Pentagon

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

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Congress

Why is Social Spending Controversial but Congress lavishes $7 trillion a Decade on Pentagon?

OtherWords

By Sister Karen M. Donahue | ( Otherwords.org) – Right now, the United States is locked in a contentious debate over the Build Back Better plan, which will make a significant difference in the lives of millions of individuals and families. Even though the provisions included in the plan — including universal child care, home […]

Australia

Taking the World to the Brink: The Australia-UK-US Nuclear Sub Alliance against China

Tomdispatch

By David Vine | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Before it’s too late, we need to ask ourselves a crucial question: Do we really — I mean truly — want a new Cold War with China? Because that’s just where the Biden administration is clearly taking us. If you need proof, check out last month’s announcement […]

Afghanistan

Celebrating Rep. Barbara Lee, our Cassandra who warned against the Failed 20-Year Wars

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – For decades, I kept a poster on my wall that I’d saved from the year I turned 16. In its upper left-hand corner was a black-and-white photo of a white man in a grey suit. Before him spread a cobblestone plaza. All you could see were the man and the stones. […]

Government surveillance

I’ll be Watching You: Military Dependents under Surveillance

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – I know what it means to be watched all too carefully, a phenomenon that’s only grown worse in the war-on-terror years. I’m a strange combination, I suspect, being both a military spouse and an anti-war-on-terror activist. As I’ve discovered, the two sit uncomfortably in what still […]

Bush

Iraq is seeking 10 Gigawatts of Solar Power; if World had gone Green in ’80s, Would the US have ever invaded Iraq?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a historic irony, Iraq is turning to solar energy, according to Dania Saadi at SPGlobal. Ali Jawad at the Anadolu Agency reports that the Baghdad government is seeking to generate 10 gigawatts of solar power for electricity by 2030, though it already has several projects in train that will […]

Arms Sales

Why Do so many in Congress resist funding Childcare But swoon over F-35s?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – President Biden and the Democratic Congress are facing a crisis as the popular domestic agenda they ran on in the 2020 election is held hostage by two corporate Democratic Senators, fossil-fuel consigliere Joe Manchin and payday-lender favorite Kyrsten Sinema. But the very week before the Dems’ $350 billion-per-year domestic package hit […]