Pentagon

( Code Pink) – Despite a disagreement over some amendments in the Senate, the United States Congress is poised to pass a $778 billion military budget bill for 2022. As they have been doing year after year, our elected officials are preparing to hand the lion’s share – over 65% – of federal discretionary spending […]

China

Countdown to World War III with China?

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – When the Department of Defense released its annual report on Chinese military strength in early November, one claim generated headlines around the world. By 2030, it suggested, China would probably have 1,000 nuclear warheads — three times more than at present and enough to pose a substantial threat to the United […]

Militarization

No, Modern Warfare is not “Accurate” or “Accountable” and dead Innocents are not “Collateral Damage”

The Conversation

By Lauren Gould, Jolle Demmers, and Nora Stel | – The US military is facing allegations it covered up civilian casualty cases in the US-led coalition war against Islamic State (IS). It’s an issue that has drawn attention to one of the most worrying aspects of US and coalition involvement in the Middle East: the […]

Militarization

The Costs of War (to You): Where So Much of Our Money Really Went

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – As a Navy spouse of 10 years and counting, my life offers an up-close view of our country’s priorities when it comes to infrastructure and government spending. Recently, my husband, a naval officer currently serving with the Department of Energy, spent a week with colleagues touring a […]

Featured

To Avoid another War Biden must get US Troops, caught in Israel-Iran Crossfire, out of Syria

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Eric Schmitt and Ronen Bergman at the New York Times report that a drone strike on a US base in eastern Syria last month has been assessed by the Pentagon as retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on Iranian bases in Syria. US troops abandoned the base before the strike, based on […]

Militarization

The Pentagon as Penta-god: America’s Abyss of Weapons and Warmaking

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – Who is America’s god? The Christian god of the beatitudes, the one who healed the sick, helped the poor, and preached love of neighbor? Not in these (dis)United States. In the Pledge of Allegiance, we speak proudly of One Nation under God, but in the aggregate, this country doesn’t serve or worship […]

Pentagon

Can the Runaway Pentagon Budget ever be Reined in?

Tomdispatch

By Mandy Smithberger and William Hartung | – Even as Congress moves to increase the Pentagon budget well beyond the astronomical levels proposed by the Biden administration, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has outlined three different ways to cut $1 trillion in Department of Defense spending over the next decade. A […]

Climate Crisis

COP26: how the world’s Militaries hide their huge Carbon Emissions

The Conversation

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 […]

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 […]