Obama is coming to Australia in the second half of March
It’s time to get organised…
Stop the War organising meeting:
Thursday February 11, 6:30pm
TLC Building (2nd floor), 16 Peel St, South Brisbane
All welcome
For more information phone Hamish (0401 586 923) or Mark (3891 5385)
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A White House spokesperson has said Obama is looking forward to commemorating the 70th anniversary of Australia-US relations – 70 years of cooperation in invasions and occupations around the globe. Kevin Rudd has told the ABC, “We have a whole truckload of areas of military cooperation and to work out where we go in the future together.
Many thought Obama would bring progressive change to U.S. foreign policy and have had their hopes sorely dashed. In his first year in office, he broke several war-making records of President George W. Bush with the largest military budget in U.S. history, the largest one-year war supplementals and the most drone attacks on the most countries. The White House has indicated that the next military budget will be US$708 billion, breaking Obamas previous record.
Think Obama is against war? Think again:
IRAQ
Obama’s promise of troop withdrawal from Iraq by August 2010 has been changed to withdrawal once Iraq has established a stable, pro-US regime. If this is achieved Obama has still pledged to keep 50,000 US troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future. While there is little reporting in Western media the Iraqi insurgence continues to fight against the occupation of their land.
AFGHANISTAN
Under Obama the war of occupation in Afghanistan has been dramatically escalated. He has more than doubled US troop numbers surging from 32,000 at the start of 2009 to more than 68,000. He has pressured other occupying nations to increase their troop numbers and has doubled the number mercenaries used in Afghanistan. Obama’s surge has cost many lives, including many civilians, and has only increased the number of people in Afghanistan willing to fight their occupation.
PAKISTAN
Obama has overseen the expansion of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan. His first military act as US president was to order two remote-controlled air strikes that killed 22 people in Waziristan, northern Pakistan. Obama is sending large numbers of mercenaries from Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) and DynCorp to protect huge US ‘diplomatic’ complexes in North-Western Pakistan and the capital Islamabad.
LATIN AMERICA
Obama has used the terrible earthquake in Haiti to re-occupy the country with over 10,000 US combat troops. His administration has given covert support to the right-wing military coup in Honduras, maintaining ties with the coup government and providing military trainers to train Honduran troops that have been terrorising their own people. Obama is establishing 7 new US bases in Columbia which is seen by most countries in South America as a direct threat to their sovereignty.
PALESTINE
When Bush backed the December 2008 Israeli blitzkrieg of Gaza, then President-elect Obama remained silent. Obama has supported the continued Israeli siege of Gaza’s 1.5 million devastated civilians. Obama’s administration has made muffled barely disapproving comments while Israel continues to expand its settlements on Palestinian land and builds an apartheid state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The Obama administration is seeking to increase U.S. spending on nuclear weapons by more than $5bn over the next five years, Obama’s Vice President Joe Biden tried to explain in Wall Street Journal why it was necessary to spend more on nuclear weapons in order to halt their spread, lulling the public with claims that “we will maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal.“
Help organise the protests against Obama’s visit. Only people’s power can provide real HOPE for the world.
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Hello Ciaron,
It is not all doom and gloom.
You may have heard that the Netherlands government fell overnight on the question of deployment of Dutch soldiers to Afghanistan.
in solidarity
Ian
100 people in King George Square on a Friday evening will be a self contained non-event.
Put the same number in Lloyd St. Enoggera at the entrance of Gallipolli Barracks and you’ve got a major security incident at a base directly connected to U.S./Australia’s war on Afghanistan.
You’ve got tension, context, engagement, and drama. (put some leg work into leafletting the local high schools and you’ll probably double your numbers. meet at the accessible Enoggera station and walk on up there!)
Going throught the same old rituals (cattle drives through downtown with not much cattle) eight years into this war just won’t cut it.
Saturday’s Courier Mail has photo and article on Australian gunners deployed from Enoggera to Aldershot/England to train and deploy with British forces deploying to Afghanistan.
The reasons for continuing to maintain an active presence in Afghanistan & Iraq are clear if you simply look at a map. Do you see what is right between them? Do you know that radical muslum terrorists who will stop at nothing to extinguish anyone with different beliefs are attempting to obtain nuclear weapons? Do you doubt that they will eventually have them? Wouldn’t you rather have a strong military presence sitting on both borders ready to rock at a moments notice? Although B. Hussein Obama is an embarrassment, I do support his efforts in this regard. You should thank the God of your choice that there are people on this earth who will fight so that you have the freedom to “protest” whatever it is you don’t like. While you’re at it, THANK THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!
Hi
Stop the War Collective in Brisbane decided on the following activities in response to War President Obama’s visit to Australia.:
We want as many people involved as possible to send a strong message. If you oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you oppose US aggression around the world, if you oppose US support for other brutal occupiers/regimes, if you oppose US deliberate sabotage of action against climate change please come along and get involved.
Our next meeting is this Thursday, 6:30pm Feb. 18, 2nd floor TLC Building, 16 Peel St, South Brisbane.
Please pass this message on through your networks.
TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN NOW!
Hamish Chitts
e)hamishmail@gmail.com
m)0401 586 923
Typo
Resist the War on Afghanistan http://www.couragetoresist.org
Yup protest is pretty futile. It assumes there is an objective refereee one can appeal to for fair play. There is resistance to these wars but more often than not those who lead the protest movements seek to marginalise the resistance.
It’s also a little weird, maybe celebrity obssessed, in this case that Obama going to Sydney is being prioritised in brisbane when hundreds of young Australians are presently being shipped from Gallipoli Barracks/Enoggera in Brisbane to Afghanistan.
The Catholic Worker network has sustained a weekly vigil outside of Gallipoli Barracks since May 09. Two weeks ago we stood there as 1,000 troops ready for deployment to Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor paraded and 2,500 family members gathered at the base. Now is a siginificant time, and Enoggera is the significant place, if you are based in Brisbane and opposed to these U.S. wars involving Australian troops. It’s where the rubber hits the road in Brisbane in terms of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is little popular support for these wars and little visible opposition. For that matter there is little discussion. Standing in vicinity of Gallipoli Barracks/ Enoggera is one of the few places in Brisbane where you realise we are a nation at war.
We don’t protest outside of the Barracks, we vigil – to stay awake while society slumbers – and call upon the troops to resist.
Our signs state
-Invading Afghanistan is Not defending Australia
-Refuse the Afghan Mission
-Resist the War on Afghanistan http://www.counterpunch.org
-Bring Our Troops Home!
“Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks” — Bob Dylan, ‘Masters of War’
There is now a distinct possibility that Obama (like Jimmy Carter) will be a one-term president of the United States.
Obama has proven to be unable to change US policy on Medicare or on the war in Afghanistan despite his campaign promises to do so.
So why protest against someone who cannot even get the mildest reform past those in charge in the US?
Protest has its place but implies the existence of just masters.
Who and where are they?
Where does power reside?
Why not organise against war in working class organisations? And by this I mean out there in the workplaces.
Also more needs to be done through APHEDA – union aid abroad – which helps people who are victim to imperialism i.e. Palestine.