In season of celebration, remember those who suffer

From our friend Dennis O’Neil at the Iraq Moratorium:

This Friday, December 21, is Iraq Moratorium Day #4.

The end of December is a time of celebration. On the 22nd, the days

start getting longer once again. Friends and family gather to observe

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa. Whatever the stresses of the holiday

season, it is a time to rest, to renew ties, to be grateful for having

made it through another year.

But let us keep in our hearts those with less reason to celebrate:

-The 150,000 troops trapped in a grinding, senseless war, half a

world away.

-The mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, children, grandparents,

sisters and brothers of the nearly 900 troops dead in Iraq this year,

who face a holiday they know they will never again share with those

loved ones.

-The people of Iraq, with hundreds of thousands of their own loved

ones dead, millions more living as desperate refugees in foreign

counties, and all trying to survive in a nation torn and ravaged by

occupation and collapse.

Please remember them all this Friday, by breaking with your daily

routine and taking some action, by yourself or with others, to end the

war. (You can find an organized activity near you at the Iraq

Moratorium website, as well as suggestions for actions you can take by

yourself.)

And keep it up on the Third Friday of each and every month in 2008!

Seventy percent of the people of this country want the Iraq war over

with, pronto. As more and more Americans raise our voices, it will

become harder and harder for the politicians and the powers-that-be to

keep turning a deaf ear to us. If more and more of us who have already

signed and acted on the Iraq Moratorium pledge reach out and involve

friends, family, and co-workers in this newborn and rapidly growing

effort, perhaps by this time next year we can all celebrate the end of

the war together.