US politics

By Doug Weir, Benjamin Neimark, and Oliver Belcher | – Climate change leadership requires more than stirring speeches. It means facing up to hard truths. One truth that governments around the world are struggling with is the immense contribution their militaries are making to the climate crisis. For example, the US Department of Defense is […]

Democracy

Feeding the Crocodile: Do Any Republicans Still Support Democracy?

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords) – Republicans should heed Churchill’s warning about appeasing authoritarians: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, it will eat him last.” By Jill Richardson | November 3, 2021 Investigative accounts of the Trump administration, like the recent Washington Post feature on the January 6 insurrection, routinely write about three kinds […]

Congress

Fightin’ Joe Biden Wins big, on Jobs, Covid, the Dow and Infrastructure, but Corporate News downplays Successes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The for-profit press thinks it knows what the story in Washington, D.C., is. Joe Biden is a boring president who struggles to get anything done and the Democratic Party is a hot mess of infighting that paralyzes it. Corporate news is the Eeyore of the news world, spreading pessimism and […]

Afghanistan

Was the Afghan War a Schell Game? Getting It Right Is Always the Wrong Approach When It Comes to America’s Wars

Nick Turse

( Tomdispatch.com) – I waited almost three months for some acknowledgement, but it never came. Not a bottle of champagne. Not a congratulatory note. Not an email of acknowledgement. Not one media request. Authors wait their whole lives for I-told-you-so moments like these. But mine passed without accolades, awards, or adulation. Being way ahead of […]

Afghanistan

“Worse than a Crime”: Pentagon Inspector finds Kabul Drone Strike Killing 10 not a Violation of Law (!)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Paul Handley of AFP reports that the US Air Force Inspector General, Lieutenant General Sami Said, found that a drone strike that mistakenly killed 10 civilian non-combatants, including 7 children, in Afghanistan on August 29 violated no laws, including the law of war. When Napoleon had the royalist Duc d’Enghein […]

Authoritarianism

Is America’s Political Dysfunction harming Democracy around the World?

John Feffer

Congressional paralysis, voter suppression, and widespread political polarization all suggest that American democracy is far from exemplary.

National Security State

The World the “American Century” Made: Quagmires, Wars and Serial Demonization

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On February 17, 1941, less than 10 months before the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor and the U.S. found itself in a global war, Henry Luce, in an editorial in Life magazine (which he founded along with Time and Fortune), declared the years to come “the American Century.” He then urged this […]

Climate Change

COP26: Biden first President to Back Sweeping Measures on Climate, as for-profit Press lets Denialist Republicans off the Hook

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) | – On Monday, President Joe Biden addressed the UN COP26 climate conference, declaring the 2020s the “critical decade.” It was a strong and hopeful speech that showed global leadership that has been sorely lacking. Those carping about Biden’s performance seem not to remember the past four years when the president […]

Afghanistan

America’s Toxic Militarism has left Afghanistan, but Afghan Women are still Living with its Consequences

Ann Jones

By Ann Jones | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – I know, I know. It’s the last thing you want to hear about. Twenty years of American carnage in Afghanistan was plenty for you, I’m sure, and there are so many other things to worry about in an America at the edge of… well, who knows […]