WCT Winter 2013 V-1

Vol. V No. 1 Winter 2013 Donations Welcome

The War Crimes TimesWarCrimesTimes.org

A publication of“Exposing

the true costsof war”

“We will abolish war crimes when we abolish war – which is a crime in itself!”

Challenging thePulpits and the Pundits

War is good – and necessary, just, moral,legal, honorable, holy, productive, and natural.This message is preached from pulpits andpromulgated by pundits: pray for the troops(but not the innocent victims of war andcertainly not the “enemy”); support the troops(but do not question the arguments that supportthe American institution of perpetual war). Inthese pages, we present some clear and criticalthinkers who challenge the myths and themisconceptions propagated by the institutionsof the Church and the media:

Alan Storey, conscientious objector andordained minister, issues a bold – and quiteunsettling for some – challenge (p.5) to clergyand congregants, reminding them what reli-gious fundamentals really are supposed to be.

Robert Higgs (p.1) takes on the spuriousarguments offered by the military-industrial-congressional complex and their media lackeysto justify war. And Marti Hiken (p.2) com-ments on another hallowed institution: “blind,unwarranted patriotism.”

With war thus discredited, John Dear (p.1)writes of young Afghan peacemakers whoespouse nonviolence and seek friends around theworld; the Blue Scarf Movement (p.20) offers ahighly visual symbol of global solidarity; andCarlos Steward and Hamid Dabashi (p.10)promote a better understanding of Iranian culture.

Back in the trenches, John Glaser (p.1) andHilary Stauffer and Reprive.org (p.19) reporton drones; Ann Wright (p.13), Vince Stravino(p.15), and Luke Hiken (p.15) provide updatesand analysis on Israel and Palestine; BrianWillson (p.9) explains that the war isn’t just“over there”; Ed Tick shares poetry; and RobertYoder offers a letter and a book review.

Drones, My Lai, and Prosecuting thePowerfulby John Glaser

In April of 2012, President Obama approved the CIA’srequest to begin launching targeted assassinations in Yementhrough drone strikes even when the identities of those beingtargeted is not known. The U.S. government calls these “signa-ture strikes,” and they are being deployed constantly in bothYemen and Pakistan. Drone operators thousands of miles away (Continued on page 18)

Poster art and printing by Jeremy Taylor and Ryan DeRamus,Random Row Books, Charlottesville, VA

randomrow.wordpress.com

“War Is Horrible, but . . .”by Robert Higgs

Those who are quick to support unnecessary warstypically pay lip service to war’s horrors, but then supportfighting anyway. Their excuses often follow predictablepatterns based on historical errors, ill-founded specula-tions, and appeals to patriotic emotion and knee-jerkloyalty, rather than on fact-based argumentation.

Anyone who has done even a little reading about thetheory and practice of war – whether in political theory,international relations, theology, history, or commonjournalistic commentary – has encountered a sentence ofthe form “War is horrible, but ….” In this construction,the phrase that follows the conjunction explains why acertain war was (or now is or someday will be) an actionthat ought to have been (or still ought to be) undertaken,notwithstanding its admitted horrors. The frequent, virtu-ally formulaic use of this expression attests that nobodycares to argue, say, that war is a beautiful, humane,uplifting, or altogether splendid course of action andtherefore the more often people fight, the better.

Some time ago – in the late nineteenth and early twenti-eth century, for example – one might have encountered a

(Continued on page 4)

Peace is Possible2 Million Friends for Afghanistanby John Dear

In October, the U.S. war against the people of Afghan-istan entered its twelfth year. It’s the longest war in ourhistory, but you’d hardly know we’ve been at war, or thatwe continue to kill Afghan civilians. But on top of this,few Americans realize that Afghanistan has sufferedalmost continuous warfare for the past four decades.Some two million Afghans have died over the last fortyyears!

It’s hard to imagine what the people of Afghanistanfeel about this, because we are not permitted to hear theirvoices. We know so little about the Afghan people.

But a remarkable group of young people in Kabul whoespouse nonviolence and call themselves the AfghanPeace Volunteers have decided to tell us what they think,how they feel, and what they want us to do. Recently theycalled upon the whole world to join their campaign forthe end to the war on Afghanistan by signing their appeal,“Two Million Friends for Afghanistan.”

Instead of anger or revenge for the ongoing killings,these young Afghan peacemakers want two millionpeople around the world to sign their petition to theUnited Nations calling for a ceasefire and an end to theU.S/NATO war on Afghanistan, and to pledge theirfriendship to the people of Afghanistan. I urge you to visittheir website, www.2millionfriends.org, to sign on andjoin this historic campaign for peace.


2 Winter 2013 The War Crimes Times • WarCrimesTimes.org

The War Crimes Times is produced and distributed by volunteer membersof Veterans For Peace in Western North Carolina, Florida, and California andis funded entirely by donations from readers and from organizations that helpwith distribution of the paper.

The War Crimes Times provides information on war and the war crimesthat invariably accompany war, the need to hold war criminals accountable, themany costs of war, and the effects of our war culture on our national characterand international reputation. Additionally and importantly, we also report onthe efforts of the many people who sacrifice their time, money, and comfort towork for peace.

Our contributors include journalists, legal experts, poets, artists, and veteransspeaking from experience. While their views may not always be entirelyconsistent with ours, their topics address the concerns of the War Crimes Times.

WCT is published and distributed quarterly. Order copies and make donationsonline at:

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Make checks payable toVFP Chapter 099(memo “WCT”)

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This issue was produced and distributed by: Kim Carlyle, Susan Carlyle, RonKuykendall, Susan Oehler, Lyle Petersen, Mark Runge, and Robert Yoder.

WCT has been endorsed by March Forward! and the Justice for Fallujah Project.

Australian PM Howard – Deputy SheriffJust discovered your web site via Information

Clearing House. Brilliant! I will be watching itclosely.

However, I am wondering if you could helpme. I recently discovered the 9/11 War CrimesTribunal and I wanted to subscribe, but theirsubscribe page is just formatting text, and theyhave no contact address that I could see, and, asyou are both in general agreement about gettingat the truth, I thought maybe you could help.

The reason I wanted to make contact withthem was to ask if they could add the name ourformer Prime Minister, John Howard, to those ofBlair and Bush in their indictments. Howard wasPM when “Dubya” decided to invade Afghani-stan and Iraq, and couldn’t get there quick enoughas he groveled and sucked up to “Dubya” to behis “Deputy Sherriff” in the Asia Pacific region.

For background, I am a former member of theAustralian Army and I did 2 tours in Vietnamwith the Australian Army. I mention that as manyAmericans have no idea that the Australian Armydeployed to Vietnam as a U.S. ally. Just anotherU.S. war also based on a lie: the Gulf of Tonkinincident. I now live on a pension due to that warand live with the guilt of my, albeit small, part inthe suffering of that beautiful country and herpeople.

My sincere best wishes in your quest forchange. Take care and keep well and thank youfor doing what you do.

Brad GoldingMount Seaview, NSW, Australia

Couldn’t help with the request, but thanks forthe good wishes. - Ed.

Read All About it!So glad to see we are back to getting the WCT

regularly. I love leaving them on the bus andMAX trains and at the cafes and restaurants.Some days it is fun to go out in a VFP T-shirtwith a stack of them and do the paperboy routine:“Hurry, hurry, read all about it! HomelandINsecurity, Government Mal-feeesance andInnocents Blown to Bits! Read all about it in theWar Crimes Times – Free, like the air youbreathe!”

Marion WardVancouver, WA

Thank You, John GrantHaven’t had the pleasure of meeting John

Grant [“The Vietnam War and the Struggle forTruth”, WCT, Fall 2012], but I would welcomethe opportunity to shake his hand as I welcomedthe opportunity to meet a local Vietnam vet afew years ago.

An article in the Morning Call (Allentown,Pa.) – this was back when it still hired reportersand had an editor – told of this vet’s experiencewhen he came home to this area. His neighborsslapped him on the back and said “Well done,son, we're proud of you.” He told the reporter,“What I had just done was the most abominablething I ever did or ever hoped to do.” [See MartiHiken’s essay on page 3. - Ed.]

The two local newspapers have done anexemplary job of keeping the local public in a

state of invincible ignorance about Vietnam,what with almost daily flag-waving storiesabout our Vietnam “heroes.” They (the read-ers) will no doubt be orgasmic over theVietnam War Commemoration Project. Theaforementioned local Vietnam vet on his returnfrom our scene of massive war crimes partici-pated in a demonstration atop the Statue ofLiberty where a group of VVAW [VietnamVeterans Against the War] hung Old Goryupside down (international distress signal).

Me? I put my life on the line in the ColdWar (1958-1961), helping to keep the sea lanessafe for United Fruit Co. et al. I was the staffcommunications officer for a squadron ofLSTs, home ported in Yokosuka, Japan. Ourmain job was to ferry Third Marine Divisionartillery battalions between Okinawa andNumazu, where they practiced destroying theenvironment at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Our lastmission was to sail the flagship to Kota Belud,North Borneo (I can't even find it on the map)for war games before going on to test thefeasibility of landing LSTs on the banks of theChao Phraya river in Bangkok, Thailand. Itwas an early preparation exercise for ourstopping the spread of the international Com-munist menace.

I was a ninety day wonder who couldn't geta job as a geologist because the oil companiesweren't hiring in 1958 due to “recession.” Itwas a chance to “see the world.” Cluelessabout U.S. foreign policy, I had no problemwasting three years of my life polluting theoceans, and went through 5 years of seminarystill clueless, before reading Dan Berrigan’sbook, No Bars To Manhood.

It then began to dawn on me that RichardNixon might not be a boy scout. As someonerecently observed, we’d have to go back to1945 to find a U.S. president that wouldn’t beeligible for swinging from the yardarm for warcrimes, according to the Nuremberg protocols.

I hope and pray that the WCT with writerslike John Grant will continue to hammer theheads of the Amerikan Public until a crack intheir brains allows a little light to break throughthe darkness and get them over their JohnWayne adulation of Green Berets. Better to singthe praises of the Black Berets (like Che wore).

Semper Fidel, Bernard J. Berg

Easton, PAJohn Grant responds:Dear Bernard,Thanks for the wonderful, funny letter. I

clearly share your jaundiced view — and thesanity of satire & humor. Hope you somedayfind Kota Belud on the map! North Borneo.Wow.

I forgot the WCT was running my piece.Here's the site I write for and where it camefrom: www.thiscantbehappening.net.

I now have on top a long piece on “imperi-alism,” the word that Americans have beentaught to deny and run from screaming into thenight like Pavlovian dogs.

Also check out: www.inthemindfield.com.Hope this finds you well and thinking free

thoughts up there in Easton.John

Letters

VeteransForPeace.org

THE OLD VETERAN by Ed Tick

I met him on the island of Mykonos, Greece, where wesat together under a windmill. He was sent north tocounter theItalianinvasion ofGreece duringWWII. War hadgiven him theonly off-islandadventure of his life. The beauty surrounding him andhis culture’s tradition of honorable warriorhood enabledhim to carry his story with dignity.

By the flapping cheeks of the south wind this mill ground grain to meal. Now in its empty spars I hear the sighing of dead sea captains.

Only once did I sail from this floating marble to the cold north where I wrestled the invader until bleeding mountains stained the sea.

Now cracked and fissured, resting beneath the molten wheels my island is a bowl kneaded, thrown and shaped by a god and I am its painted old warrior.

The War Crimes Times • WarCrimesTimes.org Winter 2013 3

Dear Mr. President, A Proposal For Peace

Yesterday I read an article thatdescribed the newest high-tech weaponin development, a self-contained fullyautomated robot that can roam, Termi-nator-like, and select and fire on targetswithout human intervention. Forgetdrones and satellite links, these robotickillers are straight out of the 1982movie, Blade Runner. Human RightsWatch and Harvard Law School’s Inter-national Human Rights Clinic havecalled on governments to preemptivelyban these weapons because of thedanger posed to civilians, but this strikesme as futile, for the military-industrial-government complex can and willdevelop new weapons faster thanpeople can mobilize and respond to thethreat. It also plays the game accordingto your rules—trying to stop newweapons and wars, new atrocities andcrimes against humanity, one at atime—like that Dutch boy sticking hisfingers in the dike to hold back thewaters. Rather, it seems the only effec-tive approach is to change the con-sciousness of a society focused on warand move it to a consciousness focusedon peace, thereby eliminating the neces-sity or incentive to develop newweapons or start new wars. I realize thisis a far-fetched idea, not likely tosucceed in our lifetime, but imagine ifa Nobel Prize-winning leader such asyourself would take up the challengeand begin the process of demilitarizingnot only our armies but our nationalconsciousness, eliminating war, terror-ists, and enemies from speeches andnews conferences, from legislation,indeed, from our lexicon and our dic-tionaries, and pursue alternatives likepeace and respect for our fellow manand the planet we inhabit. I’m not sug-gesting we all join hands and sing Kum-baya, but that we stop the killing andviolence, stop spending our treasure andenergy on the illusion of “defense” and“national security” and start spending iton education and the betterment of allmankind, that we address the realthreat—global warming—and stop theassault on the environment and ourfuture. Imagine the legacy, Mr. Presi-dent, if you did this, if you took that firststep. Your legacy at this point is notsomething to be proud of: the man whosold his country to the Whores of Warand lost democracy in America for theillusion of power and wealth. To evenstart the shift in thinking from war topeace would earn you a place in thepantheon of great leaders, not tomention that Nobel Peace Prize youreceived under false pretenses. Thinkabout it, Mr. President. For all our sakes.

– Robert Yoder

Robert writes a letter each day atdearmrpresident-letters.blogspot.com

Every football game now includes apatriotic salute with a huge flag displayedin the center of the playing field, jets flyingoverhead and pictures of vets and GIs inuniform.

The advertisements for joining the mil-itary or honoring our vets run all day longon the television. (The military has anendless supply of our money to spend onadvertisements.). One poignant propagandapiece even brought tears to my eyes it wasso well staged and effective. It portrayed ayoung female GI in uniform who lookedworried, maybe scared, not lost, but forlorn,as she departed from an airplane in a busyairport. As she left the plane an elderly mansitting in the airport witnessed her lost look.Clearly a vet, he stood up and proudlysaluted her.

The local news has its hand in the pie,too. Not a news show goes by without somevet, sometimes disabled or clearly sufferingfrom PTSD, singled out for a “thank youfor your service” from somebody.

The “Thank You’s” havebecome a national pastime, apolitician’s wet dream, and apatriotic duty. It has come to thepoint where anti-war Americans(the vast majority) have no say ineither the policies of this country,or the patriotism that is one-sid-edly pro-war, pro-drones, andpro-military. It has become averitable duty to support the entirewar machine, including the drone-makers, weapon manufacturers,and the lobbyists/politicians whorun the government.

Veterans and service membersare being used and abused in theprocess. They are nothing butcannon fodder and helpless pawns who aresacrificed in order to keep the militarybudget rising, for the perpetuation of thelies, for enticing our young people to jointhe military, and for electoral victories.

Scratch beneath the image of any patri-otic woman or man who says the deeply felt“Thank You” to the veteran and you findsomeone who would support all wars –regardless of their legitimacy. Such peopleusually have a family member currentlyserving in the military, served themselves,or feel it is necessary and politically correctto publicly thank someone. What she doesn’tconsider is that the GI might be very muchagainst the wars, someone who is sufferingfrom PTSD, or who doesn’t want to hear thewords at all: they know better. They’ve seenfirst hand the atrocities being committed inour name.

Why don’t these “thankfulpatriots” consider the infant bombedby a “wayward” drone missile, whohas been killed or lost a limb, whoalso will suffer from PTSD, orwhose father has been killed duringa brother’s wedding celebration?Why don’t they consider theweapons manufacturers who areprofiting from that drone? Whydon’t they consider someone thePresident has decided to assassinatebecause his name appears on a “killlist?” Why don’t they consider andmourn for the people in far awaylands who have had no military andhave had their countries overrun byforeigners – namely, Americans,Norwegians, Swedes, British, Aus-tralian and so forth? Why don’t theyconsider Guantanamo an abomina-tion?

Maybe those who say the“Thank You’s” should light a candlefor all those who have been maimedand killed by U.S. servicemen andwomen. Maybe at the next footballgame the audience should rise for amoment of silence for all childrenwho have lost their parents andlimbs.

The blind, unwarranted patriotismof Americans is harming us, nothelping us. “Support our Troops”does not mean “Bring them home” in

their patriotic lexicon, but rather, it means“Support their Illegal Wars” throughout theworld. We look forward to the day when oursoldiers return to their appropriate status, asdefenders of our country, who protect usagainst real, not imagined enemies.

Marti Hiken is the director of ProgressiveAvenues (progressiveavenues.org), the formerAssociate Director of the Institute for PublicAccuracy, and former chair of the NationalLawyers Guild Military Law Task Force.

Our Lives, Our Rights is a March Forward!campaign led by active-duty troops, veterans,and war resisters to educate U.S. servicemembers about their rights and help exerciseand advocate for those rights, among whichis the right to be a Conscientious Objector towar and refuse deployment to Afghanistan.

Thank You’s

by Marty Hiken

Washington Redskins cheerleaders perform a routineat a show on Contingency Operating Base Speicher,Tikrit, Iraq, November 24, 2007. The cheerleadersvisited during a tour of Iraq to show support for thetroops. (U.S. Army photo)

I’m an Afghan woman. You cannot bomb us toliberation! NATO ≠ Progress.

I joined the Army National Guard at 17 yearsold. I could train to kill people in preparationfor war but I could not yet legally drinkalcohol, smoke cigarettes, or vote in anelection. I had been through thebrainwashing by our military andgovernment for 3 years by the time Ideployed to Iraq in 2004. But despite themental manipulation, I still questioned ourinvolvement in overseas operations. Whilein Iraq, I learned that I was right to questionthe U.S. involvement in the country as thesepeople were clearly not our “enemy” andobviously did not want or need us there.What our country did in Iraq was kill, torture,and poison innocent people – all in animperialist effort to CONTROL and STEAL.I returned home in 2005 with mental andphysical scars; it is a miracle, and by thegrace of my mother, that I did not end up asanother suicide/drug abuse/ homeless vetsstatistic. I will not sit idly by and let the UnitedStates government get away without payingfor their crimes and neither should YOU.

My name is Alla. I’m an Iraqi from Baghdad. I lostmy home, friends, sisters, and every beautifulmemory I had there. Now I live in the U.S. on myown with PTSD, ADD, and bad mental health. Ihope everyone with a shred of conscience willreject military orders to participate in war.


writer such as Theodore Roosevelt whoforthrightly affirmed that war is manly andinvigorating for the nation and the soldierswho engage in it: war keeps a nation from“getting soft” (Morris 1979). Although thisopinion is no longer expressed openly withgreat frequency, something akin to it mayyet survive, as Chris Hedges has argued inWar Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning(2002). Nowadays, however, even those

who find meaning for their lives byinvolvement in war, perhaps even onlymarginal or symbolic involvement, do notoften extol war as such.

They are likely instead to justify anation’s engagement in war by callingattention to alternative and even morehorrible outcomes that, retrospectively,would have occurred if the nation had notgone to war or, prospectively, will occur ifit does not go to war. This seeminglyreasonable “balancing” form of argumentoften sounds stronger than it really is,especially when it is made more or less inpassing. People may easily be swayed bya weak argument, however, if they fail toappreciate the defects of the typicallyexpressed “horrible, but” apology for war.

Rather than plow through varioussources on my bookshelves to compileexamples, I have availed myself of moderntechnology. A Google search for the exactphrase “war is horrible but” on May 21,2012, identified 58,100 instances of it. Restassured that this number is smaller than theentire universe of such usage – someinstances most likely have yet to be cap-tured electronically. Among the examplesI drew from the World Wide Web are thefollowing fourteen statements. I identifythe person who made the statement onlywhen he is well known.

1. “War is horrible. But no one wantsto see a world in which a regime with noregard whatsoever for international law– for the welfare of its own people or forthe will of the United Nations – hasweapons of mass destruction.” (U.S.deputy secretary of state Richard Armit-age [2003])

This statement was part of a speechRichard Armitage gave on January 21,2003, shortly before the U.S. governmentunleashed its armed forces to inflict “shock

and awe” on the nearly defenseless peopleof Iraq. The speech repeated the Bushadministration’s standard prewar litany ofaccusations, including several claims laterrevealed to be false, so it cannot be viewedas anything but bellicose propaganda. Yetit does not differ much from what manyothers were saying at the time.

On its own terms, the statement scarcelyserves to justify a war. The conditionsoutlined – a regime’s disregard of interna-tional law, its own people’s well-being, andthe will of the United Nations, combinedwith possession of weapons of mass

destruction – apply toseveral nations. They nomore justified a militaryattack on Iraq than theyjustified an attack onPakistan, France, India,Russia, China, theUnited Kingdom, Israel,or the United Statesitself.

2. “War is terrible,war is horrible, butwar is also at timesnecessary and the onlymeans of stoppingevil.”

The only means of stopping evil? Howcan such singularity exist? Has evil conductnever been stopped except by war? Forexample, has shunning – exclusion fromcommerce, financial systems, communica-tions, transportation systems, and othermeans of international cooperation – neverserved to discipline an evil nation state?Might it do so if seriously tried? (If thesequestions give the impression that I amsuggesting the possibility of resorting toembargo or blockade, that perception is notexactly correct. Although I support variousforms of voluntary, peaceful withdrawal ofcooperation with evil-doing states, I do notendorse state-enforced – that is, violent orpotentially violent – embargoes and block-ades.) Why must we leap to the conclusionthat only war will serve, when other mea-sures have scarcely even been considered,much less seriously attempted? If war isreally as horrible as everyone says, it wouldseem that we have a moral obligation to tryvery hard to achieve the desired suppres-sion of evildoing by means other thanresort to warfare, which is itself always amanifest evil, even when it is seeminglythe lesser one.

3. “No news shows [during WorldWar II] were showing German civiliansgetting fried and saying how sad it was.It was war against butchers and war ishorrible, but it’s war, and to defendhuman decency, sometimes war is neces-sary.” (Ben Stein [2006])

Ben Stein is a knowledgeable man. Hesurely knows that the U.S. governmentimposed draconian censorship of war newsduring World War II. Perhaps the censorshad their reasons for keeping scenes ofincinerated German civilians away fromthe U.S. public. After all, even if Ameri-cans in general had extraordinarily cruel

and callous attitudes toward German civil-ians during the war, many of them hadrelatives and friends in Germany.

Stein appears to lump all Germans intothe class of “butchers” against whom heclaims the war was being waged. He cer-tainly must understand, however, that manypersons in Germany—children, for exam-ple—were not butchers and bore absolutelyno responsibility for the actions of thegovernment officials who were. Yet theseinnocents, too, suffered the dire effects of,among other things, the terror bombing thatthe U.S. and British air forces inflicted onmany German cities (“Strategic Bombing,”no date).

To say, as Stein and many others havesaid, that “war is war” gets us nowhere; ina moral sense, this tautology warrantsnothing. Many people, however, evidentlyconsider all moral questions about theconduct of war to have been settled simplyby their having labeled or by their havingaccepted someone else’s labeling of certainactions as “war.” Having chanted thisexculpatory incantation over the state’sorganized violence, they believe that alltransgressions associated with that violenceare automatically absolved – as the sayinggoes, “all’s fair in love and war.” It doesnot help matters that regimes treat some ofthe most egregious transgressors as heroes.

Finally, Stein’s claim that “to defendhuman decency, sometimes war is neces-sary” is at best paradoxical because it saysin effect that human indecency, which waritself surely exemplifies, is sometimesnecessary to defend human decency.Perhaps he had in mind the backfires thatfirefighters sometimes set to help themextinguish fires. This metaphor, however,seems farfetched in connection with war.It is difficult to think of anything thatconsists of as many different forms ofindecency as war does. Not only is war’sessence the large-scale wreaking of deathand destruction, but its side effects and itsconsequences in the aftermath run a widerange of evils as well. Whatever else warmay be, it surely qualifies as the mostindecent type of action people can take: itreduces them to the level of the mostferocious beasts and often accomplisheslittle more than setting the stage for thenext, reactive round of such savagery. Inany event, considered strictly as a way ofsustaining human decency, it gets a failinggrade every time because it invariablymagnifies the malignity that it purports toresist.

4. “War is horrible, but slavery isworse.” (Winston Churchill as quoted inDear and Foote 1995, xv)

Maybe slavery is worse, but maybe it’snot; it depends on the conditions of the warand the conditions of the slavery. More-over, if one seeks to justify a war on thestrength of this statement, one had best becompletely certain that but for war, slaverywill be the outcome. In many wars, how-ever, slavery was never a possibilitybecause neither side sought to enslave itsenemy. Many wars have been fought for

limited objectives, if only because moreambitious objectives appeared unattainableor not worth their cost. No war in U.S.history may be accurately described ashaving been waged to prevent the enslave-ment of the American people. Some peopletalk that way about World War II or theCold War, if it be counted as a war, butsuch talk has no firm foundation in facts.

Some may object that the War Betweenthe States was fought to prevent theongoing slavery of the blacks then held inthrall. But however deeply this view maybe embedded in American mythology, it iscontrary to fact. As Abraham Lincoln madecrystal clear in his letter of August 22,1862, to New York Tribune editor HoraceGreeley, he had not mobilized the armedforces to free the slaves, but only to preventthe seceding states from leaving the union:“My paramount object in this struggle is tosave the Union, and is not either to save orto destroy slavery. If I could save the Unionwithout freeing any slave I would do it, andif I could save it by freeing all the slaves I

(Continued from page 1) )


War is Horrible but…

Whatever else war may be, itsurely qualifies as the most inde-cent type of action people cantake: it reduces them to the levelof the most ferocious beasts andoften accomplishes little morethan setting the stage for the next,reactive round of such savagery.

“to defend humandecency, sometimeswar is necessary”

August 10, 1945 Nagasaki – victim of atomicbomb; she was a 14-year-old student.(Photo credit: Masao Shiotsuki)

Nine-year-old Mohammad Khan waswounded on November 11, 2001 when aU.S. B-52 bombed Korang village insouthern Afghanistan. He had still notrecovered from his painful wounds whenthis photo was taken on December 12,2004 at a hospital in Jalalabad.(Photo credit: RAWA.org)


An Old Story with a Lesson for Today:“Not even God can use violencesuccessfully”

Editor’s introduction: This is a transcriptionof the final presentation of a four-day peaceconference held at Lake Junaluska, NC,November 8-11, 2012. It was delivered on aSunday morning, at a United Methodistconference center, by an ordained minister, toan audience largely consisting of religiousfolks including a good number of clergy menand women (many retired – well “past halftime”), and it began with a scripture reading.By all indications, it was a sermon, a lectureon a topic of morality.But the lesson, the moral, of this sermon wasintended for more than the flock of faithful,mostly Christians, gathered that morning. Thislesson needs to reach people of all faiths,people of no faith, and people in the highestoffices of governments around the world. It isa lesson of peace.At its conclusion, this sermon received astanding ovation. But not everyone rose. Thefew who didn’t were, I suspect, clergy toostunned by the bold challenges of Alan Storey’sconcluding remarks.

The speaker made references to otherconference presenters. The Rev. Dr. BernardLafayette, a co-founder the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee, who endured manybeatings and arrests as a civil rights activist,had spoken of how the kindness and trustbestowed on him as a 14-year-old in a multi-cultural neighborhood helped form hischaracter. Liberian activist and Nobel PeacePrize winner, Leymah Gbowee, had remarkedon the importance of channeling anger into aproper container. (A documentary film on herwork was also shown.) Michael Nagler,author, teacher, and founder of the MettaCenter for Nonviolence, had shared hisdefinition of “nonviolence.”Alan Storey’s remarks were introduced with areading from Genesis (excerpts of chapters 6through 9) – the account of the Great Flood,when God punished the evil people and sparedthe righteous. But when the waters receded,God promised to never again resort to suchdestruction, setting God’s rainbow in theclouds as the sign of God’s covenant.

“... if we can just get rid of the badpeople, then we will have peace. Thereis an axis of evil in the world and if wecan just destroy the axis of evil, thenall will be safe and secure.“The persons who act on this notion ofdividing the world into wicked peopleand righteous people should bebrought before the InternationalCourt of Justice for crimes againsthumanity and all of creation.”

Rev. Alan Storey. The words on his shirt: “Blessed are thetruth tellers – Bradley Manning in jail yet free.”

I wonder what you have just heard during the readingof those Hebrew scriptures. I wonder what you heard.What did you hear?

Did you hear Sunday school children singing, singingabout animals going in two by two? Or did you hearchildren screaming panic-stricken, terrified, gasping forbreath; people fleeing to higher ground, pleading, prayingto be let into that ark – and if not me, then take my child.Knocking, banging, banging on the ark, let me in! Yet thedoors of the ark remained sadistically closed.

What did you feel when those words were read? Didyou feel the desperation, the despair, the drowning, thedeath?

And then after the 40 days, what did you see? Thesunshine? Green lush, beautiful blossoming? Birds andbees? Or decomposing bodies, swelling, smelling –disease, decay gathered in every single nook and cranny?

The cruel results, the inevitable cruel results of divid-ing up a world with the simplistic notion that there aresome who are wicked and others who are righteous, thatthere are two types of people in the world: good andbad. And if we can just get rid of the bad people, then wewill have peace. There is an axis of evil in the world andif we can just destroy the axis of evil, then all will be safeand secure.

The persons who act on this notion of dividing theworld into wicked people and righteous people should bebrought before the International Court of Justice forcrimes against humanity and all of creation – even if thatperson is God.

This deathly division between good people and badpeople continues today especially in my faith tradition –especially in my faith tradition. The Christian faith, morethan any other faith, has participated in this deathlydivision – dividing the world into good and bad, savedand unsaved, those who will be ushered into heaven andthose who will be cast into hell. That thought process isnothing less than hate speech.

We go back to the text. These Hebrew narrators wereincredibly courageous, risky in the extreme. You see, whatthese Hebrew narrators are trying to do is not endorse thisprimitive, partisan God or world view, but rather tocleverly, and with great risk, subvert it. They knew thatthe common world understanding of God was that Godwas some almighty superhero that would punish thewicked and bless the righteous. They knew that was thedominant religious world view and understanding of theirtime. So they risked casting God in that light in theirnarrative. They don’t believe it, they know that’s not so.But they cleverly start where the audience is.

There were righteous ones, just a few. God saved themand the wicked were punished and the audience applaud.Because that was their world view. Justice has been done,the wicked got what they deserved, and the righteous whatwas promised. And then the narrator moves to Act II. Andwe read that once the flood had subsided, wickednessremained.

Wickedness remained. In other words, God failed. Godfailed to eradicate evil through this weapon of massdestruction called the flood.

The narrator is bold to pen those words, “God failed.”God fails when God uses violence. Not even God can useviolence successfully. Not even God. God’s war on terrorbecame a war of terror. And God repents. Listen to thesewords: “I will never again destroy every living creatureas I have done.”

And then God is converted and God takes God’s bow,not a rainbow, but a weapon, God’s bow, and hangs it upin the sky, just as a boxer hangs up his gloves – and says,“Never again will I fight.” It’s the great narrative of thedisarmament of God.

God can do all things. God can do all things – exceptuse violence successfully.

And you and I will not be converted to nonviolenceuntil we first realize that God has long since been con-verted. It is impossible to be a peacemaker if we serve aviolent God, an angry God, a God who needs blood to besatisfied. If the God we serve, if the God we worship, hasblood on his hands (I use that male pronoun deliberately),then the likelihood will be that we will too.

Using violence, God fails. So how much more will wefail if we use it? And you and I witness the failure ofviolence all around us all the time.

Violence fails to deliver on what it promises – peaceand security. Since 9/11, billions and billions and billionsof your dollars have been invested in violence, militarymight. And this country is less safe than it ever was. Itdoesn’t matter how long you have to stand in line to waitto get onto an airplane – it is less safe, less secure. And ifit is not more afraid, it is definitely more feared.


Ask the people of Pakistan who scan the skies fordrones – where the people who fly them can have break-fast in the morning with their family, go to the office andsit in a comfortable chair and go to war in Afghanistan;and then can come home and have lunch with their family,and then in the afternoon they can go to war in Pakistan.

There is no victory in vengeance. Satan cannot cast outSatan; violence cannot cast out violence. War is a poorchisel to carve out a peaceable future says Martin LutherKing, and yet it remains our biggest investment.

If you know history, you will know that empires do notexplode. Empires implode. And the reason why empiresimplode is because they spend more than they have ontrying to defend (read attack) who they are.

And if you just question safety and security, you willbe labeled unpatriotic. You can commit the most grave ofsins in the name of safety and security.

Listening to the presidential debates, if you could callthem that, president Obama was asked, “What is thegreatest threat to America?” Notice, please, the verynarrow nationalistic question that is. His answer: “Terror-ism, and China.”

I want to say to Barack Obama the greatest threat toAmerica is not terrorism, it’s not China. The greatest threatto America is – America. You are your worst enemy. Noone will explode you – you will implode. If God fails usingviolence, so will the USA.

God is a nonviolent God.Now, a couple of years ago in my country, there was

a murder that took place and it was discovered that it wasa family murder. An 18-year-old girl killed her 13-year-oldsister, stabbed her repeatedly. The mother, as you canimagine, grieved, like only a mother can grieve. And yetat the same time as she was grieving the loss of herdaughter, she stood in solidarity with her other daughter,as only, you can imagine, a mother can do. She wasreported to have said, “I want to hate her, but I can’t.”

She went to court every day when her daughter was ontrial. She stood behind her and embraced her when shewas convicted. She visited her daughter every availableopportunity in prison and when her daughter was finallyreleased, she welcomed her home.

Mrs. Du Toit, the mother, found herself in the painful,yet privileged position of God, being parent to bothmurdered and murderer. At one and the same time. “I wantto hate her but I can’t. I’m her mother.”

God is not only a nonviolent God, but God is theheavenly parent of both murdered and murderer. And totake vengeance on the murderer is simply to multiply thegrief of God. If someone had come up to that mother andsaid, “Let us kill this daughter,” she would say, “No –don’t double my grief.”

Not only is this a nonviolent God, not only does thisGod grieve on all sides of the border, but when weremember Saul traveling on the road to Damascus becausehe had written permission to extend his war on terror, heis stopped in his tracks with these words from the Divine:“Why, why, why are you persecuting me?”

Please notice what the Divine did not say. The Divinedid not say, “Why are you persecuting them?” but, “Whyare you persecuting me?” The Divine takes persecutionpersonally.

It is not, “Why are you persecuting the Afghans, andthe Iraqis, and the Pakistanis, and whoever else? it’s, “Whyare you persecuting me?” We need to hear that questionhere today.

So not only is God a nonviolent God. Not only doesGod grieve on both sides. God takes persecution personally.

Our violence violates God. All violence – we see fromthat illustration – is family violence. Cain and Abel werebrothers. Did you know that death enters the Hebrew

scriptures through murder? – reminding us that all violenceis family violence? That there are seven billion chosen,chosen people in the world? That the apartheid betweennations must come to an end?

There is something that distresses me more thananything else every time I listen to the president of thiscountry speak – when he ends his speeches with the words,“God Bless America.”

Someone please remind him that there is a world largerthan America. And not until he begins to have a vision forthe world and not just a nation – (long pause)

The only flag I am prepared to salute, the only flag, theonly flag that I am prepared to stand up for is the flag witha picture of the globe on it. Can you give your flag away?And claim a new flag? And certainly remove it from yoursanctuaries.

Jesus said if you want to save your life, give it away.If you want to save your nation – give it away.

If you want to save your flag – give it away. If youwant to save your religion – give it away.

We know that it is easier to identify with the victimthan the perpetrator. It is easier to see the splinter in ourneighbor’s eye than it is to see the log in our own eye. Itis easier to watch a documentary called Pray the DevilBack to Hell than to face the devil in us and the hell thatwe create.

I watched that documentary for the first time here. Iwas deeply moved by it – the courage of woman.

I was inspired when one of them said, “With this teeshirt, I am powerful.” I was horrified at the children, thechildren carrying guns that were too big for them to carry.I wept at the senseless suffering.

But that was a distant devil to observe. Much moredifficult to watch a documentary of the devil that we are,and the hell that we create. Some people here have askedme, “Gosh, listening to Bernard Lafayette the other night,– how is it possible to be able to draw that love from thewells that live within to be able to even love the personbeating us?”

Now it is a fine question to ask, but I think there is anearlier question. You see, that question assumes that weare going to be the victim. That question assumes we aregoing to be the one who is going to be beaten and kicked.The balance of probability that any of us in this room aregoing to go through that is pretty slim.

You see, we identify with the victim. The question weshould be asking is, “How do we stop beating and killingothers who are praying for the love to be able to forgiveus?” What our dollars do in this world –

You know the date. But do you know what happenedduring 9/11? 9/11. When country and the hopes of thatcountry were shattered. The thousands of people dying,thousands of people dying, not just on 9/11, but the daysafter. 9/11. You know the day, you know what I amtalking about. Yes, I am talking about 1973. 9/11. WhenPinochet came into power in Chile with the help of ourdollars, a reign of terror for 16 years until 1990 – we knowthe date.

The 20th of August 1998 – in Sudan, the Clintonadministration bombs Al-Shifa pharmaceutical companythat provided 50% of all medication in the Sudan. I wentto the Sudan a number of years after that. I watchedmothers carrying children, hopelessly dying of malaria,not able to get medication. Do you know the date: 20th ofAugust 1998?

We will not have peace in this world, we will notbecome peacemakers, until we know the dates of terrorthat we have inflicted on others as well as we know thedates of terror that others have inflicted on us.

By the way, the 20th of August 1998 was covered inthe Boston Globe, the Washington Post, The Guardian,the New York Times.

Last night we listened to Leymah Gbowee. She spokepowerfully about an analogy of violence and anger:pouring it into a violent cup or a nonviolent cup. I wonderif our problem is that we are not angry enough.

What makes you angry? When the price of gas goesup? Or when more of our children go and learn how to killand we tell them that they are heroes when all they are arevictims to the lie, the lie that says you can be a killer withhonor. The lie that says you can actually be alive whileyou kill another.

We are addicted to violence. This nation knows thatmore than any other. It is never going to be easy to kickan addiction. We are always going to think, “One moredrink.” And the one more drink becomes the first of manymore. The alcoholic needs to admit that she is, that he is,powerless. And then join together with other people whofeel powerless too. And admit their addiction, confess it.

“Hi, my name is Alan and I belong to the most violentnation in the world – that spends more money on themilitary than all other nations put together.”

Can we say those words? And only when we are ableto admit that in the presence of others and then rely on apower – however you understand that power – that ishigher than us, to begin to transform us. To make astringent list of the things that we have done wrong. Toadmit them, and then to make amends. To go through, asa nation, a 12-step program. As the most violent nation inthe world. Sign up. And then, in our powerlessness, wewill discover what Michael Nagler invited us to see:nonviolence as that power that is unleashed when all desireto harm is overcome; and only then will we be feelingpowerful again.

“There is something thatdistresses me more than any-thing else every time I listen tothe president of this countryspeak – when he ends hisspeeches with the words, ‘GodBless America.’“Someone please remind himthat there is a world largerthan America.”


People have been asking me, “Alan, what do we do,what do we do, where do I stand, what do I do?” Well, itis very difficult to transform a system that we are depen-dent on – for our livelihood. Very difficult. So what weneed to do is in those little AA communities, confessingthat we are a violent people, we need to somehow weanourselves off the system that we are dependent on.

I mean, don’t you get it? Let me use Christian languagefor a moment. I am dependent – this is the contradictionI live with in my life – I am dependent on my sin for mysurvival. Sin, meaning “wages of death, way of death.” Iam dependent on a way of life that is in actual fact a wayof death, for my survival. And when I turn against my sin,it feels like I am dying, even though I am coming alive.

We have to admit that we are dependent on our sin forour survival. But it, like all addiction, is killing us andthose after us and those around us—not to mention God’screation.

Now let me close.If you had interviewed political analysts in the Middle

Eastern region in December, 2010, and if you had askedthem the question, “What is the likelihood of there being

a regime change in this part of the world – places likeTunisia and Egypt – places supported by these dollars, ourdollars, superpower dollars?” the political analysts wouldhave said that it would be impossible. That would beDecember, 2010. Interview those same analysts in Febru-ary, 2011, and they would say that it was inevitable. Asintifada and the Arab Spring began to spread and take root– because a vegetable seller set himself alight whichkindled the fire of freedom and justice in the hearts andminds of families in that region.

You see, political analysts are not to be counted uponin regard to what is possible in this world. Liberation,peace, will come like a thief in the night, and it is not foryou and I to know dates or times.

The most amazing thing about the people who wereinvolved in the struggle against Apartheid, for me, werethat they joined the struggle with no expectation to seeliberation themselves. And yet, they joined it, not forcertain results, but because it was right.

We have to liberate ourselves from our addiction tocertain results. Thomas Merton said that years ago, setyourself free from limiting results. Just do what you needto do. The results will come.

We heard that over these few days. Who knew thatwhen a 14-year-old boy, when he is treated with dignityand respect and given a social security number and givena driver’s license, who knew that what that would dowould refine a conscience that could lead a people thatcould set people free? Who knew?

It was an unmeasurable act of human relationship andwe need to awaken ourselves to the unmeasurableness ofour actions. That we cannot actually see the impact thereof– and so, do what you do not knowing what impact Godwill do with it through the world – Do you really thinkthat Leymah Gbowee, last night, expected to be standinghere, 15 years ago?

So what do we do? I want to ask you to do somethingspecific. But the truth is that I am 44 years old. Right? IfI have a good innings, I’m at half time. I’m at half time.And I am sorry to say that looking out at some of you, youare past half time. And looking at some of you moreclosely, it looks like some of you are in injury time. I’mserious. You don’t have too many years left. Okay? Sowhy don’t you make them count? You have nothing tolose.

I want to speak specifically to the people of my faith– Christians, Methodists. When is the Methodist Churchof this nation going to refuse to allow members of itschurch to enter the military? When? When will children’schurch teachers teach the children that that’s the gravestsin, that there is nothing heroic in it, to kill family.

Why don’t you do it? Let us call the troops back homefrom Afghanistan. Tell them to hand in their guns and theiruniforms. Do it! You have nothing to lose. The game isnearly over. It’s the right thing to do. There are people onthat side praying, praying that you will do that.

Let’s lament, let’s lament. Let’s not build any moremonuments.

I have stood here today for one person. His name isBradley Manning. You asked me, “What gives me hope?”People have asked, “Alan, are you hopeful?”

I said, “I am hopeful because of one person, BradleyManning.” Bradley Manning is 24 years old – 24 yearsold. He’s spent the last 902 days in a military prison, mostof which has been in solitary confinement in chains.Bradley Manning. All because he revealed documents thatexposed the truth of the killing of Iraqis from an Americanhelicopter. And he sits in one of your prisons. BradleyManning.

You want to know what you can do? You can giveyour life for his freedom, because he has given his life forthe freedom of this world. Pray for his sanity, pray for hishealing. Bradley Manning. Bradley Manning.

If there is anything that I have said here that is true,may it set us free.

Alan Storey is an ordained minister of the MethodistChurch of Southern Africa and is presently ministering inCape Town. As a young man, Alan faced conscription intothe apartheid regime’s military. After spending a year ofdiscernment working as a laborer in Australia, hereturned to South Africa, declaring he would never fightin the apartheid army – or any army. He was arrested andfaced trial with a six-year prison sentence as the likelyoutcome. Alan’s trial was abandoned midway, and hebecame the last conscientious objector to be tried inapartheid South Africa.Alan specializes in facilitating Diversity EngagementEncounters, both within the Church and within otherbusiness and education institutions – healing thedivisions that still divide us. He teaches widelythroughout Southern Africa and abroad (including theSudan and USA). Alan has an Honors Degree inTheology and a Masters in Philosophy (Applied Ethicsin Economics).

The text only hints at the power of this presentation.The challenges presented – “Let us call the troops backhome from Afghanistan. Tell them to hand in their gunsand their uniforms. Do it!” – should be heard by everyclergy person, every congregation, even every atheist.DVDs can be obtained at media.lakejunaluska.com.

“When is the Methodist Churchof this nation going to refuse toallow members of its church toenter the military? When?When will children’s churchteachers teach the children thatthat’s the gravest sin, that thereis nothing heroic in it, to killfamily.“Why don’t you do it? Let uscall the troops back home fromAfghanistan. Tell them to handin their guns and their uni-forms. Do it! You have nothingto lose. The game is nearly over.It’s the right thing to do. Thereare people on that side praying,praying that you will do that.”

If you had free reign over classified networks… and you sawincredible things, awful things… things that belonged in thepublic domain, and not on some server stored in a dark roomin Washington DC… what would you do? God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwidediscussion, debates, and reforms… I want people to see thetruth… because without information, you cannot makeinformed decisions as a public.

–Quotes attributed to Bradley ManningPFC Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst, is accused of

releasing the Collateral Murder video, that shows the killing of unarmed civilians andtwo Reuters journalists, by a U.S. Apache helicopter crew in Iraq. He is also accusedof sharing the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and a series of embarrassingU.S. diplomatic cables. These documents were published by the anti-secrecy websiteWikiLeaks, and they have illuminated such issues as the true number and cause ofcivilian casualties in Iraq, along with a number of human rights abuses by U.S.-fundedcontractors and foreign militaries, and the role that spying and bribes play ininternational diplomacy. Given the war crimes exposed, if Bradley Manning was thesource for these documents, he should be given a medal of honor.

Not a single person has been harmed by the release of this information. FormerDefense Secretary Robert M. Gates has called the effect of WikiLeaks’ releases on U.S.foreign relations “fairly modest.” Yet the Obama administration has chosen to persecutethe whistle-blower rather than prosecute the war criminals who were exposed. Whilethe prosecution has declared it does not intend to seek the death penalty, they do seekto lock Bradley Manning away for life, with the most ridiculous charge of “aiding theenemy,” even though chat logs attributed to Bradley by the FBI clearly show intentonly to inform the public and promote “discussion, debates, and reforms.”

Soldiers are promised fair treatment and a speedy trial under the Uniform Code ofMilitary Justice. However, the soldiers responsible for PFC Manning’s care took it uponthemselves to abuse him by keeping him locked up in solitary confinement for the first10 months of his incarceration. During this time, Bradley was denied meaningful exercise,social interaction, sunlight, and on a number of occasions he was forced to stay completelynaked. These conditions were unique to Bradley and are illegal even under U.S. militarylaw, as they amount to extreme pre-trial punishment. In March 2011, chief U.S. StateDepartment spokesperson P.J. Crowley called Manning’s treatment at the Quantico, VA,Marine Corps brig “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He was forced to resignshortly after admitting this. Since resigning, he has stated that the prosecution’sheavy-handed persecution of Manning has undermined the government’s credibility.

Learn more at bradleymanning.org


would do it; and if I could save itby freeing some and leavingothers alone I would also dothat.”[1] When Lincoln broughtforth the Emancipation Proclama-tion – a document carefully drawnso that at the time of its promulga-tion it freed not a single slave – heissued it only because at that timeit seemed to be a useful means forthe attainment of his “paramountobject,” preserving the union. Theslaves, including those in statesthat had not seceded, were ulti-mately freed for good by ratifica-tion (at gunpoint in the formerConfederate states)of the ThirteenthAmendment in1865, which is to sayas a ramification ofthe war, which itselfhad not been under-taken in 1861 inpursuit of this then-unforeseen outcome.

5. “You maythink that the IraqWar is horrible,but there may besome times whenyou can justify[going to war].”

Perhaps war can be justified at“some times,” but this statementitself in no way shows that theIraq War can be justified, and itseems all too obvious that itcannot be. If it could have beenjustified, the government thatlaunched it would not have had toresort to a succession of weakexcuses for waging it, each suchexcuse being manifestly inade-quate or simply false. The obviousinsufficiency of any of the reasonsput forward explains why so manyof us put so much time and effortinto trying to divine exactly whatdid impel the Bush administra-tion’s rush to war.

6. “War is horrible, butsometimes we need to fight.”

Need to fight for what? Theobjective dictates whether war isa necessary means for its attain-ment. If the objective was to pre-serve Americans’ freedoms and“way of life,” the U.S. governmentcertainly did not need to fight mostof the enemies against whom itwaged war historically. Oddlyenough, the only time the enemyactually posed such a threat,during the Cold War, the UnitedStates did not go to war againstthat enemy directly, although itdid fight (unnecessarily) theenemy’s less-menacing allies –North Korea, China, and North

Vietnam. In the other warsthe United States has fought,it might well have remained

at peace had U.S. leaders beensincerely interested in peace ratherthan committed to warfare.

7. “Of course war is horrible,but it will always exist, and I’msick of these pacifist [expletivedeleted] ruining any shred ofpolitical decency that they canmanage.”

Many people have observedthat wars have recurred for thou-sands of years and therefore willprobably continue to occur fromtime to time. The unstated insinu-ation seems to be that in view ofwar’s long-running recurrence,

nothing can be doneabout it, so weshould all grow upand admit that waris as natural andhence as unalterableas the sun’s rising inthe east each morn-ing. Warfare is aninescapable aspectof “how the worldworks.”

This outlookcontains at least twodifficulties. First,many other condi-tions also have hadlong-running histo-

ries: for example, reliance onastrologers as experts in foretell-ing the future; affliction with can-cers; submission to rulers whoclaim to dominate their subjectsby virtue of divine descent orappointment; and many others.People eventually overcame orcontinue to work to overcomeeach of these long-establishedconditions. Science revealed thatastrology is nothing more than anelaborate body of superstition;scientists and doctors have discov-ered how to control or cure certainforms of cancer and are attempt-ing to do the same for other forms;and citizens learned to laugh at thepretensions of rulers who claimdivine descent or appointment (atleast, they had learned to do sountil George W. Bush success-fully revived this doctrine amongthe benighted rubes who form theRepublican base). Because warsspring in large part from people’sstupidity, ignorance, and gullibil-ity, it is conceivable that allevia-tion of these conditions mighthave the effect of diminishing thefrequency of warfare, if not ofeliminating it altogether.

Second, even if nothing can bedone to stop the periodic outbreakof war, it does not follow that weought to shut up and accept every




If the IraqWar could havebeen justified,the governmentthat launchedit would nothave had toresort to asuccession ofweak excusesfor waging it…

The war tried to kill us inthe spring. As grassgreened the plains ofNenevah and the weatherwarmed, we patrolled thelow-slung hills beyond thecities and towns. Wemoved over them andthrough the tall grass onfaith, kneading paths intothe windswept growth likepioneers. While we slept,the war rubbed its thou-sand ribs against theground in prayer.So begins

Kevin Powers’beautiful hor-rific novel ofwar. The lan-guage of thisspare elegantbook is the lan-guage of the poet Powers is, theintensity and sharpness neverfalters from beginning to end.Although the story focuses on twoprotagonists, Bartle and Murph,the central character is war itself,how it dominates and shapesevents, history, lives, an unrelent-ing and implacable force which,once unleashed, cannot bestopped until it has run its course.It is mindless, it is brutal, it ismerciless, and it destroys peopleand places without regard.

Although a work of fiction,The Yellow Birds is clearly thestory of Powers’ 13 months of warin Iraq—a machine gunner inMosul and Tal Afar, 2003-2004.The random threat of death is nofarther than the next sentence, thenext phrase, the next word. It islike descending into Dante’sInferno, each circle depicted, fromgreen recruit to the terror of firstcombat to hardened warrior—“We were no longer aware of evenour own savagery now; the beat-ings and kicked dogs, the searchesand the sheer brutality of ourpresence”—and finally, numbingacceptance.

Physically unharmed but suf-fering profound moral injury,Bartle returns home from war towrestle with his demons: “…thereisn’t any making up for killingwomen or even watching women

get killed, orfor thatm a t t e rkilling menand shootingthem in theback andshooting them more times thannecessary to actually kill them andit was like just trying to kill every-thing you saw sometimes becauseit felt like there was acid seepingdown into your soul and then yoursoul is gone and knowing frombeing taught your whole life that

there is no making up for whatyou are doing… but then evenyour mother is so happy andproud because you lined up yoursight posts and made peoplecrumple and they were not gettingup ever…”

The Yellow Birds takes youfrom innocent to injured, from lifeto death, from natural beauty toravaged warscape. The futilityand hypocrisy of war is summedup in one scene: a colonel arriveswith reporter and photographer intow, to give the men a Patton-likepep talk the night before the battlefor an orchard, “This is the landwhere Jonah is buried, where hebegged for God’s justice tocome… We are that justice,” heproclaims. “You may never doanything this important again inyour entire lives.”

But they learn that this orchardhas been fought over many timessince the war began; Sterling,Bartle’s sergeant tells him he wasin the first fight for the orchard—“This shit’s gonna be bigger thanOhio State-Michigan,” he jokes.The battle for the orchard is asfutile and meaningless as the waritself; the colonel returns to hiscommand post out of harm’s waywith another photo op and write-up to burnish his image.

In the end, The Yellow Birdsis the story of what war does to

those caught in its grip, the diffi-culty of coming home, the impos-sibility of undoing moral injury:“…you have seen all things die inmore manners than you’d like torecall and for a while the wholething fucking ravaged your spiritlike some deep-down shit that you

didn’t even realizeyou had until onlythe animals madeyou sad, the husks ofdogs filled withexplosives and old[artillery] shells andthe fucking guts and

everything stinking like metal andburning garbage and you walkaround and the smell is deep downinto you now and… even backhome you’re getting whiffs of itand then that thing you started tonotice slipping away is gone andnow… a deeper hole is being dugbecause everybody is so fuckinghappy to see you, the murderer,the fucking accomplice, the at-bare-minimum bearer of somefucking responsibility, and every-one wants to slap you on the backand you start to want to burn thewhole goddamn country down,you want to burn every goddamnyellow ribbon in sight, and youcan’t explain it but it’s just, like,Fuck you, but then you signed upto go so it’s all your fault, really,because you went on purpose, soyou are in the end doublyfucked… and really deep downyou know you went because youwanted to be a man and that’snever gonna happen now andyou’re too much of a coward to bea man and get it over with so whynot find a clean, dry place andwait it out with it hurting as littleas possible and just wait to go tosleep and not wake up and fuck‘em all.”

The Yellow Birds is the mostpowerful anti-war novel sinceTim O'Brien's, The Things TheyCarried.

The Yellow Birdsby Kevin PowersReviewed by Robert Yoder

The Yellow Birds is the story of what wardoes to those caught in its grip, the diffi-culty of coming home, the impossibility ofundoing moral injury.

War in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the youngby the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics.

–Chris Hedges


IntroductionOn a recent visit to my neighborhood library in

Portland, Oregon, I was asked outside the entrance if Iwould sign a petition to place a public school bondmeasure on the fall ballot. Though I support full fundingof public schools, I balked. Knowing that Portland librar-ies are also planning to place a taxing district on the sameballot, I felt fury building up inside of me at how obscene,lawless military spending is sucking our nation’s resourcesdry. I told the person asking for my signa-ture that I would only sign such petitionwhen and if the Portland School Board,Portland City Commissioners and Mayor,and all other City and County entitiesbecome part of an active anti-war movement to stop thelooting of our Commons by the Military-Industrial-Bank-ing-Congressional-Presidential Complex.

DIRECT costs are FELT only bya small percentage of the public

The U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen,Somalia, etc., are, in reality, only viscerally experienced bya small percentage of American people. No direct taxes onthe people have been assessed to fund the wars. They arefunded instead by debt. And the absence of general con-scription (a military draft) relieves the vast majority of thepopulation from the emotional burden of worrying whethera family member will be forced into military service.

A de facto economic draft exists whereby those unableto find adequate employment in our economicallydepressed society are offered a subsidized job track in themilitary, and trained as combatants or placed in anynumber of supportive roles in imperial adventures aroundthe globe.

But most members of U.S. society have gone abouttheir lives business as usual, experiencing little anxiety orhardship, indeed, hardly “feeling” the wars.

INDIRECT costs severely affect the 99 percentHowever, even though the direct, experiential costs of

U.S. wars have been largely absent in popular discussionand politically unaccounted for, the resulting residual costsare enormous. The national resource base has been so

severely drained by warcosts that we are indomestic “austerity” bud-geting. An audit of theFederal Reserve hasrevealed $16 trillion insecret loans to bail outU.S. American andforeign banks and busi-nesses during the worsteconomic crisis since theGreat Depression. That is

equivalent to our National Debt. That amounts to morethan $50,000 for every man, woman, and child, enoughto revive a healthy main street. Meanwhile four millionhomeowners lost their homes to foreclosures due tomassive collusion between Wall Street and banks ingranting fraudulent mortgages. Every foreclosed home-owner could have been publicly refinanced instead.

As of September 11, 2012, the National PrioritiesProject (NPP) estimated the actual cost of U.S. wars since

September 2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan at nearly $1,372million dollars [also see: Cost of War.com].

Other studies estimate total war costs will reach $4.4trillion [“Cost of war at least $3.7 trillion and counting,”by Daniel Trotta, Reuters, Jun 29, 2012] or even $6 trillion[“American Freefall” by Paul Craig Roberts, Counter-Punch, July 09, 2012].

These are non-human costs. The human costs in Iraqiand Afghan lives, not to mention public and privatemilitary forces and mercenaries from the U.S., is immense.The website Unknown News estimates total Iraqis killed(murdered) since the U.S. invasion in 2003 at about895,000, with another 1,646,000 injured (maimed). Thecomparable figures for Afghanistan are 17,400 killed(murdered) and 41,625 injured (maimed). U.S. public andprivate military and mercenaries, plus “Coalition” troopsand journalists killed in Iraq is slightly over 5,800, withnearly 45,000 injured. The comparable figures for Afghan-istan are 2,230 killed, and 8,164 injured. Thus, total warcasualties are nearly 2,670,000 – over 920,000 killed;nearly 1,750,000 injured.

In the last ten years nearly 2.5 million U.S. soldiershave been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They comefrom every town, city, and rural area in the country, butreports suggest a disproportionate number of the dead andwounded come from Small Town, USA. Up to 50 percentof those deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq have beendiagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),

traumatic brain injury (TBI),or have been victims of mili-tary sexual trauma (MST).Treatment costs for returningveterans are immense. Overone million have applied forcompensation for injuries.

Suicide among soldiers andveterans is staggering. In 2012alone, as of early June, 154active duty soldiers committed suicide, more than werekilled in combat during that same period. [“SuicidesOutpacing War Deaths for Troops,” New York Times, June8, 2012]. The suicide rate is 38 per 100,000 Iraq andAfghanistan veterans, compared to 11.5 for the generalpublic. Eighteen veterans of all wars commit suicide onaverage every day [“18 veterans commit suicide eachday,” Rick Maze, Army Times, April 22, 2010].

War IS a local issueWar drains domestic financial and mental capacity to

address critical needs for healthcare, education, social security, etc.,in every community. The outra-geous amount of money beingsiphoned into the military-industrialcomplex, with wars feeding obscene

profits to its architects, seriously threatens assurance ofresources for a healthy society. U.S. citizens should beassured of a social safety net for all. Instead, Americansare guaranteed a debt in perpetuity. Meanwhile, the richget richer; the poor get poorer.

Despite the lack of national discourse on militaryspending, war is always on our minds. It is promoted inholiday festivities such as Memorial Day, Armistice Day(now called Veterans Day), Independence Day, andPatriots Day. There are fund drives for soldiers, homecom-ings, recruitment ads, military band concerts, war videogames in every town and city, army-sponsored race cars,war movies and television shows, and war toys. Numerouscolleges and universities receive millions in funding fromthe Department of War (euphemistically called “Defense”)for academic research.

And money for the military and wars totally dominatesthe entire national budget, which in turn deleteriouslyimpacts every political jurisdiction and local economy inthe country. Ironically, our extravagant military budget israrely questioned, but cuts for domestic programs areconstantly discussed.

The argument that military spending creates jobs is ared herring. A report conducted by the Political EconomyResearch Institute reveals that every billion dollars ofgovernment spending on the military creates 12,000 jobs.But a choice to create tax cuts for (Continued on page 12)

All War IS Localby S. Brian Willson

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on militarydefense [sic] than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

– Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Time To Break Silence,”April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

An AGM-114 Hellfire missile hung on the rail of an U.S. AirForce MQ-1L Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is inscribedwith, “IN MEMORY OF HONORABLE RONALD REAGAN.”

(USAF photo)

$60,000, the cost of 1 Hellfire missile in the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex could, instead, pay for:In the U.S. Economy: One teacher’s salary – the average salary for full-time public school teachers in 2010–11 was$56,069 [Source: National Center for Educational Statistics] – with $3,931 in change.

In Afghanistan: Quite a bit of education. Mohammed Iqbal, who lives in Darpa Khel, a town of 40,000 in Waziristanwhich has only two schools, says: “I’d build a school….For my new school the whole building – with eight classrooms– would cost no more than $10,000 to build. Ideally, each classroom would need 20 computers for the children, andwe could do all that (160 in total) for about $16,000. Then we’d need eight teachers, and they would cost about$1,200 each a year, so that would be another $9,600.That would be all that we’d need, really, and it would be no more than about $36,000. We’d keep a couple moreyears’ salary for the teachers, and we’d still have $4,000 over, and for that we could get the best playground inWaziristan, good enough for all the kids in Darpa Khel.The Americans think we’re all backwards and won’t let our girls go to school. That’s not true at all. In fact, in 2011it was a Hellfire missile that destroyed the girls’ school in Miranshah. I actually witnessed the missile striking thattime. Fortunately none of the students were there at the time, though the custodian was killed. The Americans hit itagain just recently, on April 30, 2012, saying that it was being used by militants, but that wasn’t true. It a little ironicthat the Americans think the Taliban destroy schools for girls, but actually it was the U.S. Hellfire missile that did it.”[Source: Clive Stafford Smith at reprieve.org.uk]

Our extravagant military budget is rarely questioned,but cuts for domestic programs are constantly discussed.

by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics.


The less we know about anotherculture and its people, the more likely weare to demonize them. Since demonizationof “the other” is a prerequisite for war,education about other cultures is peacework. A good way to learn about othercultures is to study their artistic expressionswithin the context of their history. To thisend, Carlos Steward and Jolene Mechanicare promoting peace with Iran by means ofa poster art show and film screenings at theFlood Fine Art Center and CourtyardGallery and Firestorm Cafe and Bookstorein Asheville, NC.

In Search of Lost Causes: Images of theIranian Revolution: Paradox, Propaganda,and Persuasion will be an exhibition of 140Iranian revolution-era posters (a few areshown on these pages) as well as photog-raphy of the era and programs of lecturesand films. “In Search” will challenge audi-ences to question what they know aboutIran and its cultural background, to reflectupon the historical event of the IranianRevolution of 1979, and to begin a process

of re-examination of theassumptions we holdfrom that period thatinfluence our beliefsabout Iranian culture inthe present day.

The exhibition isintended to provokequestions: “What are themeanings of theseimages and the eventsthat followed in Iran?”“Have we been presented

a distorted picture of reality by our media,corporations, and government?” “What isthe truth about Iran and their struggles forfreedom?” The exhibition also intends tostimulate reflection on our own society,how we live our lives, and the importanceof truthfulness, wisdom, and vision increating and maintaining a true democracy.This is especially important in a culturesuch as ours in which the corporate-con-trolled, mainstream media intentionallykeep the public misinformed.

Serving as a scholar to the project isHamid Dabashi. The following are excerptsfrom his book, Iran: A People Interrupted.

Between 1951 and 1953, Mossadeqoutmaneuvered both the shah and his polit-ical backers via a masterful succession ofparliamentary moves. He nationalizedIranian oil, sustained a course of parliamen-tary democracy unprecedented in Iranianhistory, and forced the shah to acceptconstitutional limitations on his wantondisregard for that precious document.When things finally became too hot for the

king, he took his newly wedded queen,Sorayya, and ran away to Rome, frol-icking on the Via Veneto, waiting forthe Americans and the British to dosomething about his predicament.

As Iranians never get tired ofrepeating (for this is the definingtrauma of their modern history), theCIA, aided by British intelligence,mounted, paid for, and executed amilitary coup, overthrew the demo-cratically elected government ofMosaddeq, and brought the corruptMuhammad Reza Shah back to power.The CIA-sponsored coup of 1953 (aforerunner of what the United Statesdid later throughout Latin America)became the most traumatic event inmodern Iranian history, a trauma fromwhich the people have yet to recover.

The nationalization of Iranian oilin 1953 by Muhammad Mosaddeqoccurred in an era in which a majoranticolonial movement was under

way, not only in Iran but in the entire region– with Jawaharlal Nehru in India, GamalAdb al-Nasser in Egypt, and the anti-colo-nial movements spreading in North Africaand Latin America giving a new force toand widening the world revolutionary proj-ect. The Cuban Revolution of 1959, and thesubsequent African mission of Che Gue-vara, opened a radical new chapter in aglobal revolution against capitalism and theAnglo-American custodial role, whichrequired the commission of criminal atroc-ities to safe guard and propagate it..

The increased involvement of theUnited States in Vietnam in this period, andChe Guevara’sfamous promisethat he wasgoing to ignite“a thousandV i e t n a m s ”when hereturned fromAfrica to LatinA m e r i c a ,unfolded againsta background ofthe uprising ofthe poor and dis-en f r anch i sedagainst thealready global-ized imperial-ism of the United States and its WesternEuropean allies.

Geopolitically, the world was nowdivided into two opposing camps, one ledby the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact,the other by the United States and itsNATO allies. In the Arab and Muslimworld, Muhammad Reza Shah joinedIsrael, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and otherretrograde Persian Gulf States as part of amajor anti-Communist network in theregion and, in alliance with the UnitedStates, crushed all secular, radical opposi-tion to the status quo. This inevitably pavedthe way for Islamist movements, whichgathered even more support after the June1967 Arab-Israeli war, in which the Jewishstate occupied even more Palestinian terri-tory. The ideas and practices of a Jewishstate, an Islamic republic, a Christianempire, and a Hindu fundamentalist move-ment were now emerging as the absoluteand absolutist terms of political engage-ment. (pp. 127-8)

There was a cosmopolitan worldlinessin the air when I was growing up in thePahlavi period, a deeply cultivated sense ofour global whereabouts – a catholicity oflearning that knew not where “the West” and

“the East” began on the bipolar axis of apower that divided the world to rule it better,thus diminishing cultures and neutralizingdissent. We recognized no such borders.We did not know or acknowledge wherethe “Third World” was. For us the worldwas squarely divided into two opposingparts: those who ruled it and those whoresisted this tyranny and rose up against it,either in arms or else with a pen, a pencil,a brush, or a camera.

We listened to an ongoing conversationmade up of the voices of MuhammadMosaddeq, Gamal Adb al-Nasser, Jawaha-rlal Nehru, Marshal Tito, Fidel Castro,

Salvador Allende, Patrice Lamumba, AimeCésaire, and Ahmad Ben Bella, amongmany others. We were neither Islamist noranti-Islamist. Our mothers may haveprayed five times a day, but our fathersenjoyed Russian vodka, and never knewwhich way the Qibla [the direction ofMecca] was. Our uncles may have beenTudeh [Iranian communist party] members,but our cousins were staunch Mosaddeqfollowers. Yes, we may wholeheartedlyhave attended Shi’i rituals in the month ofMuharram, but we also dropped everythingand ran for the nearest theater when therewas a new Charlie Chaplin movie, anIndian musical, or an Egyptian melodrama.

You would not be able to corner us or callus names – one thing or another. Nixon andKissinger were evil people not because theywere Americans, since Malcolm X, MartinLuther King Jr., Angela Davis, MuhammadAli, W.E.B. DuBois, Louis Armstrong,Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou werealso Americans, as were Herman Melville,Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Ernest Hem-ingway, John Steinbeck, and Jack Kerouac– and we loved them all.

There was a momentous certainty aboutthe location of our deeply committedculture of defiant knowledge – and that is

In Search of Lost Causes: Images ofthe Iranian Revolution: Paradox,Propaganda, and Persuasion


where we had a strong sense of affinitywith our friends, comrades, and heroesaround the world, from Ho Chi Minh toChe Guevara, from Gandhi to Malcolm X,from Frantz Fanon to Jean-Paul Sartre. Theterms of this emotive affinity extendedfrom politics to poetry, from arms toarts…. (pp. 133-4)

The multifaceted condition of ideo-logical preparedness at the time of theIranian Revolution of 1979 roughly corre-sponds to the (political) culture of the time,which can very roughly be divided into twomajor, and diametrically opposed, compo-nents: (1) a rampant Eurocentric secularismalmost exclusive to the ruling elite, thenouveaux riches, and the compradorialbourgeoisie, and (2) a grassroots Shi’ismthat claimed the loyalty of the clericalclique, the bazaar merchant class, theworking class and the urban underclass,and the peasantry. To this basic distinctionmust be added the social formation of asignificant body of inorganic public intel-lectuals – poets, novelists, dramatists,filmmakers, social essayists. All of them(with rare exception) were left-radical intheir political disposition but quite limitedin their grassroots appeal (their influencewas largely confined to Tehran) whencompared to the clerical class, which couldinstantaneously stir and mobilize the pop-ulace for effective revolutionary purposes.

The Iranian political culture at the timeof the 1979 revolution will have to beconsidered in a significant (though notexclusive) way in terms of its religiouscharacter. The overwhelming majority ofIranians , almost 90 percent, are Shi’is,some 9 percent are Sunnis, and the remain-ing 1 percent are Zoroastrians, Jews, Chris-tians, and Baha’is. The definition of beinga “Shi’i,” however, radically differs fromone class to another. By and large the mostdevout Shi’is are to be found among therural and urban poor and the merchant(bazaar) middle class, exclusively

beholden to the moral authority of theclerical establishment. The Shi’i dispo-sition of other Iranians is more tenuousand evident mostly in their culturalcharacter, emotive universe, normativebehavior, ethical principles, or culturalvocabulary – all minus the ritual prac-tices and doctrinal beliefs definitive totheir faith….

Therefore, Shi’i signs, symbols, andsentiments were present throughout theIranian culture, not just in the specificreligious practices of believing Mus-lims. The almost universal acknowl-edgement of Ayatollah Khomeini as theleader of the 1979 revolution was (1) inpart orchestrated by a highly organizedrevolutionary cadre among the clergy;(2) followed by a majority of the Shi’ibelievers out of the genuine belief in thesanctity of his leadership; (3) strategi-cally adopted by secular Marxist andnationalistic forces to form a unifiedfront against the Pahlavi monarchy; and

(4) the result of a charismatic insti-gation of latent Shi’i sentimentsthroughout the Iranian population(even the most staunchly secular andantireligious, almost despite them-selves). (pp. 149-50)

The revolution did not begin inTehran or any other Iranian city butin Washington, DC, and the com-mencement of the presidency ofJimmy Carter (1977-81), whoassigned human rights a place at thetop of his policy agenda. That put hisadministration in the embarrassingposition of accounting for the atro-cious record of key U.S. allies.Among them in the Middle Eastwere Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, andPakistan. In November 1977, the shahtraveled to Washington to discuss an arrayof issues with President Carter, includingthe thorny matter of human rights viola-

tions in Iran. A massive anti-shah dem-onstration on November 16, 1977,forced the Washington police to use teargas to disperse the demonstrators….

By the time President Carter…wentto Iran to return His Majesty’s visit, therevolution in Iran was already taking onan ominous momentum….No matterwhat the shah or President Carter did,Ayatollah Khomeini turned the eventsto his advantage. A tripartite chessgame ensued among the shah, the aya-tollah, and President Carter. Khomeiniwas now leading the course of eventsbecause he was responsive to andshaping the sentiments of the demon-strators [in Iran]. If the shah ordered hismilitary to confront and disperse thedemonstrators, more casualties wouldfollow, angering the crowd even more,and even more massive demonstrationswould ensue. If the shah did not ordera crackdown on the uprising, theerosion of his authority and controlwould be dangerously apparent and his

subjects would make more radicaldemands….Ayatollah Khomeini had boththe shah and President Carter outmaneu-vered and checkmated; it was now only amatter of time; a few more moves and theshah would be out. (pp. 156-7)

Carlos Steward is a metal sculptor, an artgallery owner, the host of the Twin RiversFilm festival, and a certified war taxresister. See also ashevillecourtyard.com.

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop KevorkianProfessor of Iranian Studies and Compar-ative Literature at Columbia University inNew York City. The author of 25 books, hehas written on subjects ranging fromIranian Studies, medieval and modernIslam, comparative literature, worldcinema, and the philosophy of art. Dr.Dabashi is also a staunch anti-war activist.See also hamiddabashi.com.

The exhibition In Search of Lost Causesopens May 24 & October 5, 2013 inAsheville, NC.

Learn more at:ashevillecourtyard.com/events.htmlfloodgallery.org/upcoming_exhibitions.htmltwinriversmediafestival.com/special.html

Veterans For Peace Iran Working GroupFrom their mission statement:

Ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979, the United States and its alliesin Europe and the Middle East have used every opportunity to stop andreverse the revolutionary process in Iran and bring that country back underWestern control. The current threats of war and expansion of economicsanction are nothing but a continuation of the same decades-old policy ofundoing the revolution by means of forcing a regime change in Iran.

At the same time, the Iranian government’s policy of repressing anyform of internal opposition, tampering with the elections, banningindependent labor unions, political parties, and mass organizations, andmass arrests of political activists has made the Iranian situation verycomplicated. On the one hand, the peace and justice movement in theUnited States and around the world sees its principled responsibility tooppose any form of aggression — be it military, economic, or otherwise— against Iran; and, on the other hand, it must be mindful of not allowingits opposition to aggression be construed as a support for, oracquiescence toward, the Iranian government’s repressive policies.

This requires a well-informed and well-thought-out approach to theIranian situation. It requires a great deal of informed discussion, extensiveeducational work, and a clearly defined approach that takes into accountboth sides of this complex situation; an approach that is based on bothopposition to aggression and interference in the internal affairs of othercountries, and international solidarity with the peoples of other countries,not their governments.

(Learn more at www.vfp-iwg.org/)


war without complaint. Noserious person expects that evilcan be eliminated from the humancondition, yet we condemn it andstruggle against its realization inhuman affairs. We strive to divertpotential evildoers from theirmalevolent courseof action. Scien-tists and doctorscontinue to seekcures for cancersthat have afflictedhumanity formillennia. Evenconditions thatcannot be whollyeliminated cansometimes be mit-igated, but only ifsomeone tries tomitigate them.War shouldbelong to thisclass of events.

Finally, what-ever else might besaid about the pac-ifists, one maysurely assert thatif everyone werea pacifist, no warswould occur. Pac-ifism may be crit-icized on variousgrounds, as it always has been andstill is, but to say that pacifists“lack any shred of politicaldecency” seems itself to be anindecent description. Remember:war is horrible, as everybody nowconcedes but many immediatelyput out of mind.

8. “Every war is horrible,but freedom and justice cannotbe allowed to be defeated bytyranny and injustice. Ashideous as war is, it is not ashideous as the things it can stopand prevent.”

This statement assumes thatwar amounts to a contest betweenfreedom and justice on one sideand tyranny and injustice on theother. One scarcely commits thedreaded sin of moral equivalence,however, by observing that fewwars present such a stark contrast,in which only the children of Godfight on one side and only thechildren of Satan fight on theother. One reason why war is sohorrible is that it invariably dragsinto its charnel house many –again, the children are the mostundeniable examples—who mustbe held blameless for any actionsor threats that might have incitedthe war.

Even if we set aside suchclear-cut innocents and con-sider only persons in the

upper echelons of the conflictingsides, it is rare to find only angelson one side and only demons onthe other. In World War II, forexample, the Allied states wereled by such angels as WinstonChurchill, who relished the hor-rific terror bombing of German

cities; JosefStalin, one of thegreatest massmurderers of alltime; Franklin D.Roosevelt, ofwhose moraluprightness theless said thebetter; and HarryS Truman, whotook pleasure inannihilating hun-dreds of thou-sands ofdefenseless Japa-nese noncomba-tants first withincendiary bombsand last withnuclear weapons.Yes, the other sidehad Adolf Hitler,whose fiendish-ness I have nodesire to deny orminimize, but thepoint is that theoverall character

of the leadership on both sidessufficiently attests that there wasenough evil to go around. As forthe ordinary soldiers, of course,everyone who knows anythingabout actual combat appreciatesthat the men on both sides quicklybecome brutalized and routinelycommit atrocities of every imag-inable size and shape.

So it is far from clear that waris always or even typically “not ashideous as the things it can stopand prevent.” On many occasions,refusal to resort to war, even in theface of undeniable evils, may stillbe the better course. When WorldWar II ended, leaving more than62 million dead, most of themcivilians, and hundreds of mil-lions displaced, homeless,wounded, sick, or impoverished,the survivors might well havedoubted whether conditionswould have been even more terri-ble if the war had not taken place.(The dead were unavailable forcomment.) To make mattersworse, owing to the war, themonster Stalin gained control ofan enormous area stretching fromCzechoslovakia to Korea; andbecause of the defeat of the Japa-nese Empire, the monster Mao




the poor would stimulate personalconsumption and create 15,000jobs. The same billion dollarswould create 18,000 jobs in assur-ing health care, 25,000 jobs ineducation, 27,700 in mass transit.

In effect, grotesque war spend-ing means less money for:

• elementary & secondaryeducation;

• grants in aid to states andlocalities;

• home energy assistance forlow income households;

• HIV/AIDS;• community block grants;• special education and assis-

tance for the disadvantaged;• school improvement;• loss of funds for vocational

and adult education;• supplemental nutrition WIC

program;• children and family Services;• Head Start;• rental assistance vouchers;• children served by childcare

assistance;• etc.The National Priorities Project

estimates of actual cost of recentU.S. wars at over $1,372 milliondollars can be broken down foreach community.

For Portland, Oregon the costas of September 12, 2012(costofwar.com/state/OR/city/portland/) was nearly $1,794,000,000.The 2012 U.S. Census estimatesPortland’s population at 600,000.Thus the cost of the wars for eachman, woman, and child in Port-land is about $3,000, with costscontinuing to escalate. If the esti-mated, projected higher nationalcosts reach $4.4 trillion, coststo Portland could reach$5,700,000,000 ($9,500 for eachPortlander); or if the costs reach$6 trillion, nearly $7,800,000,000($13,000 for each Portlander).

Fifty million U.S. Americansnow live in poverty, with one onevery seven requiring food stampsto survive each month. Over125,000 of Portlanders, or over20% of the city’s population, areon food stamps. Over 15,000people in Portland experiencehomelessness during the year.

The National Debt now standsat nearly $16 trillion, or $50,000for every man, woman, and child.Each of us is in perpetual debt.

And the disparity between Havesand Have-Nots is felt globally as theOccupy Movement has protested

austerity measures being felt bymuch of the world. A study by theGreen Party of England disclosedthat the same global capitalisteconomic policies that are pollut-ing the planet while depleting itsfinite resources, have allowed amere 400 billionaires to acquireassets equal to the combinedwealth of 45% of the world’spopulation.

Immoral and illegal warscreated by a corrupt

political economyIn addition to direct and indi-

rect costs, these U.S.-led wars areillegal on their face. They make amockery of our moral and legalauthority as a nation, and revealthat in fact we are a nation of(lawless) men, not of law. Over2,670,000 human beings havebeen killed or maimed as theconsequences of these recentcriminal wars in violation of inter-national law, staining further ournational character.

The illegality and immoralityof these wars, conducted with noaccountability or plausible justifi-cation, breed a corruption at thetop political levels of society thatpermeates into every aspect ofsociety. Our corrupt economicinstitutions are profiting obscenelyfrom policies of mass murder.

No war was declared, asrequired by the U.S. Constitution.The United Nations (UN) Charterto which the U.S. is a signatory,allows military action in only twoinstances: (1) if authorized by theUN Security Council, or (2) ifundertaken in self-defense againstan existing or imminent armedattack. Neither of these conditionswere met or sought. Under ArticleVI, Clause 2, of the U.S. Consti-tution, the provisions of the UNCharter are incorporated into theSupreme Law of the Land of theUnited States, and therefore theU.S. violated both the UN Char-ter, and its own Constitution.

UN Secretary-General KofiAnnan in 2004 publicly declaredthat the U.S. invasion of Iraq wasand remains an illegal act, contra-vening the UN Charter. [“Iraq warillegal, says Annan,” BBC, Sep-tember 16, 2004]. Richard Perlein 2003, then a senior advisor tothe Department of Defense PolicyBoard, admitted that the Iraq warwas illegal because the U.S. hadbroken international law, behaviornot consistent with the rules of theUN [“War critics astonished asU.S. hawk admits invasion wasillegal,” Oliver Burkeman andJulian Borger, The Guardian,November 20, 2003].

In fact they are Nuremberg-type crimes, meaning they are theworst of the worst in terms ofnational and political criminality.

I know a bit about this crimi-nal pattern. In 1969 I was com-mander of a U.S. Air Forcecombat security unit in Vietnamwhere I witnessed a series ofatrocities wiping out entire inhab-ited and undefended fishing vil-lages. These were internationalcrimes committed by both U.S.and South Vietnamese forcesunder U.S. command. That warcost U.S. taxpayers nearly $740billion in today’s dollars[www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22926.pdf] as it diabolicallyclaimed more than 5 million lives,99 percent of whom were inno-cent Southeast Asian peasants.

Additionally, torture and inhu-mane treatments have been welldocumented in U.S.-run prisonsin Iraq (Abu Ghraib), Afghanistan(Bagram), and Guantanamo(located in Cuba against thewishes of that country). Thisbehavior constitutes gravebreaches of the Geneva Conven-tions; the Uniform Code of Mili-tary Justice (UCMJ); theNuremberg Principles; and theConvention against Torture andOther Cruel, Inhuman or Degrad-ing Treatment or Punishment.

The seven leaked confidentialBritish Downing Street Memos,dated from March to July 2002,disclose a U.S. and British drive towar a full year before the March2003 invasion. “War was now seenas inevitable,” while “intelligenceand facts were being fixed aroundthe policy” seeking “regimechange” without any “basis underinternational law.” The memosalso declared: “There is no recentevidence of Iraq complicity withinternational terrorism…There isno credible evidence to link Iraqwith Usama Bin Laden.” Regard-ing Iraq’s possession of WMD, the“intelligence is poor.” [“The


When World WarII ended, leavingmore than 62million dead,most of themcivilians, andhundreds of mil-lions displaced,h o m e l e s s ,wounded, sick,or impoverished,the survivors mightwell have doubtedwhether condi-tions would havebeen even moreterrible if thewar had nottaken place.

All War IS Local

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annanin 2004 publicly declared that the

U.S. invasion of Iraq was andremains an illegal act, contravening

the UN Charter.


Downing Street Reader: A cheatsheet on the memos behind thescandal,” The Rolling Stone Blog,June 22, 2005].

The U.S. has been in a virtualpermanent war economy sinceWorld War II. Increasingly, thepolitical economy requires perma-nent enemies, and functions toassure their creation. Thus, theentire U.S. American system hasa vested interest in a permanentstate of tension.

The citizens of the U.S., in theirparticipation through their Con-gress, President, and their huge

military-industrial complex, spendmore money on their military thanany other nation – 45% of theentire world’s expenditures, morethan the next 14 nations combined.

The impact of inequality onindividuals and society is wellestablished. Social epidemiologistRichard Wilkinson concludesthat, “the quality of social rela-tions in societies is related to thescale of income inequality – howbig the gap is between rich andpoor. More unequal societies tendto have higher rates of violentcrime and homicide, and thatpeople living in them feel morehostility, are less likely to beinvolved in community life, andare much less likely to trust eachother; in short they have lowerlevels of social capital… Inequal-ity is deeply corrosive…Greaterinequality is perhaps the mostsignificant obstacle to the devel-opment of an environmentallysustainable level of economicactivity.” [Richard Wilkinson (asocial epidemiologist), TheImpact of Inequality, The NewPress, 2005, pp. 24-30].

The Nation is Now Payingthe Price; Localities Need

to Become Part of theAnti-War Movement

The U.S. has doubled itsnational debt during these wars,making every American alivetoday indebted in perpetuity. Thedomestic budget is being severely

cut, requiring draconian cutbacksin education, libraries, medicalcare such as it is, all social safetynet programs, fire and policedepartments, all city services, etc.Portland’s Fiscal Year 2012-13budget is nearly $2.85 billion,3.8% less than the previous year.“Austerity” budgets are beingimposed all over the U.S. (and theworld) largely due to siphoning ofnational wealth into wars and themilitary-industrial complex.

This is why all political leadersand all citizens in every jurisdic-tion – towns, cities, counties, and

states – and every func-tional entity withincities, counties, andstates, such as schoolsand libraries, need tobecome ardent and loudopponents of thenational war and militarypolicy that is enrichingthe military-industrialcomplex at everyone’sexpense. Local commu-nities desperately seeknew funds through bondissues and new taxes asprograms are being cut.The local people arebeing asked to pay for

the war boondoggles of the rich –private profit, public decay.

Unless everyone gets behind anational popular movement to endthe wars and to severely restrictthe Pentagon budget, we as anation will simply keep erodinginto what we call a “Third World”country where a very tiny minor-ity controls the lives of the vastmajority. A neofeudalism, if youwill. Fewer and fewer local resi-dents will be able to affordincreased property taxes imposedby bond issues or other local taxincreases to keep local jurisdic-tions afloat as the war economysucks the nation dry.

War is a local issue! If andwhen people understand this, wethe people possess a politicalopportunity to reclaim our peo-ple’s republic. Short of that, wecollapse while on our knees withhardly a whisper.

S. Brian Willson (brianwillson.com)is a U.S. Air Force veteran, whoseexperience in Vietnam led himinto peace activism. In 1987, whilepeacefully blocking a military trainat a U.S. Navy munitions base, hereceived severe injuries and wasalmost murdered when the trainchose not to stop. Brian is theauthor of Blood on the Tracks andhis latest book is My Country is theWorld: Photo Journey of a StumblingSatyagrahi. See brianwillson.comand http://bloodonthetracks.info.

The U.S. has been in avirtual permanent wareconomy since World WarII….. Local communitiesdesperately seek newfunds through bond issuesand new taxes as pro-grams are being cut. Thelocal people are beingasked to pay for the warboondoggles of the rich.

In late January 2009, Israelattacked Gaza, leaving 1,440dead, 5,000 wounded, and 50,000homeless.

Now four years later, theIsraelis have mounted anothermajor military attack on Gaza.According to the PalestinianCenter for Human Rights, 156Palestinians were killed, includ-ing 103 civilians, and 1,000 otherswere wounded, including 971civilians. Thirty-three childrenwere killed and 274 children werewounded; 13 women were killedand 162 wounded; and three jour-nalists were killed.

I had traveled to Gaza in 2009and witnessed the terrible destruc-tion, and during these past fouryears, I have joined internationalcitizen activists in many projectsto educate our fellow citizensabout the frequent Israeli militaryattacks on Gaza; the imprison-ment of thousands of Palestinians;the illegal settlements built by theIsraeli government in the WestBank; the apartheid walls thatseparate children from schools,farmers from their land, andworkers from their employment;and the land and sea blockade ofGaza.

One of those projects is tobreak the sea blockade. After the2009 Israeli attack, ships attempt-ing to enter Gaza were rammedby the Israeli navy. So in May,2010, a flotilla of six ships, theGaza Freedom Flotilla, wasformed to attempt tobreak the navalblockade.

Having wreakedviolence – with impu-nity – in Gaza in2009, Israel had noqualms about usingviolence against theGaza Freedom Flotilla’s interna-tional passengers.

Israeli commandos brutallyattacked all six flotilla ships,killing nine, wounding 50, andassaulting many more. After theattack, passengers were seized,put in prison in Israel for severaldays, and then deported for“entering Israel illegally.”

Most the Flotilla’s passengershad not seen each other since theevents of May 2009. But in earlyNovember 2012, hundreds of usfrom more than a dozen countriesreunited in Istanbul to be wit-nesses in a court hearing. Numer-ous investigations had been

c o n d u c t e d ,including twoby the Israeligovernment andone each by theTurkish govern-ment and theUnited NationsHuman RightsCouncil. Butthis was the firstjudicial pro-ceeding con-cerning theIsraeli attack onthe FreedomFlotilla – andone of the fewjudicial probesinto state-spon-sored Israeliviolence.

The hearingwas held inSeventh Crimi-nal Court inIstanbul. Fourformer Israelimilitary offi-cers had beenindicted onMay 12, 2012on chargesincluding pre-m e d i t a t e dm u r d e r ,attempted premeditated murder,aggravated assault, assault, aggra-vated looting, hijacking or illegalseizure of train or sea craft, aggra-vated criminal damage to prop-

erty, torture, unlawful detentionand imprisonment. All four –General Gabi Ashkenazi, Israelimilitary chief of staff; ViceAdmiral Eliezer Marom, militaryintelligence chief; Major GeneralAmos Yadlin, Naval Forces com-mander; and Brigadier GeneralAvishai Levy, head of Air Forceintelligence – have retired fromthe Israeli military and noneappeared at the court hearing.

The 144-page indictmentincludes the autopsy reports of thenine persons killed by Israelicommandos; it reveals that fivewere shot at close-range, execu-tion style.

Joe Meadors and I were theonly two (of 17) American pas-sengers in attendance. Joe is asurvivor of two Israeli navalattacks. Forty-five years ago, inJune, 1967, he was a sailor on the

USS Liberty, whichwas attacked off thecoast of Gaza byIsraeli forces. Duringthe nine-hour attack,34 Americans werekilled and 171 werewounded. Then, in2010, Joe was one of

30 passengers aboard theFreedom Flotilla’s Sfendoni.Onboard the vessel, he was hit bya paint bullet and witnessed othersbeing assaulted and beaten byIsraeli soldiers.

But just as the United Statesgovernment did not hold Israelaccountable for its attack on theUSS Liberty 45 years ago, the U.S.government today has not held theIsraeli government accountable forthe death of an American citizenFurkan Dogan, one of the nine whowas assassinated/executed byIsraeli commandos on the MaviMarmara.

(Continued on page 15) .

Israeli Violence Finally on Trialby Ann Wright

Above: USS Liberty in July 1967, upon her returnfrom the Mediterranean Sea. She had been attackedand seriously damaged by Israeli forces whileoperating off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967and was subsequently repaired at Malta. Thirty-fourU.S. Sailors were killed and 171 wounded (U.S.Navy photo). Below: Mavi Marmara, May 22, 2009.On May 31, Israeli forces boarded the vessel andkilled nine people including one American (FreeGaza Movement photo). To date, Israel has notbeen held to account for these attacks.

This is the first judicial proceedingconcerning the Israeli attack on theFreedom Flotilla and one of the fewjudicial probes into state-sponsoredIsraeli violence.


Zedong would soon take complete controlof China and impose a murderous reign ofterror on the world’s most populouscountry that cost the lives of perhapsanother 60 million persons (as many as 73million, according to one plausibleestimate).[2]

It is difficult to believe that the situationin China would have been so awful even ifthe Japanese had succeeded in incorporat-ing China into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

9. “I grant you the war is horrible,but it is a war, after all. You have tocompare apples to apples, and when I dothat, I see this war is going well.”

This statement about the U.S. war inIraq exemplifies what some call the “not asbad as Hamburg-Dresden-Tokyo-Hiroshi-ma-Nagasaki” defense of brutal warfare. Ifwe make such pinnacles of savagery ourstandard, then, sure enough, everythingelse pales by comparison. But why shouldanyone adopt such a grotesque standard?To do so is to concede that anything lesshorrible than the very worst cases is “notso bad.” In truth, warfare’s effects aresufficiently hideous at every level. Whatthe Israelis did in Lebanon a few years agobears no comparison with the February1945 Allied attack on Dresden, of course,but the sight of even one little Lebanesechild dead, her bloody body gruesomelymangled by an explosion, ought to beenough to give pause to any proponent ofwar. Try putting yourself in the place ofthat child’s mother.

10. “[Certain writers] all agreed thatwar is horrible but said the Bible givesgovernment the authority to wage warto save innocent lives.”

For almost two thousand years, biblicalscholars have been disputing what Chris-tians may and may not do in regard to war.The dispute continues today, so the matteris certainly not resolved among devoutChristians. Even if Christians may go to warto save innocent lives, however, a big ques-tion remains: Is the government going to warfor this purpose or for one of the countlessother purposes that lead governments tomake war? Saving the innocent makes anappealing excuse, but it is often, if notalways, only a pretext. “Just war” writersfrom Augustine to Thomas Aquinas toGrotius to the latest contributors have ago-nized over the ready availability of suchpretexts and warned against the wickednessof advancing them when the real motives areless justifiable or even plainly immoral.[3]

For centuries, European combatants onall sides invoked God’s blessing for theirwars against one another. As recently asWorld War II, the Germans claimed to have“Gott mit Uns,” a declaration that adornedthe belt buckles of Wehrmacht soldiers inboth world wars. Strange to say, in 1917and 1918 Christian ministers of the gospelin pulpits across the United States were

assuring their congregations that theirnation-state was engaged in a “war forrighteousness” (the title of Richard M.Gamble’s [2003] splendid book about thisrepellent episode). So the invocation ofbiblical authority really doesn’t get us veryfar: the enemy may be invoking the sameauthority.

Nowadays, of course, one side invokesthe Jewish and Christian God, whereas theother calls on the blessing of Allah.Whether this bifurcated manner of gainingdivine sanction for the commission of massmurder and mayhem among the sonsof Abraham represents progress ornot, I leave to the learned theolo-gians.

11. “War is horrible, but thankGod we have men and women whoare willing and able to protect ourpeople and our freedom.”

These men and women may bewilling and able to supply such pro-tection, but do they? Our leadersconstantly proclaim that their warsare aimed at protecting us and ourfreedoms – “We go forward,” declaredGeorge W. Bush, “to defend freedom andall that is good and just in our world” (Bush2001) – but one has to wonder about thetruth of that proclamation, considering thatin the entire history of warfare, each majorU.S. war (with the possible exception of theWar for Independence) left the general runof the American people with fewer freedomsafter the war than they had enjoyed beforethe war.

In my book Crisis and Leviathan (1987,123–58, 196–236), I document this ratcheteffect in detail for the two world wars.After World War I, the government notonly kept taxes far above their prewarlevels but also retained newly court-sanc-tioned powers to conscript men for foreignwars, to interfere with virtually any privatetransaction in international trade andfinance (Trading with the Enemy Act of1917), and to suppress free speech in adraconian manner (Sedition Act of 1918).After World War II, the government againkept taxes much higher they had beenbefore the war, retained for the first time alarge peacetime military apparatus, createdthe CIA as a sort of personal presidentialintelligence and quasi-military group, con-

tinued to draft men for military serviceeven during peacetime, and engaged muchmore pervasively in central managementand manipulation of the private economy.The people, for their part, gained theprivilege of living with the very real threatof nuclear holocaust hovering over themfor four decades while the U.S. govern-ment kept the Cold War pot boiling.

The so-called war on terror has struckdeeply into Americans’ rights to privacyby vastly enhancing the government’ssurveillance activities and virtually guttingthe Fourth Amendment’s protectionagainst warrantless searches and seizures.It has also led the government to create an

agency now empowered to commit acts inU.S. airports that if committed by otherswould be prosecuted as sexual assault andbattery and as criminal molestation ofchildren. This “war” has also served tojustify one of the greatest military-spendingrun-ups in U.S. history, leaving U.S. mili-tary-related spending – if correctly mea-sured – greater than the comparablespending of all other nations combined.Nevertheless, Americans are no saferbecause of these sweeping infringements oftheir liberties, many of which have been defacto pork barrel projects and others ofwhich have been nothing more than securitytheater.

War, whether real or make-believe,serves to justify huge increases in govern-ment spending, taxing, borrowing, andexertion of power over private affairs, andsuch government surges attract opportunistsgalore while doing little or nothing toimprove people’s real security or to protecttheir freedom. Indeed, in the war on terror,the government has added fuel to the fire ofMuslim rage against Americans in theMiddle East but achieved nothing positiveto compensate for this heightened threat.[4]

Every time the rulers set out to protectthe village, they decide that the best way todo so is to destroy it in the process. Call mea cynic, but I can’t help wondering whetherprotection of the people and their freedomswas really the state’s objective, and afterfifty years of thinking about the matter, Ihave come up with some pretty attractivealternative hypotheses. One of them is that,as Marine General Smedley Butlerfamously expressed it, “war is a racket,”but I have other alternative hypotheses, too.

12. “War is horrible but some eco-nomic good came out of World War II.It brought the United States out of oneof the greatest slumps in history, theGreat Depression.”

This venerable broken-window fallacyrefuses to die, no matter how many timesa stake is driven through its heart. MostAmericans believe it. Worse, because lessexcusable, nearly all historians and even alarge majority of economists do so as well.I have been whacking at this nonsense forseveral decades, but, so far as I can tell, Ihave scarcely made a dent in it. Shouldanyone care to see a complete counter-argument, I recommend the first five chap-ters of my 2006 book, Depression, War,and Cold War.

In brief, the government did not –indeed, could not – create wealth simplyby spending vast amounts of money (muchof it newly created as a result of coopera-tive Federal Reserve policies) on soldiersand weapons. The government did wipe outunemployment during the war, but only byputting millions of men in the armed forces.During World War II, these forcesabsorbed, primarily by conscription, 16million persons at one time or another(about three times the number of personsofficially counted as unemployed in 1941),while causing a similar number of peopleto be employed in military-supply indus-tries. The economy looked prosperousbecause everybody was working and(except those in the armed forces) earningseemingly good wages and salaries. Yet the

supply of civilian goods and ser-vices actually shrank, and manyordinary goods were not availableat all (for example, new cars) orwere available only in limited,rationed amounts (for example,meats, sugar, canned foods, gaso-line, and tires). Private investmentalso dropped sharply as the gov-ernment took over the allocationof capital, directing it into arms-related projects. So the apparent“wartime prosperity” was spuri-

ous. Only when the war ended and themilitary machine was largely dismantleddid genuine prosperity return, for the firsttime since 1929.

13. “War is horrible, but whiningabout it is worse. Either put up or shutup.”

Some people always reject the denunci-ation of any familiar social institution orconduct unless the denouncer offers a“constructive criticism” – that is, unless heputs forward a promising plan to eliminatethe evil he denounces. I admit at once thatI have not discovered a cure for the humantendency to resort to war when much moreintelligent and humane alternatives areavailable. I am trying to convince peoplethat on nearly all such occasions they areallowing their rulers to bamboozle themand turn them into cannon fodder forpurposes that serve the rulers’ interests, notthe people’s. I am getting nowhere in thiseffort, but I am going to keep trying.

14. “Of course, war is horrible, butat present it’s still the only guarantee tomaintain peace.”

This statement as it stands is self-con-tradictory because it affirms that the only




Each major U.S. war (with thepossible exception of the War forIndependence) left the generalrun of the American people withfewer freedoms after the war thanthey had enjoyed before the war.

Prussian belt buckle inscribed:“Gott Mit Uns” (God with us)


Furkan’s father testified at the Turkishcourt hearing that the United States govern-ment has not held an independent investi-gation of the murder of his son. Instead,U.S. State Department officials told himthat the United States government wouldrely on the investigation done by the Israeligovernment. He testified that his son’sautopsy revealed he was shot five times,and three of the shots were consideredlethal including two in the head at veryclose range. His death was the result offractures of his skull, ribs, and limb bonesthat caused internal bleeding, cerebralhemorrhage, and brain tissue destructionfrom the bullets.

I was on the Challenger 1 vessel with17 other passengers. Our boat was off theport stern of the Mavi Marmara and wewitnessed percussion grenades hitting the

ship and heard pings – the sounds of liverounds fired by Israeli commandos into theship.

On the Challenger 1, the Israeli com-mandos fired percussion grenades whichbroke the windows and sent glass flyingonto the deck. They Tasered a womanjournalist; fired paint balls directly into theface of another woman passenger – justmissing an eye but causing profuse bleeding;and threw two women passengers onto thedeck, smashed their faces into the glass, thenput hoods over their glass-pocked heads.

Later, in custody at the airport, we wereimprisoned for five hours on a bus with nowater, food, or toilet facilities. Then we hadto run a gantlet of uniformed military andpolice officers; one of the police leaned outfrom their crowd and slapped one of ourwomen passengers, causing a near riot.

The Mavi Marmara passengers testi-fied about the murders of nine and wound-ing of 50. Journalist Hassan Ghani told ofvictim Cevdet Kiliclar, who oversaw thepress room of the ship. He had been shot

point-blank through the forehead; a fellowpassenger knelt beside Cevdet’s body,trying to put his brains back into his skull.

Canadian Kevin Neish told of finding a“hit list” that had fallen from the backpackof an Israeli soldier, and of helping carrythe injured and wounded down the stair-ways to the tiny medical office.

Laura Aura of Spain testified that pas-sengers had to kneel on the outside deckfor hours in the intense sun as helicoptershovered overhead sending salt water sprayover them; commandos refused to let pas-sengers use the bathroom and many had tosoil themselves.

If the Turkish court convicts theaccused, international arrest warrants canbe issued. Then INTERPOL would berequired to arrest them if they leave Israelfor virtually any country other than theUnited States. The Turkish judgment couldalso be used as a basis for further judicialproceedings in the International CriminalCourt, although Israel, like the UnitedStates, is not a signatory to the ICC.

The next court hearing in Istanbul isFebruary 21, 2013. However, the fact thata court has looked at the evidence of theevents on the Mavi Marmara is a major stepin attempting to hold accountable thosewho planned the attack.

Today, as Israel continues to attack thepeople of Gaza, we plead on behalf of thecivilian population for governments to usetheir influence on the Israeli government toend their attacks; and we plead with themilitants in Gaza to stop firing rockets intoIsrael.

Ann Wright is a 29-year U.S. Army/ArmyReserves veteran who retired as a Colonel,and a former U.S. diplomat who resignedin March, 2003 in opposition to the war onIraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada,Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, SierraLeone, Micronesia, and Mongolia. InDecember, 2001 she was on the small teamthat reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,Afghanistan. She is the co-author of thebook Dissent: Voices of Conscience(voicesofconscience.com).

(Continued from page 13) .

Israeli Violence Finallyon Trial

In the 1940s and 1950s, I was raised onthe North Shore of Chicago, in a suburbnamed Glencoe. The town was at least95% Jewish, and everyone knew who the3 black families were, knew the handful ofChristians and “others” who resided nearus. We understood that we comprised oneof the wealthiest, fanciest Jewish ghettosin the United States, and perhaps theworld. The great majority of us went totemple at the North Shore CongregationIsrael, and donated $5.00 a shot for stickersto purchase “trees” to plant in the newState of Israel. We were going to transformthe desert into a promised land and helpthe oppressed Jews of Europe to create ahomeland where pogroms, ghettos and theHolocaust were a thing of the past. Forliterally decades, Zionists had perpetuatedthe myth that the territory that wouldbecome the State of Israel was “a landwithout a people, for a people without aland.” How noble and just it all seemed.

If anyone would have asked us why wewere planting trees in Israel, when theHoly Land was already covered with Olivetrees planted by Arab families for morethan 5 centuries, we would have accusedthem of rank anti-semitism. If someonehad suggested that we were purchasingguns and missiles, instead of agriculturaltools, we would have fought them on thespot. Yet history judges us harshly and wenow have a reckoning to deal with.

I represented men and women on deathrow in California for over 25 years. All ofthe defendants on death row, withoutexception, were brutalized as youngchildren, either by their parents, or their

community. The great majority of prison-ers were victims of brutality, and theyresponded to the society that brutalizedthem by killing in return.

One would have expected that thosewho were brutalized as children wouldhave recognized how horrible the experi-ence was and rejected such behavior whenit was their turn to have authority overothers. But that is simply not so. Humans,unfortunately, by and large, grow up toperpetrate the same atrocities that wereperpetrated upon them against those theyare close to. While this phenomenon is notuniversal, it is so common as to be theexpectation for law enforcement and thesociety at large. Children of convicts areexpected to become criminals when theygrow up, and the society does everythingin its power to ensure that that expectationis met. Young black children in thiscountry have to be saints to stay out ofreformatories and prisons. One out of threeblack people in the United States are inprison or on parole.

So, too, do we watch this phenomenonbeing tragically repeated in the State ofIsrael. One would expect that a people whohad been subjected to the atrocities ofWorld War II, to the Holocaust, to thediscrimination and slaughter perpetratedagainst the Jews, would be the first nationon earth to oppose a similar oppressionagainst others. Yet, the sad reality is thatthe racism and violence perpetrated againstPalestinians in the State of Israel is out-landish and inexcusable.


General David Petraeus toldthe Armed Services Committeein 2010 that “The enduring hos-tilities between Israel and someof its neighbors present distinctchallenges to our ability toadvance our interests in theregion. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to aperception of U.S. favoritism forIsrael. Arab anger over the Pales-tinian question limits the strengthand depth of U.S. partnershipswith governments in the region.”

This past summer I returnedfrom my third trip in two yearsto this troubled area where Jews,Christians, and Muslims oncelived for 2000 years in relativepeace. Our diverse group, Inter-faith Peace Builders, met brave Israeliand Palestinian peace activists on bothsides of the separation or apartheid wall.My trip was informative but disturbing.

Everyone suffers here, but Palestin-ians hurt the most, seeing their homelandshrink daily as Jewish immigrants fromall over the world are illegally relocatedwith financial assistance and privatesecurity paid for by the Israeli govern-ment. British Journalist and Israeli citizenJonathan Cook told us, cynically, that theregion is like Swiss cheese with powerfulIsrael holding all the cheese and theweaker Palestinians left with the holes.

Israeli demolition of Palestinianhomes, orchards, wells, and schools goeson unabated despite international con-

demnation. We met a grandmother of onefamily rendered homeless. Shedenounced the Israeli authorities plus ourAmerican government since she – likemost persons we met – believes Washing-ton allows this injustice while condemn-ing human rights abuses in other countries.

A German environmental engineer inthe Hebron Hills complained to us that hisefficient solar energy station supplyingelectricity to 10 remote Palestinian villageswas condemned for demolition despite theGerman government’s protests. He pointedout that all 27 foreign ministers of theEuropean Union have recently criticizedthe Israeli government for the 60 demoli-tions of EU funded humanitarian projectsin 2011.


The Tragic Truth about the State of Israelby Luke Hiken

Humans, unfortunately, by and large, grow up to perpetrate the same atrocities that were perpetrated upon them against those they are close to.

On the Ground in the Troubled LandA report from a member of the Veterans For Peace Palestine-Middle EastWorking Groupby Vince Stravino

Vince Stravino with angry college student in EastJerusalem who tells of the recent demolition of herfamily home rendering all her family homeless andstruggling to survive. Her family now shares crampedrented quarters with two other displaced families.

(photo by Interfaith Peace Builders ifpb.org)


way to make sure that we will have peaceis by going to war. Perhaps, if we arefeeling generous, we may interpret thestatement as the time-honored exhortationthat to maintain the peace, we shouldprepare for war, hoping that by dissuadingaggressors from moving against us, ourpreparation will preserve the peace.Although this reworded policy is notself-contradictory, it is dangerous becausethe preparation we make for war may itselfmove us toward actually going to war. Forexample, preparation for war may entailincreasing the number of military officersand allowing the top brass to exert greaterinfluence in making foreign policy. Thoseofficers may believe that without war theircareers will go nowhere, and so they maytilt their advice to civilian authoritiestoward risking or actually making wareven when peace might easily be pre-served. Likewise, military suppliers mayuse their political influence to foster inter-national suspicions and fears that other-wise might be allayed. Wars are not goodfor business in general, but they are goodfor the munitions contractors. Certainlegislators may develop an interest inmilitarism; perhaps it helps them to attractcampaign contributions from arms contrac-tors, veterans’ groups, and members of theNational Guard and military reserve orga-nizations. Pretty soon we may find our-selves dealing, as President Dwight D.Eisenhower did, with a military-industrial-congressional complex, and we may findthat it packs a great deal of political punchand acts in a way that, all things consid-ered, diminishes the chance of keeping thecountry at peace.[5]

From the foregoing commentary, arecurrent theme may be extracted: thosewho argue that “war is horrible, but . . .”nearly always use this rhetorical construc-tion not to frame a genuinely serious andhonest balancing of reasons for and againstwar, but only to acknowledge what cannotbe hidden – that war is horrible – and thento pass on immediately to an affirmationthat notwithstanding the horrors, whoseactual forms and dimensions they neitherspecify nor examine in detail, a certain warought to be fought.

The reasons given to justify a war’sbeing fought, however, generally amountto claims that cannot support a strong case.They often are not even bona fide reasons,but mere propaganda, especially when theyemanate from official sources. They some-times rest on historical errors, such as theclaim that the armed forces in past warshave somehow kept foreigners fromdepriving us of our liberties. And the casefor war usually rests on ill-founded specu-lation about what will happen if we do notgo to war.

People need to recognize, however,that government officials and their runningdogs in the media, among others, are notsoothsayers. None of us knows the future,

but these interested parties lack a disinter-ested motive for making a careful, well-informed forecast. They have, as thesaying goes, an agenda of their own. “Thebest and the brightest” of our leaders andtheir kept experts generally amount to littlemore than what C. Wright Mills called“crackpot realists,” and on occasion, spe-cifically since September 11, 2001, theydo not meet even that standard (see Lee-baert 2011). Hence, these geniuses,equipped with all of that secret informationthey constantly emphasize their critics donot possess, have recently put forwardforecasts of a “cake walk” through Iraq, a“slam dunk” on finding lots of weapons ofmass destruction there, and liberal-demo-cratic dominoes falling across the MiddleEast— forecasts that fit more comfortablyin a lunatic asylum than in a discussionamong rational, well-informed people.

The government generally relies onmarshalling patriotic emotion and reflex-ive loyalty rather than on making a sensi-ble case for going to war. Much of thediscussion that does take place is a shambecause the government officials whopretend to listen to other opinions, as U.S.leaders did most recently during 2002 andearly 2003, have already decided what theyare going to do, no matter what otherpeople may say. The rulers know that oncethe war starts, nearly everybody will fallinto line and “support the troops.”

If someone demands that the skepticabout war offer constructive criticism, hereis my proposal: always insist that theburden of proof rests heavily on the war-monger. This protocol, which is nowanything but standard operating procedure,is eminently judicious precisely because,as we all recognize, war is horrible. Givenits horrors, which in reality are muchgreater than most people appreciate, it onlymakes sense that those who propose toenter into those horrors make a very, verystrong case for doing so. If they cannot –and I submit that they almost never can –then people will serve their interests bestby declining an invitation to war. As a rule,the most rational, humane, and auspiciouscourse of action is indeed to give peace achance.

Footnotes1. Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley,

August 22, 1862. (civilwarhome.com-/lincolngreeley.htm)

2. The new estimates of the casualties ofMao’s reign compiled by R. J. Rummel(democraticpeace.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/reevaluat ing-chinas-democide- to-73000000/)

3. For an excellent assessment of themost recent scholarship in the “just war”tradition, see Calhoun 2011.

4. On the war on terror, see my bookspublished in 2005 and 2007 and, for morerecent years, my continuing posts at theIndependent Institute’s group blog TheBeacon (blog.independent.org/).

5. On the military-industrial complex, seeHiggs 1990 and Ledbetter 2011.

ReferencesArmitage, Richard. 2003. Speech at the

U.S. Institute of Peace. January 21.(acronym.org.uk/docs/0301/doc12.htm)

Bush, George W. 2001. 9/11 Address tothe Nation. (wikisource.org/wiki-/9/11_Address_to_the_Nation)

Calhoun, Laurie. 2011. “Political Philos-ophers on War: Arguments inside the ‘JustWar’ Box,” The Independent Review 15, no.3 (Winter): 447–61.

Dear, I. C. B., and M. R. D. Foot, eds.1995. Oxford Companion to World War II.New York: Oxford University Press.

Gamble, Richard M. 2003. The War forRighteousness: Progressive Christianity, theGreat War, and the Rise of the MessianicNation. Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books.

Hedges, Chris. 2002. War Is a ForceThat Gives Us Meaning. New York: RandomHouse.

Higgs, Robert. 1987. Crisis and Levia-than: Critical Episodes in the Growth ofAmerican Government. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

————, ed. 1990. Arms, Politics, andthe Economy: Historical and ContemporaryPerspectives. New York: Holmes and Meier.

————. 2005. Resurgence of theWarfare State: The Crisis since 9/11. Oak-land, Calif.: The Independent Institute.

————. 2006. Depression, War, andCold War: Studies in Political Economy.New York: Oxford University Press.

————. 2007. Neither Liberty norSafety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth ofGovernment. Oakland, Calif.: The Indepen-dent Institute.

Ledbetter, James. 2011. UnwarrantedInfluence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and theMilitary-Industrial Complex. New Haven,Conn.: Yale University Press.

Leebaert, Derek. 2011. Magic andMayhem: The Delusions of AmericanForeign Policy. New York: Simon andSchuster.

Morris, Edmund. 1979. The Rise of The-odore Roosevelt. New York: Ballantine.

Stein, Ben. 2006. “Out of Disproportion,”American Spectator, July 21. Available at:spectator.org/archives/2006/07/21/out-of-disproportion.

“Strategic bombing during World WarII,” n.d., en.wikipedia.org/wiki.

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in PoliticalEconomy for The Independent Institute(www.independent.org) and Editor of theInstitute’s quarterly journal The Indepen-dent Review. He has a Ph.D. in economicsfrom Johns Hopkins University, and he hastaught at the University of Washington,Lafayette College, Seattle University, andthe University of Economics, Prague. He hasbeen a visiting scholar at Oxford Universityand Stanford University, and a fellow for theHoover Institution and the National ScienceFoundation. He is the author of many books,including Depression, War, and Cold War.

This article appeared in the Fall 2012issue of The Independent Review and isreprinted with the author’s permission.



Gaza is nothing short of a concentrationcamp. Children are starving there and Israelwill kill any individual or group thatattempts to bring food or water into thatland. Israel is the last country on the face ofthe earth that has dared to impose a formalstate of apartheid against an indigenouspopulation. Israeli checkpoints are theprecise duplicates of what the Nazi check-points at the borders of the ghettos lookedlike in 1938 Germany. The excuses andrationalizations used by Israel to perpetuatethis oppression against the Palestinian

people are precisely those used by theNazis: Palestinians pose a threat to thesecurity of the nation; they will steal jobsand security from the rightful people of thenation; they are untrustworthy, and owe noallegiance to the nation. The parallels areterrifying.

That this should be the situation in 2012is so pathetic as to be comical in an histor-ical context. The anti-semitism of the pre-vailing nations of World War II, the UnitedStates and Great Britain, was so profoundas to obviate the possibility that Jews wouldbe permitted to immigrate or seek sanctuaryin either of those victorious countries. TheChristian majorities of those countries sohated the Jews that allowing them to seeksanctuary in either country was out of thequestion.

Instead, anti-semitic nations decided togive the Jews who survived the Holocaustland that belonged to the Palestinians. Killtwo birds with one stone. Keep Jews out ofthe U.S. and Great Britain, and give themthe land of a bunch of Muslims that, accord-ing to the U.S. and Great Britain, were littlemore than savages. Certainly, the Westernpowers could control any opposition thelocal population might put up to prevent theJews from entering the new state of Israel.It would be a walk in the park for these


The Tragic Truth

German sentries with heavy machinegun at the gate to the Ghetto at theintersection of Nowolipie and SmoczaStreets in Warsaw, Poland, May 1943.

(photo by Jürgen Stroop)


countries to disenfranchise the Palestinian people, whohad lived on the land for centuries. The fact that Jewshad lived in Palestine for centuries without undergoingthe sort of atrocities perpetrated by European Christiansupon them was quickly overlooked. Give us our land,said the Zionists, and we will take care of the rest.

So now, we are confronted with the situation wherethere is not a Muslim on the face of the earth that doesnot see Israel’s occupation of the Holy Land as anunjustified invasion of their land. The only differencebetween this and the initial colonization of the UnitedStates of America, is that, unlike what happened to theAmerican Indians, Caucasians, whether Christian orJewish, have not been able to eradicate sufficientnumbers of indigenous people to take over the landwithout opposition. The Muslims have not acceded tothe colonial expansion of the “settlers” in Israel, to theU.S. demand for expansion of the militarist Israeli state,or to the eradication of those who inhabited the landbefore the Jews arrived.

In virtually every temple and Jewish CommunityCenter in the United States, Israel is seen as “the goodguy” in the Middle East, and the Arabs are seen as devils.The impact this has had on Jews in the United States isto divide the community into two totally distinct com-munities: those who are Zionists and those who identifywith being Jewish, but reject the racism and violenceperpetrated by Israel against the entire Muslim world. Itis impossible for Jews who take pride in their heritage,to participate in their own communities without endors-ing the atrocities perpetrated by Israel against Arabsthroughout the world. Jews who reject Zionism areoutcasts in the established Jewish communities. Theyhave no base and no community. We are either anti-Muslim or invisible. We are left with no alternativeswithin the broader community.

The U.S. is perfectly content to let Israel serve as thebuffer between hostile Arab nations and U.S. imperial-ism. After all, it is the Jews who are fighting Muslimson a daily basis, not Americans. But once the State ofIsrael is defeated because of its bellicose intransigenceand intolerance to those with whom they should besharing the land, Jews everywhere will suffer the conse-quences and be at risk. One could not write a moreironical conclusion. Non-Zionist Jews are like the non-existent Left in the United States – we are simply notincluded in the debates of our nation or among ourpeople; and, because Zionists permit no rational debatesor discussions, they are without a clue as to the interna-tional implications of their cruelty toward the Palestinianpeoples. The world will not put up with this indefinitely.It is just a matter of time.

Luke Hiken is an attorney who has engaged in thepractice of criminal, military, immigration, andappellate law. See more of his articles atprogressiveavenues.org.

Many activists we spoke to urged us toboycott Israeli products, including Christiantourism, and divest from investments there tobring an end to this injustice since theseeconomic measures helped to stop apartheid inSouth Africa. In 2012, both the Presbyterian(USA) and United Methodist Churches, witha combined membership of ten millionmembers adopted policies of boycotting allgoods made in the illegal Israeli settlements.

In Ramallah, our group learned that Israelicitizenship laws vary widely depending if theholder is Jewish, non- Jewish, or worse yet,Palestinian. Even an attorney traveling withus was confused at the maze of laws in Israelwith the end result being troubles for allnon-Jewish persons. Israeli journalist RinaRosenberg wrote in the major Jerusalemnewspaper Haaretz (June 1, 2012) that “Racism is beingnormalized among the Israeli public, and legitimized inIsraeli politics.”

The director of New Profile, an Israeli peace groupaiding conscientious objectors and opposing militarism,complained that nationalist fervor and fear stoked bythe right-wing Netanyahu government had polarizedthe country. Israel drafts all eighteen-year-olds but it isnot difficult to get a deferment. Once conscriptedhowever, harsh penalties including jail time is admin-istered to those who decline to serve for moral orreligious reasons. A young man in Tel Aviv withpending military charges told us that he believed thatthe suicide rate was high in the IDF (Israel DefenseForces) but accurate statistics are not published. Testi-monies of IDF veterans who regretted their roles inabusing Palestinians echo some of the sentiments ofearlier Vietnam vets and later Iraq war veterans duringthe Winter Soldier Investigations.

Some agencies we visited referred to the forceddisplacement of Palestinians as “ethnic cleansing,”described recently by United Nations special investigatorRichard Falk. Israel remains a powerful economy butsome believe that it is delegitimizing itself with actionsinconsistent with a true democracy. The May 2012 BBCRatings Poll of worldwide sentiment of over 24,000persons in 22 countries ranked Israel as the third mostnegatively viewed nation after Iran and Pakistan. TheUnited States was the only developed nation wherefavorable opinion of Israel had actually increased to 50%(Jerusalem Post, May 17,2012). Military and defensecosts per capita in Israel are the highest in the world;America is second. Both governments, in response topowerful economic and political lobbies, prefer to spendfor weapons and war rather than funding the needs ofordinary citizens.

Americans, on average, pay over $21.50 in taxes tofinance these injustices in Israel and the occupiedPalestinian territories. Our country’s military-industrialcomplex provides weapons, arguably, to the world’sfourth strongest army with the only nuclear weapons inthe Middle East. Over the previous 10 year fundingcycle, that amounts to more than 30 billion dollarswhich could better be used here to re-train unemployedworkers, create jobs, improve schools, or fund veterans’benefits. How does this wasteful and unnecessaryforeign aid happen while our government cuts impor-tant social programs and saddles our grandkids withmountains of debt?

The answer: political contributions to elected offi-cials in both parties by pro-Israel lobbies. The May 2012Washington Report on Middle East Affairs disclosesthat between 2009 and 2011, Rep. Howard Berman(D-CA) received $130,050; $243,240 went to Rep.Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL); and special friend HarryReid (D-NV) garnered a whopping $490,141! In addi-tion, the Washington Post (Aug. 9, 2011) reported“educational” trips paid by an affiliate of the Israellobby AIPAC in 2011 for 81 U.S. members of congressto visit Israel and be wined and dined at a cost of over$18,000 each. Is this why our elected leaders are sopro-Israel and generous with our tax monies? Israel, likeAmerica, is full of bright, creative, well-meaning butoften uninformed citizens. Let us speak out against themean and dishonest policies of leaders in both govern-ments who put their personal interests before the needsof their constituents.

Vince Stravino served in the U.S. Army medical corps. Heis a member of the Veterans For Peace Palestine-MiddleEast working group and the Jewish Voice for Peace. Learnmore about Interfaith Peace Builders at ifpb.org.


Inside Hawara checkpoint, in the occupied West Bank,Palestine, June 12, 2006. (photo by Magne Hagesæter)

On the Ground

Israeli Riot Police guard a bulldozer during a house demolition. InLod, Israeli authorities demolished the homes of seven Arab familiesin one day. (Photo credit: Oren Ziv/Activestills – see box below)

The Activestills collective was established in 2005by a group of Israeli and international documentaryphotographers, out of a strong conviction that photography is avehicle for social change. We believe in the power of images toshape public attitudes and to raise awareness on issues that aregenerally absent from public discourse. We view ourselves aspart of the struggle against all forms of oppression, racism, andviolations of the basic right to freedom. We do work on varioustopics, including the grassroots movement and the popularstruggle against the Israeli occupation, women’s rights,immigration, asylum-seekers, social justice, the siege on Gaza,and housing rights inside Israel.

The work as a collective is based upon the belief that mutualwork serves each photographer‘s personal statement, and thatjoint projects will create shared statements that are more powerfulthan individual ones. The collective, now consisting of tenphotographers, operates in Israel/Palestine and focuses on social

and political documentation, project production, publication, andexhibition.

Israeli public opinion is shaped first and foremost by themainstream media, which is shifting to become more racist andviolent. The impact of this shift is evident in increased publicsupport for violent military operations, racist legislation, anddiscriminatory policies. We wish to challenge these changes withour work. Each time our photos are published, either in themainstream media or in alternative channels, they conveymessages that challenge oppression and bring the voices of theunheard into public discourse.

Activestills often uses public space for exhibitions in order tomore directly influence public opinion and bring about socialchange.

Learn more, see the photos, and contribute atwww.activestills.org and www.flickr.com/activestills


view people on the ground through a grainyvideo feed and identify “suspicious behav-ior.” And on that basis, the people arebombed.

But a new academic paper describessignature strikes as “legally suspect.”Kevin Jon Heller, professor at MelbourneLaw School, writes in a forthcoming piecefor the Journal of International CriminalJustice that the Obama administrationappears to be engaging in the unlawful useof force in many of its signature strikes.

The drone war has been receivingrenewed focus among academics skepticalof its legality and adherence to humanrights. A study last month from the Stan-ford and NYU schools of law found thatthe drone program is “terrorizing” thecivilian population of Pakistan and that itis having a “counterproductive” impact,effectively creating more enemies than iteliminates. Another study this month fromColumbia Law School’s Human RightsInstitute found the number of Pakistani

civilians killed in drone strikes are “signif-icantly and consistently underestimated”by tracking organizations which are tryingto take the place of government estimateson casualties, which the Obama adminis-tration won’t comment on because thedrone war is technically secret.

Heller deals primarily with the questionof legality under international law. Broadlyspeaking, signature strikes are suspectbecause international humanitarian lawobligates “[t]hose who plan or decide uponan attack” to “do everything feasible toverify that the objectives to be attacked areneither civilians nor civilian objects.”Article 50(1) of the Additional Protocolsdemands that “if there is still ‘doubt’ thatan individual is a legitimate target aftertaking all feasible precautions, ‘that personshall be considered to be a civilian.’”

The many anecdotal instances ofmassive civilian casualties in any numberof drone strikes throughout the Obamapresidency suggest that these legally man-dated precautions were not adhered to; ifno “doubt” remained, we would not see somany incidents like this. But Heller tacklesspecific categories of signature strikes and

shows that the criteria for bombing peoplein these drone strikes violates the law.

Citing a recent New York Times report,among others, that described the adminis-tration’s method of counting “all military-age males in a strike zone ascombatants…unless there is explicit intel-ligence posthumously proving them inno-cent,” Heller writes:

That status, however, cannot simplybe inferred from the fact that anindividual is of military age and ispresent in an area that the CIAchooses to attack. As the ICRC haspointed out, membership in an orga-nized armed group requires actualand continuous participation in hos-tilities; it “cannot depend on abstractaffiliation, family ties, or other cri-teria prone to error, arbitrariness orabuse.”The “military-age male” signature,it is worth noting, is an unfortunateremnant of the Vietnam war, duringwhich the U.S. government rou-

tinely presumed thatany military-age malein a combat zone wasa Viet Cong fighter.Colin Powell openlyacknowledged thatpractice in his autobi-ography:“I recall a phrase weused in the field,MAM, for military-age male. If a helo[helicopter] spotted apeasant in blackpajamas who lookedremotely suspicious, a

possible MAM, the pilot wouldcircle and fire in front of him. If hemoved, his movement was judgedevidence of hostile intent, and thenext burst was not in front but athim. Brutal? Maybe so.”Powell’s description is echoed –more colorfully – by Lt. WilliamCalley, the architect of the infamous1968 massacre at My Lai:“[I]f those people weren’t all VCthen prove it to me. Show me thatsomeone helped us and fought theVC. Show me that someone wantedus: one example only! I didn’t seeany… Our task force commander…his star said it’s a VC area andeveryone there was a VC or a VCsympathizer. And that’s because hejust isn’t young enough or oldenough to do anything but sympa-thize.”The “military-age male” signatureis not simply brutal, as Powellacknowledges. It is also unlawful.Comparing the Obama administra-tion’s criteria for signature dronestrikes to one of the most notorious

war crimes inmodern memory isan extraordinarystatement that themedia and the polit-ical class are simplyignoring.

Another criteriaHeller focuses on is“consorting withknown militants.” TheU.S. has been targetingand killing people theydetermine through theirdrone cameras are “consorting” with “mil-itants,” and going on to stand by thesekillings as morally and legally legitimate.Heller says this doesn’t meet the require-ments for participating in hostilities andtherefore targeting on this basis is criminal:

At most, then, consorting withknown militants can be consideredsympathizing or collaborating withan organized armed group. Neitheractivity however makes an individ-ual a lawful target. With regard tosympathizing, the UN Sub-Commis-sion on Human Rights adopted aresolution in 1985 that specificallycondemned the U.S.-backed El Sal-vadoran government’s practice ofkilling peasants it believed weresympathetic to the FMLN. Accord-ing to the Sub-Commission, “as longas the so-called ‘masses’ do notparticipate directly in combat,although they may sympathize,accompany, supply food, and live inzones under the control of the insur-gents, they preserve their civiliancharacter, and therefore they mustnot be subjected to military attacks.”With regard to collaboration, theSpecial Court for Sierra Leone spe-cifically held in Fofana andKondewa that “persons accused of‘collaborating’ with the governmentor armed forces would only becomelegitimate military targets if they

were taking direct part in the hostili-ties. Indirectly supporting or failingto resist an attacking force is insuffi-cient to constitute such participation.”At the very least, the Obama adminis-

tration deserves to be investigated for theirconduct in the drone war. Heller doesn’tsay all drone strikes are illegal, and heconcludes that even the unlawful strikes“would be difficult to prosecute as warcrimes,” because it’s difficult to proveintent to kill civilians on the part of theObama administration. Several high-levelofficials at the United Nations, however,have speculated that war crimes have beencommitted in instances where the Obamaadministration targeted rescuers in follow-up strikes or funeral attendees – both ofwhich have been alleged.

But even putting war crimes prosecu-tion aside, crimes have clearly been com-mitted. The Obama administration,however, is the most powerful cabinet inthe world. And the powerful don’t typicallysubmit to the law. Aggressive prosecutionsand harsh jail sentences need to be reservedfor pot-smokers and convenient storethieves. The powerful can’t be botheredwith thousands of dead civilians and inter-national laws governing the use of force.

John Glaser is Assistant Editor atAntiWar.com where this article, reprintedwith their permission, first appeared.


President Obama’s method forcounting civilian casualties “ineffect counts all military-agemales in a strike zone as combat-ants, according to several admin-istration officials, unless there isexplicit intelligence posthumouslyproving them innocent.”

–New York Times, May 29, 2012

Drones, My Lai, and Prosecuting the Powerful

www.macleodcartoons.blogspot.com facebook.com/MacLeodCartoonsTwitter @MacLtoons <https://twitter.com/#!/MacLtoons

Airmen assemble an MQ-1 Predator at Creech Air ForceBase, Nevada after returning from Afghanistan. The siximages on the side symbolize the number of Hellfire missilesshot while in combat. (USAF photo)


by Hilary StaufferOn October

25, 2012, BenEmmerson QC,the UnitedNations’ SpecialRapporteur onCounter-Terrorism and Human Rights,announced that a UN investigation unitwould be established early next year “toinquire into individual drone attacks…andother forms of targeted killing conductedin counter-terrorism operations.” Emmer-son and Christof Heynes, the UN SpecialRapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary orArbitrary Executions, are establishing thisbody in order to investigate individualdrone attacks that are alleged to haveresulted in civilian deaths.

Emmerson noted that since 9/11, theU.S. and its allies have used the “globalwar on terror” to justify military actions ofseemingly limitless reach. Following in thefootsteps of the Bush Administration, theObama Administration has used the “waron terror” – a war without geographicalboundaries – to justify targeted killings inPakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.

While states have an obligation toprotect their own citizens and, therefore,employ effective counter-terrorism strate-gies, the Special Rapporteur emphasizedthat this obligation does not give states theoption to disregard the human rights of“those accused or suspected of involve-ment in acts of terrorism” or the communi-ties in which these individuals reside. Arecent report released by Stanford andNYU law schools demonstrated that U.S.drone strike policies in Pakistan terrorizethe entire civilian population in NorthWaziristan. These strikes violate a widerange of human rights: they deprive indi-viduals of their rights to life, to work, toeducation, to a cultural life, to self-deter-mination, and to physical and mental health.

Emmerson also expressed his opinionthat it was “extremely naïve” for the inter-national community to believe that “thatinternational terrorism in all of its modern

forms and manifestations is capable ofbeing definitively defeated by militarymeans.” Rather than relying wholly on

militaristic means todefeat the globalspread of terrorism, theSpecial Rapporteurstated that it was essen-tial for a holisticapproach to be adopted

that addresses the factors that compelindividuals to resort to terrorist activities.Such an approach requires that human

rights and the rule of law be both respectedand protected.

(Find a link at Reprive.org.uk to a copyof Emmerson’s October 25 speech atHarvard Law School. )

Hilary Stauffer is Deputy Director ofReprieve, and oversees the Guantánamoand Drones projects.

Reprieve.org.uk, October 23, 2012. –The statement of a man who lost his fatherto a CIA drone strike in Pakistan wastoday described as “very moving” by thejudge hearing a legal challenge to the UKGovernment’s reported policy of supportfor the secret drone program.

Lord Justice Moses was referring towritten evidence from Noor Khan, a resi-dent of Northwest Pakistan who is bring-ing the challenge with thesupport of legal actioncharity Reprieve.

UK intelligence ser-vices reportedly provide intelligence tosupport the CIA’s secretive program ofdrone strikes, which claims to target “mil-itants” but has resulted in the deaths ofhundreds of civilians and had a severepsychological impact on communitiesacross the region.

Mr Khan’s statement in full is asfollows (translated from Pashto):

The community is now plaguedwith fear. Drones hover over ourskies day and night. All over NWA[North Waziristan Agency, Paki-stan], but especially in Datta Khel,drone strikes continue to take place.The Tribal elders are now afraid togather together in jirgas as has beenthe custom for more than one cen-tury. We are scared that if we get

together we might betargeted again.The mothers and wivesplead with the men to notcongregate together forfear that they will betargeted. They do notwant to lose any more oftheir husbands, sons,brothers, and nephews.

We come from large families, somejoined families, and people in thesame family now sleep apartbecause they do not want theirtogetherness to be viewed suspi-ciously through the eye of thedrone. They do not want to becomethe next target.Most of the people in NWA live inpoverty. They have no option butto stay in this area, though manywant to leave because of thedrones. Plus, we are connected tothis land. This is ancestral livingplace. Why should we have to leavewhen we have done nothing wrong?The younger generation has beenespecially affected. The childrenalmost all suffer from mental

illness and live in constantfear of the drone. The childrenno longer attend school andbecause of the constanthumming of the drones

they’ve become mental patients.My generation fears that becausethe younger generation is notgetting an education they willbecome a burden on us and stiflethe growth that we could haveachieved as a people.

Reprieve legal director Kat Craig said:“Mr Khan’s evidence highlights the terri-ble toll the CIA’s illegal program of dronestrikes is taking on ordinary people acrossNorthwest Pakistan. The British peoplehave a right to know whether their owngovernment is providing support to thisdevastating and counterproductive cam-paign. Continued obfuscation is no longeracceptable – ministers must come clean.”

THE CEMETERY

In the Margraten Cemetery for Fallen Americans, Netherlands Honking swans, noon chimes – upright in emerald grass white white white crosses

–Ed Tick

U.S. drone strike policies in Pakistan terrorize theentire civilian population in North Waziristan.These strikes violate a wide range of human rights:

UN says new investigation unit will inquire into drone attacks

Drone victim’s statement “very moving,”says judge in UK drones policy case

Want to help the WCT?

Here are a few ways:• Order and distribute a bundle or two.• Volunteer to promote the paper intonew places such as book stores,libraries, coffeehouses, recruitingoffices…• Volunteer your time – just a fewhours each quarter. Whatever skillsyou have, we can probably use.• Send a small donation (or large if youinsist).• Surprise us with your creativity.

“The community is now plagued with fear.”


The Blue Scarf MovementThe Blue Scarf represents the expansive blue sky we all share. It helps remind us – and those

we meet and engage in conversation – that we are all in thistogether and that our only sensible choice in life is to care for oneanother and to protect and share our world and her resources.

The Movement began with a very brave group of women inAfghanistan. It has become a way for people around the world toexpress their solidarity as global citizens for a better world.

The Blue Scarf has been carried forward by different peopleand groups – each with their own unique perspectives. As auniversal symbol, the Blue Scarf transcends any particular groupor interpretation.

Make your own; distribute them; learn more at thebluescarf.org.

“We are strangers to oneanother,” the youth of Kabul write,“because we don’t know each otheryet. We haven’t been able to sharewith you how, in Afghanistan, theloneliness of mutual killing is divid-ing Afghans over and above theloneliness of life. War is constantlyclosing in on us and our open moun-tains.” They continue:

There is a global awakeningthough, and as everydayAfghans, we’re likewise awak-ening to the reality that all warsare socio-economic, geo-polit-ical wars against the people.We have unwisely assentedto a global system whichgives unjust authority andmoney to a few fellow humanbeings in governments or bigbusinesses. This system tellsus that we are ordinary folk,and that we don’t understand.But we’re awakening. Weunderstand that the world hasa child dying from hungerevery ten seconds. Our landgets taken away from us orpurchased. We study hard buttoday’s education makes ourminds numb and we end upunemployed. Our mothersand infants die easily. We getthreatened, imprisoned, orkilled. The system makes usits subjects, and then frightensus into killing one another.Would others understand howdehumanizing or isolatingthat feels? How we perpetu-ally look around the corner inhope for real friends?

We, the Afghan Peace Volun-teers, are a grassroots groupof ordinary, multi-ethnicAfghans seeking a life of non-violence, equality, self-relianceand the unity of all people. Asyoung people who make up68% of the Afghan population,we want a better world!We want the whole world tobe borderless friends. Webelieve that every hand offriendship will be an act forfreedom.Solidarity with one another,person by person, can changeour unfair world. We wish for2 Million friends, friends thatwould ask for the war to end.Last Spring, when we hadgathered in Kabul to remem-ber Afghan war victims overthe past four decades, amiddle aged Afghan man wasclose to tears as he said, ‘Iwon’t be satisfied withremembering only the 9 chil-dren killed in Kunar prov-ince. I want us to rememberall 2 million victims of war.”War, politics, money andpower can jail, destroy andkill people, but it can’t jail,destroy or kill love. We askto be friends, we ask thatevery human being’s basicneeds be met, and we ask forno more killing!How we wish to live withoutwar! How we wish for ’2Million Friends’!Here’s the petition/letter they

want to send to U.N. SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-Moon:

We are ’2 MillionFriends’ from Afghanistan


and around the world who want peace inAfghanistan.

We strongly urge the United Nations tobroker a ceasefire in Afghanistan. We askthe United Nations to call on all the partiesin conflict, including competing warlordsand the Taliban, the Karzai government,regional players and NATO, to lay downtheir weapons.

Each day the violence continues meansa continuing humanitarian disaster for thepeople of Afghanistan. It is time for theparties in conflict to seek non-militaryalternatives and work cooperatively to allo-cate the funds and resources necessary fora full reconstruction campaign in Afghani-stan. The people of Afghanistan, especiallyAfghan mothers, cry out for the wars tocease and for their children to be fed andeducated. We ask for their cries to be heard.

The Afghan Peace Volunteers are agrassroots group of ordinary, multi-ethnicAfghans who seek a life of nonviolence,equality, self-reliance and the unity of allpeople. They have met with Dr. Sima Samar,Chairperson of the Afghanistan IndependentHuman Rights Commission. Together withinternational friends, they are calling onpeople around the world to become friendsfor peace in Afghanistan on December 10th,

2012, the International Day of HumanRights. Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguirewill join them for events in Afghanistan.

[It’s not too late to sign on. - Ed.]We believe that a negotiated ceasefire

initiated by the United Nations will greatlyassist Afghans in their wish to end the war.A ceasefire will pave the way for negotia-tions, reconciliation and the importantresponsibility to meet the humanitarian andsocioeconomic needs of 30 million Afghans.We await your response with hope. Sincerely, for the ordinary people of

Afghanistan, The Afghan Peace Volunteers and 2

Million Friends

I urge you to visit www.2millionfriends.org,sign the petition, send it out to your friends,publicize their website, and try to get as manypeople as possible to sign their peace petition.

Together, let’s reach out and shake the hand offriendship that the young peacemakers of Afghan-istan have offered, and do what we can to help endthe evil U.S. war on Afghanistan and promote anew world of peace, love and nonviolence.

John Dear is the author of 30 books on peace andnonviolence, including most recently, Lazarus,Come Forth!; Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings;Put Down Your Sword; and A Persistent Peace.

2 Million Friends

WCT Winter 2013 V-1

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