( Tomdispatch.com) As I was putting the finishing touches on my new book, the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute published an estimate of the taxpayer dollars that will have gone into America’s war on terror from September 12, 2001, through fiscal year 2018. That figure: a cool $5.6 trillion (including the […]
Even though we keep Bombing Weddings, Americans can’t See the extremist in the Mirror
They are the extremists. If you need proof, look no further than the Afghan capital, Kabul, where the latest wave of suicide bombings has proven devastating. Recently, for instance, a fanatic set off his explosives among a group of citizens lining up outside a government office to register to vote in upcoming elections. At least […]
Ultimate Blowback: A Planet Boiling With Unintended Consequences
( Tomdispatch.com) | – – You want to see “blowback” in action? That’s easy enough. All you need is a vague sense of how Google Search works. Then type into it phrases like “warmest years,” “rising sea levels,” “melting ice,” “lengthening wildfire season,” or “future climate refugees,” and you’ll find yourself immersed in the grimmest […]
Trump: Candidate of American Decline
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com | – – “Low-energy Jeb.” “Little Marco.” “Lyin’ Ted.” “Crooked Hillary.” Give Donald Trump credit. He has a memorable way with insults. His have a way of etching themselves on the brain. And they’ve garnered media coverage, analysis, and commentary almost beyond imagining. Memorable as they might be, however, […]
Requiem for the Home Front: Before War was Covert & Elite
By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Almost three quarters of a century ago, my mother placed a message in a bottle and tossed it out beyond the waves. It bobbed along through tides, storms, and squalls until just recently, almost four decades after her death, it washed ashore at my feet. I’m speaking […]
Our Jihadis and Theirs: The Real (Armed) Dangers of American Life
By Tom Engeldhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Consider this paragraph a holding action on the subject of getting blown away in America. While I write this dispatch, I’m waiting patiently for the next set of dispiriting killings in this country. And I have faith. Before I’m done, some angry — or simply mentally disturbed […]
The National Security State gets Real: 9 Ways the US is becoming Bizarro World
By Tomd Engledhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – It’s commonplace to speak of “the fog of war,” of what can’t be known in the midst of battle, of the inability of both generals and foot soldiers to foresee developments once fighting is underway. And yet that fog is nothing compared to the murky nature of the […]
“Bug Splat”: Body Counts, Drones, and “Collateral Damage”
Tom Englehardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – The Obama administration has adamantly refused to count. Not a body. In fact, for a long time, American officials associated with Washington’s drone assassination campaigns and “signature strikes” in the backlands of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen claimed that there were no bodies to count, that the CIA’s drones were […]
Not your Founding Fathers’ America: Permanent War, Permanent Election Campaigns, Guns, Drones and Surveillance
By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) I never fail to be amazed — and that’s undoubtedly my failing. I mean, if you retain a capacity for wonder you can still be awed by a sunset, but should you really be shocked that the sun is once again sinking in the west? Maybe not. The occasion for […]
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