Veterans Day, 95 Years On

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was exactly 95 years ago: the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the moment when major hostilities in the charnel house that was World War I ended. In 1919, November 11th officially became “Armistice...

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I Should Be Dead

Today I am a somewhat overweight, bearded suburban dad entering a comfortable middle age, but it was not always thus. Seven short years ago I was a lean, clean-shaven, heavily armored combat medic in Iraq, and today, November 11th, everyone is apparently required by...

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‘Peace Scare’ in Geneva

Entangling alliances lead to war, and nothing underscores this axiom more dramatically than the recent failure to come to some sort of agreement with Iran on limiting its nuclear program. The United States long ago concluded "with high certainty" that Iran...

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Israel’s Nuclear Ambiguity Prodded

OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM , Nov. 7 2013 (IPS) – As Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and nuclear talks on Iran’s disputed nuclear program continue, a unique international conference, “A Middle East without Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)”, was held in Jerusalem....

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Breaking the Game

Is democracy just civil war, only with ballots instead of bullets? Like chess, or football, politics is a stand-in for war, designed to ritualize conflict so as to prevent bloodshed. As long as everyone abides by the rules, and accepts the restrictions of the system,...

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