A Message From Ted Galen Carpenter: Support Antiwar.com Against the Rising Tide of Pro-War Propaganda

Antiwar.com has long been the most dedicated, principled, and unflinching opponent of the powerful bureaucratic war machine that continues to drag Americans into disastrous armed conflicts around the world. As I discuss in detail in my latest book, Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy, most press outlets are now willing conduits of Washington’s pro-war propaganda, or have become quiet spectators sitting on the sidelines of debate, intimidated into silence.

Antiwar.com has adopted the opposite course, redoubling its efforts to expose and counter the tsunami of misinformation flowing from the US government and its accomplices in the establishment press. Despite being massively outspent by the opposition, it has become surprisingly successful in fulfilling that mission.

For nearly three decades, I have found the news reports and analyses on Antiwar.com to be an invaluable resource when I research my own articles and books. So 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, a growing number of original articles from astute analysts shine the spotlight on Washington’s bloody, imperial meddling around the world and effectively debunk the war machine’s cynical cover stories.

This 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 there is an emotionally evocative conflict taking place in the world. Organizations and individuals on the left who have long opposed military interventions have become strangely silent or even signed onto Washington’s more recent overseas crusades.

That problem is increasingly apparent within the ranks of the libertarian and limited government communities as well.

However, 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 people who oppose military interventionism in principle are swayed when pro-war propaganda becomes massive on a specific issue. A distressing number of otherwise sensible people succumbed to that campaign during the prelude to the Iraq War. An even greater number have been receptive to the government’s deceitful portrayal of the Russia-Ukraine war as an existential struggle between freedom and aggressive authoritarianism.

At the dawn of the Republic, Thomas Paine cautioned against the "summer soldier and the sunshine patriot," individuals who are willing to support a cause only if it does not become costly or difficult to do so. The dedicated people at Antiwar.com are a striking contrast to summer noninterventionists and sunshine war opponents. They stick to their principles even when opposition to Washington’s latest trendy military crusade means ostracism and vilification. Such courage deserves to be rewarded.

Even President Biden admits that the United States is closer to nuclear war today than at any time in the past half century. That horridly dangerous situation is a direct consequence of Washington’s blundering, needlessly aggressive policies around the world. Indeed, we now face the prospect of a showdown against both Russia and China simultaneously — a disastrous scenario. Please give generously to this organization that is so dedicated to preventing war and facilitating peace.

Ted Galen Carpenter
Senior Fellow, Randolph Bourne Institute
Former Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Author of 13 books and more than 1,100 articles on foreign policy and civil liberties

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