Last Sunday, David Barstow of the New York Times revealed just how effectively the Pentagon orchestrated a propaganda campaign for “information dominance” when it came to the president’s various wars (and prisons). Pentagon officials, from the secretary of defense on down, put together a “rapid reaction force” of retired generals and other retired military officers … Continue reading “A Pentagon’s Who’s Who
of Your Life”
Tom Engelhardt
An editor in publishing for the last 25 years, Tom Engelhardt is the author
of The
End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold
War era, now out in a revised edition with a new preface and afterword, and Mission Unaccomplished, TomDispatch Interviews With American Iconoclasts and Dissenters.
He is at present consulting editor for Metropolitan Books, a fellow of the
Nation Institute, and a teaching fellow at the journalism school of the University of California, Berkeley.
Visit his Web site.
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A Pentagon’s Who’s Who
12 Answers to Questions No One Is Asking About Iraq
Can there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling? And here’s the curious thing: Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in … Continue reading “12 Answers to Questions No One Is Asking About Iraq”
Leaving Cheyenne Mountain: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Loathe the Bomb
Dedicated sardonically “to Dwight and Nikita” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, for those too young to remember – Mordecai Roshwald’s futuristic novel Level 7 was published in 1959. It was the “diary” of a “button pusher” responsible for launching a nuclear war while living 4,000 feet underground in the deepest … Continue reading “Leaving Cheyenne Mountain: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Loathe the Bomb”
Nine Propositions on the U.S. Air War for Terror
Let’s start with a few simple propositions. First, the farther away you are from the ground, the clearer things are likely to look, the more god-like you are likely to feel, the less human those you attack are likely to be to you. How much more so, of course, if you, the “pilot,” are actually … Continue reading “Nine Propositions on the U.S. Air War for Terror”
Petraeus’ Ghost
Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’ite cleric who emerged triumphant from an Iraqi government assault on his Mahdi Army militia in Basra (and Baghdad) has called for a “million-strong” march in Baghdad tomorrow to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. The demonstration just happens to fall on one of the days that Gen. … Continue reading “Petraeus’ Ghost”
The General and the Trap
They came, they saw, they… deserted. That, in short form, is the story of the Iraqi government “offensive” in Basra (and Baghdad). It took a few days, but the headlines on stories out of Iraq (“Can Iraq’s Soldiers Fight?”) are now telling a grim tale. The information in them is worse yet. Stephen Farrell and … Continue reading “The General and the Trap”
Petraeus’ Grand Delusions
Yes, their defensive zone is the planet and they patrol it regularly. As ever, their planes and drones have been in the skies these last weeks. They struck a village in Somalia, tribal areas in Pakistan, rural areas in Afghanistan, and urban neighborhoods in Iraq. Their troops are training and advising the Iraqi army and … Continue reading “Petraeus’ Grand Delusions”
The End of Empire?
In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe’s “sole superpower” is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an “empire lite” has proven increasingly lightheaded. The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the … Continue reading “The End of Empire?”
The Pentagon’s Battle Bugs
We at TomDispatch love anniversaries. So how could we have forgotten DARPA’s for so many months? This very year, the Pentagon’s research outfit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), turns 50 years old. Happy birthday, DARPA! You were born as a response to the Soviet Union’s launching of the first Earth-girdling satellite, Sputnik, which … Continue reading “The Pentagon’s Battle Bugs”
Trust the Government to Do for the Economy What It Has Done for Iraq
No one was prepared for the storm when it hit. The levees meant to protect us had long since been breached, and key officials had already left town. The well-to-do were assured of rescue, but for everyone else trapped inside the Superdome in a fast-flooding region, there was no evacuation plan in sight. The Bush … Continue reading “Trust the Government to Do for the Economy What It Has Done for Iraq”