Pentagon

Little by little, Americans are understanding just how badly our government has let us down by its belated and disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and how thousands more people are dying as a result. But there are two other crises we face that our government is totally unprepared for and incapable of dealing with: […]

Pentagon

Empire and Blowback: Remembering Chalmers Johnson’s Critique of American Imperialism

Richard Drake

( Responsible Statecraft) – It has been nearly ten years since Chalmers Johnson died, and twice that long since the publication of “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.” That Johnson’s condemnation of American imperialism originated in a conservative political and philosophical tradition makes him a somewhat unusual figure. Such viewpoints more characteristically come […]

Epidemics

Real Security: Wasted Pentagon Trillions that We Could have Spent on Health Care and Pandemic Preparedness

Tom Engelhardt

It is not like we’ve won any wars since 1945, anyway

Militarization

A General once Warned against Military-Industrial Complex: Today’s West Point Mafia is It

Danny Sjursen

(Tomdispatch.com ) – Every West Point class votes on an official motto. Most are then inscribed on their class rings. Hence, the pejorative West Point label “ring knocker.” (As legend has it, at military meetings a West Pointer “need only knock his large ring on the table and all Pointers present are obliged to rally […]

Donald Trump

Modly and Esper Should have followed Capt. Crozier’s Lead in Blowing Whistle on Trump Coronavirus inaction rather than Firing Him

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Capt. Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt is a national hero, as his crew recognized when they cheered uproariously as he left his ship for the last time. Crozier had provoked the Navy to let the crew of 5,000 debark at Guam. Some 100 of them tested positive for […]

Donald Trump

In a Plague Year, Trump Ratchets up Tensions with Iran and Iraq

Reese Erlich

San Francisco (Foreign Correspondent) – While the world focuses on the coronavirus pandemic, tensions between the US and Iran are heating up. The two countries are engaging in tit-for-tat military attacks that threaten a wider war. In mid-March, Washington officials accused an Iran-allied militia of launching rockets at a US military base in Iraq, killing […]

Afghanistan

What Americans Don’t Know About the hardships of Military Families

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – As each of my husband’s Navy submarine deployments came to an end, local spouses would e-mail me about the ship’s uncertain date of return. They were attempting to sell tickets to a raffle in which the winner would be the first to kiss her returning sailor. […]

Afghanistan

Did the US Commit War Crimes in Afghanistan? International Prosecutors want to Find Out

The Conversation

By Hurst Hannum | – International prosecutors tasked with looking into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan have no shortage of potential targets. Afghan soldiers and warlords have been accused of rape, murder and kidnap almost since fighting began in late 2001. The deliberate targeting of civilians by the Taliban and other groups continues to this […]

Donald Trump

Ending the Myth That Trump Is Ending Mideast Wars

OtherWords

By Khury Petersen-Smith | Trump has sent more new troops to the Middle East than he’s bringing home from Afghanistan. (Otherwords.org ) – There was this moment during the State of the Union Address that I can’t stop thinking about. When President Trump spoke to army wife Amy Wiliams during his speech and told her […]