Amauta

Is the U.S. Army acting like the Mafia in seeking to imprison 23-year-old Private Bradley Manning for the rest of his life? Is the primary aim of the abuse being dished out to Manning that of deterring other U.S. soldiers who might be tempted to put conscience, compassion, and commitment to [...]

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On October 7, 2010, the Afghanistan War will enter its 10th year. We’re fighting to stop this brutal, futile conflict, but we need your help. Maintaining a network of contacts on the ground in Afghanistan and an ongoing campaign here in the U.S. is expensive.

The 10th Year: Afghanistan Veterans Speak Out (Second video)

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Llamémosla Jenny. Jenny estaba sola y su expresión exteriorizaba una clara confusión. Su cara estaba sembrada de acné y su pelo, rubio y corto, se tensaba en las puntas. Cuando el tren Skyline aceleró hacia su próximo destino, se “cuadró” con toda su fatiga militar y sus botas mirando fijamente al infinito en la inmensidad [...]

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Carlos Arredondo, a native Costa Rican, began to collect items that memorialized his son’s life, a Marine killed in Iraq in 2004. He tacked them to his truck. He has traveled throughout the country presenting to the public a visual expression of death and grief. He has placed some of his son’s favorite childhood toys and belongings in the coffin. The power of his images, which force onlookers to confront the fact that the essence of war is death, has angered some who prefer to keep war sanitized and wrapped in the patriotic slogans of glory, honor and heroism.
“This is what happens every week to some family in America,” says Carlos. “This is what war does. And this is the grief and pain the government does not want people to see.”

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One by one, soldiers just arriving in Baghdad were taken into a room and questioned by their commanding officers. “All questions led up to the big question,” explains former Army Spc. Josh Stieber. “If someone were to pull out a weapon in a marketplace full of unarmed civilians, would you open fire on that person, even if you knew you would hurt a lot of innocent people in the process?”

It was a trick question. “Not only did you have to say yes, but you had to say yes without hesitating,” explains Stieber. “In refusing to go along with the crowd, it was not irregular for somebody to get beat up,” he adds. This was a typical moment of training for the ground unit involved in the infamous “Collateral Murder” video

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US law officially proclaims Memorial Day “as a day of prayer for permanent peace.”

However, the US is much closer to permanent war than permanent peace. Corporations are profiting from wars and lobbying politicians for more. The US and the rest of the world cannot afford the rising personal and financial costs of permanent war. No doubt, the USA is number one in war. This coming year, the US will spend 708 billion dollars on war. Our country has 5 percent of the world’s population, but accounts for more than 40 percent of the military spending for the whole world.

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Source: Democracy Now!
April 12, 2010
We speak with a former member of Bravo Company 2-16, the military unit involved in the 2007 helicopter shooting of Iraqi civilians that killed twelve people, including two Reuters employees, as seen on the military video released by WikiLeaks. “The natural thing to do would be to instantly judge or criticize [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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by Gordon P. Erspamer
October 18, 2009
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 [...]

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