War Is A Crime

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

Honestly, on October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas’s horrific assault on Israel, with 1,200 dead, thousands wounded, those read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 3, 2024
Remarks to Global Peace Summit’s Round Table Conference, October 3, 2024

One obvious step would be for the U.S. government to restore funding of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). For five reasons.

1. It’s pocket change compared to what the U.S. is spending on militarism — not trillions or hundreds of billions but merely $100 million or so — (Note that the U.S. military spent over $200 million on a public relations stunt of pretending it could build a port to deliver aid by ship to people its weapons and assistance were denying aid by land or air).
2. Various Israeli officials have explicitly stated that they are trying to starve people.
3. The excuse for cutting off the funding a year ago was one of numerous pieces of Israeli propaganda that ought not to have been grounds for cutting off anything if true and as far as anyone knows was made up like so much of the rest of it.
4. UNRWA immediately fired the people accused and later fired more besides.
5. All the other countries that had obeyed the sick Israeli-U.S. demand have since restored funding.

But funding relief to people being bombed and shot and blockaded is of little value if it can’t get to them and if they’re still being killed. Months ago we saw stories of aid being dropped into the sea, resulting in drownings of desperate read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 1, 2024

David Swanson is Executive Director of World BEYOND War.

The Israeli government has been dragging Western weapons and militaries into wars for far too long, putting all of the world — and its global institutions — at risk. The move into Lebanon, creating more dead, injured, traumatized, and homeless already in huge numbers ought to snap some war supporters out of their trance.

The danger of a catastrophic read more

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

Can you even imagine a world where the response of President George W. Bush to al-Qaeda’s acts of horror in September 2001 wasn’t the launching of “the Global War on Terror” which, from Afghanistan and Iraq across the Middle East and deep into Africa, became a global set of disastrous conflicts that might, in truth, have been al-Qaeda’s dream? Well, dream on.

And while read more

By Pacifist Barricade, October 1, 2024

We have the distinct honor of having with us today one of the most serious, dedicated, and steadfast opponents of war in the U.S.

A prominent activist, David Swanson co-founded the website After Downing Street (now WarIsACrime.org), centered on the U.S. congressional inquiry into the Downing Street memo. His activism extended to launching a campaign aimed at impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, notably through the now-defunct read more

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

Pentagon expert William Hartung first wandered into TomDispatch in March 2008, less than seven years after this country’s Global War(s) on Terror were launched, full-scale disasters that were already costing the American taxpayer a fortune and a half — or perhaps, given the subject, all too literally an arm and a leg. As he read more

By Rotary, World BEYOND War, September 29, 2024

Rotary and World BEYOND War have together been offering an online course called Ending War 101. You can take it here: https://worldbeyondwar.org/endingwar101. In this video, WBW Executive Director David Swanson discusses what can be done with Rotary members who have taken the course.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 28, 2024

Without a handful of nations — and principally one nation — arming the world to the teeth, we wouldn’t have wars, or at least not wars that looked like these horrors that we do have and that risk nuclear apocalypse. Most wars have identical weapons on both sides and almost nothing rational or sensible, and almost nothing honest ever said, about the entire enterprise.

Without the long-running predictable and predicted and protested efforts read more

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

In a Lost Universe (With You Know Who) Creating a Genuine Hell on Earth By Tom Engelhardt

Imagine yourself in space, looking down on our world and yet unable to return any time soon.

Consider it our bad luck, in fact, that Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were the two Americans sent to the International Space read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 25, 2024
Remarks at #NOWAR2024

We’ve heard a lot over the past few days about the damage foreign bases do and the good work people do to prevent them or close them. World BEYOND War works with our chapters, affiliates, and friends around the world on campaigns against bases. And we work globally to provide resources to these campaigns. The headquarters for getting informed and getting involved is worldbeyondwar.org/bases read more