Pentagon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – There can be little question that the grim prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which still shows no sign of closing anytime soon, is a key legacy — in the worst sense imaginable — of America’s post-9/11 forever wars. I’ve been covering the subject for decades now and that shameful legacy has […]

Corporations

The Profiteers of Armageddon: Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Nuclear-Industrial Complex

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com) – Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you’re undoubtedly aware that award-winning director Christopher Nolan has released a new film about Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb” for leading the group of scientists who created that deadly weapon as part of America’s World […]

Featured

As long as Nukes are on the Table in Ukraine, We are Skating at the Edge of Global Catastrophe

Peter G. Prontzos

Vancouver (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has broached he use of battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine, We all hope it is an empty threat, since such an escalation could possibly trigger an all-out global holocaust. However, nothing is certain in war, and there are many scenarios in which nuclear weapons […]

Mental Health

Hunting the Military Extremist: How Disturbed is the U.S. Military?

Tomdispatch

By Nan Levinson ( Tomdispatch.com) – In April, when Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman with a top-secret clearance, was arrested for posting a trove of classified documents about the Russia-Ukraine war online, the question most often asked was: How did such a young, inexperienced, low-level technician have access to such sensitive material? […]

Bush

Iraq’s Climate Crisis: America’s War for Oil and the Great Mesopotamian Dustbowl

Juan Cole

( Tomdispatch.com ) – It was one of the fabled rivers of history and the Marines needed to cross it. In early April 2003, as American forces sought to wrap up their conquest of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and take strongholds to its north, the Marine Corps formed “Task Force Tripoli.” It was commanded by […]

Climate Crisis

To Stop Global Heating, Cut Military Spending

OtherWords

By Alliyah Lusuegro | ( Otherwords.org ) – Not long ago, I couldn’t step outside my home without pulling on my KN95 mask. As smoke from wildfires in Canada sweeps in waves across the U.S., tens of millions of Americans from the East Coast to the Midwest find themselves living under severe air quality advisories. […]

al-Qaeda

When Foreign Policy Elites Manipulate the Public into War, the First Amendment is the First Casualty

Ali Abootalebi

Eau Claire, WI (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – United States presidents have repeatedly waged wars with tacit congressional approval and distorted narratives at the expense of citizens’ political participation in the political process and to the detriment of their first amendment rights. the seemingly popular support for such interventions is constructed and deprives millions […]

Bill of Rights

Why we Need a Woke Military

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Gregory D. Foster ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – At the forefront of today’s cohort of right-wing, nativist Know-Nothings are those who specifically attack the U.S. military for the “wokeness” of its policies and practices. The military continues to wrestle—internally and externally, in its training, its policies, and its practices—with a wide […]

Militarization

The Ultimate All-American Slush Fund: How a New Budget Loophole could send Pentagon Spending Soaring even Higher

William D. Hartung

By Julia Gledhill and William D. Hartung ( Tomdispatch.com ) – On June 3rd, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that lifted the government’s debt ceiling and capped some categories of government spending. The big winner was — surprise, surprise! — the Pentagon. Congress spared military-related programs any cuts while freezing all other […]