Down in the basement of a typically plush Toronto public library, residents from the Davenport Neighbors for Peace group, several US soldiers that had jacked in active service and their partners gathered to sketch plans for their fight for sanctuary. A palpable disappointment dripped - really this was a meeting borne from desperation, some weeks prior the Canadian Supreme Court had rejected refugee status for American troops refusing to serve in Iraq.

One of those present, Kim Rivera, a red head in her early twenties, served in an Artillery unit in Baghdad from August 2006. Not long there she'd hear tales of gore, IED's and guts through the combat zone grapevine. It wasn't the "gory part of war" that changed her mind on the mission but the dehumanisation of Iraqi workers forced to etch out employment inside military compounds.

"We checked the vehicles, the civilian personal for things they couldn't have, like audio players. Things you take for granted every day."

Perhaps my favorite anti-war song of all time is given the youtube treatment with footage from the destruction and occupation in Iraq.

Overall, I think it's pretty well done though you should be warned that some of the footage has graphic violence. In honesty it could have been even more graphic as in my opinion too much of it is soldiers running around with guns and stuff blowing up - which to a lot of young Americans is going to look kinda cool. If you're going to make an anti-war music video you should show more of the results of the violence of the occupation on the civilian population even if it is extremely disturbing. Still it's well worth a watch.

Photos from this year's Anti-War Protest in Toronto.

After getting a free review copy of Beyond the Green Zone off Haymarket Press I managed to track down the author for an interview, the result as published on Indymedia.ie turned out a little something like this..

Dahr Jamail was unembedded in Iraq and he covers a bucket of issues facing pen pushers today.