War Is A Crime

Of course I can only touch on one aspect of recent history here.

I’m looking at the new report from Costs of War.

Five years ago, I think Nicolas Davies credibly and conservatively estimated 6 million people directly killed in U.S. wars since 2001 in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.

What Costs of War has now done is to go with the highly dubious but corporate-respectable estimate of 900,000 directly killed in all of those wars, but leaving out Libya and Somalia. They’ve read more

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

In some sense, the most recent events in the Middle East, described vividly today by TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, creator of the must-read Informed read more

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Al Mytty in Illinois during webinar for which these remarks were prepared.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 12, 2023

We very much need World BEYOND War educational and activist events and campaigns in Illinois (and every other location). We also need the people of Illinois (and every other location on Earth) as part of the global movement to end war.

I say that having been in Chicago many times and at least once to Carbondale. Interstate 64 which comes by my house also cuts through Illinois, read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 11, 2023

“Putting aside all the fancy words and academic doubletalk, the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs — to kill people and to destroy.” — Thomas S. Power

The photo above was taken yesterday. The flowers are in bloom in the mountain pastures of Sinjajevina. And the U.S. military is on its way to trample them and practice destroying things. What did these beautiful sheep-herding families in this European mountain paradise do to read more

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

Whose Planet Are We On? What Happens When LTAI (Less Than Artificial Intelligence) Gives Way to AI? By Tom Engelhardt

After almost 79 years on this beleaguered planet, let me say one thing: this can’t end well. Really, it can’t. And no, I’m not talking about the most obvious issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to the climate disaster. What I have in mind is that latest, greatest human invention: artificial intelligence.

It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. As a once-upon-a-time read more

It’s been two years since I wrote on this topic. At that time, at least 36% of U.S. mass shooters had been trained by the U.S. military. Since then, a grand total of nobody at all has written on the topic.

I’m picking it up again, because people have started asking about it, prompted by a former Marine using apparently trained skills to murder a subway rider in New York, and shooters in Atlanta and Texas actually being identified as veterans in news reports — an extreme rarity.

However, read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 10, 2023

It’s so inspiring that the Canadian military asked the public what it could change to get people to be willing to join. The obvious U.S. answer of poverty and grotesque prices for education probably won’t work — or at least may not be sufficient in the near term. And people would probably read more

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

In late March, I was taken aback by a news story about a drone attack on American troops at a joint base with Kurdish forces in Syria. Though five U.S. soldiers were wounded, there was only one death and, as Eric Schmitt reported read more

AUDIO:

Talk World Radio is recorded on Zoom.

Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.