So here’s an odd, mostly overlooked scrap of recent news: Donald Trump wants to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq before he leaves office, and is expected to announce a drawdown of troops in both countries. Currently there are approximately 4,500 troops in...
Belgium is furious. On November 6, the Belgian government condemned Israel’s destruction of Belgian-funded homes in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Understandably, Brussels wants the Israeli government to pay compensation for the unwarranted destruction. The...
This originally appeared at The Baraza. “Well, we like war. We’re a war-like people,” the comedian George Carlin, whom I’ve been missing of late, pronounced way back in 1992, on the heels of America’s triumphalist First Persian Gulf War “victory.” The cheers from his...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. War: what is it good for? Apparently, in Washington’s world of think tanks, the answer is: the bottom line. In fact, as the Biden presidency approaches, an era of great-power competition between the United States and China is...
Joe Biden’s administration will face the daunting challenge of repairing the badly frayed U.S. relationship with Russia. Unfortunately, the president-elect is not well-positioned to undertake that task, and he should blame himself and his political associates for that...
Two recent reports are serious warnings to those who oppose the United States endless wars in the Middle East. The reports indicate that although President Trump has lost the elections, his efforts against Iran are continuing, and that he may be looking for an excuse...
The Trump presidency has been a wreck. An unqualified, unprepared narcissist with a nanosecond attention span and compulsion to tweet, while holding a multitude of ill-considered opinions, became the world’s most powerful and important person. It sounded like the...
Jeh Johnson, formerly homeland security secretary under President Obama, showed how a typical Democratic official approaches the Pentagon and war as he spoke on ABC’s This Week on Sunday (11/15). For Johnson, the Pentagon “is typically an island of stability” in the...
