From FaceBook event page:
Boots and Shoes Represent Virginians, Iraqis and Afghans Lost in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
Today as the United States intensifies its military involvement in Iraq and Syria, the Richmond Peace Education Center is sponsoring an exhibit designed to promote somber reflection about the human cost of our recent wars to the commonwealth of Virginia.
An exhibit symbolizing U.S. servicemen and women as well as Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars will be on display 11am to 6pm, October 1 at Monroe Park.
“Eyes Wide Open Virginia: The Human Cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars” focuses specifically on the costs of war to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Eyes Wide Open Virginia includes a simple, respectful display of 206 pair of boots representing military casualties from Virginia (134 in Iraq, 72 in Afghanistan). Each pair of boots bears the name of a soldier, sailor, marine, or reservist killed in the wars.
The display also includes an array of shoes representing Iraqi and Afghan civilian deaths, which have been credibly estimated to range from 100,000 to more than one million. The exhibit displays shoes and names to represent a fraction of those civilian deaths.
During exhibit hours, the names of Virginian soldiers, as well as Iraqi and Afghan civilian casualties will be read aloud.
The goal of the exhibit is to put a human face on the casualties in the wars by spotlighting the deaths of U.S. soldiers and the civilians of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Virginia’s Eyes Wide Open is modeled on the American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) nationally touring exhibit. AFSC, an international social justice organization, created Eyes Wide Open to illustrate the lives lost in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The national exhibit now includes more than 6,000 pair of combat boots representing U.S. military casualties, along with over 3,000 pair of shoes memorializing a small fraction of the Iraqi and Afghan civilians who have been killed in the conflicts.
Families of the military casualties have been invited to add to the boots small memorabilia, which now form part of the exhibit. The national exhibit of Eyes Wide Open premiered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza in January 2004 with 500 pair of boots.
Visitors to the national and Virginia exhibits have found “Eyes Wide Open” to be a moving and even transforming experience. In any case, “Eyes Wide Open” presents, in a personal and profound way, the inescapable wartime reality of lives lost and families wounded.
“Eyes Wide Open-Virginia” is coordinated statewide by the Richmond Peace Education Center and Richmond Friends Meeting.
Here’s hoping that newly elected President Ashraf Ghani is successful in bringing peace to Afghanistan. This is despite the U.S. leaving about 10,000 troops, with the latest agreement signed yesterday. Remember the claim that we would be removing the troops from Afghanistan by 2014?
Obama’s foreign policy of “drawing lines in the sand” has not worked. Now he is having to back pedal on comments he made during his 2012 re-election bid. Obama and Biden mocked Romney at that time for wanting to take a tougher stance in that region.
Romney would have mired the U.S. further. Only the Green Party was against the bombing and invasions of Afghanistan from the start. It advocated hunting down the criminal terrorists using international police. Since then, some of the most productive actions to that end have been done on horseback.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/30/isis-bomb-muslim-world-air-strikes-saudi-arabia
The Virginia Holocaust museum will also be open to show the cost of going to war too late…or the cost of not going to war as many Americans back in the 1940’s felt that Hitler’s Nazis were not their problem and did not want to dable in another World War.
Had Franklin Roosevelt gotten his wish of entering WWII earlier, just imagine how many lives could have been saved.
ISIS is the present day Nazi…and those who are not willing to confront them are no better than Neville Chamberlain.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/1/syria-civilian-casualties.html
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/10/breaking-isis-beheads-british-hostage-alan-henning/
I guess posting that British aid worker’s execution video post makes sense if all you care about is some sort of twisted revenge. Personally, I think it makes more sense to treat these terrorists like the criminal murderers they are and work with Interpol and locals to individually hunt them down, on horseback might be more efficient and less expensive. Bring them to justice, hold them on trial, and show the world what cowards they truly are. That would be justice.
Beyond that, as far as ISIL goes, http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/fbi-bombing-isis-will-strenghten.html