Talk Nation Radio: Mark Isaacs on Peace Activism in Afghanistan

Mark Isaacs is the author, among other books, of the new book, The Kabul Peace House, which we discuss, and which describes a community of peace activists in Afghanistan. Mark is president of Sydney PEN, an affiliate of PEN International, a worldwide association of writers which defends freedom of expression and campaigns on behalf of writers who have been silenced by persecution or imprisonment. He speaks with us from Australia. His website is markjisaacs.com

Total run time: 29:00
Host: read more

On Bragging About Murdering People You Turned into Terrorists

You cannot promote the rule of law by loudly bragging about committing murder. You cannot end terrorism by committing terrorism. Here is a U.S. president openly proclaiming that he has committed murder in order to let people be afraid they’ll be next. If anything fits the definition of terrorism, that does. The U.S. public cannot see it because (1) whatever the U.S. does is good, (2) Trump’s fans support anything he does, (3) loyalists of the Democratic Party believe that any crimes read more

The World Must Compel the U.S. to Allow Korea to Have Peace

KOREAN BELOW THE ENGLISH

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 26, 2019

I’ve never heard of or even seen fantasized a society or a government that wasn’t deeply flawed. I know neither North nor South Korea is an exception. But the primary impediment to peace in Korea appears to be the United States: its government, its media, its billionaires, its people, and even the arm of the U.S. called the United Nations.

The U.S. public has, and chooses to have, very little control over its government, read more

Peace in Afghanistan

There were whispers in the village, high up in the mountains of Afghanistan. There was a Stranger here. He had made a friend and been invited to live in a home despite not being family, despite probably not even being of the ethnicity or religion of every person who could be trusted.

The Stranger had obtained for a family a small interest-free loan and helped them create a store. He’d hired kids off the street. Now the kids were inviting other kids to come and talk with the Stranger about working read more

What Does the U.S. Public Think of Its Government Arming and Bombing the World?

Data for Progress for quite a while appeared to be yet another U.S. PEP group (Progressive Except for Peace). They were producing useful polling reports on all sorts of topics as if 96% of humanity didn’t exist. Foreign policy just couldn’t be found. They told me they were just getting around to it. You still can’t find it from the homepage of their website (or at least it’s beyond my navigational skills), but Data for Progress has now published read more

Talk Nation Radio: Kings Bay Plowshares 7

The Kingsbay Ploughshares 7 are facing 25 years in prison for their action at a nuclear submarine base. We speak with six of them: Elizabeth McAlister, Martha Hennessy, Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Patrick O’Neill, and Carmen Trotta. Learn more.

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

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Syndicated by Pacifica Network.

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Talk Nation Radio: Jeffrey Sterling, CIA Whistleblower, on What He Now Thinks Was the Purpose of Operation Merlin

Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA case officer who was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and was in federal prison in Colorado. Prior to this program, as far as we know, Sterling had not been asked whether he believes the stated purpose of the program he worked on. Does he really think the purpose of giving obviously flawed nuclear bomb-part plans to Iran was to slow down a nuclear weapons program that may not even have existed? Or does he believe the purpose was to plant evidence on the read more

The Nobel Committee Is Doing Better

The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize was right not to give the prize to Greta Thunberg, who deserves the highest prizes available, but not one created to fund the work of abolishing war and militaries. That cause ought to be central to the work of protecting the climate, but it is not. The question of why no young person working to abolish war is given access to television networks ought to be raised.

The vision that Bertha von Suttner and Alfred Nobel had for the peace prize — the read more