ON-GOING ACTIVITIES

·        Out of Afghanistan, NOW – “Reach Out” at Union Square

·        Recruitment of New Members

·        Truth in Recruiting  - The Full Picture

·        Landmine Clearance

·        Letter to the Editor

·         “Love Grandma” Book

 

 

Out of Afghanistan, NOW:

 

Join Grandmothers Against the War in a "Reach Out" at Union Square in San Francisco,

every Thursday from 12:00-1:00 pm.  We talk to - and leaflet - passers-by, Bay Area residents on lunch breaks and tourists who are in town en masse, about the need to leave Afghanistan.

We meet at the corner of Powell and Geary at Noon and afterwards have lunch, either in the Westfield Centre or another local site.  We'll have the leaflets and banners and Grandmothers Against the War signs;

all we need is YOU!

 

Please read Bob Herbert's NY Times June 11, 2010 column, "The Courage to Leave Afghanistan"  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html

 

For more information contact us at info@gawba.org or phone (510) 845-3815

 

 

 

Sample Leaflet:

CALL  President Obama, Your Congressional Representative,
and Senators

THE MESSAGE IS SIMPLE:

OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW  

California taxpayers have spent $37.9 billion on the Afghanistan conflict since 2001. The same amount of money would have provided for 491,969 elementary school teachers or 405,844 police/sheriff’s patrol officers or 4,534,351 scholarships for university students for one year. ( http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs  has statistics for all states)

 

 

Your representatives need to hear that this situation is unacceptable.

  

Phone: President Obama 1-202-456-1111 (between 9 am-5 pm EST)

Congressional Switchboard (toll-free) 1-877-851-6437 or 1-877-210-5351
(Ask to speak to either of your senators or your congressional representative)

  

   Photo

   Flyer

 

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Recruitment of New Members

 

Join us!  If one of our on-going projects interests you or if you have an idea for another endeavor that fits into the goals of our group, please contact us.  One of the joys in working with GAW is that folks can devise their own actions and GAW will attempt to recruit volunteers to implement those actions.  If you just want to sit at home and write letters or make phone calls or even create leaflets, we want to hear from you! 

Contact us at info@gawba.org or phone (510) 845-3815.

 

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Truth in Recruiting  - The Full Picture

                                                  

Military recruiters have a very significant presence on many high school campuses.  We have taken on the job of countering their presence with that of grandmothers who want our youth to understand the "full picture".  What are the recruiters telling students that may be untrue?  What are the recruiters conveniently neglecting to tell them about military service?

To that end, we work in local high schools. It has been difficult to gain access to some schools, although the law requires that we be permitted to have such access.  So - we meet with principals, counselors, teachers, school superintendents, explain to them what we are doing, and eventually we are able to go into the schools with literature, set up tables at Career Fairs, and, if teachers invite us, speak to students in their classrooms.

 

We invite you to join us. The work can be as time-consuming as you wish, from delivering leaflets to school libraries and counseling centers, to tabling, to speaking in classrooms.

Contact us at Truth@GAWBA.org

 

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Landmine Clearance

 

Grandmothers Against the War is working with HALO USA to promote the clearance of landmines and other explosive remnants of war in Afghanistan.  These devices kill or maim an average of 80 people every month and hinder agricultural production, trade, and access to schools and water.

 

GAW will reach out to religious, business and other organizations and arrange for a HALO representative, who has served as a director of mine clearance, to talk about HALO’s work.  GAW representatives will then lead a discussion.

 

GAW aims to raise awareness of issues and problems especially important to explore as the United States sends additional troops to Afghanistan.  Discussing landmine clearance and the history of the wars that brought them into existence is an excellent way to begin a more wide-ranging exploration of the situation in Afghanistan today.  Any funds collected will go directly to HALO for its work in Afghanistan.

 

If you are interested in working on this project or have suggestions of groups that might be receptive to this talk, please contact Grandmothers Against the War at landmines@gawba.org or phone 510-845-3815. 

 

There are many tasks to perform; you need not be conversant with the situation in Afghanistan.  Indeed, you need not even lead a discussion, if you prefer not to do so.

 

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Letter to the Editor

 

In order to promote "Letters to the Editor" about Afghanistan and Iraq in communities outside of the usual liberal bastions, GAW has developed a sample letter.  We encourage you to send this letter or an edited version of it to your contacts outside the Bay Area and thereby make it easier for them to write to their local newspapers. Following is the letter that we have written.  You or your contacts should change it in any way that you or they think will make it more effective.  Please ask your friends to send it to a local newspaper over their signatures. If any do get printed, please let us know at info@gawba.org.

         

          Sample Letter:

 

Recent polls show that a majority of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan; the Obama administration is now sending additional troops to the area.

 

Do you remember the reason given for attacking Afghanistan?  President Bush demanded that the Afghan government extradite Osama Bin Laden; the Afghans agreed to do so if the U.S. produced evidence of his guilt. Instead of providing the evidence, the U.S. invaded in violation of international law that allows a country to wage war only under an immediate military threat.

 

The U.S. didn't give its real reasons for invading Afghanistan: the U.S. strategy to dominate militarily that part of Asia; to put pressure on Iran, China and Russia; and probably to secure a safe route for natural gas pipelines.

 

As the time of the invasion in 2001, the U.S. stated goals were to 1) destroy al-Qaeda, 2) build democracy in Afghanistan, and 3) relieve the suffering and oppression of Afghan women.

 

Eight years later, President Obama's national security adviser, former Marine General James Jones, said: "The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished.  The maximum estimate [in Afghanistan] is less than 100…"  The government of Afghanistan is widely acknowledged to be inept and corrupt.  Conditions facing women in Afghanistan are deplorable and the human rights of all people are flagrantly violated.

 

It is urgent that we immediately withdraw all our forces; the U.S. cannot police the world.

 

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Love, Grandma” Book

Inspired by one woman’s urge to “write something to my 10-year-old granddaughter … to help her to live positively in the world   she must grow up in,” GAW launched the Love, Grandma” Letters Project.  Considering our age and experience — we’ve   lived through so many wars! — we decided we were well qualified to pass onto younger generations the helpful lessons we have learned.  We gathered letters from like-minded individuals for publication in a book.

Since November 2007, Love, Grandma: Activists Write is available as a paperback for $ 7.50. You can order the book here .

By distributing the book widely we want to persuade people to take action against the occupation in Iraq, military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and any proposed military action in Iran. Through readings in libraries and senior centers we have wanted to encourage readers to write their own letters to their grandchildren and share them with us.

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CODE PINK: Women say NO to war

Sign Petition to stand in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan as they speak out against the surge http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/8834/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2125

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