( Tomdispatch.com ) – At the end of the last century, hoping to drive the United States from Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sought to draw in the American military. He reportedly wanted to “bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil,” provoking savage asymmetric conflicts […]
The Pentagon’s .00035% Problem
( Tomdispatch.com ) – There are constants in this world — occurrences you can count on. Sunrises and sunsets. The tides. That, day by day, people will be born and others will die. Some of them will die in peace, but others, of course, in violence and agony. For hundreds of years, the U.S. military […]
Epic Fail: The New Junta in Niger Tells the United States to Pack up its War and Go Home
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Dressed in green military fatigues and a blue garrison cap, Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s ruling junta, took to local television last month to criticize the United States and sever the long-standing military partnership between the two countries. “The government of Niger, taking into account the aspirations and […]
Remote Warfare and Expendable People: Forever War means never Having to say you’re Sorry
( Tomdispatch.com ) – In war, people die for absurd reasons or often no reason at all. They die due to accidents of birth, the misfortune of being born in the wrong place — Cambodia or Gaza, Afghanistan or Ukraine — at the wrong time. They die due to happenstance, choosing to shelter indoors when […]
Pentagon Admits Failure in ‘War on Terror’ in Africa, as Attacks increase 75,000%
( Tomdispatch.com ) – America’s Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its “Forever Wars,” however, may not be […]
Bodies beyond Bucha: The Civilian Deaths You Haven’t Heard About
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Madogaz Musa Abdullah still remembers the phone call. But what came next was a blur. He drove for hours, deep into the Libyan desert, speeding toward the border with Algeria. His mind buckled, his thoughts reeled, and more than three years later, he’s still not certain how he made that six-hour […]
Why didn’t US strikes on Afghan Weddings generate Press Outrage like Russia’s Killings of Civilians in Ukraine?
( Tomdispatch.com ) – You’ve seen the grisly footage. You’ve read the harrowing reports. The evidence is everywhere and it’s as chilling as it is irrefutable. There was the young boy who was beaten and shot in cold blood; the man used for target practice; the old man thrown off a cliff; and the group […]
The River of Refugees becomes a Flood as 84 Million flee War, Violence and Tyranny
( Tomdispatch.com ) – We live on a planet in motion, a world of collision and drift. This was once an Earth of super-continents — Gondwana, Rodinia, Pangea. The eastern seaboard of the United States sidled up against West Africa, while Antarctica cozied up to the opposite side of the African continent. But nothing in […]
The War on Terror Is a Success — for Terror: Terrorist Groups Have Doubled Since the Passage of the 2001 AUMF
By Nick Turse | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – It began more than two decades ago. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror” and told a joint session of Congress (and the American people) that “the course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain.” If he […]