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Praising The Will to Resist as “an eminently readable account that, once started, cannot be put down,” online business journal BNet provides a short write-up:
Award-winning independent journalist Dahr Jamail’s The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan is the true story of those within the U.S. military service whose consciences prompt them to resist the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. From battalions that refuse orders, to active-duty soldiers who sign antiwar petitions, individual soldiers who refuse redeployment, those who dare to take a public stand against the occupation, and more, The Will to Resist is a fascinating examination of what motivates such opposition amid the United States’ loyal defending force. The Will to Resist is not a politically neutral book; chapters reflect a decidedly negative and critical view of the American occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the heart of The Will to Resist is not its politics, but rather the true stories of the men and women who serve–and who choose to resist what they perceive as unjust, whether it be sexism, discrimination, or apparent crimes of war. An eminently readable account that, once started, cannot be put down.
Order the book from Amazon.
From socialistworker.org
Iraq war veteran Phil Aliff reviews independent journalist Dahr Jamail’s new book on the soldiers’ resistance to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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by Jon Letman | IPS
KAUAI, Hawaii - Six months into Barack Obama’s presidency, the U.S. public’s display of antiwar sentiment has faded to barely a whisper.
Despite Obama’s vow to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq before September 2011, he plans to leave up to 50,000 troops in “training and advisory” roles. Meanwhile, nearly 130,000 troops remain in that country and more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers occupy Afghanistan, with up to an additional 18,000 approved for deployment this year.
So where is the resistance?
In independent journalist Dahr Jamail’s “The Will to Resist: Soldiers who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan” (Haymarket Books), Jamail profiles what may ultimately prove to be the United States’ most effective anti-war movement: the soldiers themselves. [Read more →]
The following is reprinted from Foreign Policy in Focus.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Dahr Jamail’s The Will To Resist: Soldiers who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books). The testimonies below were collected at a national conference, “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan,” held by Iraq Veterans Against the War.
The name “Winter Soldiers” refers to people who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours. Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, trying to keep them from deserting in the face of a bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British, said: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
The phrase “Winter Soldiers” was adopted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) when they organized the first Winter Soldier event in response to the human rights violations that were occurring in Vietnam. The event, called “Winter Soldier Investigation,” was held in Detroit from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971, and was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. Armed Forces in the Vietnam War. VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by exposing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians included discharged servicemen from each branch of military service, civilian contractors, medical personnel, and academics, all of whom presented testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during 1963–1970.
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And Ten Steps to Take to Do So
By Chalmers Johnson
from TomDispatch.com
However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.
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One of the earliest metaphors President George W. Bush and some of his top officials wielded in their post-invasion salad days in Iraq involved bicycles. The question was: Should we take the “training wheels” off the Iraqi bike (of democracy)? Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for example, commented smugly on the way getting Iraq “straightened out” was like teaching your kid to ride a bike:
“They’re learning, and you’re running down the street holding on to the back of the seat. You know that if you take your hand off they could fall, so you take a finger off and then two fingers, and pretty soon you’re just barely touching it. You can’t know when you’re running down the street how many steps you’re going to have to take. We can’t know that, but we’re off to a good start.”
That image (about as patronizingly colonial as they come) of the little pedaling Iraqi child with an American parent running close behind, was abandoned when around the first corner, as it turned out, was an insurgent with an rocket-propelled grenade. Many years and many disasters later, though, Americans, whether in the Obama administration, the Washington punditocracy, or the media are still almost incapable of not being patronizing when it comes to Iraq. Take a typical recent piece of “news analysis” in the New York Times by a perfectly sharp journalist, Alissa J. Rubin. It was headlined in print “America’s New Role in Iraq Prompts a Search for Means of Influence” and focused, in part, on Vice President Joe Biden’s recent trip there supposedly to “assuage” Iraqi feelings that they are being “moved to the bottom shelf.” [Read more →]
Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan By Dahr Jamail
An award-winning, unembedded journalist tells the hidden story of American soldiers turning against military occupation.
“Dahr Jamail’s human portrait of the men and women who turned away from the project of empire should serve as a beacon…The truth they tell demands that we find the courage to make our nation accountable for the crimes committed in our name.” - From the Foreword by Chris Hedges
Read below to find out more about the book, hosting an author event or arranging an interview, and discounts and ordering information.
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I have been posting photographs from Iraq. Please visit the following albums to have a look:
Album: Fallujah, 2009 (Views from inside Fallujah, February 2009.)
Album: Over 1 Million Displaced Persons In Baghdad (As of February 2009, there are over one million displaced people in Baghdad alone.)
Album: Various Photographs of the Occupation (2009) (Various pictures from the occupation in Iraq, February 2009)
Album: Fishermen on the Tigris River (Due to decreased water level, increased pollution, and a disasterous economy, Iraqi fishermen are struggling to survive.)
Album: Awakening Group leaders of Iraq’s Al-Anbar Province (Photos of two key leaders of the U.S.-backed Sunni militia)
Album: Baghdad: City of Walls (Baghdad, in 2009, is filled with countless security walls and security personnel.)
The United States has elected a new president, but hundreds of thousands of troops and contractors are still on the ground, Iraq is occupied and in ruins, and questions remain about how the new President Elect will move forward after he is inaugurated.
With over 1 million Iraqi dead, 4 million refugees, 4,000 dead American soldiers and a total cost of 1-4 trillion dollars, the war in Iraq remains the most important fact of American politics, but it has faded from the headlines. The scraps of television coverage that still make the news don’t go far beyond U.S. military press releases and Iraqi politicians interviewed inside the Green Zone. Most mainstream media journalists either cannot or will not leave the confines of an embed or the Green Zone to report on what is actually happening on the ground.
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We are pleased to announce the launch of a new and improved website for Dahr Jamail’s Mideast Dispatches. Come take a look at http://dahrjamailiraq.com. You will notice many changes, not least of which is the completely new design with easier navigation.
The new website’s features include:
* Dynamic pages, which allow you to see the newest content
* A comments feature, so you can respond to and discuss Dahr’s writing
* A much-improved search engine, integrated across all content types
* Social bookmarking features, which will help you send Dahr’s writings to your friends or share them on popular websites
Though the frontend changes are dramatic, just as big are the improvements behind the scenes, which make the site much easier for editors to use.
We’re confident these changes will make our site as a more effective outreach tool as well as a better browsing experience for our current readers.
P.S. The new site was developed by WebRoot Solutions, a small company that specializes in internet services for people and groups making social change. You can find them on the web at http://mywebroot.com.
