Pentagon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only did that bill pass in an otherwise riven Senate by a bipartisan majority of 83-11, but this year’s budget […]

Afghanistan

U.S.-Trained Afghan Soldiers Angry Over Their Plight Are Ready To Join Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Michael Scollon ( RFE/RL ) – Lost status and a desperate existence in Iran are driving thousands of former Afghan troops — many of them elite commandos trained by the United States — to consider fighting as mercenaries in Ukraine and other battlefields. Many ex-Afghan security personnel accuse the United States of abandoning them […]

Houthi

Facing Houthi Victory in Yemen, US Changes Tactics

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Edward Hunt | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – After years of backing a disastrous, Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, the United States is shifting its approach to the war, supporting a UN-brokered truce that has resulted in the most significant reduction of violence since the war began. Bowing to the reality that […]

Afghanistan

America’s Night Raids in Afghanistan: An Ongoing Nightmare

ProPublica

By Lynzy Billing. Video by Mauricio Rodríguez Pons | – Prologue March 2019 • Rodat District, Nangarhar Province This story contains graphic descriptions and images of war casualties. ( ProPublica ) – On a December night in 2018, Mahzala was jolted awake by a shuddering wave of noise that rattled her family’s small mud house. […]

Corporations

Congress Has No Business Shoveling Another $847 Billion Into the Military Industrial Complex

OtherWords

By Lindsay Koshgarian | – ( Otherwords.org ) – Can you imagine the audacity to fail a multi-trillion dollar audit of public funds, and then ask for even more of those taxpayer dollars? Pentagon leaders just did exactly that. This month news broke that the agency once again failed to pass a basic audit showing […]

Afghanistan

How the Bush “War on Terror” Fed US White Nationalism and brought the Terror Home

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Recently, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security called me and started asking questions about a childhood acquaintance being investigated for extremism. I put him off. My feelings about this were, to say the least, complex. As a military spouse of 10 years and someone who has long written about […]

Arms Sales

Corporate Weapons Heaven Is a Hell on Earth: Joe Biden, the National Security State, and Arms Sales

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com) – Here’s a seldom commented-upon reality of this century and this moment: the United States remains the number-one arms-exporting nation on the planet. Between 2017 and 2021, it grabbed 39% of the total global weapons market and there’s nothing new about that. It has, in fact, been the top arms dealer in every […]

Climate Crisis

The “Rules-Based International Order” Has a Priorities problem, stressing War over Food Security and Climate

Rajan Menon

( Todmispatch.com ) – Washington’s vaunted “rules-based international order” has undergone a stress test following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and here’s the news so far: it hasn’t held up well. In fact, the disparate reactions to Vladimir Putin’s war have only highlighted stark global divisions, which reflect the unequal distribution of wealth and power. Such […]

Peace

The Intolerable Price You Pay: A Civilian Addresses American Veterans on Veterans Day

Tomdispatch

By Kelly Denton-Borhaug | – [Denton-Borhaug will give a version of this talk virtually to Veterans for Peace Chapter 102 at a Reclaim Armistice Day meeting at the Milwaukee City Hall Rotunda this Veteran’s Day.] Dear Veterans, ( Tomdispatch.com) – I’m a civilian who, like many Americans, has strong ties to the U.S. Armed Forces. […]