By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 28, 2026

Excerpted from War Is Still A Lie.

Since I wrote War Is A Lie in 2010 and updated it in 2015, the lies used to prop up wars have varied but continued. My summary remains true:

Not a single thing that we commonly believe about wars that helps keep them around is true. Wars cannot be good or glorious. Nor can they be justified as a means of achieving peace or anything else of value. The reasons given for wars, before, during, and after them (often read more

By David Swanson, Progressive Hub, July 27, 2026

I have no opinion on the casting or the acting or the straying from the original in the new Hollywood Odyssey. Here come some spoilers on what I do have an opinion on.

Christopher Nolan and whoever else had a role in this production obviously tried to improve on ancient morality in a particular way and not in another.

That is, Nolan de-glorified war. In this movie, we’re told that the Greeks were lied into the Trojan War for economic reasons. read more

War Is Still A Lie is an updated third edition of War Is A Lie and includes a new 90-page investigation of how lies about wars have changed.

War Is A Lie is a thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those wars that have been most widely defended as just and good. This is a handbook of sorts, an engaging, always informative manual that can be used to debunk future lies before the wars they’re deployed to justify have any chance to begin. This 2026 edition updates and expands on the 2015 second edition, which built on the 2010 original.

The author, read more

The film Fiume o Morte! opens with people in the Croatian town of Rijeka being asked a question on the street: “Who was Gabriele D’Annunzio?” It gives me great pleasure to report that many of them had not the foggiest idea.

Over 100 years ago, Rijeka (at the time called Fiume in Italian) in the everlasting idiocy of the Treaty of Versailles was not properly included in any country after World War I. D’Annunzio, a famous Italian poet, novelist, partier, despiser read more

The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48 of the American Psychological Association) hosted this webinar — “Foreign Bases: Understanding the Backbone of Military Empires” — on July 8, 2026. Our speaker was David Swanson, author, activist, journalist, radio host, and executive director of World BEYOND War.

The webinar illuminated the role and prevalence of military bases on foreign lands, an obvious instrument of militarism. The presentation also included information read more

Wow, U.S. social media is suffering a pandemic of nationalism just in time for a celebration of a declaration of the crimes and abuses of King George, a laundry list of horrors that pale beside the accomplishments of any recent U.S. president — the quaint abuses of his royal highness of the blue piss who in reality was more read more

Legacy “news” outlets have declared a national disaster emergency. It seems that we the people of the United States may be in imminent danger of having about 10% of the U.S. Congress give a damn about us, and — what’s worse — perhaps 5% give a damn about the other 96% of humanity too.

The panic seems misplaced, not only because Uncle Sam’s Oligarchs have still got 90% of our court jesters, the one emperor, and a majority of the Supremes, but also because the read more

World BEYOND War’s David Swanson, Kathy Kelly, Sellah N. King’oro, and John Reuwer, spoke on June 19 at the University of Massachusetts – Amherest at the conference on Resistance Studies.

Part 1 of 4: War and Resistance Studies, by David Swanson, June 19, 2026

In the 1990s I was doing a Master’s in Philosophy at the University of Virginia when some UVA professors and students began a campaign to get everyone who worked there paid a living wage. It was the first organized activism I worked on, the first time I planned events, recruited people, and argued against misleading claims from opponents of positive change. I got involved in living wage efforts around the country and eventually ended up working for a group called ACORN, but the leading lights read more

By Parallax Views, June 18, 2026

LISTEN HERE: https://t.co/Ch1cvrESQK

— J.G. Michael (@ViewsParallax) June 18, 2026

On this special edition of Parallax Views, J.G. and a slew of top-notch guests delve into the antiwar movement and the attacks, past and present, on antiwar voices and dissidents.

When Iran moved toward a decent democratic government, the UK, U.S., and oil barons destroyed it and put in place a horrendously brutal dictatorship. When Iranians overthrew that dictatorship, religious lunatics seized power and treated the people of Iran so cruelly for so long that many of them longed for that dictatorship — or the CIA-owned son thereof — and still do. When Iraq attacked Iran, the U.S. provided targeting assistance and chemical weapons. Then the U.S. labeled Iran read more

If the U.S. government or state governments had a trillion dollars and a willingness to spend money on anything other than wars, and if they worked for us instead of for the oil companies, we could have solar power for almost every household in the country.

Even with little bits of a trillion dollars, we could have great things in the United States: free preschool for anyone who wants it ($35b), Medicaid for the uninsured ($214b), housing read more

Recently the least popular person alive said, “I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”

Already unpopular with kind and decent people, Trump may have — with that comment — tanked his popularity with every weapons company public relations hack on Earth. Their most deeply held pretense has always been that military spending isn’t needed for wars but rather to prevent wars.

Of course, Trump promised not to start any read more

According to an email on Tuesday from The Hill newspaper, “The Iran war is on the ballot in South Carolina, where GOP primary voters will determine the political fate of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a steadfast ally of President Trump and one of the Senate’s most hawkish members. Graham is heavily favored to eventually secure the Republican nomination, but polls show he may need to win a runoff first, in what would be a first for the four-term senator.”

Everyone’s first thought read more

Remarks from a webinar about the Peace Manifesto.

Hi. This is David Swanson and I’m speaking as Executive Director of World BEYOND War. I’m honored to be a part of celebrating one year of the peace manifesto that people can find and promote at activatingpeace.org.

Maybe celebrating is the wrong word and recommitting is the right one. I am still sick and tired of the culture of war and supportive of a culture of peace. If it’s OK, I’ll tell you a bit about what I mean by that. read more