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William J. Astore

Militarization
Killing Me Softly with Militarism: The Decay of Democracy in America

Killing Me Softly with Militarism: The Decay of Democracy in America

William J. Astore

(Tomdispatch.com) – When Americans think of militarism, they may imagine jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through the streets as flag-waving crowds exult; or, like our president, they may think of enormous parades featuring troops and missiles and tanks, with warplanes soaring overhead. Or nationalist dictators wearing military uniforms encrusted with medals, ribbons, and badges like so many […]

Pentagon
The Ultra-Costly, Underwhelming F-35 Fighter: Lockheed Martin Remains Top Gun in the Pentagon's Cockpit

The Ultra-Costly, Underwhelming F-35 Fighter: Lockheed Martin Remains Top Gun in the Pentagon’s Cockpit

William J. Astore

(Tomdispatch.com) – How are you with numbers? I can deal with $1.5 million. I think I can even imagine $1.5 billion, a sum a thousand times greater. But how about a million times greater: $1.5 trillion? That happens to be the estimated cost of the Pentagon’s program to build, deploy, and maintain the no-longer-so-new F-35 […]

Militarization
In Wars and Weapons We Trust: America’s Militarized Profession of Faith

In Wars and Weapons We Trust: America’s Militarized Profession of Faith

William J. Astore

(Tomdispatch.com ) – When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I looked to the heavens: to God and Christianity (as arbitrated by the Catholic Church) and to the soaring warbirds of the U.S. military, which I believed kept us safe. To my mind then, they were classic manifestations of American technological superiority over the […]

Pentagon
Wars R Us:  Our Best and Brightest have Warned us of Pentagon Propaganda Machine

Wars R Us: Our Best and Brightest have Warned us of Pentagon Propaganda Machine

William J. Astore

(Tomsdispatch.com ) – Put up with me for just a moment while I wax literary. It turns out that, if French novelist Marcel Proust lived today, he might have had to retitle his Remembrance of Things Past as Remembrance of Things Present, or even more sadly, Things Future. As an ex-military man who lived through […]

War
The US Cult of Bombing & Endless War: Ten Tenets of Air Power That I Didn’t Learn in the Air Force

The US Cult of Bombing & Endless War: Ten Tenets of Air Power That I Didn’t Learn in the Air Force

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com ) – From Syria to Yemen in the Middle East, Libya to Somalia in Africa, Afghanistan to Pakistan in South Asia, an American aerial curtain has descended across a huge swath of the planet. Its stated purpose: combatting terrorism. Its primary method: constant surveillance and bombing — and yet more bombing. Its political […]

Pentagon
Top 6 Ways to Curb America's Skyrocketing Military Tab

Top 6 Ways to Curb America’s Skyrocketing Military Tab

William J. Astore

War is the ultimate audit and, as any American should know, the Pentagon is incapable of passing an audit

Pentagon
No Exit:  America's Senior Generals and the Trap of Infinity Wars

No Exit: America’s Senior Generals and the Trap of Infinity Wars

William J. Astore

(Tomdispatch.com) – “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” boasted Julius Caesar, one of history’s great military captains. “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed that famed saying when summing up the Obama administration’s military intervention in Libya in 2011 — with a small alteration. “We came, we saw, he died,” she said with […]

Pentagon
So Much Losing:  America's Small Unending Wars of the 21st Century

So Much Losing: America’s Small Unending Wars of the 21st Century

William J. Astore

Endless war for any goal except to preserve the republic isn’t a measure of fortitude but the path to national suicide.

War
All America’s Quagmires:  Why We’re still at War in so Many Countries

All America’s Quagmires: Why We’re still at War in so Many Countries

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com) – As America enters the 18th year of its war in Afghanistan and its 16th in Iraq, the war on terror continues in Yemen, Syria, and parts of Africa, including Libya,Niger, and Somalia. Meanwhile, the Trump administration threatens yet more war, this time with Iran. (And given these last years, just how do […]

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