Articles by David Swanson
We found 49 results.
How Not to Go to War
David Swanson - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2023
The book by Vijay Mehta comes to us from Britain where the author is a leading peace activist, and it is actually a set of recommendations for how to not go to war at all ever.
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Quick Quiz: Mapping Militarism 2023
David Swanson | World Beyond War – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2023
2 May 2023 – A picture can be worth a couple of trillion dollars–when it’s of military spending. A new ‘Mapping Militarism 2023’ is available. You can pick a map and zoom in and out, click on a country to get details, move the slider back to see earlier years, switch to list-view and get the information in text form, or click “source” to see the origins of the data and exactly what it means.
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Top 10 Reasons Sweden and Finland Will Regret Joining NATO
David Swanson | World Beyond War - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2022
7 Sep 2022 – Friendly advice to my brothers and sisters in Finland and Sweden.
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Richard Falk on Peace, War, and the Life of a Citizen Pilgrim
David Swanson | Talk World Radio – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Mar 2022
11 May 2021 – Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and Chair of Global Law, Queen Mary University London. Since 2009 he has been annually nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His political memoir, Public Intellectual: Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published by Clarity Press in Feb 2021.
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The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda
David Swanson| World Beyond War - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jan 2022
5 Jan 2022 – Propaganda is most impactful when people don’t think it’s propaganda, and most decisive when it’s censorship you never knew happened. When we imagine that the U.S. military only occasionally and slightly influences U.S. movies, we are extremely badly deceived.
→ read full articleWHIF: White Hypocritical Imperial Feminism
David Swanson | Pressenza - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Sep 2021
13 Sep 2021 – In 2002, U.S. women’s groups sent a joint letter to then-President George W. Bush in support of the war on Afghanistan to benefit women. Gloria Steinem (formerly of the CIA), Eve Ensler, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, and many others signed. The National Organization for Women, Hillary Clinton, and Madeline Albright supported the war.
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Restoring the Threat of Impeachment for Future Office Holders
David Swanson - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
10 Jan 2021 – In the past 150 years, U.S. presidents have lied, cheated, stolen, warmongered, incited hatred and violence, driven inequality and corruption through the roof, taken over major powers from the Congress and abused them, gained the power of nuclear war and abused it through numerous threats, …
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The New U.S. War on Western Sahara
David Swanson - TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
16 Nov 2020 – I’m not misusing the word “war” to mean something like the war on Christmas or drugs. I mean war. There is a new U.S. war in Western Sahara, being waged by Morocco with the support of the U.S. military, which unbeknownst to most people in the U.S. arms, trains and funds the militaries of the world, including almost all of the most brutal governments of the world.
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The Case against Iraqing Iran
David Swanson | World Beyond War – MintPress News,
18 Dec 2017
Planning war and funding war creates its own momentum. Sanctions become, as with Iraq, a stepping stone to war. Cutting off diplomacy leaves few options open. Electoral pissing contests take us all where most of us did not want to be.
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Mass Shooters Are Disproportionately US Veterans
David Swanson – MintPress News,
20 Nov 2017
US Military Veterans Are More than Twice as Likely to Be Mass Shooters – It’s important to answer because it’s important for us to know whether military training is contributing to this epidemic,
→ read full articleU.S. Plans to Saturate Globe with Weapons
David Swanson | Veterans Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2016
11 Jul 2016 – My headline above is a plain English translation of this Pentagonspeak found in a Reuters headline today: “International demand for U.S. weapons systems is expected to continue growing in coming years, a senior U.S. Air Force official said on Sunday [10 Jul], citing strong interest in unmanned systems, munitions and fighter jets.” Thus is the proliferation of drones around the world spun as something positive, along with bombs and jets.
→ read full articleIf Afghan Lives Mattered, Dallas Lives Would Matter
David Swanson | Let’s Try Democracy – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2016
8 Jul 2016 – The man who murdered police officers in Dallas, Texas, this week had earlier been employed in a massive operation, now in its 15th year, that has killed many thousands of people in Afghanistan. He was trained to kill by the U.S. military and was conditioned to believe violence an appropriate response to violence by the examples everywhere to be found in U.S. public policy, history, entertainment, and language.
→ read full articleShould Criminalizing War Start by Pretending It’s Legal?
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2016
6 Jan 2015 – There’s a terrific new book on abolishing war called ‘Abolishing War: Criminalizing War, Removing War Causes, Removing War as Institution.’ Johan Galtung, who was recently on my radio show, is brilliant as always, drawing on vast knowledge and wisdom.
→ read full articleTalk Nation Radio: Johan Galtung on ISIS and Alternative to War
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
24 Nov 2015 – Johan Galtung is the founder of the discipline of peace studies. He founded the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo in 1959 and the Journal of Peace Research in 1964, and has helped found dozens of peace centers. He has taught peace studies at universities all over the world, and mediated hundreds of conflicts. He is author or coauthor of over 160 books, and is cited and discussed in many thousands. He is the founder of TRANSCEND Media Service, TRANSCEND Peace University and TRANSCEND International.
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Most Disgusting Game Ever
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
The Nazis never reached this height of banality in the general German public, but had they done so it would be a sinister feature of tens of thousands of Hollywood movies. If Russians sat around playing a board game that involved blowing up Ukrainian children, the Washington Post would have already published several front-page articles.
→ read full article70 Years of Korean War
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
I’m inclined to think that August 10th should be formally recognized as Gulf of Tonkin War Fraud Day. But I’m not sure, because another event is in even more need of remembrance. It was the day after the death blow to Nagasaki, 70 years ago, that the victors of the most awesomest war ever chose to create a division of Korea along the 38th parallel.
→ read full articleVietnam War Half a Century Later
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
This was the bad war in contrast to which World War II acquired the ridiculous label “good war.” Members of the wonderful organization, Veterans For Peace, have launched their own educational campaign to counter the Pentagon’s at VietnamFullDisclosure.org, and the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee has done the same at LessonsOfVietnam.com.
→ read full articleIsrael Sees Nazism in Mirror it Mistakes for Window
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
27 July 2015 – Israel is trying to expel the population of a village for the crime of not being Jewish, the same crime for which Israel bombs the people of Gaza for a month or so every few years and blockades them in between these bursts of violence. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee declares that making peace with Iran amounts to marching Israelis “to the door of the oven.” Guess which of the two stories will get more coverage!
→ read full articleGeorge Clooney Opposes War Profiteering—But only in Africa
David Swanson, World Beyond War – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
Of the top 100 weapons makers in the world, not a single one is based in Africa. Only 1 is in South or Central America. Fifteen are in Western allies and protectorates in Asia (and China is not included in the list). Three are in Israel, one in Ukraine, and 13 in Russia. Sixty-six are in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada. Forty are in the U.S. alone. Seventeen of the top 30 are in the U.S. Six of the top 10 mega-profiteers are in the U.S. The other four in the top 10 are in Western Europe.
→ read full articlePeace Lessons
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
I just read what may be the best introduction to peace studies I’ve ever seen. It’s called ‘Peace Lessons,’ and is a new book by Timothy Braatz. It’s not too fast or too slow, neither obscure nor boring. It does not drive the reader away from activism toward meditation and “inner peace.”
→ read full articleThe 51-Day Genocide
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
6 July 2015 – Max Blumenthal’s latest book, ‘The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza,’ tells a powerful story powerfully well. I can think of a few other terms that accurately characterize the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza in addition to “war,” among them: occupation, murder-spree, and genocide. Each serves a different valuable purpose. Each is correct.
→ read full articleVeterans Urge Drone Operators to Refuse Orders to Fly
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
17 Jun 2015 – Letter Reinforces Call Made in National TV Ad Campaign – An increasing number of United States military veterans are counseling United States military drone operators to refuse to fly drone surveillance/attack missions – the veterans are even helping sponsor prime time television commercials urging drone operators to “refuse to fly.”
→ read full articleUkraine and the Apocalyptic Risk of Propagandized Ignorance
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
‘Ukraine: Zbig’s Grand Chessboard and How the West Was Checkmated’ – This book may very well be the best written one I’ve read this year. It puts all the relevant facts — those I knew and many I didn’t — together concisely and with perfect organization. It does it with an informed worldview. It leaves me nothing to complain about at all, which is almost unheard of in my book reviews.
→ read full articleFilm: Costa Rica Abolished Its Military, Never Regretted It
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
In 1948 Costa Rica abolished its military, something widely deemed impossible in the United States. This film documents how that was done and what the results have been. I don’t want to give away the ending but let me just say this: there has not been a hostile Muslim takeover of Costa Rica, the Costa Rican economy has not collapsed, and Costa Rican women still seem to find a certain attraction in Costa Rican men.
→ read full articleDrone Victims Take Germany to Court for Abetting U.S. Murders
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
Their suit argues that it is illegal under German law for the German government to allow the U.S. air base at Ramstein to be used for drone murders abroad. The suit comes after the passage of a resolution in the European Parliament urging European nations to “oppose and ban the practice of extrajudicial targeted killings.”
→ read full articleU.S. Standing Alone against Children
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
The United States will soon be the only nation on earth that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. And why not?
→ read full articlePeace Ecology
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Sep 2014
With serendipitous timing, as a big march for the climate, and various related events, are planned on and around the International Day of Peace [21 Sep 2014], Randall Amster has just published an important book called Peace Ecology.
→ read full articleIraq Has WMDs and Russia Has Invaded!
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Sep 2014
The U.S. media has repeatedly been claiming that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They claim it for a while, and there’s obviously been no invasion, so they pause. Then they claim it again. Or they claim that a convoy of aid trucks constitutes an invasion.
→ read full articleMonty Python State Department
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Sep 2014
No actual diplomats were harmed in the making of this production. Scene: A cafe. One table is occupied by a group of Vikings wearing horned helmets.
→ read full articleWar in the Hundred Acre Woods
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Aug 2014
“To renounce aggression is not enough,” writes Milne. “We must also renounce defence.” What do we replace it with? Milne depicts a world of nonviolent dispute resolution, arbitration, and a changed conception of honor or prestige that finds war shameful rather than honorable. And not just shameful, but mad.
→ read full articleDemand Swells for Straight Answers on Plane in Ukraine
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Aug 2014
22 Aug 2014 – A long list of prominent individuals has signed, a number of organizations will be promoting next week, and you can be one of the first to sign right now, a petition titled “Call For Independent Inquiry of the Airplane Crash in Ukraine and its Catastrophic Aftermath.”
→ read full articleIf a Genocide Falls in the Forest
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Aug 2014
There’s a wide and mysterious chasm between the intentions of the Israeli government as depicted by the U.S. media and what it has been doing in Gaza, even as recounted in the U.S. media. With the morgues full, Gazans are packing freezers with their dead children. Meanwhile, the worst images to be found in Israel depict fear, not death and suffering.
→ read full articleCNN: Palestinians Want to Die
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jul 2014
William Westmoreland once remarked on Vietnam, where the United States killed 4 million men, women, children, and infants: “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner.” Banastre Tarleton stood up in Parliament and defended the slave trade on the grounds that Africans did not object to being slaves. President William McKinley said little brown Filipinos appreciated being conquered and dominated.
→ read full articleMass Murderers Brazenly Hold Conference, Discuss Tools of Trade
David Swanson - Reader Supported News,
16 Jun 2014
7 Jun 2014 – A unique conference is planned in Charlottesville, Va., featuring the latest technologies for the practice of large-scale killing. The Daily Progress tells us that, “to allow participants to speak more freely about potentially sensitive topics, the conference is closed to the media and open only to registered participants.”
→ read full articleWar Is Good for Us, Dumb New Book Claims
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2014
Ian Morris maintains that the only way to peace is to make large societies, and the way to large societies is through war. From peace prosperity follows and from prosperity flows happiness. Therefore, war creates happiness. But if you want peace, prosperity and joy you must never stop engaging in — you guessed it — war.
→ read full articleChelsea Manning Awarded Sam Adams Integrity Prize for 2014
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2014
16 Jan 2014 – The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence have voted overwhelmingly to present the 2014 Award to Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee, U.S. Army Pvt. Manning is the 25 year-old intelligence analyst who in 2010 provided to WikiLeaks the “Collateral Murder” video.
→ read full articleSlavery Was Believed Permanent Longer Than War Has Been
David Swanson, War Is A Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2013
Religion and science and history and economics all purported to prove slavery’s permanence, acceptability, and even desirability. In Ephesians 6:5 St. Paul instructed slaves to obey their earthly masters as they obeyed Christ. And culture, of course, that tries to preserve itself by calling itself “human nature.”
→ read full articleSave the Nobel Peace Prize from Itself
David Swanson, War is a Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2013
On October 11, we’ll learn whether the Norwegian Nobel Committee is interested in reviving the Nobel Peace Prize or putting another nail in its coffin. In March 2012 the Swedish Foundations Authority ordered the Nobel Foundation to examine the will and ensure compliance. The NF defied the order and applied for a permanent exception from such oversight.
→ read full articleBradley Manning Wins Peace Prize
David Swanson, War Is a Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jul 2013
19 Jul 2013 – U.S. whistleblower and international hero Bradley Manning has just been awarded the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award by the International Peace Bureau, itself a former recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Manning is a nominee this year.
→ read full articleTalk Nation Radio: Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire Says Syrians Oppose Intervention
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jul 2013
Mairead Maguire speaks about her recent trip to Lebanon and Syria where she met with refugees, combatants, members of the opposition and members of the government. She found that supporters and opponents of the government, including those working for political changes, overwhelmingly oppose foreign interference and violence.
→ read full articleLetter from a Drone Protester’s Jail
David Swanson, War Is a Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
15 Feb 2013 – Greetings from the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, South Dakota! As of this writing, I am two months into a six month sentence imposed due to my protest of war crimes committed by remote control from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
→ read full article(Italiano) In Carcere per la Pace
David Swanson – Centro Studi Sereno Regis,
7 Jan 2013
Centinaia di statunitensi, giovani e anziani, vanno regolarmente in prigione, a volte per mesi o anni o decenni, perché si oppongono con la nonviolenza al militarismo USA.
→ read full articleSoldiers Who Refuse to Kill
David Swanson – War Is A Crime,
13 Aug 2012
One of the most inspiring events thus far at the Veterans For Peace National Convention underway in Miami was a presentation on Thursday [9 Aug 2012] by several veterans who have refused to participate in war. Typically, they have done this at the risk of significant time in prison, or worse.
→ read full articleNew Photos Released of Iraq Atrocity, With Documents and Video
David Swanson – War Is a Crime,
26 Dec 2011
U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow soldiers in Al Doura, Iraq. His charges were supported by atrocity photos that, in the public interest, are now released in this video. John paid a terrible price for his opposition to these acts. His story is tragic.
→ read full articleTruman Lied, Hundreds of Thousands Died
David Swanson – War Is a Crime,
8 Aug 2011
On August 6, 1945, President Harry S Truman announced: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.”
→ read full article(Italian) Previsione: 20 Anni di Guerra in Libia
David Swanson – Centro Studi Sereno Regis,
18 Apr 2011
Johan Galtung, indicato talvolta come il padre degli studi per la pace, ha predetto il crollo dell’URSS e il rifiuto dei soldati egiziani di attaccare i civili. La sua previsione di crollo dell’impero USA nel 2020 sembra essere in orario. È stato quindi degno di nota quando martedì scorso all’Università della Virginia ha predetto che la guerra in Libia potrebbe durare 20 anni. Se poi la NATO e l’opposizione dovessero uccidere Gheddafi, ha detto, i combattimenti potrebbero proseguire per più di 20 anni.
→ read full articlePrediction: 20 Years of War in Libya
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2011
Johan Galtung, sometimes called the father of peace studies, predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the refusal of Egyptian soldiers to attack civilians. His prediction of the collapse of the US empire in 2020 appears to be on schedule. So, it was noteworthy when he predicted on Tuesday [12 Apr 2011] at the University of Virginia that the war in Libya would last 20 years. If, however, NATO and the opposition were to kill Gadaffi, he said, the fighting could go on for more than 20 years.
→ read full articleDANGEROUS PEOPLE NEEDED
David Swanson – Global Research,
4 Nov 2009
"The Most Dangerous Man in America""Glaubt es mir – das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben." — Friedrich Nietzsche On Thursday night I had the privilege of viewing a premier of a film together with its star. The theater was in the U.S. Capitol, and the […]
→ read full articleARMY’S SHOPPING MALL GAME CENTER SHUT DOWN BY PROTESTS
David Swanson,
17 Sep 2009
The Army Experience Center, an amusement hall built in a Philadelphia area shopping mall to make killing and dying look like fun to kids, has been the focus of repeated protests and criticism. This past weekend hundreds again protested at the AEC, and police arrested six protesters and one journalist. The journalist was not with […]
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