“Russia is not our enemy,” Dan Kovalik, a human rights lawyer and author said to students on Wednesday.

DVC was Kovalik’s first stop on his Bay Area book tour. He spoke just days after the Russian Consulate was ordered to shut down by President Trump.

Kovalik noted early on that America’s economy and thus its foreign policy is based on maintaining war, and to be in a war one must have an enemy.

The mass media, according to Kovalik, has historically pushed the agenda of the military industrial complex and continues to do so by pedaling a narrative of Russian interference in our recent presidential election. According to Kovalik, Hillary Clinton’s emails were not hacked by Russia and then fed to Wikileaks but were probably stolen an anonymous staff member. He said that Americans have hatred for Russia in their DNA.

Kovalik’s book focuses on the media and Russia-as-the-enemy narrative, while his talk at DVC was mostly pointing out the atrocities the United States’ government had perpetrated around the world. One of these atrocities is selling weapons and providing support to the Saudis in their attack on the rebels in Yemen, which has reached genocide proportion.

“If we really wanted to stop genocide, we would send the troops home. US military actions are causing genocide,” said Kovalik.

Sitting in the front row was Dr. Harmesh Kumar, who’s currently campaigning for California governor. He agreed with everything Kovalik had to say. “I could tell from (Kovalik’s) body language he was telling the truth,” Kumar said.

“I was more interesting than I would have imagined,” DVC computer science major Blake Randall said. Randall attended the talk because his history professor, Mickey Huff, offered extra credit.

Huff emphasized that the event was sponsored by the DVC History Club, whose faculty adviser was in attendance, and Project Censored, an initiative where he is the director.

Discounted copies of Kovalik’s book, “The Plot to Scapegoat Russia,” were available at the event.

The next stop on Kovalik’s book tour is Saturday at the Book Passage Bookstore in the San Francisco Ferry Building.