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.

The Unknown Whistleblower

Rambo! In my Reagan-era youth, the name was synonymous with the Vietnam War – at least the Vietnam War reimagined, the celluloid fantasy version of it in which a tanned, glistening, muscle-bound commando busted the handcuffs of defeat and redeemed America’s honor in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Untold millions including the Gipper himself, an … Continue reading “The Unknown Whistleblower”

Superpower in Distress

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Think of this as a little imperial folly update – and here’s the backstory. In the years after invading Iraq and disbanding Saddam Hussein’s military, the U.S. sunk about $25 billion into “standing up” a new Iraqi army. By June 2014, however, that army, filled with at least 50,000 “ghost soldiers,” … Continue reading “Superpower in Distress”

One Boy, One Rifle, and One Morning in Malakal

President Obama couldn’t have been more eloquent. Addressing the Clinton Global Initiative, for instance, he said: “When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed – that’s slavery.” Denouncing Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and offering aid to Uganda and its neighbors in tracking Kony … Continue reading “One Boy, One Rifle, and One Morning in Malakal”

America’s Mutant Military

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In September 2001, the Bush administration launched its “global war on terror,” to which its supporters later tried to attach names like “the long war” or “World War IV.” Their emphasis: that we were now engaged in nothing less than a multi-generational struggle without end. (World War III had theoretically been … Continue reading “America’s Mutant Military”

Citizen’s Revolt in Afghanistan

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Soon after 9/11, Ann Jones went to Afghanistan to help in whatever way she could, “embedding” with civilians who had been battered by the rigors of that war-torn land. Out of that experience, especially dealing with the crises of women, she wrote a powerful and moving book, Kabul in Winter. In … Continue reading “Citizen’s Revolt in Afghanistan”

The New Age of Counterinsurgency Policing

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In the part of Baltimore hardest hit by the recent riots and arson, more than a third of families live in poverty, median income is $24,000, the unemployment rate is over 50%, some areas burnt out in the riots of 1968 have never been rebuilt, incarceration rates are sky high, 33% … Continue reading “The New Age of Counterinsurgency Policing”

Counting Bodies, Then and Now

In the twenty-first-century world of drone warfare, one question with two aspects reigns supreme: Who counts? In Washington, the answers are the same: We don’t count and they don’t count. The Obama administration has adamantly refused to count. Not a body. In fact, for a long time, American officials associated with Washington’s drone assassination campaigns … Continue reading “Counting Bodies, Then and Now”

The One-State Conundrum

Originally posted at TomDispatch. The SUV slows as it approaches a military kiosk at a break in a dull gray wall. Inside, Ramzi Aburedwan, a Palestinian musician, prepares his documents for the Israeli soldier standing guard. On the other side of this West Bank military checkpoint lies the young man’s destination, the ancient Palestinian town … Continue reading “The One-State Conundrum”

How Assassination Sold Drugs and Promoted Terrorism

Originally posted at TomDispatch. No one can claim that plotting assassination is new to Washington or that, in the past, American leaders and the CIA didn’t aim high: the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo. The difference was that, in those days, the idea of assassinating a foreign leader, or … Continue reading “How Assassination Sold Drugs and Promoted Terrorism”

From the Fall of Saigon to Our Fallen Empire

Originally posted at TomDispatch. “It just started out as a simple goodbye song,” James Douglas Morrison told reporter Jerry Hopkins. “Probably just to a girl, but I could see how it could be goodbye to a kind of childhood… I think it’s sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything … Continue reading “From the Fall of Saigon to Our Fallen Empire”