By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – “Are you okay?” asked a friend and military spouse in the voicemail she left me on the afternoon the mob of Trump supporters breached the Capitol so violently. At home with a new baby, her Navy reservist husband stationed in Germany, the thoughts running through her head […]
Demilitarizing Our Democracy: How the National Security State Has Come to Dominate a “Civilian” Government
By Mandy Smithberger and William Hartung | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – This month’s insurrection at the Capitol revealed the dismal failure of the Capitol Police and the Department of Defense to use their expertise and resources to thwart a clear and present danger to our democracy. As the government reform group Public Citizen tweeted, […]
How Bush’s Wars led to Trump’s Insurrection: From Occupying Iraq to Occupying the Capitol
By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – “I got out of the Marines and within a few years, 15 of my buddies had killed themselves,” one veteran rifleman who served two tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq between 2003 and 2011 said to me recently. “One minute they belonged and the next, they were […]
Letting the Markets go Wild while the People Go Down: A War of the Worlds
By Nomi Prins | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometimes things only make sense when seen through a magnifying lens. As it happens, I’m thinking about reality, the very American and global reality clearly repeating itself as 2021 begins. We all know, of course, that we’re living through a once-in-a-century-style pandemic; that millions of people […]
A Tipping Point for the Defeat of Fossil Fuels? How to Stop Big Energy in Its Tracks (Quite Literally)
By Richard Lachmann, Michael Schwartz and Kevin A. Young | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – As Donald Trump gave in to the demand that the transition process to the Biden years officially begin, the administration and its fossil-fuel allies doubled down on their efforts to implement destructive environmental policies that President Biden might try to […]
Anti-War Officer Corps: An American Crisis of Conscience in the Forever Wars
By William J. Astore and Danny Sjursen | If you have a moment, how about joining two retired officers, Bill Astore and me, Danny Sjursen, as we think about this country’s catastrophic forever wars that, regardless of their deadly costs and lack of progress, never seem quite to end? Recently, in a podcast chat about […]
US Troops are finally returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but what to kind of American are they returning
By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – By the end of this year, the White House will reportedly have finally brought home a third of the 7,500 troops still stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq (against the advice of President Trump’s own military leaders). While there have been stories galore about the global security implications […]
The Pentagon couldn’t Protect us from the Pandemic: Will Biden dare Cut its Budget?
By William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Now that Joe Biden is slated to take office as the 46th president of the United States, advice on how he should address a wide range of daunting problems is flooding in. Nowhere is there more at stake than when it comes […]
Merchants of Arms: Who wants a Conflict with China?
By Cassandra Stimpson and Holly Zhang | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – War: what is it good for? Apparently, in Washington’s world of think tanks, the answer is: the bottom line. In fact, as the Biden presidency approaches, an era of great-power competition between the United States and China is already taken for granted inside […]