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Protesters oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan

By Harold J. Adams / Louisville Courier-Journal

SAINT MATTHEWS, KY — Signs and chants protesting President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan greeted holiday shoppers in St. Matthews Saturday.

About two dozen people chanted “U.S. out of Afghanistan” and “Healthcare, not warfare” as they stood on the sidewalk next to Shelbyville Road Plaza, sometimes getting honks of approval from passing motorists.

“We’ve opposed the war from the start,” said Lucinda Marshall of the Louisville Peace Action Community, the loose coalition of groups that participated in the demonstration.

The billions being spent on the war should be spent at home, Marshall said. “Our schools are desperate for money. We have thousands of people dying in this country for lack of healthcare.”

Another protestor, Edison Farmer, said he “voted for Obama because he promised to get us out of these wars.”

He agreed with the president’s statement that more resources should have been directed to Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda in the beginning.

“Now we’re back into a quagmire, so with all due respect, we need to get out of there immediately,” Farmer said.

Louisville Peace Action Community also holds monthly peace vigils protesting the Iraq war at Douglass Boulevard and Bardstown Road.

In past actions, the group has placed boots on the steps of Louisville’s federal courthouse and 4,000 flags on the waterfront to commemorate Americans killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Jamie McMillin, one of the organizers of the Saturday protest.

The billions being spent on the war could be put to better use, McMillin said.

“If we spent that money rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, we feel like we would give a lot more positive feelings for the people of those countries — rather than going in with guns, bombs and drones and creating more enemies than we had when we went in,” he said.

Greg Livingston held a sign that read “War is not the answer.”

“I’m here because people need to realize the current economy cannot support the military industrial complex,” Livingston said.

The one-hour protest began at 1 p.m. and was closely watched by Shelbyville Road Plaza security, which kept a car stationed in the parking lot only a few yards away from the demonstrators.