[UC] Fw: [nwgreens] PAW Forum on Afghanistan, 1/28, 7:00 pm

[Bruce & Cynthia Haskin]

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Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 8:16 AM
Subject: [nwgreens] PAW Forum on Afghanistan, 1/28, 7:00 pm


  

PHILLY AGAINST WAR (PAW)

PAW Forum: Is Afghanistan the "good" war?
Getting beyond media and government spin on the US war in Afghanistan

By John Kirkland, phillyagainst...@gmail.com and 267.004.9448.

Philly Against War (PAW), www.phillyagainstwar.org, is having a panel 
discussion on the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. The speakers will address the 
effects of this war on both the Afghan and U.S. societies. 


President Barak Obama has drastically escalated the war in Afghanistan and the 
entire region. In particular, Obama has ramped up drone missile strikes against 
supposed Islamist insurgents and their neighbors, with an appalling cost in 
civilian casualties. In addition, he has augmented secret assassination squads, 
which are employed not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also in Yemen, 
Uzbekistan, and other countries. Media and government officials have referred 
to the Afghanistan war as the "good" or necessary war as opposed to the war in 
Iraq. Is this true?



The PAW Forum will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 28, at the 
Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 South Rittenhouse Square. The panel of 
speakers will be: 



  a.. Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report), 
  b.. Phyllis Bennis, (Institute for Policy Studies) 
  c.. Kathy Black (U.S. Labor Against the War) 
  d.. Jimmy Tobias (University of Pennsylvania) 


Glen Ford, a former correspondent with CBS news, has been a print and broadcast 
journalist for nearly 40 years. He is the current editor of the Black Agenda 
Report, http://www.blackagendareport.com. Mr. Ford has written extensively on 
U.S. policy in Afghanistan and on domestic policy. 



"History may remember Obama as just another vapid but predatory imperialist 
president who happens to be.superficially eloquent. Unfortunately, the clarity 
of Obama's diction is not matched by coherence of policy. Af-Pak is at least as 
whack as Bush's Iraq." From the "Obama's Af-Pak is as Whack as Bush's Iraq,"

http://tns1.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obamas-af-pak-whack-bushs-iraq. 



Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and has written 
and spoken on U.S. foreign policy. She is the co-author of the upcoming book; 
Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer. Ms. Bennis is also the director of 
the IPS New Internationalism Project.



"There was one way in which President Obama's escalation speech brought 
significant relief to the 59% of people in this country, as well as the 
overwhelming majorities of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and 
elsewhere who oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan: It was a pretty lousy 
speech.Because everything else in this politically and militarily defensive 
speech reflected accountability not to President Obama's base, the 
extraordinary mobilization of people who swept this anti-war and anti-racist 
candidate into office, but rather to the exigencies of Washington's traditional 
military, political, and corporate power-brokers who define 'national 
security.'" From: "President Obama's Afghanistan Escalation Speech: An 
assessment of what Obama said-and what he didn't say" by Phyllis Bennis, 
December 2, 2009.

Kathy Black is a co-convener of the U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) steering 
committee. Sister Black is a local leader of Philadelphia's Coalition of Labor 
Union Women and of AFSCME District Council 47, which represents the City of 
Philadelphia's white collar workforce.  As part of the panel, she will be 
showing a power point presentation prepared by USLAW for use by trade unions, 
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/index.php. 
Jimmy Tobias is a student, activist and writer at the University of 
Pennsylvania. In addition to his anti-war activity, he has authored an article 
on the ties between Penn and research by the U.S. military. 
"According to Defense Industry Daily, Penn professors, through the SWARMS 
[Scalable Swarms of Autonomous Robots and Mobile Sensors] project, are trying 
to get those drones to 'autonomously converge on enemy troops, aircraft and 
ships, decide what to do, then engage the enemy with surveillance or weapons to 
help U.S. forces defeat them. All this without direct human intervention.'" 
From "The Military-Academic Complex: Where Penn Intelligence and Central 
Intelligence Collide" by Jimmy Tobias, December 3, 2009, 34th Street Magazine, 
http://www.34st.com/content/2009/dec/military-academic-complex. 
Philly Against War is a coalition of peace and justice organizations. PAW 
opposes the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and calls for the immediate 
withdrawal of US troops and mercenaries from those countries.

PAW's member organizations are After Downing Street, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, 
Brandywine Peace Community, Bubbes and Zaydes for Peace in the Middle East, 
Code Pink of Philadelphia, Green Party of Delaware County, Green Party of 
Philadelphia, Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice, Northeast Philly for 
Peace and Justice, Northwest Greens, PDA/DFA Progressive Democracy South 
Jersey, Philadelphia International Socialist Organization, Philadelphia 
Regional Anti-War Network (PRAWN), Philadelphia Solidarity, Philadelphia World 
Can't Wait, Philly Socialist Action, Stop the War Committee and Women's 
International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
For more information on the PAW Forum, please email phillyagainst...@gmail.com 
or telephone 267.004.9448. 
___________________________


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