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.

Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But…

Here’s the strange thing. In the decade that followed the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, nuclear weapons more or less disappeared from American sight – despite a near-nuclear war in South Asia, despite the fact that the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals continued to sit in place without particular justification or obvious “mission.” Those potentially … Continue reading “Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But…”

The Emperor’s Potemkin Visits

“The great motorcade,” wrote Canadian correspondent Don Murray, “swept through the streets of the city… The crowds … but there were no crowds. George W. Bush’s imperial procession through Europe took place in a hermetically sealed environment. In Brussels it was, at times, eerie. The procession containing the great, armor-plated limousine (flown in from Washington) … Continue reading “The Emperor’s Potemkin Visits”

Pyongyang Waits for Spring

If you go back to its Nuclear Posture Review of 2001 and its National Security Strategy of 2002, the Bush administration was then keen to posit an American-dominated globe until the end of time. According to those documents, such domination would involve allowing neither potential military rivals, nor rival military blocs, nor “rogue” regional powers … Continue reading “Pyongyang Waits for Spring”

Rummy Dropped From the Loop?

Update: In my nominations for the TomDispatch Political Comedy Awards of 2005, I suggested that the Bush administration, rejected by several top choices in its search for a director of national intelligence and evidently desperate, had “hit on what was clearly a brilliant scheme: Just look for someone who had a post already so nightmarish, … Continue reading “Rummy Dropped From the Loop?”

The Kings of Black Comedy

Thursday the news came in. The position of director of national intelligence (DNI), insisted upon by the 9/11 Commission, was finally filled. Shopped around for weeks unsuccessfully, it had already been rejected by former CIA Director Robert Gates, former Senator Sam Nunn, and former Attorney General William Barr because, though the DNI will officially preside … Continue reading “The Kings of Black Comedy”

Driving a Flattened Iraq

In October 2003, the TV series Frontline did a show from Iraq, “Truth, War, and Consequences,” that featured a remarkable scene shot the previous April, not long after American troops arrived in Baghdad. A group of GIs have captured some Iraqis whom they accuse of stealing wood. As an instant punishment in the “Wild West” … Continue reading “Driving a Flattened Iraq”

Kashmir’s Untouched Village

I met Muzamil Jaleel, the Kashmir Bureau Chief for the Indian Express, last spring while teaching at the University of California (Berkeley) Graduate School of Journalism. He was on a brief leave from his civil-war-torn land, but every passing story he happened to tell about his life spoke of the carnage he had left behind. … Continue reading “Kashmir’s Untouched Village”

Winners and Losers in Iraq

Here were a few headlines from yesterday’s papers: “Bush Urges Congress Join Him on Budget Cuts” (Reuters); “President Offers Budget Proposal With Broad Cuts” (New York Times); “Bush Spending Plan Hits Social Programs” (Boston Globe); “Bush: Budget Cuts Part of Broader Economic Agenda” (Los Angeles Times); “Bush’s Budget Cuts Would Fall Near Main Street” (Christian … Continue reading “Winners and Losers in Iraq”

Resisting the Homeland Security State

Okay, under the rubric of “the war on terror” (which turns out to be just so versatile, so useful for so many much-desired but once back-burner policies, programs, and products), the military is having a grand old time protecting us from the Enemy up close and personal, right in our own, previously unlawful-to-occupy backyards. But, … Continue reading “Resisting the Homeland Security State”

The Emergence of the Homeland Security State

Since ancient Rome, imperial republics have invariably felt a tension between cherished republican practices at home and distinctly unrepublican ones abroad; or put another way, if imperial practices spread far enough beyond the republic’s borders and gain enough traction out there in the imperium, sooner or later they also make the reverse journey home, and … Continue reading “The Emergence of the Homeland Security State”