Mothers Against the Draft

A Foreign Policy of Fools

Terrorists seek to kill because they believe that America is at war with them. They didn't fell the World Trade Center because they disliked the Bill of Rights, attack the Pentagon because they detested Disneyland, or plot the destruction of the Capitol because they abhorred free elections in America. Rather, they sent the simple message: you want to be an empire? You'll pay the price for attempting to enforce your edicts on the rest of us.

Avoiding War With Iran Is Iran a nuclear threat? Not according to our own CIA, which says Iran is years away from developing nuclear weapons. This is not to say we should sit back as nuclear weapons proliferate in the Middle East. But we shouldn't allow war hawks to wildly overstate the threat posed by Iran, as they did with Iraq.	The generals' revolt In just two weeks, six retired U.S. Marine and Army generals have denounced the Pentagon planning for the war in Iraq and called for the resignation or firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who travels often to Iraq and supports the war, says that the generals mirror the views of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more.
Shifting Realities on Iraq One of the fascinating aspects of the Iraq War has been the way in which some people have permitted their sense of reality to shift and mutate as circumstances have changed.	Of imperial presidents and congressional cowards If we sat by while Stalin got the bomb, and Mao got the bomb, and Kim Jong-Il got the bomb, why is an Iranian bomb a threat to the United States, which possesses thousands?
Dolts or Liars Either most members of the media elite have a reading comprehension problem – which would necessarily result in low scores for them on standard IQ tests – or they deliberately misrepresent to you what they have read.	The Volunteer Check on an Imperial U.S. The military's recruiting difficulties illustrate an important virtue of the volunteer military. Average people can resist - and eventually shut down - an unpopular conflict by simply refusing to join. In contrast, a draft ensures a steady source of manpower, allowing the government to pursue an unpopular war. Although opposition might eventually force a change in policy, this process took years in Vietnam's case.
Do the Troops Defend our Freedom? How often do we hear the claim that American troops “defend our freedoms”? The claim is made often by U.S. officials and is echoed far and wide across the land by television commentators, newspaper columnists, public-school teachers, and many others. It’s even a common assertion that emanates on Sundays from many church pulpits.	Sleep Well Tonight. Your National Guard Is...Overseas? I was a teenager when America sat at the brink of nuclear war, with President Kennedy positioned nose-to-nose with the Russians over the missiles stored at the Bay of Pigs. In my home my father tried to prepare a 'safe room' of sorts, stockpiling water and canned food. In the event of a nuclear attack, he planned for us to go to that room, where we would, hopefully, survive.
A Teachable Moment As parents and teachers, we are always looking to turn mistakes committed by our children and students into teachable moments. We know lessons can be learned from bad experiences if we recognize what led to them and learn from the experience. The bad experience then becomes a teachable moment: an opportunity to learn why something happened and to use this knowledge to avoid the same mistake in the future.	A Torturous Silence Where do American religious leaders stand on torture? Their deafening silence evokes memories of the unconscionable behavior of German church leaders in the 1930s and early 1940s. For far too long, we have been acting like "obedient Germans." Shall we continue to avert our eyes – even as our mainstream media begin to expose the "routine" torture conducted by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo?