U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who have refused or are currently refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, stand in solidarity with the Shministim and urge others to support them and take action before December 18th.

The Letter:

We are U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who have refused or are currently refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We stand in solidarity with the Israeli Shministim (Hebrew for 12th graders) who are also resisting military service. About 100 Israeli high school students have signed an open letter declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army and their opposition to “Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel.” In Israel, military service is mandatory for all graduating high school seniors, and resisters face the possibility of years in prison.

We have also refused to participate in unjust acts of military aggression, and many of us have gone to prison or currently live with that possibility as a result. We believe that resistance to unjust war is a bold assertion of humanity in the face of overwhelming violence.

The Global War on Terror, like the Israeli occupation, is propped up by racism and dehumanization and sets the stage for never-ending war and occupation. We are inspired by the brave refusal of our brothers and sisters in Israel to take part in these destructive policies, and we want to let them know today, December 18^th – the day of international solidarity with the Shministim – that they have our deepest respect and support.

In Solidarity,

Stephanie Atkinson
Specialist, US Army Reserve. Went AWOL to resist October 1990 deployment to Iraq. Discharged in lieu of courts martial.

Chris Capps-Schubert
Specialist, US Army, communications. Went AWOL March 2007 to resist Iraq redeployment. Discharged in lieu of courts martial.

Eugene Cherry
Specialist, US Army, medic. Went AWOL June 2005 to resist Iraq redeployment, later won honorable discharge.

Matthis Chiroux
Sergeant, US Army, journalist. Currently refusing Inactive Ready Reserve recall.

James Circello
Sergeant, US Army, airborne infantry. Went AWOL April 2007 following Iraq deployment. Discharged in lieu of courts martial.

Carl Davison
US Army, security. Refused Iraq deployment in 2008. Served one month in the brig.

Matthew Edwards
US Marine Corps, Resisted Iraq deployment in March 2003.

Stephen Funk
Lance Corporal, US Marine Corps, logistic support. Went AWOL February 2003 to resist Iraq deployment. Served six months in the brig.

Andrew Gorby
Second Lieutenant, US Army, infantry. Discharged May 2007 as a conscientious objector.

Patrick Hart
Sergeant, US Army. Went AWOL in 2005 to resist Iraq deployment and has lived in Canada since.

Ryan Johnson
Private First Class, US Army. Went AWOL June 2005 to resist Iraq deployment and has lived in Canada since.

Dale Landry
Airman, US Air Force. Went AWOL in 2004 following Afghanistan deployment and has lived in Canada since.

Benjamin Lewis
US Marine Corps, mortar man. After two Iraq deployments, now refusing Inactive Ready Reserve recall.

Robin Long
Specialist, US Army. Went AWOL in June 2005 to resist Iraq deployment and lived in Canada until being deported July 2008. Currently serving a 14 month sentence at the Miramar Naval Brig near San Diego, California.

Christopher Magaoay
Lance Corporal, US Marine Corps. Went AWOL in 2006 to resist Iraq deployment and has lived in Canada since.

Camilo Mejia
Staff Sergeant, Army National Guard. Refused to redeploy to Iraq in 2004. Served nine months in the stockade.

Geoff Millard
Sergeant, Army National Guard. Went AWOL after a deployment to Iraq 2004-2005.

Brandon Neely
US Army, military police. Refused recall from the Inactive Ready Reserve in 2007.

Perry O’Brien
US Army, medic. Discharged as a conscientious objector November 2004 following Afghanistan deployment.

Jeff Paterson
Corporal, US Marine Corps, artillery control. Refused Desert Storm deployment August 1990. Served two months pre-trial confinement. Discharged in lieu of courts martial.

Chanan Suarezdiaz
Hospital Corpsman, Third Class, US Navy. Discharged following 2004 Iraq deployment.

Hart Viges
US Army, airborne mortar man. Discharged as a conscientious objector following 2003 Iraq deployment.

Dean Walcott
US Marine Corps, military police. Went AWOL in 2007 following Iraq deployment and has lived in Canada since.

David Wiggins MD
Captain, US Army, doctor. Resigned commission near the Iraq border during Desert Storm 1991.

Steve Yoczik
Private, US Army. Went AWOL November 2006 to resist Iraq deployment and has lived in Canada since.

For more information on the US war resisters visit http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/649/1/

For more info on the Shministim visit http://december18th.org/

or http://www.refusingtokill.net/Israel/ShministimHowardZinn.htm

The actions that happened around the country were powerful, but continued to be largely ignored by the media. This AP article mentions the range that some of these protests took, albeit quite disparagingly. The Winter Soldier Testimonies of returning soldiers got virtually no coverage or mention, but you can watch videos at www.IVAW.org; how can you understand what is happening if you never listen to those that have actually been there?

Al-Jazeera coverage of Winter Soldier, one of few media outlets to even mention it:

Student Peace Action Network activists confront war profiteers:

The irony is that last week I also found out that my cousin just got out of Air Force Boot Camp…they don’t think he’ll be sent to Iraq since he ‘just does computers,’ and it seemed like a good option since he had $65,000 in student loan debt and still no degree to show for it. Counter-recruitment is only effective in your family if you speak to them more often than every 7 years.

It is hard to find the words to express the rage, disappointment and sadness that all of this causes each day, but there are no perfect words and silence is support since it does not challenge the acceptance of such horrible acts due to time and distraction by ‘the economy.’ Are lives not more important than money? Can you not distinguish the relationship between the two? Can you muster more emotion for the stock exchange and numbers scrolling on a screen or a gas pump than you can for the real and physical ruining and ending of life?

Violence has increased in recent days, with Al-Maliki launching an offensive against militias in Basra. Muqtada Al-Sadr has called for civil disobedience to protest the targeting of the Mehdi army militia. If the Mehdi militia truce is broken, key to the reduction in violence at the start of the ‘surge,’ things will be worse than before, though they aren’t great at the moment with factions of the Mehdi militia who have broken off and escalated violence already.

There are no simple solutions to this occupation, but our continued presence exacerbates and complicates internal tensions and ties with the consequence being extensive fear and loss of life of the civilian population.

This is not what democracy looks like, here nor there.

This isn’t a holiday for one person, but for a whole movement, a time to contemplate centuries of injustice that we manage to ignore or disregard so frequently. Dr. King did not carry the Civil Rights Movement, he was not the lone catalyst, and he was not the only one that the cost of participation was his life. A movement requires participation on so many levels, all sorts of tactics, bravery, an unwavering sense of justice and overwhelming commitment to see it through.

Rosa Parks didn’t just refuse to give up her seat on the bus one day [and she wasn't the first to ever do it], she was an organizer who had worked with the NAACP for decades, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn’t magically happen by itself.

I gave my nephew a book about Congressman John Lewis ["John Lewis In the Lead: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement"] to read, and at one point he looked up and exclaimed: “He got bashed in the head 3 times and he still got back on the bus, why would anyone do that?” It is hard to explain abstract ideas about movements and justice to children sometimes, especially when illustrating that there are things worth getting a skull fracture for, or that anyone would ever have reason to be so angry about where you sat on a bus that they would fracture your skull in an attempt to kill or stop you.

From lunch counter sit-ins, to marches, to Freedom Schools, Freedom Riders and voter registration, people put their lives and their communities on the line for a better world. The Civil Rights Movement’s fight for justice still goes on, and their efforts sowed seeds for hope and dreams that led to powerful feminist, antiwar, glbttqi, economic justice and other movements.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN while speaking to sanitation workers on strike for just wages and better treatment, a year to the day after his “Beyond Vietnam” Speech at the Riverside Church in NYC on the injustice of war. Dr. King was speaking more and more on the connections between injustice and racism abroad to injustice and racism at home, which seemed to scare people in power and the media even more than everything that came before. Juan Cole reflects on the importance of Dr. King’s antiwar message and its relevance today here. Below you can hear the Riverside speech with current images:

The Civil Rights Movement isn’t over and we must continue to make the connections between movements to create lasting change by upending the roots of injustice rather than fighting the branches independently. There’s work to be done, but for at least this one day a year we can reflect on how far we’ve come.

So in an election year, when people find themselves annoyed by the excessively long hype of the presidential candidates, we have to remember that voting has been viewed as so dangerous that it was worth killing people to intimidate others from trying or fighting for the right. You have a vote and a choice, so ignore the nonsense and educate yourself to make a real decision; they really don’t want you to be engaged in the process, so make sure that you are.

U.S. Officials See Waste in Billions Sent to Pakistan

Why yes, these are our ‘friends,’ some of the few that remain. Glad to see we’ve all got the same moral slate.

A little late for the holidays, Shopdropping may not be Abbie Hoffman approved, but it can be an effective [albeit sometimes overly-subtle] way to challenge mainstream society and consumerism. Reclaim public space, reclaim stores, reclaim society…but using it for shameless self-promotion is counter-productive if you’re end goal is to one day be bought in such locations.

Warnings on the consequences of using private and legally unaccountable security firms [militias] were totally ignored. There still is not a concrete way for the U.S. government to know how many people were being used by these firms in Iraq at any point.

And in the continued race to see how many countries can possibly bomb/destroy/occupy Iraq at one time, Turkey continues bombing Northern Iraq. No one can really explain the point of bombing evacuated villages, beyond doing it out of spite and giving people nothing to return to.

‘Not us. We’re not going.’ Troops in Iraq say no.

There is hope, in each of us, standing up for what we believe in, stopping what we can and creating what we want.

War is over, if you want it.

The possibility is there, but the action and the belief are not. Why is that?

How can we better support GI Resisters, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Vets for Peace so that we can not only stop this war, but all war?

Can the Non-profit Industrial Complex overcome the Military Industrial Complex? Or have we forked over our responsibilities as citizens and a peace movement over to another institution? How do we reclaim movements and our government and change the world for the better?

Where can we exchange our apathy for action? When do we start trusting ourselves more than institutions? When do we take responsibility for that trust and act on it for ourselves and our communities?

There is no one answer, different actions work differently in every community, try something new and see what happens and who it brings to the table. Build networks and dreams, keep expanding and you keep making an impact. Give everyone a voice; trust your own.

Keep talking to the same 4 people every week? That’s not a movement, that’s a tea party. Go somewhere new, re-think your networks, connections and perspectives. Educate and activate.  Your community has unique concerns, how do economic injustice or environmental degradation relate to militarism there? Movements need a diversity of tactics, strategies and dreams to succeed; everyone has a part to play and a responsibility to act. As we build communities locally we build a much larger movement that has a greater capacity for change.

Believe. Believe that we can end this war now, not eventually, and that we won’t attack Iran or anyone else, then backtrack to how you can help make that possible. Belief is required in a movement, demilitarize yourself before you can demilitarize your world. You are your government, you are your country, realize that immense power and use it.

We can no longer believe in ‘soon,’ instead we must demand now.

On the other hand, Basra has seen a 90% drop in violence since the withdrawal of British troops. what? occupations increase violence? you must be joking.

And, just because they are wonderful, check out Iraq Vets Against the War

Find more info at the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, or United for Peace and Justice

He will be missed and we carry on with those same dreams and energy.

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently went to a refugee camp in Darfur, and as anyone confronted with the faces of war would, committed himself to ending the conflict. For years now a small African Union Peacekeeping force has been doing what it can, but efforts to reinforce the AU troops with UN Peacekeepers has been blocked by the government in Khartoum, who are exactly the ones who armed the militias that have made so many refugees in the first place. Hopefully the promised 26,000 Peacekeepers, the largest UN Peacekeeping force ever, arrives soon and can avoid further displacement and death.

While there are only so many troops available for ‘peacekeeping’ the 17,000 size force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, has done little to bring stability or peace for the Congolese. While Africa’s World War theoretically ended in 2003 with a peace agreement and a national democratic election was held earlier this year, there is still widespread violence and displacement throughout the country with over 4 million civilians dead since 1998. Fighting in the North and South Kivu Provinces alone has displaced over 200,000 people so far this year and threatens to escalate to full-fledged war (though I’m sure it feels like full war to people in the region already), again. No one here talks about this country, or this endless conflict, for a variety of reasons that include our overthrowing the first democratically elected Prime Minister on the continent, Patrice Lumumba, and installing the heinous dictator Mobutu as well as the intense pillaging of the Congo’s rich resources (Diamonds, Gold, Coltan, Uranium, Copper, Tin, Silver, Cobalt, Niobium, Timber, Hydro Power, Manganese, Petroleum) on the cheap because of the dictatorship and later the ongoing conflict.

Talk about it. Check out the Friends of the Congo site. Take action. War anywhere is wrong, don’t ignore it’s existence because people will keep dying and suffering.

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