(Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org)Georgia Green Party http://www.greens.org/georgiaFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, November 19, 2009For further information, contact:Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary770-592-7295 * bdixon@georgiagreenparty.orgDenice Traina, Former CoChair706-364-7810 * denice.traina@georgiagreenparty.orgThis weekend, Greens from Georgia and far beyond will again gather with nearly 25,000 justice-loving individuals of all persuausions for an annual vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning. Led by School of the Americas Watch (http://www.soaw.org), the yearly ritual has become a centerpiece of the mass movement to close a terrorist training camp operated on Georgia soil that has led countries throughout the Americas to withdraw their students from its program.”Regardless of which corporate Party wins the election, it seems US foreign policy continues to serve investment interests over those of the American peaople,” said Denice Traina, former Co-Chair of the Georgia Green Party, a physical therapist from Augusta who has travelled with her kids to the annual vigil 13 of the last 14 years.The recent ouster of Manuel Zelaya as the legitimately elected leader of Honduras has been tied to the leadership of graduates of the Georgia terrorist training camp. The military backed regime has suspended civil liberties, authorizing arrests without warrants in blatent violation of the Central American government’s constitution.”U.S. fingerprints are all over President Zelaya’s ouster, despite the Obama Administration’s attempt to maintain plausible deniability for the coup,” said Michael Canney, a Florida Green who recently represented the U.S. Green Party in annual meeting of the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas in Santiago, Chile.”Throughout the Americas, there is growing concern that the Obama Administration is continuing the discredited policies of the Bush Administration,” added Canney, citing as examples the escalating military presence in Colombia and the military buildup represented by the US Fourth Fleet, recommissioned in 2008 to patrol the Carribean, Central and South American coasts.Noting that the Fourth Fleet’s flagship will be a new nuclear aircraft carrier, which will be based at a $500 million docking facility, soon to be built at the Mayport naval base in Jacksonville, Florida, Canney said. “Obama’s failure to break with the ‘gunboat diplomacy’ of the last century is viewed with alarm by folks across this hemisphere. They feel betrayed and disappointed, and they aren’t buying the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terrorism’ as pretexts for US military expansion in the region.”Prior to the coup, the Zelaya administration was planning to convert a major Honduran military air base into a civilian airport, with funding from ALBA, a banking and trade alliance for Latin America and the Caribbean initiated by Venezuela and Cuba in 2004 as an alternative to the FTAA. Current members of the alliance include Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador. Honduras joined ALBA in October 2008. The Soto Cano air base (aka Palmerola) was built up by the US in the 1980’s as part of the contra war against Nicaragua, and is home to “Joint Task Force Bravo”.The Obama administration has declined to name the change of leadership in the sovereign nation of Honduras as the “coup-d’etat” the world recognizes it as. When all other countries recalled their ambassadors, the U.S. Government maintained its embassy and the recognition of the illegitimate coup leaders as speaking for the people of Honduras.”Once you are aware, you just can’t ignore the truth,” said Traina, whose service in the Peace Corps took her to Paraguay where she met her husband and the father of her two sons. “One is compelled to be vigilant about the injustices perpetrated in our names and with our tax dollars. Closing this school is no longer enough. We must spread the truth to others so these crimes are never conducted in our country’s name again.”– 30 –Georgia Green Party http://www.greens.org/georgia/Background sources:http://soaw.org/http://www.jtfb.southcom.mil/http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/soto-cano.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas

From TruthOut.org :

Since Veterans Day, Thomas E. Mahany, a 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran, has been on a hunger strike in front of the White House to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder and protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Mahany recently wrote a letter to President Obama calling on him to “withdraw our military men and women from the Middle East now.” He said he plans to only drink water “until specific action is taken by your administration and our military to stem the tragic and ever-increasing rise in the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)” that has seen a meteoric rise over the years among those serving in the military.Earlier this week, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, told reporters that suicides among veterans and active-duty soldiers have already reached a record high this year and show no signs of abating.As of November 16, 140 soldiers on active duty have taken their own lives. The cause of death of 71 veterans this year have been identified as suicide. The suicide rate for 2008 was the worst in three decades, and in January 2009, 24 soldiers killed themselves - more than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. And hundreds of thousands more suffer from PTSD or traumatic brain injury due in large part to multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.Mahany said his efforts thus far have gone unnoticed by the public. Although, he said he has received a good response from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts).Kerry “said he was working on new legislation, and what I wanted to work on is reinstating the draft,” said Mahany, an artist from Royal Oak, Michigan, in a telephone interview Thursday. “That’s one way we can work on a cause and not just effect. Effect is after the fact. What we need to do is we need to stop recycling our limited troops and get more troops in there, and the best way to do that is a draft. The other alternative is to just bring everyone home, but something has to be done because it’s not fair. It’s not democratic. It’s a violation of our own human rights, and that’s hypocritical because that’s supposedly what we’re fighting for - human rights.”Kerry’s office did not respond to requests for comment.As for how he was holding up, Mahany said, “O.K., I’m fine,” and he said that it’s the first seven days that are the hardest. “I’m past that,” he said, and he said that hunger isn’t a problem, but “lack of energy is a problem.” Going on his tenth day, he said he is sleeping at night at a home for veterans against the war. He said he’s prepared to stay “as long as it takes.”Talking about the passers-by who don’t say much, Mahany said, “People passing by don’t really pay any attention. That’s the biggest part of the problem - that’s why we are where we are - because of the complacency of the common man and not being connected to the problem.” He said that many people don’t care about those suffering with PTSD.Mahany, who also spent 29 days fasting for peace in Vietnam back in May 1970, wrote Obama, “I served in Vietnam and I also lost a brother-in law to suicide caused by PTSD. He had two young sons. I have seen firsthand what this can do to a family.In taking my action, I hope to elicit for you, from the peace-loving people of this nation, moral support sufficient to spiritually bolster you as you make your decision concerning our military presence in Afghanistan.”He called for Obama to “please end this needless, incessant war making. We have long ago surpassed humanely reasonable demand exacted upon the fruit of our middle class as well as wrought excessive death and destruction on unwitting civilians in foreign lands. Let us now tone down the hatred and stop the violence that has engulfed our society.”As of Thursday afternoon, Mahany had not gotten a response from the Obama administration. In his letter to Obama, he wrote, “Sir, I pray you find the strength to make the honorable choice and the courage to implement it” and, talking about those serving in the military, “Take them away from the ordeal of continually dealing with the relentless and senseless mortality which surrounds them. Deal with the cause, not just the effect.”Mahany said that he and many other veterans, along with some student activists in the Washington, DC-Baltimore area, plan to hold a demonstration on the steps of Lincoln Memorial at noon on Thanksgiving.

from NY Times article on the Voters For Peace website:

The latest internal government estimates place the cost of adding 40,000 American troops and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces, as favored by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, at $40 billion to $54 billion a year, the officials said.Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.So even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration.