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.

An Increasingly Aerial Occupation

From the destroyed Japanese and German cities of World War II to the devastated Korean peninsula of the early 1950s, from the ravaged South Vietnamese countryside of the late 1960s to the “highway of death” on which much of a fleeing Iraqi army was destroyed in the first Gulf War of 1991, air power has … Continue reading “An Increasingly Aerial Occupation”

Shark-bit World

The “usually disengaged” president, as columnist Maureen Dowd labeled him, had just returned from a prolonged, brush-cutting Crawford vacation to much criticism and a nation in trouble. (One Republican congressman complained that “it was hard for Mr. Bush to get his message out if the White House lectern had a ‘Gone Fishing’ sign on it.”) … Continue reading “Shark-bit World”

War Crimes Made Easy

Typically, when faced with a problem, the first thing Bush administration officials do is reach for their dictionaries to pretzel and torture words into whatever shape best suits them. Then they declare themselves simply to be following precedent (which turns out, of course, to be whatever they’ve wanted to do all along). In this way, … Continue reading “War Crimes Made Easy”

Ten Ways to Argue
About the War

What a couple of weeks in Iraq (and at home): Withdrawal was suddenly on everyone’s lips, while tragedy and absurdity were piling up like some vast, serial car wreck of event and emotion. Before a massed audience of midshipmen at the Naval Academy, our president announced a new war goal beyond finding weapons of mass … Continue reading “Ten Ways to Argue
About the War”

How (Not) to Withdraw from Iraq

On the Sept. 27 Charlie Rose Show, interviewing New Yorker editor David Remnick, Rose brought up the question of what the United States should do in Iraq. Should we “get out” – or, as Remnick so delicately put it, should we “bolt”? Here was how Remnick ended their discussion, while talking about those who had … Continue reading “How (Not) to Withdraw from Iraq”

Bush’s Deadly Dance with Islamic Theocrats

During his embattled summer vacation in Crawford, Texas, George Bush managed to launch a new promotional ditty for his war in Iraq: “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Since then there has been much commentary from the administration, from military officials, and from the media on the question of how successfully the Iraqi … Continue reading “Bush’s Deadly Dance with Islamic Theocrats”

Bush’s Expanding ‘Fallen Legion’

Back in mid-October, I noted that informal “walls” and exhibits to honor those Americans (and sometimes Iraqis) who fell – and continue to fall – in the Bush administration’s war and occupation of choice in Iraq have been arising on- and off-line for some time. I suggested then that “the particular dishonor this administration has … Continue reading “Bush’s Expanding ‘Fallen Legion’”

Losing the Fear Factor

It’s finally Wizard of Oz time in America. You know – that moment when the curtains are pulled back, the fearsome-looking wizard wreathed in all that billowing smoke turns out to be some pitiful little guy, and everybody looks around sheepishly, wondering why they acted as they did for so long. Starting on Sept. 11, … Continue reading “Losing the Fear Factor”