Returning to Cheyenne Mountain

Originally posted at TomDispatch. My childhood was a nuclear one and I’m not talking about the nuclear family. I’m thinking of those duck-and-cover moments when, with air raid sirens screaming outside, we went under our school desks, hands over head, to...

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Two Impulsive Leaders Fan the Global Flames

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Every now and then something lodges in your memory and seems to haunt you forever. In my case, it was a comment Newsweek attributed to an unnamed senior British official “close to the Bush team” before the invasion of Iraq...

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America at War Since 9/11

Originally posted at TomDispatch. At 36% to 37% in the latest polls, Donald Trump’s approval rating is in a ditch in what should still be the “honeymoon” period of his presidency. And yet, compared to Congress (25%), he’s a maestro of...

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A Wide World of Winless War

Originally posted at TomDispatch. If you want a number, try 194. That’s how many countries there are on planet Earth (give or take one or two). Today, Nick Turse reports a related number that should boggle your mind: at least 137 of those countries, or 70% of them,...

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Trump’s Love Affair With the Saudis

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Not that anyone in a position of power seems to notice, but there’s a simple rule for American military involvement in the Greater Middle East: once the U.S. gets in, no matter the country, it never truly gets out again....

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America’s Real Red Scare

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Back in 2011, thinking about the implosion of the Soviet Union two decades earlier and what followed, I wrote: “In 1991, when the Soviet Union disappeared and the United States found itself the last superpower standing,...

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What Would War Mean in Korea?

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here’s a reasonable question to ask in our unreasonable world: Does Donald Trump even know where North Korea is? The answer matters and if you wonder why I ask, just remember his comment upon landing in Israel after his visit to Saudi...

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