Militarization

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Jeb Bush gave a maiden foreign police speech in Chicago yesterday in which he mixed up Iran with Iraq and alleged with science fictional inaccuracy that Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) has 200,000 men under arms. The actual number of fighters is probably 20,000. His office later admitted that […]

Barack Obama

Against Torture: American Heroes who Indicted Cheney’s Dark Side

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | (Tomdispatch.com) Why was it again that, as President Obama said, “we tortured some folks” after the 9/11 attacks? Oh, right, because we were terrified. Because everyone knows that being afraid gives you moral license to do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe. That’s why we don’t shame or […]

Militarization

The Lone-Wolf Terror Trap: Why the Cure Will Be Worse Than the Disease

contributors

By Matthew Harwood | (Tomdispatch.com) The shadow of a new threat seems to be darkening the national security landscape: the lone-wolf terrorist. “The lone wolf is the new nightmare,” wrote Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer recently, and the conservative pundit wasn’t alone in thinking so. “I really see [lone wolves] as being a bigger threat […]

Militarization

How the Anti-War Movement was Demobilized; Remembering I.F. Stone

contributors

By Tom Engelardt | (Tomdispatch.com) Well, it’s one, two, three, look at that amputee,At least it’s below the knee,Could have been worse, you see.Well, it’s true your kids look at you differently,But you came in an ambulance instead of a hearse,That’s the phrase of the trade,It could have been worse. — First verse of a Vietnam-era […]

Featured

GOP’s Scott Walker: Pitches possible Syria War to make us Like Him

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Likely Republican presidential candidate, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, says he might favor sending US ground troops to mount a conventional war against Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) in Syria or at least wouldn’t rule it out. Let’s see. The Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003 on false pretenses of […]

Militarization

War Is the New Normal: Seven Deadly Reasons Why America’s Wars Persist

contributors

By William J. Astore | (Tomdispatch.com) – It was launched immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when I was still in the military, and almost immediately became known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT. Pentagon insiders called it “the long war,” an open-ended, perhaps unending, conflict against nations and terror networks mainly of a […]

Government surveillance

America’s Walking Dead: The Perpetual War Machine

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) When it comes to the national security state, our capital has become a thought-free zone. The airlessness of the place, the unwillingness of leading players in the corridors of power to explore new ways of approaching crucial problems is right there in plain sight, yet remarkably unnoticed. Consider this the […]

Barack Obama

Obama wants new Mil. Authority, but Special Ops already on Missions in 105 Countries in 2015

contributors

By Nick Turse | (Tomdispatch.com) — In the dead of night, they swept in aboard V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Landing in a remote region of one of the most volatile countries on the planet, they raided a village and soon found themselves in a life-or-death firefight. It was the second time in two weeks that […]

Militarization

How the US Nat’l Security State goes on Failing Upward

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) As 2015 begins, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Imagine that it’s January 1963. For the last three years, the United States has unsuccessfully faced off against a small island in the Caribbean, where a revolutionary named Fidel Castro seized power from a corrupt but U.S.-friendly regime run by […]