Did you have a good Easter weekend? If you were in Washington D.C. for the holiday, you may have noticed a different kind of Easter Bunny hanging around the Gallery Place/Chinatown metro. Instead of handing out jellybeans and chocolate, this bunny was handing out plastic eggs filled with a little toy soldier and a question about the war in Afghanistan. Here are a few examples of those questions:
“Without a clear mission, is escalating Afghanistan like escalating Vietnam?”
“What is the impact of the war in Afghanistan on the U.S. economy?”
“Should the United States stop using predator drones and assassination teams?”
“Has anybody tried to find out what the people of Afghanistan want?”
These are just some of the questions that the Rethink Afghanistan campaign is asking about the war in Afghanistan. Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation, is directing and producing a documentary on the war and releasing it in “real-time” segments over YouTube. In a New York Times article describing the time-sensitive nature of public policy (especially when it comes to the war in Afghanistan), Robert says, “It didn’t seem to make sense to make a film that would come out even six months from now.”
Instead, Robert plans to release several segments over YouTube as they are created and then eventually string them together for a full-length feature. In honor of tax day this week, Brave New Foundation has just released the third segment of the Rethink Afghanistan documentary, titled “Cost of War.” (To see the first two segments, click on “Troops” and “Pakistan“; “Women’s Rights” and “Refugees” are still in production and will be released on YouTube as they are completed.)
The hope in all this is to contribute to the foreign policy debate and restore accountability to U.S. actions, especially military ones. Because I am a person of faith, I thought that Brave New Foundation’s Easter Bunny action was incredibly meaningful. There’s a new year, a new administration, and a renewed sense of hope and confidence that diverse (and even progressive!) voices are welcome and valued. For all you Sojourners, I also hope that this Easter Bunny and his questions signal the rebirth of a critical stance against violence and hyper-militarization, and a return to worshipping the God who triumphed over torture, execution, and the Roman empire.
Do you have some questions about the war in Afghanistan that you think Congress should ask? Join us on Facebook and submit a video question on our wall, or visit Rethink Afghanistan to write your question. Let’s push our Congress to ask the difficult questions and demand answers – before we commit even more money and more American lives to the conflict.
Anna Almendrala was a Sojourners intern from 2007-2008. She now lives in Los Angeles, California, and works for Brave New Foundation as the Marketing & Distribution associate. Follow her on Twitter to keep updated on the Rethink Afghanistan campaign.
