Editor: The following Guest Vantage Point comments are by Eleanor Milner (Oregon herbalist, writer and teacher, Program Director for Oregon Mycological Society for 18 years, animal and environmental activist, student of history and comparative religions) on the story of US Army Specialist Victor Agosto, "Be Bold," by Dahr Jamail. Agosto publicly refused to deploy with his unit to Afghanistan and the publicity over his prosecution in Truthout lessened the Army’s stance against him.

 For those who feel the need to have reasons to somehow have a war to fight somewhere, I would invite you to read Howard Zinn’s "On War." Zinn rightly states that war is like crack cocaine, when after the victory shouts of "We won! We won!" subside and the winners sink into the trough of routine, it becomes necessary to create another war just to obtain that same high.

For those who desire to work for world peace I would print up bumper stickers that say "War creates mental illness"... unless I have been directly attacked. I have always been puzzled by the promulgation of wars for any other reason whatsoever. In the case of Afghanistan, it is either heroin production that feeds the coffers of moneyed drug dealers and/or pharmaceutical industries or the bloated egos of politicians and power hungry exploiters or some other remote reason that is keeping the US military in Afghanistan.

Since our government created the Taliban and put Bin Laden in charge of them to to ram a pipeline through to oil rich lands before the Russians took it, there has been a US military foothold there that someone wants to keep boots in. Obama didn't want to stay there but he was persuaded by the man he put in charge of what is happening in the Middle East and who speaks from the Pentagon. Maybe there is something that many Americans don't know about the "why" of it, but it is still a war that should END already.

I love this quote from "The Prophet" in "Crime and Punishment": "You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked for they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white thread are woven together. And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also."

It might be fascinating if we could see the whole tapestry of Afghanistan. Afghanis are weavers of rugs. There is always a flaw left in the pattern as it is their belief that humans are not higher than the Creator. Afghanis have a rich history that few of us know about. How wonderful it would be if the media emphasis would be on the people, their lifestyle, their diversity, instead of the us and/or them seesaw.

Agosto is right to refuse to go to that country and fight where we really have no business. I profoundly hope this sort of incident leads us in the right direction... OUT! Majorities can make the difference when people's voices reach critical mass. For example, there were many who refused to fight in the Vietnam War, were jailed or took a border crossing to Canada. So many cemeteries, so many broken lives followed that mistaken intervention.

Since then, there have been other wars: the Gulf war, the war in Iraq, and now the continuation of the war in Afghanistan. How much time will continue to pass without due clarification of the 9-11 disaster? As a nation we must keep the focus on what needs to stay in focus and I agree, let’s be bold!

Here’s a link to the complete essay and current articles of note:

http://vpdonhynes.blogspot.com/2009/07/afghanistan-looking-for-whole-tapestry.html

If you choose, please feel free to post the essay along with a link to the Vantage Point website.

Thanks and peace,

Don Hynes

Vantage Point

donhynes@cnnw.net