Iraq – NOW WHAT?
Mary and I, Jon, were in Washington on Sept. 24, calling on our government to get out of Iraq. We were among the 630 people on the buses from Pittsburgh organized by the Thomas Merton Center, and among the 200,000 or more protestors in D.C.
Now what? Well, I will support pro-peace politicians. I will continue to vigil and picket on Saturdays, sometimes at Forbes and Braddock and sometimes at the military recruiting station on Forbes and Oakland Ave. . Perhaps most important is counter-recruitment. Can we encourage our young people not to believe the blarney from the military recruiters. Can we talk with people who got signed up, and are now being sent to Iraq – some of them for a second or third time? Can we tell them that it’s not too late to apply for conscientious objector status?