Silencing Voices for Peace

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In the “liberal” New York Times today, I saw an article on “Putin’s forever war” that has the following short synopsis: “Vladimir Putin wants to lead Russians into a civilizational conflict with the West far...

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Cluster Munitions for Ukraine

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. News that the Biden administration is sending cluster munitions to Ukraine highlights the dangerous escalatory nature of wars. These are special bombs and artillery shells with hundreds of “bomblets” that...

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The End Stage of American Empire

Originally posted at TomDispatch. All around us things are falling apart. Collectively, Americans are experiencing national and imperial decline. Can America save itself? Is this country, as presently constituted, even worth saving? For me, that last question is...

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Fighting the Military-Industrial Complex

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. The military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) has a huge advantage over its critics. Its proponents are united by greed and power. They know exactly what they want. Like Johnny Rocco in “Key Largo,”...

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America’s Mercenary Wars

A very useful and informative site, Michigan War Studies Review, recently stopped publishing book reviews after 18 years. The site’s editor, James Holoka, posted several reviews written by yours truly, including this one in 2013 on Jeremy Scahill’s book, Dirty Wars....

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Nuking the Promise of America

Originally posted at TomDispatch. I turn 60 this year. My health is generally good, though I have aches and pains from a form of arthritis. I’m not optimistic enough to believe that the best years of my life are ahead of me, nor so pessimistic as to assume that the...

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Learning Nothing from the Iraq War

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. What has America learned from the colossal failure of the Iraq War? Not what it should have learned, notes historian (and retired U.S. Army colonel) Greg Daddis at War on the Rocks. Daddis recently attended a...

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Learning Little from the Iraq War

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. Military invasions don’t produce democracies – who knew? Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, somehow the U.S. government worked to convince itself and the American people that democracy could be exported at...

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