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.

War in the Greater Middle East, Maybe We’re the Bad Guys

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In some closet, I still have toy soldiers from my 1950s childhood. They played a crucial role in an all-American world of good guys and bad guys I learned about, in part, from the westerns and war movies my father took me to at local movie theaters. I can still remember … Continue reading “War in the Greater Middle East, Maybe We’re the Bad Guys”

Trump’s Generals: The Last Men Standing

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was bloody and brutal, a true generational struggle, but give them credit. In the end, they won when so many lost. James Comey was axed. Sean Spicer went down in a heap of ashes. Anthony Scaramucci crashed and burned instantaneously. Reince Priebus hung on for dear life but was finally … Continue reading “Trump’s Generals: The Last Men Standing”

The CIA and Me

Originally posted at TomDispatch. When historian Alfred McCoy began his long journey to expose some of the darkest secrets of the U.S. national security establishment, America was embroiled in wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Almost 50 years later, the United States is, in one way or another, involved in so many more conflicts from … Continue reading “The CIA and Me”

Avoiding War With Pyongyang

Originally posted at TomDispatch. If you happen to be a dystopian novelist, as TomDispatch regular John Feffer is, then you’re in business these days. Back in 2015, when Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency was just heating up and Feffer was writing Splinterlands, his vivid look back from the year 2050 at our shattered planet, … Continue reading “Avoiding War With Pyongyang”

Welcome to the Post-American World

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Let me try to get this straight: from the moment the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 until recently just about every politician and mainstream pundit in America assured us that we were the planet’s indispensable nation, the only truly exceptional one on this small orb of ours. We were the sole … Continue reading “Welcome to the Post-American World”

The Wrath of the US Along the Euphrates River

Originally posted at TomDispatch. You would barely know it, living in this country, but the essence of modern warfare is what our military tends to call “collateral damage”: the killing or wounding of civilians, not combatants. The Global War on Terror – more than 15 years later a no-name set of conflicts still spreading across … Continue reading “The Wrath of the US Along the Euphrates River”

The Trillion-Dollar National Security Budget

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In May 2012, TomDispatch featured a piece by Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer, both then analysts at the National Priorities Project, headlined “War Pay: The Nearly $1 Trillion National Security Budget.” The two of them ran through the figures for the cumulative annual budget for what we still mysteriously call “national … Continue reading “The Trillion-Dollar National Security Budget”

Bombing the Rubble

Originally posted at TomDispatch. You remember. It was supposed to be twenty-first-century war, American-style: precise beyond imagining; smart bombs; drones capable of taking out a carefully identified and tracked human being just about anywhere on Earth; special operations raids so pinpoint-accurate that they would represent a triumph of modern military science.  Everything “networked.”  It was … Continue reading “Bombing the Rubble”