Just Imagine What Positive Work We Could Do With...

Just Imagine What Positive Work We Could Do With...

4000 living young American men and women,
1001 living American contractors,
29,000 unwounded young American men and women,
90,000 living Iraqi Civilians,
500 Billion US dollars,
and 5 Years...

With those resources we could have reduced global warming, saved millions of lives, fed billions, and ended illiteracy worldwide. ( http://icasualties.org/ , http://iraqbodycount.org/ , http://costofwar.com/ , http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.3584667/ )

Instead, this is what President Bush and his supporters chose to spend starting and waging war in Iraq. And the war is not over. The United States is likely to spend many more years, countless more lives, and around 2 trillion US dollars, perhaps more, on this war.

What a horrendous waste of resources.

What do you think works better to reduce terrorism?
1) Killing the friends and families of others? Or,
2) Educating others so they can live decently with their friends and family?

Tonight I spent 2 hours with 50 other peace loving patriots at a vigil in Mountain View, California to honor the 4000 American soldiers who have died so far in Iraq. We spent 30 minutes reading aloud each name of the over 400 Californian soldiers who have died in the past 5 years.

This evening I met Karen Meredith whose only son Ken Ballard died on May 20, 2004. Please read more about Ken at http://www.ltkenballard.com/

Five years ago my father, an ardent peace activist, died just as the war began. Please read what I said during his memorial service on March 23, 2003 at http://oeyweb.com/sunny/MemServTim.htm

Finally, Greg Mortenson worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan, could see a catastrophe about to happen, and saw the best way to prevent terrorism permanently. To learn more about his work please read the book "Three Cups of Tea" http://threecupsoftea.com/

Just imagine what Greg could have done with the resources that have been wasted on the war in Iraq. He could have really ended terrorism instead of creating conditions that generate more terrorism.

I hope each of you who read my message here will do your own small part to end this war, save lives, and save our world.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Tim Oey
http://timoey.blogspot.com/

Whistle-blowing site Wikileaks gets its domain name back

The judge who closed the Wikileaks domain reversed his decision. Wikileaks.org is a whistle-blowing site that focuses on posting leaked documents. Wikileaks alleges that the documents in question show that the Swiss bank, Julius Baer, supports the "ultrarich's offshore tax avoidance, tax evasion, asset hiding, and money laundering.

"The court denies the motion for preliminary injunction, and the court hereby dissolves the injunction against (domain name registrar) Dynadot, and the litigation may now proceed," said U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in reversing his earlier ruling.

I'm glad that Public Citizen, the California First Amendment Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation were all able to help turn this around.

read more | digg story

Additionally, as of March 5, CNN reports that the Swiss bank has now abandoned its lawsuit. As mentioned in an earlier post, this lawsuit clearly backfired as it drew far more attention to the documents it was trying to "hide" than if it had done nothing. For further details, please read:
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9886855-38.html