NEWFANE — I am one of the people who have been marching on Friday afternoons in Brattleboro to call for accountability in government and an end to the occupation in Iraq.
To the many of you who have expressed your support, I thank you. It was our hope that we would inspire others to join us so that we could send a clear message to the world and our elected "representatives" that we want this devastating, illegal war to end. It has been difficult to keep our numbers up, however, as people have not joined us.
Yet the war goes on, and just because Barack Obama has been elected, it does not mean that it will end. In fact, it is more important than ever that we keep the pressure on.
There are still 150,000 troops and 75 major U.S. military bases in Iraq. More veterans are committing suicide - 1,000 attempt to do so every month - than are dying in combat. More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded, and half of them return permanently disabled.
How are the Iraqi people doing? Unemployment rates are as high as 60 percent. Four million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes. The water supply is contaminated, and Baghdad has electricity for only four hours each day. Corruption and waste in the use of private non-Iraqi contractors have resulted in incomplete and shoddy construction projects.
The Friday marchers have decided that it is counterproductive to march every week with such small numbers, but we can't let the Iraqi people and our soldiers think that we have forgotten them. We have decided instead to now march in solidarity with the Iraq Moratorium, a nationwide movement that invites people to take any kind of action on the third Friday of each month to voice opposition to the war and affirmation for peace and healing.
We meet at the Brattleboro Food Cooperative's parking lot at 4 p.m., this month on Jan. 16. We'll drum our way through downtown Brattleboro (which is actually a lot of fun), reminding people that citizens have an obligation to speak out about atrocious policies being enacted supposedly in our names.
Please march with us. Bring a drum or a sign, or use one of our signs. And please, if you see us on the street, join us, even if it's only for a block.