Voices and Views from Iraqi Kurdistan November 2025

 By Weldon D. Nisly, CPT (Community Peacemaker Teams) Iraqi Kurdistan team; Sunday, November 2, 2025; reprinted with permission

At the beginning of October, I returned to the CPT Iraqi Kurdistan (IK) team in Sulamaniyah (also called Sulaimani or Slemani or Suli) in the eastern Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). My one-time short-term return to the team, where I served half-time from 2017-22, was primarily to co-lead the CPT Iraqi Kurdistan delegation from Oct 8-22, with Kurdish teammate Runak. Another Kurdish teammate Kamaran also helped lead this delegation, especially our 6 days of travel across Kurdistan. Another CPT IK team member, Julian also provided invaluable assistance by making numerous trips to the airport for arrival and departure of delegation members. Most flights at Sulaymaniyah International Airport arrive and depart between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m.

Future of Selective Service goes to House-Senate conference — again

 By Edward Hasbrouck

 

Reprinted by permission from the "Resisters.info" website and blog October 14, 2025 at: https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002800.html  See this article with links at this link.

 You can sign up for updates like this about the draft at: https://resisters.info/newsletter

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 Following approval by the House and Senate of different versions of an annual military policy bill, the future of the Selective Service System (SSS) will be decided behind closed doors by a House-Senate conference committee — for the sixth time in the last ten years.

U.S. Citizens Stage Die-In to Draw Attention to Gaza

 by Jeffrey Weiss

DES MOINES (10/05/2025) - Citizens gathered at the United States Federal Building in Des Moines, Iowa on Friday to read names and give witness to tens of thousands of children dying in Gaza and the West Bank.   

"Here you can see our expertise and devotion to do what we do better than anyone else in the world, said the Grim Reaper.   "Make machines that kill other human beings." 

In the form of bodies lying on the ground to represent Palestinian children, the Reaper lurked and spoke softly around a TV news reporter (see 'You Tube' video below).  

Alarming Increase in Domestic Militarization

 

By Lauren Morales; Reprinted with permission; this article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft, http://www.comdsd.org/.

 

 For decades the United States has been a hypermilitarized country. The public is force fed the notion that we must respect the armed forces who are forever fighting to keep U.S. Americans safe at home and abroad. Yet there has always been a small part of society that challenges this indoctrination, recognizing that worshiping imperialist ideology is irreconcilable to national and global justice.

No Excuse for Gun Violence in America Today

 

By IPN Coordinator, Sept. 29, 2025

 

Reading several pieces related to recent gun violence recently inspired me to put something together of what I’ve been seeing.  As we all know, September 10, 2025, a young man killed a man named Charlie Kirk in public at the University of Utah.  I happened to turn the TV on when the breaking news was airing. 

OPEN BORDERS But Do It Right

 By David Swanson

Reprinted with permission; First published for Action Network; September 8, 2025;  https://davidswanson.org/open-borders-but-do-it-right/

 

There’s a book called “Open Borders” on the shelves of mainstream corporate bookstores. This is very good news, but it may be because the book is a comic book (fun!) and/or because the book is about economics, very scientistic, and “Libertarian” (none of that caring about people (stuff)!).

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Reflections of 80 Years- observance in Des Moines August 7, 2025

 By IPN Coordinator

August 7, 2025 persons observed the annual event in Des Moines of remembering the innocent lives lost in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.  That week marked 80 years from the bombings.  About forty gathered at the Japanese Bell on the Iowa state capitol grounds.  Persons came together and led traditional parts of the program.

No, Nuking Cities Did Not Save Lives

 

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, August 2, 2025

Reprinted with permission; first published: https://worldbeyondwar.org/no-nuking-cities-did-not-save-lives/

 

                                                            (World BEYOND War)

It’s oddly encouraging that the New York Post had to bring up its kookiest rightwing propagandist on Friday to argue that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. It’s almost as if the New York Times’ kookiest rightwing propagandist’s claiming that killing Palestinians is not genocide had to be one-upped by the Post. It’s even more encouraging that the Post felt obliged to expand the usual definition of “lives” to include the lives of Japanese people, claiming that nuking people saved not only U.S. lives but also Japanese lives — an argument it would have been very hard to find even being attempted during the early decades of this myth.

This Week in the World: Gaza Starvation Taking a Devastating Toll

 By FCNL  (Friends Committee on National Legislation)  Reprinted with permission; First published for FCNL weekly newsletter, July 25, 2025

 

 This week, the catastrophic suffering of Palestinians in Gaza reached “new depths” as mass starvation takes a heart-wrenching toll.

At least 21 children have reportedly died of malnutrition in recent days. Many more are at risk without urgent medical aid.

A Faith Based Perspective on Poverty in Zimbabwe

 

By Tafadzwa Chikawa; reprinted with permission; first published for United Methodist Church, Church and Society

 

(Church and Society Note:  Church and Society welcomes guest writer Tafadzwa Chikawa, recent graduate of Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe and Church and Society Intern working from Zimbabwe. Tafadzwa has agreed to write a series of articles on social justice concerns in Mutare, Zimbabwe.)

 

King David United Methodist Youth take action visiting Gwese Circuit and extending support and community help.

 

Growing up in Mutare, Zimbabwe, I came to understand poverty not as a distant concept but as an everyday struggle experienced by people I knew and served. As a youth leader in the United Methodist Church’s King David Circuit, I was raised in a community that emphasized faith in action. Through this foundation, I was shaped by our church’s consistent outreach work, particularly to Gwese Circuit, a rural United Methodist congregation in Mutare Rural District.