The Iraqi government is struggling with a devastated nation, in the wake of a war that killed a half a million to a million-and-a-half people, created millions of refugees, destroyed infrastructure, healthcare and education, and left behind environmental contamination that has produced an epidemic of cancer and birth defects. Using U.S. weapons, the Iraqi government is attacking other Iraqis, under the false belief that eventually this endless cycle of sectarian violence will lead to a stable civil society at peace with its neighbors and itself. What it is producing is more sectarian conflict that is degenerating into a civil war. Caught between the government and private militias are Iraqi citizens who simply want to rebuild their country and lead their lives in peace. And now U.S. troops and more arms are being sent back into what is quite clearly a civil war. We've been down that road before. We can't bomb Iraq into becoming a stable democratic country. If Iraqis establish a stable government that fairly represents all Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and Christians, ISIS will become isolated. If they do not, sending fighters, bombers, drones (and eventually troops) will only create another generation of Iraqis who see the U.S. as the enemy. This petition was posted by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)

On the occasion of Spring Days of Action against the killer drones the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance issues this call to action: The National Security Agency is not only violating the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution by taking away the privacy rights of Americans and others around the world, but contributing to the deaths and the maiming of innocents, including children, in the NSA's role supporting the US CIA and US Military drone strikes. The Obama Administration has already violated the 5th Amendment rights of Americans killed by the drones including Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in Yemen. International law has been violated, as the US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq are war crimes. The NSA is culpable, and we must nonviolently express our First Amendment rights and responsibilities under international law to oppose the US Government and the Obama Administration's extrajudicial killings carried out in our name and with our tax money. On Saturday, May 3, 2014 we will gather and peacefully assemble at the National Security Agency to hold a public witness against the its role in violations of international law, war crimes, and crimes against peace. Across the United States, citizen activists have been involved in challenging the killer drone program, and some of them have been arrested and jailed for being voices for the voiceless drone victims. The demonstration at the NSA will be nonviolent, and is open to all peace with justice people. Some participants may be moved to risk arrest, however, the demonstration is open to all. Please let the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance know if you are able to be at the NSA on May 3 by emailing Joy First at [email protected] A final planning meeting will be held on Friday May 2. Contact Malachy Kilbride at [email protected] for information on this important planning session. The NSA, former employer of Edward Snowden, is located at Fort Meade, Maryland where the courageous US war crimes whistle-blower, Chelsea Manning, was tried and convicted. If not you, then who, will join us on May 3, 2014? Come out for peace with justice for all and be a voice FOR the drone victims and AGAINST US militarism and the violence of empire. For more information contact Joy First, convener of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance at: [email protected]

While military spending produces jobs, it produces fewer of them than civilian spending, or even than tax cuts for working people. It's a drain on the economy, in addition to its other significant drawbacks.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz is advising supporters of Israel that echoing the Times' stories about Oct 7 "Mass Rape" is the most potent way to justify Israel's actions, despite the fact that the rape charges play on racist and colonial tropes and many of the claims, such as "mass rapes" ("dozens") have proven faulty.

Unnecessary wars are killing and displacing millions of people. Lobbying politicians for change is unlikely as long as the arms makers can manufacture public consent through a campaign of misinformation.

I am a senior and too much police brutality and poverty and racism.

We have minimum wage laws that most businesses can't get away with violating. But the government can, and does. They will say "Because benefits aren't wages". But that is dodging the question of WHY we have minimum wage laws: humaneness, simple morality. We have laws protecting animals. Humans need to be protected too! The fact that so many people receive unconscionably low benefits, IF THEY GET THEM AT ALL!- (Another problem!)- - is a significant factor creating poverty, homelessness, illness, and an EPIDEMIC OF SUICIDES. NEITHER PARTY HAS CARED TO ADDRESS THIS FOR DECADES! SHAME ON B O T H PARTIES! They will say "We can't afford it!" But we can always afford bogus wars, and rich people pay ZERO tax for Social Security on income above $128,400, as of 2018! Stop the Wars, and make the rich pay their fair share! It is up to the American people to hold "our representatives" ' feet to the fire, or REPLACE THEM!

We must honor dissenters as we honor in this case vets, and in this case because the dissenters were right, and we leave no one behind. When so many pardons are being given to convicted drug dealers, we should grant pardons to (as many) addiction experts (as possible), too. Doing the right thing is always important.

Those of us who want an end to war are the majority worldwide. If we join together to demand accountability from elected officials by voting those who support war out of office, we will consciously create an end to war by changing the mind-set which views war as socially acceptable.

Because too many Americans and foreigners are wise to the arguments in Brezinski's "The Grand Chessboard" (1997). Our continuing efforts to force our way into the middle of the Eurasian continent will be met with massive resistance from: 1)the Stans 2)Russia 3)China. Russia is aware that our invasion of Syria (under the pretense of fighting ISIS) is a key part of our divide and conquer strategy. We are rapidly heading into the third world war.

War begins with spanking on moms' knees. The violence learned there you see in school bullying, gangs, and street crime. Home should be a refuge from the world's ugliness. Over 70 years of research has shown the harmful consequences that child punishment does to us parents and taxpayers. Alice Miller's 'For Your Own Good', Murray Straus' Beating The Devil Out Of Them' and Philip Greven's 'Spare The Child' shows us why and how to be a humane parent, and A. S. Neill's 'Summerhill' demonstrates that NO punishment is best.

* WIN/Gallup International’s annual global End of Year survey for 2013, among others, shows that the US is considered to be the greatest threat to peace in the world. We agree, and it's no surprise Gallup did not ask the question in its End of Year survey for 2014. * A 2012 study by Stanford and New York universities' law schools, and numerous reports in the UK's Guardian and Telegraph, The Atlantic, New York Times and others indicate that drone attacks create more terrorists than they kill, due to the high number of civilian casualties. We will never actually know how many civilians are casualties because the US government insists that all male victims of military age are "militants" or "terrorists" unless there is irrefutable posthumous evidence they are not. Even the US captured organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Council on Foreign Relations question the practice. * HRW says that Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen appeared to violate international humanitarian law and could constitute war crimes with which the US is complicit. * Numerous reports in the UK's Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel and even the Washington Post confirm the CIA has been spending about $1 billion/year since 2012 helping the Saudis and Qatar arm Syrian rebels, with little regard for vetting as confirmed by the latest fiasco with US trained "rebels" turning arms over to al-Nusra immediately on entering Syria, then bragging that they had "fooled" the US. Seymour Hersh reported on the "ratline" of captured Libyan arms from Benghazi through Turkey to Syria. * The US can not afford the programs for the 99% that Bernie proposes as long as it is wasting trillions of dollars on the military and foreign interventions, and Bernie's "political revolution" needs to make this clear to poorly informed US voters. * Last, but most importantly, you don't protect the human rights of women, children and civilian men by killing hundreds of thousands of them and forcing them to flee their countries.