Author name: davidswanson

By Massachusetts Peace Action, October 11, 2024

Ending all wars means closing all military bases. The United States of America, unlike any other nation, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, over 900 bases in more than 90 countries and territories. These bases are costly in a number of ways: financially, politically, socially, and environmentally. U.S. bases in foreign lands often raise geopolitical tensions, support undemocratic regimes, and serve as a recruiting read more

Congratulations are in order for Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. The Nobel Peace Prize has for the first time in at least six years gone to a group of people who work to reduce warmaking, people who in fact seek to abolish nuclear weapons. Nihon Hidankyo has relentlessly done the work of educating the world, thanklessly, for many years. This prize should be celebrated far and wide.

Congratulations are also in order to the Nobel Committee, for somehow read more

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I had a great time on the Terry Lee Show in Charlottesville VA -- I come on about 14 minutes in. —David Swanson

A new book called Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre And The Struggle For An American City's Soul by Aran Shetterly provides a detailed examination, in historical context, of a largely forgotten incident.

Remarks to Global Peace Summit’s Round Table Conference, October 3, 2024

One obvious step would be for the U.S. government to restore funding of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). For five reasons.

1. It’s pocket change compared to what the U.S. is spending on militarism — not trillions or hundreds of billions but merely $100 million or so — (Note that the U.S. military spent over $200 million on a public relations stunt of pretending it could build a port to deliver aid by ship to people its weapons and assistance were denying aid by land or air).
2. Various Israeli officials have explicitly stated that they are trying to starve people.
3. The excuse for cutting off the funding a year ago was one of numerous pieces of Israeli propaganda that ought not to have been grounds for cutting off anything if true and as far as anyone knows was made up like so much of the rest of it.
4. UNRWA immediately fired the people accused and later fired more besides.
5. All the other countries that had obeyed the sick Israeli-U.S. demand have since restored funding.

But funding relief to people being bombed and shot and blockaded is of little value if it can’t get to them and if they’re still being killed. Months ago we saw stories of aid being dropped into the sea, resulting in drownings of desperate people trying to retrieve it — not to mention read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 1, 2024

David Swanson is Executive Director of World BEYOND War.

The Israeli government has been dragging Western weapons and militaries into wars for far too long, putting all of the world — and its global institutions — at risk. The move into Lebanon, creating more dead, injured, traumatized, and homeless already in huge numbers ought to snap some war supporters out of their trance.

The danger of a catastrophic read more

By Pacifist Barricade, October 1, 2024

We have the distinct honor of having with us today one of the most serious, dedicated, and steadfast opponents of war in the U.S.

A prominent activist, David Swanson co-founded the website After Downing Street (now WarIsACrime.org), centered on the U.S. congressional inquiry into the Downing Street memo. His activism extended to launching a campaign aimed at impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, notably through the now-defunct read more

By Rotary, World BEYOND War, September 29, 2024

Rotary and World BEYOND War have together been offering an online course called Ending War 101. You can take it here: https://worldbeyondwar.org/endingwar101. In this video, WBW Executive Director David Swanson discusses what can be done with Rotary members who have taken the course.

Without a handful of nations — and principally one nation — arming the world to the teeth, we wouldn’t have wars, or at least not wars that looked like these horrors that we do have and that risk nuclear apocalypse. Most wars have identical weapons on both sides and almost nothing rational or sensible, and almost nothing honest ever said, about the entire enterprise.

Without the long-running predictable and predicted and protested efforts of both sides to get wars started most wars would read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 25, 2024
Remarks at #NOWAR2024

We’ve heard a lot over the past few days about the damage foreign bases do and the good work people do to prevent them or close them. World BEYOND War works with our chapters, affiliates, and friends around the world on campaigns against bases. And we work globally to provide resources to these campaigns. The headquarters for getting informed and getting involved is worldbeyondwar.org/bases read more

By the Peace Podcast, September 25, 2024

Rotary and World BEYOND War have together been offering an online course called Ending War 101. You can take it here.

We recommend first doing the course and then joining us on September 27 for a live webinar on the general topic of “So, now what do we do?”

The webinar is free and open to all.

Register here.

The New York Times is hyping a report by war profiteers proposing higher war spending.

The report is here. It’s on the website of the United States Senate Armed “Services” Committee, but the authors are Congresswoman Jane Harman, chair; Ambassador Eric Edelman, vice chair; General John M. Keane; Thomas G. Mahnken; Mara Rudman; Mariah Sixkiller; Alissa Starzak; Roger Zakheim.

Harman has not actually been a Congresswoman for 13 years, 10 of which years she has spent working for the weapons-company-funded read more

Remarks via zoom to conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 21, 2024.

It’s wonderful to be joining you even virtually in St. Petersburg, which I am informed is even more beautiful than Moscow, which I was fortunate enough to visit seven years ago — Moscow is a wonderful city 20 times the size of Washington, D.C. Just the long hours of sunlight were amazing to me. I met a lot of wonderful people when I was there. I didn’t agree with every one of them on everything, but I’ve never read more

Yes, I’m going to say this again. I’ve heard not the slightest hint of a refutation or objection to it, and yet so many, many people ignore it.

For the love of all that is decent, immediately stop the self-defeating idiocy of calling every goddamned war “not a war.”

Please. With all due respect.

“It’s not a war. It’s terrorism.” “It’s not a war. It’s genocide.” “It’s not a war. It’s an occupation.” “It’s not a war. It’s ethnic cleansing.”

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