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u.s. war resister claims asylum in germany
On November 26, 2008, former US Army Specialist André Shepherd became the first Iraq War veteran to apply for refugee status in Germany. Shepherd, who enlisted in the military in 2004, served six months on a forward operating base near Tikrit. About the Iraqis, Shepherd says, "Some had the look of fear, while others looked outright angry and resentful. . . . I began to feel like a cruel oppressor who had destroyed the lives of these proud people. "Our unit did a lot of good things, giving schools books and bringing clothes to children. These actions helped my conscience a bit, but I kept thinking to myself, 'Had we not invaded, would these people need this aid now?'" Shepherd began researching the causes of the Iraq War, and the wider so-called War on Terror. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, he lost faith in the mission. He says: "Saddam Hussein was admittedly a dictator. However, he was not leading his country to produce any sort of weapon that could be used...
the great weed of 2015?
You will not be surprised to learn that Allan and I own a lot of books. And CDs. And even LPs! Many, many hundreds of each. We have culled our collection a bit over the years, out of necessity, but living in houses for the past 10 years, we expanded again without much thought. Now here we are in an apartment. It's a large apartment, to be sure, but we no longer have extra rooms where we can stash as much stuff as we like. And neither of us wants to fill up every inch of wall and floor space with books and music. Thus we are contemplating weeding our own library. And this is very strange. Books are us. Or are they? When I was in my 20s, I wanted to own every book I'd ever read. I was one of those people who believed that my personal library was a statement about myself. I needed to proudly display my politics and my tastes through my bookshelves and records. I loved seeing other people's libraries, and loved when people perused mine. I can recall that when we found our...
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