Split This Rock offers the following poems for your vigils, demonstrations, and actions.
The first poem at a reading
Should always shock and awe
It should be a love poem
Of overwhelming force
Maybe the mother
Of all poems
War reduces everything
To silence
Every soldier’s grave a place
Too loud for sleep
E. Ethelbert Miller
From D.C. Poets Against the War (Argonne House Press, 2004). Used with permission.
A portrait of nonviolent resistance in one Palestinian village.
There was one way in which President Obama’s escalation speech brought significant relief to the 59% of people in this country, as well as the overwhelming majorities of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and elsewhere who oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan: It was a pretty lousy speech. That is, it had none of the power, the lyricism, the passion for history, the capacity to engage and to persuade virtually every listener, even those who may ultimately disagree, that have characterized the president’s earlier addresses.
The nation is still reeling from the recent tragedy at the Fort Hood base in Texas, which left 13 U.S. soldiers dead and over 30 wounded. Major Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, perpetrated the horrific crime. Most media outlets have turned this into a case of security at military bases and have focused attention on ideology and religion as motivating factors.
How should the United States relate to a solid ally whose human rights record is better than the norm in its region and better than its own record of 20 years ago — but is now heading in the wrong direction?
In a stunning blow against international law and human rights, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Tuesday attacking the report of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. The report was authored by the well-respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone and three other noted authorities on international humanitarian law, who had been widely praised for taking leadership in previous investigations of war crimes in Rwanda, Darfur, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Since this report documented apparent war crimes by a key U.S. ally, however, Congress has taken the unprecedented action of passing a resolution condemning it. Perhaps most ominously, the resolution also endorses Israel’s right to attack Syria and Iran on the grounds that they are "state sponsors of terrorism."
This is part of a strategic dialogue on Iran. You can read Duran Parsi’s piece here.
When U.S. Undersecretary of State William Nicholas Burns, met Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili at the United Nations in Geneva on October 1, it marked the first-ever high-level bilateral meeting between Washington and Tehran in 30 years.
This is part of a strategic dialogue on Iran. You can read Bernd Kaussler’s piece here.
A key facet of the Obama administration’s broader foreign policy strategy has been engaging with the Muslim world. This administration’s willingness to do so was welcomed as a beacon of hope across the globe and Obama’s speeches in the Middle East this spring brought long awaited overtures between America and Muslim communities.
Guardians of the Revolution, by Council on Foreign Relations scholar Ray Takeyh, offers candid insights into Iranian politics, delving into the origins of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and tracking its evolution over the past 30 years. The current debate in Iran and among outside observers centers around whether or not the spirit of that revolution is still alive today. Many of the figures instrumental in building and sustaining the Islamic Revolution and which Takeyh brings to life in his book — Mir Hossein Mussavi, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ali Larijani, Mohammad Khatami, and Hosein-Ali Montazeri are now virulently opposed to the regime. On the other side of the debate, Takeyh explains the rise of the New Right, a group of conservatives headed by Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who have slowly gained and entrenched themselves in the heart of the Iranian government.