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Certainly Worth a Try
by James Glaser November 23, 2009 Today is the day! Today is the day to try and get your voice heard by President Obama. Hopefully, millions of Americans will call the White House Comment Line. (202-456-1111) We don't have the lobbyists that the Military Industrial Complex has to sway the President's way of thinking about war, but we do have our vote. Obama has a second term to run for. Our money can't match theirs, but Obama's desire for continued power might just outweigh his need for their money.
An ad-hoc coalition of national peace advocacy organizations is calling on people from every corner of the country to inundate the White House on Monday (November 23rd) with phone calls against military escalation in Afghanistan. The groups, including Just Foreign Policy, United for Peace and Justice, the American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, CodePink, Voters for Peace, Pax Christi, CommonDreams.org, Historians Against War, and the Institute for Policy Studies, are asking people to call President Obama on Monday, using the White House Comment Line: 202-456-1111. Recent press reports have suggested that advisors to the President are "testing" the idea of sending 20,000 - 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2010. Now, before the decision is made, the peace movement wants to make sure the White House hears the widespread opposition to any escalation of the war in Afghanistan. "Sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan isn't going to make Americans safer, and it isn't going to help the people of Afghanistan," said Robert Naiman, Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy. "Instead of sending more troops, we need to establish an exit strategy for our troops, and shift our resources in Afghanistan from war to political reconciliation, reconstruction and development. The only difference between reconciliation now and reconciliation later is number of additional US military and Afghan civilian deaths and injuries that will happen if reconciliation is delayed."
If you call the White Comment Line, you will hear a recording telling you, "Your comment is important to the President." However it isn't important enough to have the Comment Line open on the weekends or at night. The only hours the President will take your comment are from 9am to 5pm. So, if you are a working American, you don't get much of a chance to comment. |
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