Feature Archives

In a July 14th, New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says, "As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

On July 4th, peace and humanitarian organizations celebrated a Canadian federal court decision favoring Iraq war resister Joshua Key that could have substantial implications for other American war objectors. Canada's ruling conservative government may still try to ignore the will of its citizenry.In a nationwide action July 9th, US protesters drew attention to the imminent deportation from Canada of AWOL GIs. Across the country 14 events were held in support of US war resisters attempting to remain in Canada. Activists were pleased with a surprise decision announced just hours after San Francisco's noon hour protest; a Canadian Federal Court granted Corey a last minute reprieve of at least several months while his lawyers are given an opportunity to appeal earlier negative rulings.

On June 17th, 2008, a U.S. military judge dismissed charges against another Marine connected to the massacre of twenty-four unarmed Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha. Of the eight Marines originally charged in the case, only one still faces prosecution. Criminal charges have been dismissed against six of the Marines and a seventh Marine was acquitted.

On June 6, responding to an ACLU report on recruiter abuses, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a report urging the U.S. to make sweeping policy changes regarding domestic military recruitment practices. Although the U.S. signed the UN's Optional Protocol on the involvement of Children in Armed Conflict in 2002, military recruiters still target children under 18 years of age for enlistment with techniques that include false promises and coercion.

On June 21, about 200 pro-war/pro-military bikers invaded Berkeley to demonstrate in support of the Marine recruiting station in downtown Berkeley. They were met by about 100 demonstrators chanting, "Murder, Rape, Torture, War – That's What They're Recruiting For" and carrying pictures of Iraqi civilians maimed at the hands of U.S. troops.

Musicians and artists from the bay area are coming together in Santa Cruz on Friday, June 27th in order to raise money for Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and to help the brand new Santa Cruz Chapter get off the ground. IVAW has 3 objectives -- 1) Immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, 2) Reparation for the Iraqi peoples, 3) Proper care, treatment and support for Iraqi and Afghani vets.

On June 2nd, the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP) class at UC Santa Cruz hosted an evening entitled "The University is Unsustainable: militarism, nuclearism, corporatism and the UC." Student researchers Jono and Leah presented on UCSC's Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) while UCSC alumni Will Parrish and Darwin BondGraham focused on the University of California from 1868 to 2008, from the genocide of Indigenous Nations, the Spanish American War and the Manhattan Project, through to the present: a time of renewed nuclear-militarism and increasing corporatization and privatization of the University.