Overview
* Pro-open borders, anti-war collective
* Supports amnesty for all illegal immigrants
Founded in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, the Peace No War (PNW) Network was a self-described “collective of antiwar/peace and social and economic justice activists” whose mission was to “struggle for peace and justice across the World” via “community outreach and broad global mobilizing.” PNW pledged its support for “activist communities” that sought “to unite inner-city youth and immigrant and antisweatshop activists” in joint ventures, and to draw attention to how America’s prosecution of the Iraq War was allegedly harming immigrant and minority communities all over the United States — by siphoning needed resources away from social welfare programs and into military projects.
PNW was a member group of the ActionLA Coalition, the National Immigrant Solidarity Network, and the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition.
PNW was headquartered at 8124 West 3rd Street in Los Angeles, in a building dubbed the Los Angeles Peace Center (LAPC). Funded by Aris Anagnos, the LAPC provided rent-free office space for dozens of loosely intertwined leftist groups. Anagnos was a Los Angeles real-estate magnate who spent decades bankrolling Marxist causes around the globe — from the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, to Marxist rebels in Chiapas, to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In addition to Peace No War, the LAPC was also the home base of the Coalition for World Peace, and of the West Coast offices of Americans for Democratic Action, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the National Lawyers Guild.
The PNW website featured numerous sections that monitored developments in areas of concern to the organization:
- The Iraq Watch section focused heavily on allegations that U.S. soldiers were brutally torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq.
- Military Watch focused on the costs of the Iraq War, providing regular updates of war-related casualty statistics and of the money spent to finance the war.
- The Peace Activism section posted updates and notices of major, upcoming anti-war events.
- Counter Recruitment Watch highlighted initiatives that sought to undermine military recruitment efforts.
- Nuke Watch focused on nuclear weapons threats, such as the threat posed by Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program.
- Americas Watch spotlighted anti-U.S. rallies in North, Central, and South America — such as a March 2006 National Solidarity Conference in Venezuela, whose participants derided the “pattern of interventionist actions by the U.S. government.”
- Iran Watch was part of an “international campaign to stop the War on Iran before it starts” — a reference to the possibility that the U.S. might carry out a military strike aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Endorsers and spokesmen of Iran Watch included International Action Center founder Ramsey Clark, British Member of Parliament George Galloway, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, playwright Harold Pinter, Bishop Filipe C. Teixeira, Professor Howard Zinn, and others.
- Palestine Watch called for an end to Israel’s “illegal occupation of Palestine.”
- The Immigrant Solidarity section posted notices of upcoming demonstrations (all over the United States) in support of open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
- Civil Liberties Watch accused the U.S. government of having violated the civil liberties of Americans, particularly by means of the Patriot Act and the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance program.
- Enviro Watch claimed that the Bush administration was doing great ecological damage to America’s air and water.
- Globalize Watch was an anti-globalization, anti-capitalist initiative opposing American “corporate greed.”
- Looking Back 9-11 charged that after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. was gripped by a wave of “anti-Arab American hysteria,” “immigrant bashing,” “violations of civil liberties,” “media censorship,” “trashing the environment,” and “jacked-up military spending.”
PNW became inactive in 2006.