War Is A Crime

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 7, 2022

Here were Russia’s demands for months starting in early December 2021:

• Article 1: the parties should not strengthen their security at the expense of Russia’s security;
• Article 2: the parties will use  multilateral consultations and the NATO-Russia Council to address points of conflict;
• Article 3: the parties reaffirm that they do not consider each other as adversaries and maintain a dialogue;
• Article 4: the parties shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other states in Europe in addition to any forces that were deployed as of May 27, 1997;
• Article 5: the parties shall not deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles adjacent to the other parties;
• Article 6: all member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States;
• Article 7: the parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia; and
• Article 8: the agreement shall not be interpreted as affecting the primary responsibility of the Security Council of the United Nations for maintaining international peace and security.

These were perfectly reasonable, just what the U.S. demanded when Soviet missiles were in Cuba, just what the U.S. would demand now if Russian missiles were in Canada, and ought to have simply been met, or at the very least treated as serious points to be respectfully considered.

If we set aside items 1-3 and 8 above as less concrete and/or hopeless, we’re left with items 4-7 read more

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

When was the last time you remember Russian President Vladimir Putin directly threatening Finland and Sweden (should they ever join NATO) or putting his own nuclear forces into “ read more

By David Swanson
Remarks at Code Pink event in Washington D.C. on March 3, 2022
Image Source.

Send aid to Ukrainian friends and aid organizations.

Send aid to organizations helping refugees leaving Ukraine.

Send aid especially that will reach those being refused help for racist reasons.

Share the remarkable media coverage of war victims in Ukraine.

Take the opportunity to point out the war victims in Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., and to question whether the lives read more

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

Imagine this for a moment: in 2020, Brown University’s invaluable Costs of War Project estimated that, from the Philippines and Afghanistan across the Greater Middle East into northern Africa, Washington’s disastrous two-decade long global war on terror had uprooted and displaced 37 million people. That was, of course, a mind-boggling figure.

Now, having read more

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

Since we’re clearly heading into a new Cold War, if not a hot one, how appropriate today to hear at TomDispatch (via Andrew Bacevich) from, of all people, John F. Kennedy. He was the president of my youth, the one I thrilled to see once upon a time (even if at a great distance) giving a speech in New Haven, Connecticut. He was also the one who, on October 22, 1962, 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 with Alfred de Zayas, author of Building a Just World Order. He is former UN Independent Expert on international order (2012-18), senior lawyer with the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee and Chief of the Petitions Department.

Total run time: 29:00
read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 28, 2022

In 2019, the RAND Corporation tentacle of the U.S. Military Industrial Congressional “Intelligence” Media Academic “Think” Tank Complex published a report claiming to have “conducted a qualitative assessment of ‘cost-imposing options’ that could unbalance and overextend Russia.”

Here was one of the “cost-imposing options,” one that U.S. President Barack Obama had been refusing, but in 2019, RAND was preparing for a regime read more

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

Yes, there had been rich American presidents before, but never a billionaire. And it wasn’t a mistake either that this country — already in a nosedive of inequality — elected Donald Trump read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 27, 2022

War is fairly well known for killing, injuring, traumatizing, destroying, and rendering homeless. It’s somewhat well known for diverting massive resources from urgent needs, preventing global cooperation on pressing emergencies, damaging the environment, eroding civil liberties, justifying government secrecy, corroding culture, fueling bigotry, weakening the rule of law, and risking nuclear apocalypse. In a few corners it’s known read more

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

We’re in a time of growing belligerence of a kind unknown since the Cold War. It’s already taken us to the edge of conflict with nuclear-armed great powers, whether in Ukraine read more