Protest War Criminal Stanley McChrystal when he speaks in Baltimore
End the War on Afghanistan! Money for Jobs & Education!
Tue, March 27 at 7:00 pm
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
1212 Cathedral Street in Baltimore, Md.
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Join us for an important demonstration on Tuesday, March 27 in Baltimore, Md. in front of the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to protest war criminal Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who will be there for a speaking engagement. People will be mobilizing from around the area to attend this protest and transportation will be organized from different parts of the region.
For five years, McChrystal was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, a highly secretive force within the U.S. military which carries out covert operations ranging from combat missions to assassinations. The Joint Special Operations Command grew in size and scope under McChrystal, and now Adm. William H. McRaven is pushing for even greater autonomy and for a vast increase in the Special Operations presence in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
McChrystal was fired in 2010 as the top commander of U.S./NATO forces in Afghanistan. His murderous policies in Afghanistan have continued.
Immediately after he was fired, he was hired as a Senior Fellow at Yale University to teach a seminar in leadership and globalization. At Yale, students and community members protested his teaching position because of his murderous role in the Middle East.
Additionally, Stanley McChrystal signed a contract with a Washington-based agency to set up speaking engagements around the country, where he reportedly earns up to $60,000 per engagement.
Stanley McChrystal has the blood of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans on his hands. He should be held accountable for his actions and he should be protested wherever he goes.
The demonstration was initiated by the ANSWER Coalition and a partial list of endorsers includes March Forward!, World Can’t Wait, War Criminals Watch, Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), American-Iranian Friendship Committee and others.
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Know the facts:
In 2001, McChrystal was appointed Chief of Staff of Military Operations in Afghanistan.
Between 2003 and 2008, McChrystal served as the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), a special black operations commando unit. JSOC committed war crimes, including torture of prisoners at secret detention sites. He directly oversaw torture at Camp Nama, one of the sites identified by Human Rights Watch as having the worst acts of torture.
From June 2009 to June 2010, he served as top commander of U.S./NATO forces in Afghanistan, where he led the colonial-type occupation of Afghanistan resulting in the death of thousands of Afghan civilians. At least 1,753 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of the war in 2001.
McChrystal increased the use of unmanned Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan by 25% in just his first month of being top commander of U.S./NATO forces
He advocated for an increase of special operations units in Afghanistan as part of a major counter-insurgency effort.
Under the Obama administration, McChrystal was given expanded powers and campaigned for a massive increase in the military budget and troop presence in Afghanistan. He was given the freedom to assemble a corps of 400 officers and soldiers who worked directly under his control. He also led a team that included a senior intelligence officer, a three-star general as his deputy, and several former special operations officers.
McChrystal was one of eight officers recommended for discipline by the Pentagon after the murder and cover-up of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in 2004. The U.S. government used Tillman as a poster boy to promote their imperialist aims because he left a multi-million dollar contract playing professional football after 9/11 to serve in the Afghanistan War. While overseas, Tillman wrote numerous e-mails and diary entries condemning the actions of the U.S. government.
McChrystal led Operation Strike of the Sword, or Operation Khanjar, in 2009. This was the largest military offensive since the 2004 Battle of Fallujah, and led to a spike in Afghan civilian casualties.
A May 12 2009 front-page article in the New York Times described McChrystal as a fanatical killer: “In Iraq, where he oversaw secret commando operations for five years, former intelligence officials say that he had an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the lives of terrorists, and that he pushed his ranks aggressively to kill as many of them as possible.”
In a 2010 Rolling Stone Magazine, McChrystal exposed the growing frustration among top ruling class circles about the failure of U.S. military objectives in Afghanistan and the Middle East. For years, the U.S. government has only continued the war in order to avoid the appearance of defeat. The U.S. military has struggled to maintain a colonial-type occupation of Afghanistan with only a small portion of the country under its control. This is due to popular resistance from the Afghan people, who celebrate a long history of anti-colonial struggle.
Show your support. Get involved. Lend your voice. Click here to endorse.
