Pentagon

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | Iraq’s Sunni Muslims are anxiously watching the debate over the presence of US troops in Iraq. Civilians believe they are an important neutralising presence and military personnel want their help and their technology. On January 27, a friendly fire incident in Iraq’s Anbar province ended in the […]

Foreign Policy

The Hidden Costs of America’s Perpetual Wars

Juan Cole

By Stephanie Savell | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – I’m in my mid-thirties, which means that, after the 9/11 attacks, when this country went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq in what President George W. Bush called the “Global War on Terror,” I was still in college. I remember taking part in a couple of campus […]

Kurds

The U.S. Is Permanently Occupying Northern Syria, and That’s Trouble

contributors

By Reese Erlich | (The Progressive) | – – When President Barack Obama started bombing Syria in 2014, he enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington, D.C. Americans were appalled by the atrocities of the Islamic State, which had massacred Yazidis, and seized swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq. At the time I warned that, […]

Pentagon

The US is near to Turning a Corner in Afghanistan etc. and always Will be

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – If you’re in the mood, would you consider taking a walk with me and, while we’re at it, thinking a little about America’s wars? Nothing particularly ambitious, mind you, just — if you’re up for it — a stroll to the corner. Now, admittedly, there’s a […]

Afghanistan

Did the Pentagon’s War on Drugs Confound Counter-Terrorism?

contributors

By Nick Turse | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – 2017 was a year of investigations for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). There was the investigation of the two-star commander of U.S. Army Africa who allegedly sent racy texts to an enlisted man’s wife. There was the investigation into the alleged killing of a Special Forces soldier by […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria: Deir al-Zor attack on US Troops, allies, Shows their Vulnerability

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – US troops and the Kurdish and Arab fighters among whom they are embedded came under a coordinated attack by pro-Damascus militias on late Wednesday into Thursday morning. The action took place in Deir al-Zor Province, in Syria’s far east. It is possible that the pro-regime militias […]

Foreign Policy

Can American Democracy survive six Standing Wars?

contributors

William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Whether the rationale is the need to wage a war on terror involving 76 countries or renewed preparations for a struggle against peer competitors Russia and China (as Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested recently while introducing America’s new National Defense Strategy), the U.S. military is […]

Arms Sales

Huge Military Budgets Make Us Broke, Not Safe

contributors

By Miriam Pemberton | (Otherwords.org) | – – Backing down from nuclear war would make us a lot safer than piling more money into the Pentagon. We’re all tense. Hearing about our fellow citizens in Hawaii scrambling around, looking for a place to hide from a nuclear bomb, will do that to you. So will […]

Donald Trump

Countering Turkish Propaganda, Pentagon reports 150 ISIL Killed in Airstrikes

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The front page news today that US and coalition aircraft (mostly American joined by French and British pilots) struck last Saturday at an ISIL base in eastern Syria where hundreds of fighters had regrouped, killing 150 of them. There are lots of question marks about this […]