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Afghanistan policy after the McChrystal scandal—The New Yorker:

The military key to counterinsurgency is protection of the population, but the difficulty in securing Marja and the delay of a promised campaign in Kandahar suggest that the majority of Afghan Pashtuns no longer want to be protected by foreign forces. The political goal of counterinsurgency is to strengthen the tie between civilians and their government, but the Afghan state is a shell hollowed out by corruption, and at its center is the erratic figure of President Karzai.

Taxation, financial and environmental regulation, immigration, war and other issues of public policy, are hugely important. But they are only part of the picture. Real reform or revolution will also…

Brian P. Tierney, CEO of Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., after delivering news that locals lost the bidding war for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Via philly.com

We live in a society that will refuses accept responsibility for itself, from “global weirding,” to the various wars we find ourselves in, to failed marriages, lost jobs, split churches, you name it,…

“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

Video game wars from Collateral Murder:

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured. 

Via NYTimes.

The missing joy factor is one of the reasons I am finding it hard to go to… [my] Quaker Meeting. I’m so hungry for joy these days, and we seem so hung up on the problems of the world, and seem to conceive of God mostly as a personal problemsolver or some sort of life coach who helps us with our attitude. I long to be with people who trust that God is working all things together for good, yes, that God works even after earthquakes and wars and heals people and transforms our hearts! I long to celebrate that even in the deepest, darkest places, God brings hope of better things to come.

The Shrine Down the Hall: a look at some of the bedrooms America’s war dead left behind. Link.

This looks pretty cool. November in Philadelphia. Jerry Frost is one of the keynotes:

This major international, interdisciplinary conference aims to examine the history, literature, and culture of the Quaker relationship with slavery, from the society’s origins in the English Civil War to the end of the American Civil War.

Of late, like the psalmist of the Jewish Bible times and George Fox at the start of the English Civil War, I have despaired observing the ocean of darkness that is again inundating, drowning this…

When I first heard that Quakers had testimonies I was immediately drawn back to my more Charismatic days when we would stand up and give “testimony to the Lord because of something he’d done.” Or when someone would stand up and share personal “testimonies” about how they became a Christian. Both of which refer to a kind of personal transformation that one has experienced in his or her life. The quaker understanding of testimony is actually close to this because Quaker testimonies deal with how Quakers have personally witnessed and experienced God’s guidance on various issues like war, taking oaths, plainness, truth telling, trade, slavery, parenting, taverns, education, etc.

The great thing about Revelation is that it articulates what early Friends took up as “The Lambs War.” Whether we like war language or not, it is important to note that lambs are unalterably a symbol…

Over on QuakerRanter:

“We’ll end the war just as soon as…” is the rhetorical parent of empire-crushing quagmires. The conditional changes as needed, because it needs to stay fresh to stay plausible. One president will claim that the right enemy leader needs to be killed, another that more troops need to be temporarily added.

Read the full post.

I just got an email from Alyse Emdur, an artist in the Los Angeles area who’s started this project. I don’t know her but she wants to get the word out and I’ve never heard of anything quite like it. Here’s the description:

While teaching, I witnessed the presence of army recruiters in our educational environment. I am initiating a nation wide participatory project, Photograph a Recruiter and am inviting high school students to contribute. The project invites high school students to photograph the military recruiters in their schools! Through the act of looking back at recruiters, students are encouraged to engage in critical discussion about war and recruitment.

The ongoing growing collection of photographs, taken by high school students, will be uploaded on the website www.photographarecruiter.com. Select images will also be printed for exhibit in a traveling Photograph A Recruiter art show. For more information, or to submit image(s), write to, photographarecruiter@gmail.com

I wish I could say that this simple form of worship never leads to conflict, but I must be honest and admit that people in Meeting sometimes get upset about the vocal ministry. When you allow people…

And for those wondering, this year’s U.S. Quaker nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize was Gene Sharp, whose exhaustive list of nonviolent strategies and case studies is must-reading for any campaigner.

And for those wondering about the “Quaker vote,” Friends won the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize en masse for post-war relief work. Friends were represented by what was then called the Friends Service Council (now Quaker Peace and Social Witness) in London and by the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia, both of whom have the honor to nominate future recipients. According to the FGC Quaker Youth blog, this year’s AFSC nominating nod went to Sharp. The actual vote is up to the Nobel Committee itself.