Go to consortiumblog.com to post comments

Order Now

Archives

Age of Obama
Barack Obama's presidency

Bush End Game
George W. Bush's presidency since 2007

Bush - Second Term
George W. Bush's presidency from 2005-06

Bush - First Term
George W. Bush's presidency, 2000-04

Who Is Bob Gates?
The secret world of Defense Secretary Gates

2004 Campaign
Bush Bests Kerry

Behind Colin Powell's Legend
Gauging Powell's reputation.

The 2000 Campaign
Recounting the controversial campaign.

Media Crisis
Is the national media a danger to democracy?

The Clinton Scandals
Behind President Clinton's impeachment.

Nazi Echo
Pinochet & Other Characters.

The Dark Side of Rev. Moon
Rev. Sun Myung Moon and American politics.

Contra Crack
Contra drug stories uncovered

Lost History
America's tainted historical record

The October Surprise "X-Files"
The 1980 election scandal exposed.

International
From free trade to the Kosovo crisis.

Other Investigative Stories

Editorials

Last Saturday, six members of various anti-war groups, including World Can't Wait and Military Families Speak Out, and an OpedNews journalist, were arrested at a protest organized to shut down The Army Experience Center, a venue at Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia that invites young people to engage in simulated war games.

Those arrested were released early Sunday morning after being charged with criminal conspiracy and failure to disperse. Their arraignment is set for Sept. 23 at Philadelphia Municipal Court.

Those arrested included Debra Sweet, national director of World Can't Wait, and Elaine Brower of Military Families Speak Out, whose son was deployed three times to Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Brower:
 
"The AEC is giving guns to 13 year olds, drawing them in with violent video games. As more and more Afghani civilians and US military are being killed in the US occupation of Afghanistan, we're saying NO to these wars. We've got to stop the flow of youth into the military where they're being used to commit war crimes in our name."

Also arrested with Sweet and Brower were protesters Sarah Wellington, Joan Plume, Beverly Rice, Rich Marini and OpedNews' Managing Editor Cheryl Biren, who was standing separate from those being arrested and photographing the arresting officers. Biren identified herself to police as a journalist, however they swiftly approached her and arrested her with the others.

After her release, Biren reflected, "How can press be prevented from recording news in the making? It's shameful. It's anti-democracy."

Earlier on Saturday, as part of the Army Experience Center protest events, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Christopher Hedges, author of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, and Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, addressed the crowd outside the Franklin Mills Mall.
Hedges, a former war correspondent for several publications including the New York Times, has spoken openly of his aversion to war after spending years covering major conflicts in El Salvador, the Middle East, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Hedges released a statement describing his opposition to the Army Experience Center, saying that:
 
"War is not a game. Weapons are not toys. The essence of war is death. The purpose of war is to extinguish all opposing living systems from the economic to the political, social, cultural and finally, familial. Those who entice children to play with mock weapons of war will never allow these children to see what these weapons do to human bodies. They hide from them the fundamental truth about violence and in this way socialize them to kill."

On the eve of the eighth anniversary of the United States' invasion of Afghanistan, with President Obama's current escalation of military action resulting in increased American and Afghan deaths, the war on Afghanistan is quickly losing favor among Americans.

The Army Experience Center is the military's most ambitious high-tech effort to counter war disfavor and drum up army recruitment by instilling militarism and passion for weapons in impressionable youth.

This $13 million, 14,500-square-foot recruitment tool has drawn wide-ranging criticism for trying to inspire enthusiasm for war through simulated games that show none of the horror and devastation of combat, but focus instead on the adrenalin rush of state of the art weapons of destruction.

Linda Milazzo is a Managing Editor at OpedNews. She's a Los Angeles based writer, educator and activist.

To comment at Consortiumblog, click here. (To make a blog comment about this or other stories, you can use your normal e-mail address and password. Ignore the prompt for a Google account.) To comment to us by e-mail, click here. To donate so we can continue reporting and publishing stories like the one you just read, click here.

Back to Home Page