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.

Predator Nation

Here’s the essence of it: you can trust America’s crème de la crème, the most elevated, responsible people, no matter what weapons, what powers, you put in their hands. No need to constantly look over their shoulders. Placed in the hands of evildoers, those weapons and powers could create a living nightmare; controlled by the … Continue reading “Predator Nation”

The Energy Wars Heat Up

There has been much discussion recently about the Obama administration’s "pivot" from the Greater Middle East to Asia: the 250 Marines sent to Darwin, Australia, the littoral combat ships for Singapore, the support for Burmese "democracy," war games in the Philippines (and a drone strike there as well), and so on.  The U.S. is definitely going offshore in Asian waters, or put another way, … Continue reading “The Energy Wars Heat Up”

The Obama Contradiction

He has few constraints (except those he’s internalized). No one can stop him or countermand his orders. He has a bevy of lawyers at his beck and call to explain the “legality” of his actions. And if he cares to, he can send a robot assassin to kill you, whoever you are, no matter where … Continue reading “The Obama Contradiction”

Memory Failure at the Pentagon

Call it a mantra, a litany, or a to-don’t list, but the drip, drip, drip of Afghan disaster and the gross-out acts accompanying it have already resulted in one of those classic fill-you-in paragraphs that reporters hang onto for whenever the next little catastrophe rears its ugly head. Here’s how that list typically went after … Continue reading “Memory Failure at the Pentagon”

How to Trump a Superpower

Chalk it up to the genuine strangeness of our second Afghan War. Americans, according to the latest polls, are turning against the conflict in ever greater numbers, yet it’s remarkable how little — beyond a few obvious, sensational events — they know about what’s actually going on there in their name. Take as an example … Continue reading “How to Trump a Superpower”

The Afghan Syndrome

Take off your hat. Taps is playing. Almost four decades late, the Vietnam War and its postwar spawn, the Vietnam Syndrome, are finally heading for their American grave. It may qualify as the longest attempted burial in history. Last words — both eulogies and curses — have been offered too many times to mention, and … Continue reading “The Afghan Syndrome”

Joining the Whistleblowers’ Club

The world can be a luckless place, but every now and then serendipity just knocks you off a cliff. In what passed for my real life before TomDispatch intervened, I was (and remain, on a part-time basis) a book editor in mainstream publishing. The “slush pile” in a publishing house is normally the equivalent of … Continue reading “Joining the Whistleblowers’ Club”