From “War Is a Racket” by Smedley Butler, for Memorial Day

Memorial Day is generally difficult for me in the abstract. I abhor the very idea of “celebrating” the “sacrifices” of people who might better said not to have sacrificed their lives but rather to have been murdered, murdered by the people who profit from the abstractions that are bandied about to mobilize money and man-and-woman-power [...]

Training for war

“Military planners operate on the basis of military expediency, and individual soldiers are trained to operate on the basis of unquestioning obedience to their military superiors…In the realm of copybook distinctions it may be a simple matter to divide the bombing of a city into separate acts of willed destruction of a war production plant [...]

Early morning, April 4, a shot rings out in the Memphis sky…

As you’re probably aware, on this day 40 years ago Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.
Fewer people are aware of this speech he gave 41 years ago, today.
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 4, 1967
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no [...]

personal update

This weekend my brother, a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army, leaves to deploy to Iraq. His specialty is communications, which means he’ll likely be going out with patrols as a radio man - not exactly a “safe” job.
I must confess as to being somewhat conflicted as to how to pray about this - I [...]

Ironic quote about the efficacy of war

“The blood shed on the European continent in the course of the last three hundred years bears no proportion to the national result of the events. In the end, France had remained France, Germany Germany, Poland Poland, and Italy Italy. What dynastic egotism, political passion and patriotic blindness have attained in the way of apparently [...]

Support our troops?

This morning, my grandfather sent me an email “action alert” from the American Family Association urging protest of the recent Berkeley, California City Council resolution that declared the downtown Marine recruiting office “unwanted” and urged the recruiters to leave town. This article does not respond to that issue, but rather to the subject line of [...]

Guest article: America the Fascist

My friend Steven Kippel wrote this post, and I requested permission to reproduce it here. Just so no one who has a loved one involved with the military will hear this the wrong way, my brother is in the last stages of mission training before going to Iraq - so this is quite a personal [...]

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

This is one of King’s most important speeches and yet one of his most little-known. Delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year to the day before he was assassinated, this speech provides a scathing denunciation of the practices of the American government on the world stage, particularly in Vietnam. King extends his methodology of [...]

Defense threatens layoffs in war spending standoff

Washington Post article
What do you think? Who’s playing games with whose jobs at this point?
For my money I think the Administration would prompt Defense to encourage layoffs because they’ve already shown so little concern for the average American in all this that… well, what’s buggering a few more?
I think it’s good to see Congress finally [...]

Hidden costs double war bill

Washington Post article
Ignoring for a moment the hypocrisy of the Democrats criticizing the cost of the wars when they overwhelmingly voted for them in the first place and continually approve funding for endless “emergency” appropriations, here’s an excerpt from the article:
The economic costs to the United States of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so [...]

The problem with war

The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson? — A.J. Muste
I wouldn’t say this is the ONLY problem with war, but I think the statement is certainly true as far as it goes.

World War II and American Empire

“The formulation of a statement of war aims for propaganda purposes is very different from formulation of one defining the true national interest… If war aims are stated, which seem to be concerned solely with Anglo-American imperialism, they will offer little to people in the rest of the world, and will be vulnerable to Nazi [...]

comments from Friedman and Abizaid at Stanford Forum

Stanford’s annual roundtable this year was on “Courting Disaster: The Fight for Oil, Water and a Healthy Planet.” Here are some comments from neoliberal economic architect Thomas Friedman and Gen. John Abizaid, US Army (Ret.) from the Stanford News Service.
Concerning the Middle East, Friedman blamed the United States for treating the region as a collection [...]

The obligatory 9/11 post

I wasn’t going to do this, I was just going to let the post about Stirling Bridge stand as my statement about 9/11, but I just wrote this for my Livejournal and thought it was worth sharing here.
“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, [...]

This day in history, September 11

810 years ago, in 1297, the Scots under William Wallace and Andrew de Moray defeated the English under Edward I in one of the major battles of the First War for Scottish Independence. The Scottish army was vastly outnumbered, but after a number of the English had crossed the bridge they attacked and forcibly divided [...]

Iran war began in 2005?

This article by Scott Ritter, hosted at Commondreams.org (originally published by Al-Jazeera) argues it did.
Americans, along with the rest of the world, are starting to wake up to the uncomfortable fact that President George Bush not only lied to them about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (the ostensible excuse for the March [...]

Pentagon draws up plans for air strikes against Iran

I wish I was surprised by this. From Democracy Now.

Report: U.S. Military Planning Massive Air Strikes Against Iran
The Sunday Times in London is reporting the Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive air strikes against twelve hundred targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days. Alexis Debat of the Nixon [...]

the flag of truth

I’m back from Michigan! Don’t forget to register for the Jesus Radicals conference. It’s free!
This is an amazing picture. I got it from Gavin at Make/Shift.

Sergeant Timothy John Westphal, 31, of Denver, 18th Infantry Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. In Tikrit on year-long tour beginning February 2004.
“If Soldiers Came From Another Country And Did This To [...]

America’s image

“Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that [...]

This may be the best opinion I’ve seen so far on the Libby verdict

A Libby verdict - International Herald Tribune
I was thinking about writing something up, but most of what I would have said this piece says better.