US Military Adventurism: The Definition of Insanity
On October 22, US Army Master Sergeant Joshua L. Wheeler died near Hawija, in northern Iraq, while taking part in a mission aimed at rescuing prisoners from Islamic State forces. Wheeler is the first American soldier – or at least the first one we’ve been told...
Weep, Beloved Country
Sometimes, a small incident can pierce the darkness and reveal a frightening picture. This happened last Sunday in Beersheba, the capital of the Negev. The picture was frightening indeed. The incident started as a routine attack, one of many we have become used to in...
53 Killed, Including Children, across Iraq
America in Search of a Cause?
"If the Cold War is over, what's the point of being an American?" said Rabbit Angstrom, the protagonist of the John Updike novels. A haunting remark, since, for 40 years, America was largely united on the proposition that our survival depended upon our...
Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis
I am writing this on October 22, the fifty-third anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, the day when President John F. Kennedy made a speech to the nation announcing that the US had detected Soviet missile bases being constructed in Cuba – and demanding that they be...
What If They Gave a War and Everyone Came?
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Sometimes I imagine the last 14 years of American war policy in the Greater Middle East as a set of dismal Mad Libs. An example might be: The United States has spent [your choice of multiple billions of dollars] building up [fill in...
US Soldier, Shi’ite Pilgrims among 96 Killed in Iraq
What Clinton Got Wrong About Snowden
The presidential candidate and former secretary of state insisted during the recent Democratic debate that Snowden should have remained in the United States to voice his concerns about government spying on U.S. citizens. Instead, she claimed, he “endangered US...
Drones, Torture, and the Impatient State
Drone (don’t call them) assassinations must feel good. They must feel effective. You don’t need to worry about Gitmo, or moving prisoners into the US after Gitmo becomes unpopular. You just kill the bad guys with your superior technology. It’s very Democrat. Very...
