Rebecca Gordon

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Yes, it’s true. After 20 years of war – actually, more like 30 years if you count American involvement in the Russian version of that conflict in the 1980s – the U.S. has finally waved goodbye to Afghanistan (at least for now). Its last act in Kabul was the drone-slaughtering of … Continue reading “A World of Killer Robots?”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Hmmm… let me see if I’ve gotten this straight. In his last days in office, Donald Trump is “ending” America’s forever wars (as he long promised he would do) by leaving 2,500 American troops in Afghanistan, a similar number in Iraq, and continuing the air war across parts of the Greater … Continue reading “All-War-All-the-Time?”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. How about a little round of Auld Lang Syne? After all, when it comes to war crimes, whatever he ends up doing, Donald Trump will still be a johnny-come-lately. Remember, for instance, that top officials in the administration of George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor … Continue reading “Of Crimes and Pardons”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The advent of sound recording deep-sixed this age-old thought experiment and offered a definitive answer: Yes! I’ve got another one for you, though: if you water-torture someone at a secure military … Continue reading “How To Make Yourself an Exception to the Rule of Law”

Think about this for a moment: in a country whose infrastructure is falling apart and where an inequality gap of monumental proportions is still growing, at least we should feel remarkably well-protected. After all, in the last fiscal year, the Pentagon, the one institution in Washington that only seems to receive more taxpayer dollars every … Continue reading “One Weekend a Month, My Ass”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. I offer you this guarantee: there’s an anniversary coming on October 7th that no one in this country is going to celebrate or, I suspect, even think about. Seventeen years ago, less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration launched the air campaign that began the invasion of … Continue reading “Psychologists Say No to Torture”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. [Editor’s note: The Jewish Nation-State bill described here was passed early Thursday morning. This article was written before passage.] The report was devastating – or would have been, if anyone here had noticed it. “Between 2001 and 2017,” it concluded, “U.S. government efforts to stabilize insecure and contested areas in Afghanistan … Continue reading “Making Sense of US Moves in the Middle East”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Six years ago, in late May 2012, I read a New York Times piece by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.” They reported that President Obama was then overseeing a “regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen security officials in the … Continue reading “Trump Drones On”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. There’s been a lot of free-floating fear and horror in the media recently about the appointment as national security adviser of John Bolton, a man who’s been itching for war(s) since the 1990s. His approach to Iran and North Korea in particular (not quite nuke ’em!, but not that much short … Continue reading “Making Atrocities Great Again”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. I was teaching the day the airplanes hit the World Trade Center. It was the second meeting of “The Communist Manifesto for Seminarians,” a course for my fellow graduate students. By the time I got to class, both towers had collapsed. A few hours later, Building 7 came down as well. … Continue reading “The 9/11 Hijackers Were Iraqis, Right?”