Language is politics and politics is power. This is why the misuse of language is particularly disturbing, especially when the innocent and vulnerable pay the price. The wars in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries in recent...
If It’s Not a Cold War, Why Does It Look So Much Like a Cold War?
The United States, the President swore, is "not seeking a new Cold War." But he is, and it didn’t have to be that way. The end of the Cold War could have been the end of the Cold War. Russia really didn’t want a new Cold War and has only been reluctantly...
Abandoning Yemen to War Criminals
The United Nations body responsible for monitoring and recording human rights abuses effectively abandoned the people of Yemen last week. In a 21-18 vote with seven abstentions, the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) refused to extend the mandate of an independent...
My War on Terror, Up Close and Personal
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It’s hard to imagine how I would have done my work at TomDispatch over the last decade without one crucial resource: Brown University’s Costs of War Project. After all, that website has offered a remarkable look at...
Strategies To Cut the Military Budget: Realistic Options for an Unrealistic Government
The military budget is going to be cut. That will cause enormous wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington. The generals will promote fantastic disaster scenarios. The military-industrial complex will deploy more lobbyists. The Neoconservative Greek Chorus will...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Two Killed
Georgia: Another Dangerous, Loose-Cannon US Client
Ukraine is Washington’s most worrisome security client in Europe. U.S. leaders are incurring grave risks to America in support of a country that is notoriously corrupt and increasingly authoritarian. Worse, Kiev engages in abrasive conduct toward its much larger, more...
Time for Washington To Stop Sanctioning the World: US Arrogance Leaves Trail of Innocent Victims Behind
The "Lift Sanctions, Save Lives" network is lobbying Congress to do what it should have done years ago: assess the impact of economic sanctions now routinely applied to ally as well as adversary. Such a review is long overdue. Economic sanctions have become...
‘No First Use’: An Empty Gesture That Would Cost Nothing
“Debate on ‘no first use’ of nukes mushrooms in Washington,” Joe Gould reports at Defense News. “Five years after President Barack Obama turned back from declaring a ‘no first use’ as US policy for nuclear weapons,”...
Against Intervention and Regime Change: A Debate with Bill Kristol
The following essay is adapted from Antiwar.com editorial director Scott Horton’s statement in his October 4, 2021 Soho Forum debate with William Kristol, director of the Foreign Policy Initiative and editor of the Bulwark. The resolution was, "A willingness to...


