Tommy Raskin

More than twenty years after its ignominious formation, the mainstream cult of thought surrounding the Rwandan genocide is still going strong. If you doubt it, just observe how easily any outrage of a tinpot dictator or maniacal insurrectionary or estranged Western ally can trigger a fresh torrent of feverish insistence that "another Rwanda" is nigh … Continue reading “Spinning Rwanda in the Grand Cult of US Empire”

Inveterate bomb-’em-all neoconservatives are now consorting openly with liberal establishment types, even parroting their new chums’ criticisms of Donald Trump’s political incorrectness. What’s going on here? It seems that the neoconservatives are finally acknowledging that they are indeed cut from the same cloth as the neoliberal foreign policy intelligentsia, that their occasional disagreements do not … Continue reading “When a Neocon Cries ‘Racism’”

The Trump administration confidently asserts that the Kremlin poisoned Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, on a public bench in Salisbury, England, at the beginning of March. The actual evidence appears inconclusive, though; as of Tuesday, investigating scientists at the Porton Down research laboratory had not uncovered any proof of Russian involvement. Are … Continue reading “Did Moscow Really Poison the Skripals?”

For the past 16 years, the American war machine has been acting like a two-tiered sadist in Afghanistan. While facilitating the Kabul government’s destruction of the communities it oversees there, our military apparatus has also harmed the U.S. itself by spilling American blood for an unnecessary and futile mission. Granted, most Americans have not literally … Continue reading “Sadism in Afghanistan”

War tends to perpetuate itself. As soon as one brute gets killed, another takes his place; when the new guy falls, another materializes. Consider Richard Nixon’s intensification of the American war on Cambodia. In hopes of maintaining an advantage over the Communists as he withdrew American troops from Southeast Asia, Nixon ravaged Vietnam’s western neighbor … Continue reading “The Perils of Endless War”