March 2011

Usually “power couple” describes two plutocrats, but here is a young engaged (to be married) (and in the struggle for justice) couple with the power to move people against war, that leaves the audience asking them to speak in their schools. Wasfi is an Iraqi American who speaks of war from the point of view of its victims. Caputi is a US veteran of the current war on Iraq who describes the crimes he engaged in and the thinking that allows such acts, including what he describes as “reconnaissance read more

It’s a simple point, but an important one, and one that gets overlooked. Whether or not you think a particular war is moral and good, the fact remains that war is illegal. Actual defense by a country when attacked is legal, but that only occurs once another country has actually attacked, and it must not be used as a loophole to excuse wider war that is not employed in actual defense.

Needless to say, a strong moral argument can be made for preferring the rule of law to the law of rulers. read more

Letter to Editor

Thanks for you excellent review of David Goldfield’s argument that the Civil War was unnecessary and pointing out that every other nation that ended slavery did it without a civil war. Goldfield is right that we must get our view of past wars right if we are to avoid future ones.

One way in which our views must change is away from the worldview that allowed you to print this sentence: “The Civil War is still the most costly war we’ve ever waged in terms of loss read more