War and peace

On 5 January, Peter Flanagan, 59, who killed a man who had broken into his house in Salford, Manchester, gave evidence at the trial of the other three burglars. In a witness statement, Flanagan described how the men threatened him with a machete while they ransacked his house. A member of the gang swung the machete at him, and a struggle ensued. In the course of the struggle, Flanagan jabbed John Bennell, 27, with the machete, before the four burglars ran from the house. Bennell collapsed…

John Tirman

Peace News: What is the main argument of your book, The Death of Others?

John Tirman: I am interested in two things. One is what happens to civilians during wartime. How many are killed? How many are displaced? Why does it happen? What is US policy towards civilians in wartime? The second part is about the American public reaction to high civilian mortality, and civilian misery in general.

PN: How…

Medea Benjamin. PHOTO: Code Pink

PN: What have been the main achievements of the US peace movement since 11 September 2001?

MB: Successes? We moved public opinion from being radically pro-war in the beginning – both in terms of attacking Afghanistan and Iraq – to being overwhelmingly anti-war within the first couple of years and made the war an issue during the presidential elections.

Building an anti-war movement that became…

I have been struck lately by what seems to me mission creep within CND. For example, the conference that followed the London region AGM in January included a session entitled “Why are we war-mongering in the Middle East?” The public forum held after the region’s quarterly meeting on 2 November was a talk with an identical title.

The two presentations were admittedly very different. At the AGM, Greg Muttitt, author of Fuel on the Fire, while not answering the question posed, gave a…

PHOTO: Spark Media

PN: Judged by its impact on events, the anti-war movement played a fairly marginal role in the course of the First World War. Why have you chosen to foreground it in your history?

AH: I think traditionally people like to write books about movements that succeed, for example, the British anti-slavery movement which was the subject of my last book, but it seems to me that most movements that really matter fail a number…

We live in a world of epidemic violence. And since the experience of humankind is that violence begets greater violence, which then begets even greater violence, we must resolve to eschew all violence. Can we make such witness without pain or sacrifice as regards ourselves or others? No, certainly not!

The situation in the world has become so bad that only by human self-sacrifice can humankind (and the rest of God's holy creation here on Earth) be saved. If this Earth is to be freed…

At the Catholic Worker we have a theory. If 1% of those who marched against the war were willing to go into nonviolent resistance to the point of imprisonment and the other 99% who marched were in proactive solidarity with these resisters, we could have, and still can, stop these wars.

It shouldn't be a case of resisters isolated in jail and the rest of us going home thinking because "we can do little, we can do nothing at all". In truth, we are neophytes to both serious nonviolent…

Like Bob Dylan, the source of this bookís title, Brian Willson celebrated his 70th birthday this year. I first heard about Willson while living in the US at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker in 2001. There I heard the story of how he lost his legs while trying to stop a train exporting arms to Nicaragua in 1987. I knew little more, but Willson soon joined the growing number of inspirational resisters I learned about and met during the two years I spent there. Some of these are named in this…

I’m a terribly picky reader and my PN reviews can be a little, shall we say, critical? So it’s a delight to be given a book that deserves the plaudits it has received from the likes of Mairead Maguire Corrigan, Daniel Ellsberg and Bruce Kent.

Reading What Nobel Really Wanted reminded me of a great Polyps cartoon – Jesus’ Last Words. As Jesus hangs on the cross the caption reads, “And I don’t want anyone to go twisting what I’ve said into an excuse for a load of right wing bullshit……

Indeed, according to a recent report for Inter Press Service (IPS) by journalist and historian Gareth Porter, the Taliban’s leadership is prepared to negotiate a peace settlement as soon as the US “indicates its willingness to provide a timetable for complete withdrawal.”

Ready to withdraw?

Taliban officials explained the movement’s position in late July during a meeting in Kabul with the former Afghan Prime Minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai.

“They said once the Americans say…

On 21 September, there will be a seventh Global Day of Listening for the entire 24 hours (GMT). Anyone can book a slot to speak to the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and their friends via Skype, the free internet telephone system. To book a call, check the schedule on the website to see when a slot is available, then email the team (with your Skype ID) to request a call-in time. Anyone can listen on the internet on 21 September without needing to install Skype. Full details, and live…

It’s a bit odd to me that with my sense of geographical direction I’m ever regarded as a leader to guide groups in foreign travel. I’m recalling a steaming hot night in Lahore, Pakistan, when Josh Brollier and I, having enjoyed a lengthy dinner with Lahore University students, needed to head back to the guest lodgings graciously provided us by a headmaster of the Garrison School for Boys.

We had boarded a rickshaw, but the driver had soon become terribly lost and with my spotty sense…

Disguised as a “humanitarian intervention” and giving “support to building democracy”, the second major EU military intervention in Congo began this June. As Peace News goes to press, 2,000 EU troops from 20 EU countries (plus Turkey) are being deployed in Congo, to safeguard the elections in the DRC. Officially, the EU mission (named EUFOR RD Congo) aims to support the 19,000 UN “peace keepers” already in the country.

The UN force (MONUC) became famous recently for…

Most of us have a grand vision, but few of us dare to make our dreams reality. In the 1970s the Atlantis community formed as a therapy community, by the `80s they had ecological communities in Ireland and Colombia. However, their dream was shattered when they lost 6,000 acres of land and two of their young adults at the hands of a band of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces Columbia) paramilitaries.

Lauren Kelley: How did the Atlantis community come to be established in Ireland…