from waging nonviolence 

MAY 20, 2012, MILITARIZED CHICAGO -- Next month in Baltimore they're going to celebrate the War of 1812.  That's what we do with wars.  We say they're the last resort.  We say they're hell.  We say they're for the purpose of eliminating themselves: we fight wars for peace.  Although we never keep peace for wars.  We claim to wage only wars we have been forced into despite all possible effort to find a better way.  And then we celebrate the wars.  We keep the wars going for their own sake…

By Leah Bolger and David Swanson

"We did not choose this war.  This war came to us on 9/11.  We don't go looking for a fight.  But when we see our homeland violated, when we see our fellow citizens killed, then we understand what we have to do." 

These are the words that President Obama used on Tuesday to describe the Afghanistan war, but they would have been more appropriately said by any Afghan citizen.

Coming out of the mouth of the President of the United…

Scott Camil, a veteran of the second-longest U.S. war in history, that on Vietnam, radically changed a discussion of the longest war in U.S. history, that on Afghanistan, on CNN on Sunday.

CNN's Don Lemon tried repeatedly to explain troops posing with body parts as an inscrutable result of war, without questioning the justification of that war.  Repeatedly, Lemon instructed viewers not to judge soldiers. 

A guest to whom Lemon devoted a great deal of time, Dr. Terry Lyles,…

The inaugural edition of The Peace Journalist has been published. Features include a look at whether Afghani journalists understand the nature of conflict, and an examination of a comprehensive peace and electoral journalism project in Uganda.

Click…

1. When you're setting a record for the longest modern war, cutting it short just increases the chances of somebody breaking your record some day.

2. When Newt Gingrich, Cal Thomas, and Lindsey Graham turn against a war, keeping it going will really confuse Republicans.

3. If we pull U.S. troops out after they have shot children from helicopters, kicked in doors at night, waved Nazi flags, urinated on corpses, and burned Korans it will look like we're sorry they did those…

Even a broken radioactive timebomb is right twice a day.

Here's Newt:

"And, candidly, if Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, doesn't feel like apologizing then we should say good bye and good luck, we don't need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on somebody who doesn't care."

Now, this was preceded by the declaration that one must…

Nobel Prize celebrations; Rise with the Prize; National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security for Afghanistan and the US; new work in Sudan and South Sudan, and more.

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I. Recent News



Nobel…

Ex: Jonathan Power

Subject: Ten more years in Afghanistan?

Date: 11^th October 2011.

The First World War lasted four years, the Second World War six years, the Vietnam war eight years, the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan nine years and thus far the American war in Afghanistan ten years.  

Last Friday General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded US troops in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2010 and who was hailed as the master soldier who…

Remarks at Take Back the Dream conference, October 3, 2011.



For videos of this speech and of remarks by Derrick Crowe and Jo Comerford click here: http://warisacrime.org/content/rebuild-dream-streets



Back around May or June a bunch of us announced plans for this coming Thursday, October 6th, to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., not for a march or a rally, and not for a day or a…

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In this issue: Israel & Palestine, Pakistan, Sudan, training opportunities, and more.

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I. Recent Activities



Confronting Pakistani…

I recently sat down for 90 minutes to speak with six Afghan judges, all of them women, and an English-Dari interpreter, a man.  They spoke to me as individuals.  They aren't preparing any investigations or indictments.  The relevance of their being judges is that they know the law.  They've studied international law, and they were visiting the United States to learn about our legal and political systems.  They believe the United States is guilty of war crimes.

I was the one…

Afghanistan: Inclusive Security Update (July 2011)

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Watch PBS NewsHour coverage.…

Please join The Institute for Inclusive Security for a special panel discussion in Washington, DC on Monday, June 13 9 AM at the National Press Club.

See the full invitation here  RSVP to jaime_horn@huntalternatives.org

Counterinsurgency…

Before Tahrir Square happened almost nobody predicted that President Hosni Mubarak would be forced out of office by a movement that didn't pick up a gun. Had President Barack Obama expected that outcome, he might have publicly backed Mubarak's departure before, rather than after, Mubarak stepped down.

Obama can be seen as overcompensating for that performance in Libya, but there he is placing faith in weapons. Anybody can do that. Egypt still has a long way to go on its path to a just…

I'll be visiting my nation's longest war next week in Afghanistan, thanks to a wonderful organization called Voices for Creative Nonviolence which seeks to build friendship and understanding between countries. I'll be meeting with ordinary and prominent Afghans and reporting on what they think of their country's future -- often a more complex view than will fit into a television sound byte.

In preparation, I've been trying to ascertain…