The murder of one person is called unrighteous and incurs
one death penalty. Following this argument.
The murder of 10 persons will be 10 times as unrighteous and
there should be 10 death penalty's.
The murder of 100 persons will be 100 times as unrighteous, and
there should be a hundred death penalties.
All the gentlemen of the world know that they should condemn
these things calling them on righteous.
But when it comes to the great unrighteousness of States
attacking States, they do not know they should condemn it on
the contrary. They applauded it.
Calling it. Just welcome to Keith's, my
don't tread on anyone. And the libertarian Institute
today. I have David Swanson author of
leaving WWII behind. He's an author activist
journalist and radio host. He is the executive director of
world Beyond war and campaign coordinator for
rootsaction.org., Mr. Swanson. Thank you so much for your time
today. Very glad to be here.
Very often people will say that everyone's anti-war.
We some of us who prefer an interventionist policy.
See this as a verbing, a bigger war that would arise.
If we stood back and did nothing.
What is it mean to you to be anti-war?
Well, in terms of that quote and statistics, you opened with, I
think taking War seriously would mean, the exact opposite of
killing ten people. If the war killed 10 people or
in the case of World War 2, killing. 60, 70 million people.
If the war killed, 70, very quickly.
You come to realize that an eye for an eye.
Makes the world blind, but I think taking very seriously, the
crime of war, the crime of big Wars and small Wars.
As either way much larger than the crime of individual murder,
is exactly what's needed, or were headed for catastrophe.
We're headed for nuclear catastrophe, climate
catastrophe, and of course the budget catastrophe through which
war actually, Kills, vastly more people through the diversion of
resources into it. Then, through the violence of
the wars thus far, at least until we get to bigger or
nuclear Wars. So this this idea that you can
fend off larger Wars by having smaller Wars.
I haven't seen any evidence for that.
I mean, since Eisenhower, figured out how you could
overthrow governments with the CIA instead of Wars, we've seen
Back. We've seen these smaller actions
result in. Larger actions Professor David
Vine from American University last year put out a book called
the US state that the United States of War looking at foreign
military bases and finding that where you put them you get more
Wars. You don't eliminate more Wars.
You can look at levels of military spending over the years
at the placement of troops at the propaganda and the threats.
It All Leads to more. More Wars, not away from them.
You don't, you know, you don't build a bigger smarter military
and get more peace and fewer Wars.
You get what you're building and planning and training and arming
people for more Wars before getting into the Second World
War. I just want to summarize some
information on the first, of course.
It's so difficult to find a starting point.
We have a Britain declaring war on August, 4th 1914.
This was a causal result of Germany, invading Belgium.
In order to get to France in violation of an 1839 agreement
between the UK, France, and Prussia the Treaty of London
guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality.
What are the lessons and big takeaways from the first world
war? Well, some of the lessons were
pretty well learned by a lot of people.
Not enough, not enough to make it work to fend off the sequel.
That was, you know, predicted by very smart people upon the
conclusion of World War 1. So so one lesson is that having
thousands of people Slaughter and poison and gun each other
down in lined up, trenches for no earthly reason for year after
year is incredibly, stupid and horrific and tragic.
This was a lesson. A lot of people learned.
Another lesson is that you don't end the war with vicious
vengeful, you know, repercussions for one party.
Whew, if you're not going to expect that party to come back
seeking Vengeance when it's able which is why you had very smart
people upon the conclusion of the the Treaty of Versailles.
After World War 1 predicting, predicting WWII down down,
almost to the day. And it was, it was just an
incredible failure of will of understanding of political force
and And quite possibly of government handling of a
disease. Pandemic of very much like the
current one, which is a an interesting story.
If you don't mind me throwing it in, you know, fit the doctors
like today where warning people not to not to mix and cough and
sneeze all over each other. And the politicians were putting
up signs that don't spit, don't sneeze.
Don't cough. Everything will be fine.
And a If they had this big March and rally for the returns troops
in Philadelphia, and these were US troops that had brought the
so-called Spanish Flu to World War 1 and we're now bringing it
home in larger numbers. And of course, it's spread
everywhere and among the people who got it was a guy named
Woodrow Wilson in The White House.
And while he was at Paris, France for the treaty
negotiations. He failed to stand up to
Britain. To seek a peace without victory
and Vengeance. And let the whole world down
that believed his his rhetoric about, you know, a lot of it
was, you know, just phony from top to bottom but some of it he
may have actually meant that some point in any case he didn't
put up any fight for it, any of it.
And you got this horrible treaty.
Well Wilson was you know, lying sick in bed, hacking away there
in Paris. So, you know, they're there.
These freak incidents in history that could have so easily gone a
different way that can have horrible consequences.
Ralph Reiko the historian, mostly yell focusing on the
world wars says that the greatest weapon was the blockade
instituted by Churchill. When he was first, Lord of the
admiralty in 1914. There was also a large blockade
in the 90s that the US and un. Had on our rack with your
research. What do you think about the
moral justification of things like blockades, or even
sanctions and are they effective?
Well, the blockade on Cuba has been going strong, without any
hint of even partial Victory on its own terms for, you know,
well beyond my lifetime there does not seem to be any sign
that. That these sanctions, these
blockades these immoral and illegal General punishments of
whole populations. In violation of the Geneva
conventions, work on their own terms.
I mean there, Can go back and say, well, the, you know,
ancient Greece fell because they blocked the exit from the Black
Sea, and they couldn't get anything to eat.
And you can find cases where, you know, some, some sort of
international boycott had some impact on, you know, apartheid
South Africa, you know, some partial victory in terms of BDS
on the Israeli government etcetera, but injector.
All these sanctions do not work on their own terms.
At least as stated explicitly. If the plan is to weaken Nation
prior to a war. If the plan is sadistic
punishment and the creation of suffering among men women and
children. Well, then, yes, they work their
their horrific and the United States has these sanctions.
Punishing not just individuals, but whole populations of men
women and children to private. Mo food and Medicine in numerous
countries all over the globe. Cuba, Iran and North Korea, it's
Syria. Of course, it's something
that's, that's got to be dealt with and treated as part.
And parcel of the crime of of War because it is, it is
punishment of innocent people for the disputes of governments,
and it ought not to be Be tolerated.
Excellent points out. The book is World War is leaving
WWII behind. Sorry.
I was reading the back. As I said that let's get into
the second world war on September 3rd 1939 two days
after Germany invades Poland. The United Kingdom declares war,
on Germany. France, declares war on the same
day, was the UK morally justified in declaring war on
Germany as a cause of result of invading Poland.
I don't think there can be a moral justification for
launching a war, whether you declare it or not.
And whether you fight it or not to here's a here's a case of
declaring it and not immediately fighting it.
I think if you go through I wrote a book called war is never
just going through all the theorizing of the just War
Theory wrists as to what could justify a war and make it
morally acceptable and somehow do more good than Or be
acceptable despite doing more evil than good.
And I couldn't find any way to do it.
The criteria are all ether, just purely nonsensical rhetoric that
you can't go out and measure and find out whether it means
anything or not. You know, what's what's
proportional? Who knows they just pull a
number out of the air or it's stuff.
That is just simply a moral just has nothing to do with morality
whatsoever. You know, is it is the war
declared by the proper Authority?
If if Canada bombs you in the United States, are you gonna run
outside and Shout? Was it the prime minister or the
parliament? If it was the parliament?
I like these bombs. If it was the Prime Minister
goddamn him. Stop the bombs.
You who cares? It's a crime, it's Mass killing.
I don't care which authority is you know, and and when you you
talk about defense, I mean, this is one of the lessons I was
going to mention and forgot in my haste on your world war.
One question. One of the lessons ought to have
been And do not sign up to be required to join in somebody
else's War. This is what NATO is right.
When when England and France, both Centaur, Mina, warships to
some little island, some weeks back.
If they had actually gone to war.
Every other NATO member would have been required to attack
both of them, as well as each other.
As soon as any of them had attacked any NATO member, this
was what world war one was a commitment to get into Wars
because buddy else got into Wars, very dumb idea and not a
moral idea when you look at at the results when you look at,
when you look at what led up to that situation, and the behavior
of the United Kingdom and its support for armaments and its
support for the rise of the Nazi government in Germany, you know,
as preferable to any possibility of communist influence in
Germany, and then the decision to Claire War and the horrific
results of that. The worst thing that Humanity
has ever done to itself in any short space of time.
It's hard to imagine a worse Choice than that declaration of
war. Some of the smartest people in
the arena who were constantly. I mean, they've never met a war.
They didn't like our the Council on Foreign Relations.
I want to quote from the president of the Council on
Foreign Relations is very vague and And he knows his audience.
So he knows he doesn't really have to make a case here.
But this is what he wrote in World in disarray.
The second world war could not have been more different in its
Origins from the first not. Surprisingly.
The lessons to be learned are very different from those to be
drawn from the run-up to World War 1, Germany and Japan Embrace
goals in the 1930s, that could not be accommodated.
Within the existing International order both had
become Hostage to political systems at home that eliminated
checks and balances on those Wheels.
Political power, both invested heavily in the means to wage
war. Both did their part to upset the
balance of power that had developed.
The result. Was that, whereas World War one
was, largely an accidental and avoidable War World, War 2 was
anything. But how do you respond to the
infinite wisdom of Richard haass?
I think it's infinitely wrong and not just myself, but people
I absolutely despise. I mean people like Winston
Churchill who had something to do with both of those.
Those Wars declared World War Two to have been the most of
avoidable war. And of course, one of the
reasons for that is that it came directly out of, as we discussed
earlier how they ended World War 1 to say the origins were
completely different. Would require explaining how
what the heck was different about the origins of really a
sequel to a first part of a pair of wars or or one long war is
very hard to see. And when you Are talking about.
Well, they were, they were imperialistic.
They wanted to upset the balance of power.
Well, how in the heck, is that different from World War one is
completely Beyond me? And when you start talking about
abuses at home. Well, this is of course hinting
that. Well, the Nazis were cruel to
people within their own realm and the Japanese were cruel to
people within Japan and this therefore somehow justifies
bombing those people. Because if If someone is, you
know, locking people up in prison camps and torturing them
and murdering them, then bombing them is somehow Justified.
Where, of course, the bombing killed, vastly more people than
the prison camps and the prison camps were absolutely
unnecessary and had nothing to do with the justifications for
the war even in anyone's pretence until long after the
war was over, in fact, the United States and its allies and
countries around the world. Illicitly refused to take the
future victim. Those camps out of Germany
didn't want them didn't care had no interest for openly
shamelessly anti-semitic and bigoted raisins and and it's the
burying of this history and the invention of this myth that
somehow the domestic cruelty of the Nazis Justified.
The war, When The War makers were were, you know, just
kicking the It's away from their offices who were demanding that
they stopped the war for a minute and take those people out
of Germany and they wouldn't do it.
This is this the this is I think the number one feet of Western
propaganda because it is such a it's such a reversal of the
reality and it is such a powerful motivation of the most
horrific evils in the name of good.
Because when I go and talk to a class of students or random
people about ending all And I say why not 99.99% of the time.
The reason is WWII and I say why.
And 99.99% of the time the answer is Holocaust, right?
This is this is the reason why we should put a trillion dollars
into war next year and should tolerate drone.
Murders around the globe and fun little Wars like destroying
Libya because Holocaust, because World War Two, And the fact that
that's absolutely Loot nonsense and just twist the facts.
Absolutely upside down again. I think it's the most impressive
feat of propaganda. I'm aware of and we still see
the propaganda all the time. It's like well we had to go into
the second world war because we were attacked.
Well, years later actually, it was because of the Holocaust
saddam's going to Nuke us any day now.
Well, actually we're trying to spread democracy.
The al-Qaeda is hiding in Afghanistan.
Well, the Band is actually really bad and we're actually
there for regime change. It's like, it's like they scare
you in. And then once they and then once
their lives have been refuted, they all of a sudden have this.
Moral compass of. Let's have democracy there.
Even though, you know, they mainly spit in our face here
whenever we try to, you know, alter the state arrangements or
anything. They have a constant of record
of deception. I want to go to what you I
believe you called. This is the most common
justification for the war. The concept of the National
Socialist World takeover, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Austria.
Poland Denmark Norway Belgium, the Netherlands, France Channel
Islands of Britain. The Soviet Union and Italy.
After Mussolini had been imprisoned therefore by the
actions of that government. We could see they were
attempting to take over large swaths.
Clearly, with no end in sight trying to take over the world.
Therefore, we were justified in end.
A board to stop a Nazi takeover. How do you respond?
Well, I guess it would depend in part on who that we supposedly
is one of the most abused words in the English language.
We as a we were attacked in Pearl Harbor.
Well, wasn't the United States? Who's the?
We I mean, Hawaii was not a part of this Empire yet.
And so if the Wii is some government or some population
that wasn't itself bent on taking over the world.
I would love to know who that was, you know, there.
Was a book came out just last year from a professor at
Columbia University. Who works with this new Quincy
Institute in Washington, about the decision being made in
foreign policy circles in the United States during World War 2
and write in the early stages of World War Two that the United
States really needed to take over the world and proceeded
accordingly. And so that all of the basis and
the land acquisition and the domination of other countries,
got a huge boost that's never let up for the United States and
its Empire during WWII. So, I hope whoever is, you know,
denouncing the, the German Imperial Ambitions, which of
course, nobody would dispute it is, you know, is not engaged in,
in wholesale hypocrisy, but but the question of whether to bomb
Is of millions of people to death, isn't actually a question
of the evil of some government against, whose name you're doing
it. The question is, whether that
will bring about the best results for those people or not?
And very clearly War brings about the worst possible results
for everybody involved. There isn't anything worse than
it, you know, this new post WWII know, Notion that well, that's
somewhat built on the false propaganda around World War 2,
the post-world, war to World War Two propaganda.
The, that that genocide is something worse than war, and
therefore, we must have wars to deal with genocide is just
incredibly misleading. Genocide is a type of War comes
out. Of war is almost
indistinguishable from many wars.
And if we're going to get rid of War, we're going to get rid of
But we're not going to do it through war or through genocide.
That doesn't work. Erica chenoweth's new book
called civil resistance. What everybody needs to know is
just so well documented with the evidence that nonviolent action,
even against invasions even against Coos, even against
dictatorships is just so much more effective and those
successes so much longer lasting than violence.
Is that this notion that the evil of any enemy could somehow
justify using violence or that you should resort to violence as
the last resort as if it were somehow stronger or more likely
to succeed than something else. It's just getting the facts.
Wrong people, complain about climate denial or covid denial
or any rejection of, you know, widely accepted facts, but
non-violence denial. Is absolutely acceptable in
Washingtonian politics, but it is absolutely just as opposing
to the facts. As any of these other cases.
The facts are very clear. Non-violence is more powerful
than violence, and what are some real-world nonviolent examples.
Well, there are hundreds and I'm not going to remember them all,
but you can look at numerous countries.
He's that in fact got rid of Soviet Empire without without
picking up a gun. Some of which look, you know,
absolutely laughable and must have been dreamed up by some
hippie high on something very strange like the people of
Latvia throwing out the Soviet Union by singing songs, but they
surrounded all of the government buildings singing these
nationalistic songs and shut the place down until The Soviets got
out. If you look at, if you look at
places, if you look at the Arab Spring, for example where you
had all of these failed violent revolutions across North Africa,
and Southwest Asia, except in Tunisia, where they used, very
strong and strategic nonviolent action and they were successful
at least up until now, everything's going to help
possibly in Tunisia. If if you look at if I mean,
there have been there have been successful overthrows of
dictators on every continent. If you look at the Palestinian
struggle against Israeli occupation, the first intifada,
which was almost entirely non-violent was far more
effective. Predictable reasons.
Then the second or anything to come later.
And you know, God forbid. I impose my advice on the
Palestinians. It's not my place and I and I
offer no one wanted to advice to anyone who doesn't want it.
You know, I can't as somebody who's you know, supposedly
identified with the US government, tell people the US
government is killing and and traumatizing how they should
respond. But If anyone wants to know my
honest answer, it is, you know, to look at the facts this and I
think the facts are pretty clear in various parts of what was
Yugoslavia in various countries in Latin America.
Non-violence has just worked overwhelmingly better, which
does not mean, it always works. It works about half the time,
but violence doesn't work anymore.
Are close to half the time and and when it works the successes
are very fragile and likely to be reversed because of the
horrible resentment and Vengeance that comes out of the
violence. And you know, a lot of times
nonviolent movements will accomplished a tremendous amount
and then somebody will turn violent and that's all anybody
will remember is the violence that came at the end.
Like the like the trick protests in Seattle, you know, in the 90s
but the American Revolution over a period of years, people in the
United States, had almost replaced, the British government
with alternative governments with Committees of
Correspondence. They had engaged in nonviolent
resistance, protests takeovers of courthouses, corporate
protests dumping T in the Harbor's.
They they had, you know, created these new structures of
government and of economy in a very gandhian manner producing
their own good. So as not to have to buy them
and pay the British taxes on them and it sort of the, the
abstract of and the construct. If, you know before, Mohandas
Gandhi ever talked about any of this stuff, right?
And you go back through history and you see the success of
non-violence before? Anybody knew what they were
doing? Or had any schools teaching it.
It still worked so that even during World War Two, where
non-violence was used against the Nazis, even in the heart of
Berlin. It was incredibly successful.
And if people had known on how to follow through and escalate
it, who knows, what would have happened?
Is there anything else you think we could learn from?
You know, Nelson Mandela Martin Luther King jr.
Rosa Parks, or Gandhi anything. I just really want to exhaust
this as much as possible, so we can get as many ideas out there.
Well, I still have a lot to learn from each of those people.
I couldn't begin to exhaust it if we had hours and hours
because I don't know it, but I think that more and and more
people are learning it and more and more people are using it.
And it's be and by it. I mean, the tools of nonviolent
resistance, civil resistance that the tools of strikes and
sit-ins, and sit downs, and lions, and and nonviolent
creative artistic disruptions and and Street blockages.
And Lobbying and petitioning and media creation, and substitute
government creation, and all the thousands and thousands of
things that aren't violence, you know, all of the things you can
use. Other than that, one little
thing called violence are increasingly being studied, and
understood and used and used for good and Ill used, you know,
used for, you know, campaigns that are that are fueled and
funded and supported by Corrupt oligarchies that want to
generate these AstroTurf movements to you know, gin up
public support against the public good, as well as being
used by real popular movements that are based in a, in a
democratic popular, understanding of what's needed.
And so, you know, the fact that these tools can be used for evil
ends, doesn't mean they're bad tools.
And the fact that At these nonviolent tools, almost always
result in violence, from the other side that has to be
overcome and pushed through. Use it, some sort of Mark
against non-violence as a strategy.
This is expected and understood from from the get-go, but I
think you know, a lot of people believe that when there is a
popular movement. It really almost always does.
Have major popular support and when foreign governments and
agencies and the CIA and the usaid jump in, you know, to
support somebody like Juan, why do in Venezuela, it actually
tends to diminish their popular support and hurt them.
You know, I haven't studied enough cases in enough detail to
know if that's if that's really predictably true.
But if so, that would be that would be simply wonderful news.
If I have come to understand that that foreign support can be
identified and spotted and that it's a reason to back off and
get out of a popular movement. I mean this this would
absolutely defang the, the CIA and the usaid.
And you know, this this pattern of of coup facilitation that
we've that we've seen for the past 70 years, final thing on
not Nonviolent resistance is your general theory that
engaging in non-violence resistance, exposes the violence
of the opposition of, you know, whoever the evildoers are.
Let's take the Rosa Parks case, being the American police.
It exposes that. And that's what changes popular
opinion. And that's what gets people to
change policies. They otherwise might not even
reconsider in many, many, many cases.
Yes, this How it works. And this is why Communications
is so incredibly important, you know, if I mean the the u.s.
Civil Rights Movement, if the the, the northern and the
national media, Outlets could not be counted upon to sometimes
cover and show people, the horror the, the abuses, the the
pushback, from the, the racist, Governors and sheriffs, and
police Chiefs. Well, then it never.
I have worked not the way that it was done.
And this is the same thing that that we see in in cases around
the world. The problem is how corrupt how
out of touch and on out of control, the major media Outlets
have become so that you do not get the same coverage of protest
movements today that you got in the 1960s or of Wars horrible
and Slanted as the US media coverage of the war on Vietnam,
may have been and certainly was, you had footage of victims in
the war human beings. You saw the horror now and
again, this is, this is very rare, you know, and when you
have an instance where people in Gaza or Syria, or Iraq or
Afghanistan, are or Yemen, are are presented and treated as
Human beings and the crime of the horrific actions taken
against them. As something regrettable.
These are, you know, rare outstanding flukes in US media
coverage that everybody sends each other on social media, but
they're not, they're not the bulk of the media coverage which
dehumanizes and ignores and avoids showing the suffering.
And so this is why it's, you know, Such a difficult thing
globally but it's but it's a part.
It's so much easier to use locally, especially when you can
generate media. And and this is why the ability
of individuals to generate social media and small media is
so important. Yeah that that's an excellent
point and also it's just I want to say funny but it's more sad
to see how the media just throws away these stories once they
don't fit the narrative. Assad is gassing his own people.
Oh, it's actually a video from a gun range in Kentucky.
Ask screw the Kurds. We never cared.
They haven't been brought up since Gaddafi's giving his
troops Viagra for Mass rape. Well, then they go overthrow
Gaddafi Gaddafi, and now their slave markets.
Haven't heard about Libya since of course, they never follow it
up. They pull at your heartstrings,
you justify the war and then they're on to Russia gate or
whatever their next. A horrible thing is want to get
back to the book leaving World War Two.
Find did the attack at Pearl Harbor.
Justify the u.s. Responding by declaring war on
Japan. Well, I not be repetitive but I
have to say, I don't think you can justify declaring or Waging
War on anyone. And, you know, again, Hawaii was
not part of the United States. It's very telling that that day
is now called now, thought of as Pearl Harbor day, or at the time
it wasn't right at the time. This is a story very well told,
you know. Look of a couple years back
called how to hide an Empire. The Japanese attacked numerous
countries on the same day including the Philippines where
Douglas MacArthur left all the airplanes lined up on the runway
to be destroyed vastly more damage done than you know to a
handful of ships at Pearl Harbor most of which were quickly put
back into use but the Philippines didn't have a lot of
white people in it. Hawaii was thought of as some
more acceptable future state. As some more as, as a more
plausible and appropriate place to pretend was part of the
United States and to treat the attack as on the United States
as its treated to this day. And so the fact that the
Japanese attacked Guam and Alaska as well, and, and
numerous Nations and Islands across the Pacific, most of
which it invaded and occupied for some time, beginning that
day, including the Philippines with horrific results.
V. Whereas Pearl.
Harbor was this. This quick one-off bombing.
It doesn't matter because the narrative is about this story
about this sacred site where this evil dark-skinned nation of
lunatics, attacked the United States of God damn America, and
you know, the fact that it was, you know, an island country that
didn't want to be part of the United States and still wasn't
at that time. Doesn't matter the fact that the
United States States had been dead set on getting into a war
with Japan for decades leading up.
There had been a public arms race between the two there had
been threats. There had been the base building
around the Pacific by the United States.
The the provocative sanctions and blockades, cutting Japan off
expecting reprisals and getting them.
The fact that one of the the judges at the tribunal in Tokyo,
after the war concluded that Fact the United States had
provoked, the war the fact that in that the u.s.
Navy had been told the war was started prior to Pearl Harbor
that Franklin Roosevelt. It started the draft prior to
Pearl Harbor that Franklin. Roosevelt had made the list of
all the Japanese Americans to deal with prior to Pearl,
Harbor, Etc. You know, there's there's
endless disputes over. Exactly.
Who knew what at what our regarding the bombing of Pearl
Harbor. Harbor.
But the fact that nothing was done to prevent the war.
The fact that the United States government had a list of ways to
provoke the war and had been ticking them off for months,
taking each step, the fact that the two governments wanted the
war and that the u.s. Government principally.
Wanted the war as a means of getting into the war in Europe
and that Roosevelt that night, drafted a Of war on Japan and
Germany until he was talked into taking Germany out of it, you
know, this, none of this stuff fits the narrative, but it's
indisputable fact. As far as I think the book came
out in 1947 or 48, Georgia Morgenstern was quoting the
Secretary of War Henry Stimson at the time, saying, in this
guy's own diary. And I believe, November 29th
1941. He was saying, we had a meeting,
we talked about doing everything, we could to get
Japan to make the first move in order to justify the war, you
had Winston, Churchill and Franklin, Roosevelt and
Newfoundland. According to the You got times
or entry plans laid to Roosevelt.
It. Explicitly said they're trying
to provoke Germany at the time with the same submarine warfare
that they had with the Lusitania.
But then they moved to Japan. You even had the McCullum memo
that Robert Stinnett published in 1999, which you mentioned in
the book. So is there anything else about
the Pearl Harbor controversy? I know John toland.
Also wrote a book. Book called infamy.
Is there any other pieces of evidence to show that far from
being, you know, the official story America was this
isolationist country that just mind its own business out of
nowhere was attacked and that's why we can never listen to the
David Swanson's of the world because Pearl Harbors, a 9/11
happened. Well, you know, it's a pair of
lies in that myth, right? The United States wasn't an
innocent bystander. The United States was building
bases and Send putting ships in the Pacific and provoking Japan
knowingly for decades on this. There was no secret about it and
never has been. And there was no surprise, you
have newspapers with headline, so you can go pull up, pull up
the newspapers and look at them, you know, Japan likely to attack
over the weekend. So the notion that it was out of
a clear blue sky and nobody had any indication the United States
expected. This, there was a nearby Island
a Time. Tiny little island, a part of
Hawaii, that they thought Japan would land on first and then
attack from there, and they had the owners of the island, get
their Hawaiian workers to take mules, and plow the whole thing
up, so that it would be so rough.
The Japanese couldn't land a plane on this little island.
And when one of the Japanese planes during the attack on
Pearl, Harbor, for which they didn't use the island, had to
make an emergency landing on that island.
They actually didn't have any Despite all the work of those
mules and in plow, so it just was not a surprise.
It was not defensible. It wasn't an act of kindness.
It was a horrific unforgivable Act of mass murder for which the
Japanese showed up in Prosecuting in a fair court, but
it was, it was the culmination of the efforts of Trees.
Hoping the hostilities for years and months and weeks and the
u.s. Conscious deliberate effort to
make sure Japan could be depicted.
As having taken the first shot. I really like how you said it
was a crime and we should recognize it as such and we
should treat it. Like anyone else who will
committed such an evil action would be treated because I, you
know, get called this stupid pansy softy by everyone else.
When they go. Oh, you're an time.
Or you live in fantasy land. The reality is sometimes you got
to get your hands dirty to which I just follow up and say or
they're big word. Is appeasement.
You can engage in app easement to which I say, so I need to go
murder Joe Biden. So he'll stop bombing people in
Somalia recently or Syria or Yemen.
And I need to go start killing politicians and US soldiers
because, you know, I can't talk to them.
I can't convince them. That would be a piece meant.
I can't ask officers to stop enforcing the drug.
Cause I need just just start opening fire on them.
Is that what you're saying? And then all of a sudden, they
turn immediately to our side and say well that is ridiculously
barbaric. And actually it probably
wouldn't even do anything remotely beneficial to the cause
at large. So all you have to do is take
their own logic, flip it against them to when it's no longer
convenient and then they're like on our side and like a matter of
minutes. Yeah.
I really like that. Take them to court court idea
have She not any large-scale examples of, I don't know
terrorist attacks. Let's just call Pearl Harbor.
An act of terrorism that where the people the culprits have
been taken to court prosecuted and a war has been avoided.
That's an excellent question. And by the way, I would love to
get you in touch with people. I see where and t-shirts
proposing to murder Joe Biden. It's actually not that.
Not that rare and opinion. I think rather dangerously
enough in this country, you know, that there were attacks on
the World Trade Center, prior to September 2001, that were
treated as crimes and prosecuted.
The crimes of That date Were Somehow magically transformed
from crimes to a war. And so nobody was to be
prosecuted. Somebody was to be bombed and
this was a choice by the United States government and the United
States media not had nothing to do with the actions of that day,
which were just a little larger and more successful than very
similar actions. That were treated as crimes if
you look at the. If you look, At the terrorism,
meaning essentially Poor Man's Wars, you know, Wars without
giant budgets because there's nothing about the us or NATO
Wars that isn't terrifying and terrorizing is there, they're
just very well armed and well funded, so it's not terrorism.
If you look at the terrorism coming out of the war on
terrorism, which for years and years.
Increased terrorism around the world.
Took this group that was living in, California.
Lives in Afghanistan and spread it across dozens of countries.
Some of the terrorism has been addressed by treating it as a
crime and looking into its motivations and others other
times. By treating it as somehow
magically an act of war in need of balmy.
So, you know, when someone put off a bomb in a Subway in
London, that was an act of war. The UK needed to go by Bomb some
countries in Southwest Asia. And of course there were more
bombs going off in London, when a bomb went off in Madrid,
Spain. This was treated as a crime in
need of prosecution and a reason to elect a government that would
take Spain out of these insane us UK LED Wars and there was
never an act of terrorism in Spain, at least.
I mean, from outside of Spain from that day to this one and
people would say well that's a piece moment.
That's that's obeying. The wishes of the terrorists to
stop bombing their women and children because they set off a
bomb on a on a truck, you know, in in Spain your got that
appeasement is just going to create endless bombings in
Spain. But of course, the exact
opposite is the reality. There hasn't been another
bombing in Spain. Where, as the The terrorist
threats and attacks on US troops and the troops of countries that
are that have continued their involvement.
In these idiotic Wars have gone on, you know, it's hard to.
It's hard to find cases of international crimes that have
been prosecuted as the crimes they are, because there isn't
hardly any system of justice. There's an international
criminal court that claims it can now prosecute the crime of
As a crime, they call it aggression.
I call it War, but it hasn't done.
So. And it's it's an international
criminal court, for Africans. I mean, you have to have done
something horrible and you have to be African to get prosecuted.
It's under the thumb as is the entire United Nations of the
five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
It's a it's a global institution that lacks democracy that you
know runs around the world claiming to promote democracy.
That's given the five worst offenders veto power over
anything. So it's, you know, it's got this
this weakness. So, yeah, I would like to see
International crimes prosecuted as crimes.
I would like to see countries use Universal jurisdiction and
prosecute, the crimes of other countries that are failing to
prosecute their own crimes. I'd like to see the world court
and the international criminal court prosecute crimes, but
they'd have to be fair and Democratic to do.
Against the worst actors in the world, who are the most powerful
forces in the world and people like a mid Salim and ramzi,
Yousef. And Timothy McVeigh, would those
all count as examples of what could have what I mean?
If the Press had declared them terrorism in the politicians,
followed, they all could have started Wars some way or another
was ramzi. Yousef.
The guy in 93 who was in court. You remember, I believe I'm
sorry to just put that on you. I'm trying to think of an
example. Well, let's, let's take Timothy
McVeigh first. I mean, here's here's a case.
Where the media within minutes was telling everybody to look
for somebody Islamic or Muslim or dark-skinned, and then very
soon discovered that it was some white skinned US military
veteran of of the first the go. For on a wreck.
And, and so it very quickly went from possible terrorism tune on
terrorism in, I think the discourse of most or many be
because of who was involved and so terrorism tens in the US
media, I think decreasingly so but it's still tends to be not.
Just the poor guys will or but the foreign guys wore the
dark-skinned guys War. And so, you know, the fact that
most terrorism in the United States is committed by people
from the United States is committed by what are called,
white men doesn't fit with people's notion of terrorism and
you know, the the there are similar stories to mcveigh's
that are just not acceptable in the US media.
You Talk about the fact that mass shootings today are very
disproportionately committed by Veterans of the US military.
The second you do. So you have somehow insulted all
the great Brave servicemen and women as being terrorists and
mass Killers, even though you haven't right, even though it's
a teeny tiny, tiny, fraction of a percent of people who are mass
Shooters. Almost, nobody is a mass
shooter, but those who are are very Be disproportionately
military veterans, which ought not to be shocking.
People who have been trained and armed in mass shooting and
praised for it and then booted out and not given any clear path
to a to a good life. After this so-called service.
They've done. Why wouldn't they be?
But you can't talk about that and you can't even talk about
the fact that McVeigh was a military veteran.
What impact that had on his action?
I want to end the World War 2 discussion with the quote from
Winston Churchill's preface and the Gathering storm.
He said one day President Roosevelt told me that he was
asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be
called. I said at once the unnecessary
War, there never was a war more easily to stop than that which
is just wrecked. What was left of the world.
From the previous struggle, the human tragedy reaches its Climax
in the fact that after all, the exertions and sacrifices of
hundreds of millions of people and the victories of the
righteous, cause we have still not found peace or security and
that we lie in the grip of even worse.
Perils than those. We have surmounted Winston.
Churchill, 1948. What can we learn from that
passage? Well, I think he's absolutely
right that WWII like every other war or every other major.
Enterprise, that Humanity has produced could have been
avoided. We could have chosen not to do
that. And I think if people would
accept the reality of today, the risk of nuclear apocalypse the
incredible Financial expense the incredible damage to
self-governance and government transparency the incredible
environmental damage the fueling of racism and bigotry.
All of the Astrophys that flow out of the military industrial
complex and oppose it, and understand that we could never
have a justifiable war going forward.
Then I wouldn't care what they thought about World War Two.
They could just love the heck out of WWII.
What would I care if they agreed with me going forward?
But it doesn't work that way. They all loved military spending
and Military Adventures because of World War Two, and the
saturation. Infotainment propaganda.
The Hollywood. The cartoons, the history books
about World War 2, and this is why I think we have to go after
World War 2. And, and in some very weird ways
that seem tangential, right? We have to explain to people
that the Nordic race and the Eugenics came out of the United
States and California that the that the segregation laws were
learned by the Nazis, when they came to study them in the United
States, that the practice of genocide in the concentration
camps was a europe-wide and you U.s.
LED Enterprise that it didn't, it didn't originate in Nazi
Germany and this stuff weirdly enough eats away at the WWII
mythology that bizarrely enough supports the military
Enterprise. We're dealing with today.
Did you have an elevator pitch to Veterans when you meet them
with regard to the anti-war message?
Hi. I'm an associate member of
Veterans for peace because it is a wonderful.
Ization that let me join even though I'm not a veteran and I
highly recommend you join them and get to know them or I could
say the same thing with Iraq veterans against the war now
called about face, another wonderful organization, but I
tell them, you know, look, I appreciate what you've been
through. I appreciate that.
It's not what I've been through and that, you know, things and
have experienced things that I haven't.
But, let's talk about what you went through and whether it was
worthwhile and whether you would recommend it to kids going
forward because there are veterans even veterans who have
some pride and sense of comradeship with their veteran
status, who think the very most important thing to do is to stop
producing more veterans and I agree with them because we need
bravery and solidarity and Brotherhood and Sack.
If ice, if we don't have those, we're not going to survive
disease. Pandemics forest, fires, Mast
floodings and all the catastrophes that we have.
No choice about having to deal with but to have, you know,
heroism and bravery perverted into going out in ginning up
dangers and catastrophes that we don't have any need of.
Well, you know, this is a recipe for disaster.
So maybe let's stop doing that going for us.
Okay, the elevators through the roof by now, but you get the
idea. Final question.
You wrote a book called war is a lie.
What is the thesis of your book? War is a lie.
Well, a lot of it is related to what you brought up earlier.
That that they tell you different lies in the middle of
the war and after the war from what they told you before the
war. And so I started out thinking,
well, well I started out, let me try to find an honest War.
Let me try to find a war. That was based.
On straightforward Truth by anybody doesn't have to be my
country. My Century.
Let me look around. I couldn't find one, couldn't
find one. And well, okay.
Well, let me document all the lies for all the big Wars.
Well, it was gonna be a million page book.
So I said, okay, let me do this. Let me give themes of the types
of Lies they tell and some of them are lies.
They tell before Wars. Some are during Wars, some are
escalating War, some are after Wars, and you can have, you can
have Have completely contradictory lies.
Even at the same stage in a war, right?
We need to go bomb this country because we need to go kill every
last dirt Iranian their evil. We hate them.
They're not human or. Let's go bomb Iran for democracy
for the benefit of the good Iranian.
People are brothers who who deserve our bombs just as much
as anybody else around the world.
You can have those simultaneously and different
sections of the population falling for each one.
And so because we have this history in recent Decades of
pollsters, finding Strong majorities saying award.
Never should have been fought within about a year of it
getting started and then saying that for decades more as it
rolls on, I wanted faster reactions.
I want people prepared to spot the lies more quickly, right?
And, and so, instead of waiting for a Freedom of Information
Act, request decades later to discover that, Ins weren't
there, maybe develop the ability to recognize that weapons.
Being somewhere doesn't justify a war, no matter what.
Even if it's true, if having weapons Justified, getting
bombed, the United States should be bombed, right?
This is insanity. And so it's a guidebook to
spotting the lies immediately without any need for detailed
facts and to confront them immediately and say, no, this is
a fraudulent case. For war, when it might actually
have some impact. As we saw in 2013 on Syria,
2015, on Iran, as we tend to see increasingly people able to spot
War lies and say no, when it matters, not another Iraq, you
know. And and so it's debunking the
old war lies like Iraq that helps confront.
The new war lies like Syria because he got Congress members
not wanting to, To be that jerk who falls for another Iraq.
So it's important that we confront the old ones.
Even the big glorious old ones like World War Two but it's also
important that we be able to spot the new ones faster and
that that was the idea. The book is leaving WWII behind.
It's been endorsed by Nicholson Baker, author of human smoke
Scott. Horton, of course, is called mr.
Swanson. One of the most important peace
activists in the world, please. Check out the book description,
and mr. Swanson's website will be in the
description below. Mr. Swanson.
Thank you so much for your time, sir.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.