Can War Be Both Reformed AND Abolished?


Photo of Kunduz Hospital in Afghanistan via The Intercept.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 2, 2021

A recent article and a recent book have raised this familiar topic anew for me. The article is a super uninformed dud of a hatchet job on Michael Ratner by Samuel Moyn, who accuses Ratner of supporting war by trying to reform and humanize rather than end it. The critique is terribly weak because Ratner tried to prevent wars, end wars, AND reform wars. Ratner was at every antiwar event. read more

How to Prevent Terrorism

By David Swanson

Hi, this is David Swanson, executive director of World BEYOND War, campaign coordinator of RootsAction, and host of Talk World Radio. I was asked by the Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism for a video on foreign intervention and domination as an important factor in the spread of violence and extremism.

I’m not a huge fan of the word “extremism,” both because I think we should be extreme about things that merit it, and because the U.S. government distinguishes read more

Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina to Receive the War Abolisher of 2021 Award

By World BEYOND War, September 27, 2021

Today, September 27, 2021, World BEYOND War announces as the recipient of the War Abolisher of 2021 Award: Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina.

As already announced, the Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher Award of 2021 will be presented to Peace Boat, and the David Hartsough Lifetime Individual War Abolisher Award of 2021 will be presented to Mel Duncan.

An online presentation and acceptance event, with remarks from representatives of all three 2021 award read more

Talk World Radio: The Kaepernick Effect

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

This week on Talk World Radio, The Kaepernick Effect is a new book by our guest Dave Zirin who is sports editor for The Nation and the author of 10 books on the politics of sports, including Jim Brown: Last Man Standing. His website is at EdgeofSports.com.

Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.

read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, A Hellfire World

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

Droning On Assassins-in-Chief and Their Brood By

What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not!

I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this country’s 20-year-long Afghan nightmare.

Where to begin (or end, for read more

325 Organizations Propose Climate Solution You’ve Never Heard Of

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 23, 2021

Yesterday something that has become tiresomely routine happened; I spoke to a college class about the most obvious climate solution, and neither the students nor the professor had ever heard of it. The 325 organizations (and climbing) listed at the bottom of this article are promoting it, and have joined 17,717 individuals (thus far) in signing a petition for it at http://cop26.info

Many of us have been screaming about it at the tops of our read more

U.S. Media Obsessed With Smaller Two of Three Big Bills in Congress

The super unprecedentedly ginormous Building Back Better bill is widely advertised as costing $3.5 trillion – and I think we’d all love to hear just a few hundred more times how Senator Joe Manchin won’t stand for it, wouldn’t we? But that number is spread over 10 years. In 1 year it’s $0.35 trillion, otherwise known as $350 billion.

That bill is dependent on and determines what happens to the other of the two super important dramatic and Big-News bills you’ve heard about, namely the read more