Pentagon

The Nightmare of Military Spending on an Overheating Planet: A Big Carbon Bootprint and a Giant Sucking Sound in the National Budget

By Stan Cox | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – On October 1st, the U.S. military will start spending the more than $800 billion Congress is going to provide it with in fiscal year 2023. And that whopping sum will just be the beginning. According to the calculations of Pentagon expert William Hartung, funding for various intelligence […]

Pentagon

US Smug about Russia’s Failures in Ukraine, Forgetting the Iraq and Afghanistan Quagmires

Andrew J. Bacevich

(Tomdispatch.com) – In Washington, wide agreement exists that the Russian army’s performance in the Kremlin’s ongoing Ukraine “special military operation” ranks somewhere between lousy and truly abysmal. The question is: Why? The answer in American policy circles, both civilian and military, appears all but self-evident. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has stubbornly insisted on ignoring the principles, […]

Arms Sales

Spending Unlimited: Contractors Cash in as Congress Adds Billions to the Pentagon Budget

Tomdispatch

By Julia Gledhill and William D. Hartung | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Congress has spoken when it comes to next year’s Pentagon budget and the results, if they weren’t so in line with past practices, should astonish us all. The House of Representatives voted to add $37 billion and the Senate $45 billion to the […]

Afghanistan

Pact Act is Vindication for Vets after US Denied for Years that Burn Pits in Afghanistan and Iraq made them Ill

The Conversation

By Jason A. Higgins, Virginia Tech | – During a 13-month stint in Iraq that began in 2006, Heath Robinson served as a medic with the Ohio National Guard. Like thousands of others soldiers stationed there, he was routinely exposed to toxic smoke emanating from what are known as burn pits. Located near military bases, […]

Far Right

Faced with Extremism within its Ranks, US Military has clamped down on racist Speech, including Retweets and Likes

The Conversation

By Dwight Stirling, University of Southern California | – Less than a month after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin took the extraordinary step of pausing all operations for 24 hours to “address extremism in the ranks.” Pentagon officials had been shaken by service members’ prominent […]

Donald Trump

Imperial Detritus: Henry Luce’s “American Century” Comes Undone

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com ) – “The American Century Is Over.” So claims the July 2022 cover of Harper’s Magazine, adding an all-too-pertinent question: “What’s Next?” What, indeed? Eighty years after the United States embarked upon the Great Crusade of World War II, a generation after it laid claim to the status of sole superpower following the […]

Featured

On Cusp of Biden visit to Saudi Arabia, GAO questions US Accounting for Civilian Harm caused in Yemen by its Weapons

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden is on the cusp of going off to Saudi Arabia as one part of his upcoming Middle East trip. One of the failures of Mr. Biden has been completely disengaging the US from the Saudi-led war on Yemen, which he had pledged to do. Although there has been […]