Month: January 2019

At least 184 were killed in Iraq in January.

Super Bowl season is like the holidays – a celebration shared by people more accustomed to arguing than sitting down together. As one of the few transpartisan, mass media events left to our tribal culture, the biggest TV night of the year can’t help but channel the political tensions most of us endure all year … Continue reading “Does the Super Bowl Feel Too Political? Thank Militarism”

To manifest his opposition to President Donald Trump’s decision to pull all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan, Gen. James Mattis went public and resigned as secretary of defense. Now Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in public testimony to Congress, has contradicted Trump about the threats that … Continue reading “Trump vs. the Spy Chiefs: Who’s Right?”

The past week has brought still more evidence that America is fiscally doomed owing to the twin burdens of the Welfare State and Warfare State. The latter, of course, is demographically and politically immovable owing to the coming tsunami of Baby Boom retirements and the absolute cowardice of the GOP when it comes to curtailing … Continue reading “Forever War, Evermore: The Congressional Left Saves NATO, Trump Goes Empire First”

Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is widely considered to be the best war novel ever written. Spatially, in its more than 1,800 pages it offers a vast panorama of Russia during the Napoleonic wars, both on the battlefield and on the home front. Temporally, Tolstoy shifts our attention back and forth between the big picture … Continue reading “‘War and Peace’: The Relevance of 1812 as Explained by Tolstoy to Current Global Affairs”

Forget the hype. Israel’s "security technology" has nothing to do with why some African countries are eager to normalize relations with Israel. What is it that Israel is able to offer in the technology sector to Chad, Mali and others that the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa and others … Continue reading “Now Chad, Then Mali: Why African Countries Are Normalizing With Israel”

California’s junior senator Kamala Harris has announced her presidential candidacy, joining what will likely become an unusually large field of Democrats seeking the nomination. Harris is being embraced by many progressive Democrats, and she’s branding herself as a progressive. Yet in the course of her little more than two years in the U.S. Senate, she’s … Continue reading “‘More AIPAC Than J Street’: Kamala Harris Runs to the Right on Foreign Policy”

Against the outcries and warnings of the mandarins of the establishment, the President is withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan. America’s longest war ends in a in a deal that was offered years ago but was rejected by the same dead-enders in the Pentagon who are pouting mightily at the moment. Meanwhile Trump continues to … Continue reading “Harbinger of a New Age”

There is nothing more grating than the constant sanctimonious carping by partisan Dems, beltway lifers and their mainstream media megaphones about upholding the "rule of law". Robert Mueller is held to be the very quintessence of it – meaning that his bully-boy prosecution must be permitted to grind to a conclusion unimpeded and unchallenged come … Continue reading “Mueller Mugs Again – The Roger Stone Farce”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Give Donald Trump credit. As a businessman, he’s brought into office some skills that previous presidents lacked. Take, for example, his willingness to plough staggering sums of money into five casinos destined to go bankrupt (and then jump ship, money in hand, leaving others holding the financial bag). Now, he seems … Continue reading “The Pentagon’s Revolving Door Spins Faster”