Author and activist David Swanson spoke in Portland earlier this month. We present his talk based on his book, War Is A Lie, a thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those that have been most widely defended as just and good. Swanson presents a variety of approaches to resisting, reducing and eliminating war, from counter-recruitment in schools, ending the draft, and conscientious objection, to lobbying, protesting, and dramatically disrupting the machinery of war. He will focus, however, on the process of educating people to recognize false justifications for war and to reject them. Swanson argues that, while the prevention of a U.S. bombing campaign in Syria in 2013 and the upholding of a nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015 left much to be desired, they also provide grounds for encouragement, and were built on the public understanding of the lies about Iraq that had been promoted in 2002-2003 by such public figures as Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton. Swanson argues for a different understanding of current U.S. wars in Western Asia from that most often promoted on television. Frightening beheading videos, he suggests, were intended to draw the United States into war, and succeeded only because the U.S. public is not yet sufficiently resistant to such manipulation.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. His books include When the World Outlawed War, and War No More: The Case for Abolition. Swanson serves as director of World Beyond War, and host of Talk Nation Radio. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He was a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Swanson was instrumental in exposing the Downing Street Minutes and other evidence of Iraq war lies.