Dear John,

During the last Lunar New Year holiday I spent in Beijing in late January 2022, I watched the Spring Festival Gala on TV with friends from around the world. As we made dumplings and shared our plans for the Year of the Tiger, the otherwise joyful evening wasn’t spared of some expressing a great sense of nuclear anxiety. 

Saber-rattling over Ukraine was getting louder, especially as the US snubbed negotiations and the media portrayed the American militarization of Eastern Europe as deterrence rather than provocation. The media’s distortion of serious geopolitical events helped engineer consent for a bloody proxy war. We’ve seen the media behave exactly the same way regarding Yemen, Iraq, and Palestine where the US is actually the primary or a major aggressor.

Tell the media to disarm the discourse!

As the US attacks Yemen, in Southwest Asia, it’s preparing for conflict on the other side of the continent and enlisting the far-right to beat the drums of war against my former home. On December 15, 2023, a story in The New York Times cited Commander Charles A. Flynn, a militarist with ties to the 1/6 Capitol riots. Flynn said China has been on an incremental, insidious, and irresponsible path for decades which is why the “total Army” supposedly needs to prioritize a relevant Pacific experience.

The article takes the reader to Hawaii, where troops are training in conditions “similar to what they might face in a potential fight with China almost anywhere in the Pacific.” Nowhere does the story discuss Flynn’s imperialist track record, from his high-level role during the US war in Afghanistan to commanding troops in Iraq. In doing so, the piece whitewashes US hegemony responsible for so much death and destruction.

Tell the media to disarm the discourse!

The Wall Street Journal is also still beating the drums of war by relying on war hawks as sources. On January 22, The Wall Street Journal published a video with Alexander Neill, a former military analyst for the United Kingdom. Neill warned viewers of six Chinese military bases with rockets spread across…China. Chilling music plays as Neill focuses the viewer’s attention on Base 67, responsible for China’s nuclear deterrence. 

While Neill is so worried Chinese missiles could stop the US from interfering in the Taiwan Strait, he fails to mention China has a no-first-use nuclear weapons policy, and that China keeps its warheads and delivery systems separate.

Propaganda works. But people can push back. With Israel murdering tens of thousands in Gaza and the Russia-Ukraine war languishing on, we must not allow ourselves to be sucked into another with lies. The media sets the national agenda but too often militarizes that agenda. They’ve even targeted CODEPINK for demanding they stop making enemies and selling more weapons so they can make more money.  We won’t be silent about war and violence. Our responsibility is to call out their disinformation which is a violent tool weaponizing hearts and minds to war. Join us in disarming the discourse. The survival of life on Earth depends on it. 

Tell the media to set the record straight for peace!

In Solidarity,

Cale, Jodie and the CODEPINK Team

PS - Despite the White House giving lip service to diplomacy, the US is still threatening North Korea, a country of almost 26 million people. An escalation in the Korean War would unleash more crimes against humanity and push us closer to world war than we are already. Join us on February 1 to hear from Echo Cho, Women Cross DMZ’s Director and Coordinator of Activism and Special Campaigns, on why North Korea is not our enemy!

PPS - I am stepping down as campaign coordinator for China Is Not Our Enemy and need someone to fill my shoes here at CODEPINK.