War Is A Crime

By Political Misfits, December 15, 2021

LISTEN HERE.

David Swanson, activist, journalist, radio host and author of the book “Curing Exceptionalism,” talks to us about how the Pentagon “cover-up” in the Kabul drone killing of a family continues, with the news that no US troops will be punished for deadly Kabul strike, how impunity is rampant in the military, and war crimes accusations only apply to our opponents. We also talk about the strike force Talon Anvil, which operated in Syria from 2014 to 2019 and is responsible for countless civilian deaths and how the burden of responsibility gets shifted across the board.

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

This was certainly the year of the fires — from the Turkish coast and the Greek Island of Evia to the American West. But it’s also been the year of record-breaking floods — sometimes, as in British Columbia and parts of the state of Washington, in the very same places that had earlier burned so devastatingly (releasing, by the way, yet more carbon into the atmosphere).

Yes, read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 14, 20

Ya gotta love how the U.S. media annually freaks out about a “war on Christmas” by which it means something completely unrelated to any wars, while the U.S. military always has several actual wars going on Christmas, the same as every other day. Perhaps especially on Christmas, as George Washington’s slaughter of drunk and sleeping British soldiers on Christmas 1776 has been rendered so “special” that it’s claimed read more

If you were to read reviews of Elizabeth Samet’s book, Looking for the Good War — such as the one in the New York Times or the other one in the New York Times — a little too quickly, you might find yourself reading her book and hoping for a reasoned argument against the supposed justifiability of the U.S. role in World War II.

If you had just written a book yourself, as I have, making the case that WWII plays a disastrous role in current U.S. read more

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

Yes, four-star General Lloyd Austin commanded American forces in Iraq back in 2010 and 2011. In 2013, he took over from General read more

AUDIO:

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube. We’re using only the guest video and not the host this week, because Riverside is getting them out of synch when combining.

VIDEO:

This week on Talk World Radio: We’re all going to die. Our guest, Helen Caldicott, is founder and president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, founder of Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, Co-Leader of read more

By David Swanson, Remarks on Free Press Webinar on December 11, 2021

The glory of Pearl Harbor Day still lingered yesterday on Human Rights Day with a Democracy Summit wrapping up and Nobel So-Called Peace Prize laureates talking about U.S. government-approved and -funded journalism. U.S. media is dominated by Donald Trump and how he’s out of power at the moment. All is just going swimmingly in the steady march of freedom and goodness. If you pay no attention to the little man behind the read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 9, 2021

Submission to conference organized by FODASUN ( https://fodasun.com ) on the future of peace and human rights in West Asia

Every government in West Asia, as in the rest of the Earth, abuses human rights. Most of the governments in West Asia and the surrounding regions are enthusiastically supported, armed, trained, and funded by the U.S. government, which also keeps its own military bases in most of them. Governments armed with U.S. weapons, and read more

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

In the days after the 9/11 attacks, I remember heading downtown — I live in New York City — to see what was already being called “Ground Zero” (a term previously applied only to the site of an atomic blast like the one at Hiroshima). read more

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

What am I a fan of these days? Once upon a time, I would have said the New York Mets (or, far earlier, the Brooklyn Dodgers), or the New York (football) Giants, or the New York (basketball) Knicks. No longer. I can’t tell you why, but since the pandemic began, I’ve simply stopped doing what I had done all my life — listen to “my” team on the radio, then (once a TV read more