Rhode Island Anti-War Committee

09/03/2026

OPPOSE U.S. IMPERIALISM. Friday, September 4, 4 PM in Providence
Join with the RI Anti-War Committee to stand against American militarism. Demand a permanent end to the U.S./Israel war on Iran. Stop the oil embargo on Cuba. No more aid to Israel and support self-determination for the Palestinian people. Call for the U.S. to sign on to the UN Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/3733581220138826/3741455629351385. Help spread the word.
How Will This Benefit the Venezuelan People? The U.S. government is forming a partnership with a private oil producing company led by Alejandro Betancourt López. The White House announced that it had reached a deal with the Venezuelan government and Mr. Betancourt’s company to secure billions of barrels of oil reserves. Mr. Betancourt has been under investigation in Spain and Switzerland for money laundering and tax fraud. He lives in Britain and was barred from foreign travel. However, the Trump administration pressed these governments to allow him to travel to Venezuela to participate in making these deals. That alone should raise concerns about how much oil wealth will flow to the Venezuelan people.
The White House said the deal will come at no cost to the U.S. and that the federal government would be guaranteed 20% of the oil that Mr. Betancourt’s company produces at cost. The U.S. would also have the right of first refusal to buy the remaining 80% of the company’s output. The U.S. government’s partnership could make it easier to shield Mr. Betancourt’s company from legal scrutiny or political upheaval.
So far the capture of Mr. Maduro by the U.S. has done little to change the fortunes of Venezuelans. Millions remain in poverty and electricity blackouts continue to occur while no date has been set for new elections. Most Venezuelans consider the oil reserves to be at the center of their country’s identity. They are just beginning to reckon with the realization that a huge amount of oil has just been turned over to the United States.

08/31/2026

OPPOSE U.S. WARS. Tuesday, September 1, 4 PM in Providence
Stand with the RI Anti-War Committee to demand that the U.S. end its war on Iran. Let Cuba live. End the oil embargo. Call for a halt to U.S. aid to Israel and instead, provide sufficient humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Stop all U.S. military incursions around the world. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1353429870194027/1353429876860693.
Help spread the word.
Stabbing Oneself in the Foot. That’s about the size of it, as the Trump Administration continues to craft its foreign policy priorities. At the same time that the Group of 20 (the largest Western economies) is meeting in Asheville, NC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is meeting in Kyrgyzstan. The SCO consists of 10 nations including China, Russia, Iran and India. Rather than waging a war like the U.S. is doing that has upended the global economy, causing inflation and shortages, China is using its geopolitical and economic power to lead the non-Western nations to undermine Trump’s attempts to dominate the world.
Through its purchases of Russian and Iranian oil, China has been instrumental in helping those economies weather the sanctions imposed on them by Trump. China’s Xi Jinping is casting himself as a leader who can push back against U.S. hegemony. He is showing that he can build relationships with other countries while Trump is unraveling relations with nations that were once staunch allies.
More nations like Canada seem willing to turn away from the U.S. and seek other means to develop economic relations with the rest of the world. It is noteworthy that the tariffs that Trump imposes on other countries are ultimately paid for by the American consumer who is already facing rising inflation and interest rates.

08/30/2026

08/28/2026

Free Palestine no WAR on IRAN & Cuba

08/27/2026

OPPOSE U.S. IMPERIALISM. Friday, August 28, 4 PM in Providence.
Join with the RI Anti-War Committee to stand against American militarism. Demand a permanent end to the U.S./Israel war on Iran. Stop the oil embargo on Cuba. No more aid to Israel and support self-determination for the Palestinian people. Call for the U.S. to sign on to the UN Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1819072209473823/1819072222807155.
Help spread the word.
Shh! We’re trying to make some money. In an interview with the NY Times, Bill Gates talked about the concerns he had about artificial intelligence causing harm including mass unemployment and bioterrorism. He is speaking out now because A.I. has been making great strides lately and is performing better than he expected. He said that tech leaders are downplaying the concerns that they express privately because they don’t want to scare away investors as they try to raise trillions of dollars to build data centers.
Gates believes that huge jobs losses are inevitable because A.I. will spread throughout the economy and not give any industry an ability to absorb workers who lost jobs in another. He floated ideas like taxes on A.I. that could help people who face unemployment. Gates also said laws and international regulations are needed to restrict access to A.I. Only a few people are needed together with A.I. to develop new pathogens.
This July an A.I. company was hacked by an unknown agent with capabilities unlike anything they had seen before. It turns out that it was an agent created by OpenAI that had gone rogue. A company that tests A.I. models for OpenAI and Anthropic had inadvertently allowed the A.I. agent access to the internet. Advanced A.I. agents that have not been released to the public actually cooperated with each other to hack into the company’s computers. They had been given an impossible task: to find a file that didn’t exist. The A.I. agents figured that by working together they could find the file quicker.
This episode is just an example of what A.I. agents are capable of. They continue to get more powerful very quickly. The temptation of harvesting huge profits is pushing the billionaires to ignore social safety concerns and humanity’s welfare. Already autonomous A.I. controlled weapons are being used in the Ukraine/Russia war. Both China and the U.S. are developing A.I. fully controlled weapons for use in the western Pacific. This issue is not one that can be left to the billionaire class and the bought and paid for politicians.

08/24/2026

PROTEST U.S. WARS. Tuesday, August 25, 4 PM in Providence
Stand with the RI Anti-War Committee to demand that the U.S. end its war on Iran. Let Cuba live. End the oil embargo. Call for a halt to U.S. aid to Israel and instead, provide sufficient humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Stop all U.S. military incursions around the world. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1349091523955136/1349091540621801.
Help spread the word.
Palestinians Choice for President. Marwan Barghouti is the Palestinian people’s choice to be the next President! The latest PCPSR public opinion poll, conducted in Gaza and the West Bank, reaffirms Marwan Barghouti’s position as the most popular Palestinian leader and the strongest potential candidate to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas. When asked who they would vote for in a presidential election, 54% of likely voters said they would vote for Marwan Barghouti, more than twice the percentage received by the second choice. (from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The PCPSR is an independent, non-profit research organization in Ramallah, West Bank.)
Marwan Barghouti has been held in an Israeli prison since 2004 and is serving five consecutive life sentences. Twenty Hollywood actors who starred in Marvel movies have called for the release of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian Fatah leader serving five life sentences in Israel. Among the actors listed as signatories are Mark Ruffalo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Don Cheadle and Sir Ian McKellen.

08/08/2026

Rhode Island Antiwar Committee attended event by Jewish Voice for Peace (RI JVP) to celebrate ballot access for Divestment from Israel. NO TO WAR AND GENOCIDE!! Solidarity with Palestine

08/03/2026

PROTEST U.S. WARS. Tuesday, August 4, 4 PM in Providence
Stand with the RI Anti-War Committee to demand that the U.S. end its war on Iran. Let Cuba live. End the oil embargo. Call for a halt to U.S. aid to Israel and instead, provide sufficient humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Stop all U.S. military incursions around the world. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1349091523955136/1349091547288467.
Help spread the word.
We Follow the Mainstream Media So You Don’t Have To. Poor Fareed Zakaria on his CNN show was asking a NYT reporter what could be done to get Iran to negotiate an end to the war with the United States. Abdi Latif Dahir replied that although the Iranian people are tired of war, they are ruled by a military dictatorship and have no say on the issue. Sound familiar? Like how although the America people are overwhelming against this war (>60%), we, too, being ruled by the dictatorship of the billionaire class, have no say in this matter either.
Too bad our mainstream Washington reporters are so addicted to their Friday night cocktail hours, Saturday night supper parties and White House briefings that their foggy brains can’t focus on the pertinent questions to ask Trump and his acolytes. For instance, since the U.S. started the war, why don’t they just quit it? End the blockade of Iranian ports. Stop supporting Israel. Work toward genuine worldwide nuclear disarmament instead of singling out Iran (which still does not have a nuclear weapon). Stop being a hegemon trying to dominate the world and strive for equal rights and peace with justice.

07/30/2026

PROTEST U.S. WARS. Friday, July 31, 4 PM in Providence
Join with the RI Anti-War Committee to stand against American militarism. Demand a permanent end to the U.S./Israel war on Iran. Stop the oil embargo on Cuba. No more aid to Israel and support self-determination for the Palestinian people. Call for the U.S. to sign on to the UN Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1819072209473823/1819072239473820.
Help spread the word.
Israeli Banks Threaten West Bank Economy. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in the mid-1990s, two Israeli banks have been charged with facilitating financial transactions between Israel and Palestinian banks. These transactions are necessary for imports and exports between the West Bank and the rest of the world. The Israeli banks claim that the Palestinian banks are involved with funding terrorism and want to cut these ties because they fear lawsuits over their involvement. However, the function the Israeli banks provide allows the West Bank to import food, fuel, water, electricity and other items that are vital to the Palestinian economy. In addition, one U.S. official who served in the Treasury under Obama verified that the Palestinian banking system is not involved in funding terrorism.
If the Israeli banks did cut their ties with Palestinian banks it would amount to a commercial blockade of the territory. Trade with Israel accounts for 55% of Palestinian imports and 85% of its exports. West Bank Palestinians are already under tremendous economic pressure because Israel has withheld billions of dollars in import taxes that it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and the cancellation of work permits for tens of thousands of Palestinians who used to work inside Israel.
Besides these economic threats, West Bank Palestinians are being squeezed by land confiscations from the Israeli military for the construction of its outposts and the building of more settlements. There is also the violence they face from armed Israeli settlers who engage in the destruction of homes, property and farmland.

07/27/2026

PROTEST U.S. WARS. Tuesday, July 28, 4 PM in Providence
Stand with the RI Anti-War Committee to demand that the U.S. end its war on Iran. Let Cuba live. End the oil embargo. Call for a halt to U.S. aid to Israel and instead, provide sufficient humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Stop all U.S. military incursions around the world. We meet every Tuesday and Friday at 4 PM at the intersection of Francis and Gaspee Streets across from the Providence Place Mall. Bring friends, signs and banners. Share our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1349091523955136/1349091543955134. Help spread the word.
The World Turns Its Back on Palestine. While Hamas agreed to a ceasefire with Israel in November and released all the hostages, Israel continued since then to commit violence against Gaza and killed 1,100 people. A total of 71,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since October 21, 2023 with over 200,000 wounded. Hamas also accepted Trump’s 20-point peace plan despite its very vague details. Although there has been little progress since the first phase of the peace plan was completed (releasing the hostages), the facts on the ground give a good indication of where things are heading. Israel is pushing the Palestinians into smaller areas of Gaza and now militarily controls about 65% of the territory.
Phase two of Trump’s peace plan called for eventually constructing a billion-dollar futuristic “New Gaza” and the administration now talks about building a major military and personnel base for multinational forces. The Netanyahu government envisions the continuing hardships for Palestinians driving them to leave Gaza. (Where to is anyone’s guess.) Those remaining will become the construction workers of the New Gaza and the Israeli settlements that almost surely will follow.
Forgotten is the push by European powers in the Spring of 2025 to recognize Palestine as a state in response to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. Now that Israel’s killing and destruction in Gaza is no longer headline news, England, France and other powers feel free to ignore the plight of Palestinians. President Macron of France now says that the question of genocide in Gaza will be determined by “historians, in due time.” In other words, now that the worst of the violence has passed, we will revert to ignoring the issue.