Come to our exciting panel!

We Are Not Your Soldiers: Learn to Talk Students Out of Signing Up for War

Session 4: Sat 5:10 pm – 7:00 pm in Room 1.123

Veterans with World Can’t Wait’s We Are Not Your Soldiers project present what they do in a typical high school classroom where students are considering joining the U.S. military. Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans relate their experiences in occupying countries, boot camp and post-military service. Based on your curriculum, we also can provide a historical presentation with a Vietnam military resister and/or veteran. Students are provided with information military recruiters don’t give them on PTSD, suicide, medical/psychological issues, homelessness and the danger of losing their humanity.
We work with educators to develop a customized presentation where students are free to raise issues, ideas and questions and engage in critical thinking. We provide curricular resources to both prepare for and follow up on our visit/s such as DVDs, surveys, evaluation forms, factual background printouts, etc. so that the visit can be either a unique event or part of an entire unit.

Moderator: Stephanie Rugoff

Panelists: Miles Megaciph, Lyle Jeremy Rubin, Joe Urgo

and please join us at two other highly informative World Can’t Wait panels:

Close Guantánamo Now or Move Guantánamo North?

Session 2: Sat 12:00 pm – 1:50pm in Room 8.67

More than seven years after Obama promised to close the torture camp at Guantánamo, will it either remain open on the piece of occupied territory in Cuba or become “Guantánamo North?”

What are the implications on the legality of indefinite detention if prisoners are held within U.S. borders without charge?  It raises questions as to whether they would ever be charged or tried.  Would they be tried in military commissions or in federal courts? Why should men who have been tortured be tried or even held any longer? Attorneys and activists in the struggle to close Guantánamo discuss and debate these issues.

Moderator: Debra Sweet

Panelists: Seth Farber, Noor Mir, Omar Shakir

The Endless “War on Terror”: US Drones & Targeted Killing

Session 7: Sun 3:40 pm – 5:40 pm in Room 1.127

Fifteen years into the “war on terror,” the CIA and Pentagon war planners continue to increase emphasis on special operations and targeting killing – even with open discussion of targeting US citizens. International law has gone by the wayside, as have constitutional protections of citizens.

U.S. forces are carrying out secret ops in 150 countries; conventional and drone strikes are actively attacking Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and spreading into North Africa in order to maintain military dominance over these regions. This poses significant challenges to anti-war opposition within the U.S.

The US military is now training more pilots of unmanned vehicles than of fighter/bombers. Federal regulations will soon allow drones in domestic airspace. How do we expose and oppose these newer and fundamentally illegitimate and unjust actions? Activists opposing drones for warfare and surveillance are challenging the use of drones on moral and political basis through non-violent direction action and mass education campaigns.

Moderator: Amanda Bass

Panelists:

Debra Sweet, Ed Kinane, Nick Mottern, Shelby Sullivan-Bennis