Now it's time for something else on the bridges: A peace vigil, Saturday, September 24th at 7:30pm, on the Burnside, Morrison, and Hawthorne bridges. Participating/sponsoring groups include:
- Archdiocese of Portland Office of Peace & Justice
- First Unitarian Church Peace Action Group
- St. Luke Lutheran Peace and Justice Group
- Buddhist Peace Fellowship
- Portland Insight Meditation Center
- Oregonians Against the War
- Pax Christi Portland
Join Living Earth in solidarity with the national mobilization Sept. 24-26 in Washington DC and around the country for peace. Against the wishes of millions of Americans and the protests of millions more around the world, the United States launched its unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq 2 1/2 years ago.There will be those at the vigil who will argue that we should be getting our people out of Iraq now, immediately, today. I'm not one of those; as wrong as our invasion and occupation of Iraq was and is--morally, strategically, militarily, diplomatically--there remains the problem that we broke it, and we still have some responsibility to fix it. If you're going to ask how I propose to do that, I'll freely admit I have no plan--which only puts me on a par with the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense. Sending John Bolton to the UN guaranteed that what tiny sliver of a chance there might ever have been to patching up relations with our allies to get their help is gone. But simply to pull out--a process which would take time, during which the bloodshed would amp up by a factor of lord-knows-how-much--would be to blow off any remaining moral responsibility we might have in the region, and it would reduce Iraq to an ungrateful Kurdish region in the north, an Iranian ally/client in the south, and a chaotic failed state in the middle.
Show up at the vigil and keep the pressure on the failed Bush presidency--for now, it may be the most productive thing we can do.
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