Peace and War

I suppose the list is lengthy and includes dancing, comedy, karaoke singing, vodka drinking, monument building, diplomacy, novel writing, and thousands of other fields of human endeavor, in some of which Americans can teach Russians as well. But what I’m struck by at the moment in Russia is the skill of honest political self-reflection, as found in Germany, Japan, and many other nations to a great degree as well. I think the unexamined political life is not worth sustaining, but it is all read more

By Дэвид Суонсон (David Swanson)

On Friday in Moscow I and a group from the United States met with former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. He said the current relationship between Washington and Moscow alarmed him. But, he said, it is possible to rebuild trust. “We had a situation that was worse, but we were able to rebuild trust. And people-to-people contacts helped to rebuild trust.”

When Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan first met, presidents read more

I attended a meeting in Moscow on Friday with Vladimir Kozin, longtime member of Russia’s foreign service, advisor to the government, author, and advocate for arms reduction. He handed out the list of 16 unresolved problems above. While he noted that the United States funds NGOs in Russia, as well as Ukraine, to influence elections, and described that as a reality in contrast to U.S. stories of Russia trying to influence a U.S. election, which he called a fairy tale, the topic did not make read more

On Wednesday, I flew out of a New York airport around which armed soldiers in camouflaged uniforms wandered — a New York area that had long ago hidden in the hardest to reach corner of New Jersey the monument that Russia gave the United States in sympathy with the horror of September 11, 2001. I left a country where the corporate media used “ties to Russia” as the equivalent of “servant of Satan,” and treated financial and criminal corruption as honorable or offensive read more

Dear brothers and sisters of Ireland, your ambassador to the United States Anne Anderson spoke at the University of Virginia Tuesday afternoon.

After consulting one of your fine citizens named Barry Sweeney, I asked her this: “Since the U.S. government assures the Irish government that all U.S. military aircraft being refueled at Shannon are not on military operations and are not carrying weapons or munitions, and since the Irish government insists on this in order to comply with Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality, why does the Irish department of transportation almost daily approve civilian aircraft on contract to the U.S. military to carry armed U.S. troops on military operations, weapons, and munitions through Shannon Airport in clear breach of international laws on neutrality?”

Ambassador Anderson replied that the U.S. government at the “highest levels” had informed Ireland that it was in compliance with the law, and Ireland accepted that.

So, the highest level of the U.S. government says that black is white, and Ireland says “Whatever you say, master.” I’m sorry, my friends, but with all due respect, my dog has a better relationship with me than you have with the United States.

We once had a former president named Richard Nixon who maintained that if a president does something it isn’t illegal. Apparently, Anderson takes a Nixonian view of the Trump regime.

Now, I understand that most of you may disagree with Anderson’s position, but she made very clear that she doesn’t give a rat’s rear what you think. During the course of her remarks she suggested that the ongoing French election and other recent elections were — thank goodness! — “containing the tide of populism.” You, my brothers and sisters, are the populace. Are you properly contained?

I asked Anderson a follow up question. She had spoken in support of amnesty or some sort of better treatment for undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States. I asked her whether she realized that hatred of immigrants in the United States is fueled by all the warmaking, in which Shannon Airport and Ireland are complicit. I got a blank stare.

So I asked her whether Ireland couldn’t help us out by being a model of peace. I got a look like she believed I just might have escaped from an asylum. She announced that she would be moving onto the next questioner. I’m sure John F. Kennedy, to whom she had devoted 90% of her remarks, would likewise have dodged such an inappropriate question.