Peace and War

By David Swanson

Raise your hand if you recall the 110th Congress (2007 – 2008) as having spent two years funding a war in Iraq that it had been elected to end, increasing the military’s bloated budget, and adamantly refusing to hold war criminals accountable? If your hand is not raised, please go and read the past two year’s worth of postings at http://afterdowningstreet.org If your hand IS raised, read more

By David Swanson

The largest military budget in the history of the world is being increased. Certain weapons are being cut back, others expanded. But the overall budget is going UP. However, you don’t need me to tell you that. You’ve learned it from these fine news sources:

FoxNews.com:

“With Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposing broad cuts in Pentagon spending, a new war over the president’s budget has begun. While critics already are warning that the plan could compromise read more

Nicole’s blog.

Audio link.

Listen to Audio Clip Here.

Always listen to the Urban Journal:

By David Swanson

One member of Congress stood alone 7.5 years ago against the original authorization to attack Afghanistan. And one member of Congress, a different one, stood alone last week against funding a massive escalation of that war.

On September 14th, 2001, Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke, in tears, on the floor of the House of Representatives. She, alone, would vote No on letting the president decide on going to war in Afghanistan. She, alone, would refuse to authorize the president read more

The Pentagon is starting to cut weapons programs, and peace groups are bound to cheer.

I don’t just mean pseudo-peace groups funded by the makers of OTHER weapons systems (and these do exist, and you should be wary of any campaign obsessed with ending a particular weapon). I mean ordinary peace groups. Because we’ve been demanding an end to wasteful weapons systems, fraudulent and outdated weapons systems, weapons systems designed for nonexistent enemies. We claimed that those read more

By David Swanson

Doug Feith is bluffing big time, and he’s lifted Dick Cheney and George Bush onto the table as his bet. Now if only he could stop visibly sweating.

Feith’s Wall Street Journal column on Friday argues that Spain has no right to put Americans on trial for torture, at least not second-tier officials who provided pseudo-legal justifications for torture and advocated its use, actions read more

By David Swanson

While General David “Betray Us” Petraeus must be thrilled with his conversion from traitor to saint in the eyes of the pseudo-left and amazed that such things can be accomplished simply by changing the political party of the president, the group that formerly bashed him with an ad in the New York Times and now supports whatever Obama does is not as new to supporting wars as this simple story suggests.

Sure, MoveOn tripled its membership by opposing the invasion of Iraq read more

By David Swanson

“Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution.” That’s the title of a booklet Cindy Sheehan is selling online. I know we have CNBC to set us straight on such things, but I thought I’d check out Cindy’s take. Her full-length books have been terrific, and I’ve published 1,631 read more

By David Swanson

Spain has begun a criminal investigation into six of Bush and Cheney’s torture lawyers, and our own Justice Department has got some ‘splaining to do.

You see, it’s actually required by our laws and by international law and treaties that we prosecute our own torturers. It’s not optional. It doesn’t matter whether our television stations can handle more than one news story at a time, or whether our president wants to avoid anything that might limit read more

By David Swanson

Leading human rights organizations in the United States on March 20th presented charges of human rights abuse and torture against the U.S. government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which can recommend actions, including prosecutions, to the U.S. government, other nations’ governments, or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Colleen Costello of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, Michael Ratner read more

By David Swanson

United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest coalition of peace groups in the United States, is organizing a national march on Wall Street on Saturday, April 4, to “End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Address the Economic Crisis by Cutting Military Spending.” A separate coalition is organizing marches on Wall Street on April 3 and 4 with a very similar read more

By David Swanson

–Remarks on March 19, 2009, in a park in which people are living in Richmond, Va., in front of offices of the Federal Reserve–

From outside the United States it’s easy to imagine that everyone inside the United States is doing well. If you live in a country occupied by U.S. soldiers, as over 150 countries are around the world, if you live with extreme poverty and disease, if the United States provides your country’s government with shiny expensive weapons, read more

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 20, 2009

President Obama Announces End to Orange Jumpsuits

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, President Barack Obama announced that detainees formerly referred to as enemy combatants will no longer wear orange jumpsuits. In an agreement with Cambio manufacturing of Low Pointe, North Carolina, and UNITE HERE union Local #1984, new purple jumpsuits will read more

Thanks to Harry Waisbren

Our Spring Break

speeches page

By David Swanson

I’m honored to have been included in this event and applaud what Our Spring Break and DC Students for a Democratic Society are doing here in cold, wet Washington, D.C., for spring break.

We’re now at 6 years of bloody and horrific occupation of Iraq, and 7.5 years in Afghanistan. That means that most college students in the United States were not yet college students when this began. Opposing something that you grow up with takes more wisdom and more nerve, and yet read more

Polling Data on Iraq:

Afghanistan: