A waste of $30,400

AT A recent event hosted by the Democratic Party, Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans wasted $30,400 to have a dinner and then a photo-op with President Obama.

Code Pink used this as an opportunity to deliver a petition to the president signed by Afghan women stating that they want a say at the negotiating table and a commitment or time frame for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan.

The reply from Obama, at first, was incredulous stupidity. "What do you mean?" he said. "We have Hillary (Clinton) as my secretary of state."

Then, Evans unveiled her T-shirt which said "End the Afghan Quagmire." President Obama then admitted that the U.S. will be in Afghanistan for a long time--which at least was honest.

To start with, $30,400 is more money than many working-class people make annually (including myself). But even so, Code Pink was naive at the bare minimum to think that Obama is in office to serve the interests of the Afghan people, or working-class people here at home, if it costs $30,400 for a dinner and photograph with him.

Imagine how many Afghan, Palestinian or Iraqi people could have been fed or given shelter--or even how many homeless people here in the U.S. could have been housed--for the cost of that dinner.

Code Pink has actually been doing good work on a number of fronts. For starters, they helped organize a trip to Gaza, and plan on doing another one at the end of the year after Christmas. But they recently have taken a serious step backward in respect to Afghanistan--because of the crisis in liberalism itself.

The only way to end the Afghan "quagmire" is a demand for an immediate withdrawal, which Code Pink does not support.
Greg Morse, Providence R.I.