Pentagon

Vancouver (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has broached he use of battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine, We all hope it is an empty threat, since such an escalation could possibly trigger an all-out global holocaust. However, nothing is certain in war, and there are many scenarios in which nuclear weapons […]

Mental Health

Hunting the Military Extremist: How Disturbed is the U.S. Military?

Tomdispatch

By Nan Levinson ( Tomdispatch.com) – In April, when Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman with a top-secret clearance, was arrested for posting a trove of classified documents about the Russia-Ukraine war online, the question most often asked was: How did such a young, inexperienced, low-level technician have access to such sensitive material? […]

Bush

Iraq’s Climate Crisis: America’s War for Oil and the Great Mesopotamian Dustbowl

Juan Cole

( Tomdispatch.com ) – It was one of the fabled rivers of history and the Marines needed to cross it. In early April 2003, as American forces sought to wrap up their conquest of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and take strongholds to its north, the Marine Corps formed “Task Force Tripoli.” It was commanded by […]

Climate Crisis

To Stop Global Heating, Cut Military Spending

OtherWords

By Alliyah Lusuegro | ( Otherwords.org ) – Not long ago, I couldn’t step outside my home without pulling on my KN95 mask. As smoke from wildfires in Canada sweeps in waves across the U.S., tens of millions of Americans from the East Coast to the Midwest find themselves living under severe air quality advisories. […]

al-Qaeda

When Foreign Policy Elites Manipulate the Public into War, the First Amendment is the First Casualty

Ali Abootalebi

Eau Claire, WI (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – United States presidents have repeatedly waged wars with tacit congressional approval and distorted narratives at the expense of citizens’ political participation in the political process and to the detriment of their first amendment rights. the seemingly popular support for such interventions is constructed and deprives millions […]

Bill of Rights

Why we Need a Woke Military

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Gregory D. Foster ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – At the forefront of today’s cohort of right-wing, nativist Know-Nothings are those who specifically attack the U.S. military for the “wokeness” of its policies and practices. The military continues to wrestle—internally and externally, in its training, its policies, and its practices—with a wide […]

Militarization

The Ultimate All-American Slush Fund: How a New Budget Loophole could send Pentagon Spending Soaring even Higher

William D. Hartung

By Julia Gledhill and William D. Hartung ( Tomdispatch.com ) – On June 3rd, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that lifted the government’s debt ceiling and capped some categories of government spending. The big winner was — surprise, surprise! — the Pentagon. Congress spared military-related programs any cuts while freezing all other […]

Donald Trump

How the Exposure of highly classified Documents could harm US Security – and why there are Laws against storing Them insecurely

The Conversation

Gary Ross, Texas A&M University When Donald Trump pled not guilty on June 13, 2023, to federal criminal charges related to his alleged illegal retention of classified documents, it was his first opportunity to formally answer charges that he violated the Espionage Act. The Justice Department alleges that, after his presidency, Trump held, in an […]

Democratic Party

With Two Damaging Trump Trials during the Campaign, did Joe Biden just become a Shoo-in in 2024?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s two indictments will likely throw the 2024 election to Joe Biden. Assuming Biden remains in good health and there isn’t a dramatic foreign policy reversal or a prolonged economic crisis, he is now a shoo-in. He may be a shoo-in no matter what, since the alternative will be so […]