War

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Should American citizens feel relieved that Speaker Pelosi has met with General Milley to discuss the nuclear command structure? I am not. From the start of the nuclear age we have been asked to believe that as long as these weapons of mass destruction were under the […]

astronomy and outer space

The U.S. Needs COVID Relief and Renewable Energy, Not a Space Force

Conn M. Hallinan

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – When President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 21, he will be faced with some very expensive problems, from bailing out the COVID-19 economy to getting a handle on climate change. Vaccinating over 300 million people will not be cheap, and wrestling the U.S.’s hydrocarbon-based economy in the direction […]

Iraq

‘Wealth Accumulates and Men Decay:’ Can America learn the Lessons of Iraq and Vietnam

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In choosing a title for his final, posthumously published book, the prominent public intellectual Tony Judt turned to a poem by Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, published in 1770. Judt found his book’s titlein the first words of this couplet: Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey Where wealth […]

Afghanistan

It’s almost 20 Years since 9/11; Can we finally End our Constant, Disastrous Wars?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com) – It was the end of October 2001. Two friends, Max Elbaum and Bob Wing, had just dropped by. (Yes, children, believe it or not, people used to drop in on each other, maskless, once upon a time.) They had come to hang out with my partner Jan Adams and me. Among other […]

Afghanistan

Anti-War Officer Corps: An American Crisis of Conscience in the Forever Wars

Tomdispatch

By William J. Astore and Danny Sjursen | If you have a moment, how about joining two retired officers, Bill Astore and me, Danny Sjursen, as we think about this country’s catastrophic forever wars that, regardless of their deadly costs and lack of progress, never seem quite to end? Recently, in a podcast chat about […]

Afghanistan

Trump’s Pernicious Military Legacy: From the Forever Wars to the Cataclysms

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – In the military realm, Donald Trump will most likely be remembered for his insistence on ending America’s involvement in its twenty-first-century “forever wars” — the fruitless, relentless, mind-crushing military campaigns undertaken by Presidents Bush and Obama in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. After all, as a candidate, Trump pledged to bring U.S. […]

Afghanistan

US Troops are finally returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but what to kind of American are they returning

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – By the end of this year, the White House will reportedly have finally brought home a third of the 7,500 troops still stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq (against the advice of President Trump’s own military leaders). While there have been stories galore about the global security implications […]

Featured

Why the world is Safer if Biden can Reinstitute Iran Nuclear Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran has no nuclear weapons, and no nuclear weapons program using diverted enriched uranium. It has a civilian nuclear enrichment program. Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea all have enriched uranium, and all of them have forsworn building nuclear bombs. Argentina, Brazil and Iran have in the […]

Donald Trump

A Trump strike on Iran will make the US an Outcast and won’t stop Tehran’s civilian Nuclear Program

The Conversation

By Christoph Bluth | – Donald Trump asked his senior advisers to examine options for air strikes against Iran’s main nuclear installation, the New York Times reported recently. According to the report, the meeting occurred the day after inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material. Key advisers reportedly counselled against […]