Antiwar.com’s Determined Struggle Against the War Machine

I am extremely proud to be a scholar with Antiwar.com. It has long been the most dedicated, principled, and unflinching opponent of the powerful bureaucratic war machine that continues to drag the American people into disastrous armed conflicts around the world. Antiwar.com’s role stands in marked contrast to most press outlets and think tanks, which have become conduits of Washington’s pro-war propaganda.

Antiwar.com exposes and counters the tsunami of misinformation flowing from the U.S. government and its accomplices in the establishment press. Despite being massively outspent by the opposition, it has become surprisingly successful in fulfilling that mission. More than a century ago, Randolph Bourne observed that “war is the health of the state,” and recent months have been a bonanza for weapons manufacturers and every other portion of the military-industrial complex.

For nearly three decades, the news reports and analyses on Antiwar.com have been an invaluable resource for people who seek to promote peace. Many key informative articles on the Antiwar.com website, from both domestic and foreign sources, are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. In addition, Antiwar.com generates a growing number of original articles from astute analysts. These articles shine the spotlight on Washington’s bloody, imperial meddling around the world and effectively debunk the war machine’s cynical cover stories. The growing impact of analyses from Antiwar.com has been shown most clearly with respect to NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.  Criticism from such sources has also played a growing role in the rising opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel for its brutal war in Gaza.

Consistent adherence to principle makes Antiwar.com especially noticeable in the policy community.  Too many professed opponents of war turn out to be timid, ambivalent, or unreliable – especially if an emotionally evocative conflict is taking place somewhere in the world.

The authors on Antiwar.com emphasize that a global interventionist foreign policy undermines all worthwhile political and social values. It requires a huge military, massive taxes, government secrecy, and the subordination of civil liberties to the “needs” of national security.  Yet too many individuals who oppose military interventionism in principle are swayed to abandon restraint and prudence when pro-war propaganda becomes massive on a specific issue. The dedicated people at Antiwar.com stick to their principles even when opposition to Washington’s latest trendy military crusade leads to ostracism, vilification, and, yes, cancellation. Such courage deserves to be rewarded.

Please help Antiwar.com continue its work to make the case for a new, far more restrained foreign policy.

Author: Ted Galen Carpenter

Ted Galen Carpenter, Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, is the author of 13 books and more than 1,100 articles on international affairs. Dr. Carpenter held various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato institute. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).