The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom is the oldest women’s peace organisation in the world.

In her Sept. 2012 article: 5 Issues this Election Should Be About, and One to Drop, Sarah van Gelder writes in YES! magazine on how U.S. military spending and focus should be changed:

Rein in deficit spending, starting with the U.S. military

"The bill for two massive wars, Bush-era tax cuts, and the economic bailouts of the big banks is coming due. How will we pay for it while our economy is still struggling?

Many empires have fallen after overextending their military forces and spending down their resources. The United States, too, runs that risk. By reinventing our military to defend the United States, rather than to project force abroad, and by putting veterans to work doing jobs that are needed here at home, we could rebuild our country and our economy, and rein in spending.

Here’s a place to start. A report by the Institute for Policy Studies shows we could save $252 billion a year without risking our national security by ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, cutting back on the hundreds of U.S. military bases around the world, and eliminating wasteful and obsolete programs.

While politicians have traditionally been loath to cut military spending because they are concerned about losing military jobs, it’s important to remember that every dollar spent on the military results in fewer jobs than one spent elsewhere. When combined with educational programs to retrain military personnel for work in other sectors, channeling military money into other parts of the economy means more, not fewer, jobs."

(The Institute for Policy Studies study mentioned is: America Is Not Broke, by Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh. Contributors include Phyllis Bennis, Chuck Collins, John Feffer, Miriam Pemberton, Daphne Wysham., November 21, 2011)

Keep Space for Peace Week, 6-13 October 2012

SI alla PACE NO alla NATO: Yes to PEACE NO to NATO

SI alla PACE NO alla NATO: Women in Black demonstrate in Verona, Italy

Grannies for Peace vigil on Memorial Day in Albany, NY

Report and more photos: Profit war no more! (A Memorial weekend photo essay) pictures by Mabel Leon.

Women in Black of Madrid against War, Communique, 24 May 2012

"The policies being utilized in this crisis are harmful to the people, especially women: scarcity of resources; loss of rights; excess load of cares and concerns… while wars and militarization are supported and the war economy is maintained and linked to finances. International domination is reinforced through NATO, traffic in weapons and control of information. This crisis is developing like a psychological war that is gripping the civil population.

Women in Black of Madrid against War denounce:

• “Peace” based on the interests of the more powerful classes and not on the interests of the civil population, even less on human rights and the rights of women.

• Increase in the number of people who have no possibility of controlling their own lives: the power of decision is held by the few.

• Growing fear because of unemployment, poverty and insecurity, fear that is being used as a political tool. Consequences of the politics of fear that lead to criminalization of social movements. Those who protest are found guilty. Nonviolent attitudes, actions and protests are considered crimes.

• The difficulties that the crisis has thrust upon families fall mainly on women. To get ahead in life, she will lower her expectations, her health will suffer and it will oblige them to remain in the house, with fewer opportunities, denying them a public, social, work and political life.

• Existence of big businesses that are not in crisis, among them commerce in arms and financial participation in the military industry.

• The financial system, which receives the most support and resources, and also permits harmful and evil acts to remain in impunity.

This 24th day of May we affirm our confidence in dialogue, justice and nonviolence as a path to understanding among peoples."

Translation: Trisha Novak, USA

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Fukushima first anniversary: demonstration at Gronau uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel fabrication plant URENCO, Germany (Dutch border), 11 March 2012
photo: wloe e.V. Translation, 11 March 2012 press release on demonstrations.
Background press release.