Dear Russia-Had-No-Choice Friends

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 24, 2023

Here’s a terrible “syllogism” from a wonderful person, Ray McGovern, longtime CIA employee, then longtime peace activist, and now year-long contender that Russia had no choice but to attack Ukraine.

“The Russians had other options to invading Ukraine.
They attacked Ukraine in a ‘war of choice’; also threaten NATO.
Ergo, the West must arm Ukraine to the teeth, risking wider war.”

This is supposedly an explanation of the thinking of we read more

The Maine National Guard Is Not Defending the U.S. But Destroying Montenegro


Hey, Montenegro has a new flag, and few people in the U.S. could find Montenegro on a map. What’s wrong with this picture?

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 23, 2023

According to the following tweets by the Montenegran military, the Maine National Guard and Brigadier General Dean A. Preston are not “guarding” Maine or the nation Maine is in. The Maine National Guard is not even anywhere near the United States.

Instead, the Maine National Guard is helping to turn a beautiful read more

Tomgram: Priti and Stan Cox, Two Great Powers, Too Much Violence

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Let me offer a small prediction: between this moment when I’m writing the introduction to Priti Gulati and Stan Cox’s new piece and the moment, a few days from now, when it’s actually posted at TomDispatch, the question isn’t whether there will be another mass shooting in America, but read more

How Strengthened Global Governance Could Produce a Nuclear-Free World

It should come as no surprise that the world is currently facing an existential nuclear danger.  In fact, it has been caught up in that danger since 1945, when atomic bombs were used to annihilate the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Today, however, the danger of a nuclear holocaust is probably greater than in the past.  There are now nine nuclear powers―the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea―and they are currently engaged read more

From Beyond the Death of Beyond Vietnam

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 21, 2023

Remarks in New York City, May 21, 2023

About a year-and-a-half before I was born down in midtown, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech up at Riverside Church called Beyond Vietnam. “A nation that continues year after year,” he said, “to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” He was well aware that the military was not being used in defense, but the language of war acceptance read more

Future Memorials, Montenegro, and the Statue of Liberty

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 20, 2023

Remarks at Liberty State Park in New Jersey on May 20, 2023, with Veterans For Peace’s The Golden Rule and Pax Christi New Jersey.

A lot of things go wrong, but sometimes things go right.

The Statue of Liberty is an example of things going right. Not because there was ever a golden age of perfect kindness and intelligence that wasn’t chock full of bigotry and hypocrisy, but because such a statue with such words on it could not be created today. read more

Tomgram: Michael Klare, The G-3 and the Post-Ukraine World

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

In truth, we may be on a planet we hardly recognize. Recently, in case you missed it (and how could you have, given the coverage?), Prince Charles became King Charles III, ruler of… well, once upon a time, at the height of the British empire, or even perhaps in 1952 when read more