IT/EN -- David Swanson -- U.S. Out of Italy

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U.S. Out of Italy

http://davidswanson.org/u-s-out-of-italy/

English below the italian

L’Italia dovrebbe fare amicizia con il pubblico degli Stati Uniti e del mondo cacciando le basi militari statunitensi.

Di David Swanson

Alla fine degli anni ’80, quando ero un adolescente e uno studente di scambio a Bassano del Grappa, amavo l’Italia per le stesse ragioni per cui l’amo ancora, ragioni che includono le bellezze naturali, quelle create dall’uomo, e la bellezza umana.

Ho trovato gli italiani in generale amichevoli, gentili, generosi, amorevoli, divertenti, umili, autocritici, e intelligenti. Potrebbe anche avermi aiutato un po’ il fatto che quando dicevo agli altri giovani che ero degli Stati Uniti, in genere pensavano fosse una cosa fantastica. Gli anziani dicevano che gli Stati Uniti avevano salvato l’Italia dal nazismo.

Non sapevo abbastanza per rispondere che il governo e le élite statunitensi avevano alimentato l’ascesa del nazismo, che aveva attinto ai finanziamenti di Wall Street, alle leggi sulla segregazione degli Stati Uniti, ai programmi di eugenetica degli Stati Uniti, ai campi statunitensi per i nativi americani, e al sostegno del governo degli Stati Uniti.

Non sapevo abbastanza per sottolineare che l’idea degli Stati Uniti come salvatori veniva mantenuta viva per l’incapacità di ritirare le truppe statunitensi dall’Italia, perché dovevano restare allo scopo di aggredire altri paesi per tutt’altre ragioni che salvare le persone dal nazismo.

PT -- David Swanson -- FALLUJAH ESQUECIDA

FALLUJAH ESQUECIDA

Por David Swanson

http://davidswanson.org/fallujah-forgotten/

Não sei se a maioria das pessoas nos Estados Unidos soube alguma vez, o que significava Fallujah. É difícil acreditar que, se elas soubessem, as forças armadas dos EUA ainda existissem. Mas, claro que foi em grande parte esquecido - um problema que poderia ser remediado se todos pegassem uma cópia do livro ‘The Sacking of Fallujah: A People's History’, de Ross Caputi (um veterano dos EUA num dos cercos de Fallujah), Richard Hill, e Donna Mulhearn.

 “Bem-vindos para servir!”

Fallujah era a “cidade das mesquitas”, com uma população de cerca de 300.000 a 435.000 pessoas. Tinha a tradição de resistir a invasões estrangeiras – incluindo invasões britânicas. Sofreu, assim como todo o Iraque, sanções brutais impostas pelos Estados Unidos nos anos que antecederam o ataque de 2003. Durante esse ataque, Fallujah viu mercados abarrotados serem bombardeados. Após o colapso do governo iraquiano em Bagdad, Fallujah formou o seu próprio governo, evitando o saque e o caos vistos noutros lugares. Em Abril de 2003, a 82ª Divisão Aerotransportada dos EUA mudou-se para Fallujah e não encontrou resistência.

A ocupação começou, imediatamente, a produzir o género de problemas que surgem em cada ocupação, em qualquer lugar. As pessoas queixavam-se da circulação, nas ruas, de veículos militares a alta velocidade, de serem humilhadas nos postos de investigação e segurança, de mulheres tratadas inadequadamente, de soldados a urinar nas ruas e de soldados em pé nos telhados com binóculos, violando a privacidade dos moradores. Em poucos dias, o povo de Fallujah ansiava ser libertado dos seus “libertadores”. Assim, o povo tentou demonstrações não violentas. E os militares dos EUA dispararam contra os manifestantes. Mas, finalmente, os ocupantes concordaram em estacionar fora da cidade, limitar as suas patrulhas e permitir a Fallujah uma certa auto governação acima do que era permitido no resto do Iraque. O resultado foi um sucesso: Fallujah foi mantida mais segura do que o resto do Iraque, mantendo os ocupantes fora dela.

É claro que esse exemplo precisava ser esmagado. Os Estados Unidos estavam a reivindicar a obrigação moral de libertar o inferno para fora do Iraque, para “manter a segurança” e “ajudar na transição para a democracia”. O Vice Rei, Paul Bremer, decidiu “limpar Fallujah”. Em seguida vieram as tropas da “coligação”, com a sua incapacidade habitual (ridicularizada com bastante eficiência no filme War Machine, de Brad Pitt, na Netflix) de distinguir pessoas às quais eles estavam a conceder liberdade e justiça, das pessoas que estavam a matar. As autoridades americanas descreveram as pessoas que queriam matar como “cancro” e liquidaram-nas com ataques e tiroteios que dizimaram muitas pessoas não cancerosas. Na época, desconhecia-se a quantas pessoas os Estados Unidos estavam realmente a provocar cancro.

Em Março de 2004, quatro mercenários de Blackwater foram mortos em Fallujah, os seus corpos foram queimados e pendurados numa ponte. A comunicação mediática americana retratou os quatro homens como sendo civis inocentes que, de alguma forma, se encontravam no meio de uma guerra e foram alvos acidentais de violência irracional e desmotivada. As pessoas de Fallujah eram “bandidos”, “selvagens” e “bárbaros”. Como a cultura dos EUA nunca se arrependeu de Dresden ou Hiroshima, houve clamores abertos por seguir esses precedentes em Fallujah. Um antigo assessor de Ronald Reagan, Jack Wheeler, inspirado num antigo modelo romano, exigiu que Fallujah fosse completamente reduzida a escombros sem vida: “Fallujah delenda est!”

Os ocupantes tentaram impor a hora de recolher e a proibição de uso e porte de armas, dizendo que precisavam de tais medidas para distinguir as pessoas a quem matar, das pessoas a quem dar a democracia. Mas quando as pessoas tinham de deixar as suas casas para ir buscar comida ou remédios, elas eram abatidas. Famílias inteiras foram abatidas, uma a uma, quando cada pessoa surgia para tentar recuperar o corpo ferido ou sem vida de um ente querido. Foi designado como o “jogo da família”. O único estádio de futebol da cidade foi transformado num enorme cemitério.

Um menino de sete anos chamado Sami viu a sua irmã mais nova ser atingida. Viu o seu pai correr para fora da casa para agarrá-la e, por sua vez, ser atingido. Ouviu o seu pai gritar, em agonia. Sami e o resto de sua família tinham medo de sair. De manhã, a irmã e o pai estavam mortos. A família de Sami ouviu tiros e gritos nas casas vizinhas, enquanto a mesma história se desenrolava. Sami lançou pedras aos cães para tentar mantê-los longe dos corpos. Os irmãos mais velhos de Sami não deixavam a mãe sair para fechar os olhos abertos do falecido marido. Mas, finalmente, os dois irmãos mais velhos de Sami decidiram sair, correndo para os corpos, na esperança de que um deles tivesse sobrevivido. Um irmão foi atingido instantaneamente na cabeça. O outro conseguiu fechar os olhos do pai e recuperar o corpo da irmã, mas foi ferido no tornozelo. Apesar dos esforços de toda a família, aquele irmão teve uma morte lenta e horrível, provocada pela ferida no tornozelo, enquanto os cães lutavam pelos corpos do pai e do irmão, e o fedor tomava conta de um bairro de cadáveres.

A TV Al Jazeera mostrou ao mundo alguns dos horrores do Primeiro Cerco de Fallujah. Depois outros canais mostraram ao mundo a tortura em que os EUA estavam empenhados em Abu Ghraib. Os Libertadores retiraram-se de Fallujah, culpando a comunicação mediática e resolvendo comercializar melhor os seus futuros actos genocidas.

Mas Fallujah permaneceu um alvo designado, um objectivo que exigiria mentiras semelhantes àquelas que lançaram toda a guerra. O público dos EUA foi informado agora, que Fallujah era um dos focos da Al Qaeda controlado por Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - um mito retratado anos depois, como se fosse verdade, no filme norte-americano American Sniper.

O Segundo Cerco de Fallujah foi um ataque total a toda a vida humana que incluiu o bombardeamento de casas, hospitais e, ao que tudo indica, a qualquer alvo desejado. Uma mulher cuja irmã grávida foi morta por uma bomba disse a um repórter: "Não consigo tirar a imagem da cabeça do feto a ser expelido do seu corpo". No Segundo Cerco, em vez de esperar que as pessoas saíssem das casas, os Fuzileiros Navais dos EUA dispararam contra as casas com tanques e lança foguetes e terminaram o trabalho com escavadoras, ao estilo dos israelitas. Também usavam fósforo branco nas pessoas, o qual as derretiam. Destruíram pontes, lojas, mesquitas, escolas, bibliotecas, escritórios, estações de comboios, centrais de eletricidade, estações de tratamento de água e todos os sistemas de saneamento e comunicação. Foi um sociocídio. As empresas de comunicação mediática, infiltradas e controladas, desculparam tudo.

Um ano após o segundo cerco, com a cidade transformada numa espécie de prisão a céu aberto entre os escombros, os funcionários do Hospital Geral de Fallujah notaram que algo estava errado. Houve um dramático aumento de cancros (pior do que em Hiroshima), nadomortos, abortos espontâneos e defeitos congénitos nunca antes vistos. Uma criança nasceu com duas cabeças, outra com um único olho no centro da testa, outra com membros suplementares. Existem poucas dúvidas de que a Guerra Humanitária seja a causa, de que parte da culpa do sucedido seja atribuída ao fósforo branco, ao urânio empobrecido, ao armamento de urânio enriquecido, à abertura de poços de queima de lixos nas zonas ocupadas pelos militares americanos e a diversas outras armas.

As incubadoras voltaram ao ponto de partida. Das mentiras sobre os iraquianos a tirar bebés das incubadoras que (de alguma forma) justificaram a primeira Guerra do Golfo, às falsidades sobre armas ilegais que (de alguma forma) justificaram o terrorismo maciço do Choque e do Terror, chegamos agora às salas cheias de incubadoras contendo bebés deformados, morrendo rapidamente, devido à misericordiosa libertação americana.

O Terceiro Cerco de Fallujah, levado a cabo pelo governo iraquiano instalado pelos EUA, ocorreu em 2014-2016, com a nova versão para os ocidentais, referindo o controlo de Fallujah pelo ISIS. Mais uma vez, os civis foram massacrados e o que restou da cidade foi destruído. Fallujah delenda est, de facto. Não foi mencionado que o ISIS foi originado por uma década de brutalidade liderada pelos EUA, coroada com o ataque genocida do governo iraquiano aos sunitas.

Claro que, enquanto tudo isto acontecia, os Estados Unidos estavam a liderar o mundo - através da queima do petróleo, foram travadas guerras, entre outras práticas – tornando, não só Fallujah, mas a maior parte do Médio Oriente, quente demais para os humanos poderem habitar aí. Imaginem a indignação, quando as pessoas que apoiam alguém como Joe Biden, que desempenhou um papel fundamental na destruição do Iraque (e que parece nem se arrepender da morte do seu filho devida a um ^* poço de combustão de lixo a céu aberto, muito menos da morte de Fallujah) descobrirem que quase ninguém no Médio Oriente, está grato pela transformação do clima num inferno inabitável. Será, então, que a comunicação mediática nos irá dizer quem são as verdadeiras vítimas desta história.

EN -- Has NATO Met Its Match? By David Swanson

Has NATO Met Its Match?
By David Swansonhttp://davidswanson.org/has-nato-met-its-match/

Despite claims by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to have defeated its own troops using Facebook (and, really, what plot to take over a high school hasn’t done that?), the biggest challenge NATO will face this year will probably not be nefarious Russian social media posts.

Nor will it be the dreaded Russian military, now sucking down 6 percent as many dollars each year as the war machines of the NATO nations.

Nor is NATO terribly threatened by a U.S. president who demands that its members spend more, that more nations join, that the North Atlantic nation of Colombia partner up, and that the war games and weapons deals and expansion eastward press ahead, but who once blurted out obvious stuff his handlers would never allow him to act on, such as that NATO serves no good purpose. (Which of his projects does serve any good purpose?)

NATO is extremely popular among militarists, warmongers, weapons dealers, Republicans, and Democrats, some of them proud of its various aggressive and catastrophic wars, some of them willfully ignorant of them or eager to excuse them. It’s that last group that presents a danger for NATO, a weak link. People think that NATO somehow makes wars legal or acceptable, which actually makes wars easier to start. People think NATO is defensive, so that distant aggressive wars are OK. People think putting nuclear weapons into more countries is safe and legal if they’re NATO countries. People think adding Russia’s neighbors to NATO makes them safer, but that adding Russia would endanger them. But will people resist learning the truth when NATO celebrates itself on a date that belongs to peace and Martin Luther King Jr?

This is where the unexpected and possibly significant challenge to NATO comes in. It’s a challenge from the Peace Movement, the demise of which has been seriously exaggerated. Check out this list of events:

Thursday, March 7, Free webinar: No to NATO — Yes to Peace

In Washington, D.C.:

Saturday, March 16 Hands Off Venezuela

Saturday, March 30 Rally at Lafayette Park

Sunday, March 31 Concert for Peace and to End War

Sunday, March 31 Anti-NATO Conference

Tuesday, April 2 No to NATO — Yes to Peace and Disarmament Counter-Summit

Wednesday, April 3 No to NATO — Yes to Peace FESTIVAL

Thursday, April 4 No to NATO — Yes to Peace Rally

Thursday, April 4 Black Alliance for Peace program at Plymouth Congregational Church

All this because NATO plans to bring the foreign ministers of its vassal states to Washington, D.C., on and about April 4th to celebrate its 70th birthday . . . on a day that ought to belong to peace. April 4th is the date of MLK’s biggest speech against war, and of his assassination exactly one year later.

Events in solidarity are popping up in other places too:

March 30: Conference and Rally in Saskatchewan

April 4: No to NATO action, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

April 7: Conference in Florence, Italy

Monthly: NATO protests in Toronto

This burst of activity comes out of faith in activism and in education. If we did not believe that people who’ve been saturated with militarism can see their way out of it, none of this would be planned.

While claiming to “preserve peace,” NATO has violated international law and bombed Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya. NATO has exacerbated tensions with Russia and increased the risk of nuclear apocalypse. The notion that supporting NATO is a way to cooperate with the world ignores superior non-deadly ways to cooperate with the world.

The Best Speech Yet From Any U.S. President In planning an upcoming by David Swanson

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 BY DAVIDSWANSON

The Best Speech Yet From Any U.S. President

In planning an upcoming conference aimed at challenging the institution of war, to be held at American University September 22-24, I can’t help but be drawn to the speech a U.S. president gave at American University a little more than 50 years ago. Whether or not you agree with me that this is the best speech ever given by a U.S. president, there should be little dispute that it is the speech most out of step with what anyone will say on Capitol Hill or in the White House today. Here’s a video of the best portion of the speech:

President John F. Kennedy was speaking at a time when, like now, Russia and the United States had enough nuclear weapons ready to fire at each other on a moment’s notice to destroy the earth for human life many times over. At that time, however, in 1963, there were only three nations, not the current nine, with nuclear weapons, and many fewer than now with nuclear energy. NATO was far removed from Russia’s borders. The United States had not just facilitated a coup in Ukraine. The United States wasn’t organizing military exercises in Poland or placing missiles in Poland and Romania. Nor was it manufacturing smaller nukes that it described as “more usable.” Nor was it threatening to use them on North Korea. The work of managing U.S. nuclear weapons was then deemed prestigious in the U.S. military, not the dumping ground for drunks and misfits that it has become. Hostility between Russia and the United States was high in 1963, but the problem was widely known about in the United States, in contrast to the current vast ignorance. Some voices of sanity and restraint were permitted in the U.S. media and even in the White House. Kennedy was using peace activist Norman Cousins as a messenger to Nikita Khrushchev, whom he never described, as Hillary Clinton has described Vladimir Putin, as “Hitler.” Even the U.S. and Soviet militaries were communicating with each other. Not anymore.

Kennedy framed his speech as a remedy for ignorance, specifically the ignorant view that war is inevitable. This is the opposite of what President Barack Obama said in Hiroshima last year and earlier in Prague and Oslo, and what Lindsey Graham says about war on North Korea.

Kennedy called peace “the most important topic on earth.” He renounced the idea of a “Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war,” precisely what both big political parties now and most speeches on war by most past U.S. presidents ever have favored. Kennedy went so far as to profess to care about 100% rather than 4% of humanity:

“… not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

Kennedy explained war and militarism and deterrence as nonsensical:

“Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.”

Kennedy went after the money. Military spending is now over half of federal discretionary spending, and Trump wants to push it up toward 60%.

“Today,” said Kennedy in 1963,

“the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles–which can only destroy and never create–is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.”

In 2017 even beauty queens have shifted to advocating war rather than “world peace.” But in 1963 Kennedy spoke of peace as the serious business of government:

“I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war–and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task. Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament–and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.”

Can you imagine any approved speaker on corporate media or Capitol Hill suggesting that in U.S. relations toward Russia a major part of the problem might be U.S. attitudes?

Peace, Kennedy explained in a manner unheard of today, is perfectly possible:

“First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable–that mankind is doomed–that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again. I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace– based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions–on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace–no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process–a way of solving problems.”

Kennedy debunked some of the usual straw men:

“With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor–it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors. So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.”

Kennedy then laments what he considers, or claims to consider, baseless Soviet paranoia regarding U.S. imperialism, Soviet criticism not unlike his own more private criticism of the CIA. But he follows this by flipping it around on the U.S. public:

“Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements–to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning–a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats. No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements–in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage. Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland–a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.”

Imagine today trying to get Americans to see a designated enemy’s point of view and ever being invited back on CNN or MSNBC afterward. Imagine hinting at who actually did the vast majority of winning World War II or why Russia might have good reason to fear aggression from its west!

Kennedy returned to the nonsensical nature of the cold war, then and now:

“Today, should total war ever break out again–no matter how–our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many nations, including this Nation’s closest allies–our two countries bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons. In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours–and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.”

Kennedy then urges, outrageously by the standards of some, that the United States tolerate other nations pursuing their own visions:

“So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

Kennedy reframes the cold war, rather than the Russians, as the enemy:

“Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different. We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace. Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

By Kennedy’s definition, the U.S. government is pursuing a death-wish for the world, just as by Martin Luther King’s definition four years later, the U.S. government is now “spiritually dead.” Which is not to say that nothing came of Kennedy’s speech and the work that followed it in the five months before he was murdered by U.S. militarists. Kennedy proposed in the speech the creation of a hotline between the two governments, which was created. He proposed a ban on nuclear weapons testing and announced the unilateral U.S. cessation of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. This led to a treaty banning nuclear testing except underground. And that led, as Kennedy intended, to greater cooperation and larger disarmament treaties.

This speech also led by degrees difficult to measure to greater U.S. resistance to launching new wars. May it serve to inspire a movement to bring the abolition of war to reality.

Speakers this coming weekend at American University will include: Medea Benjamin, Nadine Bloch, Max Blumenthal, Natalia Cardona, Terry Crawford-Browne, Alice Day, Lincoln Day, Tim DeChristopher, Dale Dewar, Thomas Drake, Pat Elder, Dan Ellsberg, Bruce Gagnon, Kathy Gannett, Will Griffin, Seymour Hersh, Tony Jenkins, Larry Johnson, Kathy Kelly, Jonathan King, Lindsay Koshgarian, James Marc Leas, Annie Machon, Ray McGovern,  Rev Lukata Mjumbe, Bill Moyer, Elizabeth Murray, Emanuel Pastreich, Anthony Rogers-Wright, Alice Slater, Gar Smith, Edward Snowden (by video), Susi Snyder, Mike Stagg, Jill Stein, David Swanson, Robin Taubenfeld, Brian Terrell, Brian Trautman, Richard Tucker, Donnal Walter, Larry Wilkerson, Ann Wright, Emily Wurth, Kevin Zeese. Read speakers’ bios.