Medea Benjamin

By Charles Davis and Medea Benjamin

Confronted with popular protest, the country's unelected rulers have doubled down on repression, jailing peaceful activists and killing dozens of civilians who have the gall to exercise their rights. Those who state security forces haven't killed for demanding democracy have been...

By Charles Davis and Medea Benjamin

In an age when U.S. power can be projected through private mercenary armies and unmanned Predator drones, the U.S. military need no longer rely on massive, conventional ground forces to pursue its imperial agenda, a fact President Barack Obama is now acknowledging. But make...

Two boats full of courageous passengers were on their way to Gaza when they were intercepted on Friday, November 4, by the Israeli military in international waters. We call the passengers courageous because they sailed from Turkey on November 2 with the knowledge that at any moment they...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is reportedly set to come to an end, with most of the roughly 40,000 soldiers currently stationed there set to be removed by year's end. But let's make no mistake: contrary to what you're likely to hear from the...

This week marks the beginning of what is supposed to be the final 100 days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But if U.S. troops are to leave Iraq at the end of this year as promised -- repeatedly -- it will take grassroots pressure to counter the growing "occupy-Iraq-forever"...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

Since coming to Washington, Barack Obama has won a Nobel Prize for Peace, but he hasn't been much of a peacemaker. Instead, he has doubled down on his predecessor's wars while launching blatantly illegal ones of his own. But, as his supporters would be...

The 38 deaths in Saturday's helicopter crash in Afghanistan include 31 Americans, making it the deadliest day for U.S. forces since the war began. The tragic loss of American lives might be worth the sacrifice if it was making America safer, or if our presence was significantly improving...

Co-authored by Charles Davis

In this age of austerity, all the politicians are talking about the need for spending cuts. But when it comes to shared burdens and slashed budgets, don't expect the Pentagon to start holding bake sales, despite what you may have heard about reductions...

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Greece, she praised the Greek government's austerity measures to reduce deficits and cut spending. The U.S. and Greece face a common challenge of dealing with soaring deficits, but they also face something else in common: a refusal to deal with out-of-control military...

Instead of high-fiving each other for their success in thwarting the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, Israeli officials should be throwing overboard the propaganda hacks who catapulted the flotilla into headline news for weeks and left Israel smelling like rotten fish.

Last year, when the Israeli military killed nine...

"I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him," said Dr. Martin Luther King as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. These words will guide me and other passengers aboard...

For us, the death of Osama Bin Laden is a time of profound reflection. With his death, we remember and mourn all the lives lost on September 11. We remember and mourn all the lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. We remember and mourn the death of our soldiers. And...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

Death and taxes are the only certainties in life. And these days, they go hand in hand.

While our fiscal woes have led Congress to slash food aid this year to the world's poor...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

His lines may be better delivered, but Barack Obama is sounding -- and acting -- more like the heir to George W. Bush than the change-maker sold to the public in his award-winning ad campaign. Indeed, when not sending billions of dollars to repressive governments across the globe,...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so after years of providing Libya's dictator with the weapons he's been using against the people, all the international community -- France, Britain and the United States -- has to...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free...

When we heard on Sunday that P.J. Crowley had resigned as spokesman for the State Department after criticizing the Pentagon's treatment of suspected whistleblower Army private Bradley Manning, my CODEPINK colleagues and I knew we had to respond. How outrageous that yet another person gets punished for simply telling the...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

Bradley Manning is accused of humiliating the political establishment by revealing the complicity of top U.S. officials in carrying out and covering up war crimes. In return for his act of conscience, the U.S. government is holding him in abusive solitary confinement, humiliating him...

By Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis

With the U.S. economy in the tank and governments at all levels facing massive budget shortfalls, politicians left and right are seeking ways to curb spending. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights and the decent pay that goes with them....

Here in Madison, Wisconsin, where protesters have occupied the State Capitol Building to stop the pending bill that would eliminate workers' right to collective bargaining, echoes of Cairo are everywhere. Protesters here were elated by the photo of an Egyptian engineer named Muhammad Saladin Nusair holding a sign in Tahrir...