U.S. Army bans MySpace!

www.myspace.com/couragetoresist

Courage to Resist. May 17, 2007

In the name of limited bandwidth and national security, the Army has banned MySpace, YouTube, and nine other social networking websites. Not only does this come only days after Courage to Resist launched our own MySpace outreach effort, it comes the day after the Army itself opened a YouTube channel dedicated to sharing the “good news that goes unreported” in Iraq! No word yet that www.couragetoresist.org has been banned.

Iraq combat veterans, Agustín Aguayo and Camilo Mejía, will be joined by fellow war resisters Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala for a series of Northern California events May 9-18. (Calendar of events)

Just weeks after being released from a military stockade in Germany for refusing redeployment to Iraq, Agustín Aguayo will be joined by fellow war resisters on a Northern California speaking tour. Agustín served nearly eight months in prison after fighting for nearly three years to be recognized as a conscientious objector. Agustin will explain for the first time why he chose jail instead of redeploying to Iraq.

Camilo Mejía was one of the first Iraq combat veterans to refuse to return to Iraq and served almost nine months in prison for his stand against war. In his upcoming book, "Road from ar Ramadi; The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía," Camilo gives an inside view of what it felt like to be a soldier on the ground in Iraq. Camilo's book will be available at his events.

An Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World

A new book by Courage to Resist organizer David Solnit and Gulf War objector and community organizer Aimee Allison from Seven Stories Press (July 2007), paperback, 120 pages. Available now from Courage to Resist for a $20 donation -- that is $5 more than the cover price, but without any additional charges like shipping and handling.

Every day in the United States, military recruiters enter the halls of high schools equipped with a goodie bag of promises and free copies of the US Army's official new video game, America's Army. Assurances of non-combat positions and college money made largely to teens of color and low-income communities rarely materialize upon real-life service.

"As a counselor on the GI Rights Hotline, I know that, for every GI in the news refusing to fight, there are thousands more GIs quietly saying, "No!" to this war."

By Susan Galleymore, Courage to Resist. Published in Left Curve Journal Spring 2007.

One of the best kept secrets of our time is the ferocious GI resistance to the war in Vietnam. It covered the gamut from individual, passive, and unorganized to overtly active, collective, and organized. It sprouted in military barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs, and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite West Point, spread through Vietnam's battlefields and, according to a Vietnam-era military officer, by 1971 it had infested the entire armed services. Until the recent screening of the documentary, Sir, No Sir!, the American public knew little about the resistance to that war.

Today, there is budding GI resistance to this war, the Global War on Terror (GWOT). So far, resistance has not blossomed into the near-epidemic of that time but the ground is fertile and thanks to Sir, No Sir! GIs are learning their history and emulating their forebears.