The choice is clear: health care or warfare; the Common Good or Common Destruction.

Two key developments in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will likely take place this month. Congress will more than likely pass the Defense Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2010 (which begins on October 1) and General McChrystal will likely request that additional troops be deployed to Afghanistan. The Defense Appropriations Bill contains about $130 billion to wage the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September 30, 2010. General McChrystal is expected to request that 15,000 to 45,000 additional U.S. troops be deployed to Afghanistan—bringing overall U.S. troops levels in Afghanistan to 84,000 to 114,000.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes and out of the public eye, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force are preparing their respective budget requests for FY 2011 (which begins October 1, 2010 and runs through September 30, 2011).

The publication Inside the Pentagon reports:

“Now, as the Pentagon weighs the FY-11 base budget and OCO requests submitted by the services on August 14, it is finding the services’ FY-11 OCO requests are larger than expected. Instead of a ‘substantial’ decrease tied to the draw down in Iraq, the OCO total is ‘roughly flat’ compared with FY-10, a Pentagon official said, noting it is only a bit under the FY-10 level.”

In other words, the military services seem to be seeking $120 to $130 billion in war funds for 2011, during a time period when ostensibly the U.S. will be reducing troop levels in Iraq and at a time when much is made about the $100 billion per year projected cost for providing substantive (though not perfect) health care reform. “OCO” is the new term of art for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the abbreviation for Overseas Contingency Operations.

These initial requests likely will be modified to some extent as they wind their way through the Department of Defense and the White House. However, the size of these requests indicate the importance of current organizing efforts to end funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations.

Regrettably, though, it gets worse, as the U.S. will, without substantive troop reductions, likely continue to expend anywhere from $70 billion to $100 billion per year to continue on-going military operations in Afghanistan in 2012 and beyond.

The decidedly non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report in August that projects average monthly troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan through FY 2012 (i.e., through September 30, 2012). It then draws upon the work of the Congressional Budget Office to project future war costs. What emerges is a never ending war with never ending costs unless pressure can be brought to bear upon President Obama and Congress to reverse course in Afghanistan and to maintain the course of troop withdrawal in Iraq.

The Congressional Research Service bases its analysis upon average monthly troop levels over the course of a year rather than numbers of troops on the ground in any given month. For example, if 100,000 troops are deployed to a country for the first 6 months of 2010 but then are reduced to 50,000 troops for the final 6 months of 2010, the average monthly troop level in 2010 is 75,000 troops. Using the monthly average over the course of a year evens out the increases and decreases in troop levels as troops are deployed into and redeployed out of a country.

The CRS projects average monthly troop strength in Iraq with the implementation of President Obama’s troop drawdown. In 2010 it projects average monthly troop strength at 88,300, with the number of troops deployed to Iraq falling to 45,000 troops by August 30, 2010 (reflecting the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces–and, for the moment, leaves aside the question of whether combat forces are truly removed from Iraq or are simply renamed and “retasked”). In 2011 monthly average troop strength falls to 42,750 troops (reaching complete withdrawal of all but a small residual force of about 4000 troops by December 31, 2011).

While arguably the troop withdrawals should occur on a more rapid timetable, pressure must be maintained upon Obama to ensure that he does not allow any slippage to occur in his own proposed timetable. The U.S. could, possibly, maintain a high level of troops in Iraq even after a supposed “withdrawal” of combat troops if remaining troops were to be retasked to other missions and redesignated. Also, a new agreement could be reached with Iraq to maintain a larger U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond the end of 2011.

Second, pressure must be exerted to prevent any expansion of the U.S. military force in Afghanistan and then to reverse troop levels in that country. Approximately 69,000 troops are currently deployed to Afghanistan. McChrystal will likely seek an additional 15,000 to 45,000 troops. President Obama will most likely decide about troop levels in Afghanistan by the end of this year.

And this is where the wave of substantive (though imperfect) health care reform comes crashing upon the shoals of warfare. Keep $100 billion in mind—the projected cost for each year of health care reform—as you read the following based upon reports from the Congressional Research Service and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

In January 2009, the CBO projected the costs of maintaining troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It updated these projections in August 2009. Caution is in order about drawing too firm a conclusion of war costs based upon these projections. However, the projections do give a very strong indicator of the likely lower end costs of continuing these wars.

The CBO projects that the cost to maintain 112,500 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in FY 2012 will be $95 billion. The CBO in January projected that it will cost $70 billion to maintain 75,000 troops in Iraq and / or Afghanistan from FY 2013 onward (though it lowered this projection to $55 billion for FY 2014 onward in its August 2009 report, without an explanation for the lower figure). Now use these cost projections of CBO with the troop projections of the Congressional Research Service and you get the following prescription for never ending warfare.

The CRS projects that average monthly troop levels in FY 2011 will be 106,200. Looking at the $95 billion cost projection of the CBO (for 112,500 troops), one would think that the war costs in FY 2011 will be in the range of $90 to $100 billion. Yet, as indicated at the start of this article the military services are apparently seeking funding somewhere in the range of $130 billion for FY 2011 (or slightly lower). Either way—whether it’s in the range of the $95 billion or so projected by CBO or the perhaps nearly $130 billion in the military services’ initial budget requests—that’s more than adequate funding to pay for substantive health care reform in 2011.

The financial hemorrhaging will continue for as long as the U.S. maintains military troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let’s assume the CRS projections are correct and the U.S. withdraws all but 4000 troops from Iraq by December 31, 2011 and that the U.S. maintains troop levels in Afghanistan at their current level, without any increase of the sort that General McChrystal may propose.

The long term cost of the Afghanistan war will then likely be in the range of $55 to $70 billion per year (with average monthly troop levels of 4000 in Iraq and 67,500 in Afghanistan according to the CRS projections). This is based upon the CBO projection that maintaining a deployment of 75,000 troops will cost somewhere between $55 billion and $70 billion per year from 2013 onward (on a slightly more optimistic note, the CBO projects that it will cost somewhere in the range of $25 billion to $32 billion per year if U.S. troops levels are reduced to 30,000).

All of this leaves out any discussion of reframing the size of the U.S. military following a decade of great expansion. In June 2001, the U.S. maintained about 26,000 troops in the region. In December 2008 the Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center’s “Location Report” stated that 294,000 troops were stationed in the region and assigned to the military operations in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Of these, 181,000 troops were deployed inside either Iraq or Afghanistan (according to the DoD’s “Boots on the Ground Report” for December 2008) President Obama has yet to address his plans for the redeployment of the 100,000 plus troops stationed in the region as the troop drawdown in Iraq commences.

At this moment of critical decision-making we should utilize all legal and extralegal (i.e., nonviolent civil disobedience) methods and techniques to send the strongest possible message to President Obama and Congress that it is time to completely end the U.S. military misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On October 5, nonviolent civil disobedience/civil resistance will take place at the White House. Organized by such groups as the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Witness Against Torture, War Resisters League and Atlantic Life Community, this effort is an opening salvo in a renewed and revitalized effort to completely end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to bring the U.S. into full compliance with international law as regards torture and mistreatment of those being held by the U.S. in the erstwhile “war on terrorism”. See the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance website with additional information available on the website of the War Resisters League.

The longer term Peaceable Assembly Campaign is an umbrella effort being coordinated by Voices for Creative Nonviolence in an effort to draw the connections between the continuing pursuit by the U.S. and its allies of on-going Common Destruction in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories on the one hand and the lack of funding for the Common Good—schools, health care, full employment and living wage policies, the public infrastructure, refugee services—on the other hand. The Peaceable Assembly Campaign seeks as well to draw the connections between the ongoing militarization of the United States and the critical necessity to commit our country to a new environmentalism that, amongst other things, makes the strong commitment to a renewable energy policy that is safe for the environment.

The Peaceable Assembly Campaign begins, this fall, with the development of local campaign committees to advance campaign objectives and to lobby Congress regarding these objectives.

In January 2009, the PAC will focus upon President Obama. From January 19 to February 2 we will maintain a daily vigil—which will include daily acts of civil disobedience–at the White House seeking an end to funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This time period is critical for a final attempt to influence President Obama before he submits his budget request for 2011 to Congress. January 19 marks the start of President Obama’s second year in office with February 2 being the date by which he is supposed to submit his 2011 budget to Congress, a budget that will include funding for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After February 2, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign will once again emphasize legal and extralegal lobbying work to achieve its objectives. The extralegal lobbying work will consist of nonviolent civil disobedience at the offices of Representatives and Senators who do not agree with the objectives of the campaign—and especially who do not commit to cutting off funding for warfare with a concomitant redirection of funds to serve the Common Good. This phase of the campaign is timed to the legislative calendar during which Congress will be developing and enacting the Defense Appropriations Bill for 2011—a bill which will likely include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than likely the House and Senate will act upon the Defense Appropriations Bill for 2011 by the end of July 2010. The Peaceable Assembly Campaign can be reached by email (pac@vcnv.org), by phone (773-878-3815) or on the web.

These next several weeks and months are critical in redirecting our country away from Common Destruction and towards the Common Good. Decisions will be made by President Obama and Congress which could send hopes for health care, education, living wage jobs, a new environmental policy crashing upon the shoals of never ending war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must insert ourselves into this decision-making process. We cannot afford to not utilize legal and extralegal (civil disobedience) lobbying, tactics and strategies to bring about an end to the Common Destruction being waged globally in our name.

I was set to be tried on October 2 for an act of nonviolent civil resistance at the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command. The judge dismissed the charge the day of the trial. Following is the closing statement I prepared for the jury trial in Waukegan, Illinois.

Our Bonhoeffer Moment:

In 1942, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran theologian engaged in resistance work to bring about an end to the Nazi regime, penned the following lines in his letter “After Ten Years”. He was in prison and under investigation when he wrote:

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?”

Silence.

Silence is golden.

Silence is Death.

Silence in the face of our country waging a world war is complicity in the war; is complicity in the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens; is complicity in a crime against humanity.

I chose to break the silence at the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPCOM) on July 5, 2006. I choose to break the silence today.

I chose to act at MEPCOM last July for a number of reasons. MEPCOM is the command headquarters for the system of Military Entrance Processing Stations. Each person entering the military takes their oath of enlistment at one of these stations. MEPCOM, as the command headquarters of this system, is the focal point of injustice being done to those who serve in our country’s military.

I acted to oppose the injustice of stop-move orders which force service members to extend their tour of duty beyond its scheduled end date.

I acted to oppose the injustice of stop-loss orders which force service members to remain in the military beyond the agreed upon end of enlistment date.

I acted to demand that our country provide the highest quality health care for veterans and their families, as well as for all who live within the U.S.

I acted in solidarity with those members of the military who have chosen to risk prison for refusing to comply with orders to deploy to Iraq to fight in an unjust war.

I acted to demand that our country immediately withdraw from Iraq and recommit itself to rebuilding the Common Good in Iraq and in the United States—funding hospitals, health care clinics, schools, jobs programs and the like rather than funding war, death and destruction.

I acted to engage in a conspiracy of Life with Iraqi citizens suffering over these past 16 years of economic and military warfare and to act in a conspiracy of Life with U.S. soldiers, citizens and others who are engaged in nonviolent action to end the U.S. war in and occupation of Iraq.

Does this form of civilly disobedient action accomplish anything? I don’t know. I believe it does, but I simply don’t know within the context of a world war—the first world war begun by a democracy. For guidance, I look to those German citizens who engaged in resistance work to bring an end to the Nazi regime and to end the world war.

In 1943, German students formed the group the White Rose which advocated for the overthrow of the Nazi regime and for an end to the war. Their simple, yet profound, act was to distribute flyers advancing their positions calling for resistance to Hitler and his regime. Once discovered and arrested, they were executed by the German state. Yet 50 years later, everyone in Germany would come to know of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their comrades in the struggle to end the war and the regime.

In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others were also executed by the German state for engaging in resistance activities to overthrow Hitler. Bonhoeffer, in 1939, had the option of remaining in the U.S. where he would have been able to ride out the war in the safety of academia. Instead he chose to return to Germany to participate in resistance work. Writing as a Christian theologian about his country in which the Church was a willing accomplice in crimes against humanity, Bonhoeffer stated his reason for returning:

“Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make this choice in security.”

Bonhoeffer knew what choice he had to make, he made it, and he paid the price for it.

Let this be our Bonhoeffer Moment of resistance to our country’s world war in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere that the guns are being aimed.

The examples of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer echo down through the years. In 1983, German judges and prosecutors recalled the example set by the German resistance efforts to Hitler and the Nazi regime and crimes against humanity and determined that it was their obligation to act to prevent nuclear genocide from occurring. German judges and prosecutors actively blockaded the U.S. military bases to which Pershing nuclear cruise missiles were being deployed. They acted to uphold international law even though that meant violating national law.

So does an act of entering the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command do any good? I don’t know. I do know that my action did not stand alone on that day. I do know that others are engaged in active nonviolent civil disobedience to end the Iraq war. Since February 5 of this year, over 700 people have been arrested across the U.S. in actions to end the Iraq war—with many more arrests to come.

I ask you today to join with us in this conspiracy of Life. You have the opportunity today to find me guilty or not guilty. If you believe that the war in Iraq is proper and just, you should find me guilty—regardless of what the law says. If you believe the war in Iraq must be brought to an end today, you should find me not guilty—regardless of what the law says.

The choice is clear and stark. Life or Death. Not guilty or guilty. The future of the war is in your hands today. I urge you to follow your conscience—regardless of the law.