 Hi, welcome. I'm Jodi Evans and one of the co-founders of Code Pink, and we're here to David Swanson, the director of World Beyond War, an amazing journalist, organizer, activist. I mean, really, he's one of the rock stars of the Peace Movement, and he's been our partner at Code Pink since we started almost 16 years ago, if you could believe it. So David's always awesome at being able to debunk what's happening around war, and I love reading his work because he gets to the core and he gets to the root and he kind of tugs at them and explodes the lies open and gives us tools that we can use as activists. So I was kind of shocked when I read his piece a few weeks ago that said, Russia is our friend. There we go, David, courageous and provocative as usual, poking the place where we're all shocked. Like, why is everybody so upset about Russia, and why did, you know, people, progressives, get upset when diplomacy was happening, when leaders of countries that have the most nuclear weapons decided to talk to each other. So very grateful to David for, you know, his article, and I wanted to talk to you, David, about Russia is our friend. You know, how did you, what made you want to say that? Well, thank you, Jodi, for everything you've been doing for years and for having me on and for liking this article, because I thought it was one of, it was an important article compared to some others I've written, and I was glad that some people agreed. You know, I'm here in Charlottesville, where last spring and last summer, there were Nazis came to town and, you know, to defend Confederate statues, and they were shouting things like Russia is our friend, by which they seemed to mean that they had bought the accusation that Russia helped elect Trump, and they approved, and or they saw Russia as part of their white supremacist fantasy. And I actually, you know, wanted to take that phrase and use it in a different way and say, Russia is a friend of the United States in a particular way that is unacknowledged, by which I meant that not just in recent years and not just for the Cold War, but from 1917 up to today, the United States has treated Russia horribly, viciously, unfairly, and Russia has put up with it and tried to be friends and asked to join NATO and asked to join Europe and asked to ban cyber war together and asked to ban weapons in space together and tried to disarm and reduce nuclear weapons. More often that came from the Russian side and the US said, no, Russia on 9-11 gave the United States this giant monument of a giant teardrop in sorrow for the victims of 9-11, and the United States downplayed it, hid it in New Jersey, and most searches for it on the internet find people who think it's a false story and never happened. And so what I did in the article was to give a chronology of things that the United States did to Russia between 1917 and today that nobody other than a friend would put up with. So it's not to make a case that Russia is paradise or Russia is a good world citizen or Russian, the Russian government is good to its people or anything of a sort. I mean, I began the article by pointing out that the Russian military had tried to hire me to distribute their propaganda and I told them to go to hell, you know, but it's to talk specifically about the relationship between the US government and the Russian government. Never mind what either of those governments does to its people. And I think it's a history of US cruelty to Russia. Well, could you be specific about some of those instances that you think aren't well known? Yeah, well, I think maybe the least well known in the United States, though it's known in, you know, to a much greater degree in Russia, is that right from the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the United States was funding one side was trying to blockade Russia. And by 1918 had led a dozen other nations in a military invasion of Russia to try to take sides in a Russian civil war, not just through Facebook, but through armed troops to try to turn back a revolution. And to this day, US journalists, officials, presidents will say our two countries have never been at war, and the Russians will spit out their coffee and say, what? You know, their tea, their vodka. What are you talking about? You know, because this was from day one, this turn many historians view turned the revolution itself in undesirable ways. And it was put under this threat. And then it was seen as an enemy by the United States that this socialist enemy, the threat to oligarchy, you know, from that day forward, troops were there until 1920 and gave up and pulled out. But through the 1930s, through the rise of Nazism in Germany, socialism, Russian communism was seen as the enemy. Senator Taft said better for the Nazis to win than the commies. Senator Truman, future president, said if the Russians are winning, let's help the Germans. And if the Germans are winning, let's help the Russians that way more die. And so through the course of World War Two, the real enemy was the ally, Russia, so that the United States, you know, got into the war. And then for two and a half years, had Russia begging and pleading for an invasion from the West, and the United States wouldn't do it, wanted the Russians to do most of the killing and dying, which they did. Weren't there a lot of American corporations also, you know, speaking of the oligarchy that we still have, weren't there a lot of American corporations helping the Nazis because of Russia? Indeed, right up to the war and right through the war and afterwards, major U.S. corporations, IBM, Ford, Standard Oil, I mean, were supplying absolutely necessary supplies, vehicles, fuel, metals to to the Nazis, without which they never could have done what they did. And the U.S. military and the U.S. government not only didn't hold these corporations responsible for treason and for violation of the Trading with the Enemies Act, but avoided bombing their their buildings in Germany and paid them damages when they did. And you know, so this is not how things would have gone against the Russian enemy. There's also two things you mentioned during that period of time. One really major, but, you know, destruction of human life that the U.S. did as threats to Russia that, you know, are just, you know, they're they're they're the hell that we hold at the heart of the U.S. and and you saying your article that those were both provoked in a way to show Russia who was strong. I think I know what you mean. And one would be Dresden, which people, you know, people need to realize that World War two turned war into something that kills mostly innocent civilians rather than what it had been up to World War two. And yet people still wonder at the extremity of the escalation in this conduct when the United States absolutely destroyed the city and the population of Dresden. And it becomes a little clearer why this happened when you find out that it was originally planned. It actually happened some days later, but it was originally planned for the first day of of the meeting in Yalta in Crimea between Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin. This was to be a message to Stalin that we can do this to you after the war. And the second thing I think you're asking about is is the use of nuclear weapons in Japan, which of course, I mean, there's there's no dispute if you look at the statements, public and private and the diaries of US officials at the time, the concern was to get the war against Japan ended before the Soviets came and got involved so that the United States would be the sole occupier of Japan after the war, as well as to demonstrate what they called nuclear diplomacy soon thereafter demonstrate the power of these nuclear weapons to the the future enemy, the the Soviets. Yeah, and you know, even Einstein and his diary said that the Germans had the capacity to use the nuclear bomb, but they didn't because of what they understood it would do. So it also reflects on who we are in the United States is what level of violence we we allowed, which is just horrific. While we're blaming Russia for so many things. I'll have to go read that comment from Einstein. I had not understood the Germans to have developed the nuclear weapon. They of course, may have D prioritized pursuing it. But I, I think D prioritized it because they knew what would happen. Yeah. Yeah, well, there certainly were scientists within Germany, including those working on it, who had those concerns as there were scientists in the United States, but not enough of them. They had those concerns and went right ahead with with regret in their hearts, which never saves any lives. So yeah, but I think the Nazis, it's it's important when the Nazis won't go farther, because this is the epitome of evil in US culture for for good reasons. And yet this war, World War two that after the fact is justified as saving the Jews from the Nazis, which at the time had nothing to do with it, killed 10 times the number of people in the war, as we're killed in the camps. And so, you know, but but the focus of this article was really to say, look at who was really the enemy in the minds of US officials through the course of the war. And right after when they started hiring hundreds of top Nazis into the US military and putting Nazis in power and reinstalling almost fascist governments in Italy and France and making sure West Germany wouldn't pay reparations payments to the Soviets and so on. I mean, on the day that the Nazis surrendered, Churchill proposed using Nazi troops together with Allied troops for a new war on the Soviet Union. And this was something that had been in the works that that US generals and British generals had been planning for they've been maneuvering partial German surrenders keeping the troops armed and ready. It didn't happen. But the Cold War happened and the Cold War was created by the US government. Well, so let's talk about the well, let's move to maybe Afghanistan. And maybe talk a little bit about what most people don't know about US provoking Russia a geopolitical war and using Afghanistan. Well, as being of Brzezinski brags slash confesses that the United States was involved in maneuvering the Soviet Union into Afghanistan to give it its own Vietnam, understanding the damage that the Vietnam War on Vietnam had done not just to Vietnam, but to the United States. And so the United States was arming, you know, the predecessors of of Al Qaeda, the Musa edin in Afghanistan before the Soviet Union was a reason for it. The intention was to pull the Soviet Union to provoke the Soviet Union into a war and then arm the other side. And so this was done. It's not a very friendly neighborly thing to do to the Russians, or to the Afghans, only to the weapons makers, only to the pursuers of global dominance. And then you have the United States maneuver Boris Yeltsin into power in Russia and brag about it. So, you know, collusion, manipulation, election hacking, all the rest of it is something to brag about and you impose this, you know, drunk corporate hack on the Russians. And then as the Cold War ended, the United States promised Mikhail Gorbachev NATO will not expand toward Russia. Well, it quickly begins expanding to Russia and over the past decades has expanded right up to Russia's borders and missiles have been put in and troops have been put in and threats have been made. So that Russia, you know, is surrounded by US weapons, then the US goes into Afghanistan with its own war in part motivated by the desire to put weapons in there, aimed at Russia. So, you know, you have the modern period, follow decades of consistent hostility toward Russia, regardless of whether it's communist or non communist has the Warsaw Pact or has abolished it, consistent hostility toward Russia. The Iran deal Russia wanted it, it's gone. The coup in Ukraine, orchestrated by Obama's government is assisted anyway by Obama's government and then now being armed again, literally Nazis being armed by the United States. While Trump is blaming Russia for controlling Germany, Russia being the one victor of World War Two that isn't still occupying Germany. Trump is blaming them for that. Russia is being blamed for shooting down airplanes for killing a guy in prison for using chemical weapons in in England. You know, you can't swear Russia is innocent of every charge. But it's innocent of most of them and you can't and there isn't any proof including of hacking and election. I mean, this week we got proof of collusion and election hacking from a guy named Michael Cohen, but Russia was nowhere to be seen in that story. So, you know, now it remains to be seen if anybody cares about it. So, why do you think the Cold War has been over for a very long time? We watch, I mean, you write about this a lot, David, and it feels like just another boogeyman and another reason to amp up the money we spend on war. Is that seem right? Yeah, I mean, when people thought that when the Cold War ended, US militarism would end because the Kami threat had gone away. I mean, that was sort of quaint. It was it was cute. It was it was easy to sympathize with. I would like that sort of thing to be true, but it was ridiculous. I mean, the Kami threat was largely manufactured. The Domino theory had no evidence behind it, you know, never happened. And the fear of the Kami's in little third world countries was, I mean, it's often non-existent or, you know, absolutely minimal. And so it was a reason to pursue. It was it was propaganda for US militarism, which is not to say that the that the Soviet government was a good one. It's just to say that the Soviet government was not actually trying to take over Nicaragua and invade Texas. You know, this didn't exist. And so when that went away, you needed you needed new propaganda. And you got the global war on terrorism, which is handy because terrorism can never go away. But that didn't didn't pan out as a way to sell as many weapons as as Russia or China, which, you know, again, are being promoted anew as the justification. And you have Pentagon officials openly telling journalists, this is this is about making money. This is about keeping NATO going. I mean, it's almost shameless. But this is this is where it comes from. Well, I encourage everyone to read your piece. Russia is our friend. And just your tongue in cheek of like, nobody would allow this behavior except for a friend. Really, I think opens minds up to what's going on here. But, you know, you have the world beyond war and we it could paint we're working on a new campaign together to go after the money. You know, really what you're describing is they're all just a bunch of lies that are propping up these industries that continue to benefit by we say make a killing on killing. And so you want to talk about what you're what will be on war is doing in the divest campaign? Well, we we are trying to ramp this up as you all at Code Pink are doing a wonderful job as well. And, you know, one focus we've put is is on public dollars. And so we're researching where local and state governments and pension funds in the United States are invested in major weapons companies. So the people who've done good things like teachers have their retirement depended on there being more wars so that, you know, the money in their retirement funds doesn't go away. And this is this is obscene. And and so we're figuring out where to target public officials to get the money out of the weaponry. But that's also a lie, by the way. So you don't get a better return on investment from weapons. And there's been studies done and they're on the divest website, our code pink slash divest that show that studies have been done and it doesn't bring you more money. And that argument is just bullshit. So we can't we can't allow that argument. And also, we know that the weapons are get to be produced because they get congress to vote for them. And the way they do that is get a piece of it developed in any congressional district and promise jobs. And for that amount of money, those jobs could fund another four teachers for the community instead. Yeah, no, I completely agree. My point was that if you're invested in the stocks of a weapons company, then your stocks go up or down with that weapons company. But if the U.S. government chose to invest in people or in green energy or in education or in infrastructure, it would actually benefit most of us who aren't CEOs of weapons companies far more that you know that the studies that I think you're referring to that you've done at the University of Massachusetts Amherst find that you get more jobs and better paying jobs and better economic impact from putting that money in other places or even never taxing it from working people in the first place. So military spending, taxing and military spending is literally a drain on the economy, which makes sense when you're making destructive stuff that has to be destroyed to make more of it. And when it's so unaccountable that you have analyses finding that the Pentagon over the past few decades has misplaced 21 trillion dollars, and you get laws passed that say it has to be audited and but they don't actually audit it. You know there's no way that this makes economic sense. But imagine what it sounds like to somebody around the world when they hear a U.S. Congress member say, well actually this is a jobs program, this pursuit of weapons with which to bomb you. I saw Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union just in recent years on a stage with Vladimir Putin say, Vladimir, those missiles were putting in your neighboring countries have nothing to do with you. It's just a jobs program for back in the States. Now Putin was rightly outraged. I would have loved for Putin to have in his hands one of these studies from Massachusetts Amherst to say, you know you actually would get more jobs if you weren't you know pursuing this sociopathic sort of jobs program. But I mean how disgusting, never mind false, that people justify militarism as a way to make jobs. Disgusting, right. And also if you just even look at the fear of communism which is taking social production and instead of private accumulation, social accumulation that benefits all is what we were afraid of. You know however that's attempted to be carried out while you're being bombed all the time. It's an interesting you know look at it that this is the fear and this is we've killed tens of thousands tens of millions of people because they were communists. Yeah. You know what they were trying to do is move the money to the people. It's an interesting also conundrum in that. It's a horrible, horrible legacy of the gun in 1917 right at this time. I mean I think Woodrow Wilson's done more damage to the world than Thomas Jefferson. I you know Charlottesville you know has a lot of apologies to make to the world but it really is a nice town and the Nazis aren't from here. You know it's something we've got to break away from this this idea that that because a country is going to try however imperfectly to help people rather than an oligarchy it has to be an enemy and not just an enemy but a place where you go and impose an oligarchy and corrupt corporate cronyism back in the 1990s and brag about it openly despite the horrible damage that that did you know if there was a way to make people regret the collapse of the Soviet Union that was it. It's just like the neocon plan for Iraq that very quickly had people regretting the loss of Saddam Hussein. I mean you're imposing something worse than the horrors you're using to justify militarism. Nothing can justify militarism. Thank you. And where's the lie? So thank you David Swanson for being with us. Just one more thing like how do people engage with World Beyond War? Go to worldbeyondwar.org. Click where it says sign the declaration of peace. We were just discussing earlier Jodi people have have signed in I think 173 countries and we'd like to get those last couple dozen remaining countries so spread the word around the world and sign the declaration of peace at worldbeyondwar.org. And you can join us in our divest campaign at codepink.org backslash divest. Onward to peace.