Antiwar Books & DVDs

A one-two.punch.. Volume 1 has articles from antiwar conservatives & libertarians.  Volume 2 has liberals and progressives. 

Everything from theological essays to hard journalism, to exposes by retired military and intelligence officers.  All points on the political spectrum. 

These books refute every possible pro-war rationale of every armchair warrior.

Book and video show how the neocons planned and hoped for war long before 9/11 -- then used the tragedy to advance their pre-made plans. 

This BBC documentary posits that the threat of terrorism is overstated and the purpose of the "War on Terror" is not fighting terrorism, but the war itself, which is being used to pass statist agendas impossible to establish in peacetime.  Very Orwellian. 

Smedley Butler spent nearly 30 years as a US Marine officer fighting in many of America's little known "dirty wars" and World War One.

In the early 1930s he had a change of heart.

He decided he'd been used to protect corporate interests rather than defend American or liberate foreigners.  He became an antiwar activist.

Today he is best known for his famous and long antiwar speech, War Is a Racket.

Also read his biography.

Journalist Eliot Weinberger chronicles the ever shifting contradictory statements of the Bush administration on the reasons and policies for the Iraq War.  Used as the basis of the critically acclaimed play, What I Heard About Iraq.

Collection of essays written from 1915 to 1919 by Randolph S. Bourne, a critic of World War One and most famously known for saying: "War is the health of the state."

This docu-drama recreates the true story of how innocent men were imprisoned for several years in Guantanamo Bay.  An important reminder that the "War on Terror" is no excuse to withhold Due Process of Law rights -- for anyone, anywhere.

Some novels appear before their time.  First published in 1952, Kurt Vonnegut's dystopian novel is a brilliant satire of post-9/11 neocon America.  Read why this is so.

Two FBI agents discover dark, demonic forces behind the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.  Details in the Hollywood Investigator.

Misunderstood when it was released in 1997, this film actually works as a brilliant satire of post-9/11 war hysteria.  Read why this is so.

Also read this statement from screenwriter Ed Neumeier.

This obscure 1988 film works on many levels -- romance, coming of age story, antiwar film.

Initially divided or apathetic (like today's Americans), the folks in a small middle- American town unite in peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. .Based on a true story.

Good music, as is typical of films of "that era."  Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, Kiefer Sutherland, Bruce Dern, Mariette Hartley, and Joanna Cassidy.

Book is a loose diary of the student takeover of Columbia University. .The 1971 film shifts events to San Francisco (Columbia wouldn't allow the film to be shot on their campus).  Its partially verité style aesthetically supports the story.

Film is unavailable on DVD and out of print on VHS, but worth tracking down.. Book is out of print but widely available.

This 1967 film about France's colonial war in 1950s Algeria depicts the difficulties an imperial power has in suppressing native, Muslim independence movements.  Even the Pentagon is using this film for training purposes.

Americans in 1950s Vietnam.  Freedom fighters or imperialists?  Mostly helpful or harmful?  This complex film, based on Graham's Greene novel, raises many difficult yet timely issues.

This powerful and much-lauded indie film dramatizes the pitfalls of paranoia, bigotry, and civil liberties deprivations in post-9/11 America.