Departments

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war on terror

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    10/7/2021

    Never Having to Say You're Sorry

    by Karen J. Greenberg

    Numerous players with large and small roles in creating the expansive War on Terror have issued mea culpas; the major architects and the interests who profit from war have not. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    9/28/2021

    Droning On: America's Assassins-in-Chief

    by Tom Engelhardt

    Since the Bush administration, every President has used drone technology to be the nation's assassin-in-chief. In a nation increasingly tolerant of mass COVID death at home, does this even have the power to shock?

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    9/30/2021

    "A Horrible Mistake": Time to Ditch CENTCOM

    by Andrew Bacevich

    Created by military reorganization undertaken by the Reagan administration, CENTCOM assumes control of potential military operations in 20 nations, where a half-billion people live. In the decades of its existence, it has overseen the decline and imminent collapse of American empire. 

  • SOURCE: TIME
    9/19/2021

    Why Didn't We Leave Afghanistan Before Now?

    by Carter Malkasian

    Above all other considerations, America's interminable military presence in Afghanistan was driven by politicians' fears of blame for a future terrorist attack. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    9/21/2021

    The Profits of War

    by William Hartung

    Between weapons systems and a shadow army of contractors and logistics consultants, the War on Terror has been a bonanza for large corporations that shows no signs of abating. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    9/12/2021

    The Winner in Afghanistan? China

    by Alfred McCoy

    While the similarities between the American exits from Vietnam and Afghanistan are superficially obvious, the differences are more significant, and signal a steep decline in America's ability to influence world affairs. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    9/8/2021

    After 9/11, the U.S. Got Almost Everything Wrong

    by Garrett M. Graff

    "The events of September 11, 2001, became the hinge on which all of recent American history would turn, rewriting global alliances, reorganizing the U.S. government, and even changing the feel of daily life."

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    9/7/2021

    The Decline and Fall of the Roman… Whoops!… American Empire

    by Tom Engelhardt

    A hubristic choice to refuse a negotiated surrender from the Afghan Taliban in favor of establishing American military supremacy now haunts both nations as the costs of war undo domestic "nation building" in the US. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    9/8/2021

    Review: The Case Against "Humane War"

    by Daniel Bessner

    Samuel Moyn's book "Humane" pushes for policymakers and intellectuals to focus less on the strategy of warfare and more on whether war should be fought, a crucial step to reestablishing peace as the goal of international relations and American foreign policy.

  • SOURCE: New Statesman
    9/8/2021

    The New Era of American Power

    by Adam Tooze

    The dominant position of American financial interests and the still-escalating Pentagon budget, focusing on technological dominance over China, mean that it's too soon to celebrate the end of American interventionism abroad. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    9/9/2021

    9/11 Forever

    by Joseph Margulies

    "By creating the impression that the stakes were not merely consequential but existential, the attacks of September 11 normalized previously unimaginable cruelty."

  • 9/5/2021

    Were the 9/11 Attacks Preventable?

    by J. Samuel Walker

    It's impossible to know if more diligent preparation for potential Al Qaeda attacks could have prevented them, but the Bush administration's slowness to develop a national security strategy for terrorism will always haunt the nation and the world. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/30/2021

    America's Military is Too Big

    by Jeremy Suri

    The war in Afghanistan is much more than a failed intervention. It is stark evidence of how counterproductive global military dominance is to American interests.

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    8/30/2021

    None of My Students Remember 9/11

    by Amy Zegart

    "My students see 9/11 as long-gone history, a kind of black-and-white reel of events that happened long ago, alongside the Cold War and the Peloponnesian War. The distance of time has benefits, but one drawback is that the human element of policy making gets lost."

  • 8/29/2021

    Words of Warning: Many Opposed the Afghanistan Invasion in 2001

    by John Bodnar

    "Today Americans worry over the humanitarian crisis at the Kabul airport.  But they mostly forget the one that transpired over a period of two decades and led to the death of some 150,000 Afghans in a war to eliminate evil from the world."