During 10 days in November 1983, the United States and the Soviet Union nearly started a nuclear war. Newly declassified documents from the CIA, NSA, KGB, and senior officials in both countries reveal just how close we came to mutually assured destruction — over a military exercise.

February 15, 1898 was a muggy Tuesday night in Havana Harbor. Some 350 crew and officers settled in on board the 24-gun battleship USS Maine.

“At 9:40 p.m., the ship's forward end abruptly lifted itself from the water,” writes author Tom Miller. “Along the pier, passersby could hear a rumbling explosion. Within seconds, another eruption—this one deafening and massive—splintered the bow, sending anything that wasn't battened down, and most that was, flying more than 200 feet into the air.”

Mic Check: Not all equality is created equal.

Any American woman who cherishes the freedom (sic) to fight alongside her male military counterparts is -- both directly and indirectly -- signing up for and endorsing Daisy Cutters, cluster bombs, and predator drones; depleted uranium, napalm, and white phosphorus; launching cruise missiles into crowded cities, blowing up dams to deliberately flood rice paddies and starve civilians, shooting enemy soldiers after they’ve surrendered, destroying villages in order to save them, etc. etc. etc.

On November 5th, a lawsuit filed in 2009 by antiwar activists against Army spy John Towery will go before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, WA. Towery was outed as an informant after public records requests revealed he had infiltrated antiwar groups and spied on activists and anarchists. Panagacos v Towery is a landmark civil liberties case that comes at a time of increased political repression of Pacific Northwest anarchists. The lawsuit is against the Army, Navy, Air Force and countless law enforcement agencies.

Enemy behind window. Cover, aim, shoot. At cyberspeed, the Laser-Duel-Simulation-System informs those in combat in real time. One man down, another hits his target. One man will continue training, another will remain on the ground in the steppe of Saxony-Anhalt. The German army but also soldiers from most of Nato armed forces train at the GÜZ Altmark. They learn how to invade and occupy a village in Afghanistan, Kosovo, or – following a Nato prospect on wars to come – any old city on Earth. In 2012, construction will begin for a city of 500 buildings, with streets, an airport and a subway. This to train for urban warfare under any circumstances in neighborhoods, city centers, slums, industrial estates and shopping malls.

Vicious fanatics are trying to kill us and destroy our country. They're blowing up our soldiers overseas. They've infiltrated our country. We must defend ourselves against these mad-dog berserkers before it's too late. This litany has been repeated by corporate-controlled media and politicians for years now, pumping fear into us. It is used to justify a massive ongoing war that has killed hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings and almost bankrupted the USA.

There's plenty that feels new and fresh about Occupy Wall Street (OWS): the younger participants, the scope of the coalition, the endurance, the creativity, and the outrage. What's not new is the target of that outrage: Wall Street, Corporate America, and the politicians they funded have been at this deadly game for more than a century.

Toxic derivatives and assets. We’re not talking about the freakish financial devices cooked up by crooked banksters. This stew is far more lethal and it’s going to be wreaking havoc on the planet long after Bank of America lies on the rubbish heap. Since 1946, over one million gallons of radioactive material–strontium, cesium, plutonium and other killer ingredients–have been seeping into the ground and the water around Hanford. And while the sludge creeps toward a neighborhood near you, the clean-up partnership between the Department of Energy and Bechtel (i.e. big corrupt government in bed with big corrupt corporation a.k.a. business as usual in America), plays a shell game of shifting budgets and target dates–now $11.3 billion and 2017, respectively.

The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option,” by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat. The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression – thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.

Jamal Khan is an Afghan journalist who fled his country because of Taliban persecution and now lives in Germany. We met in the apartment of a mutual friend from the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft, the German Peace Society. Jamal is mid-forties, thin, with curly brown hair, tan skin, and clear green eyes that take everything in.