The current political brawl over next year’s budget is highly significant. With Democrats in a House majority for the first time in eight years, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and most other party leaders continue to support even more largesse for the Pentagon. But many...
Here’s a statement it might be hard to disagree with: American war is off the charts. Still, I’d like to explain – but I’m nervous about doing so. I know perfectly well that the next word I plan to write will send most of you tumbling elsewhere in a universe in which...
The U.S. Congress has begun debate on the FY2020 military budget. The FY2019 budget for the US Department of Defense is $695 billion dollars. President Trump’s budget request for FY 2020 would increase it to $718 billion. Spending by other federal Departments adds...
Should we have a Department of Offense in place of a Department of Defense (DoD)? Wouldn’t “Offense” be more accurate? Perhaps in more ways than one? Consider the revival of “great-power rivalry,” meaning China and Russia as...
Israeli elections have come and gone, delivering Benjamin Netanyahu a fifth term that soon will make him Israel’s longest serving prime minister. The toxic rhetoric that defined the weeks-long campaign, with candidates seeking to outdo each other in demeaning...
For seven years, from the moment Julian Assange first sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, they have been telling us we were wrong, that we were paranoid conspiracy theorists. We were told there was no real threat of Assange’s extradition to the...
The recent decision by the Hague-based International Court of Justice that the Chagos Islands – with its huge U.S. military base at Diego Garcia – are being illegally occupied by the United Kingdom (UK) has the potential to upend the strategic plans of a...
On Thursday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by the UK police inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted political asylum in 2012. This termination of asylum by Ecuador in violation of international law comes a week after WikiLeaks...
