Pentagon

America after Trump must Confront MLK’s ‘Giant Triplets of Racism, Extreme Materialism, and Militarism’

By Andrew Bacevich | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – When Martin Luther King preached his famous sermon “Beyond Vietnam” at Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, I don’t recall giving his words a second thought. Although at the time I was just up the Hudson River attending West Point, his call for a […]

Drones

Will the Biden Administration End America’s Global War on Children?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

Most people regard Trump’s treatment of immigrant children as among his most shocking crimes as president. Images of hundreds of children stolen from their families and imprisoned in chain-link cages are an unforgettable disgrace that President Biden must move quickly to remedy with humane immigration policies and a program to quickly find the children’s families […]

National Security State

Demilitarizing Our Democracy: How the National Security State Has Come to Dominate a “Civilian” Government

Tomdispatch

By Mandy Smithberger and William Hartung | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – This month’s insurrection at the Capitol revealed the dismal failure of the Capitol Police and the Department of Defense to use their expertise and resources to thwart a clear and present danger to our democracy. As the government reform group Public Citizen tweeted, […]

Joe Biden

Do Biden’s Foreign Policy Appointees signal new Cold Wars with Russia, China?

Danny Sjursen

( Tomdispatch.com) – Hard as it is to believe in this time of record pandemic deaths, insurrection, and an unprecedented encore impeachment, Joe Biden is now officially at the helm of the U.S. war machine. He is, in other words, the fourth president to oversee America’s unending and unsuccessful post-9/11 military campaigns. In terms of […]

Joe Biden

The Rubble of Empire: Doctrines of Disaster and Dreams of Security as the Biden Years Begin

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – How can you tell when your empire is crumbling? Some signs are actually visible from my own front window here in San Francisco. Directly across the street, I can see a collection of tarps and poles (along with one of my own garbage cans) that were used to construct a makeshift […]

Joe Biden

Top Three Ways Biden can get us out of Forever Wars

Akan Malici

Greenville, SC (Special to Informed Comment) – Upon the beginning of his presidency, Donald Trump showed eagerness to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Predictably, Democrats condemned the president’s engagement with these “dictators.” The criticism was hypocritical. If it would have been the Democrats’ president engaging in such moves towards […]

Pentagon

We’re all POWs Now: When Will America Free Itself From War?

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – “POWs Never Have A Nice Day.” That sentiment was captured on a button a friend of mine wore for our fourth grade class photo in 1972. That prisoners of war could never have such a day was reinforced by the sad face on that button. Soon after, American POWs would indeed be […]

Afghanistan

Anti-War Officer Corps: An American Crisis of Conscience in the Forever Wars

Tomdispatch

By William J. Astore and Danny Sjursen | If you have a moment, how about joining two retired officers, Bill Astore and me, Danny Sjursen, as we think about this country’s catastrophic forever wars that, regardless of their deadly costs and lack of progress, never seem quite to end? Recently, in a podcast chat about […]

African-Americans

Biden Nominates first African-American Secretary of Defense, 250 Years after Crispus Attucks

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President-Elect Joe Biden will appoint retired four-star general Lloyd J. Austin III as his secretary of defense, according to the scoop by Lara Seligman, Tyler Pager, Connor O’Brien and Natasha Bertrand at Politico. Austin will be the first Black secretary of defense in our nation’s history. Austin has, they note, […]