Coffeehouse Haven for US War resisters

With all the recent discussions and coverage in the mainstream media of US "withdrawal" from Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan, there's remarkably, though not surprisingly, little focus on the views of those who have and currently are serving military duty in Iraq as well as Afghanistan especially those who have decided to resist deployment. Previous efforts to publicize the perspectives and experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans such as the 2008 Winter Soldier event, a forum for veteran testimonies, have been routinely blacked out by mainstream media.

But veteran organizers through the Iraqi Veterans Against the War organization are building their own space for resistance to American militarism in Iraq and Afghanistan by opening coffeehouses near American military bases to reach out to those currently enlisted. A recent article written by "Courage to Resist" profiles a coffeehouse in Washington state and interviews those who opened and run it:

The milk frother screams as a couple of young soldiers in camouflaged combat uniforms peruse the lit table. All around them are the familiar surroundings of a coffeehouse: posters on the wall, tables and chairs, and shelves stuffed with used books. Yet this café, just across the street from the sprawling Ft. Lewis Army Base in Washington, is not your ordinary coffeehouse.

"Support War Resisters: Iraq Veterans Against the War," reads a huge banner on the wall. GI Rights handcards sit next to the cash register and manuals about "getting out" cover the lit table. Social movement history books fill the bookshelves, and a picture on the wall shows a soldier throwing a grenade with a caption that reads, "What am I doing here?" The sign on the front window declares "COFFEE STRONG. Veteran Owned and Operated."

Opened four months ago, COFFEE STRONG provides a free Americano, as well as wireless internet and computer use, to all military enlisted persons. More importantly, it provides a space off-base for soldiers to question their service, talk about the war, and explore the possibilities of GI resistance. When GIs walk in, they are met with information about topics ranging from GI resistance to counseling and advocacy services for veterans. And they are greeted by a barista who is himself a young veteran against the war.

COFFEE STRONG follows in the tradition of the GI coffeehouse movement of the 60s and 70s, when anti-war activists and resisting GIs set up coffeehouses at several military bases throughout the U.S. -- from Colorado Springs, CO to Tacoma, WA, to Maldraugh, KY -- to provide a physical space for anti-war GIs to congregate, speak freely, and strategize their role in the anti-war movement. GI resistance during the Vietnam War was a key factor in forcing the United States to end the war.

This GI coffeehouse, 40 miles south of Seattle, joins a handful of cafes that have sprung up at U.S. military bases since the beginning of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Different Drummer Cafe, at Ft. Drum in upstate New York, aims to promote "the free and uncensored exchange of ideas and information among active duty and reserve military personnel and civilians." Under the Hood Coffeehouse in Ft. Hood, Texas, and the Off Base café in Norfolk, Virginia, also provide places for active duty troops to question their own participation in war.

Resistance within the American military to the occupations in Iraq and the Afghanistan is the key to ending them. Already AWOL rates in the US military have gone up 80% since the Iraq invasion. At the same time though, with the recent economic downturn, military enlistment numbers have spiked , as the Boston Globe recently reported, the Army "is experiencing the highest rate of new enlistments in six years." But the spread of anti-war sentiment through the expanding number of these coffeehouses, especially as we escalate in Afghanistan, will hopefully encourage more US soldiers to resist deployment.