Hello friends and especially those in the press,

I will be
marching today World Peace Day at 1:00 PM from Borough
Hall, over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall with Brooklyn for Peace,
other peace groups from the region and an international peace team.

It is time NYC elected officials — especially Mayor Bloomberg —
stand up, lead and tell President Obama that he escalates the war in
Afghanistan at the peril of his own great cities like NYC.   And
frankly, this wholesale bankrupting of our nation and our cities via
endless war is exactly what Osama bin Laden ordered.

Juxtaposed alongside BILLION dollar budget cuts and layoffs of
untold New Yorkers announced by Mayor Bloomberg after the election,
President Obama plans to expand the war and the war budget.  It is
estimated that each troop in combat abroad costs approximately $1
MILLION per year.  The price tag for the planned escalation of 30,000
to 35,000 troops translates to another $35 BILLION of our taxes robbed
each year from infrastructure, services and jobs in NYC and cities all
over this nation.  These TENS OF BILLIONS will be on top of the
existing military/war budget that is fast approaching $1 TRILLION per
year, a mind boggling amount that our cities lose out.  Remember, the
war budget is the only budget that keeps going up even in this
recession.

Let's give the press something other than shopping to talk about. 

It's
time cities start kicking Washington politicians around instead of
playing patty cakes with them.  Washington needs to start listening to
cities and it's citizens instead of politicizing generals.  Washington
will only listen if we force them to by starting the conversation of
the real cost of war both morally and economically, keep on pressing
and vote them out one war enabler at a time.  Local elected officials
need to make the connection of war and keep repeating it.  Presidents
will bow to cities much the same way they do to generals if cities
frame the problem correctly and join together.

Doug Biviano
Brooklyn Heights
http://bivforbrooklyn.com

P.S. 
I doubt Osama bin Laden is anywhere near where our generals think he is
nor can they guarantee any meaningful or specific results with this
escalation.