Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was December 6, 2019, three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress. That day, the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s long fought-over, much-delayed, heavily...
Beyond the Senate Torture Report
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It came from the top and that’s never been a secret. The president authorized the building of those CIA "black sites" and the use of what came to be known as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and has spoken...
The Pentagon as President Obama’s Great White Whale
Originally posted at TomDispatch. There’s finally good news when it comes to the renewal of the Faith. I’m talking, of course, about the nuclear faith. In case you happen to have forgotten, that’s the Cold War belief that a U.S. arsenal big enough to...
Thank You for Making War!
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Often enough when something goes missing, it takes a while to realize that it’s gone. An example that came to me recently is the once-commonplace word “peace.” It’s not just that, in a time of public...
One Family, Two Doors, Nowhere to Run
Originally posted at TomDispatch. During the Israeli attacks on Gaza this past summer, U.S. officials were unusually vocal. After shelling killed four young Palestinians on a beach, for example, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called it "horrifying." "The...
The War Party Ascendant
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was the end of the road for Chuck Hagel last week and the Washington press corps couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about writing his obituary. In terms of pure coverage, it may not have been Ferguson or the seven-foot...
Seeing the Reality of the Vietnam War, 50 Years Late
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Introduction, Sunday, November 24, 2014: When I scanned the front page of the New York Times one recent morning and spotted this headline, “In a Shift, Obama Extends U.S. Role in Afghan Combat,” I instantly wanted to pick...
Iraq War 4.0?
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Let’s play a game, the kind that makes no sense on this single-superpower planet of ours. For a moment, do your best to suspend disbelief and imagine that there’s another superpower, great power, or even regional power...
When Is a ‘Base Camp’ Neither a Base Nor a Camp?
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Sometimes, to see the big picture you need to focus on the smallest part of it, as Nick Turse does in the latest of his dispatches on the U.S. military in Africa. He takes a look at that military in Chad. Yep, I said “in...
A Permanent Infrastructure for Permanent War
Originally posted at TomDispatch. In a September address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Barack Obama spoke forcefully about the “cycle of conflict” in the Middle East, about “violence within Muslim communities that has become the...


