War

Trump Bruited Strike on Iran Civilian Nuclear Facilities, which may kill as many as did Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman, David E. Sanger, Helene Cooper and Lara Jakes at the New York Times get the scoop. Their sources in the White House tell them that last Thursday, in a meeting with his senior advisers, Trump abruptly asked them if there were options for a US strike […]

Climate Crisis

War, Climate Emergency are driving Millions of families from their Homes

Nick Turse

(Tomdispatch.com ) – I saw them for only a few seconds. One glimpse and they were gone. The young woman wore a brown headwrap, a yellow short-sleeved shirt, and a long pink, red, and blue floral-patterned skirt. She held the reins of the donkey pulling her rust-pink cart. Across her lap lay an infant. Perched […]

Democratic Party

If President Biden is Smart, He’ll End America’s Forever Wars and Pour the Money into Jobs at Home

Reese Erlich

( 48hills.org) – I’m pissed. I’m pissed at Donald Trump for trying to shut down the vote count early and at Republicans seeking to steal the election using conservative-appointed federal judges. Will Biden end unpopular foreign wars? But I’m also mad at Joe Biden and the Democratic Party big shots who got Biden elected but […]

Donald Trump

50 Nations of UN seek A-Bomb Ban, but US, Russia, China, N. Korea are accelerating Dangerous Arms Race

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – We are living in the year 2020 AD, signifying two thousand twenty years after the birth of Christ. For the writer and atomic bomb survivor, Kyoko Hayashi, however, “the significance of the birth of Christ pales in comparison” with the event that demonstrated “humans had gained the means […]

Donald Trump

America is Complicit, as Yemen Spirals toward Mass Starvation

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mark Lowcock of the United Nations gave an impassioned and apocalyptic speech on Thursday warning that 4 million Yemenis who had been receiving aid no longer are, because of a shortfall in donor contributions, and the country could be on the cusp of mass starvation. There already is widespread malnutrition […]

Arms Sales

Trump’s Art of the Arms Deal: Filling up the Volatile Middle East with High-Tech Weapons

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com) – The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the endlessly war-torn Middle East. There, believe it or not, the U.S. controls nearly half the arms market. From Yemen […]

Donald Trump

Talking Tough and Carrying a Radioactive Stick: The Nuclearization of American Diplomacy

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On August 21st, six nuclear-capable B-52H Stratofortress bombers, representing approximately one-seventh of the war-ready U.S. B-52H bomber fleet, flew from their home base in North Dakota to Fairford Air Base in England for several weeks of intensive operations over Europe. Although the actual weapons load of those giant bombers was kept […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Over-the-Top War Talk is a War Crime: ‘Systematic, Constant, Vicious, Remorseless’

William J. Astore

What pops into your head when you hear the number 1,000 in a political-military context? Having studied German military history, I immediately think of Adolf Hitler’s confident boast that his Third Reich would last a thousand years. In reality, of course, a devastating world war brought that Reich down in a mere 12 years. Only […]

Donald Trump

In the Age of Trump, the the Nuclear Threat is only Growing

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Perhaps because last Saturday was devoted to the future makeup and judicial course of the US Supreme Court and its possible role in the transition of power hardly anyone noticed that this day was International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. That is a shame […]