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Easter Sunday report from Colombia Delegation
By Andrew Gorby, FORpeace Blog, March 26th, 2008

Yuri Neira has spent the last one-thousand and fifty-eight days bringing his son’s dreams to life--dreams that the riot police of Bogotá ended with the savage swinging of their batons on May 1, 2005 during city-wide protests. With their faces cowardly hidden by ski masks, and their bodies and minds protected by thick black armor, they brutally beat 15 year-old Nicolas Neira as he gasped for air. The tear gas which was thick in the air had induced Nicolas’ asthma. He died days later, his head not full of dreams, but full of blood and fluid from severe cerebral hemorrhaging. (Read more.)

Not Every Deserter Gets the Watada Treatment
By Nina Shapiro, Seattle Weekly, May 07, 2008

A nervous, skinny soldier named Alonzo slides into a booth at a cafe near Fort Lewis and orders water. "I'm too uptight to eat," he says. "At 13:00, they're going to start calling my cell phone." That's the hour when soldiers line up after lunch to report for duty, and Alonzo (who requests to be identified by first name only) has no intention of going back. In his car outside is a hastily packed suitcase. He turns off his cell phone. (Read more.)

Interview with Jonathan Hutto
Interview by Erik Leaver, Institute for Policy Studies, June 6, 2008

Hutto talks about the founding of the Appeal for Redress and how the GI movement during the Vietnam War paved the way for the current movement.

After five years of war and little end in sight, much of the anti-war movement has acquired a case of “war fatigue.” Over the last two years, some of the most energized movements opposing the war have not been those made up of civilians but those who have served on the front lines. (Read more.)

Deserter awaiting court-martial at Fort Knox
By Chris Kenning, Courier Journal, June 21, 2008

In a nondescript barracks at Fort Knox, Pfc. James Burmeister awaits his fate for deserting his
unit while on leave from Iraq.

The 22-year-old is set to face a court-martial at the Kentucky post -- one of only two U.S. processing centers for Army deserters.

Now his mother, Helen Burmeister, is doing everything she can to keep her son out of jail. She will demonstrate outside the post today in hopes of persuading the military to let her take her son home. (Read more.)

Fed Up Soldiers Finding New Ways to Protest the War
By Jeanine Plant, AlterNet, July 9, 2008

There is a strict protocol for military dissent. A service member can exercise free speech, for example, but she should be off-duty. She can protest the war, but not in uniform.

In an unprecedented move, 1,171 service members signed the Appeal for Redress—a three-sentence statement that beseeches Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of troops from Iraq—amid a flurry of anti-war activity happening around the country and a vigorous public debate about escalation in Iraq. (Read more.)