[Note for TomDispatch Readers: I’m sad to report that Chalmers Johnson died on Saturday. He was a stalwart of this site, writing for it regularly from its early moments. Without the slightest doubt, he was one of the most remarkable authors I’ve had the pleasure to edit, no less be friends with. He saw our …
Continue reading “All War All the Time”
The expected Election Day Republican “wave” that broke over our heads is a disaster for the anti-interventionist cause in the immediate sense – but there may be a silver lining. The disaster is embodied in the various GOP warmongers who will be placed in key positions in Congress, and a good case could be made …
Continue reading “Election 2010: A Disaster for Peace”
The United States is currently fighting two wars, and a third one in Pakistan that is as yet unacknowledged – and yet, with the midterm elections coming up in a matter of a few weeks, we don’t hear anything about this from the candidates. Why is that? Three reasons, the first being the old adage, …
Continue reading “Foreign Policy and the Midterms”
High among the blunders of history was the “blank cheque” Kaiser Wilhelm gave Vienna, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to deal with the Serbs as they saw fit. Five weeks later, Vienna cashed the check and declared war, after Belgrade refused to submit to all 10 demands of an ultimatum. Russia mobilized; Germany …
Continue reading “GOP Blank Check for War?”
Vlahos on new war critics in Tea Party, GOP
Chris Norby is a freshman Republican state legislator from Orange County, Calif. He previously served on the Orange County Board of Supervisors and as mayor of Fullerton. “If he [Obama] is such a student of history, has he not understood the one thing you don’t do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? Everyone …
Continue reading “Steele Speaks the Truth”
“This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.” Strictly speaking, Republican Party Chair Michael Steele was way off base when he made this remark at a closed-door meeting of party contributors in Connecticut. For the war began in 2001 under George …
Continue reading “The Real Sin of Michael Steele”
Kelley Vlahos on quickie trips to Afghanistan