National Security State

By Lindsay Koshgarian ( Otherwords.org ) – It feels like the world is falling apart. But with a pandemic raging and an eviction crisis looming, the Senate is preparing to spend three quarters of a trillion dollars… not on public health or housing, but on the Pentagon. The United States may be going down, but […]

Militarization

Defund the Pentagon, Too

Sonali Kolhatkar

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – When Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a resolution recently to cut $350 billion from the Defense budget, the only media outlets that covered her bill were independent progressive ones. In a statement on her website Lee said, “For years, our government has failed to invest in programs that actually keep […]

Militarization

A General once Warned against Military-Industrial Complex: Today’s West Point Mafia is It

Danny Sjursen

(Tomdispatch.com ) – Every West Point class votes on an official motto. Most are then inscribed on their class rings. Hence, the pejorative West Point label “ring knocker.” (As legend has it, at military meetings a West Pointer “need only knock his large ring on the table and all Pointers present are obliged to rally […]

National Security State

America: Bases, Bases, Everywhere, and Not a Base in Sight

Nick Turse

( Tomdispatch.com) – They called it Castle Black, an obvious homage to the famed frozen citadel from the HBO series Game of Thrones. In the fantasy world of GoT, it’s the stronghold of the Night’s Watch, the French Foreign Legion-esque guardians of the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. This Castle Black, however, was all […]

Donald Trump

The Ukraine Whistleblowers and the Question of Partisanship

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Hannah Gurman and Kaeten Mistry | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – This moment should spark a conversation about the place of national security whistleblowing in a democratic society. “We must determine the whistleblower’s identity,” tweeted Donald Trump, who has become obsessed with finding and punishing the individual(s) that blew the whistle on […]

Militarization

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 […]

Militarization

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 […]

National Security State

NSC Advisor Bolton won’t listen to Tape of Khashoggi Murder b/c Doesn’t Know Arabic

AFP

Washington (AFP) – John Bolton, the influential White House national security advisor, said Tuesday he will not listen to the tape recording of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder because he doesn’t understand Arabic. The gruesome tape — a key piece of evidence in the murder allegedly ordered by US ally Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed […]

National Security State

US Planetary Military: From Failed Mideast Counter-Insurgency to Nuclear Brinkmanship

Danny Sjursen

(Tomdispatch.com) – American militarism has gone off the rails — and this middling career officer should have seen it coming. Earlier in this century, the U.S. military not surprisingly focused on counterinsurgency as it faced various indecisive and seemingly unending wars across the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa. Back in 2008, when I […]