Since the end of World War II, America’s political elite have cycled through a variety alleged foreign demons to justify a militarized, global interventionist policy. Vladimir Putin and the Great Russian Menace is the latest version. Not surprisingly, U.S. officials...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. “Integrity First” is the fundamental core value of the U.S. Air Force. Two other core values speak to “service before self” and “excellence in all we do.” But integrity remains the wellspring, and it’s the...
Although Wagner leader Yevgeni Prigozhin had reportedly been banished to Belarus after his brief and spectacularly unsuccessful rebellion, he seemingly enjoyed a surprising freedom of movement. He apparently traveled between Belarus and Africa and traveled frequently...
"Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it's only us." ~ William Golding (1911-1993), "Lord of the Flies" Hidden within some folks are the souls of saints. Hidden within others are the souls of beasts. Torture unleashes the beasts. Nothing is more destructive of human decency,...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. I only hope I’ll be around in 2123 for Henry Kissinger’s 200th birthday celebration. (I’d be a mere 179 then.) Still, at least I made it to his 100th. Imagine, in fact, that when I was in my twenties and in the streets protesting the...
US President Joe Biden’s policy in the war in Ukraine has been clear from the beginning: to put Ukraine in the best position “on the battlefield [to] be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table” while being careful “not fight the third world war in...
Getting a count of Ukraine’s dead that isn’t the output of someone’s propaganda machine is difficult to do. But the number of dead is indisputably a horror. Measuring the maiming of Ukraine solely in deaths, though, is an injustice to the depth of the Ukrainian wound....
The war in Ukraine has reopened Europe’s eyes to the horrifying realities of the wars of history. Battles fought almost entirely by artillery barrages, trench warfare, mass assaults through minefields; the kinds of combat not seen in the world since the Iran-Iraq war...
