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 True Costs of Empire

Mars? Venus? Earth-like bodies elsewhere in the galaxy? Who knows? But here, at least, no great power, no superpower, no hyperpower, not the Romans, nor imperial China, nor the British, nor the Soviet Union has ever garrisoned the globe quite the way we have: Asia to Latin America, Europe to the Greater Middle East, and … Continue reading “The True Costs of Empire”

Washington’s Iranian Future

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which the United States is a regional power, not a superpower.  A world in which the globe’s mightiest nation, China, invades Mexico and Canada, deposing the leaders of both countries.  A world in which China has also ringed the Americas, from Canada to Central America, with military bases.  … Continue reading “Washington’s Iranian Future”

The Barack Obama Story (Updated)

President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear President Obama, Nothing you don’t know, but let me just say it: the world’s a weird place. In my younger years, I might have said “crazy,” but that was back when I thought being crazy was a cool thing and only … Continue reading “The Barack Obama Story (Updated)”

Generals Behaving Badly

He was “an ascetic who… usually eats just one meal a day, in the evening, to avoid sluggishness. He is known for operating on a few hours’ sleep and for running to and from work while listening to audio books on an iPod… [He has] an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the lives of terrorists… … Continue reading “Generals Behaving Badly”

Is Gaza Outside Israel?

On returning from his first trip to the Gaza Strip, Noam Chomsky told Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman, “It’s kind of amazing and inspiring to see people somehow managing to survive as caged animals subject to constant, random, sadistic punishment only to humiliate them, no pretext. Israel and the United States keep them alive basically. They … Continue reading “Is Gaza Outside Israel?”

The Fall of the American Empire (Writ Small)

History, it is said, arrives first as tragedy, then as farce. First as Karl Marx, then as the Marx Brothers. In the case of twenty-first century America, history arrived first as George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and the Project for a New America — a … Continue reading “The Fall of the American Empire (Writ Small)”

America’s Profligate Nation-Building Abroad Continues

Part of a slogan from my hometown past sticks in my mind.  “Build we must,” it went.  Such an American phrase, really.  Evidence of a can-do spirit from another country in another age.  Now, in can’t-do America with its disintegrating infrastructure, “build we mustn’t” seems more in the spirit of the times — with one … Continue reading “America’s Profligate Nation-Building Abroad Continues”

Beyond Bayonets and Battleships

Untitled Document In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Cold War was commonly said to have partially plunged "into the shadows" as a secret, off-the-grid, spy-versus-spy conflict fought between the planet’s two superpowers. No one caught this mood better than John le Carré in his famed Smiley novels which offered a riveting portrait of Soviet, … Continue reading “Beyond Bayonets and Battleships”

The Urge to Bomb Iran

The Obama administration has engaged in a staggering military buildup in the Persian Gulf and at U.S. and allied bases around Iran (not to speak of in the air over that country and in cyberspace). Massive as it is, however, it hasn’t gotten much coverage lately. Perhaps, after all the alarms and warnings about possible … Continue reading “The Urge to Bomb Iran”

Ignoring American Decline

Failure and unintended consequences: these are often hallmarks of U.S. military interventions. Who could have imagined, for instance, that forcing open the Kingdom of Japan at the point of U.S. Navy guns would eventually lead to bombs falling on ships from that same navy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii? Or who could have foreseen that attempting … Continue reading “Ignoring American Decline”