New Haven Independent

Local activists Charlie Pillsbury (who once ran against DeLauro) and John Jairo Lugo have stood outside DeLauro’s Elm Street Congressional office at lunch time to follow up on a reading on the Green on New Year’s Day of the 3,000 Americans killed in Iraq.

Pillsbury and Jairo Lugo decided to alternate the reading of the names of the 24 people killed on New Haven streets in 2006 with the names of Connecticut residents killed in Iraq (an almost equal number, depending on how that was calculated). After reading a group of names, Pillsbury read a statement explaining their presence:

“Our purpose is to remind our elected officials, like Congresswoman DeLauro, to cut off funds to stop the killing in Iraq and use those funds to stop the killing at home. And to remind all of us that those of us who have died as a result of this senseless violence have names, and families, and friends who mourn them.”

DeLauro released the following statement in response: “I have opposed this war from the outset and I oppose any escalation of the war as the president is expected to announce next week. I strongly support a responsible redeployment of our troops out of Iraq starting early this year. I will not, however, abruptly cut off funding our troops need while serving in Iraq. We must work to bring these troops home, not make conditions worse while they stand in harm’s way.”

In response to DeLauro’s response, Pillsbury (pictured) said DeLauro “makes the mistake of equating cutting off funding for the war in Iraq with cutting off funding for our troops, which nobody has suggested. Congresswoman DeLauro is clearly an enabler, not an opponent of this war. The president writes the checks that keep our troops in Iraq, and Congresswoman DeLauro and her colleagues sign them without ever placing any conditions on this funding. Every single day that our troops remain in Iraq, their conditions worsen. My vigil colleagues and I are simply asking that the next time Congresswoman DeLauro and her colleagues approve a presidential war funding request, they place the following condition on the use of those funds: to be used only to bring our troops home from Iraq. Let’s really support our troops… by bringing them home to their families and friends before another young soldier is killed.”

Click here to listen to Pillsbury recount his most moving personal anecdote from last Friday.

Click here to listen to the views of passersby Gina Vernava (who supports an immediate pullout of troops), here
for Gulf War veteran John Vailette (who said he enlisted as a patriotic but naïve 18-year-old and now has a different understanding of the forces at work in the world), here
for Steven Simon (who struggles with the moral ambiguity of a pullout) and here
for Allen Corbin (who supports the war).

At the end of the week, Pillsbury announced that protesters will continue their vigil, reading the names of the dead outside DeLauro’s office, 59 Elm Street, at noon on every Friday in January.