Portside

The recent U.S. deployment of special operations forces to Syria expands a global U.S. battlefield that is at a historic size. This year, special ops have been sent to a record 147 countries—75 percent of the nations on the planet. It’s a 145 percent increase from the days of George W. Bush. And it means that on any given day elite U.S. forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries.

Estimating civilian casualties of U.S. military operations is extremely difficult . . . “There was essentially no record kept in Afghanistan and Pakistan for a few years of any U.S.-caused civilian casualties, and most especially the killing of children" . . . “the harm to children in war is also indirect--morbidity and mortality due to the destruction of infrastructure which impairs delivery of medical care, makes drinking water unsafe, and makes food scarce.”

There are as many reasons to desert military service as there are deserters. All countries’ militaries like to snatch young men when they are uneducated, inexperienced, and unemployed. It takes a soldier far greater courage to throw down his weapon than to kill a stranger. There are deserters in every country that has an armed forces. Armies demand blind obedience and human beings crave liberty. Why do men desert? Certainly not from cowardice.

In a few words, it can be said that the book tells it like it is—it describes the vast governmental-industrial-legislative complex that controls our lives via war and violence. This is not conspiracy theory any longer—it is rooted in fact and record. The authors cite names, organizations, places, and dates that not only promote war, but also benefit from it financially.

Physicians for Social Responsibility recently calculated that since 2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. wars have killed at least 1.3 million and quite possibly more than 2 million civilians. Their report chides U.S. political elites for attributing on-going violence in Afghanistan and Iraq to various types of internecine conflicts as if the resurgence and brutality of such conflicts is unrelated to the destabilization caused by decades of military intervention.

American history is littered with examples of pointless wars fought for bad reasons, and with people who risked their careers and their freedom to oppose them. some wars aren't worth fighting. Some causes aren't worth sacrificing American lives for. Those who've fought to remind the government of those basic facts deserve our respect and our thanks.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the men and women soldiers who have suffered and died from war-caused conditions called variably soldier's heart in the Civil War, shell shock in the First World War, PTSD in the Vietnam War, and moral injury in the Iraq War...Let us not forget those who died from the nightmares of war - at their own hand.

Thousands of peace, social justice and environmental activists from around the world will gather in New York City from April 24-26 for the Peace and Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World - challenges articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King. Peace and Planet convenes prior to the April 27 - May 22 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations, bringing the voice of civil society to the governmental confab.

What would a war with Iran cost?