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.

Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Given how similar they sound and how easy it is to imagine one leading to the other, confusing omniscience (having total knowledge) with omnipotence (having total power) is easy enough. It’s a reasonable supposition that, before the Snowden revelations hit, America’s spymasters had made just that mistake. If the drip-drip-drip of … Continue reading “Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence”

Veterans Day, 95 Years On

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was exactly 95 years ago: the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the moment when major hostilities in the charnel house that was World War I ended. In 1919, November 11th officially became “Armistice Day” in the United States. As it happened, though, major … Continue reading “Veterans Day, 95 Years On”

The Cost of War American-Style

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Back in the distant year 2003, my novel about a world I had inhabited for decades, The Last Days of Publishing, came out. In its last pages, three superannuated book editors huddled in a coffee shop in Manhattan, dreaming about DIY publishing. A decade later – for me – fiction has … Continue reading “The Cost of War American-Style”

American Death Spiral in the Middle East

Originally posted at TomDispatch. When Barack Obama took office, the sky was the limit in the Greater Middle East. After all, it seemed the U.S. had hit rock bottom. President Bush had set the region aflame with a raging debacle in Iraq, a sputtering conflict in Afghanistan, and a low-level drone war in Pakistan. The … Continue reading “American Death Spiral in the Middle East”

America’s Top Diplomat Is Lost in Space

Originally posted at TomDispatch. If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium – the title of a 1969 romantic comedy – could now fit two intertwined phenomena: the madcap global travels of Secretary of State John Kerry and the nonstop journey of the latest revelations from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. In mid-August, there was … Continue reading “America’s Top Diplomat Is Lost in Space”

The Fantasy of a Clean War

The foreign leaders are dropping like flies – to American surveillance. I’m talking about serial revelations that the National Security Agency has been spying on Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, two Mexican presidents, Felipe Calderón (whose office the NSA called “a lucrative source”) and his successor Enrique Peña Nieto, at least while still a candidate, and … Continue reading “The Fantasy of a Clean War”

Bashing ‘Isolationists’ While at War in the World

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Hey, Private First Class Dorothy: when that next tornado hits Kansas, it’s slated to transport you not to Oz, but to somewhere in Africa, maybe Chad or Niger or Mauritania. And that’s war, American-style, for you, or so reports the New York Times’s Eric Schmitt from Fort Riley, Kansas, where an … Continue reading “Bashing ‘Isolationists’ While at War in the World”

The Coming Era of Tiny Wars and Micro-Conflicts

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In terms of pure projectable power, there’s never been anything like it. Its military has divided the world – the whole planet – into six "commands." Its fleet, with 11 aircraft carrier battle groups, rules the seas and has done so largely unchallenged for almost seven decades. Its Air Force has … Continue reading “The Coming Era of Tiny Wars and Micro-Conflicts”

The Desert of Israeli Democracy

In case you hadn’t noticed, Israel has been in the news a lot lately. After all, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the U.N. in the midst of an Iranian "charm offensive," just as presidents Obama and Rouhani were having the first conversation between Iranian and American heads of state since Jimmy Carter’s day, … Continue reading “The Desert of Israeli Democracy”

The Data Hackers – Mining Your Information for Big Brother

Sometimes, the world sends you back to school. These last months have offered us a crash course – call it Surveillance 101 – in how Washington, enveloped in a penumbra of extreme secrecy, went to work creating a global surveillance state on a scale almost beyond the imagination. It was certainly beyond the imaginations, not … Continue reading “The Data Hackers – Mining Your Information for Big Brother”