In 1989 the world stood still as the Berlin Wall fell and massive protests erupted in the Soviet Union. The whole world was watching as ordinary Russian people lay down in front of tanks, risking their lives in the name of freedom. In the resulting months, dramatic changes redrew maps throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The new hopes of an entire generation were born and the US had won the cold war.

In Memory of One Million Iraqi Dead

In 2006, the Lancet did a scientific study in which they estimated that the number of Iraqis who have died since the beginning of the US occupation in 2003 was greater than 600,000 people. This figure included the results of sectarian violence, revenge killings, suicide bombings and deaths at the hands of soldiers and occupying forces. That number alone is a staggering figure, but now, only two years later the estimate of dead has increased to almost one million. On this Memorial Day, as we gather to remember our loved ones who have died in war let us include the men, women and children who have died in Iraq.

This year, the United States government is scheduled to spend more than $622 billion dollars on the military budget, which includes an additional $171 billion dollars for the occupation of Iraq. In comparison, the US will only spend $56 billion dollars this year on education and only $3.4 billion on energy development. At the current rate of spending it will take 183 years of alternative energy development to match one year of spending on the war in Iraq, and eleven years of funding education for our children will still not match even one year of spending on this war. We have seriously misplaced our priorities, and it driving us further into debt, an estimated $9.357 trillion dollars this year.

Meet my nieces Lucy and Millie, Poster Children for Peace and they want you to join them.

Friends for Peace Link... is a project of the American Friends Service Committee. If you are not familiar with either AFSC or the Friends Committee for National Legislation Link... I urge you check them out. You will no doubt be pleased with the work we do.

And if you would, take a photo and submit it to Friends for Peace. As a member of the FCNL and AMSC I would love to see a few more Tennessee photos in the album. It would be nice if you first downloaded the official Friends for Peace sign but you don't have to do so. They do require that it be a photo with peace as the subject and it is best not to have a candidate or other cause in the photo.

If nothing else, browse the photos. You will be glad you did.