May 1 marks three years since George W. Bush staged his “Mission Accomplished” aircraft landing in San Diego Harbor and “delivered good news to the men and women who fought in the cause of freedom: their mission is complete and major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

As of April 27, at 3:15 p.m. EST – 2,393 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

The count of US wounded is around seven times that number, and Iraqi civilian read more

By David Swanson

Public opinion in the United States and Iraq favors pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, not to mention removing any who have already entered Iran. This sentiment will be on display this Saturday at the United for Peace and Justice March in New York: www.april29.org

Inside Congress opinions vary, and it is a distinct minority that is willing to support public opinion. Some in Congress are willing to take half-way and tenth-of-the-way steps in the direction of ending the war, some read more

By David Swanson

I’ll be co-hosting with Verna Avery-Brown of Pacifica Radio a live broadcast on Pacifica from 8:30-11 a.m. ET on Thursday, April 27, of a forum on Capitol Hill hosted by Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee.
http://www.pacifica.org/stations

The forum will take place in 2325 Rayburn House Office Building (with an overflow room planned for anyone wanting to attend who can’t fit in). The two Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are continuing to do read more

By David Swanson

Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee will host a hearing on the Iraq War next Thursday, April 27, 8:30-11 a.m., in 2325 Rayburn House Office Building (with an overflow room planned for anyone wanting to attend who can’t fit in). The two Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are continuing to do what the “leadership” of both parties does not, respond to the demands of the majority of Americans, who disapprove of current policy.

Woolsey and Lee read more

By David Swanson

“When it came to pinning the terrorist label on the Saddam Government,” Dilip Hiro wrote in 2004 (“Secrets and Lies,” p. 381), “all the Bush administration had to do was point a finger at the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, People’s Mujahedin). An anticlerical Iranian group opposed to the regime in Tehran, the MKO, placed on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in 1997, had located its headquarters in Baghdad since read more

By David Swanson

John Aravosis suggests some talking points on Iran, but I’d like to suggest some changes in bold.

George Bush has decided to use Iran as a foil to help his sagging poll numbers and to help Republicans in the fall congressional elections. I’m going to discuss why this is true, and what the Dems should do about it.

Iran is ten years away from developing nukes.

I’ll say it again, TEN YEARS away. And that’s not according to some peacenik liberal, it’s according read more

By David Swanson

Now might be the time to read, if you haven’t already, “Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism,” an amazing book edited by CODE PINK cofounders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, which includes a forward by Alice Walker and an introduction by Arundhati Roy.

While this book was published last year, its title and theme take on a new urgency with each new revelation that our read more

By David Swanson

Bush authorized the leaking of selected portions of classified documents, selected in such a way as to constitute a lie. He painted a picture of a nuclear threat that he knew did not exist, and used it to scare people into supporting an illegal war, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Of course, the leaking itself was illegal. Of course, Bush’s past promises to fire leakers were lies, and his eagerness to investigate other leaks that he didn’t read more

By David Swanson

What would happen if politically active progressive Americans suddenly stopped devoting their energies to drafting better sound bites, and instead directed all that time and passion into a serious and strategic campaign of civil disobedience?

I know, I know, we’re constantly told that we’re being out-framed and out-messaged. Horse shit. We’re smarter than they are, wittier, pithier, more attuned to the perspectives of those we’re speaking to. But we don’t read more

By David Swanson

The Stop the War Coalition in the UK has set a standard for anti-war activism that we in the United States struggle to match. They’ve held larger protests, convened more significant conferences, and moved their agenda further in public opinion, in Parliament, and in the courts than we have done. On Tuesday they organized protests nationwide outside the studios of the BBC, which of course already provides a level of openness and honesty in its reporting that those of us read more