War Crimes Times Vol. IV No. 3, Summer 2012

Vol. IV No. 3 Summer 2012 Donations Welcome

The War Crimes TimesWarCrimesTimes.org

A publication of“Exposing

the true costsof war”

“We will end war crimes when we end war – which is a crime in itself!”

V e t e r a n s C a l l f o r E n d o f N AT OVeterans for Peace works for the abolition

of war, and while that process will take manysteps, one that should be taken immediatelyis the dissolution of the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization.

NATO has always been a war-makinginstitution lacking in accountability to thepeoples of the nations it claims to represent.But NATO at least once claimed a defensivepurpose that it neither claims nor representsany longer.

NATO has militarized the nations ofEurope against the will of their people, nowmaintains hundreds of nuclear weapons innon-nuclear European nations in blatant vio-lation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,and is threatening Russia with missile baseconstruction on its borders.

Having fought aggressive wars in Yugo-slavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, NATOremains in Afghanistan, illegally, immorally,and to no coherent purpose. The people of theUnited States, other NATO nations, andAfghanistan itself, overwhelmingly favor anend to NATO's presence, while PresidentsObama and Karzai, against the will of theirpeople, work to commit U.S. forces to at leasttwelve and a half more years in Afghanistan.

NATO provides the United States with apretense of global coalition and legality.Approximately half of the world's militaryspending is by the U.S.—adding the otherNATO nations brings the total to three-quar-ters. The head of the Pentagon, Leon Panetta,recently testified in Congress that a war couldbe made legal by working through either the

United Nations or NATO. While no writtenlaw supports that claim, it is a claim that hasserved its intended purpose. NATO alsoserves as a false legal shield, protecting theU.S. military from Congressional oversight.

The U.S.-dominated NATO holds up thepast year's war on Libya as a model for thefuture, with an eye on various potential vic-tims, including Syria and Iran. In so doing,NATO serves as the armed enforcer of theexploitative agenda of the G-8.

NATO's interests are neither democrati-cally determined nor humanitarian in purpose.NATO does not bomb all nations guilty ofhumanitarian abuses. Nor does NATO'sbombing alleviate human suffering; it adds toit. Saudi Arabia is not a target. Bahrain is nota target. Ben Ali and Mubarak were not

targets. An analysis of NATO's real motiva-tions reveals a desire to control the global flowof oil; to support dictators who have supportedU.S./NATO wars, prisons and torture opera-tions; to back Israel's expansionist agenda;and to surround and threaten the nation of Iran.

The killing and destruction engaged in byNATO in Libya was illegal, immoral, andcounter-productive as is its aggression inAfghanistan. NATO’s wars have not broughtdemocracy, peace, or human rights anywhere.

Libya is not a model for future NATOaction. There is no model for future NATOaction. NATO has lost its reason to exist if itever had one. Veterans For Peace joins withour brothers and sisters in Europe, who arealso rallying nonviolently against NATO, incalling for its elimination.

If an “Islamist” is one whose corruptinterpretation of the Islamic religion informshis extreme, militant political agenda, thenhow would a “Christianist” act?

In this issue, we explore how elementsof fundamental evangelical Christianityhave been a major force in promoting anAmerican culture of war. Not only havethey abandoned the Prince of Peace for agod of war, replaced compassion withvengeance, and swapped brotherhood forxenophobia, they have proselytized theirdistorted message within the militaryestablishment itself.

Chuck Fager, in his review of Chris-tianity and War, and Marc Mullinax, inhis short essay, provide strong argumentsthat these “fundamentalist” views are anaffront to their faith, contrary to Scripture,and far from the true fundamentals ofChristianity. Within the military culture,Ross Caputi writes about the anti-Muslimattitudes and Willard Hunter (in hisreview of No Snowflake in an Avalanche)describes the persecution of those who arenot the “right kind of Christians.” JohnScales Avery urges us to consider thewisdom of Tolstoy, Gandhi, and King whounderstood the true Christian message andMark Twain leads us in prayer.

Despite tremendous societal pressure,throughout history individuals have sum-moned the strength and courage to resistthe cultural programming of militaristicstates. Mike Wong refused his orders forViet Nam and Joe Glenton refused asecond tour to Afghanistan. As more ofthese stories are told, more soldiers andpotential recruits will realize their innatesense of morality and refuse to go to war.

Akin to morality is justice, and whilemorality can be an individual decision,justice often requires the action of a legalsystem. But Margaret Kimberley reportsthat the International Criminal Court, actu-ally “advances the cause of criminality” bynot prosecuting the likes of George W.Bush. A significant step, however, hasbeen taken by a war crimes tribunal inMalaysia as recounted by Eunice Au ofthe New Straits Times. Meanwhile,RobertYoder urges us to indict the incumbent.

Also: young author Adam Berner dif-ferentiates “crazy” from “insane” as he reactsto a classic war film; Evan Knappenbergeron alternatives to military service; Terry J.Allen, Dave McCoy, and Willard Hunteron military environmental toxins; KevinBaker on “Green on Blue” killings; BillQuigley on drone assassinations; and more.

Veterans For Peace brings banner to NATO summit meeting at McCormick Place inChicago on May 20. (photo by Ellen Davidson). More at WarCrimesTimes.org.

Religion, Militarism, Morality, Justice

One of thefunctions of goodliterature is tohelp us to put our-selves imaginatively into the skin ofanother person. Good literature (and forthat matter, good cinema, and televi-sion) ought to broaden the range ofhuman sympathy, allowing us to sharethe feelings of other people who arevery different from ourselves.

It is an interestingfact that Leo Tolstoy,who is generally con-sidered to have been

one of the greatest novelists of all time,was deeply aware of ethical problems,especially as an old man. “...The sharp-est of all contradictions,” Tolstoy wrote,“can be seen between the government’sprofessed faith in the Christian law of

(Continued on page 9

Thou Shalt Not Killby John Scales Avery

“Bearing the sins of imperialism” – image by Mark Runge

2 Summer 2012 The War Crimes Times • WarCrimesTimes.org

The War Crimes Times is produced anddistributed by volunteer members of VeteransFor Peace chapters 69 in San Francisco, CA; 099in Western North Carolina; and 119 in St.Petersburg, FL.

The War Crimes Times provides information on war and the warcrimes that invariably accompany war, the need to hold war criminalsaccountable, the many costs of war, and the effects of our war cultureon our national character and international reputation. Additionally andimportantly, we also report on the efforts of the many people whosacrifice their time, money, and comfort to work for peace.

Our contributors include journalists, legal experts, poets, artists, andveterans speaking from experience. While their views may not alwaysbe entirely consistent with ours, their topics address the concerns of theWar Crimes Times.

WCT is published and distributed quarterly.For copies contact: [email protected]

Donate online at WarCrimesTimes.org;or send a check to VFP Chapter 099 (memo “WCT”) :

WCT c/o VFP Chapter 099PO Box 356Mars Hill, NC 28754

We welcome submissions of original articles, poetry, artwork, cartoons,news items, and letters to the editor.Please submit by the 1st of the month that the issue is printed: March,June, September, December.Contact: [email protected]

This issue was produced and distributed by: Kim Carlyle, SusanCarlyle, Susan Oehler, Lyle Petersen, Mark Runge, Nadya Williams,and Robert Yoder.

WCT has been endorsed by March Forward! and the Justice forFallujah Project.

by Evan KnappenbergerHere in Central Virginia, people take great pride

in our local heritage. Virginia was home to tenpresidents, most notably Jefferson, Madison, andMonroe. But it also has a historyof militarization. The late historianand Veteran for Peace Dr. HowardZinn says in his People’s Historyof the United States that the “OldDominion” has at times been themost highly-militarized place inthe world. The small town where Ilive, home to Thomas Jeffersonand the University of Virginia, is akey part of the military-industrialcomplex, and many of my neigh-bors are military intelligence pro-fessionals. Whenever I see off-dutymilitary personnel walking thestreets of my community, I wonderto myself, “What would the Found-ing Fathers say if they were aroundto witness the modern, militarizedworld that they helped to create?”

Without a doubt, they wouldbe appalled by the size and scope of the Americanmilitary empire. Jefferson was staunchly against theidea of a standing army. While he believed in theuniversal responsibility of community service, healso believed that militarism was detrimental to thehealth of democracy. Jefferson was against the

principles of state violence being foisted on peace-able citizenry. He wrote to John Jay in 1788, “Thebreaking of men to military discipline is the breakingof their spirits to principles of passive obedience.”

I can speak directly to this issue as someone whojoined the army at 17 out of high school. During myenlistment, not only did I hurt innocent people andaccomplish nothing in the defense of democracy,but I watched as corrosive military disciplinedestroyed the souls of my comrades. Not surpris-ingly, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimatesthat half of all veterans returning from war will behomeless for two years or more; only one in fiveuses the Montgomery GI Bill college money; onlyone in twenty veterans actually finishes college. Ofthe veterans that spend four years in college, theAmerican Psychological Association estimates thathalf have been suicidal, and 20% attempt suicide.The VA estimates that 18 veterans kill themselvesevery day. The military lost more soldiers to suicidein 2011 than it did to combat.

It’s also not surprising, since the military likesto recruit 16- and 17-year-old minors, that the U.S.refuses to sign the United Nations Protocol onChild-Soldiers. I was just 16 when I started theprocess, 17 when I signed, and 18 when I shippedout. By age 20, I was interrogating Iraqi civiliansand making life-or-death decisions. There is noexcuse for a country which lets minors kill andtorture, but won’t allow them to smoke pot or drinkalcohol. Our kids don’t stand a chance against thisoverwhelming violence.

It follows that one of thebest ways to improve our com-munities is to have an activeand effective peace move-ment. But more than a politicalmovement, what we need is an

educational component to inoculate our youthagainst the soul-crushing violence that is inscribedon young men and women who “signed the dottedline” for one reason or another.

In many cities the peace move-ment hosts “Alternatives to MilitaryService” (AMS) programs. In Bell-ingham, Washington, the WhatcomPeace & Justice Center hosts such aprogram. Peace advocates, mostlyVeterans for Peace members, set uptables in school cafeterias and distrib-ute information which gives a differ-ent perspective to students interestedin the military. In most places, theyhave secured agreements with schoolofficials that ensure “limited andequal access”; limited in respect toamount of contact they have withstudents, and equal in regard to theaccess that the military has to thosestudents. The success of this agree-ment lies in limiting the military’sreach into the lives of our children.

Military recruiters are notoriously ruthless. Thou-sands of congressional complaints are lodged eachyear about recruiter misconduct, and U.S. armyrecruiting command has a well-documented problemwith suicide. In recent years, Marine Corps recruitersin Orange County, California, were caught usingteenage prostitutes as an enlistment incentive. Another

scandal saw recruitersscavenging group homesfor mentally-ill recruits.Despite these well-docu-mented problems with

recruiters, they are still given almost total access tohigh-school students and student information.

If every city and county had an AMS programlike Bellingham’s, it would ensure ethical adherenceby the military regarding our most preciousresource, our children. It would plant the seeds ofunderstanding in those children who do enlist sothey are better able to cope with the complex moralsituations they might encounter. Implementation ofAMS programs would indeed be a first step inaddressing the problems Jefferson foresaw with themaintenance of a standing military force, namelythe moral, intellectual, and emotional problems. Ona global level, our nation could become known forproducing peacemaker-leaders, rather than forflying drones and shooting missiles at third-worldvillagers. At the very least, some of this heavymilitarism needs balancing out.

To overcome the problems that the world facesin the twenty-first century, it is essential that weengage young people in better ways of moral think-ing; we must challenge the dominant assumption thatwar and standing armies are necessary. To set thingsright in the world, we must teach our youth to seebeyond salaries and careers, and to inspire in thema desire for Peace and a yearning for moral rectitude.Alternatives to Military Service programs are justone way that we can begin to build peace on Earth.

Evan Knappenberger,[email protected],is an Iraq War veteran member of VFP Chapter 962,Charlottesville, VA. See www.EvanKnappenberger.net.

Why Every Community NeedsMilitary Alternatives Programs

I WANT YOUTO HAVE

OTHER OPTIONS

We must challenge the dominant assumptionthat war and standing armies are necessary.

WCT is GreatI picked up a copy of the War Crimes Times by Veterans for Peace

and got a chance to read through some of it this afternoon. It is great!Just the kind of anti-war, national publication that is needed. So thisis a fan mail.

No, I didn’t agree with everything that I read. (For instance, thelead article [“U.S. Withdrawal and Defeat in Iraq,” WCT Vol. IVNo.1] makes the argument that “The withdrawal marks the culmina-tion of the U.S. defeat in Iraq, one comparable to the U.S. defeat inVietnam.” If the U.S. did not still retain over 16,000 personnel in Iraqand if the socialist bloc was still standing, I would agree withWallerstein. But in both instances, the world situation today is quitedifferent today from back then.)

But the point is not whether I agree with every word, but whetherthe publication is consistently anti-imperialist and, I would empha-size, holds the perpetrators accountable. And on this count, the WarCrimes Times is exemplary.

Roger D. HarrisCorte Madera, CA

(via Gene Ruyle)WCT is not so Great

First, let me say you’ve got it all wrong.War is OUR fault, not the fault of crooks in government, military,

and banking. If a 9-year-old kid is fat, it is not the kid’s fault. It is the faultof the parents who bought the food. The kid just eats what he/she gets.

Similarly, we don’t have wars because greedy politicians, bankers,and war corporations want the war. Of course they want war,naturally. We don’t get mad at a tiger for being a tiger when it ripsoff someone’s arm. That’s what tigers do, naturally.

We only have wars, illegal or not, because stupid Americans paythe illegal taxes to make that possible. The proof of your stupidity,including that of most Americans, is found in the U.S. tax code, under

(Continued on page 13)

Letters

The War Crimes Times • WarCrimesTimes.org Summer 2012 3

by Margaret Kimberley

The New World Order under U.S.dominion turns international law onits head and puts criminal-boughtflunkies on the judicial bench.America, which is not even asignatory to the treaty that created theInternational Criminal Court, callsall the shots like a Mafia don.Africans and a few Serbs are the onlyones that get arrested, while greatcrimes against peace masquerade ashumanitarian intervention.

The International Criminal Court (ICC)is, despite its name, a court that advancesthe cause of criminality. It acts in concertwith the most powerful nations on Earth,

and allows them to engage in crimes ofaggression against millions of people allover the world. Only the powerless are everpunished and the aggressors use the courtto behave as if they were the injured parties.

The world sees this institution in abenevolent light, assuming that it is ameans of protecting humanity from thewhims of evildoers in high places. Yet afternine years of existence, the ICC hasmanaged to prosecute mostly little knownAfrican dictators and a few Serbiansthrown in for good measure.

Ironically, after having opposed theestablishment of the ICC and after failingto ratify the treaty that brought it intoexistence, the United States is now itsbiggest cheerleader. The Bush administra-tion was terrified that Americans, includingBush, Cheney, and the rest of their hench-men and women, might be punished fortheir transgressions around the world.

It is strange that after instigating thekillings of thousands of people in Iraq, thatneither George W. Bush nor Tony Blairhave any reason to fear being brought tojustice. They travel around the world,unafraid of punishment, giving speeches,writing books, making money, and havingno worries whatever about getting their justdeserts.

They had even less reason to worryafter Barack Obama succeeded them. Asthe more effective evil, Obama knew thathe needed to eschew Bush regime ham-handedness in international relations.While simultaneously refraining from rat-

ifying the treaty which brought the ICCinto existence, Obama and company con-stantly offer up others to put in the dock inThe Hague.

Last year Barack Obama, David Cam-eron, and Nicholas Sarkozy decided tocarve up Libya, using NATO to do theirdirty work and killing an untold number ofcivilians in the process—and they too haveno fear of prosecution. Lead ICC prosecu-tor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said as muchwhile the crime was being committed,openly taking the side of the West. Moreno-Ocampo lied to the world, claiming that theLibyan government distributed Viagra tosoldiers in order to use rape as a “weaponof war.”

The charge was a lie, made up out ofwhole cloth. If there was any pretense ofICC impartiality, Moreno-Ocampo himself

dispelled any such notion. The anything-but-disinterested prosecutor is now fea-tured in the latest Kony 2012 video, endingany debate about whether or not the phony,web-driven, ginned up outrage has anystanding in reality or truthfulness.

While Obama and Clinton try to scuttleKofi Annan’s Syrian peace plan and hintat President Assad’s prosecution before theICC, the ICC shows its true colors. WhenPalestinians petitioned the ICC to investi-gate war crimes committed by Israel inGaza, they were turned away. Moreno-Ocampo determined that because Palestinehas not been recognized by U.N. GeneralAssembly, it has no standing to seek justicefor the 2,000 people massacred by Israel in2008 and 2009. The hypocrisy is blatant,and proves that the United States and itsallies present the greatest threats to peacein the world.

At the United National Antiwar Coali-tion conference last month, I asked profes-sor and author Vijay Prashad why the ICCprosecutes Africans and token Serbs, butnever threatens anyone in Washington,London, Paris, or Jerusalem. His answerwas simple. “It is just international racism.I think there is no (other) way to explainit.”

George Orwell said, “Political languageis designed to make lies sound truthful andmurder respectable.” Those words are stilltrue; humanitarian missions and “responsi-bility to protect” are in fact euphemismsmeant to promote good old-fashionedimperialism.

The fact is that the United States, Israel,and their European allies never protectanybody. They continue doing what theyhave done for decades: deciding who isinconvenient and therefore disposal. Thehuman toll is “collateral damage” andquickly forgotten.

There are of course people and nationswho cause other human beings great suf-fering in the world. They should bestopped, but they should all be stopped.Joseph Kony has actually killed fewerpeople than the president of Uganda,Yoweri Museveni, but Museveni is a friendof the United States, so no social mediacampaign to will be directed at getting himbefore the ICC.

Until there is greater justice in theworld, that is to say when the rich capitalist

nations have rivals for power, perhaps acourt dedicated to punishing human rightsviolations would be a viable option. Rightnow it is fairly useless, because it was notcreated by people with honest intent.

Perhaps a simple name change is in

order. Is Court for International Criminalsa better name? How about Criminal CourtInternational? For once, political languagewould be honest and George Orwell wouldbe proven wrong.

Margaret Kimberley is an editor and seniorcolumnist for the Black Agenda Report. Shealso blogs at freedomrider.blogspot.comand can be reached at Margaret.Kimberley(at) BlackAgendaReport.com. This articlewas reprinted with her permission.

The ICC is Criminal

Only the powerless are ever punished and theaggressors use the court to behave as if they werethe injured parties…..The hypocrisy is blatant, andproves that the United States and its allies presentthe greatest threats to peace in the world.

Whatever the wishes of the maker of this bumper sticker, great powers – and the countries they protect – are in effect not subject to international law.

(Image from www.futureatlas.com/blog)

KUALA LUMPUR: Former UnitedStates president George W. Bush and hisassociates were found guilty of crimes oftorture by the Kuala Lumpur War CrimesTribunal on May 11. The tribunal unani-mously ruled that the prosecution hadproved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

It said all eight accused had engagedin a web of instructions, memos, direc-tives, legal advice, and actions which ledto the establishment of a common planand purpose, joint enterprise and conspir-acy to commit crimes of torture and warcrimes, in relation to the “War on Terror.”

The “War on Terror” was launched bythe U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The eight accused are Bush; formerU.S. vice-president Richard Cheney;former U.S. defense secretary DonaldRumsfeld; former counsel to Bush,Alberto Gonzales; former general counselto the vice-president, David Addington;former general counsel to the defensesecretary, William Haynes II; formerassistant attorney-general Jay Bybee; andformer deputy assistant attorney-generalJohn Yoo.

Tribunal president judge Tan SriLamin Mohd Yunus said the eightaccused were also individually and jointlyliable for crimes of torture in accordancewith Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter.“The U.S. is subject to customary interna-tional law and to the principles of the

N u r e m -b e r gC h a r t e ra n de x c e p -tional cir-cumstances suchas war,instabil-ity, andp u b l i ce m e r -g e n c yc a n n o texcuse torture.”

The tribunal agreed that Bush,Cheney, and Rumsfeld knew the U.S. wasviolating the 1984 Torture Conventionand the Geneva Conventions but failed tointervene to prevent the violations. “Evi-dence clearly shows the legal opinionsand advice given by the lawyers Gonza-les, Addington, Haynes, Bybee, and Yooto Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld werelegally flawed and the lawyers knew fullwell their advice was sought to be actedupon and thus are also liable.”

The legal opinions, contained in mem-orandums, were that the Geneva Conven-tions did not apply (to suspected al-Qaedaand Taliban detainees); there was notorture occurring within the meaning ofthe Torture Convention; and that enhanced


Unanimous Verdict: Bush is Guiltyby Eunice Au

George W. Bush painting inClinton Library, Little Rock, AR

(Preston Kemp photo)


In the spring of 2011, a young soldier came to see meat the Quaker peace project where I work. He wanted totalk about filing a Conscientious Objector (CO) claim.

Once a very enthusiastic recruit, he had been in theelite Special Forces training program. But the realities ofmilitary life had quickly disillusioned him. Raised aconservative Baptist in Texas, he said his worldview hadchanged so radically that – here he paused to take a deepbreath: “I’m not even a Republican anymore.”

Not that he was now a Democrat. Instead, when Iexplained that he would have to describe his current viewsin his CO claim letter, and show how he had arrived atthem, he handed me a book he’d brought with him.

The book was Christianity and War, by LaurenceVance.

I don’t know how the GI’s CO claim turned out; likemany who call or visit, he hasn’t followed up. But for me,Christianity and War was a godsend, and a revelation.

Why? For several years I’ve been increasingly con-vinced that something which can be called “AmericanWar Christianity” (or AWC) is a key pillar of U.S.militarism. A crusading variety of fundamentalism has

become pervasive in the armed forces, including the toplevels, and its impact is frightening, its potential evenmore so.

There are books and articles that document thisphenomenon: one, With God On Our Side, by Michael L.“Mikey” Weinstein, was a trailblazer when it appeared in2006. Another is a paper by Air Force Col. WilliamMillonig, “the Impact of Religious and Political Affilia-tion on Strategic Military Decisions and Policy Recom-mendations,” which despite the lengthy title is conciseand straightforward. These and others have been valuableto me.

But ever since I came to an awareness of AWC, Ifigured that besides journalistic or sociological reports,there must also surely be some theological challengers toit. I began looking for them, to guide me in raising aspecifically religious challenge to this dangerous phenom-enon. Any day I expected to encounter a cadre of liberalreligious thinkers who were all over it.

Not so. Yes, I have run across a number of theologianswho are writing from an “anti-imperial” perspective, butthe empire in question usually turns out to be the Roman(or Babylonian, if they’re Old Testament types). When itcomes to our current plight, their writing typically recyclescliches from such sources as National Public Radio.

Interesting, but hardly adequate. Besides which, muchsuch “postcolonial” writing is encased in such impenetra-ble academic jargon that even the Air Force’s bunker-busters couldn’t penetrate it.

The closest thing I found to an actual theologicalchallenge to AWC as a force today was Wayward Chris-tian Soldiers, by Charles Marsh. But while Marsh effec-tively called out the war-mongering rhetoric of a handfulof evangelical leaders on the eve of the Iraq invasion in2003, he denied being a liberal, instead swearing fealty toKarl Barth’s “neo-orthodoxy.” Besides, his small bookdidn’t go beyond the handful of targeted statements toexamine the broader theological phenomenon involved.

Marsh was a bright brief candle on a dark horizon.Elsewhere among evangelicals, the voices were eitheruneasily equivocal, or more often entirely on board withthe AWC outlook.

So when the young soldier handed me Vance’s booklast spring, I was still in search of an informed, vocalliberal theological opponent of AWC.

I’m still searching – for a liberal or conventionallyevangelical challenger to AWC, that is. But not for aneffective one; not anymore. Christianity and War wieldsa theological bat like Babe Ruth on a tear, knockingpro-war piety right out of the park. A representativeaffirmation:

“The love affair that manyconservative, evangelicaland fundamentalist Chris-tians have with the militaryis an illicit affair. It is con-trary to the tenor of theNew Testament. It is anaffront to the Savior. It is acancer on Christianity.”(254)

And again, in 2006: “itis a blight on Christianitythat many of those who

continue to support [former President George W.] Bushand his [Iraq] war are evangelical Christians who willsupport Bush until the bitter end – no matter how manymore U.S. soldiers are killed, no matter how long the warcontinues, no matter how many more billions of dollarsare wasted, and no matter what outrages the presidentcommits against the Constitution, the rule of law, andChristianity itself.” (327)

But the author, Laurence Vance, is no liberal. As hemodestly puts it, “I am willing to match my Christian,Protestant, conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist,Baptist credentials up against anyone.” The difference isthat Vance is all these things, and a staunch Libertarian.A Ron Paul supporter (tho the book doesn’t deal withpresidential politics), he names names, calls a spade aspade, and cites scripture, the Church Fathers, the Found-ing Fathers, Erasmus, Charles Spurgeon, and even theoccasional Quaker to back up his strongly held views.

Vance cites other theologians and preachers frommany centuries, and not a liberal in the lot. He’s beenmaking his fundamentalist antiwar case across the internetfor several years, based at LewRockwell.com, a majorlibertarian website. Indeed, Christianity and War is lessa treatise than a compilation of blog posts. If that factmakes its text often repetitive, it doesn’t diminish the forceof Vance’s arguments, or the pungency with which hemakes them.

His fiery sermonettes will likely offend the large massof church folks of various denominations who value

politeness over any point of doctrine or ethics, especiallywhen it concerns those in their own circles. But Vancedoesn’t care about that. He cares about truth and theGospel. His model is the Gallilean who ignored all adviceto go easy on calling his Pharasaic opponents “hypo-crites,” amid much more incendiary terms. No, hisvehemence will not commend this book to such “nice”folks; but Vance says he has heard from many disen-chanted soldiers, who once accepted the USA=God’s-licensed-killers, but have been cast into a wilderness ofconfusion by the lies and hypocrisies of imperial war. Andit was one of them, a soldier rather than a genteel seminaryprofessor, who brought his book to me.

Why I hadn’t heard about Vance before mid-2011probably bespeaks my provincialism; but none of myliberal friends had heard of him either. Too bad for us.

But that doesn’t mean Vance hasn’t been heard. Oh,indeed, he has. And he has answered: Three times herepeats a list of epithets flung at him: “Yes, I know, I ama liberal, a communist, a Quaker, a pacifist, a peacenik, atraitor, a coward, an appeaser, an America-hater, and ananti-war weenie.” (p. 189; also 102, & 122)

Well, I’m here to say that Vance is NOT a Quaker; notthat there’s anything wrong with that. He is no pacifisteither. He makes plain that he would fully support adefensive war, if the U.S. were ever invaded. Just sayin’.

Further, his book is not just a compendium of invec-tive. Vance’s biography states that he holds degrees inhistory and theology, as well as economics and account-ing. Besides knowing the literature of orthodox andevangelical writers against war and militarism, he is alsosteeped in Biblical languages. (Among his other books is

Laurence M. Vance. Vance Publications, Pensacola, Florida. 418 pages.Reviewed by Chuck Fager

Forward with God! (1915)by Boardman Robinson. Cartoon depicting the aftermath

of the German shelling of Reims Cathedral. A red cross hangsby the entrance, a crucifix lies on the ground, a nun attendsto a dead man, and a knight rides by on horseback with hissword and eyes raised skyward.

“American War Christianity” is a key pillar of U.S.militarism. A crusading variety of fundamentalismhas become pervasive in the armed forces, includingthe top levels, and its impact is frightening, its poten-tial even more so.


one about Greek verbs in the New Testament; anotherdeals with its prepositions. One wonders if they are ascontroversial in their more esoteric fields.)

It turns out, as he shows in detail, that there is actuallya sizeable body of anti-military work by very orthodox,even fundamentalist authors, most of it unmentioned bythe tradition’s modern spokesmen, and ignored by liberalstoo, for other reasons. But Vance has reprinted many ofthese volumes, including one, The Morality of War,published in 1829 by a Quaker, Jonathan Dymond, whichwas widely circulated in its day.

Christianity and War also includes a detailed linguis-tic-theological analysis of the sixth commandment, “Thoushall not kill,” from Exodus 20:13 (pp. 84ff). Many recentBible translations have rendered the text as “Thou shaltnot commit murder,” on the basis that some kinds ofkilling were not only sanctioned in the Bible but com-manded by various texts.

Vance is not having it. He points out that the Hebrewterm translated “kill,” in the commandment is not used inthe Old Testament to refer to killing in battles.(86) Andhe goes on to say,

Exodus 20:13: “Thou shalt not kill.”God onlyknows how many people around the world havebeen killed as a direct result of U.S. foreign policy.No, I am not equating the United States with NaziGermany, Soviet Russia, or Red China. . . .[But]From the beginning of the Iraq War, I have main-tained that participants in this evil war violate theexpress teaching of the biblical commandmentagainst killing. Christian apologists for war say thateither the commandments don’t apply to the state,

and therefore killing done in service for the state ispermissible, or else that the sixth commandment islimited to murder, and therefore killing done inwartime is permissible. Therefore, just as Calvarycovers it all, my past with its sin and shame, so thewearing of a uniform covers it all, my militaryservice with its death and destruction. Thus, killingsomeone you don’t know, and have never seen, inhis own territory, who was no threat to anyone untilthe United States invaded his country, is not murderif the U.S. government says that he should bekilled. No soldier is responsible for the death anddestruction he inflicts in a foreign country as longas it is state-sanctioned death and destruction. Ireject this ghastly statolatry.(106f)He also takes on those “Bible believers” who defend

American wars because the Bible says,“the Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3): That thisis a true statement there is no question, but how thisphrase justifies the United States becoming acountry of war shows how warped the Christianityof some people is. (261f)

Further, Vance acknowledges that indeed, “God com-manded the nation of Israel in the Old Testament to fightagainst heathen nations (Judges 6:16). . .”

Then he goes right for the jugular:but George Bush is not God, and America is notthe nation of Israel . . . .God sponsored these wars,and used his chosen nation (Deuteronomy 7:11-12)to conduct them,[but] it does not follow that Godsponsors American wars, or that America is God’s

chosen nation. It does not follow unless, of course,one is a Christian apologist for the U.S. governmentand its wars.”(p. 126, 129)

But that is precisely what American War Christianitycomes down to: the shockingly idolatrous identificationof U.S. interests as being dictated by God, and treating itsleaders (especially conservative presidents), as the equiv-alent of God. (And no, Vance does not regard Romans13 as a “get-out-of-hell-free” card.)

Such nationalist idolatry is hardly new, nor is it anAmerican invention. But in U.S. history its tracks go backmore than two centuries, and its advocates have includedmany religious leaders considered “progressive” in theirday. But in our time this sanctified militarism has becomean evangelical-fundamentalist phenomenon, and the paperby Air Force Colonel Millonig shows how groups associ-ated with it have intentionally and diligently colonizedmuch of the armed forces since the Vietnam War:

The rise of evangelicalism in today’s Armed Forcescan trace its roots to the Viet Nam War. Publicsupport for the war declined steadily as the yearswore on, but evangelical Christians remainedgenerally supportive of the war throughout. Overthe course of the war, they found themselvesprogressively more aligned with the military – amilitary which increasingly found itself isolatedfrom the general population. . . .By the early 1970s, prayer groups, breakfasts, andluncheons became commonplace in the Pentagon.Some activities were sponsored by International


by Marc Mullinax

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighborand hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love yourenemies and pray for those who persecute you.

– Jesus

Can a person of faith be a person who bears armsagainst a nation’s enemies? This essay, which could bewrong, will argue that people of faith have no businessin the business of killing.

“Religions,” because they are so culturally dependent,are some of the most violent reactive agents on the planet.As often unreflective reflectors of the mainstream, reli-gions by definition rarely hear or honor disturbinginformation. Indeed, they often squelch dissonant data.

The religions of Christianity primarily, and of Islamsecondarily, have premeditatively planned the deaths ofthe other religion’s membership. By their easy alliancewith violence, they are basically idol-worshippers. Theirgods are cultural wish-fulfillments – superstitions, really– that these alleged divinities enjoy the same rages andhatreds – and passports – as they do.

“Faith,” on the other hand, is rare, for it is verydifficult. I know far fewer people of faith, as I struggle tobe one. A person of faith usually does not define theirsense of the divine, because a relationship defines theirview of God. One cannot really sustain a relationship witha demonic force that calls for the death of anyone. Thus,I reason, a person of good faith cannot kill or condone it.

Well, I hear you argue back with me, “Didn’t Godorder people to kill Israel’s enemies in the Old Testa-ment?” and “The Old Testament God is different fromthe New Testament God.” These are bogus certainties.

First, God did not order people to kill others in the OldTestament. I believe and urge you to consider that people

misheard their God because their prior unexamined“religious” prejudices – their inner filters – preventedtheir hearing in “faith” the first word of God’s fierce love(not fierce vengeance) towards all creation. And theywrote what they misheard.

Second, Jesus’ “Bible” was the Old Testament, inwhich he read of the radical love and loving kindness ofGod.

What we see is what we want to see. Most of what wesee is already behind the eyes. This is probably a choice.

Back to war. Only an idol will request bloodshed andviolence. Only an idol-worshiper will be ready to kill.(Yes, I am going out on a limb, to provoke. Will you cutme down?)

I raise a controversial point here, for the purpose ofconversation: A real person of faith will never, ever gointo the military, U.S. or otherwise. The person that doesis willing to be brainwashed because they don’t have afaith- or God-driven sense that they are a loved person,and the enemy is also in God’s plan. The goal of militarytraining is to take a person and wipe their brain of anymercy towards the enemy. Then, instead of mercy, a newGod is inserted: the country above all else.

It’s called brainwashing.Here is an impasse. A military person may say they

are religious, follow some God, and may even wearreligious symbols. But they have dedicated their lives tothe exact opposite values of those symbols. Religious,yes, but faithful?

Thus, let me start a conversation. Can one be a personof faith and a trained killer for one’s nation? It is, I know,a conversation that we can have only because we live inthe legacy of freedom secured by soldiers. But did theydie and fight so I could have faith in God, or in thenation? Can one serve both gods?

No one had to fight and die so I could hold thisposition. And I could be wrong. So the question remains.What do you think?

The Rev. Dr. Marc Mullinax is a Professor of Religionand Philosophy at a college in North Carolina. In thisessay, he has employed his own examined opinions,which (sadly) do not reflect the positions of hisemployer, nation, and culture. In fact, he was censuredand lost a department chair position in response to thefirst publication of this article in the Asheville DailyPlanet.

People of Faith Do Not Go to or Support War


“Whatever Jesus Christ did or will do hasabsolutely no relevance to what the U. S. militarydoes in Iraq or anywhere else, except, of course,in the depraved mind of a Christian warmonger.”

Christian Leadership and others bythe Christian Men of the Pentagon.An informal outreach group calledTeams of Two began to increase itsevangelical efforts. . . Many GeneralOfficers actively supported thegroups and even held leadershippositions as these conservativeChristian groups continued to growin size. By the 1980s, nearly 20evangelical groups held regularmeetings.Under this supportive leadershipumbrella, participation in conser-vative Christian groups alsoincreased at the service academies.. . . Throughout the 1990s, a con-servative Protestant shift in thechaplain corps mirrored the regularforce. Since 1994, the number ofRoman Catholic priests in the AirForce alone has dropped 44percent and similar decreases existin mainstream Protestant chaplainsas well. (Millonig, 4f)Millonig’s critique of this coloni-

zation is carefully nuanced, and secu-lar: his point is that, especially at thetop, when an organization’s leadership all(or mostly) share the same worldview, theresulting groupthink atmosphere leads tobad decisions. For instance, Millonig says,

When the [G.W. Bush] Administra-tion issued its policy of pre-emptivewar in the National Security Strat-egy, many “mainstream” religionsand nearly all Democrats rejectedit, insisting pre-emptive war rejectsthe United Nations charter of waras a last resort and takes a unilater-alist, militant approach to nationalsecurity.Many conservative Christians how-ever, applauded the declaration. Ina letter to President Bush, severalprominent conservatives stronglyendorsed the policy of pre-emptivewar against Iraq as “prudent andfall(s) well within the time honoredcriteria of just war theory.”By now, spring of 2012, we’ve seen

where that kind of foolishness led us; andit was from this pre-emptive cheerleaders’sector that the religious influence on mili-tary leadership has come for nearly fortyyears. I’ve called this outlook “AmericanWar Christianity”; and though I’ve seldombeen accused of speaking too cautiously,Vance makes this phrase look mild. Thesepeople and their followers, he insists, makeup the “Christian Axis of Evil” (99),adding:

In the Church’s conservative, evan-gelical, and fundamentalist circles–and I identify loosely with all three–much of what is being said is notjust wrong, it is evil, immoral, hyp-ocritical, shameful, and more impor-tantly, unscriptural. But the Church

is also not saying enough. It is notsaying enough about the defectiveChristianity of the president. It isnot saying enough about the evils ofwar. It is not saying enough aboutour overgrown military establish-ment. It is not saying enough aboutour interventionist foreign policy. Itis not saying enough about thewarfare state.President Bush has mastered the artof using religious rhetoric to capturethe support of gullible Christians forhis aggressive, militaristic, interven-tionist foreign policy he terms “thisgreat mission.” (98)

He pounds this theme repeatedly. Oneof his most striking posts is called, “AreYou A Christian Warmonger?”(27-27). Itpresents the reader a quiz, or “self-assess-ment tool”: a list of twenty pro-war cliches,(29) For those who agreed with many ofthese statements, Vance’s “eldering” issternly forthright.

Vance takes on just about all the bibli-cal rationalizations one could imagine forendorsing wars and their killing, as long asthey’re being fought by the U.S. Wealready heard his take on the assertion that“Thou shalt not kill” does not apply; butwhat about Jesus being a bloodthirstywarrior, especially during his SecondComing battle with the Anti-Christ (Reve-lation 19). Vance’s reply (he says he doesbelieve in the Second Coming, but):

The problem here is a simple one:American military officers are notsurrogates for Jesus Christ. What-ever Jesus Christ did or will do hasabsolutely no relevance to what theU. S. military does in Iraq or any-where else, except, of course, in thedepraved mind of a Christian war-monger. The Bible says that “inrighteousness” Jesus Christ “dothjudge and make war.” There isnothing righteous about the actionsof U.S. battlefield commanders.(132)

What? The U.S. military is not a surro-gate for Jesus? Iraq isn’t Armageddon?Why didn’t I think of that?

“Pray for our troops,” says a militantpetition he saw. Vance replies to it this way:

Yes, we should pray for the troops.We should pray that the troopscome home. We should pray that thetroops come home now. We shouldpray that the blood of not one moreAmerican soldier is shed on foreignsoil. We should pray for the healingof the thousands of U.S. soldierswho have been injured in the sense-less Iraq war. We should pray for an

end to this unconstitutional,immoral, and unjust war. We shouldpray that Congress ends funding forthis war. We should pray that Bushleaves office a disgraced com-mander in chief. We should praythat young, impressionable studentsare not ensnared by military recruit-

ers. We should pray that pastorsstop recommending military serviceto their young men (and women).We should pray that families stopsupplying cannon fodder to themilitary. We should pray that thetroops actually start defending thiscountry instead of every other coun-try. We should pray for a change inU.S. foreign policy that can makethis all possible.Not only that: “. . . This ideologicaldesire to legitimize killing in war isan unholy one, and every Christianwho attempts to do so should beashamed of himself and repent ‘insackcloth and ashes’ (Matthew11:21).” (86)The upshot is that Christianity and War

offers the most trenchant and articulatecritique of American War Christianity Ihave seen. In ten-plus years of struggling

with the impact of this phenomenon, hiswork stands alone.

While he’s not at all a pacifist, Vancedraws on Quaker sources perhaps morethan he realizes. He quotes Friend JonathanDymond as “one young in years but old inwisdom,” who was exposing the perniciouswork of war propaganda in 1827:

Another cause of our complacencywith war, and therefore anothercause of war itself, consists in thatcallousness to human misery whichthe custom induces. They who areshocked at a single murder on thehighway, hear with indifference of

the slaughter of a thousand on thefield….The inconsistency anddisproportionateness which hasbeen occasioned in our senti-ments of benevolence, offers acurious moral phenomenon. . . .But perhaps the most operativecause of the popularity of war,and of the facility with which weengage in it, consists in this; thatan idea of glory is attached tomilitary exploits, and of honor tothe military profession. Theglories of battle, and of thosewho perish in it, or who return intriumph to their country, arefavorite topics of declamation

with the historian, the biographers,and the poet. They have told us athousand times of dying heroes,who “resign their lives amidst thejoys of conquest, and, filled withtheir country’s glory, smile indeath”; and thus every excitementthat eloquence and genius can com-mand, is employed to arouse thatambition of fame which can begratified only at the expense ofblood.(166f)Vance also applauds “Thomas Jeffer-

son’s ‘Quaker’ foreign policy”; as the thirdpresident put it:

Peace has been our principle, peaceis our interest, and peace has savedto the world this only plant of freeand rational government now exist-ing in it. However, therefore, wemay have been reproached for pur-suing our Quaker system, time willaffix the stamp of wisdom on it, andthe happiness and prosperity of ourcitizens will attest its merit. Andthis, I believe, is the only legitimateobject of government, and the firstduty of governors, and not theslaughter of men and devastation ofthe countries placed under their care,in pursuit of a fantastic honor, unal-lied to virtue or happiness . . . . (192f)And Vance makes much of the late-life

witness of Marine General (and two-timeMedal of Honor winner) Smedley D.Butler. Butler, who attended a Quakerschool before enlisting in the Marines andwas the product of several Quaker familieswith deep Pennsylvania roots, became amilitant isolationist and anti-militarist

(Continued from page 5) )


Christianity and War

Image by Tom Loret www.tomloret.com


While the badly bloated U.S. nationalsecurity and defense budgets are currentlyunder heavy scrutiny, a less obvious chal-lenge faces the all-volunteer military. Itspeople and institutions are under attack byChristian fundamentalists.

Mikey Weinstein’s and David Seay’snew book, No Snowflake in an Avalanche,documents the Christian fundamentalists’assault on the U.S. military and Wein-stein’s counter-attack using the MilitaryReligious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

Mikey Weinstein, a 1977 Air ForceAcademy (USAFA) graduate, comes froma family of military academy graduates.His two sons and a daughter-in-law arealso USAFA graduates. He earned a lawdegree in the Air Force, served severalyears in the AF Judge Advocate GeneralCorps, and worked in the Reagan WhiteHouse helping manage the Iran-Contrainvestigation. He laughs, “I had an upclose and personal education in stonewall-ing, plausible deniability, and slow roll-ing.” (33) After serving in the WhiteHouse, he worked for a number of publicand private companies and eventuallyjoined H. Ross Perot as general counsel inPerot Systems Corporation and in othercapacities.

Weinstein’s comfortable life in Albu-querque, NM, ended in July 2004, whenCurtis, his freshman son at the USAFA,told him, “I’m going to beat the shit out ofthe next guy who calls me a ‘fucking Jew’… I’m going to beat the shit out of the nextguy who accuses me, or our people, ofkilling Jesus Christ.” (39) Those wordseight years ago changed Mikey’s life. Theybrought back memories of the anti-Semiticharassment, including two beatings, heexperienced at the Academy in the early1970s. He took direct action then—the

Academy covered up his hitting asuperior officer investigating hisaccusations. And beginning in 2004,he again chose to protect his familyand others at the USAFA.He bluntly states:The purpose of this book is not… just to protect the lives andsafety of those who have directlyexperienced the horrors perpe-trated by these enemies of civili-zation. It’s to protect the lives ofall of us who are imperiled bythose who work day and night togain control of the most powerfulmilitary and deadliest arsenal inexistence. America has built themost lethal fighting machine inhuman history. Control of that

machine is the ultimate goal of thisfundamentalist Christian cabal….(15-16)He continues:It’s treason, pure and simple. Thisis an ongoing attempt at a de facto

coup by radical fundamentalistChristians to seize the levers ofmilitary power and enforce theirmaniacal doctrines on the countryand, eventually, the world. Theiregregious, ongoing violation ofstrict prohibitions against prosely-tizing… is only the tiniest tip of anenormous submerged iceberg. Theysee the ‘War on Terror’ as a historicopportunity to advance their agendaof eradicating, either through coer-cive conversion, brute force, oreven death, any religion that com-petes with their deliberately mis-construed Biblical claims of divineright. (16)Weinstein’s strategy is to seek as much

publicity as possible to spotlight funda-mentalist Christian efforts to dominate theU.S. military. He gives frequent pressconferences and interviews to supporton-going Foundation activities. Becauseof his activity and visibility, he and his

family have received numerousthreats and now have security atpublic events.

Mikey and Bonnie, his wife,founded the MRFF in 2005. It is theprincipal vehicle used to bring law-suits against the military, individu-als, and fundamentalist organizationson behalf of members of the militaryand their families who face formaland informal discrimination. Today,the foundation has a high profileboard of advisors, legal and securitysupporters, a small paid staff, and alot of volunteers.

No Snowflake in an Avalanchedetails a number of MRFF suc-cesses. For example, Weinstein and theFoundation exposed USAF materials usedfor ethics training for nuclear missilelaunch officers. He says the combinationof fundamentalist Christian propagandaand the pronouncements of a Nazi scientist(Werner von Braun) used to explain tonuclear missile launch officers whylaunching nuclear weapons is an inherently

Christian act represents a new low, evenfor the U.S. military. (187) Following thispublicity, the Air Force took that trainingout of the curriculum.

The vast majority of the 27,000 peoplehelped by the MRFF remain anonymousfor good reason—the clear and presentdanger of discrimination and retaliation.Weinstein does include a few specificstories of named Foundation clients.Dustin Chalker, for example, is a highlydecorated Army medic, and an atheist. Hewas blackballed for not attending manda-tory Christian services. (89-94) A smallpercentage of MRFF clients are Muslims;they have needed serious assistance. Wein-stein provided written testimony before asenate subcommittee hearing on March 28,2011, describing the bad treatment ofMuslims in the U.S. military.

He believes the anti-Muslim spiritpresents a clear threat to our nationalsecurity:

“(1) Its well known existenceenrages our Islamic allies bothabroad and domestically; (2) itincalculably emboldens our Islamicenemies both abroad and domesti-cally; and (3) it absolutely demor-alizes our own troops…” (121)But being Christian isn't enough for the

fundamentalists. Weinstein and Seayemphasize that 95% of the MRFF clientsare Christians and about 25% are RomanCatholics. These Christians just aren't the“right kind of Christians.” The Foundationalso works with atheists who are pressuredto participate in prayers and services. Jewsface mandatory military activities duringtheir religious observance periods, andMuslims are constantly exposed to vitrioliccomments and worse.

Weinstein and the MRFF are hated bymany people. The book ends with a selec-tion of three types of emails they received:hate-filled emails, thank-filled emails frompeople whom the Foundation has helped,and emails from civilian and religiousleaders who support its work. The hateemails are scary and frequently includeimprecatory prayers (see Psalms 119) thatwish evil on Mikey, his family, and theMilitary Religious Freedom Foundation.

I recommend this book to people whowish to get a glimpse into the on-goingfight for the soul of the U.S. military.

Willard Hunter is a member of VeteransFor Peace in Albuquerque, NM. He hasread MRFF emails for several years andhas met the Weinsteins on two occasions.He received an MA in Political Science in2011, with interests in national securityand U.S. drug policy.

by Mikey Weinstein and Davin SeayReviewed by Willard Hunter

“America has built the most lethal fighting machine in human history.Control of that machine is the ultimate goal of this fundamentalist Christian cabal…”

Air Force chaplainsIn 2008, Air Force chaplains performed more

than 147,000 counselings, provided more than50,000 worship observances and conducted more

than 28,000 religious rites and observances forAirmen and their families. (USAF photo)

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation workswith atheists who are pressured to participate inprayers and services. Jews face mandatory militaryactivities during their religious observance periods,and Muslims are constantly exposed to vitrioliccomments and worse.

Chaplain (Capt.) David Haltom of the 732ndAir Expeditionary Group provides spiritualguidance to an Airman in a combat zoneFeb. 23 in Southwest Asia. (USAF photo)


activist in the 1930s. He proposed aconstitutional “Amendment for Peace,”which w o u l d h a v e prohibitedthe American military from fighting orbeing based beyond a defensive zonearound our coasts.

Butler believed that his amend-ment “would be [an] absoluteguarantee to the women ofAmerica that their loved onesnever would be sent overseas to beneedlessly shot down in Europeanor Asiatic or African wars that areno concern of our people.”He also reasoned that because of“our geographical position, it is allbut impossible for any foreignpower to muster, transport, andland sufficient troops on our shoresfor a successful invasion.” In thisButler was echoing Jefferson, whorecognized that geography wasone of the great advantages of theUnited States . . . .(404)So like it or not, Quaker peace witness

has left its fingerprints on LaurenceVance’s perspective. But most importantis his fundamentalist Christian libertarianoutlook. While he repeatedly blasts GeorgeW. Bush in these pages, he is no more fondof the many ways Barack Obama hascontinued most of his predecessor’s pro-imperial policies. Though Christianity andWar was published in 2005 (updated in2008), before Obama’s elevation to theWhite House; his recent blog posts do notgive Bush’s successor a pass.

Yet overall Vance minimizes talk ofpolitics outside the recent wars. A look athis extensive blog posts makes clear,however, that he’s a passionate partisanof the longtime libertarian standard-bearer, Rep. Ron Paul. Vance is also asoutherner, and has affinities with theneo-Confederates who despise Abe Lin-coln; prefer to call the Civil War by other,rebel-friendly names; and wish the Con-federate states had been allowed tosecede–and then abolish slavery in theirown good time.

These views, and many others of thelibertarian platform, are deeply problem-atic to me, and doubtless to many others,who may be drawn to its anti-imperial andanti-militarist features. Nevertheless,Vance prudently keeps these othermatters out of his 400-plus pages inChristianity and War, and except fortaking note of them here, I’ll stick to thebook’s themes. Those are arguments foranother day, and another book.

Laurence Vance’s assault on the theo-logical and sectarian underpinnings ofAmerican War Christianity is an achieve-ment that is serious and credible on manyfronts, and deserves wide attention assuch. It is intellectually, historically,theologically and biblically informed, andas a polemicist, his aim is true.

The book (and the blog) takes on the“Christian warmongers” on their own turf,naming names, citing sources, and demol-ishing every major pillar of their defenseof war. After a decade of seeing this warmachine close up, I remain convinced thatsuch a deconstruction is one of the mostimportant tasks of peace work.

Yet I know of no liberal Christianwriter who has come anywhere close to asimilar effort

Shame on them; shame on us. A bowto Laurence Vance, and Christianity andWar, for going where we have feared totread.

Chuck Fager, raised in a Catholic,military family on Air Force bases,became a conscientious objector in 1965.Arrested three times during his work withthe Southern Christian LeadershipConference, he once spent a night in acell with Dr. King. Chuck, who became aQuaker in 1966, is the author ofnumerous books, essays, and pamphlets.For the last decade, he has been directorof Quaker House in Fayetteville, NorthCarolina, close to Fort Bragg, one of thelargest military bases in the U.S. Thisarticle was adapted for the WCT with theauthor’s permission.

Further Reading“The Impact of Religious and PoliticalAffiliation on Strategic MilitaryDecisions and Policy Recommendations,”by Col. William Millonig:www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA449308

Essays on the principles of morality: and onthe private and political rights andobligations of mankind by Jonathon Dymond:http://books.google.com/books/about/Essays_on_the_principles_of_morality.html?id=vAUvAAAAYAAJ

“War is a Racket” by Major GeneralSmedley Butler:www.archive.org/details/WarIsARacket

(Continued from page 6) )The War Prayer

…Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the likeof it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. Theburden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignantFather of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid,comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them,shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them inHis mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in thebloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to theirflag and country imperishable honor and glory—

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless stepup the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long bodyclothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his whitehair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy faceunnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes followinghim and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, heascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shutlids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with hismoving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in ferventappeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Fatherand Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside—whichthe startled minister did—and took his place. During some moments

he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncannylight; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne—bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smotethe house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heardthe prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire afterI, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import—that is to say, its full import.For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who uttersit is aware of—except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought?Is it one prayer? No, it is two—one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear ofHim Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this—keep itin mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent youinvoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain uponyour crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon someneighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer—the uttered part of it. I am commissionedof God to put into words the other part of it—that part which the pastor—and also youin your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grantthat it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That issufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words.Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed formany unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it, cannot help but followit. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. Hecommandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth tobattle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from thesweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help usto tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover theirsmiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown thethunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; helpus to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wringthe hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turnthem out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of theirdesolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summerand the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Theefor the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavytheir steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the bloodof their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Sourceof Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore besetand seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High

waits!”It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Written by Mark Twain in 1905, rejected by his publisher, and published posthumouslyin 1916–during the War to End All Wars.

Left: Image by Brian Sawyer, Westford, MARight: Camp Taqaddum, Iraq (Nov. 10, 2007) U.S. Navy Cmdr.Patrick J. McLaughlin, a chaplain with 2nd Marine Logistics Group(Forward), offers an invocation prayer during a celebration of the232nd Birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps. USMC photo by Cpl.Michael J. O'Brien.

War and Christianity


the brotherhood of allhumankind, and the militarylaws of the state, which forceeach young man to preparehimself for enmity and mur-der...”

In 1894, the young Indianlawyer, Mohandas K.Gandhi, (who was thenworking for the civil rights ofIndians in South Africa), readTolstoy’s books on Christian-ity and was greatly influ-enced by them. Gandhi wrotea review of Tolstoy's TheKingdom of God is WithinYou, and in 1909 he sentTolstoy an account of theactivities of the civil rightsmovement in South Africa.

He received a reply inwhich Tolstoy said:

...The longer I live, and especiallynow, when I vividly feel the near-ness of death, the more I want to tellothers what I feel so particularlyclearly and what to my mind is ofgreat importance—namely thatwhich is called passive resistance,but which is in reality nothing elsebut the teaching of love, uncor-rupted by false interpretations. Thatlove—i.e. the striving for the unionof human souls and the activityderived from that striving—is thehighest and only law of human life,and in the depth of his soul everyhuman being knows this (as wemost clearly see in children); heknows this until he is entangled inthe false teachings of the world.This law was proclaimed by all—bythe Indian as by the Chinese,Hebrew, Greek, and Roman sagesof the world. I think that this lawwas most clearly expressed byChrist, who plainly said that “in thisalone is all the law and the proph-ets”.…The peoples of the Christian worldhave solemnly accepted this law,while at the same time they havepermitted violence and built theirlives on violence; and that is whythe whole life of the Christianpeoples is a continuous contradic-tion between what they profess, andthe principles on which they ordertheir lives—a contradiction between

love accepted asthe law of life, andviolence which isrecognized andpraised, acknowl-edged even, as anecessity in differ-ent phases of life,such as the powerof rulers, courts,and armies...This year, in thespring, at a Scrip-ture examination ina girls’ high schoolin Moscow, theteacher and thebishop presentasked the girls ques-tions on the Com-mandments, andespecially on thesixth. After a correct

answer, thebishop generallyput another ques-tion, whethermurder wasalways in allcases forbiddenby God’s law;and the unhappyyoung ladieswere forced byp r e v i o u sinstruction toanswer “notalways” – thatmurder was per-mitted in warand in the exe-cution of crimi-nals. Still, when one of theseunfortunate young ladies (what I amtelling is not an invention, but a facttold to me by an eye witness) afterher first answer, was asked the usualquestion, if killing was alwayssinful, she, agitated and blushing,decisively answered, “Always,” andto all the usual sophisms of thebishop, she answered with decidedconviction that killing always wasforbidden in the Old Testament andforbidden by Christ, not only kill-ing, but every wrong against abrother. Notwithstanding all hisgrandeur and arts of speech, thebishop became silent and the girlremained victorious.

In the hands of Gandhi, non-violentpassive resistance became a practical polit-ical force, which he and his followers usedto free India from colonial domination. Tothe insidious argument that “the end justi-fies the means,” Gandhi answered firmly:

They say, “Means are after allmeans.” I would say, “Means areafter all everything.” As the means,so the end. Indeed the Creator hasgiven us control (and that verylimited) over means, none overend... The means may be likened toa seed, and the end to a tree; andthere is the same inviolable connec-tion between the means and the endas there is between the seed and thetree. Means and end are convertibleterms in my philosophy of life.In other words, a dirty method produces

a dirty result; killing produces more killing;hate leads to more hate. But there are

positive feedback loops as wellas negative ones. A kind actproduces a kind response; agenerous gesture is returned;hospitality results in reflectedhospitality. Hindus and Bud-dhists call this principle “thelaw of karma.”

The ideas of non-violencewere also used in the civilrights movement in America,led by Martin Luther King, Jr.In 1967, a year before his assas-sination, Dr. King forcefullycondemned the Viet Nam warin an address at a massivepeace rally in New York City.

He feltthat oppo-sition towar fol-lowed nat-u r a l l yfrom hisadvocacyof non-vi-olence. Inhis book,Strength toLove, Dr.K i n gwrote:

Wisdom born of experience shouldtell us that war is obsolete.… If weassume that life is worth living, andthat man has a right to survival, thenwe must find an alternative to war... I am convinced that the Churchcannot be silent while mankindfaces the threat of nuclear annihila-tion. If the church is true to hermission, she must call for an end tothe nuclear arms race.Concerning the Christian principle of

loving one’s enemies, Dr. King wrote:Why should we love our enemies?Returning hate for hate multiplieshate, adding deeper darkness to anight already devoid of stars. Dark-ness cannot drive out darkness; onlylight can do that. Hate cannot driveout hate. Only love can do that ...Love is the only force capable oftransforming an enemy into a friend.We never get rid of an enemy bymeeting hate with hate; we get ridof an enemy by getting rid ofenmity... It is this attitude that madeit possible for Lincoln to speak akind word about the South duringthe Civil War, when feeling wasmost bitter. Asked by a shockedbystander how he could do this,Lincoln said, “Madam, do I notdestroy my enemies when I makethem my friends?” This is the powerof redemptive love.Today, with the world poised on the

edge of a disaster that might be producedby escalatory cycles of revenge and coun-ter-revenge, we need to remember wise

voices from the past, among them thevoices of Tolstoy, Gandhi, and King.They tell us of the immorality, waste,and folly of war. They tell us to recog-nize the humanity of all other humans.They tell us to show the love and gener-osity of spirit that can turn enemies intofriends.

John Scales Avery is a theoreticalchemist noted for his research publica-tions in quantum chemistry, thermody-namics, evolution, and history ofscience. Since the early 1990s, Avery hasbeen an active World peace activist.During these years, he was part of agroup associated with the PugwashConferences on Science and WorldAffairs. In 1995, this group received theNobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Pres-ently, he is an Associate Professor inquantum chemistry at the University ofCopenhagen. This article was posted atCountercurrents.org and is reprintedwith the author’s permission.

(Continued from page 1)

Thou Shalt Not Kill

…the whole life of theChristian peoples is acontinuous contradictionbetween what they profess,and the principles on whichthey order their lives.

–Leo Tolstoy

They say, “Means areafter all means.” I wouldsay, “Means are after alleverything.” As themeans, so the end.

–Mohandas K. Gandhi

We never get rid of anenemy by meeting hate

with hate; we get rid of anenemy by getting rid of

enmity… –Martin Luther King

“I threw down my arms for it was not seemly that a Christian man, who renders military serviceto the Lord Christ, should render it by earthly injuries….It is not lawful for a Christian to beararms for any earthly consideration.”

–Marcellus the Centurion (?-298 A.D.)


KABUL – Army Command Sgt. Major John Troxellis one of the highest ranking, most experienced U.S.soldiers fighting in Afghanistan this year. Hiscounterpart in the Afghan army has the sameprestige.They trust each other, but whenever they meet oneanother, each soldier brings a personal securityteam.“I always have someone locked and loaded, pas-sively watching,” Troxell said.

So begins an article posted by Adam Ashton April 20on the News Tribune online blog. Troxell is also one ofthe highest ranking senior non-commissioned officers inAfghanistan. This excerpt reveals how he feels about “hisAfghan counterparts” and sheds light on the claim that the

United States trusts Afghan soldiers.The U.S. government has made its case for continuing

the wildly unpopular, criminal war in Afghanistan, basedon the claim that “progress” is being made and Afghanmilitary forces will take over the job, allowing for a U.S.withdrawal. This is what President Obama recently reiter-ated during his surprise photo-op to Afghanistan, wherehe gave the illusion that the war was winding down andcould soon be taken over by Afghan forces (he thenproceeded to sign a pact that will keep U.S. troops inAfghanistan beyond 2024).

If the occupation of Afghanistan is such a success andthe end of the war is right around the corner, why doesTroxell need a personal security team every time he meetshis Afghan counterpart?

We have all heard the phrase, “If you lie and lie andlie, eventually you will get caught.” The U.S.government and its top military leadership havebeen caught yet again in a lie about their claims ofAfghan support for U.S. goals and progress towardbeing able to turn over Afghanistan to reliablypro-imperialist forces.

Ashton’s post comes while what are referred toas “green on blue” killings are at an all-time high.What this means is that U.S.-funded Afghansoldiers are killing U.S. troops; this is becomingone of the biggest threats to the lives of U.S.soldiers.

CSM Troxell continues to spew lies and igno-rance in the post, which quotes him as saying thatsoldiers should be cautious with new Afghanrecruits: “Often, the Afghans are young and poorlyeducated. They have likely heard anti-Westernpropaganda all their lives.”

The post continues: “‘What we have to do is educatethese young men,’ he said. His safety precautions are beingreplicated throughout the NATO headquarters where heworks and its connected bases around Kabul.”

“They have likely heard anti-Westernpropaganda all their lives”

For the past ten years, the United States has waged abrutal occupation that has resulted in the deaths of hun-dreds of thousands of Afghan people and plunged theircountry into a chaotic quagmire—a country where nineout of ten young men have never even heard of the 9/11attacks or the World Trade Center. The war is at an all-timehigh in unpopularity among both U.S. and Afghan peopleas well as service members.

The Afghan people do not exactly hear anti-Westernpropaganda. They see it and feel it every day in the formof missiles, Apache strikes, night raids, and the funeralsof their family members.

This begs the question: What must these young menbe educated in? It does not take a genius to realize that no

one of anyn a t i o n a l i t ywants to havetheir countryoccupied forany amount oftime.

The “progress” we have been dying forLast year, an article featured a company commander

who absurdly boasted that they can successfully maneuver100 meters (about the length of a football field) from theircombat outpost without being shot at—where before theywould be shot at instantly upon leaving their outpost. Nineyears to clear 100 meters ! –at a cost of hundreds ofthousands of lives and trillions of tax dollars. Sounds likereal progress.

Those 100 meters have come at a heavy price forpeople in the U.S. and an even heavier price for the peopleof Afghanistan.

As we see atrocity after atrocity erupt in Afghanistan—from the video of Marines urinating on the dead, theburning of Qurans, the Afghan kill team, the Staff Sgt.Bales massacre that left over a dozen Afghans dead in the

middle of the night—should it really be any surprise thatthe people of Afghanistan are rejecting the U.S./NATOoccupation of their country? Can anyone really blamethem for doing so?

In fact, the reason so many U.S. service membersturned against the wars after fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan

is because they realized: “If I was in their position, I wouldbe doing the same exact thing.”

The “partnership” Washington boasts aboutAshton’s post continues to show the “partnership”

between Afghan and U.S. Forces:“[Col. Lapthe] Flora is working with a three-star

Afghan general at the Ministry of Defense’s ground forcescommand. Afghans are not allowed to bring weapons inAmerican offices. A U.S. soldier always has a loadedweapon when entering the Afghan side of their complex.

“Likewise, on the Afghan air force wing of the basehere, U.S. airmen wear their body armor and carry riflesto their work. Their Afghan counterparts are prohibitedfrom bringing their weapons into joint facilities.”

This does not sound like a partnership between U.S.and Afghan forces against the Taliban as Washington andthe Pentagon would have us believe, but rather a failingpolicy that is continuing to cause more suffering, death,and misery. Opposition to the U.S./NATO occupation isso widespread, so popular, that it penetrates the highestlevels of the Afghan government, police, and military, inthe “safest” of areas.

Of course, as far as CSM Troxell’s friends in the WhiteHouse, Congress, the officer corps, the Pentagon, and theparasitic war profiteers are concerned—they will never beplaced in harm’s way. They are in no rush to end anoccupation that they know is doomed to fail. In fact, this

war was lost the day that it began.The leaders of the military are consciously

sending young men and women to their deathsknowing full well that the U.S. strategy is incapa-ble of being successful. They are knowingly lyingto our loved ones, friends, family members, andthe people of the United States. They are forcingan occupation on a sovereign people–who over-whelmingly want us out–killing thousands.

No victory in sight for the corporatepoliticians and their financiers

Just recently, an 84-page report was releasedto the public by Lt. Col. Daniel Davis that destroysthe castle of lies built by Washington regarding the“success of the Afghan war” and the promise thatit will end.

Davis states that there is absolutely no way thiswar is winnable or has even affected the Taliban. “Even acursory observation of key classified reports and metrics,”Davis explains, “leads overwhelmingly to the conclusionthat over the past two years, despite the surge of 30,000American soldiers, the insurgent force has gainedstrength….”

‘Green on blue’ killings reveal the farce of the Afghanistan warMore lies cannot sustain the occupation

On May 7, the Associated Press reported yet another killing of a NATO troop by an Afghan National Army soldier.The previous week, two U.S. soldiers were also killed by their Afghan “partners.”

by Kevin Baker

If the occupation of Afghanistan is such a success and the end ofthe war is right around the corner, why does Troxell need apersonal security team every time he meets his Afghan counterpart?

Command Sgt. Maj. John W. Troxell thanks AfghanNational Police Command Sgt. Maj. Abdul Zafar as

Afghan National Army 205th Corps Command Sgt. Maj.Kafayatullah and 205th Corps 2nd Brigade commanderCol. Mohammed Wazir Akbari look on during a meeting

on Forward Operating Base Eagle in Zabul province.


The report continues tostate that the Afghan armyand police are “a barely func-tioning organization” andthat they often refuse to evenleave cover to investigatepossible insurgent activity.

President Obama’spromise that the U.S. forceswill leave Afghanistan ispremised entirely on replace-ment by Afghan puppetforces (also widely hatedamong Afghans). But thoseintended puppets are notdancing as Washington isassuring the public they will.

The reason there is such alack of desire by the Afghan police and military to engagethe Taliban is because many among them overwhelminglydisagree with the U.S. occupation. The United States hasfailed so miserably in Afghanistan that what should be the

most pro-occupying force in thecountry, the Afghan military, hasrejected the U.S./NATO-leddebacle.

They are able to fill theirranks with the promise of a pay-check (in the second-poorestcountry on the planet) but actualsupport for the U.S. occupationis non-existent, not just amongthe populace, but among those onthe U.S. payroll who are sup-posed to be the most dedicated

supporters.Why are we killing and

dying for this?What does this mean for

enlisted service members? It showsthat they have no reason to take part in their war and, infact, have the right to reject participating in Washington’stragic failure. The war is a massive tragedy for the Afghan

people, who are not our enemies, and a disaster for us andour families.

As soldiers continue to return from the field of slaugh-ter in Afghanistan, as more and more of the undeniabletruth is revealed to us, we will continue to build againstthe officer corps and their lap dogs, the senior non-commissioned officers like CSM Troxell. We will con-tinue to raise the slogan that service members have theabsolute right to refuse to take part in this war.

Those who are profiting and expanding their profitsfrom these wars will soon find themselves with no onewilling to lose their lives or kill for them.The shamelesslies told by the military leadership can no longer cover upthe predatory aims of the war. No longer will nationalchauvinism work to trick service members into dying forthe profits of Big Oil and the defense industry. The truthis on full display for the world to see.

The military has run out of places to hide their skeletons.

Kevin Baker is a former U.S. Army infantryman, Iraq warveteran, and a member of March Forward. Learn more athttp://www.answercoalition.org/march-forward/

Soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Teamof the 82nd Airborne Division, the Afghan

National Police, and the Afghan National Army’s203rd Corps assemble for a recognition

ceremony for Operation Maiwand.

U.S. civilian and military employeesregularly target and fire lethal unmanneddrone guided missiles at people across theworld. Thousands of people have beenassassinated. Hun-dreds of those killedwere civilians. Someof those killed wererescuers and mourners.

These killings wouldbe criminal acts if theyoccurred inside theU.S. Does it makelegal sense that thesekillings would be legaloutside the U.S.?

Some Facts about Drone AssassinationsThe U.S. has used drones to kill thou-

sands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pak-istan, Yemen, and Somalia. But thegovernment routinely refuses to provideany official information on local reports ofcivilian deaths or the identities of most ofthose killed.

In Pakistan alone, the New AmericaFoundation reports U.S. forces havelaunched 297 drone strikes killing at least1,800 people, three to four hundred ofwhom were not even combatants. Otherinvestigative journalists report four to eighthundred civilians killed by U.S. dronestrikes in Pakistan.

Very few of these drone strikes kill highlevel leaders of terror groups. A recentarticle in Foreign Affairs estimated “onlyone out of every seven drone attacks inPakistan kills a militant leader. The major-ity of those killed in such strikes are notimportant insurgent commanders but ratherlow level fighters, together with a smallnumber of civilians.”

An investigation by the Wall StreetJournal in November 2011 revealed thatmost of the time the U.S. did not even knowthe identities of the people being killed by

d r o n e sin Paki-stan. TheW S Jreportedthere aret w otypes ofd r o n estrikes:“person-a l i t y

strikes” target known terrorist leaders;“signature strikes” target groups of menbelieved to be militants but are peoplewhose identities are not known. Most ofthe drone strikes are signature strikes.

In Yemen, there have been at least 34drone assassination attacks so far in 2012alone, according to the London basedBureau of Investigative Journalism. Usingdrones against people in Yemen, who arethought to be militants but whose namesare not even known, was authorized by theObama administration in April 2012,according to the Washington Post. Somaliahas been the site of ten drone attacks witha growing number in recent months.

Civilian deaths in drone strikes areregularly reported, but more chilling is thepractice of firing a second set of dronestrikes at the scene once people have cometo find out what happened or to give aid.Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, a leadingcritic of the increasing use of drones,recently pointed out that drones routinelykill civilians who are in the vicinity ofpeople thought to be “militants” and arethus “incidental” killings. But the U.S. alsofrequently fires drones again at people who

show up at the scene of an attack, thusdeliberately targeting rescuers and mourn-ers.

Here are five reasons why these droneassassinations are illegal.

One. Assassination by the U.S.government has been illegal since 1976

Drone killings are acts of premeditatedmurder. Premeditated murder is a crime inall fifty states and under federal criminallaw. These murders are also the textbookdefinition of assassination, which is murderby sudden or secret attack for politicalreasons.

In 1976, U.S. President Gerald Fordissued Executive Order 11905, Section5(g), which states “No employee of theUnited States Government shall engage in,or conspire to engage in, political assassi-nation.” President Reagan followed up tomake the ban clearer in Executive Order1 2 3 3 3 .S e c t i o n2.11 of thatOrder states“No personemployedby or actingon behalf ofthe UnitedStates Gov-e r n m e n ts h a l lengage in,or conspireto engagein, assass-i n a t i o n . ”Section 2.12further says "Indirect participation. Noagency of the Intelligence Community shall par-ticipate in or request any person to under-take activities forbidden by this Order."This ban on assassination still stands.

The reason for the ban on assassinationswas that the CIA was involved in attempts

to assassinate national leaders opposed bythe U.S. Among others, U.S. forces soughtto kill Fidel Castro of Cuba, PatriceLumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo ofthe Dominican Republic, and Ngo DinhDiem of South Vietnam.

Two. United Nations report directlyquestions the legality of U.S. drone killings

The UN directly questioned the legal-ity of U.S. drone killings in a May 2010report by NYU law professor Philip Alston.Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary, or arbitrary executions,said drone killings may be lawful in thecontext of authorized armed conflict (e.g.Afghanistan, where the U.S. sought andreceived international approval to invadeand wage war on another country). How-ever, the use of drones “far from the battlezone” is highly questionable legally. “Out-side the context of armed conflict, the useof drones for targeted killing is almost

never likely to belegal.” Can dronekillings be justifiedas anticipatory self-defense? “Applyingsuch a scenario totargeted killingsthreatens to eviscer-ate the human rightslaw prohibitionagainst arbitrarydeprivation of life.”Likewise, countrieswhich engage insuch killings mustprovide transpar-ency and account-ability, which no

country has done. “The refusal by Stateswho conduct targeted killings to providetransparency about their policies violatesthe international law framework that limitsthe unlawful use of lethal force againstindividuals.”

(Continued onpage 17)

An AGM-114 Hellfire missile hung on the railof an US Air Force MQ-1L Predator UnmannedAerial Vehicle (UAV) is inscribed, “IN MEMORY

OF HONORABLE RONALD REAGAN."

Five Reasons Drone Assassinations Are Illegalby Bill Quigley


War CrimesIn 2000, President Clinton signed the

Rome Statute which defines war crimes andcreated the International Criminal Court(ICC). In 2002, however, shortly before itwas to go into effect, President Bush “nulli-fied” Clinton’s signature and declared thatthe U.S. would no longer be a party to, noraccept jurisdiction of, the ICC. It is now clearwhy: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, “enhanced interrogationtechniques,” extraordinary rendition to torture, andenforced disappearance in secret prisons. These are all warcrimes in spite of the Bush administration’s twisted logicthat legalized practices we have condemned since WorldWar II. Bush, Cheney, Tenet, Rumsfeld, all are unindictedwar criminals.

Barack Obama the Candidate pledged to end all this;however, none of his predecessor’s policies have beenclearly or effectively reversed, including his quiet refusalto re-sign the Rome Statute or come under the jurisdictionof the ICC. Instead, Obama the President continues to holdprisoners indefinitely without trial in Guantanamo Bay,ignores domestic and international law, and pursues warsof aggression in ever more insidious and immoral ways:through extra-judicial assassinations using unmanneddrones, CIA operatives, and small teams of Special Forcesin countries with which we are not at war—Pakistan,Yemen, Somalia, et. al. Extra-judicial assassinations area category of willful killing, a war crime. Indefinitedetention in Guantanamo Bay without a trial is a warcrime. Barack Obama is as guilty of war crimes as Bush,as Cheney, as Rumsfeld, as Tenet.

Drone WarsDistance is of essential importance. It rendersresponsibility invisible and retaliation impossible.

—Etel Adnan, Master of the EclipseBug Splat: military jargon for someone killed in adrone strike.For a new generation of young guns, the experienceof piloting a drone is not unlike the video gamesthey grew up on. …drone operators kill at the touchof a button, without ever leaving their base – aremove that only serves to further desensitize thetaking of human life.

–Michael Hastings, “The Drone Wars,”Rolling Stone, April 26, 2012

President George W. Bush, in his eight years as theself-proclaimed War President, authorized 78 dronestrikes. President Obama, on his third day in office,authorized a drone strike that killed 20 people in Pakistan,three of them children. In his first three years as president,there were 253 known covert drone strikes in Pakistanalone, plus an unknown number in Yemen, Somalia,Libya, and, most recently, the Philippines. Drones areObama’s weapon of choice.

There is a category ofdrone strikes called a “sig-nature strike” in which indi-viduals’ identities areunknown but they areacting in a “suspiciousmanner” and there isanother category, a “sec-ondary strike,” that attacksrescuers who come to theaid of victims from a firststrike (at least 50 confirmedcases) or an attack on afuneral procession (morethan 20 times). These aredefined in the Rome Statute

as war crimes.The sound of a drone, described as the buzzing of an

aerial lawnmower, circling high above a targeted villagefor hours, strikes fear in the heart of every inhabitant, forthey know that, at any time and without warning, they ortheir loved ones could be incinerated. This is terrorism.

In designated battle zones like Iraqand Afghanistan, U.S. Air Force per-sonnel control drones from bases inIraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, and the U.S.In Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya,et al., countries with which we are nottechnically at war, the CIA controlsthe drones from their headquarters inLangley, Virginia. The Pentagon’s7,000 drones can take off and land bythemselves; track vehicles, individu-

als, even footprints in the dirt from a mile up; and thosewhich are armed, like the Predator and Reaper drones, canunleash Hellfire missiles with deadly accuracy. Theunknown, however, is whether the target is actually aterrorist.

An estimated 3,000 people have been killed in dronestrikes and in spite of denials by the Pentagon, the NSCand President Obama, a large number of those killed,perhaps as many as thirty percent, were not terrorists orinsurgents or affiliated with al Qaeda or any other terroristorganization; they were innocent civilians including atleast 174 children. For Obama to claim that the droneprogram is highly precise and kept on a tight leash withfew civilian casualties makes him either naïve or a liar,neither of which is a good sign.

Undeclared WarsThe President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed

forces, but under the Constitution he cannot declare war;only Congress can do that—and they have not done sosince World War II. In the hysteria following 9/11, theAuthorization for the Use of Military Force passed byCongress on September 14, 2001, granted the presidentthe authority to use all “necessary and appropriate forceagainst those nations, organizations, or persons he deter-mines planned, authorized, committed, or aided theterrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 …in order to prevent any future acts of international terror-ism against the United States….” This open-ended reso-lution effectively declared war against anyone deemed aterrorist or terrorist sympathizer regardless of nationalityor physical location. President Obama has used this toreshape the War on Terror in ways undreamed of by hispredecessor.

While George W. Bush and his neocon administrationopenly invaded and occupied a country that posed nothreat to the United States and had no part in the 9/11attacks, Barack Obama is far more subtle. Except forAfghanistan, his wars of aggression are not carried out byarmies in the field but by remote-controlled drones andteams of assassins working in the dead of night. The War

on Terror under Obama has become a program of extra-judicial assassinations with faceless analysts using secretprocedures, secret criteria, and secret data to determine wholives and who dies. The claim of “national security” cloakseverything in an opaque veil that hides abuses, mistakes,and the horrific reality of war. John Rizzo, chief counselof the CIA for six years during the Bush administration,calls extra-judicial assassinations “militarized murder.”

Under Bush, government lawyers found loopholes andtwisted logic in order to legalize what had previously beencriminal activity—torture, indefinite detention, secret pris-ons, illegal wiretaps—but Barack Obama has changed thevery nature, scope, and definition of war itself. WhenCongress demanded justification for ongoing combat inLibya, he contended, contrary to the findings of his ownJustice and Defense Department lawyers, that he did not needauthorization since the U.S. had handed off active combatoperations to NATO forces. Drone strikes, surveillance, andlogistical support, he claimed, “do not involve sustainedfighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nordo they involve U.S. ground troops.” That is, war is not war.

Obama has turned the CIA into a paramilitary forcethat operates outside all law and wages covert warswherever America’s alleged enemies are. Without con-gressional discussion, debate or oversight, the War onTerror has become a shape-shifting endless war thatdisregards domestic and international law, basic humanrights, and the Constitution. We have squandered thenation’s blood and treasure, destroyed the illusion ofAmerica as a beacon of justice, and become as bankruptmorally as we are financially, a nation of barbarians andterrorists wreaking death and destruction around the globe.Barack Obama should be impeached and tried as a warcriminal.

Robert Yoder is a WCT contributing editor. His currentbook, 100 Letters to President Obama, is available fromWild Ocean Press.

N O B A M Aby Robert Yoder

SONG OF THE DEAD IN VAINSit down and negotiatewhichever way you want, old silver foxes.We’ll wall you in in a splendid mansionwith food, wine, terrific beds, a great fireplaceprovided you deal with and negotiatethe lives of our children and yours.May all created knowledgeconverge to bless your mindsand guide you in the labyrinth.But we, the army of the dead in vain,will be waiting for you outside in the cold,we of Marna and Montecassino,of Treblinka, Dresden, and Hiroshima:And the lepers and the trachoma victimswill be with us,the disappeared of Buenos Aires,the dead of Cambodia and the doomed of Ethiopia,those negotiated away in Prague,the emaciates of Calcutta,the innocents mangled in Bologna.Woe to you if you leave dissenting:You’ll be clenched in our embrace.We’re invincible because we’re thevanquished.Invulnerable because already extinguished:We laugh at your missiles.Sit down and negotiatetill your tongue dries up:If injury and shame continuewe’ll drown you in our putridity.

–Primo Levi Translated from Italian by Jack Hirschman

The War on Terror under Obama has becomea program of extra-judicial assassinationswith faceless analysts using secret procedures,secret criteria, and secret data to determinewho lives and who dies.

Image credit: warcriminalswatch.org


The ketch Golden Rule, an historic anti-nuclear peaceboat, is scheduled to set sail and resume its peacefulmission in late summer following extensive restoration.

During its first mission in 1958, four activists from theNon-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons (whichbecame the Committee for Non-Violent Action beforemerging into the War Resisters League) attempted to sail

their vessel into the Eniwetok Proving Grounds, the U.S.test site in the Marshall Islands. They were intercepted bythe U.S. Coast Guard five nautical miles from Hawaii. Ledby former U.S. Naval Commander, Albert S. Bigelow, theGolden Rule and its crew made two attempts to sail to theislands. They were arrested and imprisoned for sixty days,and the ketch towed back to Honolulu.

During the crew’s trial, a tremendous national anti-nuclear movement grew, with protests staged around theU.S. demanding an end to the testing and the freedom forthe Golden Rule crew. The trial inspired Dr. Earle Reyn-olds, his wife, and two children; they slipped out of theharbor and headed for the test zone in their yacht, Phoenixof Hiroshima. When Dr. Reynolds announced on the radiothat he was in the nuclear testing area, his craft wasboarded and the crew arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard.(These actions then inspired Greenpeace to use similarmethods in their campaigns to halt nuclear testing.)

Since those historic events, the Golden Rule fell intoa state of disrepair, but members of Veterans For Peacein Northern California recognized its potential:

We found this famous vessel in atruly deplorable condition – butthere's enough there, and its sym-bolism so compelling, that we havedetermined to fully rebuild andrestore the Golden Rule to its orig-inal condition. It is our intention

that it will once again take its place in the forefrontof the battle against militarism and needless war.After two years hard work – new frames, planking,

floors, and deck beams; rebuilt transom and stem; hullpainted inside and out; the deck and house are beingfinished as you read this – the little “tall ship” is scheduledfor launch, finishing the masts and rigging, and sailing

trials by September. Then, according to the project missionstatement:

Veterans For Peace, together with friends of theGolden Rule, will once again sail this vessel inopposition to militarism and the manufacture,testing, and use of nuclear weapons. Over a periodof years, we plan for the Golden Rule to take itsmessage of peace far and wide – on all three coasts,as well as the Great Lakes and inland waterways.Because of this boat’s famous history, much media

attention is expected, and the Golden Rule and its crewwill gain publicity for the cause of peace wherever theygo. They intend to begin with a visit to the San FranciscoBay Area during 2013 Americas Cup Yacht Races (anevent which will draw worldwide media coverage) andthen a ten-year tour of the U.S. Waterways, visitingcommunities along the coasts, bays, rivers, canals, inter-coastal waterways, and the Great Lakes. A typical visitmight include speaking events, press conferences, photoops, and boat tours for school children and the generalpublic—a grand opportunity to raise public awareness ofanti-nuclear and peace movements and to engage like-minded groups.

You can helpThe Golden Rule project is seeking regional volunteers

to sail and to join the committee as the tour moves fromone area to the next, and logistical and publicity assistancefrom local activists, especially from VFP chapters. Finan-cial assistance is also welcome.

Learn more at www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org.

Fredy Champagne is a member of VFP Chapter 022 inGarberville, CA; He was the founder of the Veterans -Viet Nam Restoration Project and a co-founder of theVFP Iraq Water Project.

The Project of Veterans For Peace

Peace Boat to sail againby Fredy Champagne

Because of this boat’s famous history, the Golden Rule and its crewwill gain publicity for the cause of peace wherever they go.

interrogation techniques, consisting ofcruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,were permissible.

The tribunal ordered that reparationsbe given to the war crime victims corre-sponding with the irreparable harm andinjury, pain and suffering they had under-gone even though the tribunal was merelya tribunal of conscience with no real powerof enforcement.

The findings of the tribunal will besubmitted to the International CriminalCourt, United Nations and the SecurityCouncil, and the names of the accused willbe entered into the War Crimes Commis-sion’s Register of War Criminals.

Former prime minister Tun Dr. MahathirMohamad, in an immediate response, said the

verdict and findings would be publicizedglobally and sent to heads of government ofall nations. He also hoped the public wouldnot invite these war criminals to their countries.

“The International Criminal Courtseems to be subservient to the big powersand does not seem to have the capacity orthe willingness to charge the leaders of bigpowers who are responsible for torture,invasion of an independent country,destruction in war, and for the killings ofso many people,” said Dr. Mahathir, whois the Perdana Leadership Foundationhonorary president.

He said one step which could be under-taken, especially in democratic nations,was for people to insist that all electioncandidates should declare that they wouldnever go to war on others.

This article is reprinted with permissionfrom the New Straits Times of Malaysia(www.nst.com.my).

(Continued from page 3) )the well-ignored definition of “Exemptincome”. ... READ IT. According the U.S.tax law, nearly every American does NOTowe any income tax. Zero.

So, here’s your news tip.--------- NEWS TIP ---------------Search tax law for “excluded income”http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov (title 26)Ignorance of the law is no excuse for

stupid beliefs, and then broadcasting thatstupidity with your War Crimes newspa-per. READ THE LAW, before you tellignorant people incorrect information. Waroccurs because they paid for it. Then showthe U.S. tax law to your fellow tax slaves,those dumb, war-supporting Americancitizens.

War is OUR fault. And, not one soldierwould be willing to go to war, legallydeclared or not, to another country, unlessthey got paid, by our tax money. Remem-ber, Jesus said you can’t serve God andmoney. These clowns, mostly stupid teen-agers and twenty-something-year-olds, goto fight only because they want thealmighty dollar.

Give your readers the facts, not all ofthis typical anti-war rhetoric.

War will only end when the cash flowstops. Then the war profiteers will have togo home, along with the dumb-kid sol-diers. Not to mention we could close over160 military bases all over the world,saving trillions.

[email protected] email

Editor responds: If it were only so simple!The WCT attempts to inform readers of allthe factors that contribute to our militaris-tic society. We may be wrong on occasion;but we don’t think we “got it all wrong.”Also, we take strong exception to thewriter’s disrespect of recruits and theirmotivation.

The WCT is GreatMany thanks indeed for taking the time

and trouble to send the copy of the excel-lent War Crimes Times - congratulations,another great issue.Kindest wishes,

Felicity ArbuthnotLondon, UK

(LETTERS continued from page 2 )Bush is guilty

Help the War Crimes Times1. Order a bundle and distribute copies to folks who need our message.2. Volunteer a few hours per quarter to help edit and proofread the paper.3. Contribute a few dollars so we can expand our reach.


Since the start of the Bush era, soldiers and veteranshave been a core part of resisting America’s wars forempire.

In 2004, Veterans for Peace sponsored Iraq VeteransAgainst the War, which began with seven members. IVAWnow has hundreds of veterans and active duty members,chapters in all 50 states and overseas, and continues gainingmembers all the time. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans aremarching in peace demonstrations, speaking out at publicevents, giving media interviews, organizing active dutysoldiers on military bases, and actively helping GI resisters.Anti-war Iraq veterans were featured in a documentarymovie, The Ground Truth, and in several other moviesabout the war. During the Iraq War, over 2,000 active dutytroops signed the “Appeal for Redress” calling on Congressto end the war. At the height of the war, the GI RightsHotline received up to 3,000 calls a month from GIswanting out of the wars and the military, and an estimated200 plus soldiers went AWOL in Canada. Courage toResist helped many service members publicly refusemilitary orders, including 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who neverserved a single day in jail. Now a young PFC, BradleyManning, stands accused of telling the truth by leakinghundreds of thousands of classified documents. All of this,combined with the civilian peace movement, turned thetide of American public opinion against the Iraq War, andeventually led to bringing at least the regular troops home,although thousands ofmercenaries remain.

What will happen tothe young GIs whorefused orders to war ordirectly resisted the mili-tary in other ways? In par-ticular, what will life belike for them afterward?What will their lives belike long after these warsare over, and the countryand the world moves on?

The experience of the Viet Nam-era GI resisters maybe very relevant here.

Forty-one years ago, I was a soldier in the U. S. Army.I had received orders to Viet Nam, and, after muchagonized soul searching, had decided I wasn’t going to go.I went AWOL for two weeks. I then reported to the Presidiostockade with my lawyer, turned myself in, refused orders,and submitted a limited conscientious objector application(objection to a particular war, not to military service ingeneral or to legitimate military defense of the nation). TheArmy first pressed three charges against me, for a total of15 years in prison if convicted. I was prepared to pleadguilty to those charges. But the Army instead dropped allthe charges, released me from the stockade, and orderedme to report to Oakland Army terminal for shipment toViet Nam. I escaped and deserted to Canada.

In making this decision, I was haunted by deep fear ofall the things the Army, the government, and society saidwould happen to those who dared to openly defy them.They said people like me would be branded cowards,traitors; that we’d be disgraced and spat upon all ourlives. They said we’d be losers, never respected, nevertrusted, never able to hold down a job, hated by every-body, loved by nobody. They said that without the

all-powerful Honorable Discharge, we would be held incontempt by all who laid eyes on us, and we would liveout our miserable lives in the gutter, on the margins ofsociety, hiding our terrible secret and unable to faceanyone with what we had done.

Do you think this propaganda didn’t scare me? Ofcourse it did. But stronger than my fear of disgrace andrejection by society was my refusal to kill and be killedfor politician’s lies, the profits of the rich, war crimesrepeatedly committed against unarmed civilians, and theinvasion, conquest, and exploitation of a small foreigncountry that never threatened or attacked us. Like thou-sands of my contemporaries and hundreds of the Iraq andAfghanistan generation, I refused orders to war.

After the Viet Nam War ended, I returned to the U.S.,turned myself in to the army again, and got an UndesirableDischarge.

Eventually, I was featured in a very small part in adocumentary film about the Viet Nam-era GI resistancemovement, Sir! No Sir! The movie interviewed and toldthe stories of GIs who had resisted the Viet Nam War invarious ways, and told about the role that Jane Fondaplayed in supporting the GI resistance movement. Thisled to a personal epiphany about GI resistance.

The premiere of the film took place on June 19, 2005at the Los Angeles Film Festival. A fairly large group of

vets who were in the film flew down to attend thepremiere. This is an email I sent at the time:

It was amazing to see just how deep and broad theGI anti-war movement really was. Even havingbeen in the middle of the movement, I hadn’trealized just how vast it actually was, I only knewmy little corner of it. But contrary to currentmainstream propaganda, the GI resistance move-ment was in fact so widespread that the militarywas actually close to collapse, according to highranking military sources of the time. Nixon went toVietnamization and a U.S. air war because Amer-ican ground troops had become unreliable. InChicago during the Democratic convention whenMayor Daley’s cops were attacking and beatingthe demonstrators, Army troops were sent toChicago but never used—because their command-ers weren’t sure which side the troops would be on.

You would have to see the movie to fully appreciatethe scope of all this. But you can get a sense of itby checking out the Sir! No Sir! website.The theatre was said to hold about 600 people, andalmost every seat was filled. After the movie wasshown, the producer David Zeiger took the stageand called on all the people in the movie who were

present to join him. There were about sixteen ofus, and we all stood up together and started towalk up to the stage. As we did, the audience roseand gave us an enthusiastic standing ovation,including loud applause and cheers. One manshouted, “Heroes!” as the applause accelerated.We walked to the stage and stood in a line facingthe audience. David made some introductoryremarks and had us briefly introduce ourselves.There was a question and answer period in whichaudience members asked about the film andresistance, and different people answered differ-ent questions.

After the showing, different people came up to talkto us. Some activists with different projects cameup and told us about their projects and exchangedinformation. One woman urged me and the othersto continue speaking out….A key realization of the night came to me when Iwas standing on the stage with the other militarydeserters/resistors. As I looked down the line, thethought that struck me was how well all of us hadactually done in life, even in establishment terms.Looking down the line, I realized that all of us werefinancially secure. Virtually all of us had at leasta bachelor’s degree, and about a third of us had amaster’s degree. Virtually all of us had profes-sional jobs. Most had homes, families, a middleclass lifestyle. The few who didn’t had an alterna-tive lifestyle that they chose, not one that wasimposed on them. This from a group of people whohad started out in life either as wanted criminalson the run from the FBI, or as convicted felonslocked up in prison for years. We had overcomeyears of formidable personal and institutionalhardships to achieve our successes, but there wewere, all success stories by anybody’s definition.

Life After G.I. War Resistance:Military Resisters 30 Years Laterby Michael Wong

Don’t believe the nation’s leaders; allthey tell you are lies. Believe yourown eyes and your own heart, andfollow where they lead. If you trustanybody, trust your friends and yourloved ones.

Jane Fonda with Viet Nam-era Army resistorMike Wong at Sir! No Sir! fundraising benefit

on Feb. 22, 2006, Mill Valley, CA.


Beyond material success, all of us were still activetrying to make a positive difference in society. Wewere politically active. We were personally con-tinuing to grow and develop every day. We wereall still dedicated to the same fundamental valuesthat prompted our rebellion against the Viet Namwar in the first place. We were all still movingforward in our lives.It struck me how in the ‘60s, the government, themilitary, the “mainstream” society, said thatpeople like us were doomed to be failures, that ourlives would be lives of disgrace and desperation,that we’d never be able to get a job, that peoplewould look down on us, that we’d be the outcastsof society, that we’d never be able to look atourselves in the mirror, and that we’d drown in ourown shame. Looking down the line of resistors, Irealized that just the opposite was true. Theaverage American has no college degree. Theaverage American is not a professional. Theaverage American is not politically active, and nottrying to change the world. We were in fact more,not less, accomplished than the norm. I can’t tellyou how proud, and privileged, I felt to be able tostand with these people.America today is locked in another quagmire likeViet Nam. Our middle class is being eroded by theRepublicans’ economic war of the rich against all.Our international prestige is sinking. Our economyand environment are being driven into a tailspin.Yet for us ex-fugitives, our personal lives weregoing very well. We are actually doing better thanthe nation!

The next day, I talked about this with a few of theother deserters/resistors, and they all agreed. Ourpersonal lives, despite the many dark times whenwe didn’t know if we were going to live or die, werenow going better than the nation. All of us were

more concerned about the fate of the nation thanworried about our personal lives. We succeededbecause of the very issues and struggles that wechoose to face and deal with, that seemed so largeand overwhelming at the time. We succeededbecause we had to work hard to survive and followour mandate to make a positive difference in theworld. We succeeded because we had fiercely loyalfriends who shared our dreams and ideals and weall stood by each other even in the worst of times.Moral of the story: Don’t believe the nation’sleaders; all they tell you are lies. Believe your owneyes and your own heart, and follow where theylead. If you trust anybody, trust your friends andyour loved ones.Did our group represent the experience of all GI

resisters? There were over 90,000 military desertersduring the Viet Nam War and an estimated 500,000veterans with bad discharges, an unknown number due tovarious forms of war resistance.* Our group, of course,can’t represent them all. But in my experience in the army

and the deserter community in Canada during the war, thepeople in our group were a fairly typical cross-section.

Since that time, I have met many Iraq War veteransand numerous GI resisters. We have talked, and some-times they ask me and others of my generation what it waslike for us. I look in their eyes and faces, and seereflections of myself and my generation so many decadesago. These are brave men and women, living with pain,fear, doubts, and wrestling with big questions of war andpeace, life and death. When I visited Canada, current daymilitary deserters shared their stories, and I felt so proudof them. They are very young, but they had the courageto do what they felt was right.

Today’s GI resisters have a tough road of struggleahead of them. But if my generation’s experience is anyexample, they will prevail, they will become successful,and they will grow to become leaders in their time. Thevery qualities that led them to resist the wars will also leadthem to success in life. And that is how it should be.

Michael Wong is a member of VFP Chapter 69 in SanFrancisco. He is one of the veteran-activist writers for InThe Mind Field (www.inthemindfield.com), where thisarticle first appeared.

Websites:Sir! No Sir! sirnosir.comGI Rights Hotline girightshotline.orgCourage to Resist www.couragetoresist.orgBradley Manning Support Network bradleymanning.org

* Long Time Passing: Viet Nam and the Haunted Gener-ation, by Myra MacPherson. Published by Signet, NewAmerican Library, New York, NY, 1984. Page 394.

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks. –Frederick The Great (1712-86)

The very qualities that led today’sGI resisters to resist the wars willalso lead them to success in life.

by Joe GlentonRecent attacks in

Kabul confirm the occu-pation is falling topieces. Claims about“decisive years” and“turned corners” are littlemore than cant. Insteadfor all their lack of airpower, drones, and high-tech equipment, theTaliban are gainingascendancy.

The ability to attackup to seven differentlocations, to hold one for 20 hours, and to attack thefortified compounds of the occupiers and local supporterscannot sensibly be read as a sign that the insurgency islosing ground. Fighting in Afghanistan is seasonal and theKabul attacks were the season’s opening game.

No insurgency can survive without broad support fromthe local population. The insurgent relies upon the peoplefor intelligence, support, safety, and more. The fact thatinsurgents now control great swaths of the country virtu-ally unchallenged tells us the people have been lost,partially due to the occupiers’ bumbling efforts. Theargument that Afghans are rejecting the Taliban falls flat.

Let’s not forget there is no mandate in law for aggres-sion nor any mention of – or authority for – brutallyoccupying Afghanistan in the UN resolutions regarding it

– which is why I refused to serve a second tour inAfghanistan. I was sentenced to five months in militaryprison for it but other soldiers too have refused and arerefusing to serve in Afghanistan – as is their right.

The Daily Mail publishedan excellent article about ananonymous British major’sdespair at being deployed intowhat he – and many soldiersI know – considers a lost cause. They are increasingly unwill-ing, as the officer said, to die for “a war of choice already losthalfway across the world.” For all the clarity of the article, itends in jingoism: dutifully, he will fight on, the writer asserts.

Yet conscientious objection is a legal and contractualright. In fact, it is more than that – it is a legal and moralobligation. This is why we must not accept that the debateabout serving in Afghanistan be narrowed down to anexchange about a soldier’s heroism or cowardice. Instead,I would encourage servicemen to explore their right torefuse, be aware of it, and to act upon their conscience.You will find you are not obliged to go; contracts,remember, bind multiple parties, not just one.

Naturally, the military and government will make ithard. Their oft-repeated fear is that if refusing to serve isallowed, “the floodgates will open.” They are correct, andthat is all the more reason to inform servicemen andservicewomen of their rights.

At the same time as the Taliban attacks there has been arise in atrocities. We have recently seen British soldiersarrested on suspicion of abusing children, as well as the

stabbing by a squad-die of a 10-year-oldAfghan boy. A mul-tinational operation

in all respects, the U.S. has done its share: kill teams, SSflag-waving, photographing bodies, urinating on corpses,and the Panjwai massacre carried out, according to thewitnesses, by 15 to 20 U.S. troops. When young men are

shaped for war and sent to fight there are consequences –even in “just” wars. The training involves two-waydehumanization – both of our soldiers and of the enemy– as Giles Fraser highlighted lately. These acts are comingthick and fast at the end of a long, dehumanizing, failedwar. Conscientious objection was a hard road for me, butwhile I was in military prison I received 200 letters a day,which helped. As did the support of my fellow soldiers.

Those sending our young men and women to die or bemutilated for nothing have no authority to say what ishonorable, courageous, heroic, or cowardly. You canvolunteer, and you can un-volunteer. It’s in the contract.Then perhaps our cynical, diamante-poppy-wearing polit-ical class will stop using the last dead kid to justify thenext dead kid – insisting we must fight on so they havenot died in vain. By refusing, I clawed back some honorfrom an honorless war.

Joe Glenton was the first British soldier to refuse todeploy to Afghanistan. His book, Soldier Box, will beprinted by the end of this year. Learn more atjoeglenton.com.

Why I refused to return to fight in Afghanistan’s brutal occupation

I would encourage servicemen to explore their right torefuse, be aware of it, and to act upon their conscience.

Lance Corporal Joe Glenton(photo by James Whitaker)


Apocalypse Now – now by Adam BernerFilm as dream, film as music. No art passesour conscience in the way film does, andgoes directly to our feelings, deep down intothe dark rooms of our souls.

–Ingmar BergmanThe night before I wrote this piece I

watched Apocalypse Now. The movie had adeep impact on me and remains my favoritefilm of all time.

I was shocked not by the violence and thescenes of warfare, but by how acclimated thecharacters had become to war. For example,during one firefight a character talked aboutsurfing. The soldiers quickly adapted to the

situation, discussing irrelevant matters right after or even during a battle. I was shocked atthe film’s surreal depiction of the Viet Nam War, how people are changed in one of two ways.

The more common is “going crazy”– when a person accepts what is happening aroundhim as normal, even moral, so they can still function as a human being and not losethemselves to madness.

The second reaction is “going insane.” Insanity comes to those who cannot makethemselves believe the lies and delusions; for them, the harsh stark reality is all they cansee. The men who go insane are the ones who have the best quality of mankind, empathy.Their concerns overpower the compulsion to conform to the situation; eventually despairand frustration consume them, leaving them as cold, hollow shells. These men go into battlewithout compassion, restraint, or remorse. Their will is unbendable and they have nolimitations or inhibitions to stop themselves.

What I wrote helped me to not only comprehend the film itself, but to express my viewto others. It was a way for me to understand the nature of mankind and how we respond tohorror.

I never was... I never was the same after the war. Nobody was. Anybody who toldyou that they weren’t changed is a liar. I remember one day my grandson asked me,“How did you do it? How did you keep yourself from going crazy?”And I told him. I looked straight into his beautiful big green eyes and I told him, “Idid go crazy, we had to. It was the only way to stay sane. Anyone who didn’t go crazywent insane.”“Now, there’s a difference between the two. You may not think so, but there is. Crazy,(sigh), crazy is when you laugh, you laugh while bullets fly right over your head andgrenades rain down on you. Crazy is when you don’t weep when your comrades,your friends, are shot or stabbed and their blood is all over you like droplets from astorm. And you can hear them crying out, for revenge, for help, or just for someoneto acknowledge their life. My god, I can still hear them.“But you keep on running, you keep on fighting, and hope and pray to God that youwon’t be next. Any man who wasn’t crazy would stop, collapse, and weep, but wecouldn’t, we didn’t have that luxury. That’s what going crazy meant.“Insanity though, that was worse. Or maybe it was better. Insanity was when youcouldn’t take it anymore. When you realized that just pulling a trigger and raining aholocaust down from the sky wasn’t enough. You realized that if we wanted to win,hell, just to survive in that jungle, you had to die. You had to kill your own humanity.You had to live and kill without emotion, without love, without pity, withoutcompassion, without mercy, without anger, without hate. You had to kill, just killand breathe, over and over and over again until you were nothing more than that.“Those who went insane would destroy whole villages, burn them to the ground,nothing left but ash and bones. They would kill thousands without a single tear orsmile or any semblance of anger. They were the best fighters and the worst men. Butit only happened to the best of us. It happened to men of love and kindness, they werethe ones who went insane. And after a while you could see something in their eyes.Their stone-cold dead dark eyes. They were just begging for death. Begging for it tocome and take away the pain and emptiness. And the only thing I could do was gocrazy.”

Adam Berner is a junior at the Canterbury School of Florida.

Col. Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando): “Youhave to have men who are moral... and atthe same time who are able to utilize theirprimordial instincts to kill without feeling...without passion... without judgment...without judgment! Because it's judgmentthat defeats us.”

(Photo by isamizdat)

I’m gonna’ tell youwhat a rifle bulletdoes to your future whenit bursts its waythrough your gutsand spinal cord.

I’m gonna’ tell youabout a hand grenadethat comes flying your way,landing between your legswith its clock tickingwhile you’re trying to diga hole in stony groundwith your helmet.

I’m gonna’ tell youto duck inside a farmhousewhen a Panzer’s turretswings around in your directionand its crew is loadinghigh explosive forspecial deliveryup your ass.

I’m gonna’ tell youwhat to do when our P 47Thunderbolts come callingwith eight .50 caliber machine guns,and they manage to confuseyour hole in the groundwith Werhmacht trenches.

I’m gonna’ tell youhow to dry off aftermarching through a deluge all daywith a condomover your M1’s muzzle,spending the nightin a not quite frozenwater-filled ditch,the wet dark illuminatedwith the neon of tracers,rifle blasts, mortars,and a BAR.

I’m gonna’ tell youto stop worrying after you’vethrown away your gas maskbecause you cut sectionsout of its breathing tube tosheath your dog tags so thatthey wont jingle at nightwhile your squad is tryingto move quietly into positionfor an attack ona well-defended bunker.

I’m gonna’ tell youhow to avoidshiny-newsecond Lieutenantwidow makers,wearing pressed OD’sand clean jackets,when they get out ofmuddy jeeps driven bya corporal needing a shave,wearing a knit cap,and chewing tobacco.

I’m gonna’ tell youabout the smells.Burning truck tires,corpses, vomit, cow shit,your unwashed body,freshly spilled intestinesthrobbing in the sun,Konzentrationslagers,puddles of urine,rotting fish blown outof a putrid barnyard pondcovered with decaying creaturesin shades of purple, black, andgreen,fat flies gorging in thethickened blood of horsesbloated to the size ofa Macy’s Thanksgiving Dayparade balloon, whilegracefully sharing the bountywith squirming white maggots.All this,mingled withgunpowder, and fear.

I’m gonna’ tell youhow lucky you are,you haven’t lived throughthese things,how fucked up you areto have createdthese things.Yes, you,waving the flag,buying war bonds,singing sentimental war songs,reading all aboutstories from the frontin the pages next tostock market reports,praising the troops,exulting in victory.And now that war is over.That’s what you think.That’s what you want to think.Asshole!You just started the next one.

–Jay Wenk

I’m Gonna’ Tell You

Help the War Crimes Times in its mission to expose the true costs of war: Order a bundle and distribute copies to those who need our message.

Jay Wenk is a veteran of WWII and the author of Study War No More: A JewishKid from Brooklyn Fights the Nazis..


Three. International law expertscondemn U.S. drone killings

Richard Falk, professor emeritus ofinternational affairsand politics at Prince-ton University thinksthe widespread killingof civilians in dronestrikes may well consti-tute war crimes. “There are two fundamen-tal concerns. One is embarking on this sortof automated warfare in ways that furtherdehumanize the process of armed conflictin ways that I think have disturbing impli-cations for the future,” Falk said. “Relatedto that are the concerns I’ve had recentlywith my preoccupation with the occupationof Gaza of a one-sided warfare where thehigh-tech side decides how to inflict painand suffering on the other side that is,essentially, helpless.”

Human rights groups in Pakistan chal-lenge the legality of U.S. drone strikesthere and assert that Pakistan can prosecutemilitary and civilians involved for murder.

While stopping short of direct condem-nation, international law expert NotreDame Professor Mary Ellen O’Connellseriously questions the legality of droneattacks in Pakistan. In powerful testimonybefore Congress and in an article inAmerica maga-zine she pointsout that underthe charter of theUnited Nations,in t e rna t iona llaw authorizes nations to kill people inother countries only in self-defense to anarmed attack, if authorized by the UN, orif assisting another country in their lawfuluse of force. Outside of war, she writes, thefull body of human rights applies, includ-ing the prohibition on killing withoutwarning. Because the U.S. is not at warwith Pakistan, using the justification of warto authorize the killings is “to violatefundamental human rights principles.”

Four. Military law of war does notauthorize widespread drone

killing of civiliansAccording to the current U.S. Military

Law of War Deskbook, the law of warallows killing only when consistent withfour key principles: military necessity,distinction, proportionality, and humanity.These principles preclude both direct tar-geting of civilians and medical personnelbut also set out how much “incidental” lossof civilian life is allowed. Some argueprecision-guided weapons like drones canbe used only when there is no probablecause of civilian deaths. But the U.S.military disputes that burden and insteaddirects “all practicable precautions” be

taken to weigh the anticipated loss ofcivilian life against the advantagesexpected to be gained by the strike.

Even using the more lenient standard,there is little legal justification of deliber-ately allowing the killing of civilians who

are “incidental” to the killings of peoplewhose identities are unknown.

Five. Retired high-ranking militaryand CIA veterans challenge the legality

and efficacy of drone killingsRetired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright

squarely denies the legality of drone war-fare, telling Democracy Now: “Thesedrones, you might as well just call themassassination machines. That is what thesedrones are used for: targeted assassination,extrajudicial ultimate death for people whohave not been convicted of anything.”

Drone strikes are also counterproductive.Robert Grenier, recently retired Director ofthe CIA Counter-Terrorism Center, wrote,“One wonders how many Yemenis may bemoved in the future to violent extremism inreaction to carelessly targeted missilestrikes, and how many Yemeni militants

with strictly local agendas will becomededicated enemies of the West in responseto U.S. military actions against them.”

Recent polls of the Pakistan peopleshow high levels of anger in Pakistan atU.S. military attacks there. This anger inturn leads to high support for suicideattacks against U.S. military targets.

U.S. Defense of Drone AssassinationsU.S. officials claim these drone killings

are not assassinations because the U.S. hasthe legal right to kill anyone considered aterrorist, anywhere, if they can argue it isin self-defense. Attorney General Holderand White House counterterrorism advisorJohn Brennan recently defended the legal-ity of drone strikes and argued they are notassassinations because the killings are inresponse to the 9/11 attacks and are carriedout in self-defense even when not inAfghanistan or Iraq. This argument is basedon the highly criticized claim of anticipa-tory self-defense which justifies killings ina global war on terror when traditionalself-defense would clearly not. The govern-ment refuses to provide copies of the legalopinions relied upon by the government.

Growing Resistance to DroneAssassinations

In signs of hope, people in the U.S. areresisting the increasing use of drones.CODEPINK, the Center for ConstitutionalRights, and the London-based human rights

group Reprieve co-sponsored an Interna-tional Drone Summit in Washington, DC,to challenge drone assassinations. Investi-gative journalist Jeremy Scahill noted thatCongress only managed to scrape up sixvotes to oppose the assassination of U.S.citizens abroad. “What is happening to thiscountry? We have become a nation ofassassins. We have become a nation that issomehow silent in the face of the idea thatassassination should be one of the center-pieces of U.S. policy.”

The American Society of InternationalLaw issued a report, “Targeting Operationswith Drone Technology: Humanitarian LawImplications,” in March 2011. Concernedthat drones may be the future of warfare,scholars examined three questions in theU.S. use of drone technology: the scope ofarmed conflict (what is the battlefield uponwhich deadly force of drone killing is

a u t h o -r i z e d ) ;who maybe tar-g e t e d ;and thel e g a l

implications of who conducts the targeting(since it is often not military but clandestineCIA agents who decide who dies). Conclud-ing that the U.S. may soon find itself “onthe other end of the drone” as this technol-ogy expands, they criticize official U.S.silence on these key legal questions.

Others are taking direct action. Selectexamples include: fourteen people arrestedin April 2009 outside Creech Air Force basein Nevada in connection with a protestagainst drones by the Nevada Desert Experi-ence; in January 2010 people protesteddrones outside the CIA headquarters in Lan-gley, Virginia; in April 2011, thirty-sevenwere arrested at Hancock Air Force base inupstate New York as part of a four hundredperson protest against the use of drones; inOctober 2011, as part of the InternationalWeek of Protest to Stop the Militarization ofSpace, there were protests outside of Ray-theon Missile Systems plant in Tucson; inApril 2012, twenty-eight people were pre-emptively arrested on their way to protestdrones at Hancock Air Force Base.

There is a brilliant new book, DroneWarfare authored by global activist MedeaBenjamin which documents the nuts and boltsof the drone industry and the money involved

in their production and operation. She collectsmany global media reports of innocent civiliandeaths, investigations into these deaths, andgives voice to international opposition groupslike her own CODEPINK, Voices for CreativeNonviolence, Fellowship of Reconciliation,War Resisters International, Human Rights

Watch, the CatholicWorker movement,Campaign for NuclearDisarmament, andothers working againstthe drones.

As National Public Radio and the NewRepublic jointly editorialized, there is goodreason to doubt the veracity of U.S. claimsthat drone killings are even effective.Drone use has escalated and expanded theU.S. global war on terror and thus shouldbe subject to higher levels of scrutiny thanit is now. As the use of drones escalates, sotoo does the risk of killing innocents whichproduces “legitimate anti-American angerthat terrorist recruiters can exploit….Sucha steady escalation of the drone war, andthe inevitable increase in civilian casualtiesthat will accompany it, could easily tip thedelicate balance that assures we kill moreterrorists than we produce.”

There is incredible danger in allowingU.S. military and civilians to murderpeople anywhere in the world with nopublic or Congressional or judicial over-sight. This authorizes the President and theexecutive branch, according to the ACLUand the Center for Constitutional Rights, tobe prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.

The use of drones to assassinate peopleviolates U.S. and international law in multipleways. U.S. military and civilian employeeswho plan the attacks and target and executepeople in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia areviolating the law and, ultimately, risk prose-cution. As the technology for drone attacksspreads, protests by the U.S. that drone attacksby others are illegal will sound quite hollow.Continuation of flagrantly illegal drone attacksby the U.S. also risks justifying the exact sameactions, taken by others, against us.

Bill Quigley teaches law at Loyola UniversityNew Orleans and is Associate Legal Directorof the Center for Constitutional Rights. Thisarticle was reprinted with his permission.Contact him at [email protected].

(Continued from page 11)

Even using the more lenient standard, there is little legal justifica-tion of deliberately allowing the killing of civilians who are“incidental” to the killings of people whose identities are unknown.

Human rights groups in Pakistan challenge the legality of U.S. drone strikes thereand assert that Pakistan can prosecute military and civilians involved for murder.

Assassination by the U.S. government has been illegal since 1976.

Illegal Drones


Once again, sick and dying vets aretrying to trace their cancers and respira-tory problems to the toxins of war.

Hey, Iraq, don’t say we never gave youanything. In addition to hundreds of thou-sands dead and untold injured, the UnitedStates is leaving behind enough toxic wastesites to kill your rats.

“Open-air burn pits have operatedwidely at military sites in Iraq and Afghan-istan,” the Department of Veterans Affairsnotes on its website. On hundreds of campsand bases across the two countries, the U.S.military and its contractors incineratedtoxic waste, including unexploded ord-nance, plastics and Styrofoam, asbestos,formaldehyde, arsenic, pesticides and neu-rotoxins, medical waste (even amputatedlimbs), heavy metals, and what the militaryrefers to as “radioactive commodities.” Theburns have released mutagens and carcin-ogens, including uranium and other iso-topes, volatileorganic com-p o u n d s ,hexachloroben-zene, and, thatold favorite,dioxin (aka Agent Orange).

The military pooh-poohs the problem,despite a 2009 Pentagon document noting“an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced byAmerican troops, the Times of Londonreported. In any case, it says, the wasteisn’t all that toxic, and there is no hardevidence troops were harmed. Of course,

one reason for that lack of evidence, reportsthe Institute of Medicine (which found 53toxins in the air above the Balad air basealone), is that the Pentagon won’t or can’tdocument what it burned and buried, orwhere it did so.

The little media attention that has beenpaid to this massive pollution has dimlyilluminated its potential impact on U.S.troops. Left in mephitic darkness are thecontractors, often impoverished SouthAsians, who did the dirty work at the bases,as well as Iraqi civilians who live and farmnearby. The Times of London reported that“open acid canisters sit within easy reachof children, and discarded batteries lieclose to irrigated farmland,” causingpeople to sicken and rats to die “next tosoiled containers.”

The toxic air echoes with the Viet NamWar’s Agent Orange fiasco. Victims of thatwar’s dioxin suffered for years before the

United States took limited responsibility—but only for its troops, and not for thecountries it poisoned.

The military’s history of pollution islong and largely unmitigated by legislation,treaties, or lawsuits. It stretches around theworld, from bases in the Philippines toOkinawa, Kuwait to Canada, and to numer-ous U.S. sites as well.

Once upon at ime—before9/11 turned con-spiracy theoriesinto a self-righ-

teous boom industry—Area 51 was anamusing Mecca for a dedicated band oftinfoil-hat nutters who fantasized aboutalien anal probes and insisted that thegovernment was hiding space aliens on asecret Air Force Base in the Nevada desert.

But a realand more nefar-ious plot wasthe military’sexploitation oflax regulationand workerconfidentialityagreements touse Area 51 asa secret dump-ing/burningground for the toxic waste shipped in fromother bases.

As deaths mounted at Area 51, work-ers—and their widows—sued, producing

evidence that the military had regularlyfilled football-field-sized trenches with55-gallon drums of hazardous waste,doused them with jet fuel, and set themablaze. The lawsuit foundered on theshoals of “national security” secrecy. Themilitary got away with murder.

Fast forward to U.S. military basesaround the world that are similarly immune

from effective regulation and reporting.U.S. Government Accountability Officeinvestigators charge that the military inIraq burned prohibited substances andignored “guidance” to monitor emissionsand to analyze its waste stream.

Again, sick and dying vets, this timefrom Iraq and Afghanistan, are trying totrace their cancers and respiratory problemsto the toxins of war. Again, the military

refuses to releasecomplete data, andclaims the datashow no harmfuleffects. Again, theassumption of cul-pability, and theclean-up effortswill come toolittle, too late.

A July articlein the NewEngland Journal

of Medicine studied 80 soldiers disabledwith constrictive bronchiolitis, “a very rarefinding” in otherwise healthy, young non-smokers. Almost all the cases were traced to“inhalational exposures during service inIraq and Afghanistan.” The journallamented: “This group causes particularconcern, since their potential toxic expo-sures are shared by most personnel whowere deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

And, oh, yes, by those left to endure thepredictable consequences of expedientpoisoning. You’re welcome, Iraq.

Terry J. Allen, a senior editor for In TheseTimes (where this article first appeared),has written the magazine's monthly inves-tigative health and science column since2006. This article is reprinted with herpermission. Contact: [email protected].

Viet Nam Redux: Shades of Agent OrangeU.S. Military Toxins – the gift that keeps on killing: A tragic history of pollution continues in Iraq and Afghanistanby Terry J. Allen

The military’s history of pollution is long and largely unmitigated by legislation,treaties or lawsuits. It stretches around the world, from bases in the Philippinesto Okinawa, Kuwait to Canada, and to numerous U.S. sites as well.

An underground tsunami of liquid anddissolved jet fuel and aviation gas fromKirtland Air Force Base is flowing off-baseinto the drinking water supply of Albuquer-que, New Mexico. The fuel was leakedfrom pipelines at a Kirtland’s Bulk FuelsFacility. The spill was estimated in 2010to be some 8,000,000 gallons—an amountconsidered to be the largest, deepest, andgreatest threat to anycity's drinking wateraquifer in the history ofthe nation. Recentlyhowever, a geologist atthe New Mexico Envi-ronment Departmentstated it could be three times larger at24,000,000 gallons.

The dissolved plume of contaminationwill inevitably hit municipal wells to thenortheast of Kirtland that supply a largeportion of Albuquerque’s water for homesand businesses. It contains ethylene dibro-mide which is toxic in miniscule amountsand will require shutdown of the wells orthe installation of a water treatment facil-ity. The Air Force has stated it has no plan

to stop the dissolved plume of contamina-tion.

The liquid plume of light nonaqueousphase liquid (LNAPL), which is floating

on the aquifer at a depth of 500 feet,contains diesel fuel, benzene, ethylben-zene, toluene, and zylene and is movingmore slowly than the dissolved plume. TheAir Force has no plan to remove any of theliquid jet fuel from the aquifer despite theNew Mexico Environment Department’sApril 2, 2010 order to provide an interimplan and removal in five years. If the liquidjet fuel plume reaches the city wells, therecan be no clean up of the drinking water as

could be done for the dissolved plume. The liquid plume is already a mile longand a half mile wide and the dissolvedplume is more than three times that size.

There is no way to stop the dissolvedplume because of the tremendous hydraulicgradient created by the city wells.

The Air Force claims it will begin toremediate the liquid plume. But remedia-tion expert, Dwight Patterson, has statedthe Soil Vapor Extraction equipment theyintend to use will have no effect on thecontinuing movement of the jet fuel plumeand, if the liquid plume is not halted, it willreach a tipping point where it increasingly

accelerates toward city wells—as hasalready happened for the much largerdissolved plume.

An environmental organization, CitizenAction, is demanding that Albuquerque’sWater Authority gain a financial commit-ment from the Air Force to begin planningnow for construction of a water treatmentfacility for the coming contamination of

the city wells. The AirForce accepts responsibil-ity but has continued tostudy the problem(stalled) and taken verylittle action since itbecame aware of the

problem in 1997.

Dave McCoy is executive director andWillard Hunter (of Veterans For Peace inAlbuquerque) is president of the board ofCitizen Action, a small, pugnacious envi-ronmental group fighting to have SandiaNational Laboratories and Kirtland AFBclean up their environmental threats toAlbuquerque.

Kirtland AFB Toxic Plume Threatens Albuquerqueby Dave McCoy and Willard Hunter

The spill was estimated in 2010 to be some 8,000,000 gallons—an amount consideredto be the largest, deepest, and greatest threat to any city's drinking water aquiferin the history of the nation. Recently however, a geologist at the New MexicoEnvironment Department stated it could be three times larger at 24,000,000 gallons.

Burn pit in Balad, Iraq.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." — Mahatma Gandhi


On May 10th Wired.composted on its Danger Roomblog a presentation from acourse taught at the JointForces Staff College to military officers.The course, Perspectives on Islam andIslamic Radicalism, taught that the enemyof the United States was the Islamic faithitself, and that a “total war” against theworld’s Muslim population would be nec-essary to defend the United States fromIslamic terrorism. The course went as far asto create a “Counter-Jihad Op DesignModel” that suggested that Saudi Arabiashould be threatened with starvation, Meccaand Medina may need to be destroyed, andIslam should be reduced to cult status. Thepresentation argued that the virtue of thismodel was that it left “open the option onceagain of taking war to a civilian populationwherever necessary (the historical prece-dents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Naga-saki being applicable to the Mecca andMedina destruction decision point).”

Wired.com received hundreds of doc-uments and course materials that illustratedthe hateful and false ideas being taught inthis course, and it reported that the courseinstructor brought in “anti-Muslim dema-gogues as guest lecturers.” The course wascanceled by the Pentagon after Wired.comfirst reported it, and the Joint Chiefs ofStaff have since taken steps to ensure thatno more anti-Islamic course material willbe taught to anyone in the entire securityapparatus of the federal government, mili-tary or civilian. However, it may be too lateto undo the damage caused by this course.The Guardian reported that although Lieu-tenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, who wasresponsible for much of the course mate-rial, began teaching at Joint Forces StaffCollege in 2010, the course had existedsince 2004 and “was offered five times ayear, with about 20 students each time.”

It’s quite chilling to learn that Dooleyadvocated to his students that the U.S.military should use terrorism against theworld’s entire Muslim population, and whoknows how many officers who have oper-ated in Iraq and Afghanistan have beenexposed to these bigoted and sociopathicideas. But Dooley’s course is just a symptom

of a much bigger problem. The beliefsexpressed in his course are too widespreadin the U.S. military for Dooley to be the rootof it all, and simply canceling his class willnot put an end to this. The ignorance and

hatred that is rife in our military needs to bedealt with on a much larger level.

When I was in Marine Corps boot campin 2003, I remember how my drill instruc-tors told us that we were fighting terrorists(“terrorist” was nearly synonymous with“Muslim”) because Islam taught them thatif they killed an American they would godirectly to heaven when they died andreceive 72 virgins. For a while I believed it.I believed it all the way to Fallujah, wheremy command told us that Fallujah had beentaken over by terrorists and that we weregoing to “liberate” the city by killing every-one who picked up arms against us. Evi-dence of their acts of terrorism was lacking(and the attack by U.S. troops—when wewere clearly the aggressors—was not an actof terrorism), but the fact that they believedin jihad and fought back against us wasenough to condemn them.

Those attitudes were widespread whenI was in Iraq as early as 2004. “Insurgent”and “terrorist” were equated, and it waswidely believed that jihad was a call for aholy war against infidels, in which terrorismwas the main tactic. Such ideological distor-tions created an atmosphere in whichanyone who picked up a weapon against us

and looked like they might have been aMuslim (meaning they were brown skinned)was immediately condemned as a jihaditerrorist. The simplistic explanation thattheir religion told them to attack us not onlyhid the inconvenient truth that we were, infact, the aggressors, but it discouraged anyfurther investigation into the issue. They

were misguided byfalse beliefs, wewere good—sweetand simple.

The idea that we are in a clash ofcivilizations with the Islamic world wasvery much alive in the minds of your aver-age, low-ranking soldier and your militarybrass while I was in the military, and it still

is today. The differences between theIslamic world and the West are perceivedby many to be so different that conflict isbelieved to be inevitable. Yet the differ-ences are far moresuperficial thanwhat Dooley taughthis students, andwhat my drillinstructor taughtme. Dooley’s coursetaught a “Counter-Jihad Op DesignModel,” yet jihad isconsidered by manyscholars (Western aswell as Islamic) tobe a religious ana-logue to Westernjust war theory, andthey see it as fallingwithin the norms ofi n t e r n a t i o n a lhumanitarian lawand the GenevaConventions.

Jihad literallymeans “struggle” or“effort,” and it is a duty for all Muslims.Jihad can take on three forms: an internal

struggle to refrain from sin and bethe best Muslim one can be (whichis often referred to as Jihad AlAkbar, the greater jihad); an exter-nal struggle for justice and to builda good Islamic society; and a holywar. However, in jihad there areconsiderations of jus ad bellum

(just cause for war) and jus in bello (justconduct in war), just as in just war theory.Most modern Islamic scholars agree thatjihad can only be fought in self-defense.Furthermore, in jihad there is a strict dis-tinction between combatants and noncom-batants, private property is protected,certain weapons and tactics are forbidden,

and there are limitations on collateraldamage. Clearly, jihad does not condoneterrorism, but that has not stopped a fewmadmen from invoking the term to try tojustify their crimes.

A misunderstanding of what jihad isand what it condones is undoubtedly theroot of a lot of Islamophobia. Yet all of theabove considerations raise the question,

“What is so scary about jihad?” Itappears to be just the foreignnessof the word itself, rather than theconcepts it invokes, that scaresmost Americans. Jihad and justwar theory deem many of the

same acts to be moral or immoral. They onlydiffer in how they justify those acts: throughthe will of Allah or through secular philos-ophy. However, the widespread misunder-

standing of jihad has led manyto nearly equate it with terror-ism, and the “War on Terror”in reality has been a war onjihad. It is of the most bitterirony that those who haveresponded to our aggression byshouting “jihad” in the nameof self-defense were con-demned as our enemies andwere met with more aggres-sion. The circularity of ourjustifications for our aggres-sion and the Islamic justifica-tion for self-defense has spunus into a bloodbath that hasshown little sign of abating.

Whether or not we willbe able to sensibly removeourselves from the viciouscycle of violence that has beenthe “War on Terror” remainsto be seen. What is clear is thatthe removal of anti-Islamic

course material from military and FBIschools is not enough to combat the falsebeliefs about Islam that are prevalent in oursecurity forces. Simply not teaching themanymore will not make them go away soonenough to avert more bloodshed. Some sortof critical intervention is needed.

Ross Caputi is a former U.S. marine (2003-06) who took part in the second battle ofFallujah in November 2004. He becameopenly critical of the military and wasdischarged from the army in 2006. Ross iscurrently a student at Boston Universityand is founding director of the Justice forFallujah Project. He is working on a book,Both Ends of the Gun, with Feurat Alani.

Teaching Terrorism in the Name of Freedomby Ross Caputi

What is clear is that the removal of anti-Islamic course materialfrom military and FBI schools is not enough to combat the falsebeliefs about Islam that are prevalent in our security forces.

In April 1917 Cardinal JamesGibbons of Baltimore, the de factohead of the U.S. Catholic church,issued a letter that all Catholicswere to support World War I, anexample of the Just War Theory.

Jihad is considered by many scholars (Western as well asIslamic) to be a religious analogue to Western just war theory,and they see it as falling within the norms of internationalhumanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.

The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years ineither victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with itstrials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never berelaxed and never abandoned.

—Dag Hammarskjold


I. The Pilot Looks Down

Emperor, sun god,from your eastern pagodawith its soft blue roofyou breathe droplets of goldon rice grass and green bamboo.

Ancestor, uncle,Mount Fuji's snowcap glitters,chrysanthemums bloom,the stones of Kyoto warmas you peek out of the sea.

Not an almond branch,not a school of swift herringescapes blossoming.Nagasaki rejoiceswhen you rise above the sea.

Daily it was youwho kissed my closed eyelidsto pull me from dreams.I looked across my harbor hometo see you kiss green waters.

I am a steel bird.I feel you breathing, breathing.I spread my long wings.As a child you cradled me.Catch me as I fall. I fall.

THE DIVINE WINDEdward Tick"Kamikaze" in Japanese means Divine Wind. Tanka is a traditional Japanese verse form of 5-7-5-7-7 syllablelines, and was the origin of haiku. This tanka series considers the World War II Kamikaze, or suicide flight,experience through the eyes of both the Japanese Kamikaze pilot and the American sailor under attack..

II. The Gunner Looks Up

Remember Spring, Dad?Driving far to fresh marsheshiding in deep grass.We'd smell the musty quiet.Water would lap at our ears.

I learned to wait, watchthe ducks returning northward,their brave brown bodiesflapping in a living Vflecking us with small shadows.

You taught me: don't cry,don't jump, don't move. You'd point, point.I'd aim my shotgunat their long bodies, long wings.My finger would squeeze. Slow. Slow.

The shotgun's gray blastflecking a tiny bodywith red polka dots.It fell, wings spread like mad flames.The others squawked, scattered.

At its peak I squeeze.I squeeze. It does not scatter.I squeeze. It falls. Squeeze.Steel bird screaming down on me.Daddy, I don't cry. Ducks! Ducks!

Mark Runge started it as an exercise in drawing. Hethen adding elements one by one until a story emerged.He read a proposal for a show that was to showcase

veterans andtheir artwork,and the piecegrew into animage thatreflected hiswar-time expe-riences. Thepiece, IraqiKnights andCivilian Life,(PTSD), is donein charcoal andcolored pencil.The size isapproximately30x22.5".

"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal."Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Documents

War Crimes Times Vol. IV No. 3, Summer 2012