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'Up in Arms': Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Launches New Campaign Against Bloated Pentagon Budget
"If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want," said Ben Cohen, "the American Dream can become a reality again."
Jun 14, 2025
Joined by retired military officers and national security experts, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen on Thursday launched a campaign targeting the nearly $900 billion Pentagon budget and the $100 billion spent on nuclear weapons and "to get our country to start funding the American Dream instead of the death of millions of people."
Standing near Union Station in Washington, D.C. beside a towering sculpture showing what $100 billion looks like, supporters of the Up in Arms campaign—a planned four-year public education and advocacy project "to bring common sense to the Department of Defense and the country's budgetary bottom line"—chanted, "Money for the poor, not nuclear war!"
"There will be no peace, there will be no security, until we start using our resources to provide for the needs of our people at home and around the world," Cohen said at the event. "And we have the money to do it, at no additional taxpayer expense. If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want, the American Dream can become a reality again."
The peace group Ploughshares, which moderated a press conference for the launch of Up in Arms, said that the faux-$100 billion installation could be the tallest protest structure ever erected in Washington, D.C.
"This is a structure that represents the $100 billion that our country spends each year on nuclear weapons," Cohen said while standing in front of the tower and embracing Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the peace group CodePink. "Fifty percent of that is for a whole new generation of nuclear weapons."
"Ice cream not bombs!" Benjamin said next. "Ice cream not nuclear weapons!"
The $100 billion figure includes spending on modernizing the nuclear arsenal, supporting its infrastructure, and addressing legacy issues like nuclear waste.
"Congress could make it easier for Americans to buy homes and save on gas or they could tackle the opioid epidemic–but those are clearly NOT their priorities," Up in Arms says on its website. "We have all the money we need to create a good life for all Americans. For half the money we spend on nuclear bombs, we could stop poisoning kids with lead, provide funding for public schools, and make childcare affordable."
Former U.S. military officers-turned-peace defenders Dennis Laich, Lawrence Wilkerson, Ann Wright, Karen Kwiatkowski, William Astore, and Dennis Fritz, as well as FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and former CIA officer Ray McGovern, are taking part in the Up in Arms campaign.
"We're here today to say we don't want our money spent this way, we want our money spent… on things that keep people alive, not on things that kill people," said Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and current member of the Eisenhower Media Network and Veterans Against Genocide.
"We're up in arms and down on these damn nuclear weapons," she added, "and We the People have to be able to go to each one of these congresspeople and say, 'We don't care how much money you're getting from all of these companies that make a killing out if killing with these nuclear weapons.'"
Laich, a former U.S. Army general also with the Eisenhower Media Network, noted that the U.S. military budget "is larger than the next 10 countries combined, and what do we get for it?"
"Since World War II, we tied in Korea, we lost in Vietnam, we won the first Gulf War, we lost in Iraq, and we lost in Afghanistan," he said. "They always say we have the greatest military on earth; I don't buy it."
President Donald Trump is proposing a record $1 trillion Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2026 while backing legislation that would dramatically slash spending on vital social programs in order to fund a massive tax break that would overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations.
On Friday, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—which earned the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for spearheading the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—published an analysis showing the world's nine nuclear powers spent a combined baseline $100 billion on their arsenals last year, an 11% increase from 2023. The United States alone accounted for well over half of that amount.
Cohen is a longtime anti-war activist. Last month, he was arrested after disrupting a Senate hearing, shouting, "Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the U.S." as he was hauled off by police.
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US Progressives Say Stop Supporting 'Rogue Genocidal Regime' After Israel's Unprovoked Attack on Iran
"Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse," said one critic.
Jun 13, 2025
Progressive U.S. lawmakers and human rights defenders demanded an end to unconditional American armed and diplomatic support for Israel after it launched a series of attacks on Iran early Friday, reportedly killing senior military officials and civilians including nuclear scientists, women, and children in a dramatic escalation that Iranian leaders vowed to avenge.
Israeli forces carried out at least five waves of airstrikes targeting not only Iran's nuclear facilities but also its military leadership and capabilities, Al Jazeerareported. In addition to airstrikes, Israeli and international media reported that operatives from Mossad, Israel's foreign spy agency, also conducted assassination and sabotage attacks in Iran.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Major Gen. Hossein Salami and Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major Gen. Mohammad Bagheri were assassinated, as were numerous Iranian nuclear scientists.
IDF attacks targeted cities including the capital Tehran, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Tabriz, and Kermanshah. Iranian television reports showed bombed-out apartment towers and said that an unknown number of civilians including women and children were killed in the strikes.
The attack on Natanz—home to Iran's primary nuclear enrichment facility—sparked fears of radiological contamination.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack—dubbed Operation Rising Lion—a "preemptive strike," a dubious form of warfare previously waged by forces including imperial Japan during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the George W. Bush administration in Iraq.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the attacks were meant to "neutralize an immediate and existential threat to our people," an apparent reference to Iran's nuclear program. Successive U.S. administrations including President Donald Trump's have concluded for decades that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.
During his first term, Trump unilaterally abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Last year, Israel and Iran carried out limited tit-for-tat attacks following the former's assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
This time, Iranian leaders vowed "severe punishment," with fears that the U.S. could be targeted due to its staunch support for Israel as it wages what the international community increasingly views as a genocidal war on Gaza. While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that his country was not involved in the attacks, Israeli officials insisted there was close coordination with the Trump administration.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Friday that "in the early hours of today, the Zionist regime extended its filthy and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, exposing its vile nature more than ever by targeting residential areas."
"With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself—and it will undoubtedly face it," Khamenei added.
As the world braced for Iran's response to the attacks, U.S. progressives called for a diplomatic solution and an end to American support for Israel.
"The Israeli government bombing Iran is a dangerous escalation that could lead to regional war," Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on social media.
Tlaib asserted that Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and is facing a domestic criminal corruption trial, "will do anything to maintain his grip on power."
"We cannot let him drag our country into a war with Iran," she added. "Our government must stop funding and supporting this rogue genocidal regime."
Referring to negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said: "Just as talks with Iran were set to resume, Netanyahu launches a strike and declares a state of emergency. He is provoking a war Americans don't want."
"We should not allow ourselves to be dragged into yet another conflict, against our will, by a foreign leader pursuing his own agenda of death and destruction," Omar added.
The U.S.-based peace group CodePink—some of whose members held an emergency protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C.—said that it "strongly condemn[s] Israel's unprovoked and reckless attack on Iran, which risks igniting a catastrophic regional war."
"This dangerous escalation threatens millions of lives across the entire Middle East," the group added. "The U.S. must not continue to support and enable this illegal act of aggression."
CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said: "It's horrific that Israel is bombing yet another country. And Trump calls himself a peace president? He knew this was coming and stood by. This is entirely out of step with the will of the American people."
"The whole world is desperate for peace in the Middle East, and instead, Israel decides to move the region closer to World War III," Benjamin added.
Noting that nuclear talks with Iran were set to resume this weekend, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that "this is an attack on peace and diplomacy."
"Israeli political officials have demonstrated that U.S. diplomacy and a peaceful resolution with Iran is what they consider to be the true threats," NIAC asserted.
"This much is clear: This is a war of choice, and an illegal and unprovoked attack," NIAC added. "Trump must weigh in to stop this conflict before it spirals out of control, and to preserve the chance of maintaining diplomatic offramps."
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, Israel-Palestine director at the advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), contended that "Israel deciding to launch a war against Iran at the very same time it faces unprecedented international isolation and pressure over its genocide in Gaza is a nightmarish outcome of impunity."
DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said that "Israel has committed an unlawful, unprovoked attack on Iran to undermine the growing global efforts to sanction it for its illegal occupation and to disrupt Trump's efforts to independently pursue America’s interests via diplomacy."
Nihad Awad, national executive director at the Council on American Islamic Relations, issued the following statement:
We condemn Israel's offensive strike on Iran and the broader pattern of aggression it represents. Netanyahu is using American weapons and taxpayer dollars to launch illegal and destabilizing wars across the region. President Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse. Secretary Rubio's statement confirms what we already knew—Israel is acting recklessly, and the U.S. is letting it happen.
CodePink noted that "in the past month and a half alone, Israel has bombed Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran."
"There is no other choice," the group added, "ARMS EMBARGO NOW!"
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Will the World Speak up Against Israel’s Likely Attack on Humanitarian Activists?
The Conscience was carrying no weapons. It posed no threat. Its only crime was daring to challenge a brutal siege and slaughter that the United Nations itself has condemned as illegal and inhumane.
May 02, 2025
In the early hours of May 2, the quiet of night was shattered aboard the Conscience, a civilian vessel anchored in international waters, 17 kilometers off the coast of Malta. Aboard were 18 crew members and passengers, jolted from sleep by the sound of two explosions. Flames and smoke filled the air. The ship had just been struck—by what the crew members say were drone attacks.
The very day of the attack, more passengers from 21 countries were waiting in Malta to be ferried out to join the Conscience. Among those slated to join the ship were world-renowned environmentalist Greta Thunberg, retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, and longtime CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry.
The Conscience is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a network of international activists that has been challenging Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza since 2008.
“The U.S. condemns the Houthis for stopping ships carrying weapons to Israel—and bombs Yemen mercilessly for it. But will they condemn Israel for attacking a peaceful ship on a humanitarian mission to Gaza?”
The group alleges that the attack came from Israel—an allegation bolstered by a CNN investigation. According to CNN, flight-tracking data from ADS-B Exchange showed that an Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft departed from Israel early Thursday afternoon and flew at low altitude over eastern Malta for an extended period. While the Hercules did not land, its path brought it in proximity to the area where the Conscience was later attacked. The plane returned to Israel approximately seven hours later. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment on the flight data.
The ship suffered significant damage, but fortunately, no one was hurt. That was not the case when the Freedom Flotilla was attacked in 2010. This May 2 attack comes just weeks before the 15th anniversary of the infamous raid on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship that led a previous flotilla to Gaza in 2010. On May 31 of that year, Israeli naval commandos stormed the ship in international waters, killing 10 people and injuring dozens. The Mavi Marmara had been carrying over 500 activists and humanitarian supplies. That attack drew condemnation from around the world and calls for an international investigation—calls that Israel dismissed.
One of this year’s flotilla organizers, Ismail Behesti, is the son of a man killed in the 2010 raid. In videos circulating after the recent strike, Behesti is seen walking through the damaged interior of the Conscience, his voice resolute as he condemns what he believes was another Israeli act of aggression against civilians on a humanitarian mission.
“People are asking how Israel can get away with attacking a civilian ship in international waters,” said Tighe Barry, speaking from the port in Malta. “But since October 8, 2024, Israel has shown complete disregard for international law—from bombing civilian neighborhoods to using starvation as a weapon by blocking food from entering Gaza. This is just one more example of its impunity.”
“Where is the outrage?” Barry continued. “The U.S. condemns the Houthis for stopping ships carrying weapons to Israel—and bombs Yemen mercilessly for it. But will they condemn Israel for attacking a peaceful ship on a humanitarian mission to Gaza?”
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition and activist groups such as CODEPINK are calling on governments and international bodies to speak out and take action.
The Conscience was carrying no weapons. It posed no threat. Its only crime was daring to challenge a brutal siege and slaughter that the United Nations itself has condemned as illegal and inhumane. That’s the real threat Israel fears—not the ship itself, but the global solidarity it represents.
So, will the world speak up about Israel’s latest outrage? Or will this, too, be quietly buried beneath the waves?
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