International Politics and Economy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not! I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this […]

Crime

More guns, pandemic stress and a police legitimacy crisis created perfect conditions for homicide spike in 2020

The Conversation

By Justin Nix | – Homicides in the U.S. spiked by almost 30% in 2020. That was the main takeaway from figures released on Sept. 27, 2021, by the FBI that showed almost uniform increases across America in the murder rate. The fact that big cities, small cities, suburbs and rural areas – in both […]

Drones

The Names You’ll Never Know: A Blue Kia and a Wall of Carnage on the Washington Mall

Nick Turse

( Tomdispatch.com) – As a parting shot, on its way out of Afghanistan, the United States military launched a drone attack that the Pentagon called a “righteous strike.” The final missile fired during 20 years of occupation, that August 29th airstrike averted an Islamic State car-bomb attack on the last American troops at Kabul’s airport. […]

Democracy

How Gerrymandering Threatens Democracy

contributors

By Arnold J. Oliver | – Tiffin, Oh. (Special to Informed Comment) – Right now, Ohio, Michigan and other states are in the process of drawing new legislative boundaries, which takes place every ten years based mostly on information gained from the US census. As this process gets into gear, it appears that once again […]

Arms Sales

The Profits of War: How Corporate America Cashed in on the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending Surge

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com) – The costs and consequences of America’s twenty-first-century wars have by now been well-documented — a staggering $8 trillion in expenditures and more than 380,000 civilian deaths, as calculated by Brown University’s Costs of War project. The question of who has benefited most from such an orgy of military spending has, unfortunately, received […]

Afghanistan

Can We Finally Give Peace A Chance? The U.S. Military, Post-Afghanistan

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – Yoda, the Jedi Master in the Star Wars films, once pointed out that the future is all too difficult to see and it’s hard to deny his insight. Yet I’d argue that, when it comes to the U.S. military and its wars, Yoda was just plain wrong. That part of the future […]

Afghanistan

US admits that Hellfire Strike on Kabul, killing 10, was a “Mistake” – But US often does not know Whom it is Droning

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Associated Press reports that the survivors of family members killed in a U.S. hellfire missile strike on a civilian vehicle after US troops and Afghan evacuees were killed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul are not satisfied with the apology issued by the U.S. military. They want compensation. […]

Arab Americans

Habib Satire and Marvel Superheroes: Using Comedy to Combat Stereotyping of Arabs

The Conversation

By Safiyya Hosein | – As a researcher of Muslim superheroes, I’ve learned about the many ways Islamophobia manifests. Because Islam is racialized in the west, Arab Christians, Hindus and Sikhs have been implicated in Islamophobic political discourses, making them victims of Islamophobia. Many of these issues can be traced back to a strange convergence […]

Islamophobia

9/11: how politicians and the media turned terrorism into an Islamic issue

The Conversation

By Jared Ahmad | – As we mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it is important to reflect on the legacy that event – and the “war on terror” more broadly – has had for the way news media cover terrorism. Though we should be clear that terrorism as we define it […]