”.
lie, obfuscate, lie, then forget you lied.
repeat as necessary.
amazing it takes something like the Daily Show (which does vids like this on a regular basis) to actually provide an in context history of his repeated lies and deceits.
even more amazing is that they can do it to GW not with just Iraq, but over a dozen different issues. Works equally well with just about anything Dick Cheney has ever said. Karl keeps himself hidden in the background well enough that it’s harder to do with things he has said, but it could easily be done with things he has written.
and the topper, of course, is that most americans apparently couldn’t give a shit, or else have such short attention spans that they don’t even perceive the patterns of his lies unless it is so blatantly pointed out for them, and not just once, mind you, but over and over again.
*sigh*