Reprinted from TomDispatch. From Gaza to the West Bank to the Israeli-Lebanese borderlands, it’s been a genuine nightmare. The devastation in Gaza remains surreal and almost impossible to take in. Housing, hospitals, schools, religious institutions, you name it –...
A Cancer on the West Bank
Reprinted from TomDispatch. For obvious reasons, the devastation of Gaza has gotten so much of the attention recently, but life, post-October 7th, has also been a nightmare on the West Bank. Among other things, the grotesquely right-wing Israeli government of Prime...
Early Signs of the Failure of American Global Power
Originally appeared at TomDispatch. In his years in power, Joe Biden and his top foreign policy officials have come up with a distinctly more aggressive and militarized approach to a rising China and, in particular, its claims to areas of the South China Sea or the...
Another American War in the Middle East?
Originally appeared at TomDispatch. Though I was never in the U.S. military, my life experience has been American wars, wars, wars, and more wars. I was born during World War II. I was in grade school when the Korean War took place. I still have a faint memory of a...
The Art of the Submarine
Walk through any art museum and you’re likely to see a mix of the classical and contemporary, impressionist and surrealist, refined and raw, beautiful, eerie, and provocative. Looking at art allows me at least a few moments of relief from the “that’s just the way it...
Philosopher Kings or New-Age Militarists?
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Hey, electric cars? It’s obvious that they’ve come into their own now that Tesla’s Elon Musk has once again been granted his (no, this is not a misprint!) $44.9 billion pay package by that company’s shareholders after a Delaware judge...
How Daniel Ellsberg’s Moral Power Remains Alive
Strange to think that, without Daniel Ellsberg, Watergate might never have happened, Richard Nixon might have remained president, and the war in Vietnam might have taken even longer to end. So many decades later, it’s easy to forget how, in June 1971, when Ellsberg...
Nuclear Armageddon Is Us
Originally published at TomDispatch. It was truly another world. I’m thinking of my childhood years when to “duck and cover” under our school desks, imagining that those modest structures might somehow protect us from an atomic blast, was a normal part of life. And...
Israel’s Onslaught of Revenge
Forget the dead for a moment and think about the living. We’re talking about a minuscule, 25-mile strip of land on which, before recent events began, an estimated 2.4 million people lived, went to school, worshiped, farmed, did whatever. When Israel responded to...
Constant Killing: The Pentagon’s .00035% Problem
Originally appeared at TomDispatch. Yes, the number of deaths in Gaza in the last seven months is staggering. At least, 35,000 Gazans have reportedly perished, including significant numbers of children (and that’s without even counting the possibly 10,000 unidentified...


