November 6, 2011 at 22:26:09

Imagine If War Were Illegal -- It Is!

By David Swanson (about the author)

A Forgotten Law We Need

In January 1929 the U.S. Senate ratified by a vote of 85 to 1 a treaty that is still on the books, still upheld by most of the world, still listed on the U.S. State Department's website -- a treaty that under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution is the "supreme law of the land."

This treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, bans all war. Bad wars and "good wars," aggressive wars and "humanitarian wars" -- they are all illegal, having been legally abolished like duelling, blood feuds, and slavery before them.

The wisdom of the War Outlawry movement of the 1920s is revived in a new book published today by David Swanson and titled When the World Outlawed War. The full plan to outlaw war has never been followed through on. We have a duty to carry the campaign forward.

For $2 you can pick up a Kindle, Epub, PDF, or an audio book read by the author: http://davidswanson.org/outlawry

Buy the paperback at 100Fires, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, other sellers, or your local independent bookstore, which can order it through Ingram. (The list price is $15.)

(If you order from Amazon it will ship right away even if Amazon says it won't ship for weeks; it is print-on-demand.)

Or you can get 10 copies for $60, or 50 copies for $200, or more (all with quick free shipping) here.

Donate free books to nonprofit educational groups here.

Buy the iPad/iPhone version at the iBookstore.

What people are saying:

"David Swanson is a truth-teller and witness-bearer whose voice and action warrant our attention." -- Cornel West.

"David Swanson has written a fascinating account of how peace once became the law of the land, through the Kellogg-Briand Pact. It is particularly pertinent in the era of the Endless War, by giving encouragement and suggestions of a path forward to those who want to give peace a chance." -- Liz Holtzman, former member of the U.S. Congress.

"David Swanson has done it again with this new book -- unearthing history they don't tell you about in mainstream media." -- Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR and author of Cable News Confidential.

"David Swanson brings his laser focus, brilliant writing, and incredible intelligence to bear in this book, where he makes the case that the Kellogg-Briand Pact was a major step -- as yet unrecognized -- on the path towards eliminating war. He tells a wonderful story, shines light on the unknown peace activists who refused to be deterred by what was considered possible or reasonable, and makes a compelling analogy with slavery -- like war, a worldwide activity deemed unstoppable -- and like war, an immoral crime that must be ended. I have been active in the antiwar movement from Vietnam through Iraq. I have done political work for some of the most antiwar candidates of the modern era -- McGovern, Jackson, Nader, Kucinich. I have marched and petitioned, organized and strategized, and played a part in peace demonstrations from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to London and New York. And I am a history buff. But until I read David Swanson's book, I had never heard this story before -- and certainly never understood why it was important." -- Steve Cobble, former political director of the National Rainbow Coalition, advisor to Jackson, Nader, and Kucinich presidential campaigns

"Swanson has done it again. This is a masterful account of how Americans and people around the world worked to abolish war as a legitimate act of state policy and won. Swanson's account of the successful work of those who came before us to insist that war be outlawed compels us today to rethink the cost and morality of cynical or weary inaction in the face of our repeated resort to military threats and warfare to achieve policy goals." -- Jeff Clements, Author of Corporations Are Not People.