WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #243, AUGUST 20, 2025.

 

WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #243, AUGUST 20, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

 

David Swanson.  Leaving WWII Behind. 
Scott Ritter.   “What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do?” 

 

 PEACEMAKER Scott Ritter’s book tour to Russia in 2023 to promote amity between the US and Russia, arms control,  and nuclear disarmament.

For several years, Scott Ritter has been trying to inspire peace between the US and Russia.   In May 2023, he began a book tour of Kazan, Irkutsk, and Yekaterinburg for his most recent book, Disarmament in the time of the Perestroika, which examines nuclear weapons agreements between Russia and the United States.   His essay at the time explains his hopes.   --D

“What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do?”  April 28, 2023.

“…I prepare to embark on a new mission, one built around the desire to make arms control and nuclear disarmament between the US and Russia a priority for the US government, again in hopes of forestalling the possibility of a nuclear war. This mission is derived from my book about the implementation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, and my role as a weapons inspector tasked with carrying out compliance verification inspections in support of this task. This book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, was recently published in Russia, and I have been invited to Russia to help promote the Russian language edition.

But this journey is far more than a simple book tour. It is an act of citizen diplomacy which, once again, will put me in opposition to the policies of my government and the Russophobia of many of my fellow Americans.

“My book,” I explain in a statement I made to the Russian media on the eve of my departure for Russia, “is about a time when our two nations took seriously the important task of nuclear disarmament. Today this mission has been halted in large part by the irrational fear of Russia on the part of the American people. My goal in bringing this book to Russia is to rekindle the spirit of friendship and cooperation that existed three decades ago and, in doing so, help break down the wall of misunderstanding and ignorance my fellow citizens have constructed that keeps our two nations apart.”

This book tour starts in Novosibirsk and will span several thousand kilometers and eleven Russian cities. This is a journey in the tradition of Van Cliburn, seeking to restore friendship between the US and Russia one handshake at a time.

Our goal is to capture this experience so that it can be brought back to my country as a documentary film which will be shown to the American people so that they, too, will have a chance to share the message that I am certain this tour will produce—of a shared humanity among our two nations that transcends prejudice and fear, and which can return us to the path of peaceful coexistence we once walked together, side by side, as friends.

“What would Daniel Ellsberg do?,” I ask myself when thinking about the journey ahead of me, and I’m comforted by the certainty that, if he were able, Dan would be right beside me, as an ally and a friend, as we ventured forth together to once again confront the evil of ignorance-based fear and the policies of death and destruction that it produces.

 

David Swanson.  Leaving World War II Behind.  2020.

For several years I have sometimes put a line through the word defense when it was employed deceptively, as with Department of Defense.   Those of you who have read OMNI’s Anthologies on US imperialism know that I have published articles and books calling into question each of our wars.   In Leaving World War II Behind David Swanson advocates changing the name of the Department of Defense (originally and truthfully the Department of War) to the DEPARTMENT OF ACTUAL DEFENSE.  Its mission would be to look “very hard at the twin dangers of nuclear and climate apocalypse….in order to actually defend against them. . . .A Department of Actual Defense would need to be global, not national. . . .[it] might encompass what’s been conceived of as a Department of Peace, an agency aimed at moving from violence to nonviolence.  But a Department of Actual Defense would also be dedicated to preventing all major harm” (239-240).  We can all be a part by signing the Declaration of Peace, at the website worldbeyondwar.org.    “I understand that wars and militarism make us less safe rather than protect us, that they kill, injure, and traumatize, adults, children, and infants, severely damage the natural environment, erode civil liberties, and drain our economies, siphoning resources from life-affirming activities.  I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end all war and preparations for war and to create a sustainable and just peace” (241).  (D)