W.D. Ehrhart: Afghanistan | Vietnam Redux
The real tragedy in all this is that the United States of America invaded yet another foreign country, imagining that we could bend it to our will and create a “Mini-Me” version of ourselves, and then spent twenty years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives ignoring what was obvious from the very outset.
Rev. John Dear: Daniel Berrigan and his fearless nonviolence, at 100
Five years since his death and 100 since his birth, legendary priest, author, poet and activist Daniel Berrigan continues to offer wisdom and insight on living a life of creative nonviolence.
Michael Simms: American Ash (text and video)
Old warriors rarely
say anything about
people they killed or
horrors they saw
Frida Berrigan: ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ chronicles 260 years of war resistance and conscientious objection
From the American Revolution through the Global War on Terror, author Chris Lombardi tells the inspiring stories of people who refused to kill.
Andrew Bacevich: Reflections on Vietnam and Iraq
Virtually all Democrats and many in the media ascribe to Donald Trump full blame for the mess in which this country finds itself. Yet Americans would do well to temper their expectations of what supplanting Trumpism with Bidenism is likely to produce.
W.D. Ehrhart: The Farmer
A farmer of dreams
knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams
knows what it means to be patient.
Steve Sweeney: Vietnam ships 450,000 protective suits for U.S. health care workers
A statement from the U.S. embassy in Hanoi confirmed that the first batch of supplies arrived in the U.S.’s national strategic stockpile on April 8.
Video: Tom Lehrer | The Vatican Rag & Send the Marines
What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
‘Till somebody we like can be elected.
W.J. Astore: Anti-war Pragmatists and Pro-war Fantasists
What if peace is really based on pragmatism, and war on fantasy?
Nick Turse: The Moral Injury of War
Some men are very nearly monsters, capable of killing without compunction or remorse. In the everyday civilian world, we generally seek to lock them up. In war, they have a chance to fully flower.
Denise Levertov: At the Justice Department November 15, 1969
Brown gas-fog, white
beneath the street lamps.
Cut off on three sides, all space filled
with our bodies.
Andrew J. Bacevich: Reflections on “Peace” in Afghanistan
However great my distaste for President Trump, I support his administration’s efforts to extricate the United States from Afghanistan….Prolonging this folly any longer does not serve U.S. interests. Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you’re doing something really stupid, stop.
Nick Turse: What Does War Have to Do With Me
TRIPOLI, Libya — Sometimes war sounds like the harsh crack of gunfire and sometimes like the whisper of the wind. This early morning — in al-Yarmouk on the southern edge of Libya’s capital, Tripoli — it was a mix of both.
