Thomas Knapp

In 1954, Congress passed, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed, a bill transforming Armistice Day – November 11, a post-World-War One celebration of peace – into Veterans Day, a celebration of warriors. Personally, I stick to the original name and the original purpose in my observation of the holiday. Looking at the numbers involved, though, … Continue reading “When Our Politicians Buy Never-Ending War, We Get What They Make Us Pay For”

On October 19, 96-year-old Irmgard Furchner appeared in a German court to answer charges of aiding and abetting 11,412 murders. The murders took place between 1943 and 1945 at the Stutthof concentration camp, where a much younger Furchner worked as secretary to the camp’s commandant. A day before Furchner’s indictment, Colin Powell, the US government’s … Continue reading “Powell Lied, People Died: Justice Delayed Was Justice Denied”

“Debate on ‘no first use’ of nukes mushrooms in Washington,” Joe Gould reports at Defense News. “Five years after President Barack Obama turned back from declaring a ‘no first use’ as US policy for nuclear weapons,” Gould writes, “opponents say the Biden administration is considering it too, and warn that it risks alienating allies.” Is … Continue reading “‘No First Use’: An Empty Gesture That Would Cost Nothing”

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the US government is finally – well, probably, kinda sorta – ending its lost war with Afghanistan, drawing down its presence in Iraq, and reducing the heat of its “global war on terror” from a rolling boil to hot-tub temperature. Good news, right? After two decades of getting groped … Continue reading “Happy 20th Anniversary. Guess What Your Gift Is?”

“President Joe Biden continues to humiliate the United States,” Joseph Klein whines at neoconservative rag FrontPageMag, “by letting the Taliban terrorists dictate the terms of his surrender.” Furthermore, writes Klein, “the president is clearly willfully blind to ISIS in Afghanistan being a long-term threat to the American homeland. … Biden has shown zero concern for … Continue reading “Afghanistan: America’s First Step Out of Trotsky’s Long Shadow?”

As I write this, the Taliban have assumed full political control – to the extent that such a thing can exist – of Afghanistan. They’ve taken Kabul. They’ve put the US occupation’s puppet president, and many Afghans who served the occupation presence, to flight. They’ve declared the restoration of their “Islamic Emirate.” Despite the sometimes … Continue reading “Now, About That Peace Dividend …”

As I write this column, the Taliban are on a roll. They’ve taken 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals in a single week, including the country’s second and third largest cities (Kandahar and Herat), and Ghazni, which sits astride the main highway connecting Kandahar to the national capital of Kabul. The US occupation’s puppet president, … Continue reading “Afghanistan: Taliban Victories Explain the Wisdom of US Withdrawal”

In a rare moment of moral clarity, US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) points out that “America’s daughters shouldn’t be drafted against their will.” As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the usually bellicose Cotton voted against advancing the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act after committee chair Jack Reed (D-RI) added an amendment requiring … Continue reading “Don’t Expand Draft Registration – End It”

“We stand with the Cuban people,” US President Joe Biden says in an official White House statement, responding to protests across the Caribbean island country, “and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected … Continue reading “Note to Joe: Try These Two Easy Tricks To Promote Freedom in Cuba”

Associated Press headline, July 8: “Biden with few options to stabilize Haiti in wake of slaying.” Following the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse, AP reports, “the U.S. is unlikely to deploy troops.” Nonetheless, the American political and media establishments seem to blithely assume that Haiti’s internal affairs are very much America’s business. State Department spokesman … Continue reading “Hands Off Haiti!”