Originally posted at TomDispatch. Honestly, how many times in your life have you ever run across a headline like this: “Top general says he would resist ‘illegal’ nuke order from Trump”? That was Air Force General John Hyten, head of the U.S....
2018 Looks Like an Arms Bonanza
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here’s a cheery note for you: the last mass killing of 2017 took place moments before midnight on New Year’s Eve. A 16-year-old New Jersey boy picked up a semi-automatic rifle, “lawfully acquired” by a member...
The Coming Year in Special Ops
Originally posted at TomDispatch. If you want to know something about life in America these days, consider how New York Times columnist David Leonhardt began his first piece of the year, “7 Wishes for 2018”: "Well, at least it’s not 2017 anymore. I...
Seeing Our Wars for the First Time
Originally posted at TomDispatch. He left Air Force Two behind and, unannounced, “shrouded in secrecy,” flew on an unmarked C-17 transport plane into Bagram Air Base, the largest American garrison in Afghanistan. All news of his visit was embargoed until...
Three Administrations, One Standard Playbook
Originally posted at TomDispatch. In a Washington politically riven in ways not seen since the pre-Civil War era, take hope. Despite everything you’ve read, bipartisanship is not dead. On one issue, congressional Democrats and Republicans, as well as Donald...
A Wider World of War
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Ambassadors of the traditional kind? Who needs them? Diplomats? What a waste! The State Department? Why bother? Its budget is to be slashed and its senior officials are leaving in droves ever since Donald Trump entered the Oval...
A Country Addicted to War
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It's been going on for so many years – Predators cruising, looking for their prey. Some attention has since been paid to the phenomenon and to the devastating effect their actions have had on their victims, but it hasn’t really...
Curating Guantanamo
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Few Americans ever took in the vastness of the prison outsourcing system the administration of George W. Bush set up from Afghanistan to Iraq, Thailand to Poland, the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Guantánamo Bay...
Making Nuclear Weapons Usable Again
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Speaking of the situation on the Korean peninsula, he predicted that there would be "the greatest slaughter." He later requested 34 nuclear weapons for possible use in connection with the Korean situation. He would later...
How To Wield Influence and Sell Weaponry in Washington
Originally posted at TomDispatch. When it comes to the art of the deal, at least where arms sales are concerned, American presidents, their administrations, and the Pentagon have long been Trumpian in nature. Their role has been to beat the drums (of war) for the...


