NonviolenceUSA: it can happen here

They call themselves Gold Star Families for Peace. Organized less than two months ago, it is part support group and part activist organization, with members united by grief and the belief that their loved ones died in a war that did not have to happen. They represent a small percentage of the families that have…

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH November 4, 2004 Dear George, You don’t mind if I call you George do you? When you sent me a letter offering your condolences on the death of my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, in the illegal and unjust war on Iraq, you called me Cindy, so I naturally…

FORT STEWART – While Army Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia faced his desertion court-martial this past week at Fort Stewart, his mother, Maritza Castillo, stood vigil for two nights in front of the base with about two dozen family members and friends. She planted herself outside the main gates, holding up a sign expressing how she…

I was routinely cleaning toilets in my dorm at Pekin Federal Prison Camp when the loudspeaker summoned me to the Administration Building. “You’re going next door,” said the guard on duty. “Someone wants to talk with you.” During a five-minute ride to the adjacent medium-security men’s prison, I quickly organized some thoughts about civil disobedience…

Heckler: Mr. Rumsfeld, you’re fired! Your foreign policy is based on lies. The war in Iraq is unjust and illegal, and the occupation is immoral. There are U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq — Heckler: Go home! Heckler: — every day! Still dying! Bring the troops home now. Heckler: Tell us when the troops are coming…

First conscientious objector imprisoned for refusing to fight Iraq War, anti-war hero Stephen Funk returned home from six months in North Carolina military prison to a community celebration in Oakland, California March 14, 2004. The event was announced on the front page of the local news section of the San Francisco Chronicle and was covered…

The Israeli bulldozer that ran over and killed American peace activist Rachel Corrie, 23, in the Gaza Strip had killed before. A few weeks ago, on March 3, an Israeli bulldozer killed a nine-month pregnant Palestinian woman, Nuha Sweidan, while destroying the house next door in a dilapidated Gaza refugee camp. Palestinian witnesses said that…

On October 6, 2002, at 7:30 a.m., three Roman Catholic Dominican Sisters and members of the Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares action in 2001, Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson and Ardeth Platte, entered Minuteman missile silo site N-8 near Greeley, Colorado. Wearing white mop-up suits which said Disarmament Specialists and Citizens Weapons Inspection Team, they cut…