I couldn’t bear to watch the President’s why-we’re-in-Libya speech as it was broadcast: it’s Spring, after all, and my garden needs planting. Priorities, priorities, priorities: so important, in politics and in life. We all have our priorities:...
"The Congress shall have power to … declare war." - United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8 In America, 2011, history is given yet another example of a nation in which one person, in this case called “the president," can launch all of his subjects into war...
As if getting enmeshed in a third simultaneous war—with costs soaring in a time of economic peril, yawning budget deficits, and national debt—when no vital national interest was at stake wasn’t bad enough, that is not the worst of it. As in George W. Bush’s invasion...
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: As of Wednesday, I’ll be off the grid for a week. Back April 8. TomDispatch will be unaffected and will post as usual thanks to associate editors Nick Turse and Andy Kroll. But for those writing in with comments, requests, or anything...
To hear Rep. Ron Paul deliver this address, click here. Last week the Obama administration took the United States to war against Libya without bothering to notify Congress, much less obtain a constitutionally mandated declaration of war. In the midst of our severe...
In a rare late-night session, the Knesset has finally adopted two obnoxious, racist laws. Both are clearly directed against Israel’s Arab citizens, a fifth of the population. The first makes it possible to annul the citizenship of persons found guilty of offenses...
The announcement by U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy in congressional testimony March 15 that the United States would continue to carry out "counter-terrorism operations" from "joint bases" in Afghanistan well beyond 2014 signaled that President...
“Let me be clear,” President Barack Obama is fond of saying—and his desire was on full display two years ago when he announced a “comprehensive, new strategy” for the war in Afghanistan. Obama laced his speech of March 27, 2009, with nine uses of the words “clear” or...
