SEPTEMBER 11, 2016: Flyer Distributed at New Haven Sunday Vigil to Resist This Endless War

Our grief was never a cry for war.

In the aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, “September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows” and many, many other Americans proclaimed, “Our grief is not a cry for war.” People from all countries, knowing intimately and from long experience the unbearable price of war and terrorism, stood with us in word and deed. For a moment, our shared humanity and grief knew no boundaries.

But more wars were already planned.

The Bush administration used the tragedy as a pretext for the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and to launch the second U.S. war on Iraq in 2003, thus beginning the 21st century by escalating and deepening the state of endless war initiated in the 20th. The lies and distortions used to justify these invasions were reported by the mainstream media, our so-called “Free Press,” as if they were unquestionable fact.

Only the rest of the world seems to have known that they were lies.

The new administration escalated the Endless War agenda it inherited. The Obama administration not only continued but escalated Endless War, making drone warfare—war by remote control—and targeted assassinations key instruments of U.S. “foreign policy.” The collateral damage—aka innocent lives lost—from these attacks is never discussed. Also not discussed is the true reason for this state of endless war: to make the world ever more abundant for the 1% of its population which already controls the vast majority of our planet’s wealth and resources.

In 2016 we have a presidential election in which the issues of war and peace are not even addressed.

The state of endless war is apparently accepted as the norm. The two leading candidates for the presidency of the United States (both members of the wealthiest 1%) simply vie to prove which one of them will be the most effective (or ruthless) in carrying it out.
Is continuing the bloodshed to enrich the 1% the way to honor all who have died as a result of the endless, senseless wars?
We think not.
Can we do better in their memory, and for our future?
We hope so.

Our grief is a cry for peace and for justice.