By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 18, 2023

I want to begin with three lessons from 20 years ago.

First, on the question of launching a war on Iraq, the United Nations got it right. It said no to the war. It did so because people around the world got it right and applied pressure to governments. Whistleblowers exposed U.S. spying and threats and bribes. Representatives represented. They voted no. Global democracy, for all its flaws, succeeded. The rogue U.S. outlaw failed. But, not only did read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 17, 2023

The peace movement did a great many things right in the first decade of this millennium, some of which we’ve forgotten. It also fell short in many ways. I want to highlight the lessons I think we’ve most failed to learn and suggest how we might benefit from them today.

1. We formed uncomfortably large coalitions. We brought together war abolitionists with

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 10, 2023

Here’s how this works each year.

1) Biden proposes a massive increase in military spending — above and beyond both what he proposed the year before and what the Congress increased that to. If you look at U.S. military spending according to SIPRI in constant 2021 dollars from 1949 to now (all the years they provide, with their calculation adjusting for read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 8, 2023

I don’t want any new monuments to individuals to replace any ripped down for racism or other offenses. Individuals are deeply flawed — every single one of them, and morality changes with the times. Whistleblowers are by definition less than divinely perfect, as their service is revealing the horrors of some institution they’ve been part of. But when you look around for individuals you’d like people to be learning from, there are some that read more

Every major U.S. media outlet I’ve been on opposing war has banished me into the wilderness.

Every major Russian media outlet that I go on and denounce war — and I mean Russian warmaking as well as everybody else’s — has me back on again.

I usually do Russian media only live, to prevent them censoring me.

But here’s a radio show I did this week with Sputnik — have read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 6, 2023

Spolier Alert: if you want to watch an excellent 30-minute film without knowing what happens, scroll down and watch it before reading any of these words.

We’ve long known that U.S. mass-shooters are disproportionately trained in shooting by the U.S. military. I don’t know whether the same applies to those who kill in the U.S. with bombs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the connection were even greater.

The Oscar-nominated short film Stranger read more