Atlanta Residents Confront Rep. John Lewis Over His Support For Unjust War & Bombing of Africans in Libya
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
On Wednesday morning June 29, 2011 a delegation of mostly black Georgia residents and others from the Diaspora met in front of the downtown Atlanta office of Congressman John Lewis. Some of them, including former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, had recently returned from Libya. They came --- I should say we came, since I was one of them, though I was not among those returning from abroad --- to take Congressman Lewis to task for his inexcusable vote to fund the US armed intervention in Libya.
Near the end of his long career, the Atlanta congressman enjoys a reputation as a man of peace and nonviolence, a reputation somewhat tarnished by his occasional votes during the Bush years and perhaps afterward, to fund unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it was the latest stain upon the Lewis legacy, his vote to fund the so-called humanitarian bombing of African people in Libya that provoked this visit.
Leaders of a number of organizations including Dignity, the Nation of Islam and the Green Party of Georgia called the press conference that morning. In keeping with local practice for outdoor manifestations not smiled upon by City Hall, a crew of contractors arrived at a few minutes after 10 AM to deploy jackhammers at street level a mere dozen paces from the speakers.
“Shame.... shame on John Lewis!” we cried over the construction noise, “for voting to bomb African civilians in Africa.”
“In the time I was there,” longtime Atlanta activist Lucy Greider-Bradley, one of those who visited Libya at the beginning of June, told us, “I didn't see any military targets. I did see craters in people's houses. I saw wrecked businesses and hotels. I saw young people in a hospital, and talked to them through interpreters. They said they were bombed, and members of their families killed by US and NATO aircraft in their beds at home... When you're doing that ......
http://www.blackagendareport.com/co...his-support-unjust-war-bombing-africans-libya
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
On Wednesday morning June 29, 2011 a delegation of mostly black Georgia residents and others from the Diaspora met in front of the downtown Atlanta office of Congressman John Lewis. Some of them, including former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, had recently returned from Libya. They came --- I should say we came, since I was one of them, though I was not among those returning from abroad --- to take Congressman Lewis to task for his inexcusable vote to fund the US armed intervention in Libya.
Near the end of his long career, the Atlanta congressman enjoys a reputation as a man of peace and nonviolence, a reputation somewhat tarnished by his occasional votes during the Bush years and perhaps afterward, to fund unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it was the latest stain upon the Lewis legacy, his vote to fund the so-called humanitarian bombing of African people in Libya that provoked this visit.
Leaders of a number of organizations including Dignity, the Nation of Islam and the Green Party of Georgia called the press conference that morning. In keeping with local practice for outdoor manifestations not smiled upon by City Hall, a crew of contractors arrived at a few minutes after 10 AM to deploy jackhammers at street level a mere dozen paces from the speakers.
“Shame.... shame on John Lewis!” we cried over the construction noise, “for voting to bomb African civilians in Africa.”
“In the time I was there,” longtime Atlanta activist Lucy Greider-Bradley, one of those who visited Libya at the beginning of June, told us, “I didn't see any military targets. I did see craters in people's houses. I saw wrecked businesses and hotels. I saw young people in a hospital, and talked to them through interpreters. They said they were bombed, and members of their families killed by US and NATO aircraft in their beds at home... When you're doing that ......
http://www.blackagendareport.com/co...his-support-unjust-war-bombing-africans-libya