Author: David Swanson

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
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BDS The U.S. — The World Must Hold the U.S. Government to the Rule of Law

By World BEYOND War, March 4, 2024

We don’t need a “Rules-Based Order.” We need a U.S. government that obeys laws.

The Problem

The Vetoes

Since 1972, the U.S. government has been far and away the leading user of the veto in the UN Security Council, often blocking the will of every or nearly every other national government on Earth. It has vetoed U.N. condemnation of South African apartheid, Israel’s wars and occupations, chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation and first use and use against non-nuclear nations, U.S. wars in Nicaragua and Grenada and Panama, the read more

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Talking Like the CIA Is Bad for You

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 3, 2024

There’s a guide at wordsaboutwar.org to some of the standard war language used for big bucks by professional propagandists and for free by almost everyone else who has normalized it and not given it another thought. Manufacturing tools for mass murder is called “the defense industry,” those murdered are called “collateral damage,” the purpose is labeled “the national interest,” etc.

The trouble with talking like the Pentagon or CNN read more

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We Asked People to Comment on U.S. Weapons Shipments to Wars

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 23, 2024

We asked people to sign this petition and add comments. Here are some of the comments they added:

Stop the weapons shipments, and replace them with diplomacy and a new focus on the human and environmental crises that these wars defund, distract from, and exacerbate.

The arms trade is negative value production that adversely impacts on international currencies as well as life, living standards, and the natural world.

“Mankind must put an end to read more

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Only The Good Die in Silence

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 21, 2024

The father of modern warmaking Henry Kissinger died, and every major media outlet made a lot of noise — millions of articles on the internet. Fair enough. What would contemporary coup-making or genocide be without his seminal work?

But when the father of peace studies Johan Galtung died, not a single corporate media outlet said a single word. Not even an obituary. Not even a paragraph. And even decent people said and knew nothing. And even read more

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Both Sides Are Dead Wrong About NATO

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 14, 2024

How can media outlets be taken seriously — and I do not mean this rhetorically — when they shout that two hostages have been freed while adding in the fine print that several dozen mere Palestinians have been killed in the process, when they propose that a city of starving refugees be bombed in a manner that “protects civilians,” when they equate fueling wars with “aid”?

One part of the answer is that they feature raging debates between read more