Today due to the resistance of the Iraqi people and domestic pressure created by the peace movement here in the U.S., officially U.S. forces have left Iraq and the Iraqi people are picking up the pieces of a destroyed national infrastructure and fragmented society. The two decades of Iraq Wars from 1991 to when the last U.S. troops left in 2011 must not be swept aside like a bad dream to be forgotten.  Our nation has an obligation to the people of Iraq and to U.S. service members sent to fight, bleed and die there. I congratulate the peace movement for its successful efforts to bring our troops home and end the violence caused by U.S. military operations and or the presence of our forces, but there is still much work to do to help the people of Iraq and U.S. troops and the communities to which they have returned heal.

As always the peace and anti-war community is busy with over flowing plates of work to do. There have been important developments in the Bradley Manning case. He needs our support as much as anyone. March is Women’s History month and as we celebrate the triumphs and continuing struggles of women here at home, the challenges women face around the world in the U.S. war machine and in the aftermath of U.S. wars must be part of the dialogue.

We are beginning preparations for the April 15th Global Day of Action on Military Spending to end the madness of international squandering of material resources and people’s lives and we must support our allies in the struggle for a clean and sustainable environment so that we can have safe food and clean air and water.

Thank you for your devotion to peace and justice. We will continue in the struggle because it honors those who brought us this far, it is the right thing to do, and we know that together we are making a difference for the better.

Power to the peaceful
Michael T. McPhearson

Iraq War Anniversary

Our only hope is in a cultural and political revolution – Yanar Mohammed, Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq President

International Women’s Day celebration this year coincides with the tenth anniversary of the tragic attack of the US war-machine on millions of unsuspecting Iraqi civilians, causing one of the biggest human crises of modern times, under the pretext of liberating Iraq and the women and men of Iraq. Read More

10 Years Later, Preemption Still Doesn’t Work

Coleen Rowley- Exactly a decade ago, when Bush-Cheney’s war machine was hell-bent on invading Iraq and few Washington power figures were brave enough to get in the way, I made this appeal to FBI Director Robert Mueller. The Cassandra business of warning about catastrophes that come true is certainly a thankless proposition. But it’s hardly the time to stop trying when ten years later, the consequences of instituting the “preemptive war” doctrine have become even more painfully obvious and bankrupting. Read More

For Iraqi women, America’s promise of democracy is anything but liberation

A decade on from the US-led invasion of Iraq, the destruction caused by foreign occupation and the subsequent regime has had a massive impact on Iraqis’ daily life – the most disturbing example of which is violence against women. At the same time, the sectarian regime’s policy on religious garb is forcing women to retire their hard-earned rights across the spectrum: employment, freedom of movement, civil marriage, welfare benefits, and the right to education and health services. Read More

Ten Years of War: Stories from the Frontlines in SF

March 19th is the 10th Anniversary of the commencement of the War in Iraq: A war that ended quietly in December 2011 and was quickly and deeply forgotten by many. It’s consequences, though, are far-reaching and very present. As we reach the watermark of a decade since the war began it seems a fitting time to have a frank discussion of what the war has wrought for those who have participated in it.  Read More

Womens Rights

On International Women’s Day, NOW Denounces Anti-Woman Austerity Policies

On International Women’s Day, the National Organization for Women calls upon leaders in the United States to firmly reject the austerity model that has been economically devastating to our sisters in Europe. Call it what you like — austerity, sequester, deficit reduction, balancing the budget. I call it a stealth attack on women. Read More

Militarism

Update from the Bradley Manning Support Network

Our office is in the process of obtaining approval to release the statement PFC Manning read to the Court in support of his providence inquiry on 28 February 2013.  As with every Defense filing, the statement will be reviewed and redacted prior to publication. Read More

Veterans For Peace Applauds Bradley Manning!

Bradley Manning has shown us once again that he is a hero. On Thursday, February 28, he made a profound and historic statement to a military court and to the world. Reading from prepared notes for over an hour, Bradley detailed how he released classified military and government documents to Wikileaks, and he explained why he did so. Read More

GDAMS – Global Day of Action on Military Spending

We are organizing a Global Day of Action on Military Spending each year in April to coincide with the release of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) annual figures on world military expenditures. It is also Tax Day in the US. In 2013, GDAMS will take place on Monday, April 15. Read More

JAPAN: Vigil highlights Japan’s historic vow to renounce war

On Friday, February 22, Pax Christi USA and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker held a vigil outside the White House, while President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met inside for lunch. The Japanese prime minister is from a political party calling for the repeal of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution which renounces war and prevents Japan from becoming a nuclear power. Read More

Nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp nominated for 2013 Nobel Peace Prize

PHILADELPHIA (February 25, 2013) – Gene Sharp, whose decades of research and analyses of the effectiveness of nonviolence has been used worldwide to create or support fledgling democracies, has been nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Read More

Resist AFRICOM

Resist AFRICOM is a campaign comprised of concerned U.S. and Africa-based organizations and individuals opposed to the new U.S. military command for Africa (AFRICOM).

With the establishment of AFRICOM, the Pentagon attempts to increase access to Africa’s oil and to wage a new front in the Global War on Terror without regard for the needs or desires of African people. Enabled by oil companies and private military contractors, AFRICOM serves as the latest frontier in military expansionism, violating the human rights and civil liberties of Africans who have voiced a strong “no” to U.S. military presence. Read More

Iran War Weekly

After eight months of low-profile inactivity, the Iranian nuclear issue sprang to life this week in widely separate venues: Washington and Kazakhstan.  In Kazakhstan’s capital Almaty, Iran’s nuclear negotiators met with the “P5+1” (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany). Read More

Prosperity Not Austerity Tour

While our communities suffer and so many desperately need jobs, 58% of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget goes to the Pentagon. Most of this huge budget is both unnecessary and wasteful. Saturday, March 23, Marylanders will hit the road to demand that Congress prioritize human needs over war. Supporters from DC and VA will join us at the end at a Capitol rally — co-sponsored by CODEPINK, United for Peace & Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, DC Labor Council, Peace Action, MoveOn DC, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore and Institute for Policy Studies’ Genuine Progress Project. Read More

Environmentalism

No Fracking, No Pipelines

Something is happening in the Delaware River watershed, something important and inspiring.

Yesterday over 100 people from dozens of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware groups joined together in one of the most empowering actions I’ve been part of in a long time. Read More

Tell President Obama: Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

Essentially game over” for the climate. That’s what climate scientist James Hansen calls the proposed Keystone XL pipeline — which would carry oil out of Canada’s vast tar sands oil fields to Texas, where it will be refined, then burned across the globe, dealing a catastrophic blow to our chance of returning earth to a stable climate. Read More

But neither President Obama nor the Republicans will tell the full story about how huge Pentagon and war outlays are choking our economy. With military expenditures consuming 57% of discretionary spending, there is no other area of the budget that deserves more scrutiny and trimming. Yet a thirst to control access to the world’s resources and dominate international relations will not allow clear thinking and stewardship towards what is best for the American people. The U.S. nearly spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined, outpacing number two China by six to one and continues to expand its military presence around the world building dozens of new military and CIA bases in the Middle East and Africa. A foreign policy that causes a nation to borrow huge sums from its rival is flawed by design and destined to fail.

Sadly, neither President Obama nor the Republicans will talk about the devastating impact U.S. drone warfare has on communities and the families caught in the crossfire of U.S. military operations. Somehow it is lost on the President and so many Republicans that when a child dies from U.S. bombs and bullets overseas it is just as tragic as the loss we suffered in Newtown -– it is American gun violence gone global. It seems to matter little that Pakistanis, Afghans and others facing U.S. military action love their children just as much as we do.

The answer to our nation’s problems will not be adequately addressed by either party because war making is central to their vision of the future. They cannot or choose not to see that war is a manifestation of hate and hate cannot be defeated by more hate. With humanity facing unprecedented challenges it is time the global community work together. Climate change, nuclear proliferation (highlighted today by North Korea’s bomb test), poverty and war will overwhelm us if we do not take a global stand against them.

On February 15, 2003 the world said No to War and Yes to Peace in the largest global demonstration in world history. New York Times writer Patrick Tyler wrote, “…the huge anti-war demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.” Today through Twitter, Facebook and other means average people around the world are more connected than ever before. We have the means at our disposal to force our government through world public pressure to do what is good and just for all of us. We have the tools and knowledge to connect the global 99%.

The answers to the world’s challenges are not clear, but it begins with the sentiment Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is trying to communicate in these words, “We have inherited a big house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.”

We can do it, we must do it and we will do it.

Power to the peaceful.

Please visit our February 15th 2003 Facebook page for images and comments about that powerful day. Join in to talk about the day and the future of global peace.

– Michael T. McPhearson
National Coordinator

In his inauguration speech President Obama made many great pronouncements that would lead us to believe his agenda for the next four years will be more progressive, moving his policies closer to what we would like to see.

His statement that, “A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun.” would be wonderful if it were true. Yes technically a recovery has begun, but we know millions continue to be out of work with many having given up looking for jobs because there are none to be found. We know that there are continued threats of budget cuts which will lead to more layoffs and more unemployment. We know that Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and a host of services to assist working and poor people are under attack by both major parties.

We also know that the war in Afghanistan may technically come to an end, but what of drone warfare and air campaigns in Pakistan and Afghanistan? What about covert operations around the world including in Iran? What about the support of war and oppression in areas of conflict such as Gaza? Speeches are nice but we demand real action. We demand real change and we demand real peace and justice.

Of all the words in his speech perhaps this phrase holds the most truth, “You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.”

He got that right. It’s up to us to set a course of peace and justice. Let’s do it in 2013.

Where’s the talk about cuts to military spending, in other words, cuts that can have a real effect on the deficit?  Let’s flood Pelosi’s office with calls and letters demanding significant reductions to military spending.

Email: http://pelosi.house.gov/contact/email-me.shtml

San Francisco phone: (415) 556-4862

Washingtion, DC phone: (202) 225-4965

Letters by U.S. mail (two-week delay for security scanning):

Representative Nancy Pelosi
Washington, DC Office
235 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

Representative Nancy Pelosi
San Francisco Office
90 7th Street, Suite 2-800
San Francisco, CA  94103

“We call upon President Obama and the U.S. Congress to actively, and visibly, support the Helsinki Conference for a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.

This is a logical, comprehensive approach to solving the nuclear crisis in the Middle East, which can eliminate the threat of another catastrophic in the region.” 

We are seeking as many organizational and individual signers as possible in order to “deliver” and publicize the letter during the first week of December. Please help us spread the world by sending this request to your lists!

Click here for more information.