War

A small GOP-dominated Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Coalition is waging a frightening campaign for nuclear rearmament

(Responsible Statecraft) – Democrats might control the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government right now, but a small Republican-dominated Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Coalition exercises outsized influence in a frightening campaign for nuclear rearmament. The coalition, comprising six senators from states that house, develop, or test underground land-based nuclear weapons, is pushing a […]

Militarization

No, getting out of Afghanistan doesn’t end America’s Forever Wars: A Lifetime “at War”

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) Here’s the strange thing in an ever-stranger world: I was born in July 1944 in the midst of a devastating world war. That war ended in August 1945 with the atomic obliteration of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the most devastating bombs in history up to that moment, given the […]

Afghanistan

US spent $2.261 Trillion on Afghanistan War, in which ~240,000 Have Died; We could have Greened Half the Grid Instead

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Costs of War Project at Brown University has just brought out a new report on Afghanistan. The September 11, 2001 attacks were launched from Khost and Qandahar in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda, though it is not clear that this organization of Arab expatriates informed their Taliban hosts of what they […]

Pentagon

The Pentagon prefers a Conventional War it Can Win, but is likely stuck with Guerrilla Wars it Can’t

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com ) – The future isn’t what it used to be. As a teenager in the 1970s, I watched a lot of TV science fiction shows, notably Space: 1999 and UFO, that imagined a near future of major moon bases and alien attacks on Earth. Movies of that era like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A […]

Egypt

Egypt’s Sisi threatens ‘Instability that no one Can Imagine”: Will the Next Mideast War be over Water?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The closure of the Suez Canal for a week by the Ultra Large Container Ship, the Ever Given, signaled the importance to world commerce and energy supplies of the canal, through which some 12 percent of world trade passes. Another danger to that world artery, which connects the Indian Ocean […]

Egypt

How the Imperial past set the Stage for Nile Dam Conflicts between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia

The Conversation

By Mahemud Tekuya | – Ever since construction began a decade ago, there’s been serious contention between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a huge project straddling the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. For Ethiopia, the project is meant to offer a solution to its severe power problem, providing electricity access […]

Epidemics

The Sports Pages of Death: Life in a Wounded and Wounding Land

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Here’s one of the things I now do every morning. I go to the online Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and check out the figures there — global coronavirus cases and deaths, U.S. coronavirus cases and deaths. And I do so the way that, not so long ago, I would have opened […]

Joe Biden

Syria needs Long-Term Housing for the Neediest, and the US needs to Stop Blocking it

Global Voices

By Hany Al Banna | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – March 15, 2021, will mark a grim milestone—the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the popular uprising that led to the civil war still engulfing Syria. As we all grapple with the deadly crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the world’s […]

Syria

Every day is war’ – a decade of slow suffering and destruction in Syria

The Conversation

By Ammar Azzouz | – Abduljalil sent me a photo of his ruined home in Homs, Syria. “It is the third floor”, he told me over WhatsApp. The building still stands but it looks like an empty skeleton. Most of its facade has been destroyed, while piles of debris surround it. Residents have not been […]