Tag: War Moratorium

Crossposted from Fire on the Mountain.

Even though the official Obama administration review of Afghanistan shows just how shaky the occupation there is, Wikileaks continues to be the big news story two weeks on (thanks in no small part to the US decision to try and take down Julian Assange via a sex scandal–the media loves them some sex scandals, especially ones involving slender, pale blonds).

There’s one document in the first thousand released that I want to highlight here, in part in observance this weekend and Friday of the monthly War Moratorium. The story takes place at the corner of Afghanistan and Wikileaks. Though it also features non-consensual sex, it has received little play in the US media. (No blonds, perhaps?) And behind the sex lies an even more shocking story.

The cable (as they are called) from Kabul to Washington reports a desperate plea by Afghan Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar to US embassy officials. He needs help covering up a story he fears will break soon.

Many of you are familiar with the Iraq Moratorium. Some of the discussion that led to its formation took place here and at Daily Kos in early 2007 and its launch on September 15, 2007 was well recorded here. Diaries since have covered it, and blogosphere luminaries like Meteor Blades and One Pissed Off Liberal have repeatedly given it play.

The idea is simple, and captured in our pledge:

I hereby commit that, on the Third Friday and/or Third Weekend of every month, I will take some action by myself or with others to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Early last year, the tiny all-volunteer committee that helps coordinate this effort made two changes reflected in the wording above. We added the Third Weekend at the request of some of the many longstanding anti-war vigils that take place on Saturdays and Sundays, and we added the war in Afghanistan.

At that time we decided to keep the name Iraq Moratorium because of its name recognition and because we feared that Iraq was falling off the media’s radar and out of public consciousness entirely.

Looking back, we feel that this was a mistake. Iraq has in fact faded in this country’s awareness, despite the 120,000 troops still stationed there, not to mention the similar number of “private contractors” our tax dollars are paying for. Meanwhile, the administration is in the early stages of its second escalation in Afghanistan in less than a year, and the death toll there is rising inexorably–troops, insurgents and Afghani civilians alike–which has placed the occupation there center stage.

The Moratorium committee’s feeling is that the name should be changed to the War Moratorium, but we ask your input because, as mentioned above, the shoestring operation that keeps the Moratorium going consists of a handful of us. Your views will be a welcome contribution to our decision-making.

This is not the place for a summation of the 2,500 plus events that have taken place in observance of the Moratorium so far, nor for a plea for volunteers to help us build it, especially on the Internet and in older forms of media. Both of those will be forthcoming in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, please check out the website and remember the Moratorium slogan:

It’s Got To Stop! We’ve Got To Stop It!