I’ll be visiting my nation’s longest war next week in Afghanistan, thanks to a wonderful organization called Voices for Creative Nonviolence which seeks to build friendship and understanding between countries. I’ll be meeting with ordinary and prominent Afghans and reporting on what they think of their country’s future — often a more complex view than will fit into a television sound byte.

In preparation, I’ve been trying to ascertain what Americans think read more

Johan Galtung, sometimes called the father of peace studies, predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the refusal of Egyptian soldiers to attack civilians. His prediction of the collapse of the US empire in 2020 appears to be on schedule. So, it was noteworthy when he predicted on Tuesday at the University of Virginia that the war in Libya would last 20 years. If, however, NATO and the opposition were to kill Gadaffi, he said, the fighting could go on for more than 20 years.

This prediction read more

President Obama on Monday said he would “never hesitate” to use the U.S. military “unilaterally” to defend “interests” and “values,” including “maintaining the flow of commerce.” Fear of exactly that led the founders of this republic to give Congress the exclusive power to declare war. James Madison did not believe any single individual could be trusted with such power:

“The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the read more

Audio from Hans Michael:

I still hope to get the audio for Part I with Lawrence Kaplan and Part III with Chris Hedges, but here’s Part II (David Swanson) in 3 pieces (mp3s):

one

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Lawrence Kaplan of TNR just explained why we have to bomb Libya
I’m about to be on to correct him
http://www.620kpoj.com/mediaplayer/

I may soon have an opportunity to meet with nonviolent activists in Afghanistan, an area of the world we falsely imagine has earned the name “graveyard of empires” purely through violent resistance. I was educated in the United States and learned in some detail about the lives of several morally repulsive halfwits who happened to have “served” in various U.S. wars, assaults, and genocides. But I was never even taught the name Badshah Khan. Were you?

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, read more

Letter to the Daily Progress:

Good for Congressman Hurt objecting to unconstitutional warmaking in Libya without Congressional authorization, and without proper compliance with the War Powers Act. Yet, how bizarre that he does not know how he would have voted had Congress been given that chance. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has introduced an amendment to block funding for war in Libya. Hurt is now compelled to choose: will he sponsor that amendment or not? I encourage him to do so.

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Congress held an emergency meeting to defund NPR, and then did nothing as the President spent vastly more money on bombing Libya. President Obama didn’t have to ask for the funding, because the Pentagon had enough lying around for just such an occasion.

A fundamental lie that keeps war going is the idea that we avoid war by preparing for it. “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” said Theodore Roosevelt, who favored building a big military just in case, but of course not actually read more

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