Christmas truce memorial. (Image: eyeSPIVE / flickr)

Source: t r u t h o u t

by Paul J. Magnarella
December 25, 2009

Although World War I ranks as one of the most horrific in history, causing about 40 million casualties and up to 20 million military and civilian deaths, it also included a famous and spontaneous peaceful interlude inscribed in chronicles as the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914.

World War I

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Bosnian Serb in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, plunged much of Europe into war. The Entente Powers of France, Russia and Britain stood against the Central Powers of the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman Empires. In mid-September, the German, British and French commands ordered their armies to entrench along a 475-mile Western Front that extended from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier. Four years of brutal, stalemated trench warfare followed. Most trenches were about seven feet deep and six feet wide, topped by a parapet of sandbags. From there, barbed wire entanglements extended into no man’s land. In many places, the no man’s land separating German and British front-line trenches was only 30 to 70 yards wide. Read the full story

versión en español abajo

Find out more here: March Forward!

Our real enemy is not the ones living in a distant land whose names or policies we don’t understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it’s profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us
- Mike Prysner Read the full story

by Gordon P. Erspamer
October 18, 2009

Mop and bucket are probably inadequate tools for cleaning up spilled mind-control chemicals. (reegmo, flickr)

Despite the passage of four decades, America and its military have never come to grips with its own ghastly programs of using soldiers as guinea pigs to test chemical or biological weapons such as LSD, sarin, nerve gases, plague, mescaline, anthrax and hundreds of others. At the same time, they also conducted mind-control experiments, as soldiers and others were administered drugs, and septal implants were inserted in the sinus cavities a la “The Manchurian Candidate.” The secret research programs, originally code-named MKULTRA but continued under a long succession of other code names, were conducted mainly by the US Army from 1943 until at least 1975. However, the CIA provided planning, financial support and field testing. Participants in the experiments were recruited by the Army and lured by promises of no KP duty, a four-day workweek, the promise of medals and special recognition. At the same time, they were sworn to secrecy and forced to sign a general consent form without informed consent or even knowing the nature of the toxic substances that were sprayed in their faces, applied to their skin or injected into their veins. And the government continues to try to hide the fact that Nazi members were recruited to help devise these experiments as part of Operation Paperclip, and that many of the biological experiments were modeled after those conducted by the notorious Col. Shiro Ishi in Manchuria and Japan. Read the full story

Combat paper. (Artwork: Jon Turner)

by Dahr Jamail
September 6, 2009

“Throughout history, culture and art have always been the celebration of freedom under oppression.”
- Author unknown

Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have tough truths to tell, and it has been well demonstrated that the establishment media does not want to broadcast these. Given the lack of an outlet for anti-war voices in the corporate media, many contemporary veterans and active-duty soldiers have embraced the arts as a tool for resistance, communication and healing. They have made use of a wide range of visual and performing arts – through theater, poetry, painting, writing, and other creative expression – to affirm their own opposition to the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Read the full story

A Palestinian boy plays with a balloon amongst the rubble of his house which was destroyed during Israel's 22-day offensive in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, April 2009. Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians, including four children, who were in groups waving white flags during the Gaza war, Human Rights Watch has said. (AFP/File/Mohammed Abed)

by Dion Nissenbaum
August 13, 2009

JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers battling Hamas militants last winter in Gaza opened fire on at least seven groups of Palestinian civilians who were carrying white flags, killing 11 people, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday.

During the three-week conflict, the U.S.-based human rights group says, Israeli soldiers in separate parts of Gaza killed five women, four children and two men as they used white flags to try to escape the battle zone. Read the full story

In the Doolittle Raid in World War II, this B-25 bomber takes off from the deck of the USS Hornet. (Photo: US Navy)

Thoughts on Western Jihad

by John Feffer
August 6, 2009

The actor Will Smith is no one’s image of a suicide bomber. With his boyish face, he has often played comic roles. Even as the last man on earth in I Am Legend, he retains a wise-cracking, ironic demeanor. And yet, surrounded by a horde of hyperactive vampires at the end of that film, Smith clasps a live grenade to his chest and throws himself at the enemy in a final burst of heroic sacrifice. Read the full story

And Ten Steps to Take to Do So

by Chalmers Johnson
July 30, 2009

However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union. Read the full story

In the book, "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent," Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd draw parallels between GI war resistance during Vietnam and today. (Photo: Remember.gov)

by Elaine Elinson
July 23, 2009

During the Vietnam War, GI dissent was both documented and nurtured by a slew of underground GI newspapers. Papers like “Up Against the Bulkhead,” “Harass the Brass” and “About Face” were mimeographed and passed from base to base, hand to hand. These bold, clever, ragtag papers gave voice to the soldiers’ rage against the injustices of the military and offered advice on everything from filing for conscientious-objector status to organizing anti-war protests. Read the full story

english version below

Un informe elaborado por la ONG israelí Breaking the Silence (Rompiendo el Silencio) basado en testimonios de soldados que participaron en la masacre de Gaza -entre el 27 de diciembre de 2008 y el 18 de enero- deja en evidencia que se cometieron atrocidades como el uso de civiles como escudos humanos, la entrada a sangre y fuego en casas sin tener miramientos por sus habitantes o el uso de fósforo blanco, una sustancia prohibida. Read the full story

by Daniel J. Lakemacher
June 10, 2009

After having been deployed for six months as a member of the medical team assigned to the detainee population at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, I can easily say that Gitmo is the most hate-filled place I have ever experienced. The animosity I felt in the “camps” on a daily basis was almost palpable, and it often required a very conscious effort to not escalate the hostility.

Because of the powerful emotions involved, it has taken me more than a year to finally identify the key factors that prevented me from previously being able to question the justification of Gitmo. During the six months in which I saw other human beings confined to cages, I began to undertake an intense study of the concepts of liberty and natural rights. Over the course of the year that followed, this investigation led me to the wholehearted conviction that war is immoral. Amazingly, even after such a distinct transformation, it took still more time to apply my new understanding to my own role in Gitmo. Read the full story