Pentagon

By Tom Engelhardt | Tomdispatch.com) | – – Honestly, I don’t know whether to rant or weep, neither of which are usual impulses for me. In the wake of the slaughter in Paris, I have the urge to write one of two sentences here: Paris changed everything; Paris changes nothing. Each is, in its own […]

Barack Obama

Obama to Hawks: You can’t Occupy all the Countries in the Middle East

contributors

By John Hickman | (Informed Comment) | – – There was something very reassuring about President Obama’s delivery of a carefully reasoned explanation for his Middle East foreign policy during Monday’s Press Conference in Antalya, Turkey. Against the anxious handwringing of the reporters and the improbable outrage of pundits, the president exhibited his trademark self-possession […]

National Security State

No, Sending thousands of US Ground Troops won’t Fix the ISIL Problem

contributors

by DAVID SCHANZER for ISLAMiCommentary David Schanzer Last night’s attacks will increase calls for more vigorous military action than the coalition has mustered to date. But despite the horrific attacks, the reasons against a large-scale land invasion by U.S. and NATO forces against ISIS in Iraq and Syria remain. Such an invasion will deepen the […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: America’s Military Money Pit

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | (Informed Comment) | – – Let’s begin with the $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills, Iraqi oil money held in the U.S. The Bush administration began flying it into Baghdad on C-130s soon after U.S. troops entered that city in April 2003. Essentially dumped into the void that had once been […]

Featured

Syria: US Boots on Ground risks Conflict with Turkey, not Russia

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The White House’s announcement on Friday that the US will keep “less than 50” special ops troops at an HQ of the Kurdish YPG in northeast Syria for the purposes of training and strategic counseling raised concerns in some quarters that Russia might inadvertently bomb US […]

Drone Warfare

2016 Campaign and Forever War: Electorate gone to Disney World

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – You may not know it, but you’re living in a futuristic science fiction novel. And that’s a fact. If you were to read about our American world in such a novel, you would be amazed by its strangeness. Since you exist right smack in the […]

Featured

Senior National Security Advisers urge Obama to put Spec Ops Troops close to ISIL Front

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Missy Ryan and Greg Jaffe at the Washington Post reveal that President Obama’s senior national security advisers have recommended positioning US special operations forces closer to the enemy lines of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) in Iraq and even in Syria. Apparently it is felt that Iraqi troops […]

Featured

First US Soldier Killed in Combat with Daesh/ ISIL as 70 Hostages Freed

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | – – A joint operation by US Delta force and Iraqi Kurdish freed 70 captives on Thursday, led to killing of 20 and the capture of 6 Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) forces, and left one US soldier dead. He was the first US military casualty in the struggle between Washington and the […]

Militarization

The Secret to Winning the Nobel Peace Prize Keep the U.S. Military Out

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Introduction, by Tom Engelhardt To this day, it remains difficult to take in the degree to which the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq destabilized the Greater Middle East from the Chinese border to Libya. Certainly, as the recent Republican and Democratic presidential debates suggest, Americans have […]