On Wednesday, October 20, I joined “Vrede Scheppen,” “Create Peace,” about 25 peace activists from the Netherlands, Germany and Austria at the airbase at Volkel, Netherlands, making a plea for an end to nuclear weapons. This base is home to two Dutch F16 fighter wings and the United States Air Force 703rd Munitions Support Squadron. In violation of international and Dutch law and part of a “sharing agreement,” the U.S. Air Force maintains 15-20 B61 nuclear bombs there and in violation
A warlike nation, the US has an appalling disinterest in peace: Let’s Just be Honest and Call November 11 Forgetting Day
By Dave Lindorff
Back on November 11, 1918, with the end of World War I, once the most bloody war in history, and with a two-year deadly flu pandemic raging, caused in large part by the war and the rapid spread of the disease by infected troops returning to their homes, nobody was in the mood to celebrate anything.
The four-year war, fought not to “defend democracy” as our national mythology tells us, but as a cat-fight
F35A approved to carry nukes: US is Set to Make Nuclear War More Likely
By Dave Lindorff
The US is about to move towards a far more likely first use of nuclear weapons, with word that the Air Force has “completed flight testing” of the cost-and-performance-plagued F35A Lightning fighter, all units of which are being “upgraded” to carry thermonuclear weapons.
Why Is U.S. Military Spending Increasing to New, Outlandish Levels?
Although critics of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan to increase funding for U.S. education, healthcare, and action against climate catastrophe say the United States can’t afford it, there are no such qualms about ramping up funding for the U.S. military.
This May, the Pentagon asked Congress to fund a $715 billion budget for Fiscal 2022—an increase of $10 billion over
Speaking Truth to Empire with Joan Roelofs
Speaking Truth to Empire on KFCF 88.1 FM independently owned and locally operated in Fresno since 1975, Dan Yaseen interviews Joan Roelofs. She is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire. She is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism and Greening Cities. A community education short course on the military industrial complex is on her website, and may be used for similar purposes. The
Imagine a World with U.S.-China Cooperation
On September 10, 2021, during an important diplomatic meeting that occurred by telephone, U.S. President Joseph Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed the necessity of a better relationship between their two nations. According to the official Chinese summary, Xi said that “when China and the United States cooperate, the two countries and the world will benefit; when China and the United States are in confrontation,
Speaking Truth to Empire
On “Speaking Truth to Empire” on KFCF 88.1 independently owned and locally operated since 1975 in Fresno, Dan Yaseen interviews Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange. Medea is a human rights advocate, an author and a peace & justice activist. She has worked for social justice and human rights in Asia, the Americas, and Africa for over 30 years.
Topics of discussion include humiliating U. S. military defeat in Afghanistan; 20 years of Global War on Terrorism resulting
To Counter Terror, Abolish War
(This article first appeared at Waging Nonviolence)
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was among a small group of U.S. citizens who sat on milk crates or stood holding signs, across from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan. We had been fasting from solid foods for a month, calling for an end to brutal economic warfare waged against Iraq through imposition of U.N. sanctions. Each Friday of our fast, we approached the entrance to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations carrying
Kids die last as Biden tries plays tough guy: Humbled US Leaves Chaos and Mass Murder while Fleeing Afghanistan
By Dave Lindorff
America’s last days in Afghanistan offered a sickening display of all that was wrong with the $2.3-trillion, 20-year failed attempt by a blundering, self-congratulatory but decaying empire to have its way in a place it neither really cared about at all, nor understood in the least.
First there was a catastrophic but predictable attack on US and Taliban troops as well as desperate civilians trying to escape the ruins and chaos of the country the US
Speaking Truth to Empire
“Speaking Truth to Empire” on KFCF 88.1 independently owned and locally operated since 1975 in Fresno, Dan Yaseen interviews John LaForge, co-director of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin, and edits its Quarterly newsletter. They discuss his recent article, “Rejection of US Hiroshima Myths Long Overdue”, and the effect of those myths on U.S. nuclear policy, the current expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and rejection of the United Nations’