Take your pick: prison or war.

That's what some army recruiters are telling high school students in Houston, Texas to scare teenagers into joining the army.

On July 29th, 2008, a local CBS affiliate in Houston broke this story about illegal army recruitment tactics and a shady new strategy called the "Delayed Entry Program." As part of a $5 billion recruitment budget for 2008--that's right, $5 billion—Army recruiters ask high school students to sign a non-binding contract that says they intend to enlist in the army upon graduation.

Tonight at 7pm EST, Brave New Foundation is launching In Their Boots, a weekly 30 minute live webcast that will profile the challenges American service members and
their families face once they return home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an innovative and provactive way to chronicle the experiences of returning vets, even after they have arrived back from service.

John Edwards wrote a letter to the New York Times recently to bring up a number that doesn't get brought up nearly often enough: the complete tally of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq.

On the 5th anniversay of the Iraq War, 12 student groups marched in solidarity to show their opposition to the unjust, illegal war. It was a beautiful sight to see-- students of all different backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations, and even ideologies working side by side to block traffic and march together in the East Lansing community promoting a message of peace and unity.  At first, the local newspaper, The State News, denied to cover our march. After significant pressure from student leaders they agreed to let us submit a letter. This is what was published:

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Six UMN-TC student groups held a war protest in front of the student union today. At noon, almost two hundred students gathered in the grass and waved posters. A representative from each of the student groups spoke about why their group was involved. And then, they marched: through the campus's main quad, around the auditorium and down major roads until they reached the alumni center. The protesters were flanked by an impressive police escort -- over ten bike-police and two more on horseback, plus a squad car following everything and every intersection blocked off by police controlled by an officer.

The City of Berkeley made news today through passing a city measure requesting the Marine Corps recruiters leave their office. The statement said that, "if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders".

The statement also said that "military recruiters are salespeople known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits."

Two recent reports reminds us that not all of the war-related deaths are happening overseas.

The Washington Post reports that the number of soldier suicides is at an all-time high since the Army started keeping records in 1980. In 2006, 121 soldiers took their own lives - nearly 20% more than in 2006 -- and the number of attempted suicides or self-inflected injuries increased sixfold (from 250 in 2002 to 2,100 in 2007).

In most progressive and leftist circles, the cause of the war in Iraq is correctly attributed to the Bush administration's desire for oil, power, and oil money. However, these explanations are only partial.  A complete understanding of the causes of the Iraq war requires an understanding of how the military industrial complex operates in the US.  Once this is achieved, it becomes apparent that the current organization of the US economy requires war to prevent recession, and that the struggle to end the war has the potential to reorganize the very structures that shape life in and out of the US.  

From: !Enough: the project to abolish genocide + mass atrocities -

Dissident Congolese Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda's more than 3,000 loyal forces have carved out control of parts of North Kivu Province. The Congolese government has responded by realigning itself with the FDLR -- a militia composed of more than 6,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels, many with links to the 1994 genocide in their home country -- to fight Nkunda's more effective force. This threatens to draw Rwanda back into Congo's conflict, which would lead to rapid escalation and potentially plunge Congo back into regional war.

William James, 20th century American philosopher, called civilian service "the moral equivalent of war." James, in 1906, proposed the creation of a full-time citizen service corps for young people to address the pressing needs of their day. Today, James's ideas are being taken up as The U.S. Public Service Academy Act (S. 960 in the Senate and H.R. 1671 in the House of Representatives), backed by big-time names in the National Service movement: Sen. Hillary Clinton, Former Senator and CEO of the Corporation for National Service Harris Wofford, and Teach for America's founder and president Wendy Kopp.