For over a year now, a number of voices, liberal and conservative, have been arguing that the United States should not send more troops to Afghanistan. One of the most important voices in the antiwar movement is Derrick Crowe, an activist and blogger based in Austin, Texas.

In August, my colleague Jason Rosenbaum and I joined with Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation to support Derrick’s work with a special blog fellowship. We believe the debate on Afghanistan is so important that we paid Derrick a stipend out of our blog‘s own income, something we had never done before. You have likely seen some of Derrick’s writing here, where he is a frequent contributor.

Derrick’s hard work has more than repaid our investment – he has been interviewed on Al Jazeera English and Japanese public television, and his blogging has drawn links from around the internet, including the New York Times. We believe he has played a substantial role in shifting public opinion on the war, which in turn has brought about a potentially game-changing debate within the Obama administration regarding US strategy in Afghanistan.

Now CREDO Mobile has made us an incredibly generous offer: for every signature we obtain for the petition linked below, they will donate $1 (up to $5,000) to support Derrick’s fellowship. This amount would allow him to continue with the part-time fellowship for another year, during which time we believe he can have an even greater impact on the debate around Afghanistan.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/saynotoescalation/

I do not normally put a lot of energy into promoting petitions, but in this case I believe that with one simple action you can have a double impact.

First, by signing the petition, which asks President Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan, you will be signaling to the President that a large constituency of Americans will oppose an open-ended escalation of a long-running conflict. At this critical moment, when the President is considering just such an escalation, the antiwar side needs all the public backing it can get.

Second, and at no cost to yourself, you will be helping to support an important antiwar voice – and helping to show the support that Americans will offer to independent media outlets that make a difference. All that is required on your part is signing up for CREDO’s email list, which will let you know about other activism opportunities they have.

Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you’ll sign the petition.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/saynotoescalation/

Finally, please forward this post to any contacts you have who might be willing to sign. I do not believe it will be difficult to hit 5,000, but we can use all the help we can get!