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. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.

Chaos Theory and the Middle East

Yesterday, the Israeli security cabinet authorized an expansion of the ground war in Lebanon (while its military suffered 15 dead and 25 wounded, the highest battlefield casualty rate thus far); Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to “transform our land in the south [of Lebanon] to a graveyard for Zionist invaders” and called on Haifa’s Arab … Continue reading “Chaos Theory and the Middle East”

The Damage in Lebanon –
and Beyond

The idea that you can solve social and political problems militarily from the air is, on the face of it, ludicrous. The historical record is filled with the dead dreams of air power solutions to ground-based problems. But that stops no one. Just yesterday, for instance, as part of the new American operation to – … Continue reading “The Damage in Lebanon –
and Beyond”

Bunker-Busting
the Nuclear Taboo

First, there was one, Little Boy, which the United States dropped on Hiroshima as a bitter war was nearing its end 61 years ago Sunday; then came Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki three days later. Both cities were essentially obliterated. By the time the Russians got theirs – Joe (for Joe Stalin)-1 in 1949, the … Continue reading “Bunker-Busting
the Nuclear Taboo”

Flunking Counterinsurgency 101

On the April day in 2003 when American troops first pushed into Baghdad, historian Marilyn Young noted a strange phenomenon. In a single rush, the Vietnam War vocabulary had returned to our media. She promptly dubbed Iraq, “Vietnam on crack cocaine.” It’s true that, for a while, the administration played an eerie opposites game, spending … Continue reading “Flunking Counterinsurgency 101”

Barbarism From Above

Barbarism seems an obvious enough category. Ordinarily in our world, the barbarians are them. They act in ways that seem unimaginably primitive and brutal to us. For instance, they kidnap or capture someone, American or Iraqi, and cut off his head. Now, isn’t that the definition of barbaric? Who does that anymore? The 8th century, … Continue reading “Barbarism From Above”

Too Late for Empire

Jonathan Schell, who ended his Nation magazine column, “Letter From Ground Zero,” last February, now takes up “The Crisis of the Republic” in what will be a series of periodic, longer essays appearing in the Nation under that rubric. For all its wealth, its power, its dreams of military domination over the last half-century-plus, the … Continue reading “Too Late for Empire”

How the Supreme Court
Struck Back

Last week, Attorney General Alberto J. Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the president had personally shut down a Justice Department investigation into the domestic eavesdropping program being run by the National Security Agency. According to Neil Lewis of the New York Times, “Mr. Gonzales made the assertion in response to questioning from … Continue reading “How the Supreme Court
Struck Back”

The Middle East Aflame and the Bush Administration Adrift

So, as the world spins on a dime, where exactly are we? As a man who is no fan of fundamentalists of any sort, let me offer a proposition that might make some modest sense of our reeling planet. Consider the possibility that the most fundamental belief, perhaps in all of history, but specifically in … Continue reading “The Middle East Aflame and the Bush Administration Adrift”