“Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit [of hatred and revenge] flourish any longer in our land.” —Robert F. Kennedy, April 5, 1968 * On the day after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then senator...
War and Peace
4/4, 44 Years Ago . . .
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” —Aeschylus * It was the night of April 4, 1968, when word spread that the Rev. Martin Luther King...
How Many U.S. Soldiers Were Wounded in Iraq?
500,000 vets may suffer from PTSD, depression, or traumatic brain injury Dan Froomkin, senior Washington correspondent for Huffington Post, reports at Nieman Watchdog that the Pentagon’s figure of 32,226 wounded seriously undercounts the true casualty rate. Possibly...
Eisenhower on Military Hyperpower and Dictatorship
The “Crushing Weight of Military Power” “Any person who doesn’t clearly understand that national security and national solvency are mutually dependent and that permanent maintenance of a crushing weight of military power would eventually produce dictatorship should...
“We Cannot Fail to Try”
A Break from “Hell No You Can’t” ”We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.” —John F. Kennedy, July 15, 1960 * Every year about this time we set aside our JFK assassination...
In Honor of Veterans
A Salute to the Living and the Dead Today—the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year—we pause to honor the veterans of wars, especially Americans in uniform since the Great War, World War I, whose ending on November 11, 1918—the eleventh hour of the...
As “End” of Iraq War Is Announced, U.S. Digs In, Warns Iran
* [ cross-posted @ Daily Kos ] * “In August [2002] a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: ‘Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.’ ” —Paul Krugman, “Things to Come,” March 18, 2003 * Where’s That “Mission Accomplished”...
Iraq War Veteran Injured by Police, in Critical Condition, after Crackdown of Occupy Oakland
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ * Police Use Tear Gas, Flash Bang Grenades on Occupy Oakland Protesters Scott Olsen, a Marine Corps veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq who is now involved in Veterans for Peace, was critically wounded by Oakland police...
Ten Years of U.S. War in Afghanistan
“While post-9/11 veterans are more supportive than the general public, just one-third (34%) say that, given the costs and benefits to the U.S., the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have both been worth fighting.” —Pew Research Center, “War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11...
Occupying Wall Street with Nurses, Teachers, Transit Workers, and the Rest of America’s Middle Class
“We are the 99% . . . You are the 99%.” “Banks got bailed out / We got sold out!” “Whose street? Our street!” * This Is Not the Fringe. This Is the Middle Class. Yesterday into last night we gathered near New York’s City Hall and marched with what looked and felt...
We’re Not Forgetting
* Except for posting this brief comment, we are among the millions of New Yorkers who are doing anything but “commemorating” the 10th anniversary. We are not reading the magazines’ special commemorative editions or watching the solemn and reverent broadcasts brought...
Obama’s Troop Drawdown Is Little, Late, But a Start
In Announcing 15-month, 1/3 Troop Reduction, Is President Ignoring or Responding to Public Opinion and Bipartisan Congressional Trend Against War? The announcement of a 33,000-troop drawdown is more than we would have gotten from the previous president; bu though...
A Reader Replies re: the Killing of Osama bin Laden
Our friend Archie in New Rochelle, New York, takes issue with part of yesterday’s post on the killing of Osama bin Laden. The points Archie makes about bin Laden’s pre-9/11 relationship to the United States—or the U.S.’s to bin Laden—are factually correct (and see...
Mission Accomplished: Bin Laden Is Dead.
Now Focus on Threats Closer to Home.
* [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] Last September, Levees Not War raised the question whether Hurricane Katrina was a more significant catastrophe than 9/11, more emblematic in terms of chronic ills afflicting the United States. Now the question is raised whether the...
Going to War Is Easy
“A continual state of war”: No need to consult Congress or those who must pay the cost. Ned Resnikoff at Salon.com’s War Room writes a fine piece on “The Real Reason We Rushed into (Another) War.” Fine and troubling. But don’t let that stop you: Mr. Resnikoff’s piece...
How Many Wars? After Libya . . . ?
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli . . .” [ also at DailyKos ] We once made the sardonic observation that apparently the aim of the “war on terror,” rather than protecting the Homeland, was to inflame the entire Muslim world—or at least those...
Who in America Remembers Afghanistan?
How will we ever see the end of a war that everyone seems to have forgotten—everyone except the families and friends of the wounded and the dead? “We are not dealing with a conventional war. We cannot respond in a conventional manner. I do not want to see this spiral...
Praying for Change in Egypt
* This photograph of Egyptian Christians joining hands to protect their Muslim fellow citizens bowing in prayer in Cairo is both heartening to see and conveys the support we feel for the democracy movement in Egypt. (Christians in Egypt, known as Copts, are some 10 to...
Rev. King and Gun Violence: “Study War No More”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahI8o9-U7Z0&feature=player_embedded * “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” —Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Declaration...
A Christmas Greeting and Good Wishes
In a year that has held good tidings and ill—the usual ingredients with some new and sometimes startling arrangements . . . We want to take a moment from our Christmas celebrations to wish you and your family and friends a good and cheerful holiday season. We wish you...