Peace and War

November 11 is Armistice Day / Remembrance Day. Ninety-eight years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, fighting ceased in the “war to end all wars.” People went on killing and dying right up until the pre-designated moment, impacting nothing other than our understanding of the stupidity of war.

Thirty million soldiers had been killed or wounded and another seven million had been taken captive during World War I. Never before had people witnessed such industrialized read more

The show is Heart of Mind-Earth at Midnight.

Here’s audio.

https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/wbai-david-swanson-on-elections-and-other-catastrophes

Video: I debated US election today on Press TV.

Dear Democrats,

Are you finding yourselves suddenly a bit doubtful of the wisdom of drone wars? Presidential wars without Congress? Massive investment in new, smaller, “more usable” nuclear weapons? The expansion of bases across Africa and Asia? Are you disturbed by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen? Can total surveillance and the persecution of whistleblowers hit a point where they’ve gone too far? Is the new Cold War with Russia looking less than ideal now? read more

Listen to “The US Wars No One is Talking About and Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy” on Spreaker.

Excerpted from War Is A Lie by David Swanson.

Wars are not fought against flags or ideas, nations or demonized dictators. They are fought against people, 98 percent of whom are resistant to killing, and most of whom had little or nothing to do with bringing on the war. One way to dehumanize those people is to replace all of them with an image of a single monstrous individual.

Marlin Fitzwater, White House press secretary for Presidents read more

In a time of division and disagreement, when people who all agree on something important sometimes spend more time bickering with each other than working on their collective cause, is it possible to craft an agenda that brings them together and adds to their numbers?

It turns out, somewhat to my surprise, the answer is yes.

I discovered this by creating a petition that has very quickly been endorsed by RootsAction, the Future of Freedom Foundation, World Beyond War, the Libertarian Institute, DailyKos, read more

For the past eight years millions of people have expended billions of words speculating about exactly how the United States kills people with missiles from drones (and missiles from other sources, such as manned aircraft, targeting people identified with drones). There is good reason to believe that for each such attack there exists a video and audio record of what the drone pilots saw and what they and their colleagues said to each other as they decided to launch a missile and as they observed read more

Some of the most misguided questions ever conceived by the human brain take the form of “But how do you use nonviolence against . . . ?”

For example, fill in the blank with ISIS. How do you use nonviolence against ISIS?

Now you’re supposed to picture yourself with a knife at your throat trying to resist it nonviolently. Then you’re supposed to burst into a fit of laughter.

But how would you resist that knife violently? A superhuman feat of martial arts seems at least read more

Thirty-seven years ago, the United States Congress commissioned and published a work of fiction, an account of what life in Charlottesville, Virginia, might be like during a nuclear war. It’s contained in a longer report called The Effects of Nuclear War which came out in May of 1979. It’s widely available online.

I take an interest for 15 pretty solid reasons:

• I live in Charlottesville.
• The world still has enough nuclear weapons with which to destroy itself many times over.
• We pay a lot less attention to preventing such a disaster now than we did 37 years ago.
• More nations have nukes now and many more are close to having them.
• We know more now about the numerous nuclear accidents and misunderstandings that have nearly killed us all over the decades.
• India and Pakistan are actually at war.
• The United States and Russia are as close to war as they’ve been in 98 years.
• The United States is investing in newer and smaller, “more usable” nukes.
• This Congressional best case scenario for a U.S. city during a nuclear war is deeply disturbing.
• We now know that even a limited nuclear war would produce a nuclear winter, preventing the production of crops depicted in this tale.
• It’s not so clear to me that Charlottesville would still rank last on a list of targets for nuclear missiles. It is, after all, home to the Army JAG school, the National Ground Intelligence Center, various weapon makers, a heavily militarized university, and the CIA’s underground hideout.
• The United Nations has just set up negotiations for the coming year of a global treaty to ban nuclear weapons, and it’s worth trying to understand why.
• If we survive our possession of nuclear knowledge, we still have climate catastrophe to quickly and miraculously evade or prepare for.
• The Republican candidate for U.S. president.
• The Democratic candidate for U.S. president.

So, here are a few excerpts that I encourage you to consider:

“[This account] presents one among many possibilities, and read more

Imagine if a local business in your town invented a brand new tool that was intended to have an almost magical effect thousands of miles away. However, where the tool was kept and used locally became an area unsafe for children. Children who got near this tool tended to have increased blood pressure and increased stress hormones, lower reading skills, poorer memories, impaired auditory and speech perception, and impaired academic performance.

Most of us would find this situation at least a little read more

By Anna Polo, PRESSENZA

This post is also available in: Italian

In your website http://worldbeyondwar.org/ you say: “We strive to replace a culture of war with one of peace, in which nonviolent means of conflict resolution take the place of bloodshed”. So which role and value can nonviolence have in building such a culture?

Nonviolent action can play at least three roles here.

1. It can demonstrate a superior means of resisting tyranny that causes less suffering, is more likely to succeed, and is likely to have a longer lasting success. While most of the examples, such as Tunisia 2011, are of overcoming domestic tyranny, there is a growing list of successful nonviolent resistance actions against foreign invasion and occupation as well — and a growing understanding of how to apply the lessons of domestic nonviolence to resistance to foreign attack.

2. It can model a world that has outgrown war. Nations can lead by example, by joining international bodies and treaties, abiding by the rule of law and enforcing it. The International Criminal Court could indict a non-African. The United States which has stopped manufacturing cluster bombs could join the ban on them. Truth and reconciliation commissions could be expanded. Disarmament talks, humanitarian aid on a new scale, and the closure of foreign bases could be the change we want to see.

3. Nonviolent protest and resistance tools can be used by activists to resist bases, weapons manufacture, military recruitment, and new wars. We didn’t stop Dal Molin in Vicenza, but we don’t have to accept it. The U.S. military should not be permitted to use facilities in Sicily to murder with drones in Asia and Africa. A year’s service to one’s country should not involve participating in a military.  Public and private funds must be divested from weapons companies. Et cetera.

What can be done in your opinion to transform the culture of violence and revenge that produces so many victims read more