Students to planning counter-recruitment march

Friday, July 29, 6:30pm

Youth Activists of Austin is opening up the July 29 meeting to the community to help plan a march calling for the demilitarization of high schools (can extend to colleges as well) on Sept. 17 (date open for discussion). Come help plan and/or lend your organizational name in endorsement.

Where: Maplewood School - outside near the side entrance steps (on E. 38 1/2 St., 5 blocks east of I-35, at the railroad tracks)
Info: Contact yaaustin[at]gmail.com.

See you there!

Ignoring Iraqi casualties

Their have been many of letters in the Austin American Statesman about the war in Iraq, and many if not most of those mention the American casualties. However, even among the anti-war letters, very few mention the thousands of civilians that have died. The same is true of all of the mainstream news sources I have seen and most of the left wing news and commentary as well. Why is it that we for the most part ignore their suffering?

Is it because we as a people are selfish? We are concerned about war, but only because of its effect on ourselves. For most people, civilian casualties have little influence on their opinion of the war, while American casualties do have a major effect. Right-wingers often argue that both in Vietnam and Iraq we are fighting them "there" because we don’t want to fight them "here." This is not true. The war in Iraq has does absolutely nothing to stop terrorists from attacking the US (or other Western countries, as was demonstrated last week). The war has, rather, alienated huge numbers of Muslims around the globe, helping not hampering terrorist recruitment efforts. Not only that, it shows that we don’t care about the peoples country that we do turn into a war zone. Why is that they should live in constant fear and terror just to make us feel safer? I guarantee that if the war was going on in America, our troops would not have bombed an American city like they did Fallujah, would not be as trigger happy as they are now, and would not use depleted uranium for ammunition. 22838- 25689 civilians have reportedly died in Iraq. That is about 8 times more deaths then on September 11th, and about 500 more then the recent terrorist attacks in London.

This girl deserved to live just as much as any of us. She deserved to live in peace just as much as any of us.

PA Teen goes AWOL

About 6 weeks ago, a young woman in Norhtampton, PA, made public allegations of recruiter fraud regarding her enlistment (when she was 17) in the PA Army National Guard delayed training program.Northampton is one of the high schools that has refused to permit counter-recruitment....

Yesterday, the Guard issued a warrant for her as AWOL and sent to several local police forces and the state police, requesting her apprehension and return to military control. Reportedly, she is not in the state at this time.

These shallow actions committed by the US military demonstrate that no child is to be left behind for war, even if it takes bringing a teen into custody.

Northampton Area teen in recruiting dispute goes AWOL
Warrant issued for AWOL teen in recruiting dispute