Pentagon

( Tomdispatch.com) – “POWs Never Have A Nice Day.” That sentiment was captured on a button a friend of mine wore for our fourth grade class photo in 1972. That prisoners of war could never have such a day was reinforced by the sad face on that button. Soon after, American POWs would indeed be […]

Afghanistan

Anti-War Officer Corps: An American Crisis of Conscience in the Forever Wars

Tomdispatch

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 […]

African-Americans

Biden Nominates first African-American Secretary of Defense, 250 Years after Crispus Attucks

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President-Elect Joe Biden will appoint retired four-star general Lloyd J. Austin III as his secretary of defense, according to the scoop by Lara Seligman, Tyler Pager, Connor O’Brien and Natasha Bertrand at Politico. Austin will be the first Black secretary of defense in our nation’s history. Austin has, they note, […]

Bill of Rights

Constitution in Danger? Michael Flynn Wants Trump to Declare Martial Law

Everett Wohlers

Boise, Idaho (Special to Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, December 1, Michael Flynn, the beneficiary of President Trump’s recent pardon, published a manifesto calling on President Trump to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law so that the military could organize and run a new election for President to void the recent election which was […]

Afghanistan

Trump’s Pernicious Military Legacy: From the Forever Wars to the Cataclysms

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – In the military realm, Donald Trump will most likely be remembered for his insistence on ending America’s involvement in its twenty-first-century “forever wars” — the fruitless, relentless, mind-crushing military campaigns undertaken by Presidents Bush and Obama in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. After all, as a candidate, Trump pledged to bring U.S. […]

Afghanistan

US Troops are finally returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but what to kind of American are they returning

Tomdispatch

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 […]

Debt

The Pentagon couldn’t Protect us from the Pandemic: Will Biden dare Cut its Budget?

Tomdispatch

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 […]

Joe Biden

Can Progressives Push Biden to take on Washington’s Sacred Cows: Foreign Policy and the Pentagon?

Danny Sjursen

In this mystifying moment, the post-electoral sentiments of most Americans can be summed up either as “Ding dong! The witch is dead!” or “We got robbed!” Both are problematic, not because the two candidates were intellectually indistinguishable or ethically equivalent, but because each jingle is laden with a dubious assumption: that President Donald Trump’s demise […]

Donald Trump

Has Trump’s last-minute Purge of Defense Agencies Put America in Danger?

The Conversation

By Arie Perliger | – President Donald Trump’s recent firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and subsequent resignations from the department of four more top civilian officials – either in protest or under pressure – are raising alarms in Washington. All were replaced by people with questionable qualifications. One defense official described the situation to […]