Author name: davidswanson

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 21, 2026

I reported on our first day as a U.S. peace delegation to Venezuela here.

The second day began and ended with music, the closing being a musical expelling of the Monroe Doctrine from the world. All is revealed below for your viewing pleasure.

Would you like to hear a group of Venezuelans express their solidarity with the people of the United States by shouting “F— ICE”?

Here you go:

READ THE REST AT WORLDBEYONDWAR.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 20, 2026

I’m on a U.S. delegation to Venezuela. We arrived Friday.

Less than two months ago, the U.S. government bombed this place, sending missiles and a huge number of planes and helicopters into Caracas, and kidnapped the president and his wife. Ships and a submarine are still nearby. Every few days we read about the crew of another Venezuelan boat being murdered. A blockade is in place, as is one on Cuba. Yet attention passes on to newer catastrophes read more

The U.S. government (aged 75, 6 feet tall, 275 pounds) plans to build a military base in Gaza. I have some hopes that this will be shockingly offensive to some people in the United States. But it will be modeled on almost 900 other bases that the U.S. military uses outside the United States. This coming weekend, people are protesting military bases all over the world.

Reports The Guardian: “It is unclear who owns the land where the military compound is set to be built, but much of the read more

Tied up with the apparently very longstanding tradition of claiming that all opponents of atrocities are purely engaged in what has recently been called “virtue signaling” is the idea that only certain types of people are qualified to protest certain things — or to ever say or do anything decent at all.

By David Swanson, Progressive Hub, February 13, 2026

Columbia University professor Bruce Robbins exposed his students to possible criticism of the Israeli military, and was for that reason read more

Step one: make a scary headline. Use the word nuclear without ever specifying energy or weapons. As “raise taxes” is simply short for “raise taxes on billionaires,” “nuclear” is simply short for “nuclear weapons that are about to kill you be very, very afraid.”

Step two: Bury in the article something closer to reality, and include a hyperlink, as if there is some sort of evidence to be cited.

Step three: at the hyperlink call the whole read more

Normally, when one develops all the symptoms of a disease, the response ought not to be exacerbating the disease, but seeking to cure it. Approaches to healthcare in the United States have gone off the rails, of course, but think about the disease of military spending.

What are some of the symptoms we’ve suffered recently? Wars, bombings, threats of wars, kidnappings of foreign presidents, arming of distant genocides, attempts to take over or control various countries, hatred, resentment, terrorism, read more

Secession first he would put down
Wholly and forever,
And afterwards from Britain’s crown
He Canada would sever.
Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy.
Mind the music and the step
and with the girls be handy!

Grab em by the CN Tower! The U.S. and Canada may be preparing for war with each other, even while selling each other weapons, jointly building insane “Golden Dome” schemes, and so on. It’s all a big joke, of course. And it’s very Trumpian and off script. But that doesn’t read more

The U.S. government has the world’s most expensive military waging wars around the world. It also now has a military aimed at the United States itself. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has a budget larger than any military in the world except 12. It has military weaponry and vehicles. It has military training from the U.S. and Israeli militaries. It has veterans of foreign U.S. wars in its ranks. The man who murdered Renée Good had learned to kill people in Iraq, for which he was almost read more

Peering out from the United States, it’s hard to see much of China. One learns general facts and gathers views from a small number of people. But I can’t make a lot of sense out of this 4% of humanity over here (or myself for that matter), and don’t have much hope at all for deeply understanding that 17% of humanity over there. It seems worth some effort, however, to build better relationships and understanding, since the U.S. government is overwhelmingly obsessed with competing with China, read more

Trump’s approach to Greenland has something in common with his (Cutting-)Board of Peace approach to Palestine: not even the slightest pretense of involving the people impacted. The residents of Kalaallit Nunaat were never asked about the existing permissions for the U.S. military to build bases in their land and are not being asked now about a “deal” made between Trump and, not even Denmark but, Trump’s servant, the Secretary General of NATO.

“Oh, what a relief to have a deal,” shout read more

I discussed Iran and global madness in this interview with Mark Dunlea.

Dear European governments, look at the map of U.S. military bases above and tell us again about your self-respect, about how you’re going to fight Trump in Greenland (where he also has a military base), about all the military violence metaphors in your newspapers’ columns about trade policies, but understand that we know about the thing you’ve never mentioned: the empire of bases. You don’t even issue self-respecting threats to evict foreign bases like the president of Honduras has done.

Pieces read more

Associated Press reports: “‘Shockingly, our “brilliant” NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,’ [Trump] said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. ‘There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness.’

“‘The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another read more

This was a headline in the New York Times on Tuesday: “With Threats to Greenland, Trump Sets America on the Road to Conquest: After a century of defending other countries against foreign aggression, the United States is now positioned as an imperial power trying to seize another nation’s land.” Here is a sentence from the article that followed: “Never in the past century has America gone forth to seize other countries’ land and subjugate its citizens against their will.”

Setting aside read more

Of course it would take millions of images to convey the full story of the harm done by military bases, foreign and domestic, but a key point is, I think, conveyed by the map above. The countries colored blue or purple have U.S. military bases in them. The countries colored red or purple have been threatened with war by the United States or actually attacked or invaded by the U.S. military within the past year.

The blue countries tell a story of global empire, of a nation seeking to dominate the read more