For us, the death of Osama Bin Laden is a time of profound reflection. With his death, we remember and mourn all the lives lost on September 11. We remember and mourn all the lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. We remember and mourn the death of our soldiers. <strong>And we say, as we have been saying for the past nine years, “Enough.”
As an organization led by women, our hearts go out to all the women who are living with the ravages of war and violence. And we say, “Enough.”
by Janet Weil March 11, 2011 was a day of triple tragedy in Japan: one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, the tsunami, and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The CODEPINK group in Osaka responded right away. They have been doing work all over Japan. Local group coordinator Hisae Ogawa has been emailing her own [...]
When we heard on Sunday that P.J. Crowley had resigned as spokesman for the State Department after criticizing the Pentagon’s treatment of suspected whistleblower Army private Bradley Manning, my CODEPINK colleagues and I knew we had to respond. How outrageous that yet another person gets punished for simply telling the truth–Crowley called Manning’s treatment “ridiculous, [...]
Here in Madison, Wisconsin, where protesters have occupied the State Capitol Building to stop the pending bill that would eliminate workers’ right to collective bargaining, echoes of Cairo are everywhere. Protesters here were elated by the photo of an Egyptian engineer named Muhammad Saladin Nusair holding a sign in Tahrir Square saying “Egypt Supports Wisconsin Workers—One World, One Pain.” The signs by protesters in Madison include “Welcome to Wiscairo”, “From Egypt to Wisconsin: We Rise Up”, and “Government Walker: Our Mubarak.” The banner I brought directly from Tahrir Square saying “Solidarity with Egyptian Workers” has been hanging from the balcony of the Capitol alongside solidarity messages from around the country.
My travels from Cairo to Madison seem like one seamless web. After camping out with the students and workers in the Capitol Building, I gave an early morning seminar on what it was like to be an eyewitness to the Egyptian revolution, and the struggles that are taking place right now in places like Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. Folks told me all day how inspiring it was to hear about the uprisings in the Arab world.
I was in the middle of buying some mints from a street vendor on Cairo’s Talat Harb Street—right off Tahrir Square--when the rocks started flying. I had given a 20-cent coin to the vendor. He gave me one pack of mints, and all hell broke loose.
“Run, run,” people yelled at me. I saw a group of men running down the street, carrying a man whose face was streaming with blood. Then I saw the pro-Mubarak thugs, armed with rocks, metal pipes, whips. “Run, Run,” the Egyptians on the street told me. I ran for shelter as fast as I could.
I have spent nearly ten years of my life speaking, writing, protesting, organizing, even singing and dancing for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I could quote statistics:
* 20% of Americans who die from suicide each year are veterans.
* More than 4,000 troops have died in these wars.
* There is documentation of more than 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq -- a country we were told we were liberating.
* The cost of these wars now totals more than $1 billion for North Dakota taxpayers alone.
These statistics are not new information. The cry for peace is not a new movement. It occurs to me this morning that I have nothing new to add. So I'll tell you what others have said.
Monday, May 2, 2011
2 Comments