War Is A Crime

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 19, 2022

There are a number of things that have to be said first. They have to be said because virtually no U.S. television viewer knows or is likely ever to know them. They have to be said because if I’m going to suggest any flaws in the actions of the Russian government, I have to establish at least the possibility of doubt that I’m bought and owned by NATO or the Pentagon. Here are those things:

Ukraine has in common with Yemen, Iran, Taiwan, Korea, read more

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

My Life with Maus Or How I Was Banned (Even If in a Second-Hand Way) by a Trumpian World By Tom Engelhardt

Sometimes life has a way of making you realize things about yourself. Recently, I discovered that an urge of mine, almost four decades old, had been the very opposite of that of a rural Tennessee school board this January. In another life, I played a role in what could be thought of as the unbanning of the graphic novel Maus.

For months, I’ve been reading about the growing read more

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

Thought about a certain way, most of my adult life has been spent at war. No, I’ve never been to war myself, although I was swept away by the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era. My country, on the other hand, has been more or less eternally at war. In fact, TomDispatch 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.

VIDEO:

This week on Talk World Radio we’re talking about Smedley Butler with the author of a terrific new biography called Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire. The author, Jonathan Katz, based here in Charlottesville, Virginia, as most of the coolest people are, received the James read more

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

Honestly, it’s been hell on earth for grown-ups. Thanks largely to Donald Trump and crew, we’re in the country with by far the read more

When I suggest not stealing billions of dollars from Afghanistan, and thereby not causing mass starvation and death, otherwise intelligent and informed people tell me that human rights demands that theft. Starving people to death is a means of protecting their “human rights,” in fact. How else can you (or the U.S. government) stop Taliban executions?

When I respond that you (the U.S. government) could ban capital punishment, stop arming and funding the world’s top executioners read more

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

<Pardon me?

No, no, I don’t actually need a pardon. I wasn’t ransacking read more

I’ve read a number of introduction to philosophy, or ethics for the ordinary person books. The latest, and it’s as good as any of them, is How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur. The title is tongue-in-cheek. The book is not significantly different from the stuff I read years ago when I did a master’s degree in philosophy, except that it strives to avoid unnecessarily specialized vocabulary and inserts silly asides for laughs.

I wouldn’t be surprised read more

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

Progress? Let’s see. We’ve gone from unending wars in distant lands against enemies capable of little more than wielding firearms and roadside bombs — and those conflicts were disasters — to the possibility of a war in the European heartland between nuclear-armed foes. I mean, honestly, what could possibly go wrong?

And it was all fated to happen in Europe because of read more