Maine Owl

I've written extensively a few years ago on the effect on occupied people of an invader that feels impunity in bombing, killing, and breaking down doors. I'll repost below something I put up almost six years ago about Iraq.

It shouldn't be so hard, then, to understand what motivates Afghan Taliban forces. Greenwald today discusses HERE some realization from David Rhodes reporting from Afghanistan in the New York Times.

Co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" will be in Orono, Bangor, and Portland November 5-6


David Swanson was arrested Monday (Oct. 5) outside the White House along with sixty other peace activists to begin this week's protest against the Afghan War, now in its 9th year. This clip is his Wednesday interview with Juan Gonzales on Democracy Now!:

JUAN GONZALEZ: But David Swanson, are you disheartened by the fact that so far only twenty-one co-sponsors have signed onto Congresswoman Barbara Lee's bill?

DAVID SWANSON: Well, those are original co-sponsors on day one; this is something that's just begun. I am encouraged that they've put that in and are beginning to whip around it. I'm encouraged that there are a hundred co-sponsors of the bill demanding an exit plan. I'm somewhat encouraged that, when it came down to it, we had thirty members of Congress vote "no" on the money back in June and that the public and the stories in the news have moved the debate much further against this war since June, so that if we had a similar situation, where the Republicans were all voting "no" for some cockamamy reason, we could get the thirty-nine we needed , not the thirty that we held in June. And that's the threat to the President's agenda and to this scheme where the Congress is trying to shift all responsibility for wars to the President, where it does not belong.

The DC protest, October 5

Author and organizer David Swanson will visit Bangor and Orono on Thursday November 5, 2009. Swanson is well known for creation of the website AfterDowningStreet.org following the publication in the U.K. of the revealing contents of the July 2002 Downing Street Memo:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Here is David Swanson's schedule for November 5. These events are free and open to the public:

• 12:30 p.m. Talk on "Undoing the Imperial Presidency" Bangor Room, Memorial Union, University of Maine, Orono, Maine
• 7:00 p.m. Evening talk on "Forming a More Perfect Union: Rights We've Lost and Rights We've Never Had"; Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, 170 Park St, Bangor, ME.

Contact the organizers:

Jamilla El-Shafei
jamillaelshafei at gmail.com

Bruce Gagnon
globalnet at mindspring.com

Michael Howard
Michael_Howard at umit.maine.edu

See HERE for information on the scheduled Portland event. More information about David Swanson is below.