United States of America

by Ehab Zahriyeh

“If something happens with Russia,” said one cadet to his classmate at Fishburne Military School, “I’m pretty sure all of us are a little bit, you know, maybe not excited but ready. Because that’s what we want to do.”

Another cadet chimed in, saying, “For our whole lives … since I was a little kid, that’s all I ever wanted to do.”

Harold McCoo, however, was less sanguine about the prospects of the battlefield and his schoolmates’ eagerness to enter war. “I don’t want to see them on one of those plaques that we have over in the foyer for former Fishburne cadets who have passed away,” he said.

Photo: Dr. Sonia Santiago, founder and director of Madres Contra la Guerra/Mothers Against the War. (Photo: Jovanni Reyes)

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, along with allies from various peace and justice organizations, congregated at the Woodbine Ecological Center in Sadalia, Colorado last month to attend the 2014 IVAW National Convention and commemorate the 10th anniversary of the post-9/11-era anti-war veteran led movement. Ironically, this date fell on the week after the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War—a war that devastated Europe and was supposed to end all wars—and coincidentally at a time when the Obama Administration authorized another round of aerial attacks on the people of Iraq. This brought ill memories of the last war on the people of Iraq by U.S. forces, leaving many of the combat veterans attending with mixed feelings, self-reflection and, for some, sentiments of despair.

Keep the military's base of operations out our education system

As the school year begins, parents and guardians across the [U.S.] are getting to know new teachers, bus routes, routines and worrying increasingly about violence and bullying as we send our children into the semi-unknown. It’s a busy, nervous time of year.

Parents of school-aged children in Syria and Iraq have other worries. An August 2014 United Nations Human Rights Council report states that both state and non-state armed groups in the region have been recruiting children for combat and non-combat support roles in violent conflict, [including] ISIS.