War Is A Crime

Lisa Fithian has just published a terrific guide to direct action and strategic civil disobedience as the most radical and rapid means to social change, called Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce Loving Resistance. Fithian has been described by Mother Jones magazine as “the nation’s best-known protest consultant.” She has supported countless movements including the Battle of Seattle in 1999, rebuilding and defending communities following Hurricane Katrina, Occupy Wall Street, and read more

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In today’s piece, TomDispatch regulars William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger consider ways in which the Pentagon is essentially a family business (if, that is, you think of the weapons makers of the military-industrial complex read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

It was the first moment of Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. He memorably rode a Trump Tower escalator into the race to the tune of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” and, as everyone still remembers, promptly read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

I’ve never forgotten something that Amr Musa, then head of the Arab League, said in 2004: “The gates of hell are open in Iraq.” That was just a year and a half after the American invasion and occupation of that country. How horrifyingly right he was, though no one paid the slightest read more

By Pat Elder, World BEYOND War, September 18, 2019

Fire fighters at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County practice dousing a petroleum fire using carcinogenic foam.

There was an earthquake in California on August 23, 2019, although the ground didn’t move, and few noticed. That was the day California ordered the state’s water systems to establish the nation’s lowest Notification Levels for dangerous Per and Poly Fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in drinking water.

Two of the deadliest PFAS read more

Kathy Kelly has traveled to war zones and lived alongside ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon. She and her companions in Voices for Creative Nonviolence believe the U.S. should end all U.S. military and economic warfare and pay reparations for suffering already caused by U.S. wars. Recently, Voices has helped organize vigils, forums, fasts, and nonviolent direct action calling for an immediate end to hostilities driving near famine conditions in Yemen. Kathy Kelly is a member read more

In the years following 2003, the U.S. military dotted Iraq with over 500 military bases, many of them close to Iraqi cities. These cities suffered the impacts of bombs, bullets, chemical and other weapons, but also the environmental damage of open burn pits on U.S. bases, abandoned tanks and trucks, and the storage of weapons on U.S. bases, including depleted uranium weapons. Here’s a map of some of the U.S. bases:

This map and the other illustrations below have been provided by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, read more