Find Conscientious Objector Resources at Peace-Out.com
You can get out of the military as a conscientious objector, even if you enlisted.

Service Women's Action Network (SWAN)
The Service Women’s Action Network supports veterans and young women considering military service, works to solve problems facing women in uniform, and provides services that are healing to women after their military service experiences

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, December 29, 2008
Contact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, marjorie@tjsl.edu; 619-374-6923
Radhika Sainath, NLG Free Gaza Committee, radhika.sainath@gmail.com, 917-669-6903
The National Lawyers Guild Condemns Illegal Israeli Massacre of over 300 Gazans, Calls for Ceasefire and Urges Participation in Protests
New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) condemns Israel's massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has left over 300 dead and 1,400 wounded, with the tolls mounting. The Israeli Air Force dropped more than 100 bombs in dozens of locations throughout the Gaza Strip as children left school on Saturday. The dead include men, women and children in school uniforms.
"International law forbids the targeting of civilians," said Radhika Sainath, a civil rights attorney and member of the Free Gaza Committee of the NLG. "Israel must comply with laws of war and the Fourth Geneva Convention." Today's massacre marks an escalation of Israel's two-year blockade of the Strip which has deprived 1.5 million Palestinians of necessary food, medicine, fuel and other necessities. In November 2008, the United Nations stated that it had run out of food to feed over 750,000 needy Gazans.
Israel claims that the attack is in response to Palestinian rocket fire, which caused no recent Israeli deaths and few injuries. However, Israel's "rolling bombardment" and impending ground invasion is grossly disproportionate in light of the minimal damage caused by Palestinian rockets. “The law of war prohibits collective punishment and the targeting of a civilian population disproportionate to military necessity. Israel has flouted both these prohibitions, that follow its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and its sealing of Gaza, subjecting Gazans to near starvation,” said Marjorie Cohn, NLG president and a professor of international law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. “The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel, which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
Israeli military spokesman Avi Benayahu stated that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza was "only just the beginning," showing utter contempt for international norms and the lives of innocent Palestinians. The Guild calls on the entire international community, and the United States in particular, to demand an end to Israel's blockade of the Occupied Territories and its murderous assault on the Palestinian people. We urge everyone to join in the demonstrations planned across the country in opposition to this latest attack on the rule of law by Israel and we call on both sides to immediately reinstate the cease fire.
Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

Committee for Immigrant Rights of Sonoma County et al.
v. County of Sonoma et al. (2008)

The ACLU-NC filed a lawsuit in September 2008 charging that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been collaborating beyond the law to target, arrest, and detain Latino residents of Sonoma County. For three years sheriff deputies and ICE agents have stopped and searched people who appear to be Latino, interrogated them about their immigration status, and detained them in the county jail without lawful authority. The lawsuit charges that the actions by the local sheriff and ICE violated constitutional guarantees of due process, equal protection, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the Sheriff’s Department acted beyond its authority in enforcing federal immigration law. Read more on the ACLU site.

The national debt went over 10 Trillion dollars early in October. That amounts to about $86,000 per household. Learn more.

For more information on alternatives for spending the estimated 3TRILLION DOLLARS that the Iraq war will cost, watch the Three Trillion Dollar Spending Spree video.

Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates. Learn more

New Jersey Peace Action, Paula Rogovin, Anna Berlinrut and Iraq veteran William Wheeler have sued the President for unconstitutionally sending them to war without a Congressional declaration of war. From the preliminary statement in their complaint:

"Plaintiffs seek a Declaratory Judgment that the current
war in Iraq is being waged in violation of Article I, Sec. 8 of
the United States Constitution (“Congress shall have the power to
declare war”) because Congress has enacted neither a Declaration
of War nor an explicit, intentional and discrete authorization of
war prior to hostilities; because Congress may not transfer its
constitutionally mandated duties to the Executive; and because
the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) of
October, 2002 deprived American citizens of the opportunity to
vote for or against their elected representatives based upon how
their representatives voted on the issue of going to war in Iraq,
a right protected by Article I, Section 5(3) of the Constitution
as implemented by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment."

Too often we gaze enviously upon those who are richer than we are, but we seldom think about those who have less than we do. Are you curious to know where you stand in the continuum of wealth world wide? Want to know how you rank on a list of the richest people in the world? Find out using the global rich list calculator.

Burma's monks are leading the struggle of the Burmese people against an oppressive military dictatorship, despite the risk of beating, torture and death. Click on a monk above to learn more or to help the monks in their courageous opposition to a brutal regime.

Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator

The figures on the left include reported civilian deaths only. The figure in the center represents an estimate of civilian casualties based upon a study by public health experts in 2006.
Read the 2006 article.

New WHO study:
40 months of war, 151,000 Iraqis dead by violence through June, 2006. Violence now leading cause of death in Iraq. 3,775 violent deaths per month.
Read the new study.