Ukraine: Senseless Conflict, by Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Those old enough to remember when President Clinton's penis was a big news item will also remember the "Peace Dividend," that the world was going to be able to cash now that that nasty cold war was over. But guess what? Those spies didn't want to come in from the Cold, so while the planet is heating up, the political environment is dropping to sub-zero temperatures. It's deja vu all over again.

Ukraine: Senseless Conflict, by Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Postby admin » Mon Dec 12, 2022 10:52 pm

Ukraine: Senseless Conflict
by Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Radio Hour
November 26, 2022

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 455 TRANSCRIPT
Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan, along
with my co-host, David Feldman. Hello, David.
David Feldman: Hello, Steve.
Steve Skrovan: And we have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hi. Program on war and peace right down to Ukraine.
Steve Skrovan: This week, Americans marked Thanksgiving by welcoming people into their
home, sharing food, and reflecting on their good fortune. The Thanksgiving narrative relies on a
fictional foundation story, though. Our earliest European settlers were as likely to rob, kill and
displace the first Americans as they were to sit down and break bread with them. Since then,
America's military industrial complex has flourished alongside corn, beans, and squash. We
waste a lot in war, but there've always been people standing up for the ideals of cooperation,
sharing, wisdom, and making peace. So today, we'll be speaking with peace activists, Medea
Benjamin and David Swanson.
Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of CODEPINK and has been an advocate for social justice for
more than 40 years. She was one of 1,000 women from 140 countries nominated to receive the
Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace
worldwide. She has organized opposition to brutal conditions in US overseas sweatshops,
campaigned for normalized relations with Cuba, and led delegations to Yemen, Pakistan, Gaza,
and North Korea to reform human rights abuses. She's written 10 books, turning a critical eye to
drone warfare, the US-Saudi alliance, and US-Iran relations. And in her newest book, War in
Ukraine, she takes on America's latest proxy war. What will it take to look beyond the good
versus evil dichotomy, deescalate the conflict and save lives? We'll find out in the first part of
today's program.
And we've also invited our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, to join our interview with
Medea to weigh in on the role of Congress with respect to NATO. And as promised, we'll
continue on the anti-war thing with our second guest, David Swanson, who is the executive
director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. He is a
lifelong peace activist who is going to share his thoughts on what the public thinks about war
once they are told the truth about what's really at stake and where the money is going. He'll also
give us his insights on how war profiteering used to be shameful and is now normalized, and
how foreign aid used to be food and medicine but is now mainly guns and ammo.
As always, somewhere in the middle, we'll check in with our Corporate Crime Reporter, Russell
Mokhiber. But first, does the US really need another proxy war? No. No, we don't. David?
David Feldman: Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led group CODEPINK and
the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. Her most recent book, coauthored
with Nicolas J.S. Davies, is War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.
Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Medea Benjamin.
Medea Benjamin: Hi. Thanks so much. Good to be on with you.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, welcome indeed, Medea. This subject of the Ukraine war is dividing the
liberal and progressive constituency in the US. There are a lot of closed minds here because of
the horror of the invasion by Russia, and the closed minds are often due to a lack of historical
context and other aggressive roles. Don't excuse Russia's invasion, but that's what your book is
all about, is to provide the context. So the question I want to pose you must be preceded by this
excerpt from your book. Just so people don't immediately prejudge what you were writing about.
On Page 18, Medea Benjamin and her coauthor Nicholas J.S. Davies say this, "In our view, the
Russian invasion of Ukraine was not only criminal, but also a catastrophic move and a terrible
miscalculation. But we also believe that the western nations’ treatment of Russia in the decades
following the demise of the Soviet Union was a policy mistake of epic proportions. “NATO
expansion" – that's the alliances of the eastern European countries bordering Ukraine – "NATO
expansion was a disaster waiting to happen, as seasoned politicians, diplomats and academics
warned," including American diplomat and historian George Kennan, I might add. "The people
of Ukraine were unwittingly caught in a perfect storm, whipped up not only by brutal Russian
aggression but also by astonishing Western hubris and stupidity."
Okay, with that background, open your minds, listeners. No matter what side you're on, we have
to start somewhere historically. I think the best time to start is 1990 when the Soviet Union
collapsed and everybody was talking about a peace dividend, the end of the Cold War. Why don't
you start there, Medea?
Medea Benjamin: Yes. Nice to be on with you, Ralph. And it astounds me that people don't
want to give any context as if this war just fell from the sky. When the Soviet Union collapsed
and there was an agreement between the US and the Soviets that NATO would not expand, that
is something that was well known by people in the US government and written about by all kinds
of U.S. officials and yet disregarded by US administrations, both Democrat under Bill Clinton
and Republican under Bush, as those expansions happened, and not only incorporated countries
that were allies of the Soviet Union but were actually part of the Soviet Union. And when people
say, well, that wasn't really a problem. We say go back and read the voices, like you said, of
George Kennan or of CIA Director today, William Burns, who was so clear over the years
saying, "This is a red line that has been crossed. This is going to lead to some terrible results."
So it is important to understand, especially now when you look at 200 years of the Monroe
Doctrine in the United States where we said we will not let outside powers, and especially
adversarial ones, come into our sphere of influence, how this affected Russia over the years
seeing the NATO expansion, US bases, US nuclear weapons in five European countries. This
was obviously something that affected the mindset of the leaders of Russia and they felt was
something that was an existential threat to their security.
Ralph Nader: And a lot of people in this country don't have the proper collective empathy. If
we had a northern border that had the experience of the western border of Russia in World War I
and World War II, we wouldn't engage in any niceties; that can be guaranteed. The German
invasions of Russia in World War I and World War II took over 50 million Russian civilian
lives, destroyed complete cities, massive bloodshed. So you can see that regardless of Putin's
motivations, he knew he could tap into that memory among the Russian people who still mourn
their relatives and pay homage to the monuments throughout Russia, reflecting those two wars of
aggression.
Now the peace dividend, I remember everybody was talking about the peace dividend i.e., the
Soviet Union collapsed. Now, we can shrink the military budget. We can disarm more. We can
put the money back into communities and rebuild and restore America’s public works or socalled infrastructure. We didn’t count on the profit motive of what Eisenhower warned about--
the determined, deliberate, limitless greed and power of the military industrial complex. And one
of their tools was to turn NATO, which was started as a military alliance against the Soviet
Union, into a runaway operation whereas you say in your book, the United States and its allies
developed new rationales to use military force even more freely and widely across the world,
leading to catastrophic wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Palestine,
Libya, Syria, and Yemen. And many of these military operations blatantly violated the UN
Charter, which especially prohibits, "the threat or use of force except in self-defense" or when
the UN Security Council authorizes its use "to restore international peace and security." So all
right, we've provided some of this context. Let's go to 2014 and 2015. 2015 being the Minsk
Accords, and 2014 being a very tumultuous year. Start there.
Medea Benjamin: Well, as we go into great detail in the book, we explain that in 2014 there
was a grassroots nonviolent populist uprising against a corrupt leader. And that was turned into
something very different with the militarization of that peaceful uprising by extremist groups and
by US interference. You know, Ralph, we have a history of US making coups in countries
around the world and it's oftentimes decades after those coups that we find out the information
about the extent of US involvement. That will be the case, and this one as well. But we do have
that amazing leaked conversation by Victoria Nuland, who is amazingly still in a position of
power today, where she talks to the US ambassador in Ukraine about their machinations for
getting the leader out of power and putting in a US handpicked leader. So there you have it; US
direct interference in the internal affairs of another country starting in 2014 resulting in putting in
a pro-Western leader was that the Russian-speaking areas of Donbas, there was a breakaway
republics and civil war starting in that region. And as soon as the civil War started, you see the
US pouring in weapons, went from defensive weapons to offensive weapons in 2015, training a
Ukrainian military at the level of 10,000 a year and basically setting the stage for Ukraine to be
even more of a fighting force for a potential war with Russia. And in a time when almost
simultaneously the US has been accusing Russia of interfering in US elections that brought
Donald Trump to power, it's quite extraordinary and important to look back at this history and
see the US direct interference in the hand-picking of the president/the leader of Ukraine.
Ralph Nader: And people should know that in the eastern provinces, like the Donbas Province,
about half the population is Russian, which of course was a much important factor in the civil
strife there.
Medea Benjamin: And discriminated against, not being able to use Russian in the public
schools, not being able to have a free media in the Russian language. So yes, not only Russianspeaking but not treated equally.
Ralph Nader: And the other point is Victoria Nuland is now back in the State Department and
she is a powerful figure in the Biden Administration, probably urging him to be very aggressive.
What's her role now?
Medea Benjamin: Well, yes, Victoria Nuland had played such a horrific role in Ukraine and
continues through Democratic and Republican administrations to somehow maintain herself in
positions of power after having had a large amount of responsibility for the conflict there. And it
is interesting to see the relationship that she has had with Biden over the years where she invokes
Biden's name in the machinations that were going on in 2014 that we needed his help. So
whether it was Biden as the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee or Biden as vicepresident and now Biden as president, he has played a very key role in this conflict as well. And
keeping Victoria Nuland in his administration I think is a tremendous mistake and one that has
been responsible for keeping the US from having ongoing talks with Russia during this time to
try to come to a solution to this conflict.
Ralph Nader: Well, what's happening is just what George Kennan warned about. He thought it
was a total diplomatic disaster to connect Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Poland into military
alliances with the NATO members. And you can see how uneasy the Russians were regardless of
Putin, like here they come again. They had serious weapons less than 100 miles from this
Russian border; as we speak, military exercises. What do you think the Russians, apart from
Putin, are going to be thinking at that time? Describe the Minsk Accords.
Medea Benjamin: Well, the Minsk Accords were something that actually brought a certain
level of peace to the region. The level of fighting that was going on in 2014 died down
significantly once the Minsk agreement was agreed upon in 2015. And 1300 monitors and staff
from the security organization of Europe came in to be part of the implementation of those
Minsk Accords. Unfortunately, the political side of the Minsk agreement, which is that the
people in the Donbas region were going to be able to have a referendum to decide if they would
be autonomous to be given the chance to have meetings directly with the head of/president of
Ukraine, that political side of the agreement, was never implemented, because every time a
leader of Ukraine, including Zelenskyy, who campaigned as wanting to implement those accords
and speak to the leaders of the breakaway region, tried to do it, they were threatened by the
extreme right. Zelenskyy threatened that he would be hanging from a tree if indeed he went
ahead and implemented the accords. So the accords are something that are important to look
back on, because as we look forward to solutions, while Zelenskyy himself said there will not be
a new Minsk Accord, in the end, if there is an agreement, it will look similar to that in which the
people of Donbas will have a chance to decide for themselves whether they want to be an
autonomous region inside of Ukraine, whether they want to be independent or whether they want
to be part of Russia. That is for them to determine, not under military conditions like has
happened recently in what I would call sham referendum, but in internationally monitored
referendum.
Ralph Nader: What people don't know is that Joe Biden doesn't have the authority to trigger the
provision in NATO which says impliedly, "An attack on one member of NATO is an attack on
all members of NATO," without defining what attack means, an errant missile or an outright
invasion. And as Bruce Fein has pointed out repeatedly, Joe Biden doesn't have the authority to
do this. Why don't you explain, Bruce.
Bruce Fein: Well, there are two foundations for that conclusion, Ralph. First of all, NATO has
a Section 11; you got to read the whole treaty. Section 11 says the NATO sanctions are not selfexecuting, that they will be implemented according to the respective constitutional processes of
the respective signatories. In the US, our constitutional process is entrusted exclusively to
Congress, the authority to go to war, even without, however, Section 11. You remember the
"declare war" clause means – and James Wilson, who was the delegate at the convention stressed
this – that both the House and the Senate must approve moving from peace to war. A treaty only
involves the Senate, not the House. And James Wilson made it very clear at the Convention that
the Senate and the President together cannot decide to go to war. So these claims and assertions
of President Biden are totally false. I would just add this as well, when we talk about NATO
expansion, it's not simply the complicity of the President. NATO expansion only happened
because the Senate ratified the inclusion of all of these new countries in amending the NATO
treaty. So Congress is a partner with the President in flouting the pledges to Gorbachev (at the
time) against further NATO expansion east after the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet
Union, just another example of congressional dereliction.
Medea Benjamin: Well, can I add something about how Congress is entrusted with approving
the money for this war, and when the $40 billion package came before Congress in September,
there was not one Democrat that opposed it, but there were 57 Republicans in the House and 11
senators who did vote against it. Now there's another $37 billion that the White House has asked
for that will be coming up soon, and unfortunately, we can expect that not one Democrat will
stand up against that either, not even calling for auditing of that money, as Rand Paul has done
and as there is a call for in the House from the Republican side as well. And that shows that war
is unfortunately is also partisan issue. So when it's a Democrat in the White House, the
Democrats are supposed to all fall in line. And when it's a Republican in the White House,
maybe our progressive Democrats wouldn't be shut down when 30 of them signed a letter calling
for negotiations and then within 24 hours had to withdraw it because of pressure from the Party
itself. And that's why it's so important that we build a people's movement that is not connected to
partisan politics, but puts the pressure on all of our elected officials, and especially those who are
supposed to represent us in Congress, to say stop this blank check that will be over $100 billion
by year’s end to a war that the people inside the Pentagon say is not winnable on the battlefield.
Ralph Nader: And before we extend that comment of yours, Medea, the Congress is starving
the budget, the public health budget, for pandemic response and other public health menaces that
are taking thousands of lives of the American people every week. So that always has to be kept
in mind.
We're talking to Medea Benjamin, who has been one of the most prolific ad hoc witnesses at
congressional hearings before being escorted out. They would almost never allow her to be a
formal witness at a congressional hearing. She was the founder and head of one of the major
peace activist movements in America. You can only sense this, Bruce, who was invited 200
times to testify. And as far as I know, you were never escorted out of the committee.
Bruce Fein: No, not once although I witnessed Medea being escorted out.
Ralph Nader: The title of the book is War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict by
Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies. All right, so you're a mobilizer, Medea. What do you
think of the sequence? They rose up temporarily and blocked Obama from moving into Syria.
That was a bipartisan effort that turned members of Congress around and they told Obama no,
both Republicans and Democrats. What do you see as the movement here in the USA?
Medea Benjamin: Well, I think on the right there are organizations, both libertarian and what's
called the new right, that are mobilizing. In fact, when those 57 Republicans voted against the
$40 billion package, many of them said it was because they were hearing from their base. And I
think it's important to recognize that Trump, as he is going around the country and using social
media, and even when he made his speech saying that he was going to run for president again,
talked about the issue of Ukraine, saying that if he were president, he would talk to Putin and the
war would be over, which is something that Biden refuses to do. And people like Tucker Carlson
on Fox News are calling for negotiations. On the progressive side, we have people who are going
and meeting with their members of Congress. It's why 30 of them signed on to this letter that was
unfortunately rescinded. But that will keep going. And we're working in other sectors. For
example, right now we have a letter that we wanted to get 100 religious leaders to sign,
introduced it three days ago, and we've way surpassed that. And it's calling for a Christmas truce
like happened in 1914 during World War I. We have people in the environmental community
that are able to mobilize large numbers of people, especially young people, and we're talking to
them about the need to join forces because this war has been catastrophic not only for Ukraine
environmentally, but also for the planet, because of the green light it's given to other countries to
try to be the ones to substitute for the energy that's being boycotted in Russia.
So we are looking sector by sector about how to mobilize and put pressure on our Congress and
directly on the White House, because I think that it's the only way that we, in this country, can
use our influence. And we must do it. We must build up an antiwar movement that is able to go
to both the Democrats and Republicans and say this hundred billion dollars, we need to be used
for X, Y, and Z. On the right they might say, to be fiscally responsible. On the left they might
say to deal with the climate crisis or the lack of healthcare. Anybody can say what they think that
money should go towards. But I think there has to be a unified growing cry to say that it
shouldn't be for keeping a war going in which it's the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying and
that that is not acceptable to us.
Ralph Nader: Well, I think the message from our listeners has got to be to the senators and
representatives--negotiations now, negotiations now. Actually the Ukrainians and Russians met
in the early weeks of the Russian invasion in Turkey and they started negotiating. It's not like
they're ironclad opposed to negotiation because Ukrainians know what's coming in the winter
and the Russians know how it's deep-sixing more and more of their economic necessities. And of
course, the larger aura of dread here is the conflict going out of control and spiraling into the use
of nuclear weaponry.
Medea Benjamin: People should be terrified at the war that's going on now and at the
possibility of this expanding to a nuclear confrontation. When we saw the missile that landed in
Poland, and unfortunately killed two people, that was a moment when I was holding my breath
and saying, “Uh-oh, this is what we've been dreading. This is going to invoke Article 4 of NATO
that would then lead to Article 5 of NATO and could lead to a direct confrontation with the
West.” And fortunately, that did not happen because it seemed that that missile did not come
from Russia. But it could easily happen. We know what the fog of war is all about and that,
whether intentionally or unintentionally, this could go beyond the borders of Ukraine very easily.
And if you push Putin into a corner, as JFK said in reflecting on the missile crisis of 1962 in his
talks with Khrushchev, never in a confrontation with a nuclear power put them in the position of
either a humiliating retreat or the use of nuclear weapons. And that is such an important
reflection to think on today, that while the West might want to, and of course Ukraine, push
Putin into a corner, he's not going to leave with his tail between his legs and just go home. He
has staked his entire reputation on this.
And one more thing, Ralph, in terms of the possibility of negotiations, let's remember those
negotiations in March and April actually were coming to a 15-point plan that looked very
positive until the West, in the form of Boris Johnson and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,
came and torpedoed those negotiations. In the meantime, as the war has dragged on, there have
been negotiations around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, negotiations around the grain deal,
getting grain out of Ukraine, negotiations in prisoner swaps. And so negotiations are possible.
The two sides are extremely far apart now, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying we want every
inch of Ukraine back, including Crimea. The Russians have pretended they now have an
expanded area along the Donbas. And these two sides are positions for negotiating. And that's
why we have to get involved, and do what we can do as US citizens to say that we want our
elected representatives to call for a ceasefire and negotiations.
Ralph Nader: Exactly, listeners, ceasefire plus negotiations. That's the couplet that you have to
send to your senators and representatives. Do you think there may be a silver lining for this
cliffhanger victory by the Republicans in the House of Representatives that they may have
serious hearings on US policy on Ukraine, and stop allowing the policy of the US to be reposited
in the hands of one person, in this case Joe Biden, who doesn't really talk about the congressional
role in initiating the war under the Constitution as he's obligated to. What do you look forward to
with this motley crew that's about to take over the House of Representatives.
Medea Benjamin: Well, it's interesting that Kevin McCarthy said there won't be a blank check,
but then he's kind of walked back on that. While Mitch McConnell in the Senate is every much
of a hawk as the Democrats are right now calling for more and more money for Ukraine. I think
the money will unfortunately sail through Congress during this lame duck session. And then if
we don't build a strong enough movement against it, it will keep going. The 57 who voted
against that package earlier on don't represent the mainstream of the Republicans who are into
this war, just as the Democrats are. I think there will be some hearings and that will be positive. I
think there are calls for auditing where that money is going, which is positive. But in the end, I
think it's going to take a couple of things. One is a groundswell from below and the other is that
there is growing division inside of Europe itself, with the majority in Germany right now who
are really feeling the effect of the sanctions, calling for negotiations. There will be stronger calls
and more European countries that are feeling the real pinch of the blowback of these sanctions.
That kind of division within Europe will be helpful in moving us towards a more realistic
position.
Two silver linings that I want to say if there is anything from this brutal, horrific war is that more
people know now what NATO is. Before it was very hard to do any organizing against NATO
because people had no idea what it is. And maybe we can build a stronger movement with our
European allies to show NATO as not the defensive organization it's portrayed, but as the
offensive, dangerous alliance that we should try to dismantle. And the other is nuclear weapons.
And to be getting out educating people that there is a UN ban on nuclear weapons right now and
that we must build up the power of people to get their countries to join that ban, especially the
countries that are nuclear powers. So those are two big things that we can work on after we end
this war.
Ralph Nader: Could you tell our listeners of a little vignette when one of your colleagues went
to a meeting between the political journalism group and Lockheed Martin just very recently?
Medea Benjamin: Yes, she got up on the stage with the sign that says, "Lockheed Loves War,"
and started talking about what real security is about dealing with the climate, with people's health
and not with making wars, and how Lockheed profits from war and destruction and death. And it
was a great example of getting up in the face of power. We've been talking about how
CODEPINK has been going into Congress for years. We can't even get into Congress anymore
because now they're using the excuse of the January 6th uprising and COVID to not let people
into the people's house unless you have a prior meeting; quite telling that Politico, that calls itself
a journal of reporters, is sponsored by the military. They even say it every time "This comes to
you by Lockheed Martin." "This comes to you by Northrop Grumman." "This comes to you by
Boeing." There's no separation between Politico and the merchants of death. So yes, it's
important to get up there and call it out whenever we have the opportunity.
Ralph Nader: I can feel the vibes from Steve and David. They want in. Steve?
Steve Skrovan: I just want to pick up on the corporate angle because that's what we do on this
show. It's my understanding that if you sign on to NATO, you need to have NATO-approved
weaponry or at least coordinated with other NATO countries. So that seems to be a huge spur to
signing up more and more countries because the weapons makers make all of that money. Can
you just confirm or elaborate on that for me?
Medea Benjamin: Absolutely. They call it interoperability. They have to be able to work
together with the same kind of weapons, which was one of the reasons they said Ukraine would
have to wait to be incorporated into NATO because they had a lot of Russian weapons. It's a
tremendous boon, not only forcing them to buy their weapons from the United States or each of
the Western companies, but also it's to spend more of their money on weapons. So 2% of your
gross domestic product is supposed to be spent on the military according to the goals of NATO.
And there are so many countries in Europe where the people have been fighting back and say we
want our money to go for healthcare; we want our money to go for college education. We don't
want it to go to militarization. And yet NATO's goal is to get all 40 NATO members to spend
more money on the military.
Bruce Fein: Finland and Sweden came in recently without any opposition whatsoever. It was
actually virtually unanimous in the Senate. There was a couple of abstentions, but that was it.
Two new opportunities to sell US weapons now to new countries.
Ralph Nader: David?
David Feldman: Thank you. Medea, last year at this time, President Biden spent Thanksgiving
in the home of David Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group. Is David Rubenstein a war
profiteer? And could you tell us the specific names of the war profiteers advising Joe Biden?
Medea Benjamin: Well, I focus on the ones who actually make the weapons, like Lockheed
Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Atomics, and Raytheon. You
don't have to look very far because these people are all over the White House. They're in the
White House. Let's recognize that Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, came from the board of
Raytheon. And we have had other secretaries of defense and secretaries of state that come
directly from these weapons companies. They are everywhere and of course, make their money
from investing in these companies. But it's all so intertwined because they aren’t the ones that
make the policies, but they certainly have a lot of influence in making them.
Ralph Nader: The book is War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict by Medea
Benjamin and Nicholas J Davies. Medea Benjamin is arguably one of the top peace advocates in
the country. She has been arrested in peaceful protests and dragged away. She has highlighted
sweetheart congressional hearings that excluded the public. Thank you very much, Medea
Benjamin. Thank you very much, Bruce Fein. To be continued.
Steve Skrovan: We have been speaking with Medea Benjamin. We will link to her book, War
in Ukraine, at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Up next, we're going to ask the question, is there a
world beyond war? But right now we're going to check in with our Corporate Crime Reporter,
Russell Mokhiber.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your
Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, November 25, 2022. I'm Russell
Mokhiber.
The watchdog group, Better Markets, is calling for an investigation into the Commodities
Futures Trading Commission’s push for crypto friendly legislation. The CFTC chair is using
scare tactics to push Congress into blindly passing crypto friendly legislation that installs a weak
regulator as quickly as possible even before anyone has examined how that regulator, the CFTC,
has already failed to do its job to regulate FTX before anyone even knows how FTX (Field
Training Exercise) imploded, much less how that might have been avoided by new legislation,
said Better Markets CEO Dennis Kelleher. For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell
Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I'm Steve
Skrovan, along with David Feldman and Ralph. As we continue on our theme of anti-war, our
next guest insists that we can live in a world beyond war. David?
David Feldman: David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, radio host, and Nobel Peace
Prize nominee. He is executive director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for
RootsAction.org. His books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War.
Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, David Swanson.
David Swanson: Honored to be here. Thank you very much.
Ralph Nader: Indefatigable David Swanson. First question, tell us what your knowledge is
about public opinion polls for peace and against war, both generally and on military budget
against spending the money on public works here. Let's give our listeners some idea of where
people are coming from when they're polled on these subjects.
David Swanson: Well, not my area of expertise, but I have looked at some of them in recent
months and years and decades. And of course, for decades now, the general response of the US
public, when asked, has been in favor of moving money out of militarism and into things like
education and the environment. And there was an institute at the University of Maryland that
used to sit people down and tell them some useful information and then ask them again. And
when people were shown the federal budget, overwhelming majorities dramatically wanted to
move lots of money out of militarism and into education, environment, et cetera. In terms of
Ukraine, if you ask Gallup and Reuters and some of these big corporate polling companies that
always angle their questions a little bit in favor of what they're looking to get, they get majorities
wanting to keep the money flowing, the weapons flowing to Ukraine.
If you look at groups like Data for Progress that have given people a teeny bit of information and
asked a little more probing questions, you find that to be quite shaky and there to be fertile
ground for resisting the endless flow of money into Ukraine. The way that I misspoke is
something that drives me crazy when millions of people do it, because of course most of the
money never leaves the United States or even the Washington, D.C. suburban area. It mostly
flows in the form of free weapons to Ukraine. So when you see these videos contrasting all the
money going to Ukraine and the homelessness problem and the poverty problem in the United
States, we shouldn't imagine this money as benefiting the people of Ukraine at the expense of
benefiting the people of the United States. It's exacerbating and prolonging a war that is
devastating the people of Ukraine. And if you look at public opinion polls in Ukraine, you cannot
of course, poll the people who have fled in huge numbers and the people who have tried to, and
the people who are afraid to say what's on their minds because of the sort of society they're now
living in during this war, you find much higher numbers, very close to 50%, wanting ceasefire
and negotiations in the areas of Ukraine where the fighting is happening. And you find much
stronger support for the war in the parts of Ukraine that are farther from the war.
Ralph Nader: You make an interesting point, David, about informing people before you poll
them, because years ago there was a lot of opposition to foreign aid in public opinion polls. And
someone decided to poll people and ask them what percent of our economy do you think is
devoted to foreign aid. And the major answer came in at 15%, when the actual number was less
than 1%. So when people realize that less than 1% is going to foreign aid, much of it, as you say,
back into contracts for US companies, suddenly the opposition to foreign aid declined
significantly. So we need more informative polling, not just setting something like do you
believe in peace through strength? Who's going to say no to that? Tell us what you're doing now,
David Swanson, you're at the hub of a lot of the peace movement in this country, anti-war
movement over the years. Tell us what you're doing now.
David Swanson: I was just going to say, imagine if you also told those people that unlike other
countries' foreign aid, some 40% of US foreign aid is weapons, not the usual conception of aid.
It's not food or medicine, it's weapons. And that the US is the top supplier of weapons to brutal
oppressive governments, dictatorships, as well as so-called democracies around the world. So
one thing I do is try to talk to people about the things you aren't allowed to say. You watched the
whole spectrum of US media this week, from right to left, with the left being something like a
John Oliver video denouncing FIFA for having the World Cup soccer tournament in a place like
Qatar that has enslaved labor and abuses women and abuses gay people. And nowhere,
including there, can there be any mention of the fact that the US military maintains permanent
bases in Qatar, props up a brutal dictatorship there, sells them billions of dollars of weapons
every year, funds their military with US tax dollars, buys huge quantities of oil from there, and of
course, similarly has bases and troops in every country neighboring. And you're not allowed to
say that, even though it fits exactly into the topic you're reporting on. So one thing we just did
this past week at World BEYOND War was published a tool where you can scroll around the
globe and zoom in and get the details on any of nearly 900 US military bases that are outside of
the United States.
Ralph Nader: And what's the website?
David Swanson: This is at worldbeyondwar.org. And then click for the section on bases.
Ralph Nader: During the Iraq war and Afghanistan war, we would see full-page ads in the
Washington Post by anti-war groups. One was called the World Can't Wait, and we don't see
those anymore. What's going on? Is the anti-war movement getting weaker, getting more budgetrestricted or what?
David Swanson: That's certainly a big part of it and has been since around '07, '08 when, as you
know, the Democratic Party shifted its resources into electing Obama, and before that, whoever
the nominee would be. And a couple of professors who interviewed peace activists at rallies and
not at rallies for years, and wrote a book called Party in the Streets, determined the major factor
in the rise of peace activism in '02 through '06 and declined thereafter, was party identification. If
the Democratic Party was pretending or somehow honestly opposing war, people would oppose
war. And when the Democratic Party wasn't opposing war, people wouldn't oppose war. And so
there was a loyalty to party identity that weakened loyalty to a position in favor of peace.
I have mixed thoughts on dumping huge amounts of money into something as awful as the New
York Times. But World BEYOND War has just dumped some money much smaller than that into
the Washington, D.C. metro system. There will be ads in the Metro Center metro station now
saying Peace on Earth with worldbeyondwar.org at the bottom. And I have to confess, we did
that because I was certain they would refuse. And we could try to get a news story out of the fact
that you couldn't say peace on earth, because the general rule is, with billboard companies, with
the metro station ads and all kinds of other advertising fora, you can't buy an ad if it can be
characterized in any way in the broadest possible sense as political, or if it's not selling a product,
you just can't. So you can have the Pentagon metro full of ads for fighter jets and Capitol Hill
metro full of ads for fighter jets, but you generally can't put up something; you certainly can't put
up something that says end this war. I didn't think we would get away with Peace on Earth
during the holiday season. But we did. So there is a little bit of advertising going on.
Ralph Nader: Well, I always look at trends in civic mobilization, David, and it seems to me
that the trends are reducing the influence of the peace movement. You have Congress being
closed out now. As Medea pointed out, you can't really go into Congress and go door-to-door.
You have to get a special dispensation by a member of Congress. You have a situation where the
membership of these groups is shrinking. You remember the tremendous number of people who
supported the moratorium, the nuclear freeze under Reagan; you don't have anything close to the
200 to 300 thousand people who marched in Washington in 2004 and 2005 against the criminal
war in Iraq by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. You have almost no champions in Congress.
You had a unanimous Democratic Party, as we discussed earlier, supporting appropriations for
Ukraine.
Usually you have people like Senator Wayne Morse or Congressman Dennis Kucinich or
Congressman Walter Jones. You don't have anybody anymore who's willing to stand up and give
you a foothold, and you certainly don't have any congressional hearings on tap. I'm just pointing
to a few of these now. You have less attention by the press; even the independent media doesn't
seem to be as interested as they were years ago. Give us your view on all this. Do you see sort of
a closing out trend here?
David Swanson: I think the Iraq syndrome on the model of what the Vietnam syndrome was
where opposition to war is an illness, wore off. There were years when you couldn't elect
somebody like Biden or Hillary Clinton or John Kerry. There was a problem with having
supported the war on Iraq because some truths about it came out in such a powerful way. That
wore off. I got this email yesterday from the National Endowment for Democracy just
celebrating the brilliance of having moved from fighting these wars with US men and women,
with lives that matter at risk, in what they called inhospitable countries, like these countries that
were not really democracies and were just really not grateful for being bombed and occupied, to
instead shipping weapons to a democracy like Ukraine. I mean, the pretense that Ukraine is some
sort of democracy is really central here, where they would use the weapons and the US would
thereby be spreading democracy without risking any lives that matter, just fighting to the last
Ukrainian and Russian. And this is what they've done. They've made war something that
involves no US lives – or Congress members' families or otherwise, or very, very few, and not
officially a US war –and they've made it all about assisting a "struggling little democracy"
against a "brutal authoritarian dictatorship." And it has been the most phenomenal propaganda
success I can recall or have read about in history.
I mean, you went in a matter of weeks back in February, from people who couldn't find Ukraine
on the globe to people whose first topic of conversation when they came up to you, even
strangers, was all about Ukraine and the need to help Ukraine. And to this day, you have half the
peace activists who are still showing up at peace things as peace activists supporting war on
Ukraine. So yes, there's a problem with Congress; the Progressive Caucus is a disaster.
Congresswoman Jayapal just came out for Biden being president next time as well. There's not a
single Congress member for peace, but there's a problem outside of Congress as well and in the
media as you know very well.
Ralph Nader: Well, what's your take on the extension of the US empire in the Middle East
through the US blank checks support for Israel over the years, and now Israel feels it can bomb
and destroy any site anywhere in the Lebanon, Syria. They've gone into Syria by their own
admission hundreds of times with their jet bombers. You know what they're doing in Iran and
Iraq and they're everywhere. I mean, they feel like it's their zone of influence. And a lot of the
US peace movement is not aligning with Peace Now, which has actually more members than
some of the more pro-Israeli military groups in the US. And there is a collaboration between
Palestinian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Jewish-Americans to try to restrain the spread of
militarism that the US is so involved in with billions of dollars, diplomatic support and other
means in Israel and the neighboring countries.
And it's getting even more difficult because Israel's concluding agreements with some of these
dictators that you pointed out in the surrounding areas and this could be a real obstacle to any
kind of mobilization in the US. What's your take on all this?
David Swanson: Well, I agree with how you framed it and I do think there are horrendously
negative developments in terms of the impossibility of any two-state solution and the delusional
pursuit of it, and the incredible expanse of settlements and militarization of Israeli society and
culture. There are some positive developments in terms of US public opinion and awareness and
information, particularly among young people, but then there's pushback. Jeremy Corbin would
have been a peace activist prime minister if it were impossible to call someone an anti-Semite
unless they actually were an anti-Semite. McCarthy is trying to remove two Democrats from the
armed so-called Services Committee. One of them is Schiff for the crime of lying, which is great
but who would be left if they did that consistently? And the other is Ilhan Omar for being an
anti-Semite despite not being an anti-Semite. So this is their tactic now that we're up against. I
think that there are some important positive steps. I'm happy to give you millions of negative
ones as well. I'm not trying to sell optimism here, but the fact that the peace movement and
public pressure were a big factor in stopping a massive bombing of Syria in 2015, and European
pressure and the vote in Parliament in that year that led Barack Obama to admit the last thing any
of them ever want to admit, and that is that public pressure had an impact and they didn't bomb
every inch of Syria. That's a good thing. And every time there's an urgent push for a war on Iran
and it doesn't happen, makes it a little bit easier to say we don't need it the next time they push
for that. But memories don't last. And if people remembered what they knew about the war on
Iraq some years back, we would be in a much better situation now. And so we have to keep alive
what people manage to learn, what whistleblowers take great risks to expose about past wars
when they come up with these new ones, or we're never going to survive.
Ralph Nader: Well, your point about pushback is true, because every time there's an effort to
promote a more peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, there's all kinds of
retaliation. About 20 years ago, when Israeli bulldozers, maybe less than 20 years ago, maybe 15
years ago when Israeli bulldozers were collectively punishing Palestinian families by
demolishing homes, 400 rabbis in the US, many of them from significant synagogues, protested,
citing Judaic philosophy about destroying homes and collective punishment--four hundred. And
they were given good publicity at the time in the New York Times and elsewhere. And after that,
no one heard anything more from them. Well, you can imagine what the pushback was. So how
do you deal with pushback when people do act courageously and morally and step forward, and
then all kinds of strictures come in on them? If they're in the business world, they start losing
their business contacts. And if they're in the university world, they may not get tenure. There are
all kinds of subtle ways to retaliate and shut people up. How do you deal with that?
David Swanson: I think we have to celebrate courageous acts of truth speaking even by people
and groups that we disagree with on many things. And we have to go after those who attack
them, groups like the Anti-Defamation League that engage in defamation of the better members
of the US Congress. I know it's a very low bar, but the better members of the US Congress when
they speak out and get called anti-Semites and so forth, and when people speak out simply for a
ceasefire and negotiations, as you were discussing earlier, and get called Putin lovers and
Russian slaves and haters of democracy. We have to defend and celebrate those who engage in
these sorts of acts and condemn the censorship and the libel and the slander.
So one thing that World BEYOND WAR does is we give out annual awards to activists,
including the dock workers union in Italy that's been blocking the shipments of weapons to
Ukraine. That's had an impact on Italian society where you have leading politicians at big peace
rallies demanding no more weapons, ceasefire, negotiate--saying the very things that would get
you booted out of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, because the culture in Italy has not
moved quite the way that it has in the US and of course, much of the world. You're able to say
things that you can't say about Ukraine and Russia in the US. And so building global
organizations that communicate globally and inform people what's happening in other corners of
the world is very, very helpful.
Ralph Nader: Well, we've run out of time. We've been talking with David Swanson, who is an
indefatigable and knowledgeable peace advocate. He's written a lot. He's spoken a lot. He's
networked a lot. He's mobilized a lot. And he needs to hear from you. He needs to see whether
you want the materials that he and his groups have written so accurately and so pointedly. So
give the website slowly, the two websites slowly, once more, David.
David Swanson: Those would be worldbeyondwar.org and rootsaction.org. And thank you
very, very, very much.
Ralph Nader: You're very, very welcome.
Steve Skrovan: I want to thank our guests again, Medea Benjamin and David Swanson. For
those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcast listeners, stay tuned for
some bonus material we call "The Wrap Up." A transcript of this program will appear on the
Ralph Nader Radio Hour website soon after the episode is posted.
David Feldman: Subscribe to us on our Ralph Nader Radio Hour YouTube channel. And for
Ralph's weekly column, it's free, go to nader.org. For more from Russell Mokhiber, go to
corporatecrimereporter.com.
Steve Skrovan: The American Museum of Tort Law has gone virtual. Go to tortmuseum.org to
explore the exhibits, take a virtual tour, and learn about iconic tort cases from history.
David Feldman: To order your copy of the Capitol Hill Citizen, "Democracy Dies in Broad
Daylight," go to capitolhillcitizen.com.
Steve Skrovan: And remember to continue the conversation after each show. Go to the
comments section at ralphnaderradiohour.com and post a comment or question on this week's
episode. We'll pick some standout comments, ask Ralph for his response, and post his reply.
David Feldman: The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and
Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky.
Steve Skrovan: Our theme music "Stand Up, Rise Up" was written and performed by Kemp
Harris. Our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon. Our associate producer is Hannah Feldman. Our
social media manager is Steven Wendt.
David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you everybody. Remember, especially Congress club members, get a hold
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