February 27, 2009
by Mike Ferner
St. Louis — A national veterans’ organization today objected to calling President Obama’s announcement on Iraq a “withdrawal,” adding that keeping troops there and Afghanistan will “put the nail in the coffin of America’s economy.”
Veterans For Peace, referring to several published reports that the Obama plan will leave 50,000 or more troops in Iraq, and pointing to the buildup already underway in Afghanistan, warned that such policies will have the same effect on the new President as the Vietnam War did on Lyndon Johnson’s plans for the Great Society.
“I really believe President Obama wants to do good things for the country,” said VFP president, Mike Ferner, “but if he continues on the course he’s charted, his hopes are guaranteed to founder on the shoals of war. This way lies disaster. For all our sakes, I hope he reconsiders.”
The 58 year-old former Navy Hospital Corpsman added, “Besides the suffering and death caused by prolonging these wars, America simply can no longer afford the cost of empire. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what these policies do. Their purpose is to control an entire region of the world and its resources. If you look at history, it’s clear the longterm outlook for empires is not very pleasant.”
Ferner concluded that “Barack Obama became president in part because millions of voters were sick of these wars and wanted them stopped, period. Saying that only ‘non-combat’ troops will be left after 19 months is just sleight of hand so we can keep tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq and send thousands more to Afghanistan.”
