by Mark Silva
If you're looking for an alternative to the annual Easter Egg roll at the White House, the folks at Brave New Films have one: An Easter-day hunt for eggs containing little toy soldiers and serious questions about the escalating U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan.
"We're getting ready for this both in New York and D.C.,'' says Axel Woolfolk, a spokesman at Brave New Films. " We're talking about 6,000 eggs... 2000 in D.C. and 4000 in New York,'' he says, with an explanation: " There are more people in New York.''
The little plastic eggs that will be left around Union Square in New York and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington will include not only little toy soldiers - you know, the kind we had before video games - but also one in a series of questions: "They are questions like, 'Are more troops really the answer, shouldn't we be discussing this?'... 'Are we really helping in Afghanistan if human rights are getting worse?'''
The papers also link to rethinkafghanistan.com, the production of Brave New Films Foundation where a series of film documentaries are being posted, such as one noted above - the next one coming up next week deals with the cost of the war in Afghanistan.
The egg-hunt - which the filmmakers, of course, will be filming - may be a way of having fun. But they are posing a serious question here -- or make that a suggestion:
"Let's have a national discussion about this, let's have this debate before we escalate,'' Woolfolk says. "We've gone through this before... The main question we're raising is that there are so many questions that the American people have yet to talk about.''
How about President Obama, who campaigned with his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq and is now following through with a plan for an August 2008 timeframe for withdrawal of combat troops?
Obama also campaigned with a warning that Afghanistan must be dealt with, Woolfolk notes. Obama maintains that the U.S. took its eye off the real threat of terrorism with the war in Iraq.
"He ran on this, it was pretty consistent,'' Woolfolk notes, while also suggesting: "He has a huge agenda, and if he gets caught up in a huge costly quagmire in Afghanistan, this can distract him on a lot of domestic policy points.''
Obama will have his eyes on another Easter egg roll, however.
Comments
"How about President Obama, who campaigned with his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq and is now following through with a plan for an August 2008 timeframe for withdrawal of combat troops?"
If he wants to withdraw combat troops by August 2008, he'd best get started!
Posted by: DaveB | April 8, 2009 6:03 PM
Good Afternoon everyone,
I saw the article about Easter and think it is great that so many people are busy making plans and getting excited about the festivities. My sister is coming home from America for Easter, so everyone is looking forward to seeing her. Easter is one of those religious festivals that can turn out to be quite stressful, what with all the family over demanding attention, and having to cook lunch for everyone... the list goes on. I always find Easter greetings cards quite expensive, and I really don't like giving my hard earned cash to those big greetings card companies. So I may have found an alternative solution in the form of electronic greetings cards. Not only do they save paper, and stamps, but as long as you opt for a free site then the Easter e-Card is going to be free. I have done my research and have found a really lovely Free Easter e-Card site. I like this site as I found it so easy to use, which is great because I am not very confident with computers, also I liked the wide range of choice of cards they offer. There are loads of e-Card sites out there, so it maybe worth doing your own research in order to find the best one. Hope everyone has a great Easter whatever you decide to get up to.
Posted by: Nicole | April 9, 2009 6:39 AM