The ‘No Second 9/11’ Argument
After twenty years of the War on Terror, $6.4 trillion spent, some 801,000 deaths (including about 335,000 civilian deaths) from direct violence by 2019 (and many more because of factors related to the War on Terror not calculated in war deaths), at least 1.8 million...
Twilight of Liberty: 9/11’s Legacy
Twenty years after the event, I can recall with perfect clarity where I was the morning Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda suicide hijackers changed all our lives. At home, nursing a nasty cold, I had to beg off of a meeting at the Pentagon I was supposed to attend on behalf...
How Can America Wake Up From Its Post-9/11 Nightmare?
Looking back on it now, the 1990s were an age of innocence for America. The Cold War was over and our leaders promised us a "peace dividend." There was no TSA to make us take off our shoes at airports (how many bombs have they found in those billions of...
Happy 20th Anniversary. Guess What Your Gift Is?
Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the US government is finally – well, probably, kinda sorta – ending its lost war with Afghanistan, drawing down its presence in Iraq, and reducing the heat of its “global war on terror” from a rolling boil...
Look Who’s Pivoting to China Now
America may famously be pivoting to China, but so is everyone else: and not in the intended way. Vice President Kamala Harris’ invitation to Vietnam to join the US against China was coldly rejected by an unaligned Vietnam who wishes to enhance relations with China....
Biden Exits Afghanistan, Heads in the Wrong Direction
On August 31, Joe Biden wisely accepted the inevitable and announced the final departure of all open military presence in Afghanistan. Perhaps, the most important part of the speech had to do with the future, and here Biden was unequivocal: "And here is the...
The ‘Longest War’ Is Not Over
Speaking from the White House on August 31, President Joe Biden lied to the people of the U.S. and to the world: "Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan – the longest war in American history." The US war on Afghanistan...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Nine Killed
When Foreign Policy Becomes Farce: Bring Brazil Into NATO?
NATO’s European members are in one of their periodic states of funk. When Joe Biden was elected president, they believed that the good times were back, with Washington unashamedly putting them first. Then Biden withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan – without asking...
