Pentagon

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – “Everywhere you look, if there is trouble in the region,” Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters on a mid-April visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “you find Iran.” I must admit that when I stumbled across that quote it brought up uncomfortable personal memories. East Baghdad, […]

Authoritarianism

Should the Pentagon be Propping up Dictatorships around the World?

Juan Cole

By David Vine | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Much outrage has been expressed in recent weeks over President Donald Trump’s invitation for a White House visit to Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, whose “war on drugs” has led to thousands of extrajudicial killings. Criticism of Trump was especially intense given his similarly […]

Afghanistan

How America’s Myth of the Infallible Generals gets us in Trouble

contributors

By Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – More, more, more. I was guilty of it myself. Commanding a small cavalry troop of about 85 soldiers in southwest Kandahar Province back in 2011, I certainly wanted and requested more: more troopers, more Special Forces advisers, more Afghan police, more air support, more supplies, more […]

Militarization

How Many Defeats have Americans bought with $5 Trillion in War Costs?

contributors

By William D. Hartung | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – When Donald Trump wanted to “do something” about the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Syria, he had the U.S. Navy lob 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield (cost: $89 million). The strike was symbolic at best, as the Assad regime ran bombing […]

Donald Trump

End the Imperial Presidency: Do we Really Want Trump Assassinating and Launching Wars at Will?

contributors

By Andrew Bacevich | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Since the late eighteenth century, the United States has been involved in an almost ceaseless string of wars, interventions, punitive expeditions, and other types of military ventures abroad — from fighting the British and Mexicans to the Filipinos and Koreans to the Vietnamese and Laotians to […]

Foreign Policy

American Amnesia in the Garden of War

contributors

By John Dower | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Some years ago, a newspaper article credited a European visitor with the wry observation that Americans are charming because they have such short memories. When it comes to the nation’s wars, however, he was not entirely on target. Americans embrace military histories of the heroic “band […]

Climate Change

Climate March: Can we Save the Planet without Taking on the Pentagon?

contributors

By H Patricia Hynes | ( Portside ) | – – If we are not united in peace, we cannot save the planet. – Thich Nhat Hanh War and Warming: Can We Save the Planet Without Taking on the Pentagon? Looking out to my audience of young climate change activists and older peace activists gathered […]

Donald Trump

Don’t want to lose the Next Mideast War? Don’t Fight One

Juan Cole

Danny Sjursen | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Make no mistake: after 15 years of losing wars, spreading terror movements, and multiplying failed states across the Greater Middle East, America will fight the next versions of our ongoing wars. Not that we ever really stopped. Sure, Washington traded in George W. Bush’s expansive, almost […]

Donald Trump

No, MSM: Man-Baby Trump didn’t become President with Missile Strikes

contributors

By Bill Moyers | BillMoyers.com | – – It’s been a week now since Donald Trump once again became our president. Here’s how it happened. After he unleashed missiles on a Syrian airfield, members of Washington’s national security establishment and elite pundits swooned. Top Democrats and Republicans led the way. Good soldiers all in the […]