Connie Schultz: Facebooking for peace

Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz, seeking to expand her one-woman media empire beyond her syndicated column and her books, has launched a presence on Facebook and has quickly built up a network of hundreds of people who participate in political discussions.Schultz has been faithfully posting the official dispatches on American soldiers who have died in Afghanistan. Monday's posting, "The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine. Staff Sgt. Aaron J. Taylor, 27, of Bovey, Minn., died Oct. 9 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 372, Marine Wing Support Group 37, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif."Kudos to her for trying to keep the peace issue alive.In this country, the peace movement consists largely of liberals and libertarians (and, I would argue, anyone else who is willing to listen.) Perhaps the coalition will actually grow large enough someday to effect change in our country's foreign policy.Here are a couple of resources: Longtime leftist Tom Hayden has launched an online petition drive against the War in Afghanistan. I didn't agree with all of the partisan rhetoric, but I signed. Signing it will get you on Tom Hayden's e-mail list for Afghanistan news.Antiwar.com is a leading peace site on the Internet. It's run by libertarians but includes opinion pieces from across the political spectrum.The best opinion column I've read recently about Afghanistan was written by conservative columnist George Will. You can read "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan" here.