Some experts worry that, if the country went to war, many reserve units might be unable to deploy. A U.S. official who works on these issues put it simply: ‘We can’t get enough people.’” “Vietnam Syndrome” hasn’t gone away! It resulted in the elimination of the draft...
After 12 years – including five years of solitary confinement at Belmarsh Prison in London – Julian Assange is free. God bless America! He wasn’t extradited to the U.S. to stand trial, where he faced a sentence of 170 years in prison for violating the so-called...
For its victims, war is . . . yes, hell. For the rest of us – the onlooking and supportive patriots – war is an abstraction embedded in ignorance, a.k.a., public relations, served up for public consumption. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The reality of...
"When militarism is addressed as a psychosocial disease, the absurd irrationality of its symptoms is clearly exposed." These words are from a 1992 essay by N. Arther Coulter published in a journal called Medicine and War. Who would have guessed? They're as relevant...
Nuclear sanity: ultimate (or, God help us, immediate) disarmament. Nuclear insanity: ongoing development and deployment, endless investment, eventual (either accidental or intentional) use. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., addressing Congress several weeks ago, made a...
War spews hell in all directions. Just ask the guys at Talon Anvil, a secret U.S. "strike cell" recently exposed by the New York Times as a unit with a reputation for ignoring the rules of engagement and killing lots and lots of civilians with drone strikes...
War spews hell in all directions. Just ask the guys at Talon Anvil, a secret U.S. "strike cell" recently exposed by the New York Times as a unit with a reputation for ignoring the rules of engagement and killing lots and lots of civilians with drone strikes as it...
A new defense budget looms. Maybe we're running out of wars to fight, but no matter. The proposed figure before Congress is bigger than ever: $778 billion. How fascinating – and how irrelevant – that the vote is scheduled just a few days after the New York...
The Pentagon's offer of "condolence money" to the relatives of the ten people (seven of them children) who were killed in the final U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan – originally declared righteous and necessary – bears a troubling connection to the...
"For Washington, it seems that whatever the problem is, the answer is bombing." So wrote Stephen Zunes, in the wake of Joe Biden’s first act of murder as president . . . excuse me, his first act of defensive military action: bombing a border post in Syria last week,...
