Remarks in Baltimore on October 3, 2026, at occasion withWar Is Still A Lie
Thank you to Ronda Cooperstein and the native chapter of World BEYOND War for setting this occasion up.
I just lately learn a giant stack of books on the decline and elimination of dueling. There had been hundreds of things, lots of them past anyones simple management, however key amongst them was cultural change, was bringing individuals to seek out larger humiliation in dueling than in not dueling, larger respect in refusing to duel than in being prepared to duel. The image of dueling as noble, respectable, and brave was changed by one a lot nearer the reality: drunken primadonnas misperceiving insults and committing homicide for lack of the power to confess they had been idiots. And dueling died by levels. More and extra would-be duelists so-called seconds negotiated peace. More and extra duels ended with out deaths or accidents, typically with bullets deliberately shot into the air. More and extra duelists had been prosecuted for the crime. More and extra newspaper cartoonists depicted duelists as monkeys and clowns. Dueling was outlawed and denounced for hundreds of years earlier than the abolitionists lastly succeeded.
War has been outlawed for a century and denounced for longer than that, and for some time now its been wounded. If Teddy Roosevelt got here again to life in some museum and declared that we would have liked some extra wars only for the enjoyable of it, he wouldnt get far. No longer can anybody get majorities to imagine that wars are fascinating or good as a result of they construct character or are merely one acceptable instrument of overseas relations or are wanted to unfold somebodys faith or race or empire. Every struggle is depicted because the final attainable resort, irrespective of how absurdly or how a lot effort has gone into creating the struggle and stopping its decision.
War, like dueling, is an exception. Most individuals by no means dueled. In most components of the world there isn’t a struggle. Most individuals would have finished something they might to keep away from dueling and most do every part that may to keep away from struggle even those that help different individuals going to struggle. But we havent but gotten to the purpose the place braveness in a politician is known by all people as standing as much as the weapons sellers and warmongers and saying No I wont do struggle.
When I first wroteWar Is A LieI believed we had been making progress at recognizing struggle lies and needed that progress to speed up. In U.S. polling it took a couple of 12 months and a half from the beginning of the struggle on Afghanistan and the beginning of the struggle on Iraq to get a majority saying that every struggle by no means ought to have been began. It took for much longer than that to get a majority saying every struggle ought to be ended. This was as a result of hundreds of members of the U.S. navy had been killed, and a few twisted logic instructed us that the one solution to respect these already killed was to get extra killed. It didnt matter if polling of members of the navy discovered that they needed to return house, or if their suicides had been outpacing their deaths in fight, or if 30 or 40 occasions as many Iraqis had been being killed as U.S. troops the truth is that final bit of data went past not mattering to the purpose of it virtually being treasonous to develop into conscious of it. My dream was that we might get sooner at opposing the wars, that we might get big majorities to comprehend how they had been being tricked into supporting horrific evil earlier than a struggle even began.
And I believed we had been making progress. While wars that don’t occur by no means make it into historical past books, public opposition repeatedly prevented a struggle on Iran, till it didnt. And it prevented an enormous bombing marketing campaign on Syria. We nonetheless werent going after the cash, the navy finances that might generate extra wars. We nonetheless werent dismantling the empire of bases, becoming a member of treaties or courts, pursuing cooperation and support and peacemaking. We nonetheless hadnt moved from every of those many wars is fallacious to all attainable wars are fallacious. But we had been taking child steps.
And then WHAM Ukraine ate our brains.
I need to return for a second to 100 years in the past when struggle wasnt what it will develop into and wasnt broadly understood even for what it was, to a time when the United States had been coaching Japan in imperialism and inspiring it to invade and occupy Korea. Well, Japans empire and the United States personal empire collided. The U.S. took over quite a few islands, staged its struggle rehearsals close by, and threatened and sanctioned Japan. The public problem of the build-up to struggle was massive news for years. Admirable individuals in each governments tried to work towards it. Ten thousand protesters marched up Fifth Avenue opposing the build-up to struggle with Japan. But the U.S. authorities created the draft (and noticed main draft resistance, and locked draft resisters up in prisons), activated the National Guard, equipped planes and trainers and pilots and cash to China for struggle towards Japan (ensuring Japan knew about it), imposed harsh sanctions on Japan, suggested the U.S. navy {that a} struggle with Japan was starting, and ordered the creation of an inventory of each Japanese and Japanese-American particular person within the United States. On December 4, 1941, newspapers, together with theChicago Tribune, printed President Roosevelts plan for struggle towards Germany and Japan. U.S. officers had frightened for months a couple of attainable assault on Pearl Harbor. On November 15, 1941, U.S. Army Chief of Staff George Marshall briefed the media: We are getting ready an offensive struggle towards Japan, he stated, asking the journalists to maintain it a secret. Marshall instructed Congress in 1945 that the United States had initiated Anglo-Dutch-U.S. agreements for unified motion towards Japan and put them into impact earlier than December 7. On November 25, 1941, Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that hed met within the Oval Office with Marshall, President Roosevelt, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Admiral Harold Stark, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Roosevelt had instructed them the Japanese had been more likely to assault quickly, presumably the subsequent Monday, December 1, 1941. The query, Stimson wrote, was how we must always maneuver them into the place of firing the primary shot with out permitting an excessive amount of hazard to ourselves. It was a tough proposition. On December 7/8, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. colonies of the Philippines and Guam, plus the U.S. territories of Hawaii, Midway, and Wake, in addition to the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore, and Honk Kong, and the unbiased nation of Thailand. While someplace just like the Philippines had many extra individuals in it, and so they had been legally extra Americans, and the Japanese got here and remained, Hawaii had extra so-called white individuals in it, so the fast bombing raid there grew to become the Infamous Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor, which grew to become an annual nationwide vacation. The U.S. Navy permits oil to proceed to leak into the shallow harbor from a sunken ship, and guests get teary-eyed over the rainbow-colored air pollution that proves everlasting U.S. innocence and the incomprehensible irrationality of foreigners who might assault you at anytime for no motive in any respect whereas youre obliviously enjoying golf and inventing plastic. Theres way more about this inWar Is Still A Lie.
The Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor is the archetype into which propagandists match the Unprovoked Attack on Ukraine. Almost in a single day, individuals who couldnt have instructed you what Ukraine was the day earlier than would cease you on the road and ask you for those who had been serving to Ukraine. This was essentially the most profitable propaganda I had ever seen or heard of. Helping Ukraine got here to imply something from hanging up a Ukrainian flag (lots of them nonetheless there in 2026) to sending humanitarian support to Ukrainians to supporting the U.S. authorities sending Ukraine mountains of free weapons. This help for Ukraine went deep even into these Americans who had opposed many different wars. This struggle they had been going to help, and with it NATO, and with NATO (someway) actually stick it to Trump.
Of course, Russia had criminally and murderously invaded Ukraine and was killing and destroying on a serious scale. Murder is homicide, whether or not Japan, or Russia, or Ukraine, or the United States does it. But in fact the struggle was named the Unprovoked War due to the way it had been provoked. There had been public feedback by U.S. officers arguing that the provocations wouldn’t provoke something. I dont purchase this argument that, , us supplying the Ukrainians with defensive weapons goes to impress Putin, stated Senator Chris Murphy. One can nonetheless learn a RAND report advocating making a struggle like this one by means of the types of provocations that senators claimed wouldnt provoke something. In September 2023, then Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg defined the reason for the struggle in phrases Vladimir Putin would have agreed with, saying, [Putin] went to struggle to stop NATO, extra NATO, near his borders. The United States had facilitated a coup in Ukraine in 2014. Fighting between Ukraine and jap provinces that sought autonomy started at the moment. In the times previous to the Russian invasion, Ukrainian assaults on these provinces elevated considerably, whereas news reviews carried new Western predictions every day that Russia would invade the subsequent day. Russias horror of NATO got here not simply from NATOs enlargement to Russias border but additionally from the United States tearing up treaties, putting in missile bases, and proliferating nuclear weapons. Some Americans are higher in a position to perceive this for those who describe it as a Cuban missile disaster in reverse, although you might additionally simply name it a Cuban missile disaster, since Kennedy resolved that disaster by agreeing to take away missiles from Turkey in alternate for the Soviet Union eradicating missiles from Cuba. Now U.S. missile bases are as near Russia as they had been then, however no Russian bases are within the Americas.
There is much more on this matter and just about any matter I contact on inWar Is Still A Lie. I simply need to word right here that two weeks after the key Russian invasion, negotiations had been held in Istanbul and reached an settlement to finish the struggle, however the U.S. and UK governments stated no this based on quite a few U.S. and UK and Russian officers together with high U.S. so-called diplomat Victoria Nuland shamelessly and brazenly in entrance of a video digital camera. For years, the U.S. authorities instructed us we needed to ship weapons to Ukraine for a essential and unavoidable and last-resort struggle that the U.S. authorities was forbidding the Ukrainian authorities from ending. And the U.S. propaganda was so good that many individuals within the U.S. saved supporting the struggle in Ukraine as a result of supposedly the Ukrainians themselves needed that, even lengthy after polling in Ukraine, amongst those that hadnt fled or died, and regardless of a widespread concern of talking out, discovered majorities of Ukrainians desirous to make a compromise and finish the struggle.
Now I used to be frightened about that everlasting query that President George W. Bush had framed so eloquently as: IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING?
But good news for our progress at recognizing struggle lies was simply across the nook within the type of horrific news for the world. This got here within the type of a livestreamed genocide in Gaza and the second coronation of Donald Trump.
Baltimorean H.L. Mencken had in fact declared that As democracy is perfected, the workplace of president represents, increasingly carefully, the internal soul of the individuals. On some nice and superb day the plain people of the land will attain their hearts need eventually and the White House will likely be adorned by a downright moron.
For the three-quarters of the individuals whose internal souls are steadily vomiting in response to U.S. politics glad occasions weren’t right here once more. But struggle opposition was. And, the truth is, having proven us the Ukrainian victims of struggle on each tv channel might even have primed us to note Palestinian victims of struggle on each social media channel. If Russia shouldnt slaughter individuals, why ought to Israel? So, for 3 years now weve been fed each Israeli navy lie and most of us have chosen to imagine our personal eyes as an alternative. Even individuals who known as different individuals names like Putin-lover had been prepared themselves to courageous being known as Hamas-lover. Even individuals who had moments earlier than sworn that there was no such factor on Earth as opposing each side of a struggle declared their condemnation of murders by each Israel and Hamas. And, for some time, the extra the warmongers shouted that peace is anti-Semitic, the extra the streets crammed up with protesters.
And alongside got here Trump to place maybe one of many last nails into the coffin of struggle lies. I had thought the dumbest struggle lie would all the time be one thing like Watch me discover these imaginary weapons! Then Trump began a struggle on Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz and instructed us the purpose of the struggle was to open the strait that had been closed by the struggle. Now my dream had come true; we now had a majority within the U.S. against a struggle and wanting it ended on Day 1. People had been considerably predisposed I feel to identify ridiculous struggle lies by Trumps having lied that if elected he would finish wars earlier than even taking workplace. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza rolled on together with new wars on Venezuela, Lebanon, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, and Caribbean fishing boats and the widespread risk of struggle, Trumps repeated hinting at utilizing nuclear weapons, the worldwide concern of being made the subsequent Gaza on the whim of a infantile fascistic idiot. When requested why he hadnt ended wars as promised, Trump replied I didnt assure no struggle. Why would I’ve constructed the strongest navy on the planet? Good query. Its all the time good to comply with the cash.
People are upset proper now about $40 one thing billion having been spent on the struggle on Iran, not counting the financial affect, not counting the destroyed U.S. navy bases, and so forth. I hope had been all additionally upset in regards to the mass homicide, however nonetheless, Im with you. For lower than what’s spent on one in every of these wars you might finish homelessness or the dearth of preschool or faculty; you might create a inexperienced new deal. You might work wonders. But no one ever funded the struggle on Iran. The Pentagon simply had what it needed mendacity round. It needs it had had extra missiles that might have value more cash. I want Iran nonetheless had extra elementary faculties. And for those who make a bar graph of three gadgets, the price of one thing good like free preschool for anybody within the U.S., the price of this struggle, and the price of the navy finances now making its means by means of Congress, to suit the third one on the web page you need to make the primary two so small that you simply virtually must squint to see them.
Why would there be a invoice for $1.5 TRILLION for the struggle machine making its means by means of Congress? And, by the best way, the U.S. navy will get about that a lot once more from different sources. The high excuse, the obsessively overwhelmingly main justification for your complete mad pursuit of whole violent domination of each inch of the Earth and our on-line world and outerspace and the house between our ears is China.
This previous Wednesday morning I used to be talking by Zoom to a school class about struggle and peace, and one of many college students requested in regards to the danger of the U.S. demilitarizing and different nations not. I gave an ordinary reply about how a reverse arms race might be finished in levels. The U.S. might decide to not spending greater than thrice some other nation on its navy and proceed downward from there. Of the couple of dozen nations that spend a lot of something on their militaries, all however three are U.S. allies and weapons clients being hammered arduous by the U.S. authorities (and NATO) to spend extra. The solely nation spending greater than a tiny fraction of the U.S. the truth is, spending near a 3rd ofU.S. navy spendingas its normally reported ora sixth of what it actually isis China. If the U.S. had been to maintain its nukes out of South Korea and Japan, and its troops out of South Korea, and eventually finish the struggle and switch South Koreas navy over to South Korea, and begin becoming a member of treaties and courts and starting a common disarmament, North Korea would virtually definitely take part critical negotiations about eliminating its nukes, whereas China would I assured to this faculty class not hold rising its personal navy spending.
Within a minute of claiming goodbye on Zoom, I noticed thatTrump had provided to promote weapons to China. Let me repeat that, Trump has been providing to promote U.S. struggle weapons to China. This is, in my humble opinion, terrific news. I don’t know whether or not Trump is aware of that lots of people nonetheless need to hear some excuse for dumping nearly all of our cash into the most important struggle machine ever a lot much less for handing the choices in regards to the wars over to the precise weapons. I don’t know whether or not hes observed that each dialog in Congress and company media shortly turns into a contest about competing with China. I do know that he needs choices to be merely in regards to the Will of Donald Trump. So, he might not care about China as the massive excuse for navy spending, however I definitely care in regards to the great news that hes taken that excuse away.
Surely we don’t want trillions extra dumped into the Pentagon due to China whereas Trump is attempting to promote China weapons. Surely the remainder of the worlds governments that Trump is badgering to spend extra on weapons don’t want to take action due to China whereas Trump is attempting to promote China weapons. Surely Australia, for instance, doesn’t have to be crammed up with U.S. troops due to China whereas Trump is pitching China on his favourite weapons.
So, cellphone the neighbors, wake the youngsters, and pinch the lazy new panda bears as a result of a peace dividend is unquestionably on the best way if sufficient individuals discover out that Trump has tried to promote China weapons and give it some thought for a couple of seconds and do one thing about it for a couple of days. That final bit is the sticking level I do know. Even if we are able to get extra individuals to see the absurdity of impoverishing ourselves to construct as much as a struggle on China whereas attempting to promote China weapons than we might ever get individuals to see the absurdity of impoverishing ourselves to construct as much as a struggle on China whereas investing in bioweapons labs in China, theres nonetheless the issue of the extra-big lie.
The massive lie is in fact the lie that turns into extra plausible as a result of the reality could be extraordinarily horrible to confess to. The extra-big lie is the lie that though most of us need one thing theres no level in attempting to do something about it. Youre powerless. They dont care what you suppose. Nothing has ever labored earlier than. So, snap out of it, develop up, and weep or vote, or on the most vote actually actually arduous and break the voting machine with how powerfully you vote. Otherwise, simply dwell with it and buy groceries. Thats the extra-big lie. Needless to say, it is best to vote and if everybody would wed be higher off. If we might vote on insurance policies like Californians voting for a teeny little tax on oligarchs, wed be higher off. But no one ever voted themselves the proper to vote. Nonviolent actions have modified legal guidelines and societies, prevented wars, ended wars, and reversed coverage proposals, and believing you are able to do nothing is precisely what Lockheed Martin needs, way over believing that Muslims are evil or China hates you or Putins hiding in your closet.
I see some disempowering of individuals additionally in all the concern about synthetic intelligence taking management of the world and killing off the people. The drawback with AI that we face proper now, not in some attainable future when it turns into unbiased of individuals, is the mix of synthetic intelligence and good outdated pure stupidity. The U.S. navy virtually went after a Chinese ship, believing that it contained nuclear weapons know-how. At the final minute the U.S. navy discovered sufficient pure intelligence to comprehend {that a} robotic had made that up in regards to the nuclear weapons. Was the robotic attempting to start out world struggle three? I doubt it. Is the U.S. navy prepared to danger world struggle three? Clearly. And I feel its elevated use of machines to make choices ought to be even worse for the Doomsday Clock than Ukraine has been. But the bulletins that AI is an omnicidal risk and that that is one thing new disguise the truth that the risk lies within the exacerbation of one of many current threats nuclear, local weather, illness, and so forth. Anything to distract us from the truth that our greatest enterprise is organized mass homicide and destruction.
As dueling was mocked out of existence, we’d like satirists for the struggle trade, We want extra lyrics like these of Jesse Welles tuneWar Isnt Murderwhich begins
War isnt homicide
Good males dont die
Children dont starve
And all girls survive
War isnt homicide
Thats what they are saying
When youre combating the satan
Murders okay
War isnt homicide
Theyre known as casualties
There aint a veteran
With a great nights sleep
Of course, individuals can take part such a peace tradition, however typically with a limitation, an asterisk, a back-of-the-head shadow of doubt. Because what if the legendary good struggle arrives subsequent 12 months, then what? If it had been attainable to actually comprehend what a trillion {dollars} is, this wouldnt be such an issue. War kills primarily by means of the diversion of cash from the place its wanted. It additionally creates nuclear weapons, destroys the setting, prevents cooperation on the setting and illness and homelessness, permits authorities secrecy and surveillance, militarizes police and borders and minds, fuels bigotry, and so forth.
And in fact if somebody agrees with me on dismantling the struggle machine at the moment, then I actually dont care in the event that they merely adore any variety of previous wars. But given the best way this truly works, a couple of phrases ought to be stated, going again once more to the Nineteen Thirties.
In 1938, representatives of 32 nations and 63 organizations publicly met in France with some 200 journalists protecting the occasion. They mentioned the Nazis need to expel or kill Jews in Germany and Austria and determined to not settle for their expulsion to anyplace in any vital numbers however to go away them to their destiny. Only Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic even elevated their immigration quotas. The determination was brazenly primarily based on anti-Semitism. Australian delegate T. W. White stated, with out asking the native individuals of Australia: as we’ve no actual racial drawback, we’re not desirous of importing one. The dictator of the Dominican Republic seen Jews as racially fascinating, as bringing whiteness to a land with many individuals of African descent. Land was put aside for 100,000 Jews, however fewer than 1,000 ever arrived. The convention was proposed by and chaired by a consultant of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt who selected to not make any critical efforts to help Jewish refugees, earlier than, throughout, or after the convention. Foreign correspondent, columnist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne OHare McCormick described the heartbreaking scenes of lengthy strains of Jews looking for visas from U.S. consulates whereas ready in suspense for the end result of this convention. She believed the world confronted a elementary take a look at of civilization. Could America settle for the ethical guilt, McCormick requested, if Germany was allowed to proceed with its blatant coverage of extermination of the Jewish individuals? The U.S. Coast Guard chased a ship of Jewish refugees away from Miami. The State Department turned down the visa software of Anne Franks household. Congress rejected the Wagner-Rogers invoice to confess extra Jewish and non-Aryan refugees, however handed the Hennings Bill to permit limitless numbers of British Christian kids into the United States. A 1938 Gallup ballot discovered that seventy-two p.c of Americans believed we must always not enable a bigger variety of Jewish exiles from Germany into the U.S. Much way more on this inWar Is Still A Lie.
One of the massive hurdles in dismantling the equipment of dying is nuclear weapons. Its accepted historical past that having gone from with the ability to destroy all life on Earth hundreds of occasions to mere lots of of occasions constituted the ending of the Cold War. It is my competition that even getting it all the way down to tens of occasions or perhaps a single time wouldnt finish something of the type, although it would kickoff a tremendous reverse arms race. To get a small nation with out a huge international navy to surrender nuclear weapons would require eliminating navy threats towards that nation. But for a big nation with a navy costing vastly greater than the remainder of the worlds militaries mixed to surrender its nuclear weapons would put solely two issues in danger particularly the power to provoke the destruction of all life on Earth and the power to leap in and take part redundantly if one other nation has already doomed the Earth to a nuclear winter. We all declare to oppose the very first thing and I hope we imply it. The second factor shouldn’t be of curiosity to anybody both. If Russia or some tremendous cool pc utilized by Russia or maybe Matthew Broderick had been to launch nukes and doom the world to dying and hunger, would you care whether or not somebody in a U.S. uniform made it to a button in time so as to add extra missiles earlier than they died? If not, unilateral nuclear disarmament could be wiser than hoping the subsequent dozen near-misses as they name them dont wipe us out.
All proper, Im going to cease and begin taking your questions, however first let me say that your senators and misrepresentative are house now and need you to vote for them and doubtless haven’t dedicated to doing every part attainable to cut back the navy spending (or to take away the merger with the Israeli navy) within the so-called National Defense Authorization Act. Its your job to verify they haven’t any selection however to try this. And the emperor himself is visiting a weapons firm within the Baltimore space on Tuesday. I hope hes protested. I hope native media is flooded with letters and calls. I hope its the final time he dares to return right here.
Youve bought an area chapter of World BEYOND War you possibly can work with to advance peace training, communication, and activism. At World BEYOND War dot org youll see that we’ve a web-based course about to start on War and the Environment, and a webinar developing on how you can cease the U.S. navy spending laws, and an annual convention developing on shifting past borders. Please participate as a lot as you’re able.
Let me add right here three solutions I gave to an Iranian news company yesterday:
In the Geneva Conventions we are able to learn this: No protected particular person could also be punished for an offence she or he has not personally dedicated. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.Pillage is prohibited.Reprisals towards protected individuals and their property are prohibited. It takes a few years of legislation faculty and quite a lot of cash to imagine that per blockading a whole inhabitants to disclaim it meals and medication whereas threatening full genocide. Such threats are additionally a violation of the UN Charter as is your complete struggle and subsequently each constituent a part of the struggle.
195 nations might overthrow the Security Council veto energy of the opposite 5. National courts in any nation might prosecute U.S. and Israeli crimes underneath common jurisdiction. Nations with U.S. bases in them that haven’t been destroyed throughout this struggle might evict them. And any authorities that has been overwhelmed and badgered by the U.S. authorities and NATO into dumping its sources into weapons to supposedly defend it from China might level out that Trump has been attempting to promote China U.S. weapons as properly, ship the weapons again, ask for a refund, and bankrupt the struggle machine on the mannequin of the chapter of ever firm Trump ran earlier than he was in authorities.
No, he hasnt a clue. His secret plans to finish the wars in Ukraine and Gaza by no means existed. We have but to see even Richard Nixons secret plan to finish the struggle on Vietnam as a result of it by no means existed. There is a chance of nuclear or non-nuclear escalation by this lunatic. But he has no thought how you can negotiate a compromise, theres no motive for anybody to imagine something he guarantees except he instantly does it, and each time he even talks about making a deal, the so-called opposition among the many Democrats leap up and down about how dangerous the deal could be as if persevering with the struggle and risking nuclear struggle is preferable even because the incompetents on the Pentagon are bringing in so-called synthetic intelligence and distinguished leaders within the discipline of pure stupidity into their so-called thought processes.
David Swanson