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...
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,”...
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....
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...
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...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Just in case you were wondering where your tax dollars went in this century, consider the American war, now 20 years old, in Iraq (and after 2014 in Syria as well). Neta Crawford of the invaluable Costs of War Project has just...
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...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. Yesterday, journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Their testimony, and the risible reactions of...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) had it right. The military-industrial complex (MIC) is fundamentally antidemocratic The national security state has become the fourth branch of government and arguably the...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. February 19th is the Rage Against the War Machine rally in DC. It just so happens to be my dad’s birthday as well. He was born on that date in 1917, endured the Great Depression, worked in the Civilian...
