Author name: davidswanson

Many of us have called wars like those on Iraq and Afghanistan by the name “wars” or sometimes the name “occupation,” but the current war on Gaza by the name “genocide.” They’ve all been extremely one-sided slaughters of mostly civilians — thus far the latest violence in Gaza the least one-sided of those three. But two of them were U.S. wars and one of them an Israeli war that couldn’t happen without U.S. weapons, U.S. vetoes at the UN, etc. And those running the wars talk differently. read more

I’ll be speaking at this online event at 11 a.m. ET Thursday, November 16, 2023:

I’ll be speaking at this event at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 16, 2023, but it looks like you need to be in Milwaukee:

PEACE ACTION WI ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND CHILI SUPPER

NOVEMBER 16, 2024, THURSDAY AT 5-8 PM

ZAO CHURCH, 2319 E KENWOOD BLVD, MILWAUKEE, WI 53211

Speaker David Swanson of World BEYOND War will speak via internet

($5.00 donation- no one turned away)

5:30 PM- Supper- Chili,

Join us!

Wear black if you can!

Learn more!

Flyer for promoting the event (PDF).

Flyer for handing out on walk (PDF).

Letter to Biden calling for a real Good Neighbor policy for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The text of the Monroe Doctrine:

“We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 12, 2023

AUDIO:

VIDEO:

TV News Video.

News Report.

TEXT:

Nothing in my lifetime has done more to increase the risk of nuclear apocalypse than the war in Ukraine. Nothing is doing more to impede global cooperation on climate, poverty, or homelessness. Few things are doing as much direct damage in those areas, devastating the environment, disrupting grain read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 12, 2023

Remarks in Chicago on November 12, 2023

In the movie Good Morning, Vietnam the mean, ignorant superior officer tells the Robin Williams character:

“I got people stuck in places they haven’t even considered how to get out of yet. You don’t think I can come up with something good? Can you envision some fairly unattractive alternatives?”

And Robin Williams, without missing a beat, says “Not without slides.”

So, I’m going to read more

Remarks in Cedar Rapids on November 11, 2023

Henry Nicholas John Gunther was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents who had immigrated from Germany. In September 1917 he was drafted to help kill Germans. The world’s first modern war propaganda campaign was underway. It was a hard sales pitch for war, including if you said the wrong thing you’d go to prison. Henry wrote home from Europe to describe how horrible the war was and to encourage others to avoid being drafted. Well, his letter was read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 11, 2023

Remarks at Veterans For Peace event in Iowa City, Iowa, November 11, 2023

On December 2nd the Monroe Doctrine will turn 200. That is, it will be 200 years from the day President James Monroe made a speech from which years later politicians and pundits excerpted some paragraphs and labeled them the Monroe Doctrine. If the purpose was to allow a privileged clique the power to lawlessly create policy and elevate it above all actual laws, it worked. read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 11, 2023

Remarks on November 11, 2023, at Veterans For Peace event in Iowa City, Iowa

Ukraine needs an armistice.

Palestine needs an armistice.

Nagorno-Karabakh needs an armistice.

Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, and so many countries need an armistice.

The U.S. public and its mass shooters need an armistice.

And by armistice I do not mean a pause to re-load. I mean an end to the idiotic madness of mass-murder that risks nuclear apocalypse, an end in order to read more

Something that helps make the most fantastic and undocumented lies credible are differences and prejudices, against others and in favor of one's own. Without religious bigotry, racism, and patriotic jingoism, wars would be harder to sell.

Remarks at The Columbus Free Press Annual Awards Dinner, November 9, 2023

By David Swanson, November 6, 2023

Remarks at Cambridge, Mass., November 6, 2023

If we think of the U.S. arming of genocidal colonial violence in Israel as an anachronistic throwback, we’re not wrong, but there’s something we’re missing. If we want to understand why a bill to fund four wars at once is likely to find less, rather than more, opposition in the U.S. Congress, there’s something we should understand about the past, about how we got here.

If we want to know how war read more

By WORT Community Radio in Madison, Wisconsin, November 3, 2023

During this time of global unrest, violence, and clashing opinions, we spend an hour with peace activist David Swanson. He joins Esty Dinur to discuss a path to peace in Palestine-Israel and Ukraine, the impact of the military–industrial complex, and why the suggestion of peace seems to outrage many.

They also speak about Esty’s recent read more

Just after another mass shooting by another veteran, the Washington Post reports:

“A tiny fraction, only about 5% of people attempting suicide, use a gun. But guns are deadly almost every time, and so end up accounting for over half of suicide deaths. For veterans, that jumps to 75%. Experts say that traumatic experiences at war play a role in veterans having a suicide rate 1.5 times higher than others. Yet even those with no combat history die by suicide at a much higher rate. What they read more

A report from ABC 3 WEAR, reports:

“Chris Lambert is a decorated Vietnam veteran whose battled PTSD for more than 40 years. Lambert’s a three-time Purple Heart recipient, all before his 20th birthday. He says after hearing reports that the suspected gunman in the Maine shooting was treated and released from a facility only weeks later, it’s clear that more long-term care for veterans is needed. However, he feels the shooting suspect’s read more

The Monroe Doctrine, which will be 200 years old on December 2, 2023, is a declaration of U.S. hegemony in the Americas.  It remains in place, both explicitly and dressed up in novel language. Additional doctrines have been built on its foundations.

In this talk, David Swanson will desribe the creation, evolution, and use of the Monroe Doctrine over the years since 1823, and propose a radically different approach for the U.S. government to take with Latin America and the world.   The current read more

In the United States, only a very small percentage of men under 60 are military veterans.

In the United States, at least 31% of male mass shooters under 60 (which is almost all mass shooters) are military veterans.

That’s 40 out of 127 mass shooters in Mother Jones’ database whom I’ve been read more

Chair: Rita Payne, President Emeritus, Commonwealth Journalists Association

Speakers:

Vijay Mehta, Chair, Uniting for Peace, Author, How Not To Go To War, Board Member, GAMIP (Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace) (UK)

Medea Benjamin,  Political Activist, Co-Founder of CodePink, Author, War in Ukraine (USA)

Tony Robinson, Editor, Pressenza – An International News Agency and Author, Coffee with Silo and the quest for meaning in life (UK)

Joseph Gerson, Peace read more