Whatever Happened To Americans’ Moral Compasss

The Vietnam War is one of many heinous stains on American history that to this day often is told through a revisionist lens or outright ignored. Yet the truth remains beneath the layers of whitewashing that the U.S. government sent thousands of Americans to slaughter and be slaughtered over a conflict that had everything to do with Cold War ideologies and nothing to do with justice or freedom. The death tolls are still shocking to read: it is estimated that 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed during the war, along with 1.1 million  North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters and 58,220 American soldiers.

The conflict also inspired an anti-war movement described as “one of the largest and most successful youth-led resistance movements in American history” in the 2020 film “The Boys Who Said NO!”

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The Return Of The Anti-Antiwar Left

In the writings of Dreyfuss, The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg, Mother Jones’ David Corn, The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer, New York magazine’s resident dolt Jonathan Chait, and many more besides, we can see the emergence of the anti-anti-Cold War Left, there has also reemerged alongside it the very vocal and ravenously unscrupulous anti-antiwar Left. And it is on the issue of the Syrian war on which the anti-antiwar Left has coalesced, inexplicably arguing for the wholesale takeover of a secular police state by the very same Islamist radicals who, if given the chance, would turn around and immediately kill them on the grounds of apostasy.

In Syria, the protests that began in 2011 were quickly overtaken by armed jihadists whose motto was “Christians to Beirut, Alawis to the grave.” Before he was murdered by Syrian rebels, the Jesuit missionary Father Frans vans der Lugt observed that “From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”

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US War Against Mexico: Prelude To Empire

The 1846 U.S. invasion of Mexico — popularly, if misleadingly, dubbed the Mexican-American War — must rate as an acute pivot point in the young nation’s history. The Mexican-American War, seen in the context of America’s current contemporary never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East, is more relevant than ever. Constituting the first successful conquest of another country (Canada had been unsuccessfully invaded twice), the war in Mexico included the U.S. Army’s first major amphibious operation and its first experience with prolonged occupation duty. The war, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was also sold to a naïve public on demonstrably false pretexts. The blowback from that realization, along with the conflict’s mounting casualties, coalesced into America’s first-ever widespread anti-war movement.

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UNAC 2020 Conference Aims To Unite The Antiwar Movement!

With protesters marching in hundreds of cities around the world against the U.S. empire’s war plans against Iran and Iraq, including millions in Baghdad, the need for a unified anti-imperialist movement in the U.S. has grown. Central to organizing of hundreds of demonstrations against U.S. wars, sanctions and occupations has been the United National Antiwar Coalition. One of the largest progressive alliances in the U.S., UNAC works with hundreds of organizations across the country. 

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U.S. Anti-War Movement Should Stay Focused On Getting U.S. Out Of Syria

When forces in U.S. ruling circles contend with and denounce each other to justify foreign intervention — as is currently happening in reaction to the announced U.S. pullback from the Kurdish area of Syria — this generates speculation, analysis and confusion in the population, including among anti-war activists. It demands a clear political response. This confusion takes place because U.S. apologists invent pretexts for the government’s military interventions. They falsely claim it sends troops to defend democracy or to protect the human rights for some group.

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The Antiwar Movement No One Can See

When Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017, Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest their instantly endangered rights. Conspicuously absent from the newfound civic engagement, despite more than a decade and a half of this country’s fruitless, destructive wars across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, was antiwar sentiment, much less an actual movement. Those like me working against America’s seemingly endless wars wondered why the subject merited so little discussion, attention, or protest.

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Uniting To Protect Venezuela And Stop The US War Machine

The US-led coup attempt in Venezuela continues to falter as the US admits the opposition is selfish and divided. Juan Guaido was exposed as relying on Tarot Cards and an astrologer to determine Venezuela’s future. Russia and China pledged unified support to Venezuela in opposition to the US-led coup. The US added new sanctions against Venezuela.

The effort to protect international law by the Embassy Protection Collective continues in court and needs your help to defend against US government prosecutions. And, a coalition of organizations announces a weekend of actions during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City from September 20 to 23: The People’s Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine (and Save the Planet). More details below.

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US Empire Is Failing, Time To Change Course

The Pentagon and elites who profit from war are trapped in a devastating cycle that will bring greater insecurity to the world and risks another world war, including a nuclear war. This makes the work to build a movement of movements for peace an imperative. That is why we are currently abroad building relationships with people and organizations for international solidarity. People who respect international laws designed to solve conflicts without violence and to hold war criminals accountable must work together to change the current course.

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Peace Congress Replaces Trump Military Parade on November 10 In Washington, DC

The No Trump Military Parade coalition of 250 organizations is holding a Peace Congress in place of the Trump Military Parade, which they helped to stop. In a historic show of opposition to the glorification of war and waste of millions of public dollars, the coalition went beyond traditional peace group to include anti-poverty, housing, the environment and more. The Peace Congress will be part of a weekend of activists including a solemn march through the monuments and a peace concert at McPherson Square.

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Military Parade Cancelled, How Does Peace Movement Build On This Victory?

This week, the Trump military parade, planned for November 10, was canceled for 2018. In February, a coalition of groups went public, announcing we would organize to stop the military parade and, if it went forward, to mobilize more people at the parade calling for peace and an end to war than supporting militarism. The coalition called for “ending the wars at home and abroad.”

The No Trump Military Parade coalition intended to show the world that the people of the United States do not support war. Now that the parade has been cancelled, how do we build on that success?

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Bannering Against War in Baltimore

At 4:30 PM, when the bosses left work early to beat the rush to the northwest Baltimore suburbs, there were few waves and honks at our banner “Israel Stop Killing Protesters.” Neither were there digits of disapproval. But by 5:30 when the workforce passed under our bridge over the Jones Falls Expressway, the waves and honks were noticeably more frequent. Sympathy for our protest more than doubled as traffic slowed in the 5 o’clock rush. The fingers of foes also increased, but were still only one out of 20 waves, thumbs up and honks of support. At first, the silence was deafening, compared with last week’s banner du jour “No War on Iran!” when support was twice as evident. Our count of 130 cars per minute during rush hour totals to 7,800 vehicles per hour of visibility. We could not ask for a better captive audience.

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All Out For Antiwar Actions This Weekend

Trump has tweeted, “Russia get ready.”  He promises a missile attack on Syria. Russia says it will shoot down any missiles and target their source.  U.S. and Russian ships have moved into the waters off Syria. The world is in grave danger.

People around the world are looking to see what we here in the U.S. will do. We need to show our unwavering opposition to U.S. war in the streets, now more than ever. Our Spring Actions against the wars at home and abroad will take place this coming weekend – right at this critical moment that can have terrible consequences for the people of Syria and put the U.S. in direct confrontation with Russia.

Meanwhile, Israel has been shooting down unarmed Palestinian protesters as they demand an end to the inhumane blockade of Gaza.  More than 30 have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded.

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Judge Intervenes After FBI Stonewalls Documentary Film Maker

By Britain Eakin for Mint Press News – WASHINGTON – A federal judge hastened completion of a documentary decades in the making about the FBI’s role in the Vietnam anti-war movement Thursday by ordering the agency to churn out nearly 3,000 pages of documents a month. According to an internal policy, the FBI was only releasing requested records in chunks of 500 at a time to Nina Gilden Seavey, a filmmaker and professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. At that rate, it would have taken nearly 17 years for the agency to hand over all 102,385 documents it says it found in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act requests she started filing in 2013. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler’s ruling issued Thursday called the FBI’s policy “untenable.” For Seavey, the prospect of waiting nearly two decades for the information needed to complete her film was daunting. “I’m 60 years old,” Seavey said in a phone interview. “I mean, let’s be real,” she added, trailing off with laughter. Seavey had asked the FBI for information on “individuals, organizations, events, publications, and file numbers” relating to the agency’s involvement in the anti-war movement, looking particularly at St. Louis in the 1960s and 1970s.

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While Senators Briefed On North Korea Protesters Hold Their Ground

By Anne Meador of DC Media Group. In recent weeks, North Korean ballistic missile tests have led Trump to threaten and insult the country and its leader and send three aircraft carrier groups within striking distance. Following the announcement of the Senators’ briefing at the White House, North Korea explicitly threatened nuclear war. China and the U.N. have admonished both North Korea and the United States and made pleas for restraint. When the senator arrived at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building they were met with protesters calling for No War With Korea.

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