National Security State

By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – The rise and fall of great powers and their imperial domains has been a central fact of history for centuries. It’s been a sensible, repeatedly validated framework for thinking about the fate of the planet. So it’s hardly surprising, when faced with a country once regularly labeled […]

Barack Obama

Demonizing as Policy: Washington Elites divided over which state to declare Enemy No. 1

contributors

By Michael T. Klare | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – America’s grand strategy, its long-term blueprint for advancing national interests and countering major adversaries, is in total disarray. Top officials lurch from crisis to crisis, improvising strategies as they go, but rarely pursuing a consistent set of policies. Some blame this indecisiveness on a lack of […]

Militarization

America’s “Wars on . . .” have become an unhealthy Addiction

contributors

By William J. Astore | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – War on drugs. War on poverty. War in Afghanistan. War in Iraq. War on terror. The biggest mistake in American policy, foreign and domestic, is looking at everything as war. When a war mentality takes over, it chooses the weapons and tactics for you. It limits the terms […]

African-Americans

Patterns of Racial Violence in the US: Charleston Shooting wasn’t a “One-Off” Event

contributors

By Ethan Zuckerman | (The Conversation) | – – When you read about Dylann Roof, think about the patterns he represents. There’s more than one. Over the next few days, we’re going to hear about mental illness. We’re going to hear about troubled loners. We’ll hear about a young man’s racist fantasies, so outrageous that […]

Barack Obama

Down the Iraqi Rabbit Hole (Again): Washington in Wonderland

contributors

By Andrew J. Bacevich | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – There is a peculiar form of insanity in which a veneer of rationality distracts attention from the madness lurking just beneath the surface. When Alice dove down her rabbit hole to enter a place where smirking cats offered directions, ill-mannered caterpillars dispensed advice, and Mock Turtles […]

Arab Americans

Can the GOP live down Donald Trump’s Middle East “Policy”?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Comedians, bloggers, and pundits are ecstatic about The Donald throwing his toupee in the ring for the Republican nomination. The stories write themselves. But the Republican Party establishment is appalled, because Trump will create an image for the party that will hurt it in the general […]

Bush

The Middle East Policy of President John Ellis “Jeb” Bush: Iraq, Iran Wars?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Jeb Bush announced his run for president on Monday. It is hard to know what his Middle East policy would be from his wibbly wobbly pronouncements, but that it would be imperial and aggressive can be deduced from his foreign policy advisory team, including Neoconservatives such […]

Colonialism

The Forgotten Costs of War in the Middle East

contributors

By David Vine | (Tomdispatch.com) | – First, they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with strychnine. When both failed as efficient killing methods, British government agents and U.S. Navy personnel used raw meat to lure the pets into a sealed shed. Locking them inside, they gassed the howling animals […]

Democratic Party

Bernie Sanders On How We Should Pay For War

contributors

By John Iadarola | (The Young Turks Video Report) | – – “John Iadarola (Think Tank) discusses Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ recent policy announcement regarding war spending. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants to require Congress to pay for any spending in the Pentagon’s war fund. “Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, is offering […]