Pentagon

TeleSur | – – Report says Washington should consider the “post-primacy” milieu as a “wakeup call”. A study by the Pentagon, “At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World” says the US framework of international order that was established after the Second World Wat is “fraying” and “collapsing”. “While the United States […]

Donald Trump

Empire of Destruction: Mosul reveals Myth of Precision Bombing

Juan Cole

By Tom Engelhardt | (Via Tomdispatch.com ) | – – You remember. It was supposed to be twenty-first-century war, American-style: precise beyond imagining; smart bombs; drones capable of taking out a carefully identified and tracked human being just about anywhere on Earth; special operations raids so pinpoint-accurate that they would represent a triumph of modern […]

Militarization

What good is our Nat’l Security State if we’re afraid to Leave Home?

contributors

By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Has there ever been a nation as dedicated to preparing for doomsday as the United States? If that’s a thought that hasn’t crossed your mind, maybe it’s because you didn’t spend part of your life inside Cheyenne Mountain. That’s a tale I’ll get to soon, […]

Donald Trump

Congress must take back the car keys of Perpetual War from Trump

contributors

By Peter Certo. | (Otherwords.org) | – – By putting such a sinister face on it, Trump might have finally inspired lawmakers to rein in America’s post-9/11 war machine. A Bipartisan Vote to Put the Brakes on War By putting such a sinister face on it, Trump might have finally inspired lawmakers to rein in […]

Militarization

The Violent “American Century”

contributors

By John Feffer | (FPIF) | Originally published in Korea Quarterly | – – The last near-century of American dominance was extraordinarily violent. Is it coming to an end? John Dower is one the most preeminent historians of World War II’s Pacific theater and the aftermath of the conflict in Asia. His book War Without […]

Afghanistan

Back to Quagmire: Beware endless US Troop Escalations in Afghanistan

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – We walked in a single file. Not because it was tactically sound. It wasn’t — at least according to standard infantry doctrine. Patrolling southern Afghanistan in column formation limited maneuverability, made it difficult to mass fire, and exposed us to enfilading machine-gun bursts. Still, in 2011, […]

Donald Trump

America’s Special Ops Perpetual World War

contributors

Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – The tabs on their shoulders read “Special Forces,” “Ranger,” “Airborne.” And soon their guidon — the “colors” of Company B, 3rd Battalion of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group — would be adorned with the “Bandera de Guerra,” a Colombian combat decoration. “Today we commemorate […]

Bashar al-Assad

Russo-US dog fights over Syria?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Yara Bayoumi at Reuters reports on the complicated minuet being danced by Russia, the Syrian Air Force, and the United States. The Syrian Air Force was bombing positions of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US euphemism for the leftist Kurds of the YPG. The US Air […]

Arms Sales

Mattis overrules Trump on Qatari “terrorism,” sells it $12 bn in F-15s

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis defied his boss Donald Trump on Wednesday and inked a deal with the Qatar government to sell it $12 billion in F-15 fighter jets. Qatar hosts a US air base, al-Udeid, where some 11,000 US military personnel are based, and from […]