National Security State

By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Jump into your time machine and let me transport you back to another age. It’s May 2001 and the Atlantic Monthly has just arrived in the mail. I’m tantalized by the cover article. “Russia is finished,” the magazine announces. The subtitle minces no words: “The […]

Iran

The Mystery of Washington’s Iran Derangement Syndrome

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – “Everywhere you look, if there is trouble in the region,” Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters on a mid-April visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “you find Iran.” I must admit that when I stumbled across that quote it brought up uncomfortable personal memories. East Baghdad, […]

Corruption

Erdogan, Trump, the Russians and General Flynn: The Tangled Web

contributors

By Carl Max Kortepeter | (Informed Comment) | – – When Sally Yates testified that she had told the Trump Organization, before his appointment as National Security Adviser, that General Flynn was in the pay of Turkey, for $600,000, President Trump should not have made the appointment. Appointments have consequences. General Flynn was acting erratically […]

Espionage

Was Chelsea Manning trying to stop the Endless War? Whistleblowing and Morality

Juan Cole

By Peter Van Buren | (Tomdispatch.com) | <p>“My guilt will never go away,” former Marine Matthew Hoh explained to me. “There is a significant portion of me that doesn’t believe it should be allowed to go away, that this pain is fair.”</p> <p>If America accepts the idea of fighting endless wars, it will have to […]

Censors

Clapper Lied & Spied, now charges Trump w/ assault on Gov’t Institutions

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – During the past week we’ve been subjected to hours of testimony by or interviews with James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence. On Sunday, Clapper made waves when he said on CNN that Donald Trump is engaged in an assault on US institutions by doing things […]

Afghanistan

How America’s Myth of the Infallible Generals gets us in Trouble

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – More, more, more. I was guilty of it myself. Commanding a small cavalry troop of about 85 soldiers in southwest Kandahar Province back in 2011, I certainly wanted and requested more: more troopers, more Special Forces advisers, more Afghan police, more air support, more supplies, more […]

Donald Trump

End the Imperial Presidency: Do we Really Want Trump Assassinating and Launching Wars at Will?

contributors

By Andrew Bacevich | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Since the late eighteenth century, the United States has been involved in an almost ceaseless string of wars, interventions, punitive expeditions, and other types of military ventures abroad — from fighting the British and Mexicans to the Filipinos and Koreans to the Vietnamese and Laotians to […]

Donald Trump

Don’t want to lose the Next Mideast War? Don’t Fight One

Juan Cole

Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Make no mistake: after 15 years of losing wars, spreading terror movements, and multiplying failed states across the Greater Middle East, America will fight the next versions of our ongoing wars. Not that we ever really stopped. Sure, Washington traded in George W. Bush’s expansive, almost […]

Donald Trump

Who Profits from Trump’s dramatic but useless Bombings?

contributors

By William Astore | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – What does an “America-first” foreign policy look like under President Donald Trump? As a start, forget the ancient label of “isolationism.” With the end of Trump’s first 100 days approaching, it looks more like a military-first policy aimed at achieving global hegemony, which means it’s a potential […]