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 Pentagon’s Italian Spending Spree

This may be a propitious moment to offer an up-to-date version of a classic riddle: Which came first, the chicken or the terrorist? For many in this country, the Kenyan mall horror arrived out of the blue, out of nowhere, out of a place and a time without context. Next thing you know, it’s all … Continue reading “The Pentagon’s Italian Spending Spree”

The Forgotten War

Listen to Ann Jones on Monday’s Scott Horton Show The Afghan War is officially winding down. American casualties, generally from towns and suburbs you’ve never heard of unless you were born there, are still coming in. Though far fewer American troops are in the field with Afghan forces, devastating “insider attacks” in which a soldier … Continue reading “The Forgotten War”

The Mystery of Washington’s Waning Global Power

Among the curious spectacles of our moment, the strangeness of the Obama presidency hasn’t gotten its full due.  After decades in which "the imperial presidency" was increasingly in the spotlight, after two terms of George W. Bush in which a literal cult of executive power – or to use the term of that moment, "the … Continue reading “The Mystery of Washington’s Waning Global Power”

Eight Exceptional(ly Dumb) American Achievements of the Twenty-First Century

“But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential … Continue reading “Eight Exceptional(ly Dumb) American Achievements of the Twenty-First Century”

Destroying the Right To Be Left Alone

For at least the last six years, government agents have been exploiting an AT&T database filled with the records of billions of American phone calls from as far back as 1987. The rationale behind this dragnet intrusion, codenamed Hemisphere, is to find suspicious links between people with "burner" phones (prepaid mobile phones easy to buy, … Continue reading “Destroying the Right To Be Left Alone”

Letter to an Unknown Whistleblower

Dear Whistleblower, I don’t know who you are or what you do or how old you may be. I just know that you exist somewhere in our future as surely as does tomorrow or next year. You may be young and computer-savvy or a career federal employee well along in years. You might be someone … Continue reading “Letter to an Unknown Whistleblower”

What If Congress Says No on Syria?

Looked at one way at least, the president’s Syrian war proposal – itself an ever shifting target – couldn’t be more brain-dead. The idea that one country, on its own, has the right to missile and bomb another to resolve the question of a chemical attack and war crime should, on the face of it, … Continue reading “What If Congress Says No on Syria?”

The Hill to the Rescue on Syria? Don’t Hold Your Breath

Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines. Yet Barack Obama chose Labor Day weekend to unveil arguably the most consequential foreign policy shift of his presidency. In … Continue reading “The Hill to the Rescue on Syria? Don’t Hold Your Breath”

AFRICOM’s Gigantic ‘Small Footprint’

Here’s a question for you: Can a military tiptoe onto a continent? It seems the unlikeliest of images, and yet it’s a reasonable enough description of what the U.S. military has been doing ever since the Pentagon created an Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007. It’s been slipping, sneaking, creeping into Africa, deploying ever more forces … Continue reading “AFRICOM’s Gigantic ‘Small Footprint’”

Alone and Delusional on Planet Earth

In an increasingly phantasmagorical world, here’s my present fantasy of choice: someone from General Keith Alexander’s outfit, the National Security Agency, tracks down H.G. Wells’s time machine in the attic of an old house in London.  Britain’s subservient Government Communications Headquarters, its version of the NSA, is paid off and the contraption is flown to … Continue reading “Alone and Delusional on Planet Earth”